Only half of those citizens have consciouses at all, and many of those are still confused about how bad the guy with the gun is. They still at least believe in there being a guy with a gun, just not this exact one, they want their handsome gun guy instead of this ugly gun guy. The other half rabidly love the guy with the gun.
I do understand that, but that’s just life. If countries don’t take a long term view and build up their own capacity, but instead just buy the cheapest stuff right now, that won’t be ideal for them. But the solution isn’t to try to dictate other countries’ domestic economic policy, that can’t possibly work. Even if China changes its policy on this matter those countries would still have to spend the exact same amount of money to build their own manufacturing base. Tariff imports a little bit if you have to, but most importantly put that money into actually building domestic capacity for the most important things. This is just the USA trying to put off doing that because the neoliberals are addicted to sucking everyone else dry through finance capitalism and manufacturing isn’t as profitable as tech-IP rent seeking.
the auto industry relies on Chinese imports for much of its materials, without extra investment only applying tariffs will hurt it too
I think they will also have to subsidise or otherwise incentivise manufacturing in their own countries to develop it but like I said their labour costs are lower than in China so they have some competitive advantage there already. I agree it’s bad that the capacity is not more distributed but I don’t believe that China’s internal subsidies will prevent any country from doing this, only post industrial countries which already have the money to buy large amounts of Chinese exports.
I replied with several specific arguments elsewhere in this thread, including a further on this comment chain.
Why would the goal be for “everyone to have a trade surplus”? More like, everyone retains manufacturing capability for at least the most critical things, and speculation which is not even grounded in at least some kind of industrial base is somewhat disincentivised.
Not directly, it’s just a prod to think about the subject a bit more. The IMF wouldn’t push for this if it was of benefit to anyone but the USA and maybe Europe.
The real answer is that, if by “historically oppressed” they mean “poor”, labour costs and purchasing power there are both lower and so it will be within their means to subsidise the manufacturing that they themselves are able to consume, probably even at a lower price than China. If they’re historically oppressed but actually have money now then obviously they can just use that.
Labour costs in China are not that low these days, that’s kind of the point of the subsidies. It’s also much more competitive to subsidise domestic production than to tariff imports. Without that, it just means that Americans pay more for the Chinese goods they’re going to buy anyway because they don’t have a domestic alternative. If the revenue from tariffs in America were actually used to improve manufacturing capacity it wouldn’t be such a problem.
Yeah, the IMF, defender of historically oppressed countries. Lmao.
Sure, of course they can, it’s just a self-own.
It’s only bad for other countries if they let it be, any country can subsidize their own manufacturing if they want. Why would China have any obligation to run their economic policy to benefit the USA? Insane level of entitlement.
The fact they’ll eagerly help oppress people, but not one of the few times the authorities are doing something decent, tells you everything you need to know.
Not yet, but it’s a similar action with a similar goal
Excellent analogy
No, he won’t respond to any shame he feels except by doubling down. IMO It’s much more important for ordinary people in the us to know.
it says “most of”
But the good kinds that actually work and help people are
That’s a good point, and I feel that way about things like weapons manufacture or intelligence, and yeah, probably working for Google or Palantir. There is a limit to the abrogation of our responsibility because we need to make a living. But I still somewhat disagree with some of your point, on practical grounds, which is basically that “AI” doesn’t really work.
I agree with the first part, but scientists and engineers are not that much more complicit than literally everyone with a job. Those businesses couldn’t have done that without marketing, hr, janitors, tradespeople, lawyers etc etc etc either. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism and there is no ethical job.
Several socialist/communist countries have had some form of this as policy.