[rayiner]

You're playing fast and loose with the word "free." Sure, no country in history has ever been a utopia of freedom, but I don't consider any country "free" in any sense of the word (even "1% free") that doesn't have meaningful democracy. Indeed, that's what "freedom" has meant for the better part of the last 300-400 years: political self-determination, not "economic freedom."

I can't look at a map and conceive of living in any country without a functioning democracy, even though such democracies often curtail economic freedom for the greater good. And I think most people feel the same way, deep down. There is a reason the Chinese crawl over themselves to come to America, not the other way around.

[mseebach]

What China shows (and what counters the US rhetoric) is that evidently economic freedom can (at least to some extend) cause prosperity without political freedom. Common wisdom has predicted the rise of some kind of political freedom in China for years now, but what has actually been seen to be on the rise is better governance - an oft-cited example is the case of Bo Xilai[1].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Xilai#Downfall

[Steko]

"What China shows"

We certainly haven't seen the endgame of China's development. Confidently claiming that China has 'prosperity without political freedom' is simply playing fast and loose with terminology. The stronger and more educated the middle class gets, the more freedoms they demand.

Taiwan and South Korea were dictatorships but get freer every year. Still it took decades of small steps to get where they are today (legitimate elections, opposition parties winning) and clearly China has a long road to even get to where those neighbors are today.

"some kind of political freedom"

While 2013 China is no poster boy for freedom hasn't the situation improved every decade for 40 years? Isn't China today far more permissive and free than in the past? Obviously in terms of elections maybe not so much but looking only at elections might be ignoring real gains made in rule of law, property rights, speech and social freedoms.

[rayiner]

The issue is causation. The American mantra for the last 50 years has been that freedom causes economic development. What we're seeing with China is economic prosperity causing increased pressure for political freedom (though at a dramatically slower rate than I think Americans circa 1960 would have predicted).

[Steko]

Definitely in agreement on the causation running the other way.

[enraged_camel]

>>There is a reason the Chinese crawl over themselves to come to America, not the other way around.

Yes, it's called "wanting to be able to make a decent living." Not "wanting to be able to say whatever one wants."

It turns out the latter is not a prerequisite of the former.

[jisaacstone]

`Free` means `able to do X`

`Vote in national elections` is the most common value of X when comparing OECDs to China, but it is not a very useful one.

The more important political freedoms (free speech, freedom of assembly, free press) are all restricted in China, but the general trend is toward less restriction, albeit with more monitoring. (The insightful will point out we are restricted and monitored in every country, but I respond there is an order of magnitude difference)

Economic freedoms are being relinquished at a much faster pace, and since that is what most people encounter in the day-to-day the average Chinese citizen will think you are pretty silly for saying he or she is not 'free'.

But the big issue for quality of life of the citizens of every country is transparency and the rule of law. And while China has been making major strides forward in the rule of law it still has abysmal transparency.

And that is a much more worrying thing than any voting metric.

[rayiner]

Since when is it not a useful value of X? Maybe it's not a flattering value of X...

Since the Enlightenment, freedom has meant political freedom. That's why the Bill of Rights has explicit guarantees about the freedom of the press and nothing, textually, about starting a business.

Yes, this is an ethnocentric way of looking at things, but my comment was made as an American criticizing American businessmen.

[javert]

No. Freedom means not having force initiated against you. That is what it has always meant, and that is the common-sense definition that normal people use.

Sure, politicians and others try to distort freedom to mean something else all the time - like "political self-determination" (i.e., the majority can dispose of you; see India, or even Soviet Russia, for an example). But they need to be called out on it, just like I'm doing now.

[rayiner]

> No. Freedom means not having force initiated against you. That is what it has always meant, and that is the common-sense definition that normal people use.

No, that's not what it means (in the political context, anyway), it's not the definition that normal people use, and importantly, it is not how the term has been used for hundreds of years in western political literature and philosophy. You can't just go around appropriating words and giving them your own idiosyncratic meanings.

[javert]

You said that freedom means "political self-determination." But what you apparently mean by "self-determination," is "majority-determination."

You should read "1984." It covers doublespeak. Apparently, in the sources you read, doublespeak about "freedom" has been going on for about 300-400 years.

[rayiner]

The "self" in "self-determination" refers to the people, not individuals.

[javert]

That wasn't lost on me. That was my point.

A better word for it would be "group-determination" or "people-determination."