Greed is Good

If Hong Kong were able to hold a referendum on the HK Basic Law,, Article 5 would be passed straight away and unanimously. Recent debates on whether Hong Kong society at large hates the wealthy (e.g. land developers) and powerful (e.g. senior officials) and the values of the late 80s, as well as the so-called “Central Value (Chungwan)”, are off the mark and out of focus. People have alleged that such debates were the result of the League of Social Democrats (LSD) and other fledgling streams of leftist ideas. Both the observation and the analysis are inaccurate. First, the LSD does not have the clout to direct such trends. Second, HK people at large are still emotionally attached to capitalist ideas and the free market. So what do we actually care about?


Capitalist System and Way of Life

Article 5 of the HK Basic Law provides that the capitalist system and the way of life shall remain unchanged. What is capitalism? Or, what is NOT capitalism? When one particular group of economic elites gain crucial advantages, become too successful, and begin to collude with one another instead of competing, capitalism can easily turn into corporatism, or to use a more progressive term, cronyism, or should we wish to use neo-Marxist terminology, hegemony. No one doubts that HK is heading in such a direction. The corporatist setting has been manifested in the parochial installation of a functional constituency in LEGCO. Cronyism has seemingly been evident in the administration’s affirmative action on pedigree in statutory committee appointments. Hegemony has been seen everywhere, even without walking into PARK’N Shop, Watsons and other stores…. Corporatism, cronyism and hegemony are not capitalism. Likewise, unbridled capitalism is not capitalism per se. The free market, fair competition, and, more importantly, an impartial and bipartisan administration that regulates commercial activities, are the real essence of capitalism.


Regulatory Regime

Article 5 of the Basic Law also states that “Hong Kong maintains a free and open market economy with a free flow of capital, goods, intangible assets, and a freely convertible currency. People's lifestyle remains the same as before.” Gordon Gekko said “greed is good. Greed breeds energy, power and love and it progresses human development”. I would say, “the free market of Ideas and capital brings the entrepreneurship of opinions and the betterment of livelihood.” HK people, including the pseudo-socialists, readily accept that the market system is the best mechanism devised for creating wealth and innovation, and thus, have never thought of rolling back capitalism. Moreover, I trust that the Hon. Wong Yuk-man of the LSD would also concur. At the other end of the spectrum, in his 1859 essay On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argues that free speech is crucial to the pursuit of truth, because discussion of different opinions serves to challenge and clarify beliefs. As in an economic free market, competition gives rise to challenges to the status quo and breeds innovation. What the state should do is to regulate the market for the sake of fair competition and avoiding monopoly, to legislate against selling goods that are unsafe or non-compliant, and to legislate against goods-related assertions or manifestations by words or conduct that do not accord with the facts. An efficient, effective and responsible regulatory regime would also ban insider trading in the market. Hong Kong people do not expect the state to be a “nanny state” that takes over aspects of our private lives such as by helping those cannot afford to purchase property and to set up a family, or by banning chewing gum and fellatio.

We don’t hate the rich and the powerful; rather, if hatred exists, unbridled capitalism, cronyism, corporatism and hegemony are the real targets.

(SCMP 07 October 2010)

《哈佛看中國———經濟與社會卷》

坦白說，買《哈佛看中國———經濟與社會卷》一書，心裏確實有點不踏實。不踏實在於看一班遠在美國西岸在象牙塔幹研究的書生論政，當然在下都算是「掹車邊」的讀書人，仍總是有「一日學識胡兒語、站在城頭罵漢人」之感。

讀這本書之前，總想哈佛大學之名如雷貫耳，Jeffery Saich教授當年為後蘇聯的俄羅斯經濟開出「大震盪」一劑猛藥，會否和此書各位專家學者一樣呢？答案是：否。看完這本書，你可能發覺他們比我們中國人，更關注中國的經濟與社會的整體發展。

與 JeffreySaich的「大震盪」藥方不同，哈佛大學研究中國經濟與社會的學者，似乎更相信通過政府解決經濟和社會問題。譬如︰珀金斯教授認為中國城市化的水平仍然稍為偏低，是因為人為控制的戶口制度問題，要長遠解決、減輕貧富差距的問題要通過累進稅制再分配收入。當然這個政策，內地新左派甚或非新左派的經濟學家都已經提過，不過關鍵是珀金斯教授是老外且是哈大教授！

分析內地社會經濟發展

反而屬於中國研究較為權威的懷默霆教授，就沒有其他經濟學教授、社會政策的研究者來的悲天憫人、走在社會的前綫了。可能因為本身是社會學家，懷教授看中國有幾分宿命主義、又有幾分相對主義。他說中國連續三十年取得百分之九點八的經濟增長，成功避過了重複蘇聯的命運，表明沒有「放諸四海皆準的發展體系」，又指市場化改革把農民二解放，生活只會更好。天呀，這個懷教授……「壞」書生曾經寫過文革有好東西，好在讓無產階級-工人、農民充權。好一個充權，在下就衝擊一下你這個壞「鬼」書生。

其他的經濟、金融專家，拯救了我對哈佛大學預期的失調。哈佛商學院副院長談中國的空氣、水源問題、血汗工廠，世界銀行中國代表處首席代表談社會穩定、公共健康、犯罪控制來實現經濟的均衡發展。

讀畢這本書，誰敢再說「逢商都奸」！

星島日報 2010-09-29

摘自香港電台第一台《中國點點點》之「好書在手」環節，由Roundtable Pioneers成員介紹內地出版的書籍，從中帶出相關的中國國情與發展概況。節目逢周一至周五下午三時至四時半播出；「好書在手」環節逢周四播出。

Happy Ending Is A Long Way Off

Comrade Wang Chen in Xinjiang

Happy Ending Is A Long Way Off



Being close allies in the world communist movement, from the world war period to the late 1960s, the People’s Republic of China cannot deny that it had imitated the Soviet management style over its nationality and ethnicity issues. The Soviet Union promulgated its Establishment Treatment in 1922. Two years later, the Soviet Constitution was passed. The Constitution recognized the right to self-determination for minorities, and, more importantly, the right to recede from the Union. In China, the Nationalist Government initiated the idea of regional autonomy as early as in the 1930s when the Chinese Communist Party gained control in some of its areas. Before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party once proposed to adopt the Soviet’s style of federalism. Under the ‘bad influence’ of the Soviets and their immature theories, the Chinese Communist Party proposed rights to self determination, the establishment of a federal state, and the establishment of self-governments of various ethnic minorities based on self-recognition with the rights to break away (‘tuo li’) from China. In 1938, in the 6th Plenum of the 6th CCP Congress, that is, after Mao resumed its leadership after the Zunyi conference, Mao explicitly proposed the Ethnic Autonomous Region system with a view to solve the ethnic problems.

Both the Chinese and the Soviets made one fundamental mistake. They did not foresee, or, alternatively, they turned a blind eye to the rise of nationalism. In China, we had Fei Xiaotung’s thesis of ‘duoyuanyiti’ which was, to a large extent, a modified version of han-nationalism and pan han-chauvinism. In the case of the Soviet Union, its downfall could be attributed to the Stalinist violent governance, as well as the effort of Russianisation.

As commented by today’s Mainland official-scholar aka establishment intellectuals, without hiding their sorrows, the disintegration of the Soviet Union was brought about by the façade federal nature of the Soviet Constitution, together with the abortive reform policy introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev as the last straw of the once mighty Soviet Empire. The Soviet leaders had underestimated the issue of ethnicity and had erroneously identified the issue as one of class struggle, thereby resorting to the cliché class struggle method with a view to solve the problem. On the other hand, the Chinese leader diagnosed the separatist feelings of the Uighurs, the Mongolians, and the Hong Kong peoples as something which could be defused with a huge injection of capital (RMB) into the locals.

In China, central-local relationships, including that between Zhongnanhai and Hong Kong, tends to be more personal, patronage based and less institutionalized, as compared to systems of structured democracy. It is the patronage, instead of the institution, that binds the centre and the periphery. Arbitrated political decisions of the central leaders and the black box politicking hassle between the central and the local bureaucrats always override the interests of the autonomous regions. There is no formal institutional dispute resolution mechanism, such as the Supreme Court in the United States. The PRC Legislation Law does not have any provision which empowers the Government to settle conflicts or inconsistencies that exist in different legislation of different provinces. Neither is there any provision specifically designed for solving conflicts between the central and the local governments.

The current nature of regional governance, namely, unitary and bureaucratic authoritarianism, not only fails to forge a united front of ‘Greater China’, but even precipitates discontent and antagonism towards the PRC state and the nation of China. Recently, there have been separatist movements in Tibet, Taiwan, and Xinjiang. In fact, this phenomenon had once been extended to the Hong Kong SAR quietly. The Hong Kong Independence Declaration was widely circulated on the internet a few years ago, though not surprisingly, the movement died down in this ‘uniquely patriotic’ city without mass support. Deng Xiaoping’s innovation of the ‘One Country Two Systems’ in the early 1980’s was a model designed for dividing sovereignty and autonomy (external autonomy and internal autonomy). The concept may be a great idea. However, similar to many other noble ideas in China, its interpretation and implementation could end up in great distortion. With the current CCP’s regional governance policy in a unitary and bureaucratic authoritarian polity, the happy ending in Canadian Quebec is still a long way off.