From: tin@objy.com (Tin Nguyen)
Subject: Re: [POL] Normalization w/ Vietnam
Organization: Objectivity Inc.
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 00:31:53 GMT


In article <1992Nov13.234507.18826@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, drk@melodian.cs.uiuc.edu (Dave Kohr) writes:
|> In article <1992Nov13.015222.18700@news.media.mit.edu>
|> groucho!thinh@uu.psi.com writes:
|> >Hi netters:
|>
|>I would like to response to the posting by Mr. Max Becherer about an
|>article entitled "Light at the End of the Tunnel: US-Vietnam Relations" by
|>Carlyle Thayer.
|>
|>[....]
|>I believe that abolish the trade embargo would improve the human right
|>situation in Vietnam. [....]  Once the trade embargo is lifted, many
|>American businessmen and volunteers workers (especialy Vietnamese
|>American) will flood the country with ideas and thoughts of freedom and
|>democracy. There will be more eyes and ears to watch Hanoi's behaviors. 
|>How do we observe the human right condition in a place when we are not
|>present?  How can we force someone to change when we don't give them
|>anything at all?
>
> Thinh raises some interesting and important practical points about
> normalization of relations and trade.  I think that it will be insightful
> also to keep an eye on developments in China, whose economic and political
> situation I expect Vietnam will soon parallel: a non-democratic
> authoritarian Communist party retains official control of formal politics
> and the military (the ultimate form of control), but relinquishes much
> power over the economy to private citizens and foreign investors.
>
> Another interesting potential parallel might be Singapore: could Vietnam
> become economically capitalist yet controlled politically by a single
> authoritarian party?


The answer to your "Singapore" question is very simple and uninteresting:
both the VC government and the Singapore governments are dictatorial
governments;  analogies with respect to their ability to create a modern and
prosperous economy between the VC government and the Singapore government
simply DOES NOT hold.

If one looks at a government as a company that provides a set of services
(defense, education, etc.) to the people (customers) than a democratic
government IS a free-market government in the sense that the
people (customers) can choose the party(s) (companys) that provide the
desired service that the people feel is worthy of the price (tax).  When
you have a dictatorial government, then you have a monopoly company.  If
the monopoly company is doing a good job (e.g., AT&T) then the customers
have no major complain.  The Singapore government can be viewed as a good
monopoly company by Singaporean.  There might or might not be other parties
that can provide better government service to Singaporeans (think about what
MCI and Sprint do to the telecom industry).

The question then is: does the current VC government is the only party
capable of providing the best services to Vietnamese (whether the embargo
is lifted or not)?  The simple answer to this question is to have a free
election where the Vietnamese can express their opinions.

When the VC government propaganda says that they're moving toward
free-market economy with a dictatorial government, they simply don't know
what they're talking about (because the government is a major part of the
economy)!  And those whose follow the same line of argument simply don't
know what they're talking about either.


> -- 
> Dave Kohr     CS Graduate Student     Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
> Work: 3244 DCL, (217)333-6561  Home: (217)359-9350  E-mail: drk@cs.uiuc.edu
>                   "One either has none or not enough."


-Tin