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.
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