China's lesson concerning capitalists and free markets

All too many admire, to an extent, that Chinese authoritarianism when it comes to the operation of the economy. The actual truth being that, at one level, it’s possibly the most free market economy in the world.

From personal experience, just as an example, one Chinese company was able to think through, plan, build and bring into operation a minerals extraction plant in the time it would take to do the environmental paperwork here in Europe. China does have at least that part of a truly free market (along with some of the pollution that results, to be fair) - freedom of entry into markets.

China has also been notably lax on certain things that constrain such competition, patents, copyright and so on. We’re not suggesting that we should all copy that Chinese structure, not in the slightest. We do though want to point to one of the effects of it:

The long term picture scarcely looks any better. Over the past 30 years, Chinese stock markets as measured by the MSCI China Index have delivered a paltry 1.76pc annualised rate of return, compared to 7.47pc for emerging markets as a whole and 10.72pc for the US S&P 500.

Yet, China’s GDP has expanded by more than 30 times during that period, much more than any other emerging market and way, way ahead of the US.

It cannot be stated often enough that the stock market is not the economy, especially when it comes to China, where investing in stocks and shares is essentially just a form of high stakes gambling.

Wildly - viciously even - free markets aren’t a great place to be a capitalist but they’re excellent at driving up the living standards of the populace. A point that is worth considering in the policy structure surrounding our own economic lives. It is that market competition which restrains the money making ability of the capitalists. So, if you’re worried about the capitalists having too much then the policy indication is to have more competition.

Make market entry easier by removing some to much of the regulatory burden of market entry. It makes money collection by the capitalists more difficult while also driving up the living standards of the populace. What’s not to like about it?