It was at least over a decade ago that I happened to be standing on a platform at a National Real Estate Conference with several other speakers during a question-and-answer period. The issue of the Soviet Union came up and there was continued discussion about the Soviet Union and where it was headed. Quite honestly, I was relatively shocked that the general psyche of the several thousand people at that conference didn’t recognize that the game was over. The Cold War was at an end, and “we won.” When I say we, of course, I’m referring to the almost indisputable precept of most human conduct: People operate out of their own self-interest. I wrote an article about that for the American Cash Flow Journal® some time ago.
Despite western civilization’s writers who emerged out of the Locke and Rousseau traditions of rationalism and the natural order, the basic legal principle of private property is premised upon the concept of self-interest. When you are entitled to own something, you are going to work for it, fight for it, and make it better. If you can’t get your arms around it — take ownership of it — the chances of your going the extra mile to do anything other than putting in time are slim to none.
I happened to be thinking about that same thought in early March of this past year when I read an article sent out by the Associated Press indicating that Communist China is actually changing its constitution to embrace private property rights for the very first time since the 1949 revolution. China’s parliament was beginning to meet in their annual session to endorse the change, which had already been approved by the Communist Party leaders who tout privatization as the way to continue the country’s revolution and help tens of millions of poor Chinese.
As I read that article, a couple of thoughts ran through my mind.
First, the expansion of what turned out for Russia to be its return to a view of property rights and private ownership continues into China.
Second, with the ex-Soviet satellites emerging as enterprise-driven countries of their own, Russia itself going through a transformation, and this new Chinese attitude, it is pretty obvious that private property and respect for it as a way of life is relatively secure, at least for several hundred more years.
Third, with the free enterprise emergence of China and the power of the Chinese population, ingenuity, and intelligence, the United States will probably never have a more formidable competitor than China within the next decade. Take all developed countries together — including the United States and those in Europe, and South America — and all of them combined do not add up to the pure, raw potential of the output China is capable of when all of its resources are directed to the capitalistic end.
And fourth, economic order is in everybody’s best interest, irrespective of competition. Think about it for a second. While the United States continues to bash politicians because of the movement toward outsourcing and the proverbial “loss of jobs,” what may be a migration of jobs from the United States moves other nations toward the very system that produces wages and a standard of living that we take for granted in the United States. Because of those outsourcing opportunities, workforces abroad improve, employers move in, and standards of living reflect westernized lifestyle expectations most nations have lived without. In seizing a piece of the pie, whole countries return to a level franchisement.
So as we think about these trends on a global state, it’s always appropriate for us to recognize the opportunities implicit not only for our own business but also for the country as a whole.