In an earlier academic life, before Aidan turned me toward philosophy, I studied and wrote about China’s Special Economic Zones, of which Shenzhen is the largest and most important.  My work focused on the origins and early development of the zones, a fairly dated topic at this point, but I want to return, for a moment, to Shenzhen today in reaction to the two pieces in this week’s NYT that describe the dynamism and desperation of that place.

     In 1983 when I first passed through Shenzhen, it was a muddy, disorganized border crossing with an ambitious plan but a still uncertain future.  Now, looking back, I am struck by this figure: "Shenzhen’s 28 percent average annual growth rate since 1980 is likely to stand as a record in China for some time…"   That sure sounds like a record, but not just for China.  Where else, what other urban area in the world has risen, really from nothing, so quickly and sustained that intensive growth for so long?   It is an extraordinary experiment in hyper-growth and hyper-change.

      The big questions in 1983 and 1984, when I was hanging out with economists in Guangzhou trying to figure out what Shenzhen might come to mean, were how it all related to "socialism."  The best chapter in my book is the one that outlines all of the various ideological contortions that were offered to rationalize politically what was essentially an embrace of capitalism.  That all seems so quaint and irrelevant now.  Reading the stories on Shenzhen and the other zones now is a study in how quickly the old has been swept aside in the rush to the new.

     There is some good in this.  The first article describes the emergence of a more politically active citizenry:

Shenzhen has also spawned a local research group known as Interhoo,
an independent association of civic-minded professionals who discuss
municipal policy issues, publish position papers and quietly lobby the
government over development strategy and other issues.

“In the
past five or six years there are signs that new politics, economics and
culture are emerging in Shenzhen,” said Jing Chen, a scholar with the
China Development Institute, a local research group, and a member of
Interhoo. “There is an awakening of awareness on public issues. The
6,000 members of Interhoo discuss these issues and have published books
that have had a great influence over the government.”

Academics
and others who study the city’s development say it is no surprise that
Shenzhen is emerging as the cradle of movements like this. From the
start, its proximity to Hong Kong has made it unusually open to outside
influences. The city is also new, founded in 1980, and populated by
migrants who contribute to a culture of greater individualism and
risk-taking than anywhere else in China.

       Dare we say: possessive individuals? (probably not quite yet, since the legal infrastructure for the defense of property rights is still too weak…)

      But there is an obvious down side as well – and maybe the downside is more prominent than the good:

Among Chinese economic planners, Shenzhen’s recipe is increasingly
seen as all but irrelevant: too harsh, too wasteful, too polluted, too
dependent on the churning, ceaseless turnover of migrant labor.

“This
path is now a dead end,” said Zhao Xiao, an economist and former
adviser to the Chinese State Council, or cabinet. After cataloging the
city’s problems, he said, “Governments can’t count on the beauty of
investment covering up 100 other kinds of ugliness.”

     "One Hundred Kinds of Ugliness" – not quite the brand image Shenzhen leaders want people taking away….

      So, yes, it looks like a mess.  But, whatever, Zhao Xiao might say, it could be a vision of the future for other parts of China:

Now, to other cities in China, Shenzhen has begun to look less like a
model than an ominous warning of the limitations of a growth-above-all
approach.

 How can you avoid the obvious costs while nurturing the potential good of economic transformation?  A big question, perhaps unanswerable in any general way.

      Mencius, however, might have something to say:

If you want to put my words into practice, why not return to fundamentals?  When every five-acre farm has mulberry trees around the farmhouse, people wear silk at fifty.  And when proper seasons of chickens and pigs and dogs are not neglected, people eat meat at seventy.  When hundred-acre farms never violate their proper seasons, even large families don’t go hungry.  Pay close attention to the teaching in village schools, and extend it to the child’s family responsibilities – then, when their silver hair glistens people won’t be out on roads and paths hauling heavy loads.  Our black-haired people free of hunger and cold, wearing silk and eating meat in old age – there have never been such times without a true emperor. (17)

     It may be hard to see how mulberry trees and chickens and pigs relate to 21st century Shenzhen, but the point Mencius is making is that crushing economic inequality and injustice must be addressed, through active policy intervention, by the state.  Maybe today "mulberry trees" would be workmen’s compensation for injury or job loss; and "chickens and pigs" would be a livable and enforceable minimum wage.  We do not have to go back to the "iron rice bowl" to create humane public policies for Shenzhen and other hyper-growth areas.

      I guess my main point here is that we need to think about inequality in China not just in terms of "rich East coast" v. "poor inland provinces," but also right in the heart of the fastest growing areas of the country.   Then, maybe, there would be more of a chance for people to "wear silk and eat meat in old age."