United States’ & Anti-Capitalist Free Market Capitalism

By: Jake Kazmierczak

 

So I read an interesting article yesterday written by The China Post titled “China’s economic growth hits lowest since financial crisis.”  Considering how much is going on in Asia right now with the TPP, etcetera, the title grabbed my attention by default. According to this article, China’s boom is transitioning into a “slower and more sustainable expansion, driven by domestic consumer demand,” though reports show “the change is proving bumpy.”

So what does this mean for the U.S?

I guess this is good news, right?

From the data on the PowerPoint slides, it seemed clear that U.S. public opinion on China is significantly more focused on their work methods, cyber attacking, and economic threats to the U.S, rather than physical threats. So if our biggest concerns lay there, a rocky slow pace for China’s economy sounds like a great thing. That being said, just because it’s probably good for us does not remove us from our hypocritical stance on the issue.

I’ve touched on this before, but I think this is a good time to really flesh out my opinion on the matter. 

The U.S. claims to believe in concepts such as freedom, liberty, and democracy. I wouldn’t call it a stretch to say the United States prides itself as a capitalist nation either. So why are we so afraid of the Chinese economic threat? A truly capitalist nation’s economy will just die when another nation beats it; I’ve grown up learning how the “American Way” is innovative, proud, and fearless. So what’s the scare all about? Who cares how big china gets? If we make better products than them we’ll win both domestically, and internationally.

In my opinion, it’s laughable to read SeekingAlpha reports where these investors start a panic every time a foreign or domestic, economic threat does something that ‘might’ hurt their business. It’s a vague way to say this, but if the U.S. had the spirit we once had, we’d still have the innovation and creativity to work around these challenges.

I’m not to say how things will play out, but my hopes are that this momentary lapse in the growth for china inspires some of us in the U.S. to drop the government shield and take china head on, economically, in a fiscal war to defend true capitalism. Just look at Silicon Valley, and all the tech companies making apps, and see how controlling global business climates are unnecessary if you make a product that wins. We need to let china “do its thing”, get out of their hair, establish and strengthen good diplomatic relations with china, focus on domestic issues, and then sit back and let capitalism play its course. I think that doing so is respectable course of action, which aligns with the original core values of American culture and government.