Hong Kong Capitalism

I think the main points of this lecture are the followings. Firstly, it is how capitalism in the real world differs from the theoretical one. Capitalism would offer consumers goods of lower price, higher quality and a wider variety, as a free market encourages competition. While investors would use the capital more efficiently in order to lower the cost and make a higher profit. Hong Kong has been ranked the freest market for years by the US Heritage Foundation, yet there are a lot of government subsidies and interference as well as monopolies. Secondly, it is the negative effects of capitalism brought about on the food aspect. For example, overfishing which adversely affected the ocean ecology, food waste problem in Hong Kong, farm pollution

It is simply a system. It is the extrinsic part of capitalism, the consequences, that carries morality. Refer back to the part where capitalism brought about a lot of negative externalities. Although capitalism might be part of the reason that drives people to do actions such as overfishing and polluting the environment, I think it is those actions that should be blamed and stopped instead of capitalism itself. For example, the farm pollution in China. People dumped untreated waste into rivers so as to reduce the cost of their product. It is the action of polluting the rivers that is wrong and illegal and needs to be stopped. If people do not break the law to reduce the cost of their product and compete in the market, then capitalism should not be a problem. As for the other example, overfishing of Bluefin tuna, it isn’t illegal because people fish in international waters and there’s no limit to how many they fish. Perhaps to solve this problem, international laws should be set up, and people should be educated about sustainable development so as to lower the demand for these fish. Therefore, I think despite capitalism being the common cause for these problems, the problems should not be tackled with simply one measure which is to oppose

And I think Hong Kong despite being a free market, these things are still very much not being marketized, and the government played a large role in reducing inequality in such areas as mentioned in the beginning. Such as heavy subsidizes in healthcare and housing, such that most of the general public can afford some sort of healthcare and housing. Also, there’s 12 years of free education for every child in Hong Kong, such that the poor can receive education as well. Although, there’s no doubt that the richer can receive the things above with better qualities, these measures along with other welfare in society already ensures citizens receive their basic