Island Experiments
Do you ever wish we could, just once and for all, designate two islands a test case: One can be run by the Conservatives/Republicans/Laissez-faire-low-taxes-sparse-government types, and the other can be run by the Labour/Liberal/Socialist types and we’ll see who comes out on top to prove once and for all who’s right?
Then you realize it’s already been done…
Telegraph (1.25) - Sir John Cowperthwaite
Sir John Cowperthwaite, who died on January 21 aged 90, was Financial Secretary of Hong Kong throughout the 1960s; his extreme laissez-faire economic policies created conditions for very rapid growth, laying the foundations of the colony’s prosperity as an international business centre.
Sigh:
…the chronic weakness of the British economy - shaped, it might be said, by interventionist, high-tax policies diametrically opposite to his own…
Reader Rueful Red left that link for me in the comments of Boris In China.
April 27th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
And make one island so totally devoid of resources that they even have to import their own water.
April 27th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Great link, by the way. Clearly there is more to the history of Hong Kong since the 70s, but the later administrators have kept to the path laid out by Cowperthwaite. Even the communists seem wary of tinkering - although Gordon Brown would presumably be in there boots and all, in which case it may have been best that HK is now part of China.
April 27th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
If by that you mean Hong Kong (importing water) then for crying out loud we’ve even got the one island handicapped and the other island still lost.
April 27th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
Yes, Hong Kong has to import water from the mainland. It really is a very clean object lesson. Another one would be North and South Korea. In that case also the South is handicapped, because it is the North which has the mineral resources.
April 28th, 2006 at 2:12 am
When we were handing Hong Kong back I remember getting some very odd looks from our local economic development bureaucrats when suggesting there was nothing wrong with the Scottish economy that a quick half-million or so Hong Kongsters couldn’t put right, were we able to persuade them to come to Scotland. It was the idea that they’d need to be persuaded to come here that caused all the eyebrow-raising. Which says it all about the bureaucrats.
April 28th, 2006 at 2:58 am
I tried to start a movement to transfer them to the ACT (Australian Capital Territory). If you want to know what a city would look like after a neutron bomb attack, go visit Canberra.
April 28th, 2006 at 3:03 am
That’s the problem with federal capitals like Ottowa or Canberra - not being Toronto or Montreal, or Sydney or Melbourne, isn’t really enough on its own to justify the places’ existence.
April 28th, 2006 at 4:02 am
The one good thing in Canberra is the Australian War Museum - they have a great new exhibit featuring an actual Lancaster with a virtual reality type setup so that one can experience the sights and sounds of a bombing run over Europe. Ah, the good old days!
April 28th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Au contraire, frère: Ottowa is just anuthuh city in Ontario. There was an article in the National Post while I was there wondering if they should switch to a Capital Territory, but declined to use “dysfunctional” D.C. as a model, but rather Canberra. Perhaps I should get it out of the recycling?
April 28th, 2006 at 10:28 am
Jeez, the European theatre wouldn’t have been the same without Aussie Bomber Command heroes like Mickey Martin. Or even The Nugget.
April 28th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
The one good thing in Canberra is the Australian War Museum - they have a great new exhibit featuring an actual Lancaster with a virtual reality type setup
I’d like to see that. In Fort Walton (Eglin AFB) they display a Canberra! Not just any Canberra but a long wing B-57R crazy high flyer for the time.
April 30th, 2006 at 4:55 am
Yes, but the Canberra was British - and wasn’t it used in one of the earlier Bond movies?