i read an article about how chinese communism has evolved into facism after the introduction of freer markets.

Moving this video to Farhad2000's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'free markets, freedom, iraq, liberity' to 'free markets, freedom, iraq, liberity, george lakoff' - edited by kulpims

*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued - promote requested by kulpims.

There's an article in Foreign Affairs this Jan/Feb issue about whether autocratic states can be sustained in a free market economy, which argues that for the most part freer markets will necessitate at least in the long run, movement towards democratic reforms. I can't recall all of it, but some of the arguments it makes were:

As this video suggests, free market business will require the upholding of contract law, copyright and the like, and an independent judicial system to support these laws impartially, thus encouraging investment from abroad in the confidence that your property and corporate ownership will not be expropriated as in Russia.

It also suggests that through free markets, an enlarged middle class develops which will demand representation, and accountability, particularly in cases of corruption. This contrasts starkly to in an autocracy, where government officials are not accountable to any constituents. Arguably you can see this happening in China already. Whereas national level elections are unimaginable, elections are being held at the lower levels of governmental office and there have been massively backlashes to the toxic milk and ongoing cases of state expropriation of land for redevelopment. Additionally, communist party members are allowed to have dissenting opinions, although not directly able to form competing groups or parties. Movements towards free market also encourage a decentralisation of business into multiple industry sectors. This necessitates corporate representation and creates competing interests. I guess what you could say would be a parallel to the last point in the business sector.

It blew my mind when I realized years ago that politicians didn't talk the way they do because they were stodgy bad communicators, but because they were saying something very intentional and very different from common moral values - like this video - We assume Geroge Bush means freedom for everyone when he means freedom for markets and people on top... and maybe some trickle down.

It's like a secret language that the people on top understand but at the same time it lets the average person assume their needs are being addressed. Like anytime the phrase "American interests" gets used by folks in the top of the government. You'd think that meant "our interests" but it virtually always means interests of American corporations abilities to make money overseas. If supporting a dictator (take your pick over the past 30 years) supports the ability of American corporations to make money but also massively decreases the quality of life for a person under that dictatorship it's always the "American interest" to support the dictator dispite the fact that the vast majority of americans would be more interested in supporting those people if they really knew what was going on.

I think it's in interesting that the two people who opened my mind to this stuff are both linguists - George Lakoff and Noam Chomsky. Which makes sense because it's a matter of language and meaning.

George Lakoff's book "Moral Politics" is absolutely amazing by the way - it talks about how people on the left and people on the right look at the world through different metaphors based on families they grew up in. Liberals based on nurturance, conservatives on a strict father. The reason we're so polarized is because we don't understand each other since we frame issues on different world views and words don't even mean the same things on the surface.

*talks

Adding video to channels (Talks) - requested by eric3579.