United We Stand

Published: October 3, 2009

19 years ago today, a country was united and an export behemoth was born. If you know your history, then you know I'm talking about Germany.

The Soviet regime came to an abrupt ending in the early 90's. With it's end also brought hope for freedom and independence for those with in it. In this case, East gGermany was one of them.

It was a political miracle and an economic disaster. With the rally cry for a United Germany and bad economic knowledge of the Chancelor at the time, Germany was united. Back track a little, let's see what happened to Germany after World War II.

First, we have Germany divided into four regions, under the leadership for four major powers: United States, Britain, France, and Soviet Union. The United States, Britain and France learned from their mistake before, namely, the harsh punishment of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles, would not bring lasting peace. So the three nations work together, mainly with the financial support of the United States, brought market reform and democratic ideologies to the western part of Germany. It's true that West Germany's road wasn't paved to be perfectly smooth, but it's safe to say that the westerners gave Germany what it needed to get back into the game as a world player.

On the other hand, there's East Germany. Germany's assault on Soviet Union was one of the bloodiest campaign in history, with the pride of two very evil men at stake - Stalin's Stalingrad (no longer called Stalingrad) and Hitler's Nazi army. At the end of it, the Soviets wanted revenge. They took what they need from Germany and installed a puppet government there with monitering from the KBG. After several decades, East Germany was poor, polluted, and almost hopeless. How important was East Germany to the Soviets? Not that important. You can see this from the rise of Putin, who was sent to East Germany because he wasn't trusted enough to work for Moscow in the KBG. This, of course, was destined to change.

In the end, you have two Germanys, the west being developed, both in terms of economics and having social safety net, while east, being poor, opppressed and thoroughly plundered. If you know politics, you would know that East Germans would demand the same thing that West Germans have once the two country reunited. It would increase the government expenditure on the Western end because it would have to provide social safety net, infrastructure building and also cleaning up the environment (yes, Germans are well aware of the environment). For the most part, this is bad economics for West Germany, at least in the short run. However, through the mighty teachings of Keynesian and the natural demand for improvement and efficiency of humans, German rised to be the largest exporter in the world, until the Chinese took over anyways.

Today, looking back at this remarkable achievement of the Germans, I often wonder how the fuck did the Germanys gone from bankrupted to the leading exporter in the world in comparison to the United States, being the wealth and generious country who gave money to Germany to rebuild after World War II, ending up with trillions of deficits. Somethings went terribly wrong with the American government. Hopefully, a Bro named Obama would have what it takes to fix it.

On 60th Birthday, The Celebration of Capitalist Land

Published: October 1, 2009

“Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up.” These were the words spoken after turmoil and as long truggle, with a lot more struggles to come in the future. These were the same words that inspired billions of Bros to stand up and take their responsibilities owed to a great nation.

This, of course, was referring to the 60th national celebration of the founding of People’s Republic of China. Turning the clock back 60 years, it was a Red state that westerners fear for the power of some billion hardcore Communist believers. It was a land of ideology, the land of the poor, and the land of a group of very industrious people, as shown in history, who have way too many kids and way too little food. Nationalism swept the country and it’s youth as the government painted a picture of a glorious future, with moral high ground and the communist ideology.

Today, the same kind of pride swept through the heart of Chinese, with valid reasons as well. People had band together, turned from a backward country into a country with international standing in a short time. It has become a formidable power, an export behemoth with a voracious crave for natural minerals and U.S. Treasury Bonds. The once inefficient SOE (State Owned Enterprise) have become lean, mean, capitalist fighting machine that have corporate, political and diplomatic muscles (subject to argument). The private sector is healthy and stable enough to attract foreign investments with tremendous room for growth if the government implements better policies. China today, needless to say, is a force to be reckon with.
Behind all this glory is a far darker image. The political landscape remains opaque and sometimes seen as repressive under the party’s leadership. The economic growth has led to a huge social and income disparity. The social safety net is relatively small. The income per capita is still well behind other developed countries (roughly about 1/6 the income per capita of a developed country). It all adds up to misery. The greatest problem with in Chinese society today, as put in the words of Zhang Ming, a professor of political science at Renmin University in Beijing, is:

“There is no ideology in China anymore. The government has no ideology. The people have no ideology. The reason the government is in power is because they can say: ‘I can make your lives better every day. I can give you stability. And I have the power.’ As long as they make people’s lives better, it’s O.K. But what happens on the day when they no longer can?”

The country is running on capitalism, but it’s long accepted that capitalism is amoral and have its flaws. Material incentives can not go on forever to please a group of people who are fundamentally progressive. There should be an ideology, backed by morality, that drives growth, social responsibility and prosperity. As of right now there is no prevailing ideology as the one that can solve all the problem. However, since solving all the problem meant perfection, and humanity can never attain perfection, it’s perfectly understandable that it’s unreachable. At the same time, since it’s not perfect, that means there will always be room for improvement. For a nation who is unwilling to subject itself to insults and humiliation, perhaps the best thing it can do is raise up, take the lead and improve the world as a whole. Hopefully, someday, this would become the celebration of humanity.