-
Advertorial
-
FOCUS
-
Guide
-
Lifestyle
-
Tech and Vogue
-
TechandScience
-
CHTF Special
-
Nanshan
-
Futian Today
-
Hit Bravo
-
Special Report
-
Junior Journalist Program
-
World Economy
-
Opinion
-
Diversions
-
Hotels
-
Movies
-
People
-
Person of the week
-
Weekend
-
Photo Highlights
-
Currency Focus
-
Kaleidoscope
-
Tech and Science
-
News Picks
-
Yes Teens
-
Budding Writers
-
Fun
-
Campus
-
Glamour
-
News
-
Digital Paper
-
Food drink
-
Majors_Forum
-
Speak Shenzhen
-
Shopping
-
Business_Markets
-
Restaurants
-
Travel
-
Investment
-
Hotels
-
Yearend Review
-
World
-
Sports
-
Entertainment
-
QINGDAO TODAY
-
In depth
-
Leisure Highlights
-
Markets
-
Business
-
Culture
-
China
-
Shenzhen
-
Important news
在线翻译:
szdaily -> Opinion -> 
The role of government
    2016-11-21  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

    Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    ONE of the favorite quotes of libertarian intellectuals around the world is from former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, which reads, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

    Some Chinese libertarian intellectuals worship the remarks like officials in feudal times who bowed to an imperial edict, for they have been staunch supporters of libertarian ideas such as reducing State intervention and public spending, giving full play to market mechanisms, promoting laissez-faire governance, and, if possible, completely dismissing the State’s role in modern society.

    Presumably, libertarians base their doctrines on the assumption that every individual in a society is rational and capable of self-governance, so government intervention is unnecessary as a disservice. You see, they would say, how rational and sensible we are!

    Well, though what has happened since the publication of Reagan’s famous statement has actually rebuked the libertarian nonsense, there is still a necessity to make a forceful rebuttal of this fallacy.

    First, the widespread Reagan quote is a chopped version with his original idea distorted. In his inaugural speech in 1981 when sworn in as the 40th president of the U.S., he said, “In this crisis, government is not...” He set a specific premise to the statement. The crisis mentioned in his speech referred to the steep recession in the U.S. during the early 1980s.

    Of course, as the quintessence of Reaganomics, Reagan’s main ideas about economic growth included the reduction of government regulations, tax reliefs, and expanding government spending, especially military spending.

    Obviously Reagan never expressed any idea of denying the role of government. What he meant to say is that government is not almighty, and if misbehaving, government can cause problems. In this sense, Reagan was right.

    Second, to equate the reduction of government regulation and interference with economic activities with the inertia of the government is the biggest problem facing most countries that follow libertarian ideas without a correct recognition of the role of government.

    It’s absolutely right to reduce unnecessary government interference with economic activities. China has been conducting reforms toward the goal of letting the market play a more active role by slashing administrative restrictions on economic activities.

    But China will not be so puerile as to slip to the other extreme of the matter: the government doing nothing but collecting taxes.

    Luckily, China is one of the few countries that has not fallen prey to this ideological trap. Chinese wisdom holds that a nation without an efficient and effective government is like a person without a head. The right thing to do is to make a good government.

    

    In a nutshell, a good government should let the market do whatever it can, help it with whatever it can’t and help it do better, and correct it if the market fails to function properly or even goes astray.

    The market is not an abstract being; it exists in the form of countless enterprises, which in turn, consist of millions of individual people cherishing dreams of reaping a rich harvest.

    An individual entrepreneur will encounter numerous unexpected difficulties during his entrepreneurial journey. So will any new enterprise. And the market is not almighty, either. The invisible hand does need the help of the visible hand.

    Investors will not set foot in a place without mature infrastructure, logistics system, living facilities and labor market, and only a good government can materialize all these.

    There would be no China Miracle without the Chinese Government’s active role in leading the nation’s great cause of modernization.

    China’s five-year plans demonstrate the indispensable part of the government in formulating the State development strategies in different stages, overseeing the implementation of the plans and overcoming problems arising during the process.

    So, it’s correct to balance the market economy with sensible government direction. If something goes wrong with the market, it’s not necessarily because of the existence of the government; in most cases, it has more to do with good government or bad government.

    A good government places the interest of the people before anything else while a bad one only cares about the interest of the party it belongs to and that of the groups it represents.

    (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)

深圳报业集团版权所有, 未经授权禁止复制; Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Shenzhen Daily E-mail:szdaily@szszd.com.cn