Friedman is a Joke

Friedman has offered up more sophomoric musings on China. China lacks trust, according to Friedman.

Francis Fukuyama wrote a book touching on this topic ages ago, but I suppose Friedman will want credit as co-discoverer of China's trust deficiency.

Friedman argues that China hasn't always been a low trust society. He's mistaken. Trust in China has never extended much beyond the family. In southern China clans based on fictive kinship were formed to address this problems, and the occupants of a village often would assume a single family name. Still, such extended networks of trust were always treated with suspicion.

Friedman suffers from the delusion that the private sector can create the trust necessary for innovation. I find his thesis suspect. Alibaba provides a valuable service. Innovation, however, depends on innovators being guaranteed rewards. The state can provide these rewards by offering bounties or granting monopolies through patents or copyrights. A company like Alibaba can't.

There is no easy fix.