The Temperature at Which Freedom Burns

The present is just one link in the seemingly endless chain called history. The World Bank has just published the latest calculation of the global GDP and the immediate reaction of most analysts has been predictably obtuse. They have blindly extolled the alleged American dominance of the world economy only by failing to provide proper historical and political context for the numbers issued by the World Bank.

They seem to forget that shortly after World War II, the U.S. economy accounted for 46% of global GDP. It now accounts for 24%. If they think that a rising China is not an immediate strategic concern, they can wait and see what the world looks like in the decades ahead. The leading global superpower will be a state that rejects the concept of universal human rights, curtails basic freedoms, censors internet access and denounces the idea of judicial independence as a “false western ideal”, as Zhou Qiang, the leading judge of the Chinese Supreme Court, recently did. If this is how they treat their own citizens, why should the rights of foreigner´s be any more deserving of respect?

The lesson of the twentieth century is clear: totalitarianism is the temperature at which freedom burns. Although the world worships money, freedom should always be valued over gold, for what matters most in life, should never in the market place be sold.