one very conventional assertion is that free markets and political freedom go together naturally, so that, for example, china's capitalist economy is in tension with its repressive politics and will lead to the latter's destruction. sebastian mallaby puts that point as follows on today's waspost op-ed page:
Google's answer to the China dilemma is better, and more subtle, than that of other Internet firms. It does not simply assert that engagement with China is always good. It recognizes the arms race between China's repressive state power and China's liberating economic growth, and it accepts the conclusion that follows: Some forms of engagement hasten liberal trends; others empower jailers.
the relation has always been far more complex and probblematic than that and is now merely false. the growth of the american economy and its dominance of the world has coincided with a massive increase in the state sector, a massive increase in regulations, and is now beginning to comport perfectly well with an atmosphere of repression and limitations on liberties. if you think the us is a laissez-faire economy or an unproblematic democracy, you're tripping. in fact, the unification of money and political power is shown by the emblem of abramoff but in a billion ways, here and there. there is no reason a centralized state apparatus cannot preside indefinitely over an economic expansion given certain positive conditions, and for god's sake you should by now be wiling to draw the obvious conclusion that that has happened in china for thirty years and shows no signs of abating. in other words, the connection of political and economic liberty is an ideology and a faith and is contradicted all the time by experience.
