China has made the world more free than America has?
Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:49 pmIn the past few decades, it seems that China has done more to bring more freedom to the citizens of the world than America has. To really understand this argument though, we need to really understand what freedom is. Americans have always thought of freedom as simply having an absence of legal or authoritative barriers. For example, if the people in power bars you from doing something, either through force or threats then you're not free. American policies abroad, in terms of bringing freedom is to remove that barrier. The numerous wars that we're involved in to overthrow dictators is to support this idea that removing the authoritative barrier makes people more free.
However, in reality, you're not really free until all the barriers to do that thing is removed. Let's say there's no legal barrier, but you lack the wealth or the health to do it, you're not really free to do it. Let's say you don't like your local energy supplier. Theoretically, you're "free" (in the American sense) to start a new one and compete, but since you don't have the capital, you're not really free to do it, so you're just going to have to bend over and take it from you local somethingG&E. Don't like your jobs? You're free to quit! Not if you got bills to pay. You're "free" but you're not free. You're a paraplegic in bed? And someone offered you an all expense paid trip to climb the Rocky Mountain! We'll you're "free" to do it, but you're not free to do it.
Now that we've established what freedom is, we can proceed with my argument. In terms of removing legal and authoritative barriers, China definitely has not done as much as the US has. No country in the world has done more to bomb the shit out of dictators than the US. But in the process of bombing the shit out of dictators, we have also erected other barriers to freedom for the countries that we've bombed. Often it's in the sense of "yeeeea, I'm free to cross this bridge, but now there's no bridge." or "yea, I'm free to criticize the leader now, but now I just want water." China, on the other hand, by engaging in them in economic trade while keeping the dictators in place made people more free because they increase the wealthy and infrastructure within the countries so that the material barriers are removed.
Discuss.
However, in reality, you're not really free until all the barriers to do that thing is removed. Let's say there's no legal barrier, but you lack the wealth or the health to do it, you're not really free to do it. Let's say you don't like your local energy supplier. Theoretically, you're "free" (in the American sense) to start a new one and compete, but since you don't have the capital, you're not really free to do it, so you're just going to have to bend over and take it from you local somethingG&E. Don't like your jobs? You're free to quit! Not if you got bills to pay. You're "free" but you're not free. You're a paraplegic in bed? And someone offered you an all expense paid trip to climb the Rocky Mountain! We'll you're "free" to do it, but you're not free to do it.
Now that we've established what freedom is, we can proceed with my argument. In terms of removing legal and authoritative barriers, China definitely has not done as much as the US has. No country in the world has done more to bomb the shit out of dictators than the US. But in the process of bombing the shit out of dictators, we have also erected other barriers to freedom for the countries that we've bombed. Often it's in the sense of "yeeeea, I'm free to cross this bridge, but now there's no bridge." or "yea, I'm free to criticize the leader now, but now I just want water." China, on the other hand, by engaging in them in economic trade while keeping the dictators in place made people more free because they increase the wealthy and infrastructure within the countries so that the material barriers are removed.
Discuss.