Berkshire’s Charlie Munger Applauds Communist China For Totalitarian Tactics

China cracked down on Alibaba’s Jack Ma, a member of the communist party, and his technology company after he criticized the government’s opposition to innovation.

“What we need is to build a healthy financial system, not systematic financial risks,” the Ant Group co-founder said last year. “To innovate without risks is to kill innovation. There’s no innovation without risks in the world.”

Munger also expressed hope that the U.S. would adopt some of China’s willingness to “step in preemptively to stop speculation” instead of “our own wonderful free enterprise economy [which] is letting all these crazy people go to this gross excess.” The vice-chair clarified that he wouldn’t want “all of the Chinese system” but said he would “certainly would like to have the financial part of it in my own country.”

In addition to his positive comments about China’s business practices, Munger overlooked the communist country’s role in unleashing a global pandemic to praise the dictatorship for “simply shut[ting] down the country for six weeks” when COVID-19 ran rampant.

“That turned out to be exactly the right thing to do. And they didn’t allow any contact,” he said, parroting the CCP’s version of events. “When it was all over, they kind of went back to work. It happened they did it exactly right.”

Munger has become more outspoken about his admiration for the totalitarian state in the last few months. During a May shareholders meeting, he said “the Chinese government will allow businesses to flourish” and that China has “lifted 800 million people out of poverty fast.”

“There was never anything like it in the history of the world,” he said. “So my hat is off to the Chinese. And I think they will continue to allow people to make money. They’ve learned it works.”