Microsoft has been censoring Chinese blogs in order to appease the Chinese government. Chinese bloggers are outraged after Microsoft shut down an especially popular Chinese blog located at MSN Spaces. Via Instapundit, you may read reactions from Chinese bloggers over at Rebecca MacKinnon's blog (post 1, post 2). You can even read about it in the New York Times.
What do I get out of this?
(1) Big companies like Microsoft are not the friends of freedom or even the friends of the United States. They are simply out to make money, and Microsoft is making zillions of times more money selling Windows and Office to Chinese customers than it makes from MSN Spaces.
(2) I would like to say that bloggers should support small independent companies such as Six Apart, the company that operates Typepad which I use to blog. But Typepad isn't a very good solution for Chinese bloggers because of the cost. $80/year is nothing to an American, but it's prohibitively expensive to someone in China. Only big companies with ulterior motives such as Google with its Blogger service or Microsoft with its MSN Spaces service can afford to give away blogging software and bandwidth for free.
(3) China is gearing up to be the next world superpower. We should be worried about this.
China is experimenting with ecnomic freedom. They will eventually discover that economic freedom goes hand in hand with personal and social freedom. At that point, they will have to decide what to do--embrace freedom? Backtrack on the economic stuff? Try to balance it out like liberal democracies? Most likely they will waffle for a while, and then try for some kind of balance--allow their people some freedom, but not too much.
Posted by: Michael A. Clem | January 06, 2006 at 10:27 AM
Nazi Germany had a powerful economy and no freedom. I'm sure that's the model China wishes to emulate.
Posted by: Half Sigma | January 06, 2006 at 02:48 PM
According to wikipedia, Nazi germany did not have as a rebust economic as one would think. There were rampent inflation and shortages that was controlled using various shell companies selling unredeemable bond, price controls, etc. Black markets were effectively suppressed with harsh penalties and effective enforcement.
As better comparason would be Singapore model. Citizens have limited polical freedom, but enjoy economy freedom greater than most democracies in the west (ie., fewer govermental interference).
It is mistake to assume there is a always a positive corrlation between political and economical freedom.
Posted by: nobody | January 06, 2006 at 11:29 PM
Forget the China fears, forget the freedom / political / economic link theories.
Read the first bit again -
(1) Big companies like Microsoft are not the friends of freedom or even the friends of the United States. They are simply out to make money, and Microsoft is making zillions of times more money selling Windows and Office to Chinese customers than it makes from MSN Spaces.
Now, think for a moment. How many of your American corporations, the ones that propound the magnificence of the capitalism system, do not follow the same path.
Would it be a minority? Half? Many?
HS's statement really is the encapsulation of capitalism. That is what it is all about...
Posted by: probligo | January 08, 2006 at 07:22 PM
Far too many people think that capitalism is about greed, and making money no matter what the cost. But the essential defining feature of capitalism is the accumulation of capital so that greater productivity is possible. this is a good thing for all of society. Perhaps the problem is that too much is implied in both the pro- and anti-capitalists' view of capitalism.
What are the alternatives? Going to the opposite of capitalism (socialism?)? Or modifying and refining our understanding of capitalism?
Posted by: Michael A. Clem | January 09, 2006 at 11:05 AM