Earlier quoted context omitted.
Besides preventing conflict, globalization was supposed to increase democracy in the world. Increasing trade relations with China was in part to make them more democratic, as the theory was the more prosperous a nation is, the more democratic they become. I think we got it backwards. Now we know it doesn’t work, and this historic reason for globalization is moot.
If you ever visited China 20 years ago and now, you may have noticed the change in openness, though. The first time I went, I was confined to limited areas, and had to be followed by a state appointed guide for my entire trip. I couldn't kiss my girlfriend in the street, it was considered bad behavior. Now, I can just go alone, and where I please, and demonstrations of affection are not as frown upon. Women also seem…
“The more reliant we are on others, the less resilient we are as a nation”
61–70 of 87 posts
Re: “The more reliant we are on others, the less resilient we are as a nation”
#62Reads like a slogan for anti-globalization and nationalism. As with all slogans, it ignores important details that contradict it. Over the past four decades, our current global economic system, promoting economic integration and interdependence between countries, has lifted billions out of poverty.[a][b] Billions. No sensible discussion of globalization can ignore that . The current backlash is not against globalizat…
In other countries doing the providing. It didn't do as well for the ones doing the dependency ones - except in transfering welth and competence outside, and to a small minority people on the inside getting mega-rich from this outsourcing, and a quite larger but still small minority of people benefitting from related jobs.
Hence the "hollowing out of the middle class in the US", with the majority of the middle class and working class getting the short end of the stick, and a much smaller part of it and the upper middle class improving their lot.
(And the overall impact of this process softened or hidden entirely for a good while through cheap money published and going around as credit and QE)
Re: “The more reliant we are on others, the less resilient we are as a nation”
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I might've agreed with you had Russia not invaded Ukraine. Your assumption is the same assumption we all made, but they invaded Ukraine anyway.
What did Russia depend on Ukraine for? Russia did not think it was attacking Europe. It is not a remotely analogous situation to US/China. China is much more mutually dependent on the US, and much more sane.
Do you really think Putin and his generals thought that everyone would stand by and watch as they invaded Ukraine and do nothing? That's absurd.
>It is not a remotely analogous situation to US/China.
China-Taiwan and Russia-Ukraine are eerily similar, actually.
>China is much more mutually dependent on the US, and much more sane.
Their massive military build up and itchy trigger finger aiming at anyone who even tries to insinuate that Taiwan isn't part of the PRC says otherwise. Not to mention their posturing in the South China Sea, which has perturbed not only Taiwan but Vietnam and the Phillipines too.
>much more sane
Are you sure?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%...
Around 40 people died in these skirmishes. And 40 is a conservative figure btw. India claims that more than 30 Chinese soldiers died, whereas China claims 4 died. US intelligence has the number at 20-35.
Re: “The more reliant we are on others, the less resilient we are as a nation”
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
What did Russia depend on Ukraine for? Russia did not think it was attacking Europe. It is not a remotely analogous situation to US/China. China is much more mutually dependent on the US, and much more sane.
>Russia did not think it was attacking Europe. Do you really think Putin and his generals thought that everyone would stand by and watch as they invaded Ukraine and do nothing? That's absurd. >It is not a remotely analogous situation to US/China. China-Taiwan and Russia-Ukraine are eerily similar, actually. >China is much more mutually dependent on the US, and much more sane. Their massive military build up and itchy…
My point: countries with economic interdependence are less likely to go to war, which is a fact to consider when advocating for reduction of interdependence among nuclear powers.
I think you took that to be a claim that any economic interdependence absolutely eliminates any chance of war.
I’m not arguing that China is great or any of the other things you seem yo have read into my relatively straightforward point.
Re: “The more reliant we are on others, the less resilient we are as a nation”
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Russia did not think it was attacking Europe. Do you really think Putin and his generals thought that everyone would stand by and watch as they invaded Ukraine and do nothing? That's absurd. >It is not a remotely analogous situation to US/China. China-Taiwan and Russia-Ukraine are eerily similar, actually. >China is much more mutually dependent on the US, and much more sane. Their massive military build up and itchy…
I admire your strength of feeling on this topic but you’ve really mistaken my point. My point: countries with economic interdependence are less likely to go to war, which is a fact to consider when advocating for reduction of interdependence among nuclear powers. I think you took that to be a claim that any economic interdependence absolutely eliminates any chance of war. I’m not arguing that China is great or any of…
And my point is: Russia broke this `rule' indirectly (meaning going to war with a country that they know would be protected by countries that they are interdependent on), so China could too. Russia and Europe were strongly intertwined, yet Putin and his generals still went to war knowing that there would be dire economic consequences. The only thing that would make China wary of doing the same is if Ukraine wins.
>which is a fact to consider when advocating for reduction of interdependence among nuclear powers.
Nuclear weapons are more of a deterrent of war than trade among nuclear powers over than anything else.
>I’m not arguing that China is great or any of the other things you seem yo have read into my relatively straightforward point.
That's not what I gleaned from your posts. What I got was a lack of urgency about China and her aspirations in the world.
Re: “The more reliant we are on others, the less resilient we are as a nation”
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The current backlash is not against globalization per se, but against: ... I cannot speak about the UK, but in general this isn't all that people are dissatisfied with about globalization. Very many are angry about the loss of a sense of home. If you examine the situation in purely material terms, you won't observe or measure those feelings. For others, the loss of home extends to a loss of community, which extends…
A rig worker in the arctic explained it succinctly to me, I don’t care how many people it’s lifted out of poverty I care whether it’s better for me and my friends and family and right now it isn’t. For software engineers globalization is wonderful for many in the economy it isn’t.
Except that:
- the same rig worker will gladly buy consumer products cheaply manufactured in some developing or non-free Country thanks to globalization and will immediately stop buying them if the prices go up due to un-globalization (it's actually happening in UK, newspapers are full of articles similar to UK Shop sales slow as consumers shift spending toward essentials)
- there are billions of people who don't care about the rig worker, they care about their own families. By virtue of how the democratic process works - majority wins - and how social evolution works - survival of the fittest form of society -, the rig worker either adapts to the new environment or will go extinct.
Third option is the west goes to war against developing countries, trying to set the clock of history back and exploit them again, but this time I'm not sure the west could win.
Point is: without solidarity among workers of the same class (I don't care about them, I care about me), the rig workers of the World will be ignored because they have literally no power other than their complains.
I too don't care about 'em, why should I? if they don't care about anything else than themselves? They surely don't give a flying f*ck about me and how the globalization helped me and my family to live a better life.
This is one of those things that a bit of global socialism could make better, but the solution, according to the rig worker, is the exact opposite: close the stable door when the horse has bolted, i.e. more nationalism, tarifs, walls, which will in the end work against the rig worker, not in their favour.
p.s.: you can agree or disagree, but expecting that a small country with 80 million people should be more important than 4 billion people living in the developing World is simply delusional.
Comply or die isn't that funny when it works against you, am I right?
Re: “The more reliant we are on others, the less resilient we are as a nation”
#671. Having inter- and co-dependence between nations decreases the likelihood of global (potentially nuclear) war. It is difficult to decimate another country when all of your aluminum, cars, wheat or salt were coming from that country.
2. From a "big-picture" perspective, global markets enable massive potential growth for many corporations. I lived through the globalization of the auto industry here in Michigan; it was a slow-motion horror show affecting virtually every person, everywhere. Similar things happened in the mining and steel industries to the south and east of us.
3. There is no free-market value to extract from 500,000,000 poverty-stricken people; better to have them working and buying your products. Low growth/low margin industries (laundry soap, packaged food, etc.) were virtually drooling over the thought of opening up the Indian, Chinese and African markets.
4. The assumption that if, through globalization, you reduce entire industries that helped build a nation (steel, automobiles, are good examples in the USA) those people will simple re-train and get jobs in other industries, particularly white-collar or service industries.
5. People are adaptable.
But, these seemingly sensible ideals are difficult to attain. We have seen that:
1. Inter- and co-dependence can be adversely affected by things other than war: e.g. a global pandemic.
2. Not all countries open their markets the same, with trade imbalances being more frequent than desired. More modern, higher-precision industrial equipment simply made Japanese cars better and longer-lasting than the decades-old "Big Three" equipment.
3. There is no guarantee that 500M newly-appointed-middle-class people will even buy your countries products. A global free market is designed so that better designs win; but marketing and market manipulations don't always work out that way. A vast majority will spend less on a product if they can; even if it is of lower quality. (looking at you Amazon).
4. Some people just don't want to be white-collar workers or provide services to others. A "days work" is best measured by the things they built, rather than the processes they optimized, or the signatures they acquired.
5. While people are adaptable, watching them adapt to seemingly non-sensical drivers (at least in their world view) breeds great amounts of discontent. Hence movements like MAGA are born.
Re: “The more reliant we are on others, the less resilient we are as a nation”
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The current backlash is not against globalization per se, but against: ... I cannot speak about the UK, but in general this isn't all that people are dissatisfied with about globalization. Very many are angry about the loss of a sense of home. If you examine the situation in purely material terms, you won't observe or measure those feelings. For others, the loss of home extends to a loss of community, which extends…
A rig worker in the arctic explained it succinctly to me, I don’t care how many people it’s lifted out of poverty I care whether it’s better for me and my friends and family and right now it isn’t. For software engineers globalization is wonderful for many in the economy it isn’t.
Re: “The more reliant we are on others, the less resilient we are as a nation”
#69Reads like a slogan for anti-globalization and nationalism. As with all slogans, it ignores important details that contradict it. Over the past four decades, our current global economic system, promoting economic integration and interdependence between countries, has lifted billions out of poverty.[a][b] Billions. No sensible discussion of globalization can ignore that . The current backlash is not against globalizat…
But let’s also not throw out the baby with the bathwater in the _opposite_ direction. We should not be reliant on Russia for energy to such an extent that our economy gets destroyed when a Russian tyrant goes on an ego trip. We should not be allowing Chinese entities to own our energy infrastructure. We should not be allowing foreign nationals to buy up massive amounts of property in London with shady money, distorti…
Same way England should not be allowed to reign over 56 states with their King?
I mean, if it goes both ways, I agree.
Re: “The more reliant we are on others, the less resilient we are as a nation”
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Besides preventing conflict, globalization was supposed to increase democracy in the world. Increasing trade relations with China was in part to make them more democratic, as the theory was the more prosperous a nation is, the more democratic they become. I think we got it backwards. Now we know it doesn’t work, and this historic reason for globalization is moot.
If you ever visited China 20 years ago and now, you may have noticed the change in openness, though. The first time I went, I was confined to limited areas, and had to be followed by a state appointed guide for my entire trip. I couldn't kiss my girlfriend in the street, it was considered bad behavior. Now, I can just go alone, and where I please, and demonstrations of affection are not as frown upon. Women also seem…