Contra John Lennon In 1980, The Chinese Are Eating. Let's Celebrate It
NEW YORK - CIRCA 1973: Former Beatle John Lennon poses for a photo circa 1973 in New York City, New ... More York. (Photo by)
John Lennon recorded 'Nobody Told Me' on August 7, 1980. In the song he famously told listeners 'They're starving back in China so finish what you got.'
It was recently reported that since the 1980s, 800 million Chinese have risen out of poverty. Stop and think about that, particularly in relation to Lennon's lyrics.
While today there are 5,500 McDonald's in China, in 1980 there were none. The first China-based store opened in October of 1990. The Chinese are eating.
While communism is the ideology of desperation, and per Lennon, starvation, its antithesis is the stuff of abundance. McDonald's everywhere you look abundance. Because China used to be communist, food used to be scarce. That food isn't scarce now tells us China is no longer communist.
Really, what else could rising acquisitiveness (including a particular fondness for American plenty) signal? Unless the Chinese people are superhuman such that they're uniquely capable of overcoming collectivism, it must be said that collectivism long ago ceased to define the Chinese experience.
This is a useful distinction to make as politicians and pundits in the U.S. continue to attack Chinese businesses for having the temerity to operate like – yes – profit-motivated American businesses. For the longest time Americans yearned for China to leave communism behind, only for the country to do just that.
Evidence supporting the claim that China has tossed communism in the proverbial dustbin can be found in the growing number of businesses that have originated in China, only to expand globally. Think SHEIN, Temu, Baidu, Alibaba, MYbank, TikTok, and countless others not mentioned along with even more on the way.
What we're seeing in China is proof of what we Americans have long believed: when people are free, they prosper. The previous truth is almost trite it's so simple, but true it is. The Chinese weren't formerly desperately poor and starving because they lacked talent or drive, but because an unnatural, anti-human ideology was foisted on them in cruel fashion.
Thankfully once again China is no longer communist. No doubt its ruling political party is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but the name no longer fits the ideology. Though the CCP oversees China, it now oversees a market economy.
Yes, the CCP is no longer communist. Things have changed because views do. Americans know this well. A Republican Party long associated with free trade and reverence for business increasingly embraces tariffs while attacking the best and brightest of U.S. commerce. The change in the Republican party not infrequently reveals itself in its support for the political harassment of businesses with Chinese origins that are prospering in the U.S.
The explanation used for the persecution of Chinese businesses is their 'mandated allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party.' It's just a veiled excuse for protectionism, one that glosses over the happy fact that the Chinese Communist Party is no longer communist. See the 800 million who've escaped poverty since Lennon recorded 'Nobody Told Me.'
Lennon's words have a dated quality to them precisely because the Chinese are eating. And they're eating because China is no longer communist. Let's celebrate this truth, rather than harassing and banning the businesses that confirm it.
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