The I, Pencil Institute and Weiying Zhang, 4th Nov., 2010

Yesterday I printed out some articles from the 铅笔经济研究社 (I, Pencil Economic Research Institute).  I searched through their recent articles, and selected the ones that had to do with Dr. Weiying Zhang (张维迎) or the Austrian School of Economics.

Here is a summary of the ones I read and any information relevant to my research:

1.《市场的逻辑》读书会简记 [Notes on The Logic of the Market's Study Group]

Mr. Xinhua Deng (邓新华) wrote about the small gathering held to discuss Professor Zhang's book, The Logic of the Market.  Professor Zhang's premise is that "If you want to be wealthy, you have to make others wealthy. If you cannot make others wealthy, you will not profit, and so you have no way of being wealthy. That's the market. The government, without caring about the wealth of others, can make itself wealthy."

If you speak Putonghua, and are interested, you can watch Mr. Deng's interview with Professor Zhang on Yijian Zhongguo.

2. 在黄昏时孤独起飞 [Dusk is Solitary]

Ms. Yuxuan Xu (许宇萱) writes,

Weiying Zhang is solitary; today, those people that once were his comrades-in-arms have all turned into his opponents.  When they all turned to Keynes, turned to "the market, overall, is good, but sometimes needs the government's guidance," kind of interventionism, Weiying Zhang was the only one to hold on to his faith in the market.

3. 张维迎的卓越 [The Outstanding Weiying Zhang]

Professor Zhang was only in his 20s when he put forward the dual-track price system, which was implemented and allowed the market price to co-exist with the centrally-planned price, which allowed a slow transition toward free market pricing.  

He is one of the highest avenues for the Austrian School of Economics in China.  At the 2009 China Entrepreneurs Forum, he presented his speech "Bury Keynesianism."  The original speech is hosted on Sina Finance, and someone at the Mises Online Community has translated it.

4. 如果政府像这个国王该多好 [It Would Be Better If The Government Were Like This King]

Mr. Xinhua Deng quotes Professor Zhang Weiying as saying "If a policy's direction is the same as the market, that means it has no function; if the market and the policy run in opposite directions, it will be counter-active."