Evo, are you also aware of the increases in unemployment,
Yes,I beleive that to be a transistional problem however.It really is a true revolution happening in China.An undoing of 50 plus years of goverment policy wont happen overnight.When innefficient industries are closed down people have to re-train,perhaps even move.When an economy is growing at 9%/year believe me ,many jobs are being created.I bet they have shortages in many fields of expertise.
Yes corruption is a real problem whenever governments get involved,some people are favoured over others.Very regrettable and contrary to true free market economics.The same problem is occuring for Russia's transistion.The sooner it is stamped out the better.
and purchasing power in China as a result of Deng's policies?
Yes the people have increased purchasing power.Surely thats a good thing.
If you have resources like China and a low starting base, you are going to see some rapid increases. But what's more important, the raw numbers, or the actual results in Chinese society?
Well you've hit the nail on the head.My point exactly.Of course it's a low starting base.They've been mismanaging their resources ever since they embraced communism.The
actual results are higher standard of living and a freer society.The government doesn't have to lie to the people that China was better off than Western countries.They are now free to use the internet or watch western T.V shows. Do you see this as Chinese society going backwards?
China's state owned enterprises were not only corporations. The welfare system was integrated into the corporations. Now, that no longer happens.
Yes,good point,this will have to be adressed.Even so,life is improving for the majority of people.Time to tax them and provide a safety net for the people going through transistional unemployment.
People have more money to spend, but now they have to spend it on things they never used to have to buy.
So what are you saying here?Before they couldn't afford a fridge but it didn't matter because they're was no fridge for sale at their local store.But now there are fridges available for purchase they are somehow worse off?
For the vast majority of Chinese that aren't becoming rich, life is getting harder.
Why,because they've discovered consumerism? Thats freedom of choice.If they want to save up for that fridge or do overtime to get that fridge they can.It isn't mandatory.
The corporations were inefficient in the Western sense, but if profit was not the motive then the system wasn't necessarily bad.
Yes you're right,the purpose of alot of industry was to create jobs.Fairly inane and illogical I would've thought.They could've achieved the same result following Keynes fine suggestion.I'm parraphrasing here."to create full employment,during a recession,the government should pay half the people dig holes and pay the other half fill them in"
By the way, what you say about no choice of profession isn't really that true. If you lived in the country, you were a peasant... but that'd be true whether China was socialist or capitalist. In the cities, there were, like Australia, areas where certain industries were critically important. But to suggest that everyone worked in those industries is ridiculous.
Peasants now are free to grow what they like..Reward for ingenuity and effort.Freedom of choice.If someone now wants to become a doctor even though they live near a steel mill they can.The peasant can now move wherever he seems fit.Many are moving to cities now for a better life.Seems desirable to me.
There's a lot more corruption and unexplained wealth amongst the bureaucracy now that such unexplained wealth is possible, than there was under Mao. Your suggestion that the bureaucrats were ripping off the system in the old days is flawed.
oK if thats the case it should be stamped out.It's not an argument against free market economics though its an argument against goverment led corruption.I with you,most undesirable.
China needed to open up and trade, but they didn't have to become fascist (compare contemporary China with Mussolini's Italy, and see what you think) to do it.
Agreed.What gave you the impression I was a supporter of fascism? Was it all my use of the word free or was it my condemnation of government intervention.