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Brainiac Five posted:Oh, so you don't believe in Dutch disease? Lmao. quote:Anyways, your position is that countries can intuit their potential future comparative advantages and thus aim for them, which is, bluntly, a lunatic proposition. This kind of attitudes bodes very well for communists who thinks that government can't figure out what their countries are good at exporting but can apparently manage a bureaucracy which can intuit what their own citizens need right down to the last nail.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:13 |
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# ? Jun 2, 2024 09:40 |
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Typo posted:One of the problems of the far left is that they are still running cold war era Moscow party line where the US is always evil Uhhh, a) the Soviets themselves decried the far-left as people getting distracted over trivial matters b) while some posters in this thread *makes neck motions* are putting it as "US BAD", I have actually tried to bring up non-pariah state anti-Imperialist discussions I don't think Imperialism is unique to the United States, I don't think it's impossible from any country. I think discussing American Imperialism from a perspective of various competing Imperialist blocs is a better idea and one where the US might indeed be the better of two sides. But this thread is basically people yelling "COMMUNIST" and "CAPITALIST" at each other as it stands.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:13 |
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JeffersonClay posted:The great leap famine would never have occurred without Marxism so all marxists must support the great leap famine as a necessary evil. Seems legit. So where did capital come from in the first place, since it can't be accumulated through savings? Was it put here by the Hand of God? Jack of Hearts posted:What the poo poo? "Because you support the existence of a police force, you support the police shooting unarmed black guys." These reasonings do no cohere. Bring back Horselord, you're terrible. So you two shitbags don't seem to grasp the difference between abstract principles and concrete ones. So, if someone declares their Maoism, it's entirely reasonable to question them on the GLF, because of the concrete element, just like how the US military bases are concrete phenomena that concretely facilitate rape and murder. Now, there is an argument that you can make that the US could and should eliminate the culture that leads to these things happening, but that would require admitting that the bases as they exist cause evils to happen. Which you can't. Trapped by your ideological commitments. Fojar38 posted:I absolutely defend the USA allowing democracy to flourish in Japan, a country that it was once mortal enemies with. The Japanese people are pleased with it too and are great friends of the United States of America according to every poll taken there. Actually, apathy towards politics is a big deal because of how much the country is dominated by the LDP, which is in turn a political party that facilitates revisionism about the Sino-Japanese War and regularly denies comfort women, Nanjing, the Three Alls, etc. So, basically, you support war criminals because you're extremely and willfully ignorant.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:14 |
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I at least appreciated that homework explainer was going to go to some length to appreciably extrapolate on his positions; you could disagree with him firmly and fundamentally but there still is an actual exchange of ideals, still a discussion to be had about things like the matter of less-than-critical reactionary support of horrific autocratic regimes that are antithetical to any sort of actual progressive liberties. In his wake has come a lot of pedagogy that trips over its attempt to hit back as witty and hot as it sees it coming in, because it is working from a position of popular incredulity.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:14 |
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Tesseraction posted:Uhhh, Ok, granted, that's true
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:15 |
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Brainiac Five posted:Actually, apathy towards politics is a big deal because of how much the country is dominated by the LDP, which is in turn a political party that facilitates revisionism about the Sino-Japanese War and regularly denies comfort women, Nanjing, the Three Alls, etc. So, basically, you support war criminals because you're extremely and willfully ignorant. There is a difference between supporting war criminals and acknowledging the electoral process, friend. Just because the Japanese elect people with dumb beliefs doesn't make those elections illegitimate. Tesseraction posted:I don't think Imperialism is unique to the United States, I don't think it's impossible from any country. I think discussing American Imperialism from a perspective of various competing Imperialist blocs is a better idea and one where the US might indeed be the better of two sides. People keep calling the USA imperialist when I get the sense that if you pretzel the logic enough any action that influences another country in some way could be construed as "imperialist" if you want it to.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:16 |
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Fojar38 posted:People keep calling the USA imperialist when I get the sense that if you pretzel the logic enough any action that influences another country in some way could be construed as "imperialist" if you want it to. Probably, but if you want to argue semantics then any discussion will be buried under an entire empire of pedantry. There is a dictionary definition I guess http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/imperialism But like you say, pretzel logic.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:19 |
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Typo posted:The Dutch disease is an issue yes, but it's only really a problem for oil/gas producers and isn't all that relevant for most of the countries in the world. Not only that but Norway basically showed how it should be handled, which is to use the oil to built a sovereign trust fund which will be used to jump-start industries when the oil starts to run out. What this comes down to is that your comparative advantage is based on your supply of natural resources, meaning that Japan is an abomination. South Korea lacks rare-earths and copper, so it shouldn't have gone into electronics and stuck with wigs and iron ore. I'm in the sovereign country of DieAmerikkkanDogs and I have abundant iron, bauxite, and titanium. Should I go into automobiles or aerospace or shipbuilding or construction materials? How can I figure this out when these resources are barely developed? Obviously, comparative advantages are obvious and I can tell that I should prefer aerospace over automobiles instinctually. Kavros posted:I at least appreciated that homework explainer was going to go to some length to appreciably extrapolate on his positions; you could disagree with him firmly and fundamentally but there still is an actual exchange of ideals, still a discussion to be had about things like the matter of less-than-critical reactionary support of horrific autocratic regimes that are antithetical to any sort of actual progressive liberties. In his wake has come a lot of pedagogy that trips over its attempt to hit back as witty and hot as it sees it coming in, because it is working from a position of popular incredulity. There's no point in trying to be conciliatory to smug assholes like you, is the thing. It's the very definition of pissing into the wind. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:19 |
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Brainiac Five posted:There's no point in trying to be conciliatory to smug assholes like you, is the thing. It's the very definition of pissing into the wind. If you are on the far left then conciliation is the only way you'll be influencing a drat thing nowadays.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:21 |
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Brainiac Five posted:So where did capital come from in the first place, since it can't be accumulated through savings? Was it put here by the Hand of God? The capital that built the exploitative factory in a third world country came from abroad. No trade means no capital means no factory.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:22 |
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Tesseraction posted:
This could be interesting, but two is too few. In e.g. Syria there are at least three, maybe four power blocs.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:23 |
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Fojar38 posted:If you are on the far left then conciliation is the only way you'll be influencing a drat thing nowadays. I'm just a guy, is the thing. I'm not the avatar of the left. So I don't have to be diplomatic to you cockroaches and locusts. JeffersonClay posted:The capital that built the exploitative factory in a third world country came from abroad. No trade means no capital means no factory. What stops some country or person in Africa from accumulating savings and buying the equipment with the accumulated savings? Like, you're insisting that there's no way to develop capital without someone else investing in you and owning you and that's literally impossible. Literally impossible. It cannot be true because the world as it is today could not loving exist without the ability to develop capital goods through accumulated savings. You dipshit.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:25 |
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Brainiac Five posted:What this comes down to is that your comparative advantage is based on your supply of natural resources, meaning that Japan is an abomination. South Korea lacks rare-earths and copper, so it shouldn't have gone into electronics and stuck with wigs and iron ore. I mean you should really actually read up the model of how comparative advantage benefits people instead of simply getting really angry in your posts quote:I'm in the sovereign country of DieAmerikkkanDogs and I have abundant iron, bauxite, and titanium. Should I go into automobiles or aerospace or shipbuilding or construction materials? How can I figure this out when these resources are barely developed? Obviously, comparative advantages are obvious and I can tell that I should prefer aerospace over automobiles instinctually. Yes, it is indeed difficult sometimes to determine what a country's comparative advantage is, that doesn't change the fact that many countries have figured out what their comparative advantages are, and permanently or temporarily, used it to fuel their development far more effectively than Communism have.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:26 |
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Patrick Spens posted:This could be interesting, but two is too few. In e.g. Syria there are at least three, maybe four power blocs. Hah, yes really - that's a classic example of Iranian Imperialism, Saudi Imperialism, Russian Imperialism, American Imperialism, Wahhabist Imperialism, heck even Kurdish Imperialism and Turkish Imperialism at this point... it's a whirlwind. It's fascinating in that regard, despite being more importantly horrifying in a humanitarian regard. This is why I said this thread should be rebooted without the baggage of the first post.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:28 |
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American unipolarity has produced a world where there has being objectively less violent death and wars per capita than either the bipolar world or the multipolar world before it
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:30 |
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Typo posted:No, comparative advantage do not only refer to stockpiles of natural resources I'm going by what you say, "Typo", because you are saying stupid things. You don't even address the point, which is that the basic theory of comparative advantages assumes that they are functionally static qualities rather than something that can be changed, and the idea that nations should pursue the comparative advantages that are visible at any given moment over developing different ones is thus no longer definitely true. It is indeed probably actively false. Like, your theory is actually hugely racist in that it argues that there's just some indefinable something which causes Japanese and Americans to be better at making cars, since you've scooted away from natural resources and implying that human skills and institutions are the root causes means that anyone can develop a comparative advantage in building cars in theory, rendering the theory of comparative advantage largely useless.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:32 |
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Brainiac Five posted:That's not the OP's position, because he's arguing for opposition to American imperialism as a means to weaken American dominion and create spaces wherein autonomy and self-determination are possible for countries that aren't part of the imperial rulership. This doesn't require a functional socialist country to achieve. You seem to have inexplicably inserted the word 'not' before the point where you paraphrase what I said... If you believe fighting a war with America is an inherently worthwhile thing, and socialism or communism is irrelevant or useless to that goal, then that is a position. If you are going to give that position a label, adopting anti-American as a label might get you tied in a few less knots. For example, when someone asks about Tibet, you can simply say 'that is not America', rather than 'as an anti imperialist, I feel the backward feudal system needed to be replaced by a state beurocracy and settlers'. The same answer works for Hungary, Ukraine, Chechnya,, ... See how much easier that argument is when you try to make it that way?
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:32 |
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radmonger posted:You seem to have inexplicably inserted the word 'not' before the point where you paraphrase what I said... Overthrowing imperialism is inherently worthwhile, regardless of socialism or communism. If you sincerely believe that the imperial dominion of other countries is something that should only be opposed where it advances socialism, you're at best terrible at socialism and more likely a left-fascist.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:35 |
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Brainiac Five posted:What this comes down to is that your comparative advantage is based on your supply of natural resources, meaning that Japan is an abomination. South Korea lacks rare-earths and copper, so it shouldn't have gone into electronics and stuck with wigs and iron ore. I'm in the sovereign country of DieAmerikkkanDogs and I have abundant iron, bauxite, and titanium. Should I go into automobiles or aerospace or shipbuilding or construction materials? How can I figure this out when these resources are barely developed? Obviously, comparative advantages are obvious and I can tell that I should prefer aerospace over automobiles instinctually. Comparative advantage has very little to do with natural resources anymore, because bulk transport is so cheap. A country with lots of raw resources that could be extracted for less than their trading price would have a comparative advantage in minerals, not manufacturing. Comparative advantage is about the cost and quality of labor (and land for agricultural products). If your country can make good airplanes for cheap from imported materials, that's your comparative advantage.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:35 |
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JeffersonClay posted:Comparative advantage has very little to do with natural resources anymore, because bulk transport is so cheap. A country with lots of raw resources that could be extracted for less than their trading price would have a comparative advantage in minerals, not manufacturing. Comparative advantage is about the cost and quality of labor (and land for agricultural products). If your country can make good airplanes for cheap from imported materials, that's your comparative advantage. Please admit you hosed up when you said you couldn't accumulate capital through savings.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:37 |
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Tesseraction posted:Hah, yes really - that's a classic example of Iranian Imperialism, Saudi Imperialism, Russian Imperialism, American Imperialism, Wahhabist Imperialism, heck even Kurdish Imperialism and Turkish Imperialism at this point... it's a whirlwind. It's fascinating in that regard, despite being more importantly horrifying in a humanitarian regard. What would that look like?
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:38 |
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Brainiac Five posted:There's no point in trying to be conciliatory to smug assholes like you, is the thing. It's the very definition of pissing into the wind. You have to remember that you are in an increasingly fractional and jammed-ridiculously-left-of-frame ideological seat, even among very far left progressives -- who are more likely than not to deride you as tankies who essentially apologize and support the works of horrifying autocratic regimes and get stuck tripping over their tremendous record of human rights abuses, collective socioeconomic failures, and crimes against humankind in general in order to support a sort of bizarrely pathological and lopsided focus on U.S. imperialism. You can say that there's no point in being conciliatory (or even, really, just regarding what I have to say, if you're not immediately inclined to write it off as 'she's just a smug rear end in a top hat') but your statement here is something which is regularly said by people like anarchocapitalists, neoradicals and sovereigns, who are similar fractional way-niche and bizarrely insular pockets of ideological hyperfocus. It's never true; I haven't ever seen pro-DPRK and pro-China 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' style apologism gain traction this way. Somewhat I am not expecting that to change this time? It's a serious assessment.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:39 |
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It's kind of funny to note that according to the theories on display here, China is indeed hugely moral for graciously investing in African countries and causing their economic development, and it's not actually an imperial effort to extract wealth.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:40 |
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Cross-posted from here.Homework Explainer posted:I look forward to getting dogpiled here, but it's a fair question and I'm glad you moved it to this thread.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:41 |
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Brainiac Five posted:What stops some country or person in Africa from accumulating savings and buying the equipment with the accumulated savings? Like, you're insisting that there's no way to develop capital without someone else investing in you and owning you and that's literally impossible. Literally impossible. It cannot be true because the world as it is today could not loving exist without the ability to develop capital goods through accumulated savings. You dipshit. It would take the African entrepreneur a long time to accumulate the capital, perhaps many lifetimes. Are you arguing that for each instance where foreign capital built a factory in the 3rd world, enough domestic capital existed for the 3rd world country to just build it itself? Because that's dumb.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:41 |
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Patrick Spens posted:What would that look like? Hopefully one where one can discuss geopolitics in a more holistic way than the other threads which are more localised. Frankly I hadn't thought about it until I saw how quickly this thread burst into flames.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:41 |
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Kavros posted:You have to remember that you are in an increasingly fractional and jammed-ridiculously-left-of-frame ideological seat, even among very far left progressives -- who are more likely than not to deride you as tankies who essentially apologize and support the works of horrifying autocratic regimes and get stuck tripping over their tremendous record of human rights abuses, collective socioeconomic failures, and crimes against humankind in general in order to support a sort of bizarrely pathological and lopsided focus on U.S. imperialism. But I'm not arguing for the DPRK or the PRC. You're confusing me with another person, because you're an rear end in a top hat who believes that this is about two sides in a virtual war. I am arguing that the US policies by which it has attempted to dominate the whole of the world didn't just pop up out of nowhere with the PNAC, and that these policies are immoral, and that the goal of all people who have not surrendered to evil should be to end our imperial policies and imperialism generally.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:42 |
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JeffersonClay posted:It would take the African entrepreneur a long time to accumulate the capital, perhaps many lifetimes. Are you arguing that for each instance where foreign capital built a factory in the 3rd world, enough domestic capital existed for the 3rd world country to just build it itself? Because that's dumb. Okay, so do it as an SOE where you can use savings from the whole nation. Anyways, you're backing off from your more idiotic statements, so I'll take this as an admission you were wrong without actually having to own up to it. This is also a simultaneous admission of cowardice you are making, but whatever.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:44 |
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Brainiac Five posted:Overthrowing imperialism is inherently worthwhile, regardless of socialism or communism. If you sincerely believe that the imperial dominion of other countries is something that should only be opposed where it advances socialism, you're at best terrible at socialism and more likely a left-fascist. "...and that's why I hope Nazi Germany defeats the British." - you, in 1939
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:45 |
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Brainiac Five posted:But I'm not arguing for the DPRK or the PRC. You're confusing me with another person, because you're an rear end in a top hat who believes that this is about two sides in a virtual war. I am arguing that the US policies by which it has attempted to dominate the whole of the world didn't just pop up out of nowhere with the PNAC, and that these policies are immoral, and that the goal of all people who have not surrendered to evil should be to end our imperial policies and imperialism generally. No, no -- read what I'm saying very carefully, there's a bit of misreading about what I'm saying you say versus what I note that hyper-left anti-imperialist narratives tend to get to. But it's worth getting an assessment of where you stand on the DPRK or the PRC. Do you believe that either of those governments is better or more moral than the United States government? Do you believe that people's human rights are better served by either of those governments over what, in general, citizens would expect under a U.S. standard?
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:46 |
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Nude Bog Lurker posted:"...and that's why I hope Nazi Germany defeats the British." So is this a defense of the British Empire, or are you just pretending that Nazi Germany wasn't colonial in ambitions, or are you just really loving stupid? Please answer in 140 characters or less, your posts are giving me cataracts.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:47 |
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Brainiac Five posted:I am arguing that the US policies by which it has attempted to dominate the whole of the world didn't just pop up out of nowhere with the PNAC, and that these policies are immoral, and that the goal of all people who have not surrendered to evil should be to end our imperial policies and imperialism generally. Do you believe that a reduction in American imperial power would necessarily lead to a reduction in imperialism generally? If so why?
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:47 |
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Kavros posted:No, no -- read what I'm saying very carefully, there's a bit of misreading about what I'm saying you say versus what I note that hyper-left anti-imperialist narratives tend to get to. But it's worth getting an assessment of where you stand on the DPRK or the PRC. Do you believe that either of those governments is better or more moral than the United States government? Do you believe that people's human rights are better served by either of those governments over what, in general, citizens would expect under a U.S. standard? I'm not going to answer that question because I'm afraid I don't trust you not to turn this into a giant gotcha and I really don't want to have to look at such a thing on such a beautiful evening. Patrick Spens posted:Do you believe that a reduction in American imperial power would necessarily lead to a reduction in imperialism generally? If so why? No. Can I start assuming you believe stupid things too or is that a privilege reserved for cheerleaders of capitalism?
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:49 |
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Brainiac Five posted:I'm going by what you say, "Typo", because you are saying stupid things. No it doesn't and you'd know this if you bother actually reading what the model of comparative advantage is about. The ultimate core of the comparative advantage theory is that if two countries work together, instead of refusing to trade with one another, the amount of wealth in both country increases even if one country is objectively worse at producing every good than the other country. So let's say you have England and Portugal, and two goods, cloth and wine, even if England is better at producing both cloth and wine than portugal, but Portugal is better at producing wine than cloth in its own country, it still makes more sense for both countries to trade because Portugal can focus on producing wine and importing Cloth from England. So Portugal makes more wine than in autarky, England makes more cloth than in autarky, and then the two countries trade. Thus the total amount of wealth in both countries rise: both countries have more cloth and wine than before. Nowhere in this is the idea that countries shouldn't be developing new industries or building new colleges to train workers to move up the value chain, and indeed, that's what most countries who liberalized their trade system did (see South Korea or Taiwan), the caveat is that you should be building new industries you expect to be competitive on the world markets instead of just building ones for the sake of having more factories so you can have "made domestically" stamped onto the good, because by doing so you are ultimately hurting your own consumers. In South Korea, Taiwan and China for instance, the countries got rich by following their comparative advantages in cheap labor to make low-end consumer goods like toys, shoes, and garments, but then they shoved the gains from trade into additional infrastructure so that in a generation or two, South Korea is making Samsung phones: sold all over the world. China in particularly developed much faster once it switched from capital intensive industries like steel during the Maoist era to labor intensive ones, because it does not have a comparative advantage in capital but does in labor. The reason why leftists get so mad at this is because this looks very much like "exploitation", and how can exploitation be good for the people being exploited? quote:Like, your theory is actually hugely racist in that it argues that there's just some indefinable something which causes Japanese and Americans to be better at making cars, since you've scooted away from natural resources and implying that human skills and institutions are the root causes means that anyone can develop a comparative advantage in building cars in theory, rendering the theory of comparative advantage largely useless. The Soviet farm minister meets his U.S. counterpart, who inquires about whether the heroic Soviet farmers are meeting their five-year plans. Asked about each crop in turn, the Soviet minister is forced to sheepishly admit that they are woefully behind on every goal, and then demands: “But what about the blacks in the South?” A U.S. car salesman asks a Soviet counterpart how many months the typical Soviet citizen must work to purchase an entry-level car, and the Soviet answers: “In your country, you lynch Negroes.” Typo fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Jun 14, 2016 |
# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:51 |
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Brainiac Five posted:I'm just a guy, is the thing. I'm not the avatar of the left. So I don't have to be diplomatic to you cockroaches and locusts. You do if you want to actually even slightly bring people to your point of view instead of looking like a literal crazy person who calls his opponents cockroaches.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:54 |
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Brainiac Five posted:
So what are some steps that could be taken to decrease imperialism generally?
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:54 |
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Brainiac Five posted:I'm not going to answer that question because I'm afraid I don't trust you not to turn this into a giant gotcha and I really don't want to have to look at such a thing on such a beautiful evening. Then, for all your pretensions, let us look at two things Between the two of us, I am showing I am willing to engage in good faith and you are displaying, clearly, that you are not. Between the two of us, I am offering my position sincerely and I'm not automatically jumping to denigration of your position, and you're repeatedly just dismissing me as a smug rear end in a top hat when, essentially, you're being exactly that. I recognize the unwitting irony of that you end up giving me a gotcha by thinking you can smugly bypass a potential gotcha, but in all sincerity you're kind of just draining your own ethos for me.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:54 |
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Man, social norms seem to be terrible in the 30th century.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:55 |
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Brainiac Five posted:So is this a defense of the British Empire, or are you just pretending that Nazi Germany wasn't colonial in ambitions, or are you just really loving stupid? Please answer in 140 characters or less, your posts are giving me cataracts. I will give you a hint: I would have supported the British empire ahead of the Nazis even though the British were far more successful imperialists. Which one would you have supported, bearing in mind your contention that "overthrowing imperialism is inherently worthwhile"? What I'm predicting is a furious screed that will avoid answering the question because despite your attempts to show "nuance", you have an incredibly binary view of the world in which countries are either "good" or "bad" and the facts must align accordingly.
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:56 |
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# ? Jun 2, 2024 09:40 |
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Typo posted:No it doesn't and you'd know this if you bother actually reading what the model of comparative advantage is about. In actual practice, however, outside of Economics 101, the argument has been that comparative advantages are static, and this has been put forth by economists, most notoriously by the IMF. South Korea also did most of its economic development before trade liberalization, and indeed the vast majority of countries that developed at least moderately successfully did so before trade liberalization. The exceptions are countries that relied on ignoring IP and industrial espionage to piggyback on economic development. China is doing both, funnily enough. So while you may have had a humanitarian econ teacher back in high school some forty years ago, the actual practice differs. Sorry. quote:The Soviet farm minister meets his U.S. counterpart, who inquires about whether the heroic Soviet farmers are meeting their five-year plans. Asked about each crop in turn, the Soviet minister is forced to sheepishly admit that they are woefully behind on every goal, and then demands: “But what about the blacks in the South?” A U.S. car salesman asks a Soviet counterpart how many months the typical Soviet citizen must work to purchase an entry-level car, and the Soviet answers: “In your country, you lynch Negroes.” More cowardice. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:57 |