Vietnam's Communist/Capitalist Boom
This fascinating and inspiring story from the BCC shows how Vietnam has been transformed through trade and capitalist practice. "Vietnam now attracts more overseas investment than India does; it is second only to China in the Asian economic growth league, and 50% of the Vietnam population is aged 35 or under. The trite way of putting it is that when they stopped making war here, they made love."
It is yet another fascinating case of how communism is being redefined in capitalist terms.
The hook for the story is that Vietnam joins the WTO next week but note that all this economic progress has taken place prior to joining the WTO--which raises questions about the role of this "pro-market" world planning apparatus. The WTO provides a means of dispute resolutions but would it have prevented the US from having imposed vicious anti-dumping duties on the Vietnamese catfish industry? Doubtful.
Comments (8)
David C
Am I the only one confused about the world today. It seems like the US "land of the free" with a constitution centered around liberty is closing in on freedoms at rapid pace while the communist nations that don't even have a pretense of individual rights are expanding freedoms at a rapid pace? So where would one who loves liberty plant themselves?
Of course, economic growth is not the ends in itself, but merely one of the many pleasant consequences of liberty. That seems lost both at home and abroad.
Published: January 8, 2007 11:50 AM
T.G.G.P
Here are some numbers from freetheworld.com (I believe the first number is a score where high is good, the one in parentheses is rank where low is good):
Vietnam (Tied with Brazil for 88th most free)
Size of Government: 5.6 (78)
Legal Structure & Security of Property Rigths: 4.4 (78)
Access to Sound Money: 6.4 (119)
Freedom to Trade Internationally: 6.7 (71)
Regulation of Credit Labor & Business: 6.3 (52)
Credit Market Regulations: 9.8 (2)
Labor Market Regulations: 4.8 (82)
Business Regulations: 4.2 (87)
China (Tied with Bangladesh, Cote d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Morocco, Pakistan and Romania for 95th most free)
Size of Government: 3.8 (124)
Legal Structure & Security of Property Rigths: 4.9 (68)
Access to Sound Money: 8.0 (75)
Freedom to Trade Internationally: 7.4 (37)
Regulation of Credit Labor & Business: 4.2 (127)
Credit Market Regulations: 4.5 (128)
Labor Market Regulations: 4.7 (86)
Business Regulations: 3.5 (106)
United States (Tied with Switzerland and New Zealand for 3rd most free)
Size of Government: 7.6 (17)
Legal Structure & Security of Property Rigths: 7.8 (18)
Access to Sound Money: 9.7 (2)
Freedom to Trade Internationally: 7.6 (29)
Regulation of Credit Labor & Business: 8.0 (3)
Credit Market Regulations: 9.3 (9)
Labor Market Regulations: 7.9 (21)
Business Regulations: 6.9 (16)
It should be noted that Hong Kong is considered separately from China here, most of which (in terms of both area and population) is not in a "Special Economic Zone".
Published: January 8, 2007 1:07 PM
David C
Hmmm, Access to Sound Money: 9.7 (2) ... something sounds rigged about that number. and Regulation of Credit Labor & Business: 8.0 (3) ... We rank #3? is the rest of the world really that bad? What about zoneing laws? What about licensing rules?
Published: January 8, 2007 4:17 PM
Björn Lundahl
I doubt the objectivity of an index like this. But it does probably reflect, at least, something.
Index of Economic freedom:
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cfm
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: January 8, 2007 5:21 PM
Scott D
Just a guess, but for the index TGGP sited, it would appear that the number in parentheses is the ranking of that country for that category.
Published: January 8, 2007 8:09 PM
TGGP
You are correct, Scott D. Bjorn, I much prefer the Fraser Institute's list to the Heritage Foundation. The Fraser Institute is libertarian/classical liberal (Heritage is conservative) and is less prone to giving countries credit for interference with the free-market like intellectual property and clamping down on the "black market". I believe Walter Block had a hand in the Fraser Institute's list. You can read how they came up with their scores and rankings elsewhere on their website.
David C, yes, things really are that bad everywhere. There is a good reply to Paul Craig Roberts from Walter Block with regard to this list and the high score of the U.S.
Published: January 9, 2007 12:33 PM
Björn Lundahl
TGGP
Thanks!
Björn Lundahl
Published: January 10, 2007 2:16 AM
Andy
Leon Trotsky stated in "The Revolution Betrayed" that a Degenerate Worker's State (e.g., Bureaucratic Collectivism like Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and the Vietnam experience) could either go forward towards Socialism or Backwards towards Capitalism because bureaucratic collectivism was a most inefficient system. This indeed, has proven to be a correct prediction and we've seen Vietnam follow the others backwards towards Capitalism. Most people in the West were duped into believing that Russia, China, Vietnam were Communist States but as Trotsky and Lenin pointed out, they never were...
Published: June 30, 2009 9:59 PM