I do go on about Hong Kong, a place, as its citizens know, has plenty of problems. But two things I experienced in Hong Hong were radicalizing, in the sense of requiring I went back to "roots" (the root of the word radical.)
The First was immediate: back in in the 1970s getting off the train at Lo Wu and walking across the bridge to the People's train. Night and day. How could the people on the Hong Kong side be prosperous, peaceful (in spite of the occasional fist fight breaking out on the spot) and apparently just without any resources, and resource-rich China was poor, wracked by civil conflicts and apparently not too just. It took me a short while to get from their communism to our (crony-capitalist) keynesianism and much longer through Chicago school monetarism, Laffer supply-side theory (under the tutelage of Wanniski) to German Historical school and finally Austrian School. The Austrian school is the only scientific school, the other schools employing voodoo.
Now, have said that, I do believe as a science, economics is a branch of philosophy, in fact ethics and morality. Indeed, that great cataloger of all modern economic systems, Adam Smith, was a professor of Moral Philosophy. He meant his book on the topic to be in that field.
The Austrians, like all economists, claim economics is value-free, like mathematics. If you make a minimum wage, the net effect is less employment (more machines). Such axioms are facts, and value neutral. They leave it to others to decide if that is moral or not.
I don't think you can have human action (praxeology) without a moral dimension. And funny, all economists refer to an event called "moral hazard." As when you have politicians vote on their own wages.
What I saw first was Austrian economics was already known among the Cantonese, although not as a formal system, just as a matter of common sense. I'd already studied anarchy in my youth, and so I could see also anarchy in action in Hong Kong (immediate justice one aspect, recall those fist fights above?) But also realms of influence, voluntary association, nongovernmental peace, prosperity and justice. People call Hong Kong capitalist, ok, if so, Austrian, but it is capitalism taking credit for what good anarchy provides (could capitalism survive is it did not get away with arrogating the goods of anarchy unto itself?)
So that Hong Kong/China conundrum was immediate and took decades to resolve. The other radicalizing event took time.
At first I was too young and dazzled by the city to see it, but Hong Kong has some racism just as virulent as anywhere on earth. You won't see it as a casual visitor, and even as a regular visitor, it takes time to see. And you have to be more of an explorer going places most people do not to experience it. And I will say, pro forma, the vast majority of people in Hong Kong are too cosmopolitan to be haters. But the fact is, over the decades, as I managed to work my way deeper into the fabric of the place, I could be at places where clearly I was hated for who I was, I'll say white (although I am Celt.) Sometimes the hatred was lethal.
Now, all I am saying here, first, is Hong Kong people are no different than people anywhere else. They have the same range of personalities and ideas, and as a guess, no more or less than anywhere else. But here is the salient point: nobody has the traction to act on their bad sides to the detriment of others. The system just does not provide the traction.
Coming out of High School in USA, an associate, to our astonishment, was becoming a police officer. How come? I cannot repeat what he said, but in essence to target people of African heritage. We did not keep in close contact after that, and I can only hope he did not get his wish. But incarceration records in USA would suggest he was not alone, and not without success.
Yes, Hong Kong has corruption, but to this particular point, Hong Kong is the only place on earth where there is an independent commission on corruption, that can prosecute wrongdoers, not under the executive. That is only one such safeguard - citizens watchdogs watching the weak officialdom. (We once had this in USA in the fact citizens brought prosecutions once upon a time)
So what is radicalizing is ideas can matter, in important ways. Whereas we can fashion a polity, such as the framers tried with our constitution (did you know that was left with glaring problems to assure the convention would return to fix it later, and they did not, so the bill of rights were added late to help fix it. It went too far even as an unfinished document.) We have a polity in the USA, based on our constitution.
Hong Kong has so little official polity, the word for what Hong Kong has would be comity. More relationships than law.
As I said in the opening Hong Kong is not perfect, and as such needs competition. Competition would both preserve Hong Kong and help the USA, at least a part set aside for comity.
Polity allows people to get traction over others, and abuse them "under color of the law." It is not just African-Americans who experience this, but now we all do with the TSA, FDA, FBI, NSA ad nauseum. (OK ok, I didn't care when it targeted only African-Americans, and only now am I bitchin', but better late than never.)
I reflect: most of what I have tried to advance in life has not worked out. I expect that is true for most people. Live and learn. I know where things have not panned out for me, it was me. No one can get in my way, or frustrate or stop me, in USA. Now, imagine being of African-American heritage in USA, where it is no secret there are plenty of people who will stop you, frustrate your hopes and dreams, if for no other reason than your ancestry. of course it happens, but her eis the problem: how does one tell when the idea or effort was one of those non-starters, or a failure due to cruel racism?
See that was something radicalizing in Hong Kong. I met people who hated me for being me in Hong Kong, but they had no power to act on it. I did not waste my time or theirs by trying to associate in any way. Fair enough. A comity allows that.
A polity forces people to work together and pretend they are being fair to each other. In a polity, you just never know.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
The First was immediate: back in in the 1970s getting off the train at Lo Wu and walking across the bridge to the People's train. Night and day. How could the people on the Hong Kong side be prosperous, peaceful (in spite of the occasional fist fight breaking out on the spot) and apparently just without any resources, and resource-rich China was poor, wracked by civil conflicts and apparently not too just. It took me a short while to get from their communism to our (crony-capitalist) keynesianism and much longer through Chicago school monetarism, Laffer supply-side theory (under the tutelage of Wanniski) to German Historical school and finally Austrian School. The Austrian school is the only scientific school, the other schools employing voodoo.
Now, have said that, I do believe as a science, economics is a branch of philosophy, in fact ethics and morality. Indeed, that great cataloger of all modern economic systems, Adam Smith, was a professor of Moral Philosophy. He meant his book on the topic to be in that field.
The Austrians, like all economists, claim economics is value-free, like mathematics. If you make a minimum wage, the net effect is less employment (more machines). Such axioms are facts, and value neutral. They leave it to others to decide if that is moral or not.
I don't think you can have human action (praxeology) without a moral dimension. And funny, all economists refer to an event called "moral hazard." As when you have politicians vote on their own wages.
What I saw first was Austrian economics was already known among the Cantonese, although not as a formal system, just as a matter of common sense. I'd already studied anarchy in my youth, and so I could see also anarchy in action in Hong Kong (immediate justice one aspect, recall those fist fights above?) But also realms of influence, voluntary association, nongovernmental peace, prosperity and justice. People call Hong Kong capitalist, ok, if so, Austrian, but it is capitalism taking credit for what good anarchy provides (could capitalism survive is it did not get away with arrogating the goods of anarchy unto itself?)
So that Hong Kong/China conundrum was immediate and took decades to resolve. The other radicalizing event took time.
At first I was too young and dazzled by the city to see it, but Hong Kong has some racism just as virulent as anywhere on earth. You won't see it as a casual visitor, and even as a regular visitor, it takes time to see. And you have to be more of an explorer going places most people do not to experience it. And I will say, pro forma, the vast majority of people in Hong Kong are too cosmopolitan to be haters. But the fact is, over the decades, as I managed to work my way deeper into the fabric of the place, I could be at places where clearly I was hated for who I was, I'll say white (although I am Celt.) Sometimes the hatred was lethal.
Now, all I am saying here, first, is Hong Kong people are no different than people anywhere else. They have the same range of personalities and ideas, and as a guess, no more or less than anywhere else. But here is the salient point: nobody has the traction to act on their bad sides to the detriment of others. The system just does not provide the traction.
Coming out of High School in USA, an associate, to our astonishment, was becoming a police officer. How come? I cannot repeat what he said, but in essence to target people of African heritage. We did not keep in close contact after that, and I can only hope he did not get his wish. But incarceration records in USA would suggest he was not alone, and not without success.
Yes, Hong Kong has corruption, but to this particular point, Hong Kong is the only place on earth where there is an independent commission on corruption, that can prosecute wrongdoers, not under the executive. That is only one such safeguard - citizens watchdogs watching the weak officialdom. (We once had this in USA in the fact citizens brought prosecutions once upon a time)
So what is radicalizing is ideas can matter, in important ways. Whereas we can fashion a polity, such as the framers tried with our constitution (did you know that was left with glaring problems to assure the convention would return to fix it later, and they did not, so the bill of rights were added late to help fix it. It went too far even as an unfinished document.) We have a polity in the USA, based on our constitution.
Hong Kong has so little official polity, the word for what Hong Kong has would be comity. More relationships than law.
As I said in the opening Hong Kong is not perfect, and as such needs competition. Competition would both preserve Hong Kong and help the USA, at least a part set aside for comity.
Polity allows people to get traction over others, and abuse them "under color of the law." It is not just African-Americans who experience this, but now we all do with the TSA, FDA, FBI, NSA ad nauseum. (OK ok, I didn't care when it targeted only African-Americans, and only now am I bitchin', but better late than never.)
I reflect: most of what I have tried to advance in life has not worked out. I expect that is true for most people. Live and learn. I know where things have not panned out for me, it was me. No one can get in my way, or frustrate or stop me, in USA. Now, imagine being of African-American heritage in USA, where it is no secret there are plenty of people who will stop you, frustrate your hopes and dreams, if for no other reason than your ancestry. of course it happens, but her eis the problem: how does one tell when the idea or effort was one of those non-starters, or a failure due to cruel racism?
See that was something radicalizing in Hong Kong. I met people who hated me for being me in Hong Kong, but they had no power to act on it. I did not waste my time or theirs by trying to associate in any way. Fair enough. A comity allows that.
A polity forces people to work together and pretend they are being fair to each other. In a polity, you just never know.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
4 comments:
John,
Really? The Black incarceration rate has to do with racists Police officers or a justice system. How about the black high school graduation rate ? How about the black unemployment rate ? I could go on.. Lets get real, too much time in academia land will make your brain mush John...
No, No no... my brain was mush before I ever went to school. But having established that, what to say to the stats that demonstrate conclusively in fact the oppression is official, along with notorious examples of injustice. Are we to believe people of African heritage are supermen, and the manifest oppression has no effect on them? As to graduation rates, you would not have graduated from those schools either.
Another way of approaching this is to observe every country has its targeted group, and no matter what the race of oppressed group, the bad results are the same. So it is not a problem of being of African heritage.
Now some will say (but no where are white people oppressed, because we are naturally superior. But that would ignore western history, and most recently the Irish. 100 years ago there was nothing said of the Irish that is not said of the people of African ancestry today (or at any time).
Capitalism needs violence, and a regime needs a victim, human sacrifice, to its gods. In USA, as people of African heritage began to come into their own, they get crushed. For example, the Tulsa riots, rather ignored in our history.
The solution of course is to stop targeting them. No set-asides, no reparations, no favors, and no laws targeting them, good or bad. Jim Crow were laws, on the books. When the civil rights folks turned to business, the Jim Crow laws were repealed. The civil rights act kept the bad guys in business, since it pretended to solve the problem.
Honestly, that's baloney. Go outside the U.S. then. What is the safest most prosperous African city or nation on earth? ouch, Sure John, we have done some pretty bad things to African Americans in the past, but at some point there is more to it than past treatment.
I couldn't agree more, past treatment is no excuse for behaviour today. Certainly the fact there was not a single safe city in Ireland 100 years ago, starvation was common enough, is no excuse for the Irish to vote themselves back under the British boot that last few years. AS far as most of the civilized world was concerned circa 1915, Irish Independence was proof positive of Irish inferiority.
But to answer your question, Jim Rogers cites Zambia, Sao Tome, Mauritius and Botswana (Investment Biker, P 257) as four countries in sub-Saharan Africa where he invested for what his in-country ride revealed to him. I'll take his word for it. (And I think you mean sub-saharan Africa, because "white-Africa," say Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, well, those are not winning any awards for good governance.)
But it is curious... why focus on Africa or Africans when the same problems arise among Ukrainians as Malawians or Somalians for the reasons? Is there any indication race makes any difference? I think you can get more info from a video than a snapshot.
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