Socialism and the Chinese Earthquake
The remnants of socialist central planning killed the kids. Yes, the government is to blame. The survivors and their families are right about that. But they have another enemy as well. It is the deadly ideology that set out to put government in charge of economic life, which includes building structures to house children for educational purposes. They can add the tragedy of the Xianjian Primary School to the list of deaths caused by socialism. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (14)
Socialism, the gift that never stops killing.
Lew: "And what about building codes and their enforcement? It is a great myth that these are somehow responsible for the soundness of our buildings."
Excellent point. All that state regulation and licensing do is to lull people into a false sense of security.
Published: May 27, 2008 9:46 AM
fundamentalist: If I can reduce it to two choices:
A) full regulation and licensing of every activity with a bureau full of regulators in a far-flung state capital to react, or
B) no regulation and licensing in commerce where EVERY buyer must be vigilant, wary, and communicative.
In the latter I'd have thousands upon thousands of watchful eyes, weeding out the unscrupulous and unsavory. In the former, I can rely on a certificate of fees paid, hanging on the wall.
Published: May 27, 2008 10:36 AM
Brian: "In the former, I can rely on a certificate of fees paid, hanging on the wall."
Except you can't. Just look at the many examples of companies violating the rules that the state regulators don't catch, for example, Enron and all of the banks involved in the subprime fiasco, all of the health and safety violations, all of the medical doctors that kill patients or are sued for malpractice. All of those, and more are licensed and regulated by the state to a ridiculous degree, but the state fails. Airport screening is another example. We're all supposed to be safer because the Feds run it, but failures are as bad, or worse than when private companies ran it. But the media doesn't report on the failures nearly as much because they have been lulled to sleep by Federal oversight.
Published: May 27, 2008 10:54 AM
The real question is whether cheating would be worse or not without federal oversight. I think cheating would be diminished by getting rid of federal oversight because people would be more on their guard.
Published: May 27, 2008 10:56 AM
fundamentalist:
If I may, I believe that Brian is being ironic when he says "rely on a certificate of fees paid". At least, that's how I read it. In other words, you pay government, they reward you with their stamp of approval. The state gets its money and the building owner is sheltered from the scrutiny and demands of the market. It's a win for both of them, but a loss for everyone else.
Published: May 27, 2008 11:17 AM
I think you're right. Sorry Brian.
Published: May 27, 2008 12:20 PM
Where does the authority come from in a socialist decision-making system? How is it that someone far removed and unaware of the real problem and the people involved can make such a decision? By what authority?
Of course the reply is by the authority of the State.
Our reply needs to be loud and clear - the State has no moral authority to intervene in the natural processes that transpire in the omnipresent market process.
Published: May 27, 2008 4:31 PM
Who killed the people in San Francisco?
What system caused thousands of buildings to collapse then?
What government did not supply food and water to survivors of a hurricane and left hundred of dead bodies rotting in the streets? Capitalism?
This kind of cold heartless academic analysis, over a disaster that took nearly a hundred thousand lives is over the top, not that i disagree with the article over socialism, and it's misgivings ( i have lived through both, communism and socialism ) but i find the attempts to convince people in this particular case of a socialist system failure silly.
Socialism is responsible for far more heinous crimes over the century but that is no reason to attribute anything and everything to socialism, especially a disaster such as this.
Published: May 28, 2008 2:16 AM
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Your house doesn't fall in not because of building codes but because the builders are liable for mistakes and because there is competition among them to build better buildings.
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Ummm, do you even research your articles or do you just sit down at the keyboard and spout off.
If you'd researched this you'd realize that builders are not liable for mistakes. They set up shell companies for each project and then walk away afterward. There's nobody to sue but a defunct numbered company afterwards. The parent organizations have large marketing budgets and defamation lawyers to counter any kind of negative publicity. Building codes and mandatory new home warranties are what protects new home buyers.
If it wasn't for the boot of the state firmly between their ass cheeks you'd be seeing the same building collapses in North America.
Published: May 28, 2008 8:04 PM
Who killed the people in San Francisco?
What system caused thousands of buildings to collapse then?
What government did not supply food and water to survivors of a hurricane and left hundred of dead bodies rotting in the streets? Capitalism?
It's this kind of twisted, superficial, nihilistic empirical logic which is the main intellectual bastion of government intervention. That's what I find cold and heartless. If you endeavored to understand the subtle rational consequences of socialism in general, seen and unseen, you'd be less inclined to fall into the same old reactionary traps.
Published: May 29, 2008 10:37 PM
"Ummm, do you even research your articles or do you just sit down at the keyboard and spout off." 100% with you on that.
When I had my house renovated, I read up on vast amount of details about what is best practice, material wise. More than many, I'd bet. One thing I did kind of appreciate is that the people I hired could get in trouble, license-wise, if they repeatedly failed building inspections and that I could use those failures to withhold payments.
As a programmer, it's one thing to keep a general oversight of your complex construction project. It is quite another to become a construction expert from A to Z. Once the job is done, the builders walk away. If there is an earthquake 10 yrs from now, how the heck are they gonna be held liable?
One more thing. We had a lack of regulations here (Vancouver) about water integrity in building envelopes up to 1995. Basically folks thought California stucco looked neat for exterior walls. Unfortunately, we dont have the same climate. That caused a huge amount of damage over 15 years or so, after being OK for the first 5 years. Fixing things cost a lot of money, most builders weaseled out, were gone, or weren't able to pay up.
Owners went bankrupt without ever having had preliminary warnings about the issue. Things happen. The province helped, some, but it was still tough luck for the unlucky ones. So it should probably be - the state shouldn't cover everyone for everything all the time.
Nowadays, most house owners here are relatively happy to know that the building codes have been updated since 95. They are certainly not as wise as the OP. Nevertheless, there is a strong market price penalty for houses and apartments built between the start of the stucco fad and the arrival of those oh-so-useless regulations.
Hey, I prefer Libertarians to Socialists myself, but sometimes they need to think about the real world too. I thought the OP made sense as long as he stuck to the fallacy of 5 yr plans. Calling basic building codes into questions shows he's probably rarely looked at 30 yr old electrical wiring.
Published: May 30, 2008 1:57 AM
"twisted, superficial, nihilistic empirical logic"?
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You must be joking!
Am I guilty of being a statistician who uses empirical study to draw conclusions, because i cite past events?
If we are to attribute the damage from an earthquake ( human or otherwise ) to an outside force rather than the earthquake itself than it is only reasonable to ask the same questions for other such events, regardless of socialism or capitalism.
If we are to blame socialism, as the cause of deaths and destruction that resulted from a powerful earthquake measuring 7.9 RS, than the point can be easily made that capitalism is guilty of similar crimes .
Some of those buildings outside Chengdu where indeed badly build, not as the result of government central planing or commodity shortage, but because private companies who got the contracts from the government, decided to cut costs and build a school out of "cardboard" paper. This can happen not only in Socialist China but everywhere where greed and corruption is rampant, as it is the case in China, in the USA, and elsewhere.
Published: May 30, 2008 3:12 AM
nick says:
"If you'd researched this you'd realize that builders are not liable for mistakes. They set up shell companies for each project and then walk away afterward.
true, but this doesn't take away from fundamentalist and b. heyer's point. in the absence of government oversight, customers would necessarily do more due diligence on the builder. they would be more reticent in dealing with front companies, wanting to see some hurt money on the builder's balance sheet. reputation would be everything, as there would be no automatic assumption with regard to the builder's competence or scruples.
"The parent organizations have large marketing budgets and defamation lawyers to counter any kind of negative publicity."
true. defamation runs against the libertarian ethos, and should be struck from the statute books.
Published: May 31, 2008 7:16 AM
thesprot says:
"If we are to blame socialism, as the cause of deaths and destruction that resulted from a powerful earthquake measuring 7.9 RS, than the point can be easily made that capitalism is guilty of similar crimes
the more capitalistic the society (in the sense of security of property rights via equality before the law), the wealthier it becomes.
not for no reason do huge earthquakes in wealthy countries cause minimal loss of life, whilst even small shocks can be devastating to poor countries.
Published: May 31, 2008 7:23 AM