Laoshan, or Mount Lao as shan means mountain in Chinese, is
a mountain located around 30 km from Qingdao on the shore of Yellow Sea ,
China. It is the highest coastal
mountain in China and the second highest mountain in Shandong, with the highest
peak (Jufeng) reaching 1,132 metres. High in the east with cliffs near the sea,
and gentle in the west with rolling hills. From the heights of the mountain we
can view the blue sea giving this mountain the title of "the most famous
mountain on the sea".
Laoshan is surrounded by sea on three sides and carries
rivers on its flat back. Its special geomorphic environment with mountains
meeting the sea has created marvelous view with the sky, clouds, mist and
glowing sunlight often forming a variety of images. Laoshan has a typical
granite glacial landform. The granite peaks and hills in Laoshan are rich in
pictorial stones with all kinds of strange postures under the effect of water
erosion and weathering.
The mountain is also inhabited with various tall ancient trees,
which impressed Deng Xiaoping and said when he visited Laoshan: "This
place is very good. With such a few large ancient trees alone, it can attract a
lot of people. So it has conditions to arrange for opening up and the
development of tourism”.
The place is now named Laoshan Scenic Area, a national
forest park with the largest and most complete protection of natural forest
ecosystems of larches and pine trees in China's cool zone.
There are 230 ancient trees of 39 species. The
2,100-year-old Han Dynasty Cypress (Cloud-reaching Han cypress) in Taiqing
Palace with three trees growing in symbiosis, is regarded as a sacred tree by
the locals. The 1,000-year-old Tang Dynasty Elmis a peculiarly shaped tree that is one of the most ancient elm trees in
northern China. It is also known as the "Dragon Head Elm" because its
trunk is curved like a dragon's head.
We can view this beautiful scenery of Laoshan by riding a
cable car to the mountain peak, and we can view the granite rock mountain with
pine trees and various kind of trees.
After seeing the Laoshan coast we head to the Taiqing Gong temple
which is not far from the beach on the southern slope of this mountain. Between
the temple and the beach there is a large square, the name of which is Taiqing
Square of course, which is also a stop for buses to go up and down the
mountain. At the sides of the Square there are food stalls and there are also ice
cream sellers, there we tried for the first time an Ice Cream wafer from Russia,
it tastes so good, with a thick milk taste.
Taiqing Gong is the oldest and largest Taoist temple in
Laoshan Mountain, it is simple, ancient and solemn. According to legend, its
founder, Zhang Lianfu, wandered to Laoshan Mountain in 140 BC, and found a serene
spot under Laojun Peak. He chose to
build a secluded temple at this location, and gave the disciples to worship, laying
the foundation of Taoism in Laoshan. Due to its long affiliation with Taoism it
is often regarded as one of the “cradles of Taoism”.
Qing Dynasty writer Pu Songling visited Laoshan Mountain in
1672, and lived in the Taiqing Gong temple, but he couldn't afford to live in
the wing because of poverty. He could only lay the floor at night. When
writing, he used a wooden board as a desk. The candlelight on the table at
night was the best lighting. Pu Songling only visited the two famous mountains of
Taishan and Laoshan in his life, but two visits to Laoshan have left a story of
the ages. One of his classical stories is
‘The Taoist Priest of Laoshan’ reflects the mysteries and magical practice adapted by the
Taoist priests there. A wall which is said
to be the prototype of the wall the Taoist passes through (in magical way) in
Pu Songling's novel is still visible in Taiqing Palace.
Taoism (also known as Daoism) is a Chinese philosophy
attributed to Lao Tzu (c. 500 BCE), it emphasizes doing what is natural and
"going with the flow" a cosmic force which flows through all things
and binds and releases them. This flow of harmony is called Tao, or “the way.”
In the 81 poetic verses that make up the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu outlined the Tao
for individual lives as well as leaders and ways of governance. The philosophy
grew from an observance of the natural world, and the religion developed out of
a belief in cosmic balance maintained and regulated by the Tao. The original
belief may or may not have included practices such as ancestor and spirit
worship but both of these principles are observed by many Taoists today and
have been for centuries.
Following 108 stair steps, under the Laojun Peak, stands a
huge statue of Lao Tzu. Its height is 36 meters and width 28 meters at the
base. The statue was built according to the painting of Lao Tzu by the famous
painter Wu Daozi in the Tang Dynasty period. Lao Tzu is pointing to the sky
with his left hand and the earth with his right hand, which means "from
heaven to earth, there’s only the Tao".
I did not expect that in this area of Qingdao, a busy city
with many shipyards and factories, there is a tall mountain near the seaside. A
green area with forests towering over the shores of the rippling blue sea. This
place is a shelter for weary city people, looking for a calm and peaceful
atmosphere.
The mountain is Laoshan, or Mount Lao (since
"shan" means mountain), linked with the sea, with the coastal line
winding around the mountain with various rocks, islets and bays staggered. Mountain and Water are the two key features in
Fengshui. From its perspective Mountain is static and stable thus associated
with power and support, while Water represents flow, dynamic, thus associated
with progress. The presence and balance of Mountain and Water make for good
feng shui, and are ideal features for a country.
Overlooking the sea, the mountain is characterized by
imposing canyons, undulating peaks and shrouding mists. With a peak of over
1000 meters Laoshan Mountain is the highest mountain along China’s coastline. With
a view not only on the sea to the east and on the land to the west, but also on
beautiful Jiaozhou Bay to the southwest it explains the honorable name “No. 1
Coastal Mountain” given to Mount Laoshan.
Mount Laoshan consists of numerous mountains, including
Mount Fu, Mount Zao'er, Mount Shuangfeng, Mount Dading, and Mount Taizi, and it
is home to 13 bays and coves, dotted with 18 islets.
It is also known for its ancient trees, its crystal-clear
springs, odd=shaped boulders and rock outcroppings. Among the smooth boulders
and stone outcropping farther up the mountain grow densely packed pine trees,
and in the few green clearings where trees do not grow, sprout seas of flowers
that blossom in a myriad of colors each spring and early summer.
“What can I talk with Samuel, this absurdist writer?” that
was my reaction to stenote, the publisher, when he first asked me to interview
Samuel. “He wrote this book titled ‘Texts for Nothing’, what can one expect to
discuss about nothing? He even wrote this in the book ‘He thinks words fail
him, he thinks because words fail him he's on his way to my speechlessness, to
being speechless with my speechlessness, he would like it to be my fault that
words fail him, of course words fail him’. What can we talk with such words,
they are so obscure. I heard from Charles Juliet that he is quite capable of
meeting somebody and sitting for two hours without uttering a word.”
My publisher said: ”No, not really, he is not such a
reclusive person, he likes to drink quite heavily, hopping with friends from
one bar to another, enjoys chatting about cricket, actually he played cricket
for Dublin University, and he had won medals for swimming and boxing. He also
played golf and tennis. So, to start the conversation with him, try bringing a
bottle of wine and talk about sport.”
Encouraged by my publisher, I flew to Paris and made
appointment with Samuel to meet at Îles Marquises restaurant in Monparnasse. I
brought with me a bottle of Lacrima Christi which he took delightedly. But, his
tall, gaunt and archaic presence made him seemed aloof from the cozy
surrounding.
I started:
“Sam, who is your favourite cricket player?”
Samuel glowed with pleasure and responded:
“Frank Woolley, I had admired as a boy. You know, I saw him in the bar
at Lord's cricket ground. He was escorting the legendary 84-year-old Wilfred
Rhodes, perhaps the greatest England cricketer ever. By that time, Rhodes was
totally blind.”
Then he stared and pointed out on the wall above our table photographs
of the great boxers: Joe Louis,Georges Carpentier and Jack Dempsey.
I said:
“My first thought, sport seems out of place in your world. Your
characters emerge as homeless people, down-and-outs, tramps, failures, and you wrote ‘Fail again, fail
better’ in your ‘Worstward Ho’ story.”
Samuel:
“Actually, I wrote ‘All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try
again. Fail again. Fail better.”
I said:
“ You achieved your own gold in 1969 for Nobel Prize in Literature. How
did you feel?”
Samuel:
“My publisher, told me in a telegram ‘Dear Sam and Suzanne. In spite of
everything, they have given you the Nobel Prize. I advise you to go into
hiding.’ We anticipated a spike in publicity and people trying to reach them.”
I said:
“You were right, the Swedish Television asked for an interview”.
Samuel:
“I agreed only with the stipulation that the interviewer couldn’t ask
any questions. “
I said:
“Thus you created a bizarre ‘mute’ interview and sent the video clip to
them showing yourself in silent in nature, with background of the sound of wave
from the beach, and the sound of bird chirping. And you didn’t attend the
award, you sent your publisher to take the award, while you and your wife
Suzanne travelled to Tunisia to avoid publicity.”
Samuel, citing the opening of Texts for Nothing 4:
“Where would I go, if I could go, who would I be, if I could be, what
would I say, if I had a voice, who says this, saying it's me?”
I said:
“When your play ‘Waiting for Godot’ premiered at Théâtre de Babylone in
Paris, it is reported that many audience members walked out of the theater,
perhaps because of the unconventional form of the show, there is no plot, the
characters are not revealed, the dialogues are random and ridiculous. Two
tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, are waiting to meet someone named Godot, who
eventually does not turn up. But some of the critics liked it, some critics
said that pointlessness is its very point in this kind of theatre.
Martin Esslin called it The Theatre of the Absurd, in his book with
same title, depicting ‘sense of metaphysical anguish at the absurdity of the
human condition’. And this type of theatre has been associated with your name.”
Samuel:
“The early success of Waiting for Godot was based on a fundamental
misunderstanding, that critics and public alike insisted on interpreting in
allegorical or symbolic terms a play which was striving all the time to avoid
definition.”
I said:
“The greater part of Waiting for Godot's success came down to the fact
that it was open to a variety of readings and that this was not necessarily a
bad thing.”
Samuel:
“Why people have to complicate a thing so simple I can't make out. It's
all symbiosis; it's symbiosis”.
I said:
“Then, may I ask you who or what is Godot?”
Samuel:
“I don't know who Godot is. I don't even know, above all don't know, if
he exists. And I don't know if they believe in him or not – those two who are
waiting for him.”
I said:
“Godot’s messenger boy tells Vladimir that Mr.Godot has sheep and
goats, and the boy tends the goat is not beaten by Godot, while the boy’s
brother who tends the sheep is beaten by Godot. This seems to be the reversal
of the Bible story in which Christ separates the sheep, representing people who
will be saved, from the goats, representing people who will be damned.
In the play Vladimir asks if Estragon has ever read the Bible. Estragon
says all he remembers are some colored maps of the holy land. Vladimir tells
Estragon about the two thieves crucified along with Jesus. One of the gospels
says that one of the thieves was saved, but Vladimir wonders if this is true.”
Samuel:
“St Augustine’s reflection on this story is ‘Do not despair, one of the
thieves was saved: do not presume, one of the thieves was damned.”
I said:
“I reckoned that perhaps the theme of the story is the two who are
waiting for Godot, rather than Godot.”
Samuel:
“An inmate of Lüttringhausen Prison near Remscheid in Germany, stage
the play in German and after that wrote to me: ’You will be surprised to be
receiving a letter about your play Waiting for Godot, from a prison where so
many thieves, forgers, toughs, homos, crazy men and killers spend this bitch of
a life waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting. Waiting for what? Godot?
Perhaps.”
I said:
“During the World War II in 1941 you and Suzanne joined the French
resistance unit Gloria SMH, an information network, but in 1942 the group was
betrayed by a double agent, members of your group had been arrested by the
Gestapo. You had to flee Paris, heading for the Unoccupied Zone in the south of
France. It took almost six weeks, sometimes alone, sometimes with other
refugees, to cross into the free zone at Chalon-sur-Saône in Burgundy; you made
your way by hiding in barns and sheds and sometimes behind trees, inside
haystacks and down in ditches.”
Samuel:
“I can remember waiting in a barn, there were ten of us, until it got
dark, then being led by a passeur over streams; we could see a German sentinel
in the moonlight. Then I remember passing a French post on the other side of
the line. The Germans were on the road so we went across fields. Some of the
girls were taken over in the boot of a car.”
I said:
“You also witnessed the aftermath of bombing of St-Lô in 1944. The town
located in Normandy bombed by the American, as it served as a strategic
crossroads. It caused heavy damage, most of the city was destroyed, and a high
number of casualties, which you reported as ‘The Capital of Ruins’, you
witnessed real devastation and misery, people in desperate need of food and
clothing, yet clinging desperately to life.”
Samuel:
“St.-Lô is just a heap of rubble, la Capitale des Ruines as they call
it in France. Of 2600 buildings 2000 completely wiped out. . . . It all
happened in the night of the 5th to 6th June. It has been raining hard for the
last few days and the place is a sea of mud. What it will be like in winter is
hard to imagine.”
I said:
“After the War, a lengthy clean-up began, literally by hand including
the corpses of residents and soldiers, which lasted about six months. However,
officials hesitated to rebuild Saint-Lô, some were willing to leave the ruins
as a testament to the martyrdom of the city. The population declined,
preferring to reinhabit its city. You volunteered to join the Irish Red Cross
to build a provisional hospital in this town”
Samuel:
“The new hospital was designed to be provisional. But ‘provisional’, is
not the term it was, in this universe become provisional.”
THE END
This is an imaginary interview in memory of Samuel Beckett.
Our next trip was to go with a bus from Lhasa to Shigatse
driving along the Yarlung River. The scenery of the clear river water, with mountains
at the background and combined with green fields is amazing. The Yarlung River
is 1,323 km long river originating from the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau in southeast
Qinghai, and its join the Yangtze river in Panzhihua in southwestern Sichuan. It
then passes through India flowing through the Assam Valley as Brahmaputra river.
Yarlung means “the river down from the upper reaches” in
Tibetan language, has a large amount of water and irrigates the fields in the
lower valley. There are many ancient villages scattered along the banks of the
river, with many historical sites and temples, shrouded with colorful myths and
legends. It is the cradle of Tibet’s ancient civilization, and the area is the
earliest birthplace of Tibetan culture.
In Tibetan culture, rivers are sacred and in particular the
Yarlung river is sacred as it represents the body of the goddess Dorje Phagmo,
one of the highest incarnations. This reverence for the natural world was born
from the Tibetan plateau and dates back centuries. Now we can admire the clean river, undisturbed
by human interference. When people swim in the river, they were told to never
use it as a bathroom, because there are river gods in the water. There’s a very
strict tradition that no one will go near certain water or do anything that
would disturb it. They really don’t need laws to prohibit them to dump garbage
or toxic wastes in the water to preserve the environment.
There is another reason, the Yarlung river is still used as
water burial site, people dumped dead bodies into the river and fishes might
consume the body, which partly explains why Tibetan do not eat fish. Tibetans believe that upon death, the body
retums to one of the elements - earth, air, fire, water, or wood. Water burial
is considered as a derivative of the celestial burial.
The Princess Wencheng musical show is really a grand show,
the stage is spectacular set in open air, complete with the palace in Chang’an
and the Potala palace in Lhasa. At one time we can see real horses running on a
highground at the back ground of the stage, and in other time we can see cows
and goats walking leisurely in the front part of the stage. The lighting system
is also spectacular, sun and moon appear together from the darkness, and the
waving huge cloths depicts the wild waves caused by hailstorm. The sound system
loud and clear vibrate the melodious traditional songs on stage, apparently they
use the most advanced sound technology. It is a wonderful marriage of a famous
legendary story with modern technology, staged on expertly-designed theater beside
a hilly mountain under the stars.
The story is about a marriage of two great cultures, Tibetan
and Tang dynasty. The story happened about 1300 years ago when Princess
Wencheng of the Tang Dynasty left Chang'an (Xi'an now) to marry Songtsen Gampo, king of Tibet.
Their marriage was aimed to maintain good relations between Tang empire and Tibet.
She and her entourage marched over 2,000 km from Chang’an to Lhasa, crossing
deserts, hailstorms, and snow-capped mountains.
In her journey Princess Wencheng brought a substantial
amount of dowry which contained not only
gold, but also grains, farming tools and technology to increase Tibetan
agricultural productivity. She also brought Buddhist scriptures and statues of
Buddha, among them was the golden
statue of 12-year-old Sakyamuni Buddha, now placed in Jokhang Temple.
There are many folk legends about Princess Wencheng’s
journey to Tibet which are depicted in the show. One of the legend tells about
‘the Sun and Moon mirror’, a precious mirror that the Tang Dynasty Emperor Gaozu
gave Princess Wencheng before she set off on her journey from Chang’an.
The mirror was said to let her see Chang'an and her
relatives from wherever she was. When the princess reached part of the Quilian
Mountain Range, an important thoroughfare to Tibet, she got out of her carriage
and looked around. It was cold and barren, she could only see snow capped
mountains, then she felt a surge of homesickness. She recalled the words of the
emperor when he gave her the mirror, ‘Whenever you miss your home, you only
need to look in this mirror to see us’. She took out the mirror to see her
hometown, but saw only her own tearful face. So, she threw the mirror down onto
the mountain. But then she continued her journey to the west as she knew she
had a duty to the two nations, and, resolving not to miss her country any more.
The mirror was broken in two pieces shaped like the moon and sun. From then on,
the mountain got its name, Riyue Mountain, the Sun and Moon Mountain.
The musical
of the historic marriage is performed by around 700 actors, showing a dazzling
array of traditional Tibetan dancing and singing, dressed in both traditional
Tibetan and Tang dynasty costumes.
The show is
performed every night, from spring to autumn, on about a 100 meter long huge
open air stage, in Bumpari.
The Buddhist religion is very important for Tibetan, and has
a strong influence over all aspects of their lives. We can feel it even we walk
in the main shopping district, Barkhor Street. "Barkhor" in Tibetan
means "Holy Path", as it has been the pathway for pilgrims. According
to Tibetan Buddhism, the pilgrims must walk in Barkhor Street in a clockwise circular
direction around the Jokhang Temple as to worship the figure of the Buddha inside
the temple.
More than that, walking on Barkhor Street is somewhat
different, it gives a mystical feeling. It has maintained the ancient original
style of Tibet buildings for almost 1,400 years. The whole street is paved by
stones alongside the exotic buildings. On the street, four large incense
burners in the four cardinal directions burning incense and aromatic plants
continuously, raising fragrant smokes into the air.
Everywhere in the Barkhor Street is filled with hustle and
bustle, we can hear the shouts of street vendors, and the chatting sounds of
visitors are mixed with the chanting rhymes of pilgrims. The shops and street
vendors offer prayer wheels, butter lamps, incense, turquoise, local meat and
other Tibetan traditional food. Also, we can find here Tibetan style house ornaments, cushions,
leather bags and handmade art wares.
We can notice that the traditional women in Tibet mostly
have long hair and most of time they braided the hair neatly and affix them
with ornaments. The arrangement of the hair indicates a woman’s social status,
the style of the region or tribe, but also reflect fashions of the time.
Generally, Tibetans believe that hair can serve as a
material support connected with prosperity. They didn't cut their hair from the
time they were born. But with the influence of modernity, shorter hair has become
the trend in Tibet. An increasing number of women often dye their hair in many
colors to follow the fashions of pop stars. We can find in Barkhor Street many
beauty parlours visited by young women whom are particular about hair fashion
and spent money for that. Our tour guide said: “It is a sign that Tibet is
opening the road to modern society."
Academically, Milton had established himself as an expert on
inflation and consumer behavior. He predicted in 1967 that a sustained period
of inflation would not drive down unemployment, directly contrary to the
mainstream view at the time. He predicted it correctly, in the period of 1973
of soaring inflation, unemployment in USA remained high, a phenomenon known as
stagflation, which was exactly what he had warned of.
I met this advocate of ‘liberal free market’ at his office
in his ‘home-base’ University of Chicago to talk about his visions on economy.
His personality and the nice smelling coffee helped warmed the cold and windy
weather of Chicago that day.
I said:
“As the leader of the Chicago school of economics, and the
winner of Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976, The Economist magazine described
you as ‘the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th
century...possibly of all of it.’ You strongly support the virtues of a free
market economic system with minimum government intervention. You even went as
far as writing an Op-ed in the New York Times that ‘The Social Responsibility of
Business Is to Increase Its Profits’, that there is one and only one social
responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities
designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the
game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception
or fraud. This is a very controversial statement, considering that in this recent
time, the trend is that corporates, especially the large ones, are encouraged
to accept broader social responsibility.”
Milton said:
“As I wrote in the New York Times, in a free‐enterprise,
private‐property system, a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of
the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That
responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires,
which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to
the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied
in ethical custom.
Of course, the corporate executive is also a person in his
own right. As a person, he may have many other responsibilities that he
recognizes or assumes voluntarily—to his family, his conscience, his feelings
of charity, his church, his clubs, his city, his country. If we wish, we may
refer to some of these responsibilities as ‘social responsibilities.’ But in
these respects he is acting as a principal, not an agent; he is spending his
own money or time or energy, not the money of his employers or the time or
energy he has contracted to devote to their purposes. If these are ‘social
responsibilities,’ they are the social responsibilities of individuals, not of
business.”
I said:
“In August 2019, the Business Roundtable, an organization
representing America’s largest corporations, issued a statement calling upon
all businesses to take greater responsibility for ensuring that the interests
of every stakeholder are addressed in corporate policy. The statement also said
that shareholders are not only concerned with short-term profits but long-term
profitability, and that an excessive focus on the former could damage the
latter.
And by 2018, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s
largest investment fund, expressed concern that the profits-at-all-cost model
of corporate enterprise was creating excessive social costs, particularly for
the environment, that were unsustainable. He pledged to use the voting power of
the trillions of dollars of shares he controlled to improve corporate social
responsibility.”
Milton said:
“The newer phenomenon of calling upon stockholders to
require corporations to exercise social responsibility, in most of these cases,
what is in effect involved is some stockholders trying to get other
stockholders, or customers or employees, to contribute against their will to ‘social’
causes favored by the activists. Insofar as they succeed, they are imposing
taxes and spending the proceeds. They are in effect imposing taxes, on the one
hand, and deciding how the tax proceeds shall be spent, on the other. This
process raises political questions on two levels: principle and consequences.
On the level of political principle, the imposition of taxes and the
expenditure of tax proceeds are governmental functions.
I said:
“Adam Smith famously remarked: ‘It is not from the benevolence
of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from
their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity
but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of
their advantages'. We are not in business to serve public goods let alone to
perform altruistic deeds; we need to provide for ourselves and our families. In
business, both parties need to benefit, the one who sells the bread and the one
who buys it. In this sense it is our gain that there are bakers, butchers and
brewers attending to their own interests, as ultimately that serves our
interests best.”
Milton said:
“Self-interest is not myopic selfishness. It is whatever it
is that interests the participants, whatever they value, whatever goals they
pursue. The scientist seeking to advance the frontiers of his discipline, the
missionary seeking to convert infidels to the true faith, the philanthropist
seeking to bring comfort to the needy - all are pursuing their interests, as
they see them, as they judge them by their own value.
The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate
interests… The record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no
alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people
that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a
free enterprise system.”
I said:
“Nevertheless, self-interest and profit motive frequently
gone badly off track, as we experience in Lehman Brothers case in 2008. Soon
after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and global markets panicked, the
stock market collapsed. The Federal Reserve provided $9 trillion of emergency
loans to banks, and nationalized the nation’s largest insurance company, AIG.”
Milton said:
“First, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn’t
run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t
run on greed? What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy. It’s only the
other fellow who’s greedy.
The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate
interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government
bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat.
Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only
cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty, the
only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely
free trade.
If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it’s exactly
in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history
is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far
discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people.
In economy a whole lot of things can go wrong as Adam Smith
said: ‘There is much ruin in a nation’ and government can mess things up in
many ways, but the desire to better ourselves can still make markets work.”
I said:
“Gordon Gecko in the movie Wall Street said: ‘ greed – for
lack of a better word – is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies,
cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in
all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked
the upward surge of mankind.’
So may I ask you whether capitalism is good from morality
point of view?”
Milton said:
“The problem with that is in moral values are individual,
they are not collective. Moral values have to do with what each of us
separately believes in holds true. What our own individual values are:
capitalism, socialism, central planning our means, not ends they in and of
themselves. They need a more alluring world, humane or humility in human. We
have to ask what are their results?
The degree of social injustice and torture in a place like
in incarceration in a place like Russia is of a different order of magnitude
than it is in those Western countries where most of us have grown up and in
which we have been accustomed to.
Where do you have the greatest degree of inequality in the
world? In Soviet Union enormous inequality in the immediate literal sense that
there is a small select group that has all of the services and amenities of
life and very large masses that are in a very, very low standard of living. Indeed,
in a more direct way, if you take the wage rate of foremen versus the wage rate
of ordinary workers in the Soviet Union, the ratio is much greater than it is
in the United States.
China, too, is a nation with wide differences in income,
between the politically powerful and the rest; between city and countryside;
between some workers in the cities and other workers.
Capitalism, on the other hand, is a system of organization
that relies on private property and voluntary exchange. It has repelled people,
it’s driven them away from supporting it because they have thought it
emphasized self-interest in a narrow way, because they were repelled by the
idea of people pursuing their own interests rather than some broader interest. Yet
if you look at the results, it’s clear that the results go the other way
around.
If you had both freedom and prosperity, the greatest
measures of freedom, if you look at the Western countries where freedom
prevails. There has been more social justice and less inequality. So has
capitalism succeeded despite the immoral values that pervade it? The results
have arisen because each system, capitalism and socialism, has been true to its
own values, or rather the system doesn’t have values.
What we’re concerned with in discussing moral values here
are those that have to do with the relations between people. It is important to
distinguish between two sets of moral considerations, the morality that is
relevant to each of us in our private life. How we, each individually conduct
ourselves, behave and then what’s relevant to systems of government and
organization.”
I said:
“Over the past decades China’s has yielded steady progress
in economic growth and development. While most observers agree the pace of
transformation in China has been extraordinary, some remain concerned about the
increasing income inequality. However China claimed that the gap is closing as
rural income rises in China.”
Milton said:
“In late 1979, I was astonished when I received an official
invitation to visit China. This was a
phenomenon that I find almost literally incredible, and I quickly accepted it.
I and my wife Rose arrived in China in 1980. The trip was a struggle from the
start. The general impression on walking or driving down the streets is one of
drabness and dullness and dirt. Almost the only place there is light and beauty
and cleanliness and variety is on the stage.
This poor socialist country invited me, of all people, to
provide economic advice on inflation. I delivered four lectures on topics such
as “the mystery of money” and “the Western world in the 1980s” to an audience
of officials and scholars. I dismissed the idea that inflation appeared only in
capitalist societies. Inflation was neither innately ‘capitalist’ nor ‘communist’.
Instead, government itself was the root cause of inflation, which could be
cured only by ‘free private markets’.
I said:
“How did the audience receive your lectures?”
Milton said:
“They seemed completely unaware of my commitment to the free
market. To the Chinese economists these
ideas were radical. In a society that had not yet accepted free private markets,
this approach was unacceptable. A Chinese researcher mentioned ‘the internal
contradictions of capitalism’, a standard Marxist phrase about the widening gap
between the income of the owner and the labor. I asserted that there were no
such contradictions, and gave my observations about Marx’s incorrect
predictions about the future of capitalist development. And I said it is a fact
that ordinary people would always live better in capitalist countries than in
socialist countries.
I said:
“Then you were invited again to China in 1988, for what
occasion?”
Milton said:
“The occasion was a conference on economic reform hosted in
Shanghai by the Cato Institute and Fudan University. I advocated the widest
possible use of not the market but ‘free, private markets’. The words ‘free’
and ‘private’ are more important than the word ‘market’. Every society, whether
communist, socialist, or whatever you will, uses the market. Rather, the crucial
distinction is private property or no private property. Who are the
participants, government bureaucrats who are operating on behalf of something
called the state? Or are they individuals operating directly or indirectly on
their own behalf?
In China, the substantial freeing of many prices,
particularly those of agricultural and similar goods, has not been accompanied
by the privatization of the banking system. As I understand it, the Chinese
government indirectly determines what happens to the money supply through the
credits it grants state enterprises. The results include a rapid increase in
the quantity of money and, not surprisingly, a rapid upward pressure on prices,
so that inflation, both open and repressed, has reared its ugly head.”
I said :
“In the trip’s most dramatic development, you received word
that Zhao Ziyang the Communist Party General Secretary had requested to meet
with you. What did you discuss?”
Milton said:
“Zhao laid out the challenges facing China’s economy, what
they intended to do in carrying the reform further was to reduce the number of
prices that are under the dual-track system and state control. However, just as
they were ready to go a step further toward price reform, they were faced with
difficult problems, especially sizable inflation. He asked my assessment of the
effects of inflation. Can the people take such a shock, both economically and
psychologically? Then he raised an even more fundamental question: ‘Why did
inflation occur in China?’
I pointed to the dual-track system as one cause of inflation
because it produced so many inefficiencies in the economy, from queuing to
shortages, and pumped up prices in the sectors that were open to the market
forces of supply and demand. I was similarly dismissive of other ‘halfway’measures
that delayed what I saw as the only real solution: full privatization and
marketization.
The conversation continued, touching on proposed reforms to
exchange rates, state-owned enterprise management, and the central government’s
authority over the economy. Zhao begged me to understand China’s special
circumstances: without a developed banking system, China could not tighten the
money supply to control inflation, as the U.S. Federal Reserve does. But I continued
to push for immediate, sweeping market reforms. After nearly two hours of
heated exchanges, we ended the conversation with no consensus on the best path
for China.”
I said:
“Even so, you were welcomed back to China in 1993 for
official meetings. How did you see China that time?”
Milton said:
“Traveling to Shanghai and Beijing I was astonished at the
rapid pace of development in China. At the end of the trip, I returned to the
Great Hall of the People, the site of my fateful encounter with Zhao Ziyang, to
meet with China’s new president, Jiang Zemin. He delivered what I perceived as
a canned speech about the successes and challenges of the Chinese economy, and
the meeting ended quickly. I conjecture that Jiang Zemin did not really want to
hear what we had to say.”
I said:
“Thank you Milton for this great interview.”
THE END
This is an imaginary interview in memory of Milton Friedman.
