Command economies are great, apparently

Metro, 16 August, 2011: Look to China for Guidance

China’s economic rise over the past 40 years is at the opposite end of the spectrum to that of Britain. Where China has soared year-on-year, Britain has, in comparison, declined.

The reason is twofold and these crucial differences are political stability and the mindsets of the leaders of these countries.

China is a command economy that can stay the course until its aims are achieved. In contrast, Britain changes its political thinking evert ten to 15 years, as either Labour ideologies or those of the Conservatives take command and dismantle most of what the last political incumbents have created.

China is led by engineers and scientists of merit. Britain, on the other hand, is led predominantly by lawyers or politically educated university sorts (including our prime minister, deputy prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer), who have never had a job outside the confines of a political system (the EU included). Therefore, is it any wonder China is marching ahead and Britain is in the sheer economic nightmare that it is.

Dr David Hill, chief executive, World Innovation Foundation

Mao reading Dr David Hill's letter,
which explains why dictatorship is great

My response, never sent: Don’t look to David Hill for Guidance

Dr David Hill’s argument in favour of command economies ignores basic history and economics. China’s economy has achieved remarkable growth, but its average income (GDP per capita) is still only a fifth of Britain’s.

One reason China was previously so poor was because its command economy was being run by Chairman Mao. His most disastrous economic policy, the Great Leap Forward, was a moronic attempt to industrialise by making steel in backyard furnaces. People who resisted were killed. Many more starved. The policy’s death toll was 20-30 million people.

Similarly, Stalin caused widespread famine in the early ‘30s by taking grain from starving peasants to fund an industrialisation program. Again, opponents were killed.

Command economies can only exist in dictatorships. They may mean that a country can ‘stay the course until its aims are achieved’, but they also mean no-one is able to stop a brutal autocrat implementing idiotic or evil policies which kill in vast numbers.

Mr T.S. Monk, Sussex

Jean Bedel Bokassa demonstrates the kind of thing dictators
wisely invest their country's money on