After more than a quarter-century of market-oriented economic policies and record-setting growth, China on Friday enacted its first law to protect private property explicitly.
The measure, which was delayed a year ago amid vocal opposition from resurgent socialist intellectuals and old-line, left-leaning members of the ruling Communist Party, is viewed by its supporters as building a new and more secure legal foundation for private entrepreneurs and the country’s urban middle-class home and car owners.
But delays in pushing it through the Communist Party’s generally pliant legislative arm, the National People’s Congress, and a ban on news media discussion of the proposal, raise questions about the underlying intentions and the governing style of President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, experts say.
First a BIG caveat: I have no knowledge of internal Chinese politics, nor do I have any knowledge of its legal system. Therefore I can't comment on the sincerity of this law.
But, this is a very interesting development from a historical perspective. A passing analysis of democratic development indicates property rights are an essential element in the democratic development. I think you can successfully argue that the growth of the middle class was in fact a primary reason for Democratic development during the Renaissance.
2 comments:
Many old line Chinese communist officials see this as a bad move. The implementation was delayed for a year because of their reservations.
There are two forces as work here. The first is an attempt to protect peasants from having their land stolen by local (corrupt) officials . It seems doubtful to me that additional legislation will address corruption. So the actual purpose may be PR since there have been over 80,000 protests in the last year by peasants. This way the government can point to the new rules and hope it defuses some of the anger.
The second issue has to do with the ability of the rich to become even richer. This is what happened in Russia and there is little reason to think that the same abuses won't happen in China. Neither country has a real rule of law so the transition from communism to private ownership is filled with favoritism and corruption.
If you haven't read it, I highly recommend checking out Fareed Zakaria's book, "The Future of Freedom." It's an excellent book that talks about the distinctions between democracy as we understand it in this country (liberal, jeffersonian) and the simple notion of majority rule. It talks about a lot of the ramifications of that distinction, and relevant to this conversation, it talks about what tends to lead to that kind of Democracy.
I forget the details at the moment, but the basic gist of it is that countries tend towards liberal democracy when the economic system makes those in power dependent on a merchant class. Basically what happens is that the merchant class begins demanding rights and have enough power to do so. This seems to be part of the dynamic playing out in China today.
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