Tyler Cowen: uncertainty

Transcript context

…— I would name all of these popes and ask you to distinguish their characteristics. I agree that it is definitely the case that religion has been an essential part of the West, and it has not been an essential part of China; that China did not have an independent religious authority that can claim transcendent authority to interpret the affairs of the world. The emperors did not allow any of these religious orders really to take root and claim higher authority than their own imperial power; that there was no landed bloodline aristocracy in China that was really able to resist the edicts of the emperor. Part of why I think that China has lacked a liberal tradition, which I understand as having constraints on the court imposed by either the church, other religious authorities, the aristocrats, or merchants, is because the court has captured the entirety of the intelligentsia through the administration of the exams. If you wanted to get very far in Chinese society, you had to do very well on these imperial exams, and no one gets far in court by advocating for constraints on imperial power. I am interested in having any sort of liberal checks and balances. Call me a classical liberal if you must, Tyler, but let’s have some constraints on government power. I think that China would definitely be better if there were some ability of people in the countryside, rural folk, who were able to resist these posses of thugs reaching into a woman’s most intimate parts to force them to have an abortion. I think that it would have been better if the Chinese were able to resist parts of zero-COVID because a spokesperson of the National People’s Congress once wondered whether the Shanghai lockdown was constitutional. It was announced by press release through the Health Commission, not through national emergency by the city government. Isn’t that amazing that the health authorities can simply announce by press release the most ambitious lockdown ever attempted by humanity? This is where I think lawyers could have a difference. I think that China will never be as NIMBY as the US. They’re never going to get their dogs in a yard. I totally concede to that. I think for the most part, it is good that they practice some form of fiscal dynamism, which is unavailable to Americans in the 2020s. I think that, again, call me an economist if you must, Tyler, but on the margin, there should be a few more lawyerly instincts in China. What do you think? I don’t know. Be a political scientist for a moment. As you well know, it was commonly predicted here in the 1990s, for instance, that China would become democratic just as Taiwan had done. South Korea was in the process of doing much of the rest of East Asia, as they became richer became democratic. China’s continued to get richer. No signs of it becoming more democratic. If anything, it’s moved in the opposite direction. What was wrong with the original model? Why isn’t China like South Korea? I would put on any hat you want to put on me, Tyler, but I would not put on the hat of a political scientist. Thank you. Call me a historian, call me a lawyer, call me a classical liberal instead. I wonder the extent to which democratization in East Asia was highly contingent. Japan was the first democracy that was democratized by force through MacArthur’s constitutional changes after it was occupied and after it had two nukes dropped upon its cities. How did Taiwan democratize? Chiang Kai-shek first had to pass away, and then his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, took over. That was also a fairly gradual process. Maybe that was probably the best-case scenario of Taiwan democratizing. How did South Korea democratize? Park Chung-hee was shot by his own CIA chief, and then the person who took power after him, Chun Doo-hwan, was much, much more repressive than Park Chung-hee, and he shot students in the streets before he was deposed. I’m not seeing a common story in the East Asian democratization story.…

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