Free trade therapy in Hong Kong

Bailouts, regulations, stimulus package, plan de relance économique, subsidies, protectionism, boss snatching, green revolution prophecy, recession, new deals, état sauveur... Feeling depressed? In need a break perhaps? Come to Hong Kong for therapy.

From barren rock to international trade hub, from British colony to PRC's Special Administrative Region.... Hong Kong's history in a nutshell with a skyline bearing testimony to the extraordinary transformative power of free trade.

Walk its bustling avenues. From the heights of Peak, enjoy the view of the city and its busy waters.. The nautical ballet of mighty container ships and splashing sampans. The forest of soaring skyscrapers clad in bamboo scaffolding. Let yourself be swept by the frisson of capitalism....

Selling noodles, buying shares... Up in the International Financial Centre tower, the stock market. Down on the streets, the food and stuff markets. For Western tourists, antics markets well stocked in Chairman Mao memorabilia. On the other side of the border, the motherland joining the market and catching up fast.

Everywhere The Free Market at work doing its magic of wealth creation.

Exalting, therapeutic. And soothing! So visit. Let the extraordinary energy of the city fill you with optimism about the future.... Free trade therapy. Not cheap but effective! Doing something to protect the freedom to trade helps too. Sign up!

.

According to the Heritage Foundation economic freedom index, Hong Kong ranks first. Let us hope it stay there.

For more on tax competion as a liberalising force in the world economy, a brief lesson on taxation and why tax havens should be celebrated (more in the WSJ Europe) Cato Scholar Daniel J. Mitchell explains...

Capitalism, the global crisis and the guillotine.

Post published as a Letter to the Editor in The Daily Yomiuri on Nov 04, 2008.
.
Back at home the guillotine is out again, working full time and enthusiastically operated by our nomenklatura of politicians, civil servants and union leaders who know best how to govern us, the sovereign people of France. “Liberalism is dead” says Nicolas Hulot, our ecology guru. “Laissez-faire capitalism is finished” says President Sarkozy. Capitalising on people’s fear the culprit is paraded. And beheaded. Down goes the blade of the ideological socialist consensus on the neck of the free market. And of course our supreme leaders do it again. They back down on promised reforms and promise us more “saviour” state. Equally troubling is our President’s push for his €20 billion European crisis fund and less independence for the European Central Bank. Could this be 21st Century bonapartisme?

When our youth schooled in the mistrust of all things liberal is capable of making a right wing government back down on a labour law adjustment (a small measure of contractual flexibility) after the bill was passed by both the Assemblée Nationale and the Sénat, the message is clear. Street power works better than votes. A minority can hold a majority hostage. Naturally one starts to wonder if the guillotine’s blade has not also fallen on democracy’s neck. With the global crisis hitting the real economy, the “social dialogue ” à la française is likely to be hot this winter. But “Worry not” say our born-again revolutionaries “Tis the dawn of a new era. Social democracy will save us!” And who, might one ask, will pay the bill for more socialism? Well, who else but the unsung hero fighting on the frontline of the private sector. The entrepreneur, the innovator, the jobs and ultimately wealth creator, the Gallic “Joe the Plumber” prepared to take risks and be rewarded by profit. Overtaxed fraternité does the “spreading of the wealth” bit of égalité. “All animals are equal” says Napoleon the pig in Animal Farm….

When I read Orwell’s fable in the 1980s it was the Cold War. The collectivist threat was out there with the soviets behind the Iron Curtain. In 2008 the fiercest attacks come from within! Socialism is the biggest failure of the 20th century both economically and morally. Its inherent doom was then foreseen by wise economists like F.A. Hayek. The truth is that there is no such thing as a perfect world and capitalism albeit not a perfect economic system has proven to be able to guarantee individual freedoms and deliver prosperity. For a free world we need more democratic capitalism. Time to save liberté’s head from its determined executioner!