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0 sats \ 8 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 26 Aug \ parent \ on: Curated list of awesome books and authors on libertarianism BooksAndArticles
I enjoy your perspective and arguments.
I accept a very great part of Chinas amazing growth has been due to the liberalisation that has occurred, freeing citizens to gain reward for their efforts rather than shackled to the collectivist communist workplace models of the past.
However it does not seem so sure that without the overall strategising of the CCP that Chinas advance would have been so great.
In my opinion the secret is in balancing the freedoms given citizens with the need for an overall strategy that deals with the wider geopolitical environment any state finds itself operating.
Afterall today China is now perhaps the only nation state to have achieved such a level of self determination as it currently enjoys, operating a near full and independent economy from the western US led hegemony, now challenging that western hegemony via proxy wars led by Iran and Russia.
It seems niave to me that anyone could consider that a nation state can ignore the need to focus and strategise against the ploys and resource hegemony of competing nations.
How many nations today are free of US monetary and military dominance?
Japan, Europe, the UK, Australia, Canada, S.Korea are all monetary and militarily subservient tribute states to the USA, and most other nation states are at least forced to hold USDs at their central banks or be excluded from global trade payments as punishment.
Today China is challenging the US global monetary and military hegemony...because it has build a cohesive broad and mostly successful economy deliberately staged and evolved to give China a degree of self determination no other nation state enjoys.
However it does not seem so sure that without the overall strategising of the CCP that Chinas advance would have been so great.
You have the right to think that at first yet conclusions shall come from evidence. Name an example of "strategising of the CCP" being benign. I showed you that the one thing that worked was no "strategising of the CCP" but freedom. I showed you that the one thing that failed and keeps failing was "strategising of the CCP".
operating a near full and independent economy from the western US
That's just not true. I assume it will be evident for you that China is THE world provider on almost any good and industry. That's not being and "independent" economy, it means it's depending on the rest of the world to keep up economic growth. Not only that but the main market China has is the US market, to such an extent that it even affects the deficit balance of such a behemoth as the US . That also means that China will keep holding USD to trade, unless it wants to lose 18% of its exports income (hint, it will not). Even more, China depends on the international market so much that it had to take a neutral stance on the Ukrainian conflict despite of its main geopolitical ally being part of it. That should speak by itself.
It seems naive to me that anyone could consider that a nation state can ignore the need to focus and strategise against the ploys and resource hegemony of competing nations.
Yet the truth is the exact opposite. Such perfect examples:
- It was evident for the german population that energetic independence was important, yet it was it's governement the one to destroy nuclear plants to replace them with coal plants and an absolute dependence on Russian oil. The ensuing energy crisis has resulted in shortages and increasing prices. People knew, the state didn't.
- It was evident for both chinese and usa people that their trades where good for both yet it was the USA state decision to impose trade restrictions that caused nothing but damage to both economies and had to be reverted. Why would you think that China so vehemently asked for its trade rights back had it not depended on it? People knew, the state didn't.
Why would you think that such obvious fragile dependences are not obvious for the very people working on those industries? Yet in all cases their governments were the ones to misjudge, and to no surprise: how do you expect the state to have a better understanding than the very people actually involved on the matter? How could you trust the state with a decision based on knowledge it lacks, whose consequences will not affect it, and neglect the decisions that the people that does is directly implicated by the issue can perfectly recognize and judge by themselves? If you then say that that people must be considered in the decision then why would you put the state in the middle? I tell you why: because when it comes from the state decisions can only be political not strategical. Hence the massive disasters of the mentioned examples.
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'Name an example of "strategising of the CCP" being benign'
Acquiring nuclear arms before falling out with the Soviet Union. Seizing control of Tibet before the USAs CIA could. If the USA had installed a puppet regime in Tibet and installed nuclear missiles in Tibet, China then still not recognised by the USA as a legitimate nation would have been under real and imminent danger.
The opening of the Chinese economy led by Deng Xiaoping which included the widespread liberalisation of the economy.
All three above have been deliberate and direct strategies of the CCP which have both preserved and advanced Chinas independence.
You provide no counter to my assertion that virtually all western nations are subservient to the USA both militarily and monetarily.
In stating China now operates an independent economy it is not so much that it does not trade with the west but rather that it produces such a wide range of goods that other nations can sustain their economies virtually in sole linkage with China.
For example now Iran and Russia both exist as viable economies because China both buys their exports (oil and gas) and provides the manufactured goods required for a modern economy.
In contrast can you name a single western economy that would not suffer immediate and direct economic disadvantage if it were to cease trade with China?
Yes China wants to maintain trade with others as much as posiible because it enjoys a trade balance advantage with nearly every other nation on the planet, but China is also aware of its size and ability to leverage that size and to force or at least strongly 'encourage' other nations to subserve on multiple issues. This has been demonstrated many times in recent years where China exercises its market dominance to further its control of narratives and markets.
China has won the trade war, via its centralised strategies as much as via its partially liberalised economy.
It is the delicate strategic balancing of free markets with state power projection that builds all empires.
And yes eventually empires decline- and this is central to my over all thesis- they decline when citizens cease to sufficiently appreciate how vital and pivotal the nation state and its positive strategic positioning is to the advance and advantage of any economy and its people.
Such a failure to appreciate is evident in both the woke left and Libertarians.
Unregulated markets alone will never achieve international dominance because there will always be other nations who are strategising and employing their resources to gain resource hegemony over others. Without that conscious strategising the Libertarian nation state will fail very quickly as it has no will or mandate to co-ordinate its resources against those of adversaries.
The west has become a vulnerable weakened and divided entity, one that may face defeat by a united and deliberate CCP.
In the west governments are controlled by capital, the bankers and corporates who rentseeking parasitise.
In China the government knows that failure to deliver year on year will result in a loss of the 'Mandate of Heaven' so far extended to the CCP.
Thus the west is a crony capitalism fake democracy while China is relatively more united and thus formidable as an adversary.
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Acquiring nuclear arms (...)
Examples on the state working solely on defense. Strict libertarianism, perfect.
widespread liberalisation of the economy
Example on the state leaving the economy to be freely managed by the people. Strict libertarianism, perfect.
I requested examples on your argument about the "strategising of the CCP" on the economy being good. Predictably, no such example exists. Of course.
You provide no counter to my assertion that virtually all western nations are subservient to the USA both militarily and monetarily.
Because I agree. Such keynesian practices must be abolished, replaced by a libertarian international policy.
For example now Iran and Russia both exist as viable economies because China both buys their exports (oil and gas) and provides the manufactured goods required for a modern economy.
That's the magic of free trade. Note how you correctly asserted that China is critically dependent on those basic goods without which it would not be able to energize nor feed its industrial power, hence not independent at all.
In contrast can you name a single western economy that would not suffer immediate and direct economic disadvantage if it were to cease trade with China?
No. That applies to china itself in the same exact way, as you yourself exemplified above.
This has been demonstrated many times in recent years where China exercises its market dominance to further its control of narratives and markets.
The USA exemplified its market dominance on China as well during the trade wars. What you seem to fail to see is that "trade" is a two-way operation for it's about "exchanges", so both sides suffer equally if it falls and prosper equally if it rises.
China has won the trade war
So did the US. You still fail to see that "trade" means "exchange". Again, it's a two-way operation, it's not one-sided.
And yes eventually empires decline...
...because no economy can scale on the basis of exploitation and no economy can develop on the basis of central planing, such a failure to appreciate that is evident on liberals.
Without that conscious strategising the Libertarian nation state will fail very quickly
Yet going back to reality only examples on the contrary exists, as all protective economies decline and all open economies prosper.
In the west governments are controlled by capital
Indeed, and that's what happens when you allow a welfare state to develop.
Thus the west is a crony capitalism fake democracy
Indeed, and that's what happens when you allow a welfare state to develop. And China is at government level no less of a crony capitalism, hence the reson for its current crisis. China is not a "formidable adversary", that's a ridiculous statement. China is an economic ally, and that's what we all want it to be, specially citizens. Alas, if you leave the state to consider China as an "enemy" on economic grounds, you have an unnecessary crisis served. People knew, the state didn't care.
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Strategize sounds a lot like central planning.
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Correct. Where the west has no apparent cohesive collective strategy- its each man for himself - The Chinese Collective Strategy looks like it may triumph.
The way in which humans have come to dominate the planet is via conscious collective strategy Combined with competitive market forces.
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The Chinese Collective Strategy looks like it may triumph.
There is no such strategy, you yourself have admitted that the reason for the economic development of china was its liberalization, not CCP strategising. You said it yourself.
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IMO it is the combination of liberalisation with central planning and global strategy that has delivered such success so far to China, just as in the past the British and the US governments worked with their private enterprise corporations and military to gain global resource hegemony.
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I showed you, and you recognized yourself, that it was the abandonment of central planning the reason of China economic growth, hence the phase of liberalization of the economy. Liberalization of the economy replaced central planning, it didn't "combined" with it, because they are opposites. I showed you the examples, and you accepted them. The reason why you insist to abstract yourself from that reality and insist in such an imaginary combination, in despite of having accepted it doesn't exists, escapes me.
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