While I've often thought that Tom Friedman's thinking is muddled,
I have never before thought of it as depraved. But what other
conclusion can one draw from this?
Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in
Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion:
There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and
that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America
today.
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. China's leaders understand that
in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market
middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is
going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that
industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including
boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.
Our one-party democracy is worse. The fact is, on both the
energy/climate legislation and health care legislation, only
the Democrats are really playing.
"One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks!" Just last
week Xie Changfa was sentenced to 13 years in prison for the
crime of attempting to organize a political meeting. Apparently,
in Tom Friedman's mind, the "drawback" of Chinese democrats being
treated like violent criminals is outweighed by the benefit of
central-planning that serves ends Tom Friedman likes.
Matt Welch is dumbfounded ("One
almost doesn't know where to begin"), while Jonah Goldberg
notes that Friedman's line of thinking has a long and
unsavory pedigree.
