There has been recent criticism of US business leaders who give in to pressure from the Chinese government. JP Morgan’s CEO recently apologized for making an innocuous joke about the Chinese Communist Party. Here’s another example of a controversial statement:
The billionaire investor Ray Dalio likened China’s move to banish private citizens from the public eye to that of a “strict parent.”
And here’s the Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Musk’s response to the pressure has been to become a high-profile cheerleader of China’s ruling Communist Party, in sharp contrast to his renegade persona in the U.S., where he has clashed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and mocked President Biden in tweets, once calling him a labor union sock puppet.
“The economic prosperity that China has achieved is truly amazing, especially in infrastructure!” Mr. Musk tweeted when the party celebrated its centenary on July 1.
Actually, this isn’t a particularly good example. Musk’s comment is technically false; China is less than half as rich as other East Asia economies such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore. But let’s assume that Musk meant something like:
The economic growth that China has achieved since 1980 is truly amazing, especially in infrastructure!
Then I would agree with him. Indeed I’ve made similar comments. But this would not represent praise of the CCP; indeed China is much poorer than many of its neighbors precisely because it has been ruled by the CCP since 1949.
Business leaders remind me of tenured college professors unfairly attacked by woke fanatics. Both will occasionally react shamefully when false accusations are made against them, responding with abject apologies that are obviously insincere. You might argue that this behavior is understandable, as they have a lot to lose. Of course it’s understandable, if it were not understandable then it would not be shameful. It is understandable because they are clearly placing personal advantage ahead of ethical values, and that’s also why it is shameful. I might do the same if under sufficiently intense pressure. If I did, I would feel ashamed.
Public criticism of shameful behavior is appropriate when the gains from insincere apologies are modest relative to the person’s wealth or position. How much more money does a billionaire need? How much more job security does a tenured professor in the US need? On the other hand, can you blame a Chinese professor for issuing a forced apology during the Chinese Cultural Revolution? Or even in today’s China? What is the alternative?
PS. Don’t view this post as a blanket endorsement of everything Elon Musk has said. (Some of his tweets are questionable, to put it mildly.) While I don’t agree with how the WSJ interpreted the aforementioned comment, Musk may well have been excessively supportive of the CCP in other comments.
READER COMMENTS
David Henderson
Dec 5 2021 at 2:34pm
How is Musk’s comment “technically false?” He didn’t say that China has the highest GDP per capita of the Asian countries. All he said, at least all that you quoted, is that China’s prosperity is truly amazing.
Scott Sumner
Dec 5 2021 at 7:15pm
It’s hard for me to believe Musk intended to say that a country as poor as Mexico is amazingly prosperous. I am pretty sure he was referring to their growth rate. But you are correct that I cannot be sure that this is what he intended.
I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Todd Kreider
Dec 5 2021 at 7:38pm
Then again, in 2000, China’s GDP per capita (PPP) was the same as Zimbabwe’s today: $2,700. To go from there to Mexico in twenty year sounds like an economic prosperity achievement to me.
Chris
Dec 6 2021 at 8:08am
@Todd – that’s economic growth (as Scott said) not economic prosperity.
Todd Kreider
Dec 6 2021 at 9:31am
I think a great majority of Chinese or Zimbabwean would consider moving from $2,700 per person on average to $18,000 per person, “prosperity”.
David Henderson
Dec 6 2021 at 2:10pm
Good point.
Warren Platts
Dec 5 2021 at 4:17pm
I wonder if Musk would move his SpaceX business to the PRC if they offered him enough subsidies to go to Mars. He reminds me of Sturmbannführer von Braun who literally didn’t care who launched his rockets as long as they got launched.
Scott Sumner
Dec 5 2021 at 7:17pm
I’m no fan of Elon Musk, but this is a ridiculous comparison.
MikeP
Dec 5 2021 at 9:20pm
Are the business leaders speaking as individual billionaires? Or are they speaking as officers in companies with a fiduciary duty to their shareholders?
It is hard to tell. Yes, these leaders have a say in the policies of their companies. But they are also liable to be sued or fired if they act or speak against the interests of their companies as companies.
I am not taking sides on the moral question here. There are, of course, other examples of business leaders taking immoral stances. For example, it is immoral for companies not to hire someone solely because he or she does not have an employment visa. As another example, it is immoral for companies to pursue patents that bring the power of the state against others’ innovations.
Indeed, I believe that any billionaire or other company officer who publicly supports or participates in the abrogation of rights represented by the state’s pursuit of minimizing COVID beyond those restrictions obviously supported on consequentialist or utilitarian grounds is behaving immorally.
Is praising totalitarian China worse than any or all of these? Meh. I understand them all, but I would be hard-pressed to call them shameful.
Matthias
Dec 6 2021 at 1:28am
I’m not quite sure how you can fault companies for not hiring foreign people who lack the right to work?
It’s a shame that governments restricts people’s right to work like this, but businesses are not charities. What are they supposed to do with that hire?
MikeP
Dec 6 2021 at 1:56am
They do not lack the right to work. They have the right to work. The individual right to work precedes and preexists any government powers to abrogate it. They merely lack the entitlement to work.
I didn’t understand the second point. In my hypothetical, the company wants to hire the prospect but doesn’t because the prospect is banned from residing in the country or banned from working in in the country. No charity is involved.
BC
Dec 5 2021 at 10:42pm
The reference to Chinese professors (or other nationals for that matter) is apt. Those people are truly under duress. In comparison, US executives are among the most well off in perhaps the most prosperous society in human history. They face pressure to apologize for the CCP — “for” is more appropriate than “to” — in the same sense that AOC’s generation has allegedly never known prosperity. Ditto for certain NBA athletes and Hollywood celebrities.
BC
Dec 5 2021 at 10:58pm
Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter Freedom represents a nice contrast to other NBA players and business executives. He faces the exact same “pressures” from the CCP as other NBA players but somehow is able to overcome it. Perhaps because he grew up in authoritarian Turkey, he understands that the so-called pressure that the CCP exerts on NBA players is not true pressure. NBA players (and coaches and executives) will be fine no matter how many telecasts the Chinese government blocks. He also understands the oppression and suffering that the Chinese and Turkish governments impose on their own people well enough to know how immoral it is to aid those governments.
Matthias
Dec 6 2021 at 1:30am
Not sure what you mean by growing up in authoritarian Turkey? The current strongman has only been in power for about twenty years, and only really got enough power to be authoritarian in perhaps the last dozen years or so.
BC
Dec 7 2021 at 3:14am
You may be right. Kanter Freedom’s firsthand experience with tyranny may not date back to his childhood. The current regime has reached him through his family, who remain in Turkey: [https://www.vox.com/world/2019/11/13/20941804/enes-kanter-nba-turkey-erdogan]. (Kanter Freedom also faces personal threats, especially when he travels outside the US, but even from Erdogan supporters within the US.)
Lizard Man
Dec 5 2021 at 11:19pm
Is it shameful for business people to suck up to governments in order to make money? I thought that was the whole raisin d’être of business people (making money). It is like criticizing a wolf for the sharpness of their teeth.
Matthias
Dec 6 2021 at 1:33am
Well, there are two answers to that.
First, business people still have some duties other than to the company. Ie we wouldn’t want them to go around murdering people, even if for some technical loophole it would be legal, eve if it wouldn’t impact the bottom line.
Second, business people do care about public opinion, or the opinion of customers, potential employees or investors. See eg all the green washing.
So expressing an opinion here might play into these two factors.
Scott Sumner
Dec 6 2021 at 1:51am
Lizard Man, You said:
“Is it shameful for business people to suck up to governments in order to make money? I thought that was the whole raisin d’être of business people (making money).”
Making money is a goal of business, but obviously not the only goal. If it were, then there would be literally no profitable activity that could be condemned on moral grounds. No one believes that. Where to draw the line is debatable, but there surely is a line somewhere.
Some people can sleep like a baby after kowtowing to the CCP, and some cannot.
Phil H
Dec 7 2021 at 10:38am
No, I don’t think this holds up. All you quote in the post is Musk saying something nice about China (I don’t go on Twitter much, so I don’t know if he’s said anything other than that). That’s not kowtowing. You can be perfectly cognisant of the Chinese governtment/CPC’s sins and still think that (a) good things have happened in China; (b) the Chinese government and/or CPC did some of those things; and (c) those things are worth talking about.
China discourse is filled with virtue signalling (because it’s so empty of information). One of the dullest bits of virtue signalling is that before anyone can have a conversation about anything, we have to say, “Of course, I know the Chinese government is terrible blah blah Xinjiang blah blah freedom of speech blah blah…” Once that’s done, the conversation can begin.
Now, I’m a PC/woke/progressive type, and I believe in virtue signalling! So I mouth those platitudes when necessary. But platitudes is all they are, 99.9% of the time. And if Elon Musk skips them sometimes when he tweets, it really doesn’t mean anything.
Finally, as you know 20% of the world “kowtows” to the CPC every day of our lives, and we sleep just fine. My family and I have got to live, so we live, by whatever rules we have to.
Scott Sumner
Dec 7 2021 at 12:48pm
Did you read the post? I said Musk did not kowtow to the Chinese.
Phil H
Dec 8 2021 at 4:06am
Sorry, you’re right. I managed to confuse myself in the course of writing the comment.
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