A theory
China is the hope of the western capitalist class. I think a lot of people would agree with that. My theory is that they’re not the hope simply or necessarily even largely because they represent a vast new market. They’re not the hope in spite of the human rights abuses and the repressive regime. They’re the hope of corporations and the capitalist elite because of those things. The corporate capitalist elite doesn’t believe that “free markets” and a strong economy require an open and free society, however much they use the that rhetoric to sell the idea to the suckers here in the West. They’ve been looking, for at least 70 years, for a good test case that proves you can have long term economic success without freedom. That’s why so many of them were so supportive of fascist regimes. It’s why Alan Greenspan and the other so-called libertarians of his generation so loved Pinochet’s Chile. They got their hopes up with Singapore and Malaysia, and other somewhat dystopian regimes in my lifetime.
China’s the big hope. Corporations don’t want to bear the cost of creating private armies capable of keeping the rabble down. That shit’s more expensive than healthcare! If they can get that service to come out of the taxes paid by their workers and customers, all the better. If they can have a “communist” party be the ones that achieve this goal of theirs, I’m sure that’s a delicious irony for many of them.
