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EAST
AND WEST
"The
enjoyment of books has always been regarded among the charms
of a cultured life...." -Lin Yutang, The Importance
of Living (1937)
One
of the benefits of a cruise is that you get time to read new
books. Most people read novels, but I prefer non-fiction.
Two books caught my interest on my recent Australia-New Zealand
cruise: East and West: China and the Future of Asia,
by Christopher Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong,
and The Noblest Triumph, by Tom Bethell.
Both
books have much in common. East and West is a fascinating
account of the agonizing, yet inevitable, transfer of a free
and prosperous British colony to a totalitarian and brutal
communist regime. In his five years as governor (1992-97),
Patten changed his views about the Asian economic miracle.
After
World War II, Hong Kong was a poverty-stricken rock of only
400 square miles. Six million refugees poured in from mainland
China. Over the years, Hong Kong has had no foreign aid, no
natural resources, and has even had to import most of its
water and food while being thousands of miles from its trading
partners.
Hong
Kong's economic miracle can be explained, says Patten, "as
an example of the benefactions of free trade and technological
advance. It cannot be attributed to some continent-based value
system. 'Asian values' has been a shorthand for the justification
of authoritarianism, bossiness and closed collusion rather
than open accountability in economic management." He goes
on to say, "Values are universal. So, too, is the case for
market economics, which work everywhere better than any other
economic system, and free and open economies perform most
effectively in plural societies. Liberal economics and liberal
democracy go hand in hand: Freedom, democracy, the rule of
law, stability and prosperity..." (p.4)
THE IMPORTANCE OF PROPERTY RIGHTS
How
does democratic capitalism achieve prosperity? That's the
subject of the second book, Tom Bethell's The Noblest Triumph.
Bethell says the key to stability and prosperity is the enforcement
of property rights.
"When
property is privatized, and the rule of law is established
in such a way that all including the rulers themselves are
subject to the same law, economies will prosper and civilization
will blossom," writes Bethell. Bethell goes on to say property
rights include the right to use and transform the property,
to buy and sell land, goods and other assets, to pass it along
to your heirs, and to enforce contracts through an independent
judicial system. Without property rights, all other rights
mean little or nothing, as those who have lived under tyranny
can testify. Bothell demonstrates that the Arabs, despite
their vast oil riches, have remained relatively poor because
Arabic governments don't guarantee property rights against
the state. He argues that the Irish starved during the potato
famine of the 1840s because the British didn't allow enough
private ownership of Irish property. Are we in danger of losing
our prosperity due to asset forfeitures, taxes, and government
controls? Let's hope not.
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