China Seminar Post 3: The Real Wealth of Nations

            During one of our several university visits the lecturing professor gave us a particularly unique and memorable talk.  The typical speech we’d receive in these lectures tended to involve an economic lesson about some area that was growing such as how the city was planning to develop their infrastructure in this or that industry, or how 300 million people had migrated from rural areas to the cities, or how income has risen dramatically in the past several decades since the late 1970s.  This one, in particular, took a much more philosophical slant. 

            Professor Zhang Yu from Shanghai University spoke to us his philosophy about the reason that a country develops or does not develop.  Having grown up and been educated in an overtly Communist state, he learned that there was strength in unity of thought and belief.  He learned that the government was the benevolent institution to pass down those thoughts and beliefs for the good of the people.  But as he grew older and began to read independently (philosophers like David Hume), he came to a different conclusion.  He began to realize, as he told us, that the government cannot be the entity to oversee all aspects of life.  He told us that if the government controls thought and belief, then creativity and dynamism of the populace will be squelched, and a nation will be cursed with an inability to move forward.  As he said progress cannot be legislated, so he said that the power to transform a nation lies in the minds of its people.  Free thought emanating from the minds of free people is how society can evolve and change for the better.  So this brought him to his terminal point.  These days, those in governance over China’s cities and provinces put so much emphasis on how much is being exported, or how big the country’s GDP is from year to year.  This results in a measure of success being confused for success itself.  In reality, however, the true wealth of a nation is its people.  That country is rich which is blessed with free thinkers, tinkerers, and an environment conducive to the germination and sharing of ideas.