As is well known, China has been opening up it’s markets. Recently, there was a clash:

About 30 000 Chinese steelworkers clashed with police in a protest over plans to merge their mill with another company and beat the company’s general manager to death, a human rights monitor said on Saturday.

Perhaps the biggest reason to support free markets is that it creates a demand for the most basic and vital right: the right to property. This current example highlights what happens when markets begin to show people a right to property and then have it abused. People are much more likely to defend their other rights once they have established a right to property.

I’ve never found prognostications that China will overtake the US now that it’s opened up it’s market very compelling. I basis this primarily in the knowledge that in order for China to become a credible threat it must respect the basic rights of it’s people. If and when this occurs, China may surpass the US, but such concession to the free markets will make them our ally and not our enemy. In other words nothing to worry about.

One final thing, a capitalist is someone that defends property rights. I view property right as the most basic and fundamental right we can have in a free society. Therefore I happily embrace being a capitalist. The only question is how someone that enjoys freedom can not claim to be a capitalist.

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