Friedman the Terrible

Thomas Friedman writes,

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power.

It is also no accident that China has the most sophisticated system for suppressing dissent in the world today, beginning with friendly warnings to stop visiting "subversive" websites, and culminating with a vast network of prisons into which troublemaking journalists, community organizers, trade unionists, and tenacious citizens can be disappeared. The number may be in the millions even in today's "reasonably enlightened" China.

The fact that China can make impositions which Friedman favors is a direct consequence of its ability and will to impose such "drawbacks" as he effortlessly elides. If the Chinese government proposed only policies which had the strong support of the people, then the entire armature of control--whose cost is well into the billions of dollars per year--would presumably be unnecessary. Where the majority party in our Congress must at some point throw up its hands and cry, "blame the opposition!," the Chinese system brings out the truncheons and beats opponents to a bloody pulp.

It is pointless to wonder whether the common man in China supports the general direction of the government, because his right to disagree ends at the point where his disagreement becomes effective. Much dissent occurs in the hinterlands far beyond the earshot of the Times' Beijing bureau, more is nipped in the bud when a spouse, sibling, or teacher cautions the potential offender to keep it to themselves, and most never occurs because in China, all you get is Fox News--to use an analogy my left-wing friends might appreciate.

Friedman's argument is thus nothing more than a rationalization of tyranny in the name of enlightened policy, without any consideration for determining what constitutes said policy. Our system tolerates dissent to such an annoying and inconvenient degree because it is the most certain method by which to ensure that government policy conforms to the wishes of those who live under it. It is endlessly frustrating to those on the losing side of the debate, and like all systems, not without its own drawbacks, but it beats a hole in the head--which remains the ultimate wage of dissent in Friedman's promised land.