![]() |
|||||
CAPSTAN LLC
Hong Kong's Freedom
|
|||||
|
A
talk given to the Civil Society, University of Santa Clara, January 2005 In
fifty years Despite
having no natural resources, indeed not even enough drinking water to support its population; despite terrible over-crowding;
despite the absence of democracy; despite the presence of a powerful communist hostile neighbor ( Figures
for earlier periods are not precise (for reasons I will discuss later), but real GDP growth averaged 6% per year in the final
15 years of British rule (1982-97). During that time it was growing more than twice as fast as the advanced industrialized
countries. As
they hauled down the British flag and the last British Governor and Prince Charles sailed out of the harbor on the Royal Yacht
Britannia in the middle of the night June 30th, 1997, he was leaving a colony where the per capita income
was over 20% higher than in Every
year the Heritage Foundation and The Fraser Institute of Canada produce indices of Economic Freedom. http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/downloads/PastScores.xls They
rank the countries of the world according to various criteria: property rights, human rights, economic policies, taxation
etc. Since at least 1995 The
question I would like to address this evening is Why is And
I think the answer is threefold. First, the historical accidents. The truth is, that Hong Kong was rather
like Gertrude Stein’s From
the beginning it was a free trade port. Apart
from that it had little else going for it. In
1844, the British colonial treasurer in Hong Kong, Robert Montgomery Martin, predicted, “There does not appear the slightest
probability that, under any circumstances, One
of the first proclamations of the British administration promised that Almost
immediately real estate speculation developed. Property protected by British Law in a free trade port had obvious attractions.
Not only British merchants but also thousands of Chinese rushed in. In a matter of months more than 12,000 Chinese were living
on the island attracted by the construction boom. Over
the next hundred years Hong Kong grew and prospered, an island of civility and stability next to turbulent As
mainland The
Japanese occupied Which brings me to the second historical accident which contributed
to Austin
Coates, the writer, was a young British government official arriving 1949. He described the scene…. It really seemed as if half Entire shanty towns were going up in a matter of days. In the streets…. Hundreds
of maimed and wounded Nationalist soldiers, who had somehow managed to beg their way south, hobbled or lay about begging alms,
sleeping at night where they lay by day, many of them unable to speak Cantonese, utterly uncared for, futureless and helpless.
… it was a situation verging on the chaotic. (and) Nowhere, as I quickly discovered, was the state of crisis more apparent than in the
offices of the government, most of which were severely understaffed to meet the extraordinary conditions prevailing. … The
red tide of communism swept all before it. In the autumn of 1949 And there, they stopped.. The unexpected happened. The communist regime left There
was an eerie silence. You can understand from all this that in the post war period the “All of a sudden, you
had the best people shoved into this tiny place,” said Daniel Ng, executive
chairman of McDonald’s Restaurants ( Even
if the British Government had sought to impose grand New Society plans on Hong Kong in the post war period, its administration
was so stretched and resources so scarce that it was out of the question. In fact the British government didn’t even
try. Colonies were things to be got rid of, to be ashamed of, not places for ideological ambition. Socialism began and ended
at home. The British government was financially overstretched as it was, so the only thing it required of So,
at key moments in Hong Kong’s history, when it was established in the 1840s and when free markets were ideologically
most under threat in the nineteen forties, ………………………………………………………………….. So
those were the historical accidents. The second factor was the political realities of running a colony. Unlike a democratically
elected government, a colonial administration is under sufferance. That a few thousand white folk could rule several million
Chinese, is a con trick. They could only get away with it by being seen to be fair, impartial and non-intrusive, or at least
better in these respects than the alternative, which in this case was a brutal communist regime just north of the border.
They had no mandate to mould or change the local people. Socialism, which is the process of robbing Peter to pay Paul, by
its nature is going to upset Peter. Best not to rock the boat. Also,
the reality of the situation was that the British were there first. The vast majority of the Chinese population only pitched
up after the Union Jack had been hoisted, and indeed most of them didn’t arrive until after WWII, when the British had
been in possession for more than a hundred years. The
psychology of the Chinese in the post war decades was that Because
government officials were appointed, not elected, they had no temptation to court
short term popularity with bread and circuses, they took the long view. Because government officials were appointed, not elected, it was possible for some quite unlikely
types of people to rise to positions of great authority. It was in
this manner that someone with ardently libertarian beliefs came to be one of the
most powerful people in the government in the nineteen-sixties. His name was John James Cowperthwaite. And he was the Financial Secretary,
a position with far more power in Hong Kong than the Treasury Secretary, for example, has in the Professor
Alvin Rabushka, described Cowperthwaite thus: ‘[He was] brilliant, well-trained
in economics, suffered no fools, and was highly principled. He wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in a similar post in
This
was a man who in one budget speech playfully likened his tax policies to those
of the Roman emperor Vespasian, and on other occasions made references to Greek poets. “Perhaps
his most striking attribute is his protean grasp of the many problems which this government
has faced. I have yet to find an aspect of Government’s responsibilities on which Sir John’s knowledge
and advice have not been both penetrating and valuable.” said a colleague on his retirement. Another colleague paid tribute to his ‘austere wisdom’. Sir
John always had to have the last word, he had to be right. Professor Alvin Rabushka in the preface to his book, ‘Value
for Money, the The
editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review ( Sept 21, 1967) remarked grimly that
‘the Financial Secretary … is a man of such personality and intellectual stature as to constitute a frightening
opponent, even to a governor.” Let
me say now, that Sir John would not approve of this talk tonight. He has always been reluctant to grant interviews, and would
shudder at the thought of being made into some totem pole of radical libertarian philosophy. He protests that he is neither
an economist nor a politician. He has said that the policies he followed in Listen
to what one person who has met him has to say: Ø Sir John
is a member of the dying breed of British colonial A
Chinese person who knew Sir John socially in Certainly
Sir John Cowperthwaite was no deft charismatic public performer. He was awkward in front of the cameras and could at times
be startlingly terse. The story goes that on one occasion he stepped off the plane from Sir
John, could you tell us about your talks in “I
hardly think that is an appropriate question.” “Well,
Sir John, what do you think we should be asking you about?” “It
is not for me to tell you how to do your jobs.” End
of interview. Such
treatment did not endear him to the press. Recently
a journalist researching for a book wrote to Sir John and asked him three innocent questions of fact about his activities
in 1961. Sir John’s replies were typically expansive: “no, no and no”. But
underneath this image of a self-effacing, honorable civil servant there was more. So
much more, in fact, that over thirty years after Sir John’s retirement, Yeung Way Hong, publisher of ‘I
am absolutely certain that his personality and upbringing are responsible for Son
of a tax collector, John James Cowperthwaite was born in His
ship stopped in Cape Town, South Africa on the way, where he received the news that Hong Kong had fallen to the Japanese and
London telegraphed him to re-route to Sierra Leone (a British possession on the west coast of Africa), where he and his wife
sat out the war. To keep themselves occupied, they produced a baby boy, Hamish. In
early 1945 he was summoned back to (As is the custom in ‘ True to the ethics of Scottish Protestantism,
he hates to spend money - especially if it belongs to someone else (like the taxpayer). For example, he never spent any money
on the upgrade of his official residence in HK. Though he had a budget to do so, he refused. His successor turned [the official
residence] into a palace, because -as he said to Sir John- “he believed in luxury”. Sir John did not. For him
his job was a duty, not a ticket to luxury and riches.’ He
was not running for election. His job was secure, he did not need to court popularity. Both Governors he served under, Sir
Robert Black (1958-64) and Sir David Trench (1964-71) were sympathetic to his policies, which were also enthusiastically supported
by the business community. The
Legislative Council of Hong Kong which voted on matters of financial policy was stacked with government officials. Furthermore,
Sir John Cowperthwaite controlled the agenda. Policy was hammered out behind closed doors before being presented for airing
at the meeting, and only he decided precisely which topics should be presented for Legco’s Finance Committee’s
scrutiny. Technically
the Financial Secretary ranked number three in the administration, after the Governor and the Colonial Secretary, but in fact
by controlling the purse strings the Financial Secretary had an all-pervasive effect on how the government was run. Frank Welsh in his
‘ ‘
… Sir John was able to exercise complete control of the colony’s finances. An anonymous colleague reported that
‘Apart from Burgess {Claude Burgess, Colonial Secretary 1958-63], no one could keep Sir John Cowperthwaite in line.
His brilliance and argumentation prevailed and he thus made policy by ruling on all items of expenditure.’ …..A
political economist in the tradition of Gladstone or John Stuart Mill, Sir John personified what might be called the Hong
Kong school of economists, unreconstructed Manchester-school free-traders.’ In
general terms, Sir John spent his time saying “No, no and no” to various proposals from activist colleagues and
members of the Legislative Council. Since the Legislative Council was purely advisory, this was merely a matter of due process.
The proceedings of Legco are on public record and from its annals we can garner the ‘The Collected Wit and Wisdom’
of Sir John Cowperthwaite. When businessmen
in the 1960s asked for special treatment for their industries, which they claimed were crucial to the colony’s well-being,
Sir John Cowperthwaite replied that “I should have thought that a desirable industry was, almost by definition, one which could establish itself and thrive
without special assistance in ordinary market conditions.” “I believe government should not presume to tell any businessman or industrialist
what he should or should not do, far less what he may or may not do—and no matter how it may be dressed up, that is
what planning is.” “In the long run, the aggregate of decisions of individual businessmen, exercising
individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is less likely to do harm than the centralized decisions of
a government, and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster. . . Over
a wide field of our economy it is still the better course to rely on the 19th century’s ‘hidden hand’
than to thrust clumsy bureaucratic fingers into its sensitive mechanism.” Fending
off the activists in Legco was one thing. He also thwarted attempts from I
would like to give one example here of ‘intervention’ from Various senior bankers agitated for the government to introduce banking
regulations and banking supervision. The colonial government (ie. Sir John) virtually ignored them. In exasperation
the manager of the largest bank, the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, himself began to draft proposed legislation,
and lobbied the Bank of England to get involved. A representative from the Bank of England was invited to visit
(Cowperthwaite
had certainly read Adam Smith, who famously observed that whenever businessmen get together they collude to restrict
trade.) Nevertheless Tomkins pushed
ahead. Draft legislation was published, and then debated, with the Hong Kong government unenthusiastic about implementing
it (because it was too restrictive) and the colonial office in Of
course Regulation and invasion of privacy are not the only intrusions of government. The most notorious burden is taxation. Furthermore
I would like to emphasize that this is a salary and profit tax, not an income tax - a distinction which is now almost
wholly forgotten. An income tax is a tax on all income from any source. Basically the government says, tell us about all the
money you made, now send us X% of that amount. This is a sort of financial strip search.
A salary tax is however more narrowly defined: if you receive a dividend,
you don’t report it; if you receive a capital gain, you don’t report it. And in Hong Kong you only have to report
salaries earned from Listen
to Sir John on the subject; “ My honourable friend Mr. Li has once again, in connexion with our need for increased
revenues to match increased expenditure, had the political courage to advocate a full income tax system and has asked me how
I came to descend from that previous state of innocence in which I was inclined to agree with him. I do not propose to make
a full confession, but merely mention one or two factors in my lapse from grace. One of these is an increased awareness of
the benefits to our economy, [particularly in terms of investment and enterprise, both local and overseas,] of not having
the inquisitorial type of tax system inevitably associated with a full income tax.” Here
again, as with spot checks on banks, he was wary of unwarranted government intrusion. Under
this light touch, I
use these proxies for economic growth, because But Sir John went further. “we might indeed be right to be apprehensive lest the
availability of such figures might lead, by a reversal of cause and effect, to policies designed to have a direct effect on
the economy. I would myself deplore this.” In
other words, Sir John understood that ‘knowledge is power’. Therefore
the best way to limit the power of the government was to keep it ignorant. His resistance to ‘an inquisitorial type
of tax system’ (an income tax) and his resistance to ‘spot checks on banks’ were part and parcel of the
same philosophical stance. The government had no general ‘right to know’, and the less it knew, the better for
a free society. Incidentally,
the In
response to criticisms of some of the obvious inequities of Hong Kong’s patchy tax regime, where some quite obvious
and large chunks of earnings went unrecorded and untaxed, Sir John resorted to
pointing out that by their nature some types of earnings were very hard to trap: earnings in foreign currencies, intra family
transactions etc. and the draconian measures required to nail them down would
represent such a violation of the harmonious relationship between the government and the people as to be not worth the effort.
In any case, whether or not you were caught in the tax net was not of such overwhelming importance when the worst the
government could do would still leave you with over 85% of what you reported. Just by keeping the government small, the issue
of who pays for it suddenly seems not so important. I
said the maximum rate of tax was 15%, but there were extremely generous personal exemptions. Because of these, in Cowperthwaite’s
day only two percent of the work force paid any salaries tax. (In 1970, the personal exemption in Hong Kong was nearly
triple the exemption in the UK and double the exemption in the US, despite having average wages of less than half). Even in
the eighties, only 10% paid salary taxes. ( In 1997 it was up to 47%) How
small was, and is, the There
was virtually no government debt: in 1971 at the end of Sir John’s reign, the gross government debt stood at a trivial
US$3 per head. Almost every year of the post war colonial period (ie. until 1997) the government ran budget surpluses, and
it is a matter of some debate as to why this was so. The accumulated government surpluses were sometimes described as a rainy
day fund, to cover short term declines in the economy. Well, that may have been the case, but they were more than ready for
a spot of rain. At the end of Sir John’s tenure the government had so much in its piggy bank that it could have run
the entire government for almost a year without any tax revenue whatsoever. ( That is the accumulated fiscal surpluses, leaving
aside the very substantial foreign exchange reserves backing the currency). Why
did the government run persistent surpluses? I think the simplest explanation was that they were constantly surprised by the
amount of revenue. Tax revenue rose so much faster than anybody expected because the economy grew so much faster than anybody
expected. Perhaps Sir John’s predecessor, Arthur Clarke put it best in 1961: “And
Sir, I expect, too, that my successor will make exactly the same mistake I have always made. He will under-estimate revenue.
He will under-estimate his revenue, because, like me, like so many of us, he will never be able to comprehend how new and
successful industries can be created overnight out of nothing, in the face of every possible handicap; how new trade can suddenly
start up in some way that has never been thought of before; he, like me, will never be able to comprehend how on earth our
enterprising, ingenious, hardworking people can ever manage to accomplish so much with so little.” It
would be wrong to leave you with the impression that the Believe
it or not In
other words he did not see why tax payers money should go to subsidizing the large numbers of parents who could afford
to pay school fees. For those in dire need, yes, a case could be made, but universal free education was, he thought,
a bad precedent. Which
brings me to another recurring theme in Sir John’s speeches. He was a staunch defender of the little guy. A colleague
noted that “a kind heart beats under his severe exterior”. “… Like He
saw himself as the careful housekeeper, defending the public purse from grasping knaves. He knew that businesses and powerful
people were constantly working to bend the levers of government to their purposes. A
constant pre-occupation of Legco members was the provision of carparks. Would the government build more, to provide adequate
parking spaces at a reasonable fee? Cowperthwaite thought this was a misuse of public funds. He pointed out that (at that
time) only the affluent could afford cars, and it would be an abuse of public funds to use them to subsidize parking for the
rich few. A parking space would cost about HK$65,000 to construct, he estimated; the same amount of money would provide housing
for 115 people. In
1967, a Legco member proposed that mortgage interest be made deductible for the purposes of the salaries tax, (as it was in
the And
this in 1966: My
fear is ….that we are developing public services which are too expensive per unit….and of too high a standard,
for our means, if we are to extend them as they should be extended. Many of our services cost more than do similar services
in Europe, because,… the decision takers and policy-makers, both inside and outside the Government….being themselves
from the better-off ….sectors of our society, not only demand the highest standards of provision of public services
to meet what they consider their own essential needs(for example in public car parks); but also find it difficult to think
of provision for the rest of the population in terms of standards relative to our total real resources. We tend to the opposite
situation to that made familiar by Professor Galbraith; we tend to public affluence and private squalor…. …….. There
is one particular aspect of the situation which causes me considerable apprehension, the tendency to demand that subsidized
services be extended, at these high standards, to all citizens irrespective of need. “ Note
that here we have in effect a government official complaining publicly that the standard of government services is in fact
too high! Similarly
businessmen proposed that a cross-harbour tunnel would be a vital government infrastructure project. Not so fast, replied
Sir John retorting that, if they thought it was such a surefire great idea, then surely it would be a money spinner and why
didn’t they go ahead with the project themselves? In the event, it went ahead, as a substantially private enterprise
but with the government taking a stake. Sir
John was an early and vocal advocate of the Laffer Curve, although, of course he didn’t know that was what it was called,
because Mr Laffer hadn’t invented it yet. He put this key insight to good use. Although So,
with the major exception of the property market - and it is a major exception- Hong Kong managed to get through the twentieth
century with a blessedly Gladstonian efficient, minimal government. Despite having virtually no flat land, little water and
no natural resources to speak of; despite being desperately crowded and surrounded by Communists, (after China, the next closest
country was North Vietnam); despite being a victim of U.N. trade sanctions on China in the fifties and textile and cutlery
quotas slapped on by the ever generous United States from the sixties; despite being more than 8000 miles away from its two
largest markets (the UK and the US); despite being deprived of democratic institutions and foreign aid, Hong Kong boomed. Even
with no minimum wage legislation, feeble trade unions and rapaciously greedy capitalists, real wages rose over 4% per year
during Cowperthwaite’s tenure, while the population grew by 3% per year. It has been estimated that in the late sixties
industrial production was growing over 15% per year and GDP was growing over 12% per year. During the Cowperthwaite decade,
1961-71 domestic exports compounded at 13.8% per year. Total bank deposits grew 19% per year. Certainly something extraordinary
was going on. Sir John Cowperthwaite in 1971 attempting to explain why, yet again, the government was running an enormous
surplus said “I defy anyone to say that he knew in advance that revenue would grow 45% over these last two years.”
Because of the phenomenal economic growth the government, quite literally had more money coming in than it knew what to do
with (and this, remember with tax rates of only 15% and only 2% of the population paying salary tax). Hong
Kong’s per capita GDP rose from less than a quarter that of “I
myself have no doubt in the past tended to appear to many to be more concerned with the creation of wealth than with its distribution.
I must confess that there is a degree of truth in this, but to the extent that it is true, it has been because of my conviction
that the rapid growth of the economy, and the pressure that comes with it on demand for labour, both produces a rapid and
substantial redistribution of income directly of itself and also makes it possible to assist more generously those who are
not, from misfortune temporary or permanent sharing in the general advance. The history of the last fifteen years or so demonstrates
this conclusively.” (proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, February 1969, p 104. as quoted in ‘ Their
wealth has been able to buy them a measure of security. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, originally driven out of The
old joke is that the definition of a pervert in When
the last governor of “I did very little. All I did was to try to prevent some of the things that might
undo it.” Looking
back in his retirement, Sir John averred that perhaps his biggest mistake was in 1966. In the economic slump of that year,
the government ran a small deficit. Following the precepts of good housekeeping, to balance the books he decided to raise
the standard tax rate from 12.5% to 15%. The recession was brief, the economy boomed and the government promptly returned
to ever larger annual surpluses. He used the extra revenue to tidy up the tax code, abolishing several minor petty duties
and fees, ( the dance-hall tax, the radio license in 1967 and the TV license in 1972) and halving the ‘stamp duty’
and halving the estate (death) tax from a top rate of 40% to 20%. Nevertheless, with hindsight, he said, his small increase
in tax rates had made the government too flush and provided the wherewithal for
the more progressive elements to push their agendas. Perhaps the introduction of compulsory free primary education in 1971
was made that much easier. Only
a man of Sir John’s integrity and principles could regard an increase in the maximum tax rate from 12.5% to 15% as a
dreadful step along the Road to Serfdom. Over
the years the During
Sir John Cowperthwaite’s tenure, he insisted that the government run these various activities in so far as possible
as profit-seeking businesses. In the mid sixties population growth outstripped the water supply and large areas were subjected
to stringent rationing. Sir John forcefully advocated raising the price of water to help clear the market. He insisted that
the Railway and the post office be run on a fully commercial basis, and they did indeed make profits. But
it is in the land and housing market that the Surprisingly,
initially the housing program was not seen as a welfare activity. It was a public health and safety issue. The impetus was
a disastrous fire at Shek Kip Mei in December 1953 which made 53,000 people homeless. Squatter settlements on hillsides were
fire traps, and also- they were trespassers. The Commissioner for Resettlement stated clearly that squatters were being re-housed
“not simply because they need or deserve hygienic and fireproof houses: they are resettled because the community can
no longer afford to carry the fire risk, health risk and threat to public order … and because the community needs the
land on which they illegally occupy.” From 1954 until 1965 a total of 607,673 people were re-housed in government built
housing projects. Of
course what was going on was a consequence of the perverse incentives. Although very small, the government-built flats were
let at substantially below market rates, at times the rent was estimated to be only one third of the free market level. Again,
initially, setting rents below market was not primarily a ‘welfare’ benefit, it was instead an inducement or even
compensation for the forcible eviction from their shanty towns. Also, the government had little idea how wealthy or poor the
squatters were. Certainly they looked poor, and so presumably could only afford a very low rent. But of course, appearances
can be deceptive, and everybody was getting richer very rapidly. Pretty soon people learned how to game the system. In
order to get one of the nice new housing units at a cheap rent you had to be a squatter, so people were quitting their private
sector housing, moving onto the hillsides and then applying for government housing. In effect the government was rewarding
squatters. In fact people went even further. The government had decided that urgent priority should be given to those poor
people whose only accommodation were leaky wooden boats bobbing up and down in the Typhoon shelters. Not surprisingly therefore,
there was an endless stream of people off the land onto the boats, and therefore straight to the head of the waiting list
for public housing! Thus government policy had contributed to a doubling of the squatter population - an outcome absolutely 180 degrees away from their objective! Clearly
the policy wasn’t working so they did what all governments do in such circumstances, they expanded the housing program,
offering a better quality of the units and extending the benefit to a broader swathe of the population. Needless to say, Cowperthwaite
was not happy: “the better off a family is the higher the subsidy it tends to receive; which is
surely absurd.” In
the seventies, (by which time Sir John Cowperthwaite was safely out of the way, enjoying his retirement in Scotland) the government,
under the new ‘progressive’ governor Sir Murray Maclehose announced ambitious targets to build hundreds of thousands
of new government housing units per year. As with all such socialist five year plans the world over, this one failed miserably:
the government built units at less than half the rate they had set as their goal. The whole grizzly thing had become an immense welfare program, both for the tenants
and the construction companies. Richard Wong of Furthermore,
the New Towns created in the Even
as they got richer, people chose to continue living in tiny government housing units. Naïve visitors to As
with anything provided at less than half the free market price, places were allocated by rationing. Waiting
lists were long and bribery was rife. The
continual ‘shortage’ of housing was a constant source of complaint in Although
It is no coincidence that the two widely perceived shortages of the sixties, drinking water
and housing, were the two areas in which the government was the dominant supplier. The
government further helped to screw up the real estate market with rent controls and planning controls. In the fifties, the
government enforced rent controls on Pre War buildings only and eased the planning controls to increase the allowed
plot ratio on new buildings. The
rent controls made old buildings unprofitable for landlords and the eased plot ratio increased the profitability of replacing
them with new construction. Thus this triggered a tremendous building boom. In
1962 the government had second thoughts about the plot ratio, it was clearly leading to excessively high buildings creating
extremely high population densities in congested urban areas, so they reduced the permitted plot ratio, but, and here is the
real zinger, they allowed a three year grace period before the law became effective. The result was the mother of all
building booms. In
the period 1962-65 landlords frantically demolished and rebuilt before the less profitable lower density planning code became
effective. The result, surprise, surprise, was an enormous glut in hastily built new apartments. Rents and prices plunged
and the speculative bubble burst, precipitating a second banking crisis in the middle of the decade and the property market
remained hung-over for five years. Thus
I
do not want to end this talk on a down beat, so it is best to leave the story there. Of
course, not all the problems are self-inflicted: Hong Kong faces increasingly intense competition from mainland China, but
the fact remains that the government has been slower to adjust to the new realities than the private sector. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Milton
Friedman has compared Hong Kong to If
you want to compare this British colony with an American, a comparison can be made with Puerto Rico, which with tax breaks
and subsidies remains considerably poorer than the rest of the |
||||
|
Enter content here |
||||
|
Enter supporting content here |
||||