Re: Development Race: China and India

On May 12, 12:37 pm, Raymond <ni...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Sat, 10 May 2008 17:15:18 -0700 (PDT),RichAsianKid
>
> <richasian...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >> Your point regarding economic development is very well put, but there
> >> is no need to look down on the people. Those phone operators are no
> >> less undignified than those Chinese factory workers who must endure
> >> the backbreaking hard labor to earn probably even less than $6 a day.
> >> Both are victims western capitalism, and both should be changed for
> >> the better.
>
> >If capitalism is so evil, why is it the mainland Chinese are now so
> >deeply in love with it? Are the Chinese evil?
>
> >Never forget that wealth has a thousand fathers, but poverty is an
> >orphan.
>
> There is nothing evil about creating wealth, but capitalism is evil
> because capitalism is not based on creating wealth but based on
> exploiting the poor and disadvantaged. It is a serious mistake to
> think that capitalism creates wealth. Capitalism is only a tool to
> ac***ulate wealth by robbing the poor. The reason people would mistake
> capitalism as the quick way to create wealth is only because wealth is
> always harder to create than to steal.
>
> The reason capitalism is running rampant in China is only because
> Chinese people are more creative in creating wealth once they are free
> to engage in economical development. Still, capitalism is the beast
> that must be tamed and controlled if Chinese people want to keep their
> newly created wealth for themselves.

You wrote in your very first sentence: "There is nothing evil about
creating wealth".

But is there anything evil about creating inequality? Even if the
worst off is better off? And isn't that the unspoken dimension of all
those who rail against the free market (which, btw, is very different
from all this muttering and stuttering of  'democracy' as you'll no
doubt note [think democracy is a form of political socialism, that is
the familiar 1960s slogan power for the people, power for the weak,
yeah!!], but I guess that's a detail)?

Besides you then said capitalism is a tool to ac***ulate wealth by
robbing the poor. Well, isn't socialism worse, i.e. isn't socialism
merely a tool or disguise for the government to rob all its *people*,
i.e. rob everyone involved? Some are more equal than others of course,
but at the same time the values of the weak triumph precisely because
the elites have used them as devices of power (Nietzsche).

Look at the city of Hong Kong which is now considered part of the PRC.
Or Singa****e for example. Both of these places are not exactly ****ning
hills or illuminating beacons of democracy, and yet both represent the
most successful economic oases in East Asia. In terms of GDP, these
two places rank even higher than Japan and NW European countries.

And at the same time, they also rank highest in the 2008 Index of
Economic Freedom:

    
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/chapters/pdf/index2008_execsum.pdf

No, I think it's part of human nature to be selfish. And capitalism,
believe it or not, is actually a toned down version of our universal
quest for power. It may be an unhappy compromise for some reading
this, but it's a compromise that somehow works. That is, it harnesses
our selfish human potential to its fullest in a less destructive and
manageable form.

And with drive (if not instinct) on our side, so much is possible.