Does Economic Freedom Foster Tolerance?

[Velasco]

Really, market economy does not imply necessarily tolerance or freedom. Look at China nowadays or Chile in the period 1973-1990. Both are fine examples of "free" market economy with horrible records in tolerance. In the first country we have a curious mix between the worst characteristics of capitalism and communism. Chile was an economic "experiment" sponsored by Milton Friedman and those Chicago Boys; everybody knows that freedom, in the actual meaning of the word, was out of question.

Another question is if a liberalization of the economy and the trade markets is good or bad. It's true that many countries around the world have improved, but the results are very different if we look at single economies. Compare Argentina under the "ultraliberal" Carlos Menem with Brazil under Lula. On the other hand macroeconomics is not always a good measuring system. Other socio-economic indicators like the Human Development Index must be kept in mind. It's well known that the Gulf countries are wealthy but not very good at tolerance. I suppose that they are "free" economies.

I think that tolerance (I prefer acceptance, but that doesn't matter) is related with social and economic development but not necessarily with concrete economic doctrines, at least not with Milton Friedman's.

[Velasco]

It seems to me that the theories of laissez faire brought that type of society portrayed in some Dickens novels. Utopian socialists like Saint-Simon or Marxist theories appeared as a reaction to the miserable conditions of the working class during the Industrial Revolution. I'd say that dogmatism, Marxist or Smithsian, is not a good thing. On the other hand I'd say that Keynes' ideas lifted many Americans out of poverty after the Great Depression and the social market economy improved the living conditions of many Europeans after the Second World War. Also, some social conquers are unthinkable without the action of some "marxist" trade unions. I don't want a type of society like China, with a bureaucratic and oppresive government machine working besides a deregulated market economy. And I don't like the reactionary dictatorial Pinochet model with a Milton Friedman's "freedom" scheme in the economy. Globalization is too complex to say if it's a good or a bad thing. I'd say that it's impossible that globalization would bring prosperity and diversity to the great masses of dispossesed without a certain sense of fairness in the economic exchanges. For example, it's impossible to talk about an actual free trade if you subsidize the Iowa corn crops and, at the same time, you demand the lift of trade barriers to the corn crops in Mexico or Peru. 

[Velasco]

Such generalizations never work. You can see some bad effects of globalization in this thread:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=156967.0

Sometimes dogmas work badly with the facts in the present-day world. By the way I don't support the opposite dogma, i.e., total proteccionism. If we want to discuss seriously about the effects of globalization we should keep in mind a lot of social, economic and cultural factors, among others. It's not as easy as collecting quotes from somebody.

[Velasco]

I wonder if we are discussing about the same issues.

[Velasco]

Argh.

Does no one here understand how correlations work? Seriously, people.

"Black Americans are generally poorer than White Americans"

"Obama is not poor!"

I want to cry.

Also, China is not economically free. That left-wingers still claim this is bizarre. And Chile went dictatorship-->market economy-->democracy.

And Argentina has never pursued liberal policies. Looking up Menem he certainly does not seem to prove your point very convincingly.

Don't complain. I didn't wrote that China had a "free"economy, I questioned the concept of freedom applied to economics. By the way, where did you read any mention to black Americans? I know perfectly what happened in Chile after 1990 and Menem policies are generally regarded as "neoliberal", do you have another opinion? Feel free to elaborate some argumentation, maybe I will change my mind if you're convincing enough. Argh, those right-wingers or centrists or whatever...

[Velasco]

You said that China has a market economy. I'm not sure what definition of market economy and free economy you're using though.

You didn't understand me because you relate "free" with "market economy". That's the system of common places that rules in our world, I know. I wrote "deregulated market economy" if I remember well. On the other hand I think that market economy may be more free or less free, but unlike certain people, I don't think that freedom is related to deregulation. I think more in questions like fairness, equal opportunities and limitations to great corporations. Maybe I'm a left-winger on certain issues, yeah.

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Of course Peronists are not liberal, ideologically speaking. They're populist and oportunistic above all, sometimes right-wing like Menem, sometimes left-wing or so like Kirchner. But you know well the difference between being socially or economically liberal. I regard privatization and deregulation as economically liberal policies and certainly Cavallo was an economic neoliberal. You are right about the currency but Menem did more things in these years, most of them drove to the disaster and the unlucky De La Rua paid the broken dishes.

[Velasco]

China is deregulated until the point that the Govenment's concerns are safe. Look at the labour market, for example. Do you think that China after Den Xiao Ping is still a planned economy in the Soviet sense? I'd say that enterprises have a considerable room for maneuvre, when the national security and the internal order are not in question.

About Menem it's pretty clear that the unreal currency system affected to the productive and exporting sectors and didn't help to fight the inflation rates. Privatizations were made quickly and it's the general impression that the companies were sold at a loss. The emblem is YPF, the oil company, that was sold to the Spanish Repsol and was nationalized again by Cristina Fernández with, say, bad manners.

When Menem took the office the situation was pretty bad. After years of currency bubble came the Corralito. I'd say that this is not a good record.

Many tend to forget that regulation and social market economy worked well in Europe for so many years. In Argentina played factors like corruption, clientelar webs and other particularities that made modernization impossible, despite the great potential and resources of the country. On the other hand I can't see how we can avoid another Lehman brothers or how can we fight against money laundering or drug and arms traffics without a certain regulation, this time at an international level. Maybe abolishing fiscal paradises could help too.

[Velasco]

I'll start with the easy part. I think you're mixing apples and oranges when it comes to Latin America. I understand that in a Latin American context what you call liberal often means 'entrenched elites stealing public money'. That's obviously not good, but few normal liberals would support that. In fact, those are the kind of things that would generally lower a country's score when it comes to economic freedom, as used in this paper (which remains amusingly removed from this entire thread for some reason). In a similar vein, 'regulation' is a very vague term. Some regulations are required for a free market economy to work. Others are just oppressive tools to help corrupt government officials extract rents.

Neoliberal economic policies blessed by IMF and other institutions. It seems that you have an idealized idea of liberals: corruption is not related with a concrete ideology, it's simply stealing money. This occurs in "free" economies (see Italy, for example) as well in "non-free economies". If "free economies" were totally free of corruption, the world would be a better place, for sure, but this is not how the things work. I talked about regulation in the context of the market economy, concretely I was thinking about regulation of financial markets and financial transactions, when they are related with fiscal paradises and money laundering. I mentioned "social market economy" too. I know what´s an orange and what's an apple.

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Not completely comparable, the Chinese model of capitalism is very peculiar. I mentioned deregulation, and I think that I am right in what is related with the labour force. By the way, it's undeniable that the economic growth has been spectacular, but not all people lives better now; this only affects to the rich people and the emerging middle class, not to the great contingent working in semi-slavery conditions. About planning, it's true that Chinese authorities mark the general objectives, but they play with capitalist rules. In fact they are playing the globalization game better than any country in the world. Are they protectionist? Surely they are when their interests are in play but, well, other capitalist countries also are. Remember US and the subsidies for agricultural activities. It's you who insist in "free economy". I wrote about deregulation and capitalism, without adjectives.

[Velasco]

Huh? That corruption is not linked to an ideology was precisely my point. You mentioned selling companies at a loss, that's typically a sign of corruption rather than some principle of liberalism.

Economic freedom doesn't mean "no regulation" nor does it mean "selling government assets to oligarchs in corrupt deals"

Please provide proof about most Chinese people not having had an increase in welfare and living conditions. I've never met a Chinese who thought that. Especially the ones who remember the starvation of the Mao years.

Perhaps I didn't understand your previous post, I thought that you considered corruption related with illiberal ideologies. On the other hand I didn't mean that corruption was the consequence of deregulation. In Spain some companies were sold at a loss during the González and Aznar governments, I prefer to think that the privatization of Telefónica (our main telecom) was not related to corruption.  If I was wrong blame the weather; these days it's too hot to think.


I asked Google about working conditions in China. The first result is:

http://www.networkideas.org/news/jul2002/news11_Chinese_Textile.htm

I'll extract some random paragraphs. About living conditions in the countryside:

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About how people emigrated from the countryside to the cities percieve their situation:

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(De) regulation in the labour market:

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About payments:

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Conclusion:

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I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of similar reports available in the web.

[Velasco]

No, Gustaf, I'm not arguing that this spectacular (as I recalled before) GDP increase didn't benefit anybody. I think that economics is not only what you call "hard facts", i.e., macroeconomics. Living and working conditions affect people and you can't argue that the average Chinese worker has a great standard of living. Low wages and exhausting working days are facts; hard or soft they affect people, so they're important.

On the other hand that's right about the Cultural Revolution and the secular famines. I didn't want to make any defence or the Maoist China. I'd say that China went from one extreme to another and neither of them are in my tastes. Probably there are a lot of middle ways between both. It's useless to discuss in terms of Mao vs. Den Xiao Ping.

One of the studies that you linked summarizes:

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The article that I linked you before also mentioned the huge inequality between urban and rural areas. I think that it's undeniable that the huge industrialization and the quick conversion of China to capitalism and deregulation have affected the traditional way of living in the rural areas and in some cases have empoverished farmers. This type of phenomena is not unusual in other countries that experienced migratory movements between country and cities. It's only that in China it has a huge magnitude. I think that Chinese industrial workers need a Dickens.

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I think that Chinese authorities try to limit the damage. The migratory avalanche produced by the economic changes in China has epic proportions. This is not about regulation or deregulation, they're trying to build gates in the open field.

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I limited myself to make a quick search while I was posting this morning. Since my claim is not what you think it is, I don't know what data do you need. I wanted to state the terrible working conditions of the bulk of the Chinese labour force. If you want a defence of the previous model, I'm not interested.

[Velasco]

I think you're moving the goal posts now. Your original claim, at least as I understood it, was that globalization and economic freedom is not always a good thing for a country and you proved this by pointing to China.

I mantain that claim. Globalization and the present-day forms of capitalism tend to marginalize sizeable sectors of the population. That's the reason why I put the example of the textile industry workers. On the other hand marginalized people usually don't appear in macro-economic statistics like GDP.

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This discussion is becoming circular and not constructive, i.e., useless. I have to come back again to the same arguments because of your misconceptions. My point was that deregulation is not good for everybody. I mentioned people who are richer now and "emerging middle classes". Some people are worse than before simply because they are marginalized by the economic processes and by the Chinese authorities, as you pointed before.

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Another misconception and this time unacceptable. If you think that I'm insulting Mao's victims or defending the old regime, I'll have to think that you have a simplistic vision of the world or that you are distorting my attempts of argumentation to fit with your views and prejudices.

In my opinion the sufferings of wide sectors of the Chinese population are caused by the opressive nature of the political regime together with the economic processes, capitalists in their nature. China is a capitalist economy living together with a bureaucratic government machine, still nominally communist.

I think that I'm not going to follow with this discussion, Gustaf. I hate walking in circles.

 

[Velasco]

Argh.

Does no one here understand how correlations work? Seriously, people.

"Black Americans are generally poorer than White Americans"

"Obama is not poor!"

I want to cry.

Also, China is not economically free. That left-wingers still claim this is bizarre. And Chile went dictatorship-->market economy-->democracy.

I disliked your personal attitude towards people with different views from yours since the beginning. Anyways I tried to discuss leaving aside your obvious disdain and, let's say it, intolerance.

Jesus. I don't get why people join political forums if they cannot handle being questioned. If pointing out what your views are and how they are at odds with reality makes you uncomfortable you should probably change them.

I can handle with it, but I can't stand your claim that I'm insulting Mao's victims because I have a different opinion. I think that you're not discussing in a straight way, so I quit.

[Velasco]

You can't say that I'm arrogant after reading your last post. I would try to find more data to back my points of view if this was useful. Since I had to waste my time correcting your misconceptions about my points of view, I got tired. On the other hand I have no problem learning from other people. And let me say you a thing, I tend to respect more personal attitudes than ideologies, when it's about judging people. Since I see that your attitude is related with your personal bias, I prefer another sort of teachers, regardless schools of thought and all of that.

[Velasco]

Misconception again. You are arguing in maniquean terms. When I say that many Chinese people are not living and working in good conditions, this not implies that Cultural Revolution was a wonderful era.

It's easy to understand that Maoist approaches to economics and the present-day capitalism in China are opposite extremes, or at least very distant concepts. On the other hand I mentioned probable middle ways, not ideal ones. You can argue that CPC excercises an oppresive rule, but the economy is capitalist nowadays, unless you think that China is developing a completely new concept. I can't see any bizarre theory here. When you argue that it's because it does not fit with your bias. It's a clear example of arrogance, sorry.


Please, don't talk me about correlations when you're making yours to fit with your own conceptions about economic freedom and capitalism. I'm not trying to give lessons, I simply expressed some opinions and you are free to disagree. It's arrogant trying to tell other persons where they are able to post, regardless of any other considerations. Are you calling me ignorant simply because I dare to disagree with you? Come on, if this is not arrogance tell me what.  I'll never understand what type of correlation do you pretend to realize when you're discussing in these terms. I'm really tired of this. Stop now.

[Velasco]

Jesus, you're more bigot than I thought. Why not a condemnation of the Manchurian Dinasty? What about the Mings? You are making this a great off-topic and  I didn't make comparisons with the Mao era, I was talking about China nowadays. I'm boring to tell you that I stated that some people are better, but you insist to deny that most of the people lives under conditions that in other places are unnacceptable. I'm not saying that historical comparisons are not pertinent, but in this case you are clearly diverting the attention and distorting the facts to your convenience. You have the bad manners of a fanatic. And, worsening the things, you try to customize them with a varnish of supposed knowledge. Don't make me laugh, please.

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This seems to be the fact that disgusts you. Why on Earth are you unable to accept the facts ?

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 Your inability to accept the facts (many people in China have poor working conditions) drives you to insulting attitudes. You go again into the argument of the Mao's regime, because you are unable to admit that certain things like globalization have their bright and dark sides. Your partiality only allows you to see the bright side and prevents you for any criticism. This is not about my supposedly retarded theories, this is about your fanaticism. It's useless trying to argument with a person who is convinced about the Absolute Truth. Pure bigotry.

I have read enough stupidities. You are ignored from now on, I think that my patience reached its limit.

[Velasco]

You are destroying him, Gus.

This guy?



Yes, Gustaf is always giving that guy a heck of a beating.

Who is the straw man, opebo?

Gustaf is an intolerant and fanatic argumentator and he was clearly bullying me. I made a terrible mistake answering his posts yesterday since I've realized that he was using dirty hackish tricks: distorting the previous poster's statements in an attempt to ridiculize them; aggresive and insulting language and so on. I'm happy having him in my ignore list but I'd like to state that kind of attitudes are unacceptable in a civilized place of debate. I won't bother myself reporting the various insults of that person, but in my opinion the last part of this thread would be better deleted. I don't mark the rules anyway, and I don't want nothing to do with this disgusting thread and poster. I must learn the lesson that it's useless to fall in provocations.

[Velasco]

It's a tactic that I've seen before. I was a fool trying to debate with such persons. Thank you for the link, I didn't know the English expressions. So "straw man" and "Aunt Sally". That's funny.

[Velasco]

    I'm sure I'll be accused of bias, but I'll say that Gustaf's characterization of andi's argument was essentially spot-on. If you claim that globalization has not benefitted the lower-class of China, you really need to compare their station today to their station before the advent of globalization in China.

Since Gustaf reached a certain point is his trolling scale, It really doesn't matter who do you agree in the discussion. I respect other people's bias, I hate bullies and trolls. Gustaf muddled the debate in a form that all opinions are unrecognizable. Certain people like him must be kept at bay.