Nothing To Add
Posted by Matt Zeitlin on April 5, 2008
Kerry Howley on China. Just read the whole thing, here’s an excerpt:
. In 1978, the majority of rural Chinese were living at subsistence, the way the majority of Burmese live now. At this level of poverty, a single bad harvest can reduce a family to malnourishment and starvation. A third of the rural population–260 million people– lived under the poverty line, meaning that they were not adequately fed or clothed even in a good year.
By 1997, the number of people living under the poverty line had been slashed by 200 million. A Chinese person born in 1960 could expect to live until 41, give or take. Kids born today will, on average, live 30 years longer. No other society has ever undergone such a dramatic transformation in two decades. The fact that we can even talk about restrictions on Chinese Internet access implies a massive improvement in wellbeing.
There is a serious lack of imaginative capacity among pundits who can, in a sentence, brush this kind of thing aside. Bangladeshis vote for their corrupt leaders and legally worship whatever God they wish. In what substantive sense is a kid born in Dhaka (GDP per capita: $2300) better off than a kid born in Beijing ($7700) or Singapore ($31,400)? Free to do what? Almost anywhere, prosperity brings with it the ability to educate your children, to enjoy a modicum of leisure, to leave. What’s freedom of exit worth if you can’t afford a plane ticket?
I guess the only way I can explain the strange fetishization of political freedom that comes up when people talk about China - which in the last 30 years has experienced the greatest and quickest expansion of people’s positive capacities in the history of mankind - is that all these glib pundits have very little idea what it is like to live in extreme poverty, where ” a single bad harvest can reduce a family to malnourishment and starvation.” Political liberties don’t really mean much when you’re starving. This is not to excuse China’s amoral foreign policy or their violent suppression of religious minorities, but instead to help illuminate why so many Chinese are very happy with the regime they live under. Something tells me that their thoughts should have at least equal weight with the Weekly Standard’s professional China bashers.
(PS - this discussion also brings up a big problem I have with Rawls, he seems to dismiss the possibility that simply meeting and maintaining people’s positive capacities could perhaps be more important than maintaining “the most extensive set of basic liberties.” But I need to read more of Samuel Freeman’s Rawls and dip back into ToJ before I have anything meaningful to say. I don’t know if it has already been done, but someone needs to write a review essay of Theory of Justice and Benjamin Friedman’s The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. Will Wilkinson, perhaps?)
April 5, 2008 at 2:30 pm
There are several issues with both the excerpt and your response
I don’t think the line “a single bad harvest can reduce a family to malnourishment and starvation” is an accurate depiction of poverty China in 1978. Being poor didn’t mean you would starve, it did mean you had to toil in the fields all day long, you had almost nothing by way of worldly possessions, and generally had a crappy life.
The phrase people used to describe China’s old political deal was the “Iron Rice bowl”, which I think accurately depicted that China would take care of peoples basic needs, but provide basically nothing else.
The life expectancy stats are also misleading. China had already made twenty years of life expectancy gains by the 1980. Pro-market reforms and the health improvements probably contributed to economic growth more then economic growth contributed to health gains.
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/life/index.html
China from 1960 to 1988 made tremendous strides in all sorts of areas, but it didn’t stop thousands of people from risking their lives in Tienanmen square to support political freedom. I imagine if people thought doing something similar would work today they’d do it again.
Political liberties mean everything when you’re starving. People with political liberties don’t starve to death. The Great Leap Forward was a failure to have even a minimal level of government accountability.
Finally I don’t know who you read, but you’re hardly alone in thinking that China’s economic growth is a more worthy topic then their human rights violations.