A bad few weeks...

...for China, that is. A while ago, there was all the tainted pet food. A government bureaucrat is arrested and executed. Now, a bridge collapses, killing 28; and Mattel recalls over 9 million Chinese-made toys containing tiny magnets and/or lead paint. Some in the media paint all this as the fruits "breakneck economic development" running roughshod over caution and safety standards. A little shot at free-market growth, perhaps? But that would be wrong. Remember: China for nearly 40 years after 1949, after Mao Zedong and his Communist Party's triumph in the Chinese civil war, was a radically-ideological Marxist-Leninist state. Not only was the free market and capitalism not taught; it was reviled. Many Chinese didn't, and perhaps still don't, know how to run a system which encourages profit, economic growth, and free economic activity. And that was because their ability to learn it was stunted Maoist communism. China is still attempting to shake off that legacy.