General Mouse-pital

Those who see the world as a conglomerate of warring tribes had best deal quickly and forcefully with the people at The Economist if they do not wish to see their own tribe economically wiped out by the Chinese. The worldly wise editors of that slick magazine -- arguably the best in the world -- offer, as this week's lead article, advice to the Chinese on how to make themselves richer. It's easy: just apply capitalist theories to the agricultural economy. Admitting that this policy may weaken the power of the socialist ideologues, The Economist contends that the move toward private property in the countryside will almost certainly lead to greater productivity and thus to a higher standard of living for the Chinese peasantry.

So, why is this a problem? Would not the world be better off if the Chinese people are better off? Well, no, not if the premise is correct, that the world consists of nothing but a bunch of warring jingos. The Chinese tribe is not only more numerous than any other, it is also smarter. The same bunch who hold with the "warring tribes" theory also places great trust in the findings of books like The Bell Curve which in turn places trust in the data produced by IQ tests and similar devices for measuring smartness. Earlier research (Jensen in the 60s) found that the Chinese score two standard deviations (2 sigma) higher than the average established by caucasians of the west. I do not recall the size of sigma in this case, but let us say it's 4. Thus if the average American WASP scores 100, the average Chinese scores 108. If the "smartness" measured by IQ tests tracks to predicted success in economic struggles, then in a fair fight we might expect the Chinese to be more successful than Americans.

Operating, however, on the theory that there is no amount of smartness that cannot be stultified by dogmatic socialism, it follows that those tribes in the west who wish to survive ought to be encouraging socialism for the Chinese. Certainly the editors of The Economist, capitalist to the core, ought not be aiding and abetting the Chinese by urging them to cast the socialist monkey off their backs. It follows also that those western politicians who are screaming for human rights for the Chinese -- for which we should read, democratic capitalism -- are committing economic suicide.

But then, there is perhaps another scenario playing out here. We should judge our politicians by what they do, not by what they say. Even though the current American administration seems to cry out verbally for Chinese freedom, they refuse to apply economic sanctions in any form to China. It is as if they see the same sort of logic I do, that a truly free China will overwhelm the world, so they speak of a free China but secretly do the smart thing. By posturing for freedom and implementing Chinese slavery, the Bush administration has the best of three worlds. One, it keeps the socialist monkey firmly in place on the backs of the Chinese, delayng (perhaps forever) the ascendancy of China's economy to anything like world domination. Two, it maintains China as a national sweat-shop, assuring the flow of cheap (but still over-priced) goods onto the shelves of America's retailers. Third, it courts and wins the approval of the dogmatic free-traders who own and operate the American banking system, adding grease to the cash-flow channels that permit the accumulation of debt. These "benefits" are sure to accrue to the black side of the American ledger in the short term and are just as sure to lead to destruction in the inevitable long run in which the perpetrators of the attrocities will certainly be dead.

More tomorrow. Wallace and Grommet are having a breakfast of "cracking good cheese," and the Mouse must hustle if he is to harvest even a few crumbs falling from their puppety lips.