The Dream of Socialism....?

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
Winston S. Churchill

Having spent the last two weeks in Dongguan, the need to escape the constant and very wearying airborne pollution has led me into taking a trip 70 miles South to the former British colony of Hong Kong. As I sit here in the Hebe Haven Yacht Club comfortably pondering the direction of this particular post, I find gazing thoughtfully across a quiet and pleasant harbour in one of the quieter recesses of the New Territories. This place does indeed have a very British feel to it, as one looks around it becomes immediately apparent that the majority of the guests are ex-pats though, given their ages, one would guess the majority have only come to Hong Kong in the last few years. The place feels quite swanky and the clientèle well-heeled, even if many of them seem to be wearing yachting plimsolls at the moment.
Although times are challenging generally, my impression of Hong Kong is one of long term success. Indeed, it seems that the economy here has been happily growing for at least the last fifty years or so. Way back in the early sixties, the former Crown colony was fortunate enough to have been the used as something of a petri dish for an economic experiment. It was largely overseen by one John James Cowperthwaite, a British civil servant who was given the role of Financial Director for Hong Kong in 1961. He remained in this position for the next decade during which time the colony went from being something of economic basket case to a thriving, successful and wealthy enclave within which opportunity and entrepreneurship thrived.
One may wonder exactly what it was that Cowperthwaite did in order to instigate such a miracle? Strangely, the answer to that question is better given by highlighting what he chose not to do than by illustrating any changes that he instigated. Cowperthwaite believed that for economy to succeed the most beneficial thing that a given governing authority could do was simply get out of the way. He was convinced that a positive attitude of non-intervention was the best thing a government could do to further economic growth. Famously, he even went so far as to instruct his civil servants not to collect statistics for fear that such an operation would lead to them being tempted to interfere. Essentially, this was laissez-faire capitalism at its most blatant. The subsequent success is hard to argue with.

In this view, the essential job of governance is to defend a country if necessary, ensure that basic law and order is upheld (the prevention of force being used by one citizen or group of citizens on another) and, apart from such fundamentals, interfere with the economic life of the society as little as possible.
It is interesting to compare the results with another location that was going through similarly drastic changes at the time, which also had a huge and unfriendly neighbour on its doorstep, but chose the polar opposite system to laissez-faire capitalism. Cuba, after the revolution of 1959, adopted socialism, centralism and government controlled economic policies. Today, it is clear that the experiment has not gone well. The country went from being being successful, if somewhat corrupt, economy to the current complete disaster whereby the very fabric of the infrastructure is in constant danger of complete collapse.

Personally, to admit that state interference in economics doesn’t work comes hard to me. From the time I became interested in politics as a very callow youth (my callowness was legendary) I had, up until recent times, always favoured left-wing views, sometimes despite the evidence of my own experiences. It has taken a long, long time for me to realise that my idealism is not supported by the facts.
Many, many moons ago, on one of my earliest adventures, I had visited the former Soviet Union. This was a couple of years before its eventual collapse but it was all too obvious even then that the basic standard of living was far, far below that which we were enjoying in the West. The people of the USSR also suffered constant strictures and controls as ‘the Party’ succumbed, as is so often does in socialist or communist states, to the paranoid temptation to meddle and interfere with every aspect of people’s existence.
Despite this experience, over the years my idealistic sympathies continued to be socialist but, as I looked around one’s own society and others that I experienced on various sojourns, it was becoming clearer and clearer that socialism was often the cause of economic woes rather than the cure.
Perhaps in recent times the most obvious example of this is that of Venuzuela, an oil and mineral rich country blessed with superbly arable farmlands to boot. It seemed to be an almost ideal country for a long term socialist experiment. Amidst much flag waving and sloganising, the government of Hugo Chavez was held up by the left of an exemplar of what such policies could achieve. Unfortunately, as has invariably happened time and time again, the inevitable control-freakery, the corruption, the de-motivation of the work force, and all the other evils of socialism set in. Currently Venezuela is on the edge of anarchy with daily food shortages and disintegration of even the basic structure of the society.

One fears that the lesson will be short-lived and much the same thing will happen again. As ever, it will be launched in a flurry of flag waving, drum banging and worthy idealism, but end in societal and economic collapse, despotism and violence. At some stage the realisation has to set in: socialism simply does not work.
Such lessons as Hong Kong were not lost on a certain Deng Xiao Ping, effectively the Chinese leader following the demise of Mao Tse-Tung in 1976. Deng had witnessed first hand the previous three decades of stagnation, starvation and idealistic but useless posturing and the damage it had done to China under Mao. He gazed across the border to the miracle of Hong Kong, drew the obvious conclusions, and decided to create the very first special economic zone in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province in 1979. The experiment was so successful that it was rolled out across the rest of China over the next two decades and led to the freeing of countless millions of people from the grinding poverty that they had experienced previously under communism. Of course, being nominally the “Communist” Party of China, the leaders couldn’t admit the reality, so to this day we hear the endless verbiage about this experiment being a step on the road to a socialist utopia but… beyond the tiresome rhetoric, the current crop of leaders understand the underlying reality.

Back in the Hebe Haven Yacht Club, the waitress brings a fresh cup of Americano to finish off what has been a very pleasant lunch. The view is wonderful, tiny boats bobbing about the harbour with islands dotting the bay beyond, the surrounding comfortable and the spot ideal to reflect on such matters. Perhaps, as we started this week’s effort with a quote from a very influential 20^th century British politician, it would be fitting to let him have the last word too (although this particular pearl of wisdom may be apocryphal, there are many versions on the internet):
“If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a capitalist by the time he is 40, he has no brain.”

The First Green Shoots…

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.
Lao Tzu

This week, the first week of the New Year, I find myself enjoying the pleasantly clean atmosphere of the Milo Cafe. In the last week, I have popped into the Hey!!! Cyber once or twice, but such was the stink from the ever-present smokers that I have, apart from those occasions, kept to the notion of paying a little extra for some half-decent air. As far as I can tell, the smoking ban has had hardly any effect whatsoever and I have seen not a single iteration of the stricture being enforced in Dongguan. Such is China and attitudes to law here, very much a pick and choose situation, both from the point of view of the citizens and from the enforcement agencies themselves.
Having said that, the voluntary move to such swanky places as the Milo has proven pleasant. It is an oddly dark place with multiple small rooms and cubicles giving it an almost baroque ambience. The seats are deep and sumptuous, each supplied with at least one extra cushion, books line the walls and the choice of background is piano sonatas by the likes of Chopin, Bach and Mozart. All in all, a far more conducive atmosphere to settle down, ruminate and attempt to stew happily in some creative juices.
The Milo itself is one of the multiple cafés to be found on the edge of the local square. Already a pleasantly green space, it was previously just mostly an open meadow. In the last year or so though, the local government have been busily planting more and more trees. At this rate, by the time I next return it will be a veritable jungle. This is an aspect of modern China that should be both recognised and applauded. During Mao’s time the government basically completely wrecked the environment. In particular, during the ill-fated ‘Great Leap Forward’ (1958-63) the government’s policy not only led to the needless deaths of millions, mostly by starvation, but to a complete decimation of forests across the land as trees were ripped up to sacrifice as fuel for the furnaces in a doomed, and rather ludicrously laughable, attempt to produce steel for construction sites. The steel thus produced was of such low quality as to be as good as useless. By the time they realised their error ,the damage to the environment and people’s assets (pots, pans, tools and utensils, basically anything metal was being smelted) was enormous.

Similarly disastrous attitudes to the environment prevailed during much of the subsequent 50 years. Much of the economic advantage that China gained in the latter part of that period was very much at the expense of massive environmental damage. From Mao, through Deng Xiao Ping and all the way up to and including Jiang Zemin, the reckless damage to China’s Eco-system was very, very low on the list of priorities. China as a country still suffers much from the catastrophes inflicted on it during those years. The rivers are still very suspect, the air filthy, industrial practices still very dubious but, after so much wanton vandalism and reckless wrecking of the environment, it has to be admitted that since Xi Jinping came to power there has been a fundamental change in attitudes.

Part of that sea change has been an attempt to plant huge numbers of trees and to reforest large areas of China. The aim is to attempt to undo at least some of the damage of the past and to end up with more than 20% of the country covered by forest. This is a noble ambition indeed, and one that looks to be on the point of success. Each year here there is a national tree planting day when thousands upon thousands of trees are planted by politicians, dignitaries, celebrities and even school children.

Another very positive development has been the encouraging of the development of electric vehicles and a government willing not only to subsidise the industry but also help the consumers make the transition. This is in complete contrast to the UK where the zeitgeist seems to have taken a completely opposite turn with the government there reducing their role both in industry and as far as subsidising the consumer is concerned. This seems, given the now parlous state of the air, particularly in London, to be about as short sighted a policy as one could imagine. A good day in a Chinese city is still far worse than a bad day in London but… the Chinese are addressing the problem with their usual energy and, bit by bit, the pollution levels are coming down. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, the total opposite pertains in the UK.
One company that has made great strides in this area is BYD (Build Your Dreams). Originally a maker of batteries for mobile phones, they have branched out into auto manufacture and become World leaders, alongside the American company Tesla, in the production of electric vehicles. Tesla’s vehicles, it must be admitted, have far more cache but are also incredibly expensive. The range, perhaps the most critical problem remaining for electric vehicles, on the BYDs is now almost as good as Tesla’s but their models cost a fraction of the price. Given their access to the Chinese market, perhaps the biggest in the World for electric vehicles, it certainly is a company to look out for in the future. The famous financial wizard, the almost legendary sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett, seems to think so. He has literally invested billions into this company over the last few years. Given Mr. Buffett’s incredible track record in investment over the last five decades, far be it from me to argue that this is not a very wise move indeed.

There has also been quite astounding work done in the North of the country. Nicknamed “the Great Green Wall”, the Chinese have planted a huge ecological barrier that first halted, and then reversed, the encroachment of the Gobi desert. The man-made arboreal barrier now covers more than 500,000 square kilometres. The government looks forward to a time when the forest will stretch nearly 5,000 kilometres from Xinjiang province in the West to Heilongjiang province in the East. The sheer scale of such a project is impressive indeed. In these pages I have oft criticised those in charge in Beijing, but on this particularly occasion I happily doff my cap to them and utter a sincere ‘well done!’.

Back in the Milo I ponder the implications of these matters to what now sounds like Bach. China’s cities at this moment in time are not the most pleasant places to be. This week in Dongguan there has been hardly a breath of air and with temperatures in the mid to high twenties the steady build up of air pollution has been noticeable but...over the years I have come to this part of the world the improvement is quite clear. If the reforestation goes on at its current pace and the Chinese government are successful in converting the drivers here over to the joys of electric transportation, the future could be bright indeed.