Better Dead Than TED – Chinese Capitalist Tries To Sell One Party System To America

TED’s own blogger broke his speech into three points to demonstrate how the Chinese system is better and why we should trust it:

  • Adaptability: ?Li makes the claim that political scientists say that one-party systems are incapable of self-correcting. He then makes several statements that certainly sound like the Party is one of the most vibrant, changing, radical systems in the world. ?There is a difference between self-correcting for the public good and self-correcting to maintain power and wealth for the elites. I think Mr. Li is again confused on what has actually been happening in China. Or perhaps he’s never looked at the photos of the boards of directors of almost every major company in China. If he did, he would see that most major Chinese companies have at least a few older gentlemen in military uniform on the board and a few politicians. There is nothing radical about changing rules to preserve and increase your own wealth and power.
  • Meritocracy: Eric says, “The second assumption is that in a one-party state, power gets concentrated in the hands of the few, and bad governance and corruption follow.” He then assures us that corruption is bad but that the Party is fixing that, only after they all get rich of course. I added the part after the comma. We are told there is some super-secret Party Organization Department that makes sure only the pure-of-heart and deserving arise to positions of power. The failure of logic and common-sense here is embarrassing. Who chooses the choosers? No explanation. We are simply told to trust that because it takes thirty years to rise to the top, it must work. It’s not always the cream that floats.
  • Legitimacy: Li claims that because the government is competent, they are legitimate. He also claims that in a society with very little free press or access to outside information, 93 percent of China’s young people think China’s future is good. Furthermore, he says, in regards to the results of the polls taken for the government by the government that prove the government is great: “Now, if this is not legitimacy, I’m not sure what is.?In contrast, most electoral democracies around the world are suffering from dismal performance.” ?I have already covered this:?bad trade and tax policy account for our dismal performance and the rest of the western world — which didn’t start out with our powerhouse economy to begin with — is simply feeling the pain of competing with a slave-based economy more quickly than we are. But we will get there.

Li finally acknowledges that China does have some problems. But of course he wants us to believe that the Party will fix those problems. ?And they may. To preserve their own power.

The truth is, I have no problem with the government of China. I have been to China and love the country. What I have a problem with is a platform like TED being used as an infomercial to ignore the questions that should be important to us “classical” Westerners. ?China is free to conduct its business however it wants, but we should conduct our business, our trade, our tariffs, and our tax policy in a way that is consistent with our founding principles.

Eric Li doesn’t seem to care that our clothes are made by slaves, our phones are made by slaves, and much of our economy is now based on the “fruit of the poison tree” of slavery. China is free to do as it wishes. But we have chosen, supposedly, to believe that the “ownership” class should not be able to or allowed to enrich itself off of a system we believe to be evil.

That is what must change.

Edited and published by Jeromie Williams.