Xi Jinping’s War on Spontaneous Order — Tanner Greer

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Mike Norman
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I view this as another moment in the historical dialectic involving traditionalism and liberalism, and the process of decolonization.

The Chinese leadership appears to understand this dynamic and is jumping in to shape in with Chinese characteristics in China. I support the approach of putting a leash on capitalism, which as the author notes, if left to its own dynamic becomes rapacious and there is no law way to address this from within capitalism as an economic system.

This means that insofar as capitalism is a socio-economic systems, an outside influence must intervene, and that is the government. And this is not unique to China. It is a paradox of (bourgeois) liberalism and one that not only Marx addressed but also sociologists in the West, along with institutional economists such as Thorstein Veblen. It is also a basis of the politico-economic theory of neoliberalism.

While the challenges this presents in the West are different than they are in China, they are real and also need to be addressed in Western countries. Different countries and regions have different cultures and histories and so there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach.

For example, I participated in the countercultural revolution and antiwar movement in the US in the Sixties and Seventies and then sadly watched it become co-opted and commercialized, with the result that much of the worst survived and much of the best did not. While many factors were involved, commercialization was a major one and it began almost from the beginning with music, a key shaper of culture. The economic system of a society affects its culture profoundly. (Marx was right about that.)

Now China is presented with a similar but different set of challengers and seems to be rising to the occasion before things get out of hand. This harnessing "market forces" is clearly going to have economic effects, by someone has to do it to moderate the shift from traditionalism to liberalism.

There are two schools of thought on this transition. Some think that liberalism will eventually replace traditionalism, the quicker the better. Others think that the two forces will be integrated, likely differently in different cultures. I view the latter as most likely, and trying to force the former will lead to unnecessary conflict.

The Scholar's Stage
Xi Jinping’s War on Spontaneous Order
Tanner Greer

See also

Turcopolier
“Inside every —— there is an American trying to get out …” Not!