I find it interesting that the book is available about everywhere save for North America according to the author, but the first distances in the text are given in yards, mainly used only in North America. Ok, this is not the exact book text, but still, it looks as a misfit to the audience of the book.
> It's that it is possible to resuscitate dormant or shrinking sectors. It is
possible to re-industrialise quickly.
China managed to go from peasantry in the grip of communism to arguably the biggest economy in history over a remarkably short period. And it is hard to get a read on exactly what is going on in that country but that seems to be despite heavy state intervention in the economy and without the benefits of political free speech. I'd also rate their rule of law as a bit rubbery. It is clear that industrialisation can happen like lightening if best-of-breed policies are adopted.
Which is to say, policies in the West since the end of the cold war have been an absolute disaster and we are well due some political remove-the-spec-from-your-own-eye reflection on our industrial strategy. And, frankly, the endless reign of military terror that the middle east is subjected to doesn't seem to help. Keeping the military at home has been a massive win for China, all of that money went into investments instead of pointless murder.
It is enough to make you wonder if it is the politicians or the voters who are more evil and incompetent.
Arguably because of state intervention in the economy. They give generous cash subsidies across various industrial sectors -- and as "investors" they have a remarkably light touch! Their standard modus operandi is to subsidize a number of competing ventures per sector (which number could be somewhere in the dozens or hundreds) and have competition take care of the rest. This is always good for the consumer, good where the perception of fairness is (internally) concerned, and good for the government's position of power. They don't build monopolies, nor are most firms left to scramble for multiple successive rounds of VC funding.
America prefers protectionism and tax credits; a markedly inferior overall strategy. We know this from the past five decades of economic history. Subsidies to high-value and growing technological industry are the best way to go from poor to rich, and the best way to go from "not producing much" to "producing everything we want."
It's probably obvious to say, but I think a nation's most important resource is people. And if you can just order them around and kill the dissenters and not care about what individuals want, then you can achieve quite a bit, be it industrialization or war or agricultural surplus.
I'm not saying that the economy or markets are everything; however, if you don't have dissidents you don't as much friction. If China wants to move your mother's grave for a factory, there's not a lot you can do. Whereas in democracies you can try to draw it out with legal action, etc.
The phenomenon of "nail houses" testifies against the notion that the Chinese government will expropriate whatever land it wants, although nail houses aren't graves. Graves are less of a concern, because the dead by law must be buried in public cemeteries: isolated rural burials are uncommon.
State intervention has a reasonably good history of getting what the state pushes for. It just has a poor history in everything else the state needs/wants but doesn't realize and so doesn't push for. Also people often miss what the state is pushing for (for example: most of the people pushing transit are really interested in expensive contracts to push money to their friends - any transit that results is a side effect they don't care about. If you are interested in transit most of the people who appear on your side are a long term negative even if you must work with them)
The U.S. will have to come around to that. I'm not sure how low it has to sink relative to China , but there will come a time when it will be seen as the obvious strategy.
Perhaps Great Depression II will be the spark as Great Depression I was the spark for the limited socialism in the U.S.
If I go to the police evidince locker and pick up glawk fawty with the switch used in a drive-by and I put it in the hand of a biathlon athlete will he hit the target or will he spray the crowd? He'll still probably hit the target. He might be a little worse at it but the nature of the tool and the task it's optimized for isn't gonna fundamentally alter what happens because the goal is still the same, hit the target.
Both the US and China engage in copious amounts of "state intervention". They have different characteristics but it's fundamentally the same tool even if they're optimized differently. The US has no problem steamrolling people and interests, it just takes more time and money. At the behest of various interests I will not piss everyone off by naming and shaming because who they are is somewhat beside the point, the US has spend the past 50yr wielding state intervention in pursuit of policies that will kick out industrial activity at the margin. China has intentionally done essentially the opposite in the same time. Both have essentially accomplished what they set out to do.
Cheerleading for "more/cheaper/faster state intervention" is stupid when the goals being pursued are what's responsible for the lion's share of difference in outcome. Giving a glawk fawty to a biathlon athlete isn't gonna make him want to indiscriminately pepper the crowd any more than giving US policy more teeth to tear shit up is going to change the fact that the policy is pursuing de-industrialization.
Unfortunately it seems that often Western governments serve narrow interest groups (sometimes overseas) over their own people. In other words, open systems that have been usurped by these interest groups, including the military-industrial complex, to your point.
It is a pity, because values of the Enlightenment can be truly beautiful, and are often in fact embodied by the people themselves - just not their economic and governmental systems.
> [to the article more broadly]
If one presumes certain material wealth is in support of the people, then hopefully fixing the underlying resource allocation system away from interest groups can, as evidenced, lead to these industries being reborn.
But the core issue to fix is the underlying systems I think. How? Well, it's tough, but perhaps some garbage collection on structures that don't actually serve the nation(s).
In some ways China acts more like WWII Germany than SU Marxist Leninism or Maoist China. Private enterprise exists and encouraged but the state ultimately dictates what happens and has party members in leadership positions in those companies.
I find it interesting that the book is available about everywhere save for North America according to the author, but the first distances in the text are given in yards, mainly used only in North America. Ok, this is not the exact book text, but still, it looks as a misfit to the audience of the book.
The UK wasn’t on the metric system during the first world war.
https://ukma.org.uk/press/metrication-timeline/
A while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36739279
> It's that it is possible to resuscitate dormant or shrinking sectors. It is possible to re-industrialise quickly.
China managed to go from peasantry in the grip of communism to arguably the biggest economy in history over a remarkably short period. And it is hard to get a read on exactly what is going on in that country but that seems to be despite heavy state intervention in the economy and without the benefits of political free speech. I'd also rate their rule of law as a bit rubbery. It is clear that industrialisation can happen like lightening if best-of-breed policies are adopted.
Which is to say, policies in the West since the end of the cold war have been an absolute disaster and we are well due some political remove-the-spec-from-your-own-eye reflection on our industrial strategy. And, frankly, the endless reign of military terror that the middle east is subjected to doesn't seem to help. Keeping the military at home has been a massive win for China, all of that money went into investments instead of pointless murder.
It is enough to make you wonder if it is the politicians or the voters who are more evil and incompetent.
> despite heavy state intervention in the economy
Arguably because of state intervention in the economy. They give generous cash subsidies across various industrial sectors -- and as "investors" they have a remarkably light touch! Their standard modus operandi is to subsidize a number of competing ventures per sector (which number could be somewhere in the dozens or hundreds) and have competition take care of the rest. This is always good for the consumer, good where the perception of fairness is (internally) concerned, and good for the government's position of power. They don't build monopolies, nor are most firms left to scramble for multiple successive rounds of VC funding.
America prefers protectionism and tax credits; a markedly inferior overall strategy. We know this from the past five decades of economic history. Subsidies to high-value and growing technological industry are the best way to go from poor to rich, and the best way to go from "not producing much" to "producing everything we want."
It's probably obvious to say, but I think a nation's most important resource is people. And if you can just order them around and kill the dissenters and not care about what individuals want, then you can achieve quite a bit, be it industrialization or war or agricultural surplus.
I'm not saying that the economy or markets are everything; however, if you don't have dissidents you don't as much friction. If China wants to move your mother's grave for a factory, there's not a lot you can do. Whereas in democracies you can try to draw it out with legal action, etc.
The phenomenon of "nail houses" testifies against the notion that the Chinese government will expropriate whatever land it wants, although nail houses aren't graves. Graves are less of a concern, because the dead by law must be buried in public cemeteries: isolated rural burials are uncommon.
That’s not true at all. China is known for its “nail houses” for example.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/apr/15/china...
Not despite heave state intervention. Because of it!
State intervention has a reasonably good history of getting what the state pushes for. It just has a poor history in everything else the state needs/wants but doesn't realize and so doesn't push for. Also people often miss what the state is pushing for (for example: most of the people pushing transit are really interested in expensive contracts to push money to their friends - any transit that results is a side effect they don't care about. If you are interested in transit most of the people who appear on your side are a long term negative even if you must work with them)
Was going to say this. The right form of state intervention can be hugely beneficial
The U.S. will have to come around to that. I'm not sure how low it has to sink relative to China , but there will come a time when it will be seen as the obvious strategy.
Perhaps Great Depression II will be the spark as Great Depression I was the spark for the limited socialism in the U.S.
If I go to the police evidince locker and pick up glawk fawty with the switch used in a drive-by and I put it in the hand of a biathlon athlete will he hit the target or will he spray the crowd? He'll still probably hit the target. He might be a little worse at it but the nature of the tool and the task it's optimized for isn't gonna fundamentally alter what happens because the goal is still the same, hit the target.
Both the US and China engage in copious amounts of "state intervention". They have different characteristics but it's fundamentally the same tool even if they're optimized differently. The US has no problem steamrolling people and interests, it just takes more time and money. At the behest of various interests I will not piss everyone off by naming and shaming because who they are is somewhat beside the point, the US has spend the past 50yr wielding state intervention in pursuit of policies that will kick out industrial activity at the margin. China has intentionally done essentially the opposite in the same time. Both have essentially accomplished what they set out to do.
Cheerleading for "more/cheaper/faster state intervention" is stupid when the goals being pursued are what's responsible for the lion's share of difference in outcome. Giving a glawk fawty to a biathlon athlete isn't gonna make him want to indiscriminately pepper the crowd any more than giving US policy more teeth to tear shit up is going to change the fact that the policy is pursuing de-industrialization.
> [to your comment]
Unfortunately it seems that often Western governments serve narrow interest groups (sometimes overseas) over their own people. In other words, open systems that have been usurped by these interest groups, including the military-industrial complex, to your point.
It is a pity, because values of the Enlightenment can be truly beautiful, and are often in fact embodied by the people themselves - just not their economic and governmental systems.
> [to the article more broadly]
If one presumes certain material wealth is in support of the people, then hopefully fixing the underlying resource allocation system away from interest groups can, as evidenced, lead to these industries being reborn.
But the core issue to fix is the underlying systems I think. How? Well, it's tough, but perhaps some garbage collection on structures that don't actually serve the nation(s).
In some ways China acts more like WWII Germany than SU Marxist Leninism or Maoist China. Private enterprise exists and encouraged but the state ultimately dictates what happens and has party members in leadership positions in those companies.