Wen Yang: It is a matter of national importance, let the free market party go away

Wen Yang: It is a matter of national importance, let the free market party go away. It is difficult to know clearly what public opinion in Japan is about the tension surrounding the Diaoyu Islands. Chinese people…

Wen Yang: It is a major national issue, let the free market party go away. It is difficult to know clearly what the public opinion in Japan is about the tension surrounding the Diaoyu Islands. The day of the Chinese non-governmental Diaoyu Islands defenders coincided with Japan’s August 15th anniversary of the end of the war, and it also coincided with South Korea’s high-profile declaration of sovereignty over Dokdo. The multiple entanglements of history and reality, it is not difficult to imagine the complicated emotions of the Japanese. But in any case, it is still unimaginable that Japanese scholars would say something like this: Diaoyu Island is an uninhabited island with no GDP and no tax revenue. Whether or not it exists on the earth will not have the slightest impact on any country or people. But politicians and diplomats discovered that this was a good opportunity to cause trouble, use people's tax dollars to create trouble, and were busy in a pretentious manner. In fact, it is for my own professional interests. This is what they eat. The day they truly care about the people, the world will be at peace. Zao For a long time, I have not been afraid to speculate on certain liberal scholars in China at the lowest level, but unfortunately, their remarks still repeatedly challenge the bottom line of basic intelligence. As we all know, the above remarks are exactly what Mr. Mao Yushi, one of the representatives of China’s Free Market Party and director of the Beijing Unize Economic Research Institute, expressed on Weibo on the Diaoyu Islands issue. This reminds me of what Zhang Weiying, another representative of the Free Market Party, professor of economics at the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University and chief economist of the China Entrepreneurs Forum, said about the Opium War during his recent visit to London: We often refer to the Western countries at that time as "great powers," which refers to both their power and their bandits. Indeed, the door of China was opened by these "robbers" with "strong ships and powerful guns". But as far as I understand, these great powers originally came to China hoping to engage in trade and exchanges according to the logic of the market, and did not want to conquer China with the logic of bandits. If the people in power in China at that time could understand the logic of the market, comply with the general trend of globalization, proactively open up the door, reform the system, and have a suitable diplomatic strategy, China would not only not need to cede territory and pay compensation, but also fully expect to be on an equal footing with the great powers, as Japan's experience shows. But we rejected the logic of the market and were finally conquered by the logic of bandits. From this, we have the 200 years of Chinese history as we know it now. Perhaps motivated by their own right to speak, these economists who are seriously absent from history classes especially like to talk about history. They are obsessed with the belief that by relying on the few "principles" in economics textbooks, they can directly access all areas of human society and all problems in human history. Just like Zhang Weiying believed that China's modern history could be rewritten using the "market logic way of thinking", Mao Yushi also seriously believed that thousands of years of Chinese history could be rewritten using the "people's interests" way of thinking when talking about the evaluation of traitors and national heroes. Listening to this group of economists talk about history is almost like "watching the Chinese men's football team play". At this point, it is no longer meaningful to seriously refute their arguments point by point. Increasingly, the question comes down to this: where does the right to speak come from for these economists to talk about big issues beyond their understanding? Mathematicians know that they don’t understand politics, so they won’t talk about international politics seriously. Physicists know that they don’t understand history, so they won’t talk about Chinese history in a serious way. However, the scope of their knowledge does not exceed that of natural scientists. How can economists talk about all issues in such a serious and serious manner? In Western academia, this is not the case. Free market economists have encountered serious doubts about the excessive "economic animal" hypothesis of human beings, the "false accuracy" that has long been criticized by Keynes, and the huge corrosion caused by the so-called "market logic" to human society. However, why are they still so strongly insisted on and promoted in China, and have been widely regarded as classic theories by some popular scholars for a long time? Free speech is not a good defense here. The famous American thinker Tony Jult wrote in his 2010 book: "No one today can seriously claim that there is any residue of the so-called 'efficient market hypothesis.' The older generation of free-market economists once pointed out that the myth of socialist planning is that it requires a kind of perfect knowledge of the present and the future that mortals never have. They were right. But it seems that the same situation applies to market theorists: they do not know everything, and it turns out that they actually know nothing." When Chinese economists such as Mao Yushi and Zhang Weiying tried to express their views on historical and national issues from the standpoint of "market logic", people finally discovered that they actually knew nothing. Stop causing trouble. There is a saying called "war, let the women go away." When the war over the Diaoyu Islands is looming, it can also be said now: it is a major matter of the country, let the free market party go away.