Thursday, August 14, 2008

The Olympics sells much better than the Capitalism

I'm watching 2 Americans and 2 Belgians play beach volleyball in Chow Yong Park. Why are so many countries willing to fully embrace and compete in the Olympics, historically a Western institution and still slanted toward Western sports and athletes, and yet unwilling to embrace and compete in the historically Western institutions of free trade, property rights, and the rule of law? We in the West get the gold either way, i.e. through path dependence, but the rest of the world is learning how to play beach volleyball instead of how to avoid famine.

Maybe we should introduce experimental economics as an Olympic sport.

1 comment:

Aaron said...

Or a better question: why did they constantly play 90s American music in the beach volleyball stadium? I hope they don't get the impression that that's what we actually listen to over here.