The Ancient Kingdom

You know for many years there has been a theory in some quarters that economic freedom would necessarily direct a society from dictatorship to democracy. The idea is that if the proper economic conditions could be supplied, then a love of freedom would explode in whatever cultural milieu those conditions were planted.

By and large, this theory is considered to be nonsense. The evidence, it is said, is overwhelming that no such causal connection exists between the conditions of economic freedom and the desire for political freedom.

Far be it from me to insist that they – whoever they are – are wrong. I just think that real world events might cast some light on the original thesis. Let's take a brief look at China.

China is a country whose public discourse is calcified in an ideology that regards freedom and capitalism as bad, and this discourse is backed by the overwhelming power of a totalitarian government. However, it is also a society that soto voce encourages freedom and capitalism. Then, in the face of a worldwide economic recession that normally should give rise to harsh police state methods to calm popular unrest, this regime enacts tax cuts and other incentives for individuals to save, invest and produce, policies that are in direct contradiction to the government's claim of supremacy over the individual.

This seems to be the growth of political freedom in a soil that ought not permit such things to grow. By catering to the Chinese people's obvious desire for economic freedom, the government seems to be acknowledging that which was enshrined in the Constitution of the United States, that it is the people who drive the government, not the other way around.

It also looks like there may be a growth in China of something very much like the noble class in old England, which at a certain point insisted on their rights and forever thereafter prevented the Crown from reclaiming its absolute authority. These individual rights were then passed on to the commoners, and led to the revolutionary changes of the 18th and 19th centuries. In other words, man's evolution in the west began with the primacy of government over the affairs of man, evolved into a notion of primus inter pares, and ended (one hopes) with the subordination of government to man. Might not the same be happening in China?

I do not entertain a starry eyed hope for freedom in China. But I do think that the events of today offer a possibility of hope – that someday freedom shall ring, long and loud, in that most silent of places, the ancient kingdom of China.

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