China – taking steps

A while back a group of Finnish “anarchists” were about to hold a demonstration as a gesture of solidarity toward Chinese farmers. This was about to happen at the same time with ASEM 6 event in Helsinki, a gathering of East Asian and European nations.

Socialist and “Anarchist” groups oppose Capitalism. What makes the whole thing absurd is that the Chinese farmers are poor precisely because of lack of Capitalism – clear property rights enforced by the rule of law. Chinese farmers don’t rule their property as they would in a Capitalist society.

Another topic concerning China is child labor. A Finnish state owned news channel YLE recently aired a documentary about Chinese teenage girls who work(ed) at a textile factory. The documentary was touching. However, many people get the connection between child labor, industrialism and Capitalism wrong. The proportion of children working as child labor has fallen during the last few decades. This is because of economic growth which has brought in more money and more efficient means of production so that families and states can invest more in education and so that farms and factories can replace people with machines. Policies didn’t end child labor in the West – the Industrial Revolution did. The West didn’t just one day decide to let child labor go – we were able to let it go because of economic growth. If you ban child labor at an early stage of a country’s
development you hurt the whole population – potentially especially the children who may end up working as prostitutes (as UNIFEC studies have indicated) or working for black markets with even worse working conditions.

Liberal (or “Conservative” if you happen to live in the US and are all confused by the distinction between European and American liberalism) economic policies have pulled hundreds of millions of people out of poverty during the past thirty years. The reason why the Chinese countryside lags behind is Socialism. Individuals are ruled by community leaders – an ideal situation for the very “anarchists” who protested against the Chinese government. “Anarchists” don’t believe in property rights – they believe that their utopian community should rule the individual. Instead of protesting against the Chinese
government the “anarchists” should move to China’s countryside which is a step closer to their “anarchist” dream than our relatively Capitalist Finland is.

By no means am I praising China. China is still very far from being a free market economy. However, the markets have done a lot of good and will continue to do so. The Chinese society grows more open and it will become harder (as we are witnessing every day) for the Communisty Party to control the flow of information and new ideas that are spreading through the Chinese society as we speak. The leaders are also becoming more and more open to the idea of implementing a democratic system.

-Mikko Sandt

German Joins Chinese Army

The terracotta army, that is. A German art student disguised himself and hid amongst the 8,000 plus Chinese terracotta soldiers as part of an art project. He did it so well, even the police had trouble finding him!

“I got to the area where he was supposed to be, looked around and didn’t see him – he looked too much like a terracotta warrior,” Hong Kong newspapers quoted a security guard as saying. [link]

He didn’t harm anything or do any damage, so he wan’t arrested.

Now, if only we had more whack-jobs like him. I would have so much more to blog about…

Note: This is cross-posted on my blog.

The Great Ganesha