Reddit reviews 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

You're confusing the Industrial Economic Machine with The United States. The United States' power was diminished because power was shifted OUTSIDE the United States, and international global monetary policy was NOT decided by American senators and congressmen; but, rather, by shadowy unelected bankers.

America has NOT benefited from this loss of power and sovereignty. The United States is a debt slave. Every bit as much as the tiniest Third World country. More so.

Compare America's debt to, say, Ecuador. or Bhutan.

The United States has been stripmined and impoverished. In purchasing power, the average American worker used to make (in today's terms) about $100,000/year. Today, it's $34,000.

America has also had its manufacturing base gutted.

It used to be a self-sufficient country. But that scared the international bankers.

If you read Carroll Quigley's "The Tragedy and the Hope," he explains America's titanic natural wealth in terms of resources. He points out that, by 1900, America was producing more wheat than the next five countries combined. It was also dominating industrial production. South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang asked his son if he thought that China was dominant in manufacturing. His son said, "Of course. Look at Walmart. Everything in it seems to be made in China." Whereupon his father said, "China is responsible for about 15% of America's finished goods. At its height, the United States was at one time responsible for 85% of the finished goods on planet Earth." https://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1608193381/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=ha+joon+chang&qid=1570263938&sr=8-2

A great book from 1920 was "Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt". See here: https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20140873/html.php In it, Frederick Soddy says that America's productive capacity is so massive that it poses a threat to the global economy. Due to all the stuff it was producing, the prices of goods naturally fell. (This terrified the international bankers.) That's why, once they seized control of America, they instituted the Department of Agriculture and started paying farmers NOT to grow. They needed to create artificial scarcity to keep the prices of things artificially high.

Soddy said that America could produce all its own goods internally: shoes, automobiles, radios, food, and so forth. Because of this, it had no need for imports. A quote from the book: "When one contemplates a country like the United States, which it has been computed could easily supply almost the entire wants of the whole world without over-exerting herself, a country which has few real wants which it could not as well supply within its own territory, and therefore with little use for imports, but an almost infinite capacity for exports, the problem looks frankly insoluble."

This would cause a "balance of trade" problem, Soddy cautioned.

England encountered one of these in the 18th Century. So much gold was flowing out of England to buy tea from India that the British Treasury didn't have enough gold to carry out transactions domestically.

(The British solved this balance of trade problem by selling opium in China and replenishing the Treasury with drug money.)

Long story short: Since America could export everything (and didn't need to import anything) all the money-flows would travel in one direction: to the United States. All the gold from the world's central banks would be flowing TO America.

The solution? Gut America's manufacturing capacity and make it reliant on imports.

Cripple its productive capacity and you can get the gold to flow OUT of the United States.

In summation: The history of the 20th Century was the history of how to stripmine and enfeeble the United States. How to deplete its gold reserves and transfer them OUT of the country. All the gold that was used to found the IMF and World Bank were from Fort Knox. Fort Knox is now empty.

The IMF and World Bank exist AT THE EXPENSE of the United States. And they were not designed to increase America's wealth, but to siphon it out. In the new Banker-Run post-WWII system, America would no longer be permitted to be independent or self-sufficient. It would be folded into a larger "global grid" and made "INTERdependent". Hint: This was NOT to benefit the American people, who are now poorer, more in debt, and who are forced to pay higher prices for everything. In the process they lost their manufacturing dominance and control of their own economy (and government).

> Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore do not have the Communist Party. Their willingness to do whatever it takes to maintain stability, which now means to continue their perfect 5%+ GDP growth means that tactics like these are not out of the question. While my knowledge of Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore are not as in-depth as it is for mainland China, I do no believe their governments can pressure them as much as this government here, which can and will, make sure a company that doesn't comply loses everything in a matter of weeks or months, and make sure that the bosses are scapegoated in a way that makes them sound like completely unsympathetic scoundrels, and then the company must appoint new leaders.

I am very familiar with Japan, South Korea and Singapore's development and their governments. All of them developed under a 1 party or authoritarian government. Growth in these countries have also continued with their perfect 5%+ GDP growth for over 3 to 4 decades. Things changed only after the became developed, not while developing, and definitely not when their economies were at present day China's GDP per capita.

>China did lose its culture in a sense, but it also has not because the one thing that has been constant throughout Chinese history have been the communities. These communities were the bastions of culture, and while the Red Guard did their best to ruin any kind institutes of knowledge, culture, and capitalism, remember that there were still some that were safe, some too remote, and a vast number of other reasons why in different places some things survived.

Yet you chose to pick and choose as you wish to suit your narrative. The "safe, some too remote, and a vast number of other reasons why in different places some things survived" thing tells us that it barely survived but you said earlier that this IS the Chinese culture that's deeply rooted within Chinese society, implying that it's common and widespread instead of being confined to some remote parts of China that hasn't been affected by the Red Guards.

>Simplified platitudes make it easy to label and learn, but I would say that it keeps you from seeing the beauty inherent in its complexity, no matter how much China wants you to believe its homogeneity.

Ironic considering how you just labeled their culture as a homogeneous one that has its culture of copying being deep rooted within the Han examinations even though few people ever made it to the examinations in the past.

>Germany, Britain, France, the US, etc. did not have rules in place where anyone who came to their country and built factories had to have a local in charge of the company and have basic control over everything that work there.

Actually they did, and they did things that were far more protectionist than China. I would recommend the book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang to learn more about their protectionist policies and state sponsored espionage systems (including a bounty system to steal trade secrets from Europe by the US as ordered by Alexander Hamilton himself.)

Here's the link to the book. Buy it if you like it.

https://marcell.memoryoftheworld.org/Ha-Joon%20Chang/23%20Things%20They%20Don%27t%20Tell%20You%20About%20Capitalism%20(1550)/23%20Things%20They%20Don%27t%20Tell%20You%20About%20Capita%20-%20Ha-Joon%20Chang.pdf

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608193381/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

And excerpt from the book:

>Two basket cases

>Here are the profiles of two developing countries. You are an
economic analyst trying to assess their development
prospects. What would you say?

>Country A
: Until a decade ago, the country was highly
protectionist, with an average industrial tariff rate well above
30 per cent. Despite the recent tariff reduction, important
visible and invisible trade restrictions remain. The country
has heavy restrictions on cross-border flows of capital, a
state-owned and highly regulated banking sector, and
numerous restrictions on foreign ownership
of financial
assets. Foreign firms producing in the country complain that
they are discriminated against through differential taxes and
regulations by local governments. The country has no
elections and is riddled with corruption. It has opaque and
complicated property rights. In particular, its protection of
intellectual property rights is weak, making it the pirate
capital of the world. The country has a large number of state-
owned enterprises, many of which make large losses but
are propped up by subsidies and government-granted
monopoly rights.


>Country B
: The country’s trade policy has literally been the
most protectionist in the world for the last few decades, with
an average industrial tariff rate at 40–55 per cent. The
majority of the population cannot vote, and vote-buying and
electoral fraud are widespread. Corruption is rampant, with
political parties selling government jobs to their financial
backers. The country has never recruited a single civil
servant through an open, competitive process. Its public
finances are precarious, with records of government loan
defaults that worry foreign investors. Despite this, it
discriminates heavily against foreign investors. Especially in
the banking sector, foreigners are prohibited from becoming
directors while foreign shareholders cannot even exercise
their voting rights unless they are resident in the country. It
does not have a competition law, permitting cartels and
other forms of monopoly to grow unchecked. Its protection of
intellectual property rights is patchy, particularly marred by
its refusal to protect foreigners’ copyrights.


>Both these countries are up to their necks in things that
are supposed to hamper economic development – heavy
protectionism, discrimination against foreign investors,
weak protection of property rights, monopolies, lack of
democracy, corruption, lack of meritocracy, and so on. You
would think that they are both headed for developmental
disasters. But think again.

>Country A
is China today – some readers may have
guessed that. However, few readers would have guessed
that
Country B
is the USA – that is, around 1880, when it
was somewhat poorer than today’s China.
Despite all the supposedly anti-developmental policies
and institutions, China has been one of the world’s most
dynamic and successful economies over the last three
decades, while the USA in the 1880s was one of the fastest-
growing – and rapidly becoming one of the richest –
countries in the world. So the economic superstars of the
late nineteenth century (USA) and of today (China) have both
followed policy recipes that go almost totally against today’s
neo-liberal free-market orthodoxy.

--

>As far as Americans used to advertise for people to steal trade secrets, that's a difference in culture. That's something you find out after you take the job. They won't tell you beforehand. They'll wait until afterwards to let you know about the extra responsibilities outside of the contract.

No, it was literally a bounty system set up by one of the founding fathers of the United States (Alexander Hamilton) to go to Europe and steal trade secrets. The US government paid people to steal from Europe.

Socialism/Communism

A People's History of the World

Main Currents of Marxism

The Socialist System

The Age of... (1, 2, 3, 4)

Marx for our Times

Essential Works of Socialism

Soviet Century

Self-Governing Socialism (Vols 1-2)

The Meaning of Marxism

The "S" Word (not that good in my opinion)

Of the People, by the People

Why Not Socialism

Socialism Betrayed

Democracy at Work

Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (again didn't like it very much)

The Socialist Party of America (absolute must read)

The American Socialist Movement

Socialism: Past and Future (very good book)

It Didn't Happen Here

Eugene V. Debs

The Enigma of Capital

Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism

A Companion to Marx's Capital (great book)

After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action

Capitalism

The Conservative Nanny State

The United States Since 1980

The End of Loser Liberalism

Capitalism and it's Economics (must read)

Economics: A New Introduction (must read)

U.S. Capitalist Development Since 1776 (must read)

Kicking Away the Ladder

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Traders, Guns and Money

Corporation Nation

Debunking Economics

How Rich Countries Got Rich

Super Imperialism

The Bubble and Beyond

Finance Capitalism and it's Discontents

Trade, Development and Foreign Debt

America's Protectionist Takeoff

How the Economy was Lost

Labor and Monopoly Capital

We Are Better Than This

Ancap/Libertarian

Spontaneous Order (disagree with it but found it interesting)

Man, State and Economy

The Machinery of Freedom

Currently Reading

This is the Zodiac Speaking (highly recommend)

> What makes you think in the age of globalisation that protectionism can work?

Protectionism is how every prosperous modern country developed an economy. I recommend actually educating yourself on the topic instead of regurgitating someone else's baseless ideology.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608193381

And if you are too lazy to read a book which I presume you are since intellectual laziness is where libertarianism comes from. Read the comment from cooklely in this thread (second highest rated top comment).

http://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1jk1kl/how_german_cars_beat_british_motors_and_kept_going/

The period between the Civil War and WW1 was not at all laissez-faire. There were extremely high protectionist tariffs, as well as the whole Reconstruction and Transcontinental Railroad being both huge government funded projects. The Heritage Foundation and everything they come up with is a load of crap if you think about it for longer than half a second.

There's an excellent book by Ha-joon Chan (yes he is a capitalist) called 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, chapter 7 is specifically about the so called "laissez-faire markets".

> Ulysses Grant, the Civil War hero-turned president in defiance of the British pressure on the USA to adopt free trade, remarked that "within 200 years, when America has gotten out of protection all that it can offer, it too will adopt free trade".

If you don't like reading, there is a lecture on the book he gives at the London School of Economics here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56RndDFRnH4

In 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism Ha-Joon Chang goes over how the invention of the LLC (which is what all of these corporations are) basically reinvented economics, which obviously massively effects the state.

Trying to avoid the Obvious Krugman and Chomsky examples. (The latter is not an Economist really)

How about this guy. 23 Things they don't tell you about Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang

Check his wiki page for his credentials, now obviously he is just one Economist (though a widely acclaimed one), but in the book he lays out in laymans terms exactly why the world economy isn't going to work, and why everyone knows it, but nobody can do anything about it. Why Austerity measures, which everyone knows does not work (he sites historical examples) is still used by politicians today, despite their proven lack of effectiveness.

Start with this one:https://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1608193381

The inverted bell curve is also pretty common for controversial and polarising issues, for example A People's History of the US, God Is Not Great and 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism.

The way I see it, the inverted bell curve is a warning sign for novels (especially best-sellers) and technical books, but not necessarily for opinionated non-fiction where it may just indicate that many jimmies were rustled.

You wrote all that stuff but you missed the point.

Taxes get applied to profits, not revenues. As long as the tax rate is not 100%, it has no effect on whether a business is profitable or not.

Given that, businesses should always seek to arrange their business to generate the maximum profit, because no matter the tax rate, they will get more money if they have higher profits. If the tax rate is lowered, and they make somewhat higher profits, is there additional incentive to rearrange their business and hire more workers? No, a change in corporate profit tax rates does not change the revenue-cost curve, so the optimal point would not change.

>Science, bitches.

Science is based on evidence. There is no evidence that lowering tax rates increases employment.

If you're interested in reading things based on evidence I recommend this, this, and this.

SeekFindKnockOpen: ^^original ^^reddit ^^link

I recommend The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Fortunately, the local library where I live has a copy. You can also view the video here, but the video is no substitute for the book.

I also recommend 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang. Dr. Chang teaches Economics at Cambridge University, and he is categorized as an Institutional Economist.

Personally, I'd recommend reading Klein first, then Dr. Chang. The Shock Doctrine provided a lot of context for 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism.

And for those who don't like to read, but like to post comments anyway and downvote, neither of the authors I've mentioned are Communists. Dr. Chang believes in private enterprise.

He has been posted on /r/lectures but I feel does not get much attention:

They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang

https://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1608193381

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti3rjogF_VU

His talk at Google:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5j5EW933Kw

The animated RSA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdbbcO35arw

Communism is nothing like laissez faire (literally meaning "let [them] do") capitalism. Although the United States is touted as a capitalist society we are very far flung from a purely free market system.

Free market implies there is no interference or meddling into any market, whatever that may be. Many people, especially in the US, will say that capitalism is the best system ever invented and that we should allow the market to act on its own because it is the most efficient method of organizing people, capital and wealth. For example, instead of some bureaucrat deciding how much bread should cost and how much of it should be produced the interaction between buyers and sellers of bread will determine the price and quantity produced.

In the USSR there actually was someone in charge of determining how much bread should be made and how much it should cost. But it was not just bread but everything that could possibly be produced was also determined centrally. Communist Russia therefore had a centralized or command economy, as there were a few people at the top deciding how goods and resources should be used and distributed. This, as you may have heard, ended pretty terribly, to put it lightly, for a lot of the people of the USSR and eventually brought on the Soviet collapse of the early 1990's.

So seeing how the many communist states have failed in the past, the reaction of many people is to say that not only is capitalism better than communism, pure capitalism is the best form of economy possible. In my opinion this is definitely not the case. And indeed, the US does not have a pure capitalist, Lassaize faire economy. Social security, medicare, and medicaid are all social welfare programs which aim to redistribute wealth. The FCC regulates television and radio, the FDA regulates food and drug production safety and standards, and the DEA keeps you from doing the 'bad' kind of drugs. There is immigration control and zoning laws. Like you said, countries impose taxes and tariffs on each others goods. The list goes on and on. All of these are examples markets constrained by some type of central agency.

An interesting book about the mix of economic policies and their success or failures is "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism" by Ha-Joon Chang http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1608193381

Have him read this book. It might help.

Thank you for your reply. You bring up some good points and ill try to clarify male with these in mind.

>Yet they pay taxes and live in the real world. Not a theoretical free market.

I should be more clear. I concede that taxes must exist at some level. My concern is disortionary intervention. I don't want business strong armed into making bad decisions. I'm glad you're a patriot, but I would rather Ford be profit/competition driven, especially because I need to but a new car soon!

>Life is messy. PC speech is just another propaganda tool to shut down communication when peoples ideas get threatened.

My post was admittedly more of a lamentation, "how the times/party have changed". I do see PC as dangerous in some cases, but I think we're well beyond that. And things have changed over the last few years. If Obama had spoken ill of McCain's service record while running against him, stream would have come out of the typical republican's ears. But Trump is widely excused, even lauded. That's why I asked this question above, what's changed, or what happened to the republicans I used to know?

>Tariffs are a corner stone of economic policy of every developed economy. It is how EVERY COUNTRY ON THE PLANET DEVELOPED. If you are actually interested in learning about how economies actually work I suggest reading: https://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1608193381

That's very true. Most developed countries started out as mercantitist, and I suspect that Trump can best be described as mercantilist today. The general trend coming along with development has been lower tariffs. Countless studies in the economic literature advocate the lowering of tariffs. It's hard to write a theoretical model in which tariffs benefit anyone except the large domestic companies, and almost impossible to find any empirical evidence of benefit to the citizenry. This anti trade sentiment seems anachronistic to me. It indeed harkens back to when we were still a developing country- decades or centuries ago.

I teach economics for a living, which is not to say I know how the economy works. I'm always very suspicious of authors who claim to. Economics is a difficult field. You really need a phd to even talk about the macro economy, and even people with phds know next to nothing individually (i count myself as one of these know nothin economists). However, I'll eagerly look at the title you suggest.

>African countries that have free markets forced on them due to taking world bank loans have all been stagnating economically for decades.

African economies stagnate because of constant civil unrest, faulty rule of law, and corruption. Free trade has little or nothing to do with it. And America isn't some backwater $1000 per capita economy, it's a fully developed and industrialized economy. I don't see your point in bringing this up.

Again, thank you for your response. Can I ask, do you think that domestically, Trump will make the government larger or smaller in terms of spending and power?

Anything by Ha-Joon Chang.

http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1608193381

edit: insert amazon link.