Friday, August 29, 2003
Freedom's in 2nd Place?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
ARAPCHIV, Ukraine — This is the story of two villages, half a world apart. One is this hamlet in southern Ukraine, where my roots lie. The other is my wife's ancestral village, in the Taishan area of Guangdong Province in southern China.
In the late 1980's and early 1990's, the two countries took diametrically opposite paths. Ukraine and most other constituents of the deceased Soviet Union giddily held presidential elections and pronounced themselves democracies, while China massacred protesters demanding more freedom and democracy.
I wish I could say that free elections pay better dividends than massacres. But, although it hurts to say so, in this case it looks the other way around.
Here in Karapchiv, villagers are reasonably free to say what they like about their leaders, but Ukraine is further than ever from having the broad middle class that normally sustains a healthy democracy. There are no jobs, some peasants spend their entire day leading a cow around on a rope to graze, and Karapchiv lacks any factory to take advantage of labor that can cost as little as $1 a day.
In contrast, my wife's village is bustling, along with the rest of Guangdong. Factories have sprouted everywhere, and teenagers brandish cellphones the way they used to wave Mao's "Little Red Book."
Since 1989, when the Soviet Union opened fire on Communism and China opened fire on its citizens, China's economy has tripled in size — and Ukraine's has shrunk by half.
Even in Russia, according to Izvestia, 40 percent of the people can't afford toothpaste; in Karapchiv, many can't afford toilet paper and make do with newspapers (which to me seems sacrilegious). Meanwhile, prospering China has become a global center for cosmetic surgery.
I was as outraged as anyone that Chinese troops massacred hundreds of protesters to destroy the Tiananmen democracy movement. But China's long economic boom has cut child mortality rates so much since 1990 that an additional 195,000 children under the age of 5 survive each year.
Does this mean that the Chinese are better off for having had their students shot? No, of course not. But it does mean that authoritarian orderliness is sometimes more conducive to economic growth than democratic chaos.
For example, two of the nastiest and least reformed countries in the former Soviet empire are Belarus and Uzbekistan. As an excellent (and somewhat rueful) World Bank report on the ex-Soviet Union's first decade notes, those are also the two countries that best weathered the post-Communist recessions.
As I compare Karapchiv with my wife's village, though, it seems to me that the best explanation for the different paths of China and the former Soviet Union is not policy but culture. I'm sure I'll regret saying this, but there really is something to the caricature that if you put two Americans in a room together, they'll sue each other; put two Japanese in a room together, and they'll start apologizing to each other; two Chinese will do business; and two Ukrainians or Russians will sit down over a bottle of liquor.
The moment the Chinese government began to debate the future of the communes more than two decades ago, peasants in Guangdong took matters into their own hands and divided up the land to farm their own plots. In contrast, even today the old Kristof farmland in Karapchiv is still part of a state farm, run by Petro Makarchuk, an amiable director in a white shirt over a potbelly; he still insists that state farms are the way to go.
Most farmers in Karapchiv do now farm their own plots, but some, like Vasyl Hutsul, have remained in the local collective farm. "I'm just waiting for my retirement pension," he explained, with a lassitude and complacency that one rarely sees in Guangdong.
Our old family home is now a school, and the principal, Anatoly Marianchuk, fretted about the lack of initiative to start new capitalist ventures. "It's a question of psychology," he said moodily. "The old system is breaking down, but slowly."
Ultimately, after my visit here, I still don't feel I fully understand why China has done so well and the former Soviet Union so poorly. But I am filled with one overpowering emotion: I'm so grateful to my father, and to my wife's grandparents, for leaving behind all that was familiar to them in two villages half a world apart, and thus bequeathing us the gift of America.
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
ARAPCHIV, Ukraine — This is the story of two villages, half a world apart. One is this hamlet in southern Ukraine, where my roots lie. The other is my wife's ancestral village, in the Taishan area of Guangdong Province in southern China.
In the late 1980's and early 1990's, the two countries took diametrically opposite paths. Ukraine and most other constituents of the deceased Soviet Union giddily held presidential elections and pronounced themselves democracies, while China massacred protesters demanding more freedom and democracy.
I wish I could say that free elections pay better dividends than massacres. But, although it hurts to say so, in this case it looks the other way around.
Here in Karapchiv, villagers are reasonably free to say what they like about their leaders, but Ukraine is further than ever from having the broad middle class that normally sustains a healthy democracy. There are no jobs, some peasants spend their entire day leading a cow around on a rope to graze, and Karapchiv lacks any factory to take advantage of labor that can cost as little as $1 a day.
In contrast, my wife's village is bustling, along with the rest of Guangdong. Factories have sprouted everywhere, and teenagers brandish cellphones the way they used to wave Mao's "Little Red Book."
Since 1989, when the Soviet Union opened fire on Communism and China opened fire on its citizens, China's economy has tripled in size — and Ukraine's has shrunk by half.
Even in Russia, according to Izvestia, 40 percent of the people can't afford toothpaste; in Karapchiv, many can't afford toilet paper and make do with newspapers (which to me seems sacrilegious). Meanwhile, prospering China has become a global center for cosmetic surgery.
I was as outraged as anyone that Chinese troops massacred hundreds of protesters to destroy the Tiananmen democracy movement. But China's long economic boom has cut child mortality rates so much since 1990 that an additional 195,000 children under the age of 5 survive each year.
Does this mean that the Chinese are better off for having had their students shot? No, of course not. But it does mean that authoritarian orderliness is sometimes more conducive to economic growth than democratic chaos.
For example, two of the nastiest and least reformed countries in the former Soviet empire are Belarus and Uzbekistan. As an excellent (and somewhat rueful) World Bank report on the ex-Soviet Union's first decade notes, those are also the two countries that best weathered the post-Communist recessions.
As I compare Karapchiv with my wife's village, though, it seems to me that the best explanation for the different paths of China and the former Soviet Union is not policy but culture. I'm sure I'll regret saying this, but there really is something to the caricature that if you put two Americans in a room together, they'll sue each other; put two Japanese in a room together, and they'll start apologizing to each other; two Chinese will do business; and two Ukrainians or Russians will sit down over a bottle of liquor.
The moment the Chinese government began to debate the future of the communes more than two decades ago, peasants in Guangdong took matters into their own hands and divided up the land to farm their own plots. In contrast, even today the old Kristof farmland in Karapchiv is still part of a state farm, run by Petro Makarchuk, an amiable director in a white shirt over a potbelly; he still insists that state farms are the way to go.
Most farmers in Karapchiv do now farm their own plots, but some, like Vasyl Hutsul, have remained in the local collective farm. "I'm just waiting for my retirement pension," he explained, with a lassitude and complacency that one rarely sees in Guangdong.
Our old family home is now a school, and the principal, Anatoly Marianchuk, fretted about the lack of initiative to start new capitalist ventures. "It's a question of psychology," he said moodily. "The old system is breaking down, but slowly."
Ultimately, after my visit here, I still don't feel I fully understand why China has done so well and the former Soviet Union so poorly. But I am filled with one overpowering emotion: I'm so grateful to my father, and to my wife's grandparents, for leaving behind all that was familiar to them in two villages half a world apart, and thus bequeathing us the gift of America.
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