Let us not forget the legions of Cubans who have risked their lives on makeshift rafts to find a better life in the United States.
Current examples of some of these tendencies might include Dubai, Singapore, and some parts of mainland China. Examples in the past include Chile under Pinochet, Nazi Germany, and at times, ancient Rome. Places at risk include London.
Singapore was a third-world country when the current ruling party took over in the mid-60s. Today, it has a higher per capita GDP than the United States, and three times that of neighboring Malaysia.
In the dark days of the 60s, Singapore was threatened by the communist plague sweeping over Southeast Asia, racial tensions and riots, and hostile neighbor states. The fact that it survives and thrives today is remarkable.
Yes, its government violated "human rights" along the way. In the 60s it aggressively persecuted communists, forbid their literature, and drove communist labor movements out of the country. This offends our Western sensibilities, but it did allow Singapore to avoid the fate of Vietnam and Cambodia. Was it worth it? I think the citizens of Singapore, both then and now, would say "yes".
In most circumstances I am a Western liberal. But I refuse to follow any ideology blindly to the point that it leads me to advocating catastrophe.
Today, Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world. It is regularly ranked by international organizations as one of the 10 least corrupt, often beating the United States. Maybe its people are lacking "human rights", but their quality of life is matched by few peoples of the world, and none in Southeast Asia. The fact that it appears to be an example for the China "communists" gives me hope for the future of that country.
Have you moved to Singapore yet? You seem to be pretty enthusiastic about it. I did not mean to say that it is an example of all of the bad things that can coexist with business freedom, just some of them.
As far as per-capita GDP goes, Singapore has the major advantage that it's 100% urban. I suspect that Malaysia's per-capita GDP would be a lot closer to Singapore's if you only considered downtown Kuala Lumpur.
I think the major problem in Vietnam and Cambodia was that they had a civil war, and as usual, the people who had power after the war were military leaders. In Vietnam things got a lot better after the war; in Cambodia, things got a lot worse, as they often do. (In fact, Cambodia is almost uniquely bad in the history of the world, as far as I know; there are lots of instances of conquering armies killing 50% or 100% of a conquered people, but I don't know of any others where they killed more than 50% of their own population.)
In both Cambodia and Vietnam, the civil war was made much worse by a US invasion. Maybe you think the same thing would have happened to Singapore? I suspect that they had an equal chance of ending up like Thailand, or urban Malaysia, or other countries in the area; and it's not clear to me that aggressively persecuting Communists made a civil war less rather than more likely.
The Thais and Maylays were with Singapore in taking aggressive anti-communist actions in the 1960s. None of the countries that escaped communism approached the Western liberal ideal of political freedom. They were bare-knuckled pragmatists. They were all scared of what happened in China and wary of the imperial ambitions of the Soviets.
However, only Singapore pursued a transparent, capitalistic society with strong property rights and rule of law. The difference in outcomes is telling.
>"Have you moved to Singapore yet? You seem to be pretty enthusiastic about it."
If I were a resident of Southeast Asia, Singapore would be my #1 place to live. As is, I like the United States just fine.
>"As far as per-capita GDP goes, Singapore has the major advantage that it's 100% urban."
This was a huge disadvantage in the early years. Singapore had no raw materials, little farmland, and a per capita GDP of about $500. They had to import everything and often ran into hostility from neighboring countries that tried to prevent them from using trade routes, or even accessing water supplies.
A unique combination of shrewd leadership and aggressive capitalism grew their economy to the point that they had leverage in negotiations with their neighbors. Their destiny as the business hub of Southeast Asia was never a given.
>"From the quotes you put around the phrase 'human rights', am I to understand that you don't think human rights really exist, or that they aren't rights, or something?"
I put quotes around "human rights" because I don't think they are as easily defined as some people assume. I also don't think they are the end-all of politics, as Western liberals often suppose. I would certainly be willing to trade small infringements on human rights for large increases in the standard of living.
This is the point where many people would call me a "fascist" and run away.
I would be willing to bet that the average Singaporean is happy that their government made the choice to restrict press freedoms and prevent a communist revolution in the early years, considering how things have turned out.
What do you think about the pre-civil-war human-rights records of Vietnam and Cambodia? Do you think they were more protective of political freedom before the wars than Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia?
> "If I were a resident of Southeast Asia, Singapore would be my #1 place to live. As is, I like the United States just fine."
I think infringements on human rights are less unpleasant in theory than in practice; maybe if you spend some time living there, you might have a more nuanced point of view about it.
> [Urbanity] "was a huge disadvantage in the early years." [economically]
Nearly all of world economic development during the 20th century was urban, if you measure by GDP. In industrialized countries, cities have been richer than the country for centuries — as long as there have been industrialized countries. It's true that cities can't be self-sustaining, but that seems to be an advantage when it comes to economic development.
> "I would be willing to bet that the average Singaporean is happy that their government..."
The average inhabitant of almost any country is happy about almost everything their government has done, especially a while back, and they would have been happy about their government doing the opposite if it had done the opposite.
I'm still interested in your answers to my questions.
People should not have to live in fear of criticizing their government.
> Currently, Chile is one of South America's most stable and prosperous nations.[5] Within the greater Latin American context it leads in terms of human development, competitiveness, quality of life, political stability, globalization, economic freedom, low perception of corruption and comparatively low poverty rates.[7] It also ranks high regionally in freedom of the press and democratic development.
During the Pinochet era the economy grew and created a stable base for the current day Chile. The economic policies of Chile has not changed course from the Pinochet era.
> and some parts of mainland China
China is screwed up and has many problems. When you compare China now with China pre-1978 you will see that people are a lot richer and more well off than they were then.
> Singapore
Compare Singapore with its neighbour Malaysia. Singapore has a high GDI and a lot less social problems than most other countries.
I never said that the oppression during Pinochet's term was right. What I said was that Chile's macro-economic policy was right. The economic growth under Chile was better than the inflation under Allende. Even critical things such as infancy mortality rate was a 4th under Pinochet as it was under Allende.
“And there HAS been socialist change since Pinochet. “
From WP:
The implemented economic model had three main objectives: economic liberalization, privatization of state owned companies, and stabilization of inflation. These market-oriented economic policies were continued and strengthened after Pinochet stepped down.[1] Successive governments have continued these policies for a quarter century.
Chile has the 8th highest economic freedom in the world – this shows that a lot of policies are still the same.
Business freedoms are also a consequence of other rights, like the right to property. They are nice, but not required.
A very good argument can be easily made that a fiat currency is a necessary but not sufficient element in modern well-being.
Prior to fiat currencies there was a fixed amount of gold, and every coin in your pocket was a coin out of someone else's pocket.
Imagine a fixed number of software copies, a gold based currency is a lot like DRM for money.
Further more you can easily argue that making health care part of employer compensation (as is common in the US) leads to less well-being then making it a separate (in Europe often nationalized) good.
Those are two business issues with a direct impact on general well-being, and that's just off the top of my head.
Pure fiat money has been functioning in the West since only 1971 when Nixon suspended the dollar's conversion to gold as a prelude to a rather shitty decade in terms of economic performance. Fiat currency has been tried plenty of times over the last few centuries; it was never a stable monetary regime. Our experiment with fiat is new and bold, and as yet unproven. If it turns out to be successful, it would be the first time.
Perhaps I've just discovered a cure for the common cold. The same amount of money is now chasing a bigger pot.
Suppose lots of people pay me for my cure, and I just save all the money, what happens to the restaurant down the road?
Also fiat currencies predate Nixon, the paper contracts between members of the Hanseatic League can be thought of as a form of fiat currency.
Deflation was paired with economic growth in the United States under the gold standard for about 30 years at the end of the 19th century.
This was a good recent article on a related topic. Selgin is a well-known monetary economist:
When it's cheaper and easier to pull MORE gold out of the ground, that's not strictly speaking a fixed money supply.
When Rome (the empire) dumped a whole bunch of new found (stolen) gold on Rome (the city) that caused inflation too.
If your money supply is growing - it's growing.
Now if you have far too lose a monetary policy and you're inflating the money supply way too much and way too fast, that can be disastrous.
But if Alan Greenspan had found a way to convert led into gold, we would have gotten the real estate bubble even with a gold standard.
In practice, gold supplies tend to be more predictable than central banks.
I think using a fiat currency is probably a good idea, though.
The money supply and interest rates being econ 101.
And thinking of hyper inflation, where does that usually happen?
Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia, the Weimar Republic - if a bad government wants to screw you, a gold backed currency won't save you. Does anyone think someone like Mugabe wouldn't just change the rules to do what ever he wants?
Besides, even that Money as Debt movie explains that gold is easily manipulated and thus volatile, so not good as a currency.
I believe there's been at least one major stock market crash that has not led to a recession.
Under the gold standard, there is a feedback loop allowing the market to control inflation (that is, people can invest more or less in mining technologies/companies).
To some extent, this feedback loop also exists in a central banking system; it's far from being as efficient.
Why would one want to control inflation? Inflation does not have anything to do with economic health, does it? http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/jubi2000.htm
below 40% inflation per year, 'there is no evidence that inflation is costly'. Furthermore, there is no evidence of a 'slippery slope' there is no evidence that one increase in inflation causes further increases. Thus 'the focus on inflation ... has led to macroeconomic policies which may not be the most conducive for long-term economic growth.'
Why?
Usually people just flee to the most convenient hard currency, like the US dollar, then every pay check is a race to convert it before its value drops.
But a lot of those paychecks are not inflation indexed.
Basically hyper inflation makes it impossibly hard to preserve any kind of liquid or semi-liquid wealth.
You can only hope to have all our wealth in things like real estate or perhaps gold. Although dry beans, rice and salted bacon are probably better then gold. You can't eat gold, and I'm not sure you can trade it for food in some of the worst parts of Zimbabwe.
But for me, I interpreted the statement as "When business issues and quality of life issues are in conflict and you have to choose one over the other, I choose quality of life issues". Maybe I misread.
"DT: I've editorialized that U.S. companies should be allowed to compete in Cuba. What's your position on that?
RMS: I really don't care. From my point of view, business issues are minor in comparison with issues of human rights and general well-being. "