Ts’ang Chung-shu and Jennifer Dodgson write,
Under such a system, a leader is the individual who can render the greatest number of people dependent upon the advantages that he can provide, and threats to his power come not from rival offers of protection, but from redistribution networks that escape his control. Thus, the defining quality of statehood is not the monopoly of legitimate violence, but the monopoly of legitimate benevolence.
They claim that this explains how Singapore and China differ from Western governments.
The Western perspective on this comes from North, Weingast, and Wallis. To hold onto power, a government must be able to keep violent competitors at bay. The authors claim that it works differently in the Chinese tradition.
Feels a bit like question-begging. How does someone gain the ability to distribute benefits? By being able to enforce their recognition.
Interesting concept. The articles takes a long time to get to the “monopoly on legitimate benevolence” core idea but I guess it is a hard idea to introduce succinctly.
I like/understand their Nested Protection Rackets analogy better.
The first thing that popped into my mind is that this doesn’t really explain the Stranger King phenomena. I also don’t think of The Legitimate Monopoly on Violence as the unifying idea behind either the western city-state or the western nation-state though it seems to be a time-tested best-practice to follow.
Certainly Singapore’s historical relationship with the British Empire is more Protection Racket than Stranger King. Maybe the underlying principle in all cases is protecting current gains without sacrificing future growth given the current context of threats/opportunities.
I give this response:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China
Chnese history consists of aggregation followed by collapse, a two – three hundred year cycle. I dunno why, but it is distinctly Chinese. I keep thinking, without proof, this is a written language effect.
Fascinating.
“The Monopoly of Legitimate Benevolence” also explains General Secretary Xi’s success in achieving control of a functioning global Chinese industrial policy and why China will never honor the commitments it made as part of its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001.
To join the WTO China promised not to influence, directly or indirectly, commercial decisions of state-owned or invested enterprises. Section 6 of the Accession Protocol, and Article 17 of the 1994 General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trade required China to promise state-owned or invested enterprised would make purchase and sales involving imports or exports based solely on commercial considerations such as price, quality,marketability and availability.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
China’s latest 5 year plan, the 13th, of course demonstrates complete government control over many industries and SOEs in directed research and development planned between enterprises in order to prevent competition, as well as control of consolidation, location, access to raw materials, overseas investments, management of capacity and production as well as the global market shares for key products in order to achieve Chinese global foreign policy ambitions. The government of China subsidizes state owned enterprises so that they do not need to be profitable. The government has also directed certain industries and enterprises to have been directed to build up globally dominant overcapacities regardless of profitability. This has direct consequences on world markets as those overcapacities result in a flood of dumped exports to other countries.
Standard US academic and political economic doctrine holds that this is a wonderful situation because it means that Americans get cheap stuff at Walmart. Those who would resist are invariably portrayed as protectionists or lazy unemployed drug addicts who would be better off paying tuition to universities to get better jobs.
China also demonstrates the monopoly of legitimate benevolence by buying loyalty in the US with floods of hundreds of thousands of full freight tuition paying students in US colleges and direct cash payments through Confucius Institutes. In addition, China’s state controlled tech industry has gained the fealty of the new tech plutocrats who realize that the continued existance of their industries is in complete Chinese control. The US tech industry’s wild orgy of spending and failure to pay dividends reflects this desperate reality. In terms of nested protection rackets, the US government can thus be seen as being nested in an EU-like China which determines who works and who doesn’t in the US.
But no worries.
Just lie back, close your eyes, and chant “free trade.”
So reading between your Ha’s I think your main point is that “free trade” is not free unless it is honestly reciprocated. I’ll take the (Adam Smithian?) stance that unilateral free trade is the best option available.
I think you are arguing that a trade war is a superior option. It looks like a natural experiment is underway. Its been a long time since a major economy has enacted mercantilist policies. How long do you think it will take until the data from this natural experiment shows that well executed trade war is beneficial?
Americans did something similar to the natives. Whites sold guns and bullets cheaply at first. 50 years later, when the natives had basically forgotten their traditions of bowmaking and archery (way, way harder than they look), the terms of trade worsened dramatically for the Indians. Specialization builds wealth but it can also build dependency, and dependency can be crippling.
No no, not promoting trade wars at all. Just laughing at the idiot experts, trade negotiators, international power brokers, et al who like to pretend that they are somehow relevant. It pays well though so good on them.
No trade wars. No tarrifs.
Just a 12% across the board VAT covering both domestic and foreign goods and services and US elimination of taxes on labor and employment. The current tax regime subsidizes foreign production and distorts US investment decisions. A VAT, especially one that would cover tech, would ameliorate some of the distortions that promote inefficient US corporate behavior. Appears to work well in Singapore.
My big future theory is both the United States and China slowly turn into a ‘Corporatecracy’ but in opposite directions. China government lead large well run companies to this reality while in the US well run companies will lead the US government to this reality. And again the power Google, Facebook, Koch Brother, Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo and Exxon is 90%+economically earned and it is not the government making. (The Large company and federal government power is at the expense of religious and local government influence.)
And think about it the last two Republican nominees for President were former CEOs and the last one won.
I am not saying this altogether a bad thing as less religion and government power has increased global peace if you look at the last 30 years.
Whenever I wonder why the Chinese people go along with the Chinese government so much, I have remember how much economic growth they had. So the Chinese today is similar to the US in 1950s when 90% of the people were economicly better off and when this inevitably drops there will be more battles.
There are people in China that lived and remember life under Mao.
The one aspect I have to appreciate about the Chinese government is despite a significant military is they really don’t use against other nations. (And yes they have Muslim Concentration Camps and that really backfire with Middle East relations at some point.)
I take the bet.
Mainland China has reached the end of its debt expansion, the rebellion in Hong Kong and Taiwan, show an unwillingness bet with the mainland on belt and road. I have no idea the outcome.
“Monopoly of legitimate violence” is somewhat of a misnomer. Legitimate private non-consensual violence occurs under the strongest government with the highest amounts of state capability and takes the forms of self defense, common law self-help (much curtailed in modern times), the ability of heads of manors to physically punish servants (gone), the ability of husbands to beat their wives (gone, except in Islamic countries) and the right of parents to physically discipline (and, in classical antiquity, even kill) children and to have those acting in loco parentis – usually teachers – to impose corporal punishment as well (also increasingly curtailed).
So what was Weber et al really getting at? They weren’t talking about war either.
What they meant that the state would be the only entity with the legitimate right to compel non-consensual obedience, even when there is no danger or threat posed by the individual or organization, and via the capacity to resort to coercive means. And, as a practical matter, some minimal capacity to prevent anyone else – e.g., organized criminals – from trying to do the same.
So, the state demands you pay your taxes, and if you refuse, the state has the legitimate right to use force to physically seize you and toss you in prison. The mafia goon who demands you pay protection money has no legitimate claim to it, or to the right to break your legs if you say no. He’s a criminal that a strong state would crush under its boot, which it has every good reason to do, as it frees up more loot for taxing.
Ok, now we have the basic concept. The next step is to realize that it is impossible to define any objective bright line for coercion, and to just expand and generalize the concept a bit, in terms of a spectrum pressure on individuals to do things they otherwise wouldn’t, which one can imagine as being a collection of carrots and sticks of different sizes.
The Weberian concept is really the idea that absent threatening circumstances or special relationship (like the family) the state gets to have a monopoly on all the biggest sticks.
But all the big carrots and sticks are exercises of power, and a state that is jealous of its power and influence, paranoid about the stability of its hold on power, and desirous of having no rivals or opponents strong enough to cause trouble or resist the implementation of policy, is going to want to grab a monopoly on all those big carrots and sticks. The stick of the right to kill, and the carrot of the right to heal. The stick of the exclusive right to take, and the carrot of the exclusive right to give.
One of the usual justifications for state intervention in the economy is “market failure”, in which ordinary free-ish markets can’t produce the desirable or efficient or pro-social result in a variety of classic cases. Likewise, one of the justifications for the state grabbing a monopoly on certain forms of Big Stick Pressuring Tactics is when there is a Social Failure.
My view is that western countries are experiencing such a social failure mode right now, where sticks large enough to pass a threshold of pressure that should only belong to the state are now in possession of a mob of zealot fanatics. Currently that is viewed as being ‘legitimate’, but it should be ‘illegitimate’. In a free society no one should have that kind of power, but if it must exist, and crazy mobs are a big and growing problem, then it’s better that only the state be able to exercise it.
I’m pretty sure that Google and Amazon have figured out this trick.
I am happy to see an accurate presentation of the dirigiste economy of Singapore— where, by the way per capita incomes are 50% higher than in the United States.
I happen to prefer democracy and free markets to the greatest extent possible. But, facts are facts.
The Sino and Singapore models work for them and may even work better than our model. We will have to see.
On the other hand, China has been coming up with some hideous innovations in totalitarianism lately. The news is far from universally good.
Yes, I remember when the CCP defused Tiananmen Square by using tanks to cart in lots of goodies with which to bribe the protesters. One particularly obstinate protester, Tank Man, was whisked away to a life of luxury. The authorities didn’t want everyone else to demand the same “benevolence” afforded Tank Man, which is why no one has seen him since nor knows his whereabouts. China also has built up a huge arsenal of missiles pointed at Taiwan to demonstrate China’s wealth. The message is, “Don’t declare independence or you will lose the chance the receive the great ‘advantages’ that we can provide.” Similarly, Beijing insists on choosing Hong Kong’s candidates for office to ensure that whoever is elected will provide sufficient benefits to Hong Kong residents. Failing that, Beijing wants the power to extradite Hong Kong residents to the mainland, in case Beijing finds it necessary to shower certain select residents with “benevolence” to buy their support. Finally, we see the way the CCP tries to buy the support of Uyghurs by providing them the best surveillance technology and closely monitoring them to ensure that all of their material needs are met.
Seriously, we have always had apologists for totalitarian regimes, for example Bernie Sanders for the old Soviet Union and Chavez in Venezuela. Traditional apologism was straightforward: “I’m a socialist, they’re socialists, I like them.” China, however, seems to engender a new kind of apologism: “I have great insight into this inscrutable Middle Kingdom that normal Westerners can’t possibly hope to gain. Your Western Enlightenment standards of reasoned judgement don’t apply. Since Westerners have no other form of thought, you’ll just have to trust my claims over your own culturally biased observations.” Sometimes, actually all the time, a totalitarian regime that rules by fear is just a totalitarian regime that rules by fear.