Corporate Social Credit Scores Mirror China, Risk the Republic

When the United States commenced serious trade relations with China in the late 1980s and early 1990s, policymakers hypothesized that a capitalist market in China would segue into a Western-style, democratic, representative government.

As China carries on its 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress this week, where Xi Jinping is expected to be granted an unprecedented third term and named “President for Life,” Americans can now only regret the naïveté of the leaders who enabled and empowered the rise of the communist regime that is now an existential threat worldwide.

But as we bemoan the naïveté of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and the 106th Congress, Americans should also take heed. For we have not only failed to “convert” China from communist authoritarianism to the ways of a democratic society, as we had hoped, but also we have made our own society more authoritarian in a manner that mimics some aspects of China.

A Private-Sector Silencing of Speech

John Locke, the 17th-century philosopher who so influenced the Founders, wrote in “A Letter Concerning Toleration”: “The toleration of those that differ from others is so agreeable … to the genuine reason of mankind, that it seems monstrous for men to be so blind as not to perceive the necessity and advantage of it in so clear a light.”

While Locke was writing about religious tolerance among different sects, his notions were so embraced by the Founding Fathers that they became the basis for James Madison’s derivation of the First Amendment that prohibits Congress from abridging the freedom of speech or the press.

Today, though, tolerance of speech is at risk. And it is private sector corporations that are limiting speech in ways Congress cannot—and ways the Founders likely never considered.

As I reported earlier this month, private company PayPal maintains a policy that allows the company to debit $2,500 from accounts of users who promote “hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.” Your account can be closed if you “provide false, inaccurate, or misleading information.” Determinations as to whether you meet those thresholds are, of course, made solely by PayPal.

Earlier this year, Mike Lindell, the “My Pillow Guy,” had bank accounts he maintained with Minnesota Bank & Trust terminated after the bank described him as a “reputation risk.” The bank apparently found Lindell’s continuing doubts about the integrity of the 2020 election to somehow be a threat to it.

Lauren Witzke, a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Delaware and a self-described “Christian nationalist” who opposes the LGBTQ movement, was denied access to her account at Wells Fargo. She claims she had banked with Wells Fargo for years but only had banking services denied when she became a candidate and had a platform to espouse her views.

These “blackballings” of opposing speech by financial institutions all seem to go against conservative groups. Left-wing groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter don’t seem to have been sanctioned by financial institutions, even though they have been accused of engaging in violence. ActionNetwork, a

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