30 years ago, before the tax cuts of Reaganomics made America competitive again in the world economy, there were many books and articles written on the topic and all the pundits were saying that our free economic model was dead and that we were going to be overtaken and buried by the Japanese. Of course today that sounds kind of silly,  in a quaint way, as the Japanese economy is pretty much where it was 30 years ago - stagnantly slugging along while ours, up until this latest fiasco took place, has exploded.  Those books and articles touted the Japanese were claiming their system of central economic control and cooperation between the government and private business, were the best models for modern economies.  Reagan and Thatcher laughed at that reasoning - and they were right.

Today, we are right back in the same argument - only this time it is China - which not only centrally controls its economy, but does it by means of dictatorship and repression.  To hear American intellectuals tell it, like Tom Friedman, their wise government is doing all the right things while our chaotic and messy system (frozen by partisan bickering) will be left behind on the ash heap of history.  Okay, I am using hyperbole, but that is pretty much the drift.

Well gang, I am here to tell you that this is just a lot of hogwash and if we believe it, we are in real trouble.  Look, you cannot control the buying and selling decisions, let alone understand why people do what they do, when millions of people are involved.  Does anyone really believe that the government of China is or will be smart enough to wisely decide economic policy for a BILLION people?  And then, absent political parties and a free press, who is policing the corruption that inevitably results from no checks and balances?  China today is so corrupt that it makes Mexico look like an island of stability.  I mean, in their system if you are screwed over by an official or cheated on a deal, who are you going to complain to?  Answer:  tough luck.

The difference now (versus back in the early 80’s when the last round of government control and admiration were having a heyday) is that today we have a man in charge of the government who actually believes that he and his team are smart enough to successfully run and command and control the economy, as opposed to Reagan who knew that the very idea of this is silly.  And they called him stupid.  All I can say is: God save us from intellectuals.