Confucian Capitalism
America and China have more in common than either side wants to acknowledge. Neither trust freewheeling capitalism and when it comes to the crunch, both governments take over industries for the political protection of the governing parties and the economic stability of their countries. Government intervention and ownership of private companies is very Confucian ─ a belief that public-private partnership of the wise ones will benefit the people. I don’t for a moment believe in this model as I believe government should be kept out of business and should be shrunk, not expanded by getting involved in the private sector. Getting government involved in business only benefits greedy self serving capitalists at the expense of the people.
Before I address Confucian capitalism, I want to give an example that best supports my argument to keep government out of business at all costs. I’m not referring to the fact that they can’t run a government profitably and without deficits, but a business that is easy to make a profit in America ─ a legal whorehouse and bar.
The Mustang Ranch in Nevada is a legal whore house and bar that is very profitable. It was busted for a variety of racketeering charges and the government took over its daily operations. After trying to run the whore house that sold sexual services and a lot of liquor to its clientele for a couple of years, the ranch was put into receivership because the government operators lost money. Now I don’t want to speculate as to what happened with the profits, but if the government can’t run a simple whore house and bar how the hell is it going to run the complicated financial services industry of America?
I personally witnessed and lived through a sneak preview of the U.S. government intervention and bailout of the pillars of U.S. capitalism during the Hong Kong stock market crash of August 1998. On a much smaller and broader scale, to counter the short sellers and speculators that had battered Hong Kong stock prices, the Hong Kong government, with China’s approval, decided to intervene in the battered stock market ─ and I want to emphasize stock market and not individual companies or the financial sector ─ with public money. It spent $15.1 billion to acquire 7.3 percent of the companies in the blue-chip Hang Seng Index. At the time, the Hong Kong government was severely criticized by free-market advocates for its intervention as a dangerous precedent. The fact is, it helped stabilize the market and then sold the stock at a substantial profit once the speculators left.
Seeing that the U.S. model of capitalism has bankrupted a few countries, Iceland and Hungary being the only two willing to admit to that fact by the end of 2008, there is no reason to believe developing countries will even attempt to embrace Western capitalism anymore.
The Hong Kong example of Confucian capitalism is a far cry from the U.S. quasi-nationalism with taxpayer dollars of the world’s bankrupt leading banks, insurance companies and automobile industry because of institutional incompetence. What is clear is that America’s corporate democratic capitalists who repeatedly lecture China on how to run its Confucian capitalist economy, have capitulated to Confucian capitalism on a humongous hypocritical U.S. scale.
Before I address Confucian capitalism, I want to give an example that best supports my argument to keep government out of business at all costs. I’m not referring to the fact that they can’t run a government profitably and without deficits, but a business that is easy to make a profit in America ─ a legal whorehouse and bar.
The Mustang Ranch in Nevada is a legal whore house and bar that is very profitable. It was busted for a variety of racketeering charges and the government took over its daily operations. After trying to run the whore house that sold sexual services and a lot of liquor to its clientele for a couple of years, the ranch was put into receivership because the government operators lost money. Now I don’t want to speculate as to what happened with the profits, but if the government can’t run a simple whore house and bar how the hell is it going to run the complicated financial services industry of America?
I personally witnessed and lived through a sneak preview of the U.S. government intervention and bailout of the pillars of U.S. capitalism during the Hong Kong stock market crash of August 1998. On a much smaller and broader scale, to counter the short sellers and speculators that had battered Hong Kong stock prices, the Hong Kong government, with China’s approval, decided to intervene in the battered stock market ─ and I want to emphasize stock market and not individual companies or the financial sector ─ with public money. It spent $15.1 billion to acquire 7.3 percent of the companies in the blue-chip Hang Seng Index. At the time, the Hong Kong government was severely criticized by free-market advocates for its intervention as a dangerous precedent. The fact is, it helped stabilize the market and then sold the stock at a substantial profit once the speculators left.
Seeing that the U.S. model of capitalism has bankrupted a few countries, Iceland and Hungary being the only two willing to admit to that fact by the end of 2008, there is no reason to believe developing countries will even attempt to embrace Western capitalism anymore.
The Hong Kong example of Confucian capitalism is a far cry from the U.S. quasi-nationalism with taxpayer dollars of the world’s bankrupt leading banks, insurance companies and automobile industry because of institutional incompetence. What is clear is that America’s corporate democratic capitalists who repeatedly lecture China on how to run its Confucian capitalist economy, have capitulated to Confucian capitalism on a humongous hypocritical U.S. scale.
posted by Peter de Krassel's Custom Maid Politics at 8:57 PM
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