Rebel of the Week: Chinese Economist Mao Yushi

Because of the deeply-rooted influence of Confucianism, Chinese culture has a reputation for encouraging people to fall into line, do as they’re told, and not “rock the boat.” But here at The Silver Underground, we’ve been taking note of the many inspiring and revolutionary rebels of the contemporary movement for liberalization and openness in China. From village uprisings everywhere to daring defiance of the Chinese government’s human rights abuses, China is clearly a civilization in transition and there’s no shortage of Chinese rebels to laud here in our weekly Rebel of  the Week feature. Like those classical liberals who fought entrenched power structures and oppression in Western civilization, forging societies with unprecedented freedoms and a large, well-educated middle class, these activists will have a positive impact on China that lasts for centuries.

This week’s rebel is Mao Yushi, an 83-year-old Chinese economist and liberty activist who has spent his entire life fighting for free markets, limited government, and individual liberty. At the height of communist oppression in China, a young Yushi would face expulsion from the communist party and exile to a life of hard labor in a re-education camp where he avoided starvation by eating locusts. That didn’t stop him from continuing to advocate for liberty and free markets for the rest of his life.

Yushi’s story and work were brought to my attention when earlier this month, he was awarded the Cato Institute‘s $250,000 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty at a black tie gala in Washington, DC.

Here’s what the Cato Institute had to say about him:

Mao, an 83-year-old economist, is a well-known advocate for an open and transparent political system and is one of the pioneers of the movement in China for civil society and freedom. Before economic reform began in China in 1978, he had been an engineer and during his lifetime has faced severe punishment, exile, and near starvation for remarks critical of a command-based economy and society. During the Cultural Revolution, he and his family were deprived of all of their property, and in 2011 he angered some in China with his article “Returning Mao Zedong to Human Form,” which boldly calculated the human cost of Mao’s brutal Communist policies from 1949 to 1976. The article led to calls for his prosecution and execution, with 50,000 left-faction members signing a petition that called for his imprisonment on charges of treason. Immediately following the article’s appearance he had to be surrounded by students to protect him from physical attack from zealots, while the government remained silent and neutral.

In 1993 he and five other economists founded the Unirule Institute of Economics, an independent Chinese think tank committed to the growth of a market economy and to reforming Chinese government policies.

In addition, Mao Yushi has been a pioneer in creating private charity and self-help programs in the People’s Republic of China and has helped countless people become independent members of society through the Fuping Development Institute and other initiatives. He believes that the more income an individual earns the more freedom an individual has, and has devoted himself to China’s transition from a planned economy to a free market economy.

For further research, here’s a Cato video about Mao Yushi’s life and activism, and in which he shares his thoughts about fellow Chinese dissident, and recent Silver Underground Rebel of  the Week, Chen Guangcheng, the blind activist and lawyer who escaped house arrest by eluding 90 guards under the cover of night and courageously shared the story of his family’s suffering with the world. China is a better place for the efforts of people like Chen and Mao.

The Cato Institute chose its Milton Friedman Prize winner well. I can’t help but wonder why more people like Mao Yushi don’t win Nobel Peace Prizes. Maybe he should launch some cruise missiles into an African country and hit some civilians in Pakistan with a drone strike like recent Nobel laureate, President Barack Obama. Even when the Nobel Prize Committee does select Chinese dissidents for a Nobel Peace Prize as it did in 2010, it puzzlingly picks one who advocates strongly for all of the United States’ wars(!), including Bush’s preemptive Iraq War, stokes Middle Eastern tensions by calling Palestinians provocateurs, considers Western imperialism a good thing, and has called Cold War era US foreign policy– including the Vietnam war– “ethically defensible,” and “good examples” of how war should be conducted in modern civilization. The Nobel Prize Committee might as well award Dick Cheney next.

Whatever. They can keep Nobel’s blood money. When I want to know who the real rebels on this planet are, I don’t look to the Nobel Prize Committee’s usually absurd Peace Prize laureates, just like when I want to know who has been the most influential on recent events, I don’t consult TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year. Instead, when I want to know who’s really sticking it to the man and fighting for a world of peaceful and voluntary cooperation between productive individuals pursuing their own separate creative interests, I can count on The Cato Institute’s biennial Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty.

Mao Yushi really earned it. I hope he puts some of it away in gold and silver.

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