“Starbucks makes a fine model for public education — if the choice between chais and lattes, rather than the democratic election of representative government, is what make us a sovereign; if homogeneity and standardization, rather than diversity and pluralism, is the foundation of democracy; if passive individual purchases are more virtuous than public action for the common good; and if education into democratic citizenship is unimportant.”

Leo, a huge percentage of our kids can’t read. Thousands of parents got turned away from charter schools because of the cap. Let’s focus.

Ken

Indeed, China is only following the path that was blazed by the so-called East Asian little tigers — Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore — each one of which combined laissez-faire economics with political authoritarianism. China has watched them quite carefully, and understands that it was the emergence of independent trade unions — not laissez-faire — which brought democracy to Taiwan and South Korea. By contrast, Singapore — sans unions — continues in the authoritarian path.

Your definition of China as Laissez faire is bewildering. There is no way any producer or vendor could do something in contravention of Party policy without immediate and devastating intervention by the government. Every business in the PRC whether foreign or home grown exists at the whim of the Party. That is, maybe a demonstration of state socialism as practiced by Hitler or Mussolini, and maybe a more finished product than that currently attempted by Bloomberg and Joel Klein, but it is most certainly not laissez faire as described by Milton Friedman.

There was a time when one could debate whether or not there was a “socialist aspect of China.” That time is long since passed. What exists now is a laissez-faire market economy, protected and guaranteed by an authoritarian state and party. I make this point not because I think it is important to establish some sort of taxonomy of authoritarian regimes, but because we will understand nothing about what motivates Wal-Mart, Starbucks and any other corporate entities now in China if we don’t recognize why they can’t invest fast enough in the Chinese economy. Call it Communist or whatever you like, but recognize it for what it is.

If the socialist aspect of China blinds many on the left to its dangers, then i offer a different comparison. See China as an Imperial Germany, with somewhat fewer liberties. A nation bent on becoming the dominant military, technological, naval, and expansionist power of its time.I understand that the left likes to couch foreign threats as, in the main, unfair economic competition abetted by rampant capitalists in America, but the threat of China is real if now still over the horizon. You are right about one thing, neither Starbucks nor Walmart will lessen that danger.