China -- Uber Capitalist and Loving It
Yesterday, in a post called, "China -- Uber Capitalist," I admiringly blogged on how China's use of taxes makes it a true capitalist. Today I learned that the Chinese love capitalism as much (or more) than anyone. The "This Ain't Writing, It's Typing, But Hey You Are Reading It, Aren't You?" Blog just posted on the labor riots in France and noted that the French generally do not like free markets but the Chinese most certainly do:
According to a recent poll, France is the only country among 20 surveyed where those who don't have faith in the free market outnumber those who do. Only 36% of those polled in France agreed with the proposition that the free market is the "best system on which to base the future of the world"'compared with 71% in the U.S., 66% in Britain and 65% in Germany. In nominally communist China, 74% said they favored the free market, according to the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes.
I lived in France for two years and I can barely remember meeting anyone who liked free markets. A few years ago, while riding the Paris Metro I saw by his name tag that I was sitting across from a French Economics professor who was in Paris attending an economics convention. I asked him why my favorite chocolate bar, Vlarhona, cost around $7 everywhere in Paris, yet cost only $3 in Seattle, one of the more expensive cities in the United States. The professor then gave me a great lecture on French microeconomics. He explained to me that the store from which I bought the chocolate probably had at least one extra employee it wished it could fire but could not because of French laws. He explained that the store's employee taxes probably equaled close to half of what it paid each employee. On top of that, being an employer and being a business, the store had to pay all kinds of other taxes as well. Then, (and this was five years ago, mind you) he said that the employees, due to minimum wage requirements and all but required raises, probably made at least $15 an hour.
I'm going to bet on China but I will continue buying Vlarhona.
http://www.chinalawblog.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/1131
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