[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #44

The fixation on China borders on mania seen in recent stock markets. Now some see the serious downside of Chinese economy. For a while, China has been where multinationals can realize all their dreams, at least in their rather rosy view. The prime example of the benefit of globalization. Now they are coming from their fantasy slowly.

The twin fantasies of rocketing Chinese economy and never-ending bull market fed on each other for several years.

[formosaplastics]

China's economy today is like Japan's or S. Korea's several decades ago and is pretty much following the same, proven, one-party, pro-capitalist path of development these other countries used to develop middle-class populations and leapfrog from Third World to First World status within a generation. The rise of E. Asia over the past 50 years is no "myth" but the story of our time with China being the latest iteration. If you want to see a demolished "myth," check out the economies of today's Third World republics, which are floundering. As we speak, foreign investors continue to flee democratic Latin America, Indonesia, Turkey, S. Africa, even Taiwan.

[formosaplastics]

Over the past 2 decades or so, there's been a democratic revolution throughout most of the Third World. The result has been that today these Third World republics are dysfunctional jokes and basketcases, plagued by eternal legislative gridlock and delayed economic reforms. A recent Washington Post op-ed noted that Latin America's economic growth rate after it adopted democracy 20 years ago is only 1/10th what it was in the preceding 20 years, when Latin America was ruled by pro-capitalist, authoritarian regimes like Pinochet's in Chile.

The advocates of democracy naively believed that if Third World countries adopted democracy, these countries would somehow magically become mirror images of First World democratic society overnight. But after 50 years of democracy, does India look like America yet? Do any of these other Third World republics look anything like America yet?

The French and American Revolutions are collectively known as the "Bourgeois Revolution" because by the late 18th century, large middle-classes had developed. These large middle-classes were born during a century of "enlightened despotic" European rulers, who codified the laws and made other reforms that set the stage for capitalism to flourish and large middle-classes to develop.

But if you mindlessly graft a democratic political structure on a majority-poor Third World country, what else do you expect to get other than some typical Third World legislature, which is dominated by socialist, pro-big government politicians? These socialist politicians cater to their poor constituents by blocking every pro-capitalist economic reform imaginable. Instead, they favor continuing the massive welfare state that gives their poor constituents "guaranteed government jobs for life."

When you introduce democracy in a country with a majority-poor population, how else do you expect the democratically-elected politicians to act? Even in America, the poor constituencies overwhelmingly vote for the socialistic Gephardts and Daschles of the world. So imagine how much worse the situation would be if America, like most Third World republics, had a 90%-poor and socialist-voting population!!!