The View | Populist or liberal: What kind of democracy does Hong Kong really want?

When the Cultural Revolution erupted 50 years ago, political ideology was veering to the left around the world. I was a fifth-form student at the time and quickly realised that students were blaming capitalism for inequality and injustice. But to me, capitalism was just an economic term.

In the summer of 1968 I read The Communist Manifesto to learn more about capitalism. I must have been quite affected by it because I then decided to study economics. By sheer chance, I ended up at the University of Chicago, whose economics department was the intellectual nemesis of Marxist reasoning.

At Chicago, I gained more than an understanding of capitalism as an economic system. I also learned how capitalism and socialism relate to different ideals of freedom and democracy. Three propositions stood out:

First, capitalism provides better protection for individual freedom than socialism, while the latter threatens individual freedom and befriends collective freedom.

Second, the political ideals of liberal democracy befriend capitalism, while the political ideals of populist democracy befriend socialism.

Third, the political ideals of populist democracies lead to tyrannies.