(Part 2) Best international economics books according to redditors

> Wochen, nachdem Sarah Wagenknecht ne Vorlesung halten durfte.

Hat Sahra Wagenknecht eine Veranstaltung der Linken abgehalten, oder war das ein Fachvortrag? Die Frau hat nämlich auch einen Doktor in Volkswirtschaft (mit magna cum laude) und referiert über die Sparquote.

Too x-mas drunk to write a logical paper for ya fellow pede.

However, look into the Tortilla Riots that occurred in Mexico; quick backstory, in America we subsidize the production of corn; have done this for decades. NAFTA came in and we flooded subsidized corn and sent a lot of generational northern mexico farmers to the homeless pool.

I recommend starting your redpilling with "'Encyclo-Pedeia' of NAFTA: The New American Community and Latin American Trade" by Jerry M. Rosenberg published 1995.

You have a lot of new years reading assignments ahead of you.

Edit: Looks like it's 70 bucks new and 4 bucks used. Its a university level read but it will get you woke fairly quick. Buy it if you have the coin.

https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-American-Agreement-Community-Latin-American-ebook/dp/B000WDWPV2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RWTwSiNx0E - Just what I could pull up on what is going on in a vi-doc format. This shit was going on when I was like 5, back when a 56k modem was beast. There IS a lot of info on the Tortilla Riots if you want to dig deep enough, its fairly hard to find though in the general internet.

I would be happy to answer any questions you have during your exploration or providing additional academic sources to read.

And it is hard to know exactly what is more or less "progressive" without being trapped in one's own time period. As recently as 2010-2011, European countries (including Spain and France) were being held up as the highest level of human achievement yet seen and then bam! debt crisis. You still see some of that around the Nordics, Canada, and NZ but it is hard to say with confidence that those are "the best" and "most modern" countries out there.

http://www.amazon.com/The-European-Dream-Eclipsing-American/dp/1585424358

Well Petrov is pretty much Putin, and this book by Ben Judah is a nice non-fiction narrative about his ascendancy to power.

In that case you might want to check out Canut's releases of takes on these sorts of things (they specialize in translating Chinese Marxist academic work), which gives context in addition to an honest and critical study of Western critical theory and whatnot from a more traditional Marxist-Leninist perspective:

https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Plough-Unscrambling-Post-Marxist-Texts/dp/3942575027

https://www.amazon.com/Challenging-Capitalism-Neo-Liberalism-Post-modernism-Eco-socialism/dp/394257506X

https://www.amazon.com/Review-Marxist-Left-Debates-Post-Modernism/dp/3942575078

https://www.amazon.com/Global-Revival-Socialism-Capitalism-Globalisation/dp/3942575000

I'm currently reading through Global Imperialism and the Great Crisis, which I think covers what you want: http://www.amazon.com/Global-Imperialism-Great-Crisis-Capitalism/dp/1583674470/.

Profiting Without Producing does a good job of updating the financial aspects, which have changed significantly: http://www.amazon.com/Profiting-Without-Producing-Finance-Exploits/dp/1781681414/.

If you want to keep up with this stuff, you might want to consider getting subscribed to the Monthly Review and/or Science & Society.

Bionomics - Economy as Ecosystem by Michael Rothschild, Well written and mind-blowing.

Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches by Marvin Harris. TL;DR many irrational cultural practices are in fact imminently logical objectively.

Long, but good:
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power, Pulitzer winning book on the Oil industry from its beginnings.

The Armchair economist - the Economics of everyday life, sort of an earlier and better version of 'freakonomics'.

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

Dogs and Demons: Tales from the dark side of Japan

Reflections on a Ravaged Century Robert Conquest

A History of the American People Paul Johnson. Good stuff.

He should've known not to recruit a chav with a tongue ring to be the leader of his UK fifth column lol...

edit: also, Ben Judah is the guy that called these pro-Putin posts out. Everyone here should go read his incredible book Fragile Empire.

The title seems out of place now since it was written back in 2011 when Putin was experiencing mass protests, but I'd argue it's even more relevant now since he resolved the protests by instituting his own mini-Moscow Trials against the opposition leaders.

I agree! In fact, the premise of "Connectography" by Parag Khanna is that global supply chains and labor flows are actively supplanting territorial nation states as the organizing principle of human society: https://smile.amazon.com/Connectography-Mapping-Future-Global-Civilization-ebook/dp/B015VABIRC/

Well put, I couldn't have summed it up better.

People who're interested in learning more should read China Safari. It's anecdotal, but very well written. Link

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

The Truth about Markets" de John Kay (https://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Markets-Countries-Others/dp/0140296727) est pas trop mal si tu lis en anglais.

http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/10183 or https://www.amazon.com/Mining-Ideas-Diamonds-Comparing-Monetization/dp/9813146168. The first URL has some holiday discounts, but the 2nd (Amazon) ships faster.

I wouldn't even bother trying to show your friend studies in this case. That would be like throwing bricks at a cloud; difficult and unlikely to have much of an impact. Just point out how ludicrous his position is: The West (where I assume you are) is not just the richest area in the world, but the richest area there has ever been. If you don't want to work in a rich society, you'll probably get some benefits. If you don't want to work in poor areas, you'll die.

I haven't read this book yet, but I'm very much looking forward to it:

Why Some Countries are Rich and Others Remain Poor.

Not open is putting it lightly. Putin has .... gotten rid of any possible experienced successor and has destroyed any political parties other than his own, which is less a political party and more an organized mob.

If you want a read on how Russia is doing btw, I recommend Fragile Empire by Ben Judah. For a period I was worried about people saying that the US election meddling rendered the arguments in this book incomplete, but instead it now looks like the book is more true than ever.

>In [the classical liberal] vision [of the EU] there would be no need to create a European superstate. In fact, the classical liberal vision is highly sceptical of a central European state; it is considered detrimental to individual liberty. Philosophically speaking, many defenders of this vision are inspired by Catholicism, and borders of the European community are defined by Christianity. In line with Catholic social teaching, a principle of subsidiarity should prevail: problems should be solved at the lowest and least concentrated level possible. The only centralized European institution acceptable would be a European Court of Justice, its activities restricted to super vising conflicts between member states, and guaranteeing the four basic liberties.

>From the classical liberal point of view, there should be many competing political systems, as has been the case in Europe of centuries. In the Middle Ages and until the nineteenth century, there existed very different political systems, such as independent cities of Flanders, Germany and Northern Italy. There were Kingdoms such as Bavaria or Saxony, and there were Republics such as Venice. Political diversity was demonstrated most clearly in the strongly decentralized Germany. Under a culture of diversity and pluralism, science and industry flourished.

-- Philip Bagus, The Tragedy of the Euro

Russia is dissatisfied with the status quo being sustained by the United States and the West -- and rightly so. They are also a still-waning ex-superpower. These two factors combined makes the odds of conflict much more likely than they would be in the absence of either factor (see Tammen 2000).

The important factor, however, is whether or not China will challenge the current status quo when they inevitably pass the United States in productivity, GDP, etc. Russia does not want to ally with the West -- that is becoming increasingly clear. However, their dissatisfaction is more like that of a petulant child whose toys are being taken away. China's dissatisfaction would mean a lot more because they are coming of age as opposed to declining like Russia is. So Russia will ally even more strongly with China when this happens if they opportunity presents itself.

Russia combining military and economic power with China would mean big trouble for the Western powers and their status quo.

It's just pragmatism and individual thought mate. I'm not a hipster or saying those of us from the working class "traditional leave voters" who go against the grain are perfect but this vote was done on groupthink. As shown by the fact that under FPTP would mean leave devastating remain.

It's an utter conjob by your JRM and Richard Tice's of the world pretending they have common interests with the working classes.

Not started it yet but apparently this book is a great demonstration of this https://www.amazon.com/Great-Brexit-Swindle-Mega-rich-Conspired/dp/1905570813

IMO there's arguments to dislike the EU, just none to leave it.

I don't think your opinion is worthless at all. On the contrary. Britain needs enlightened Remain-voters to repair the damage done by the way the Remain campaign was mishandled in 2016.

You're right, we can't afford to have some irreparable breach with Europe - our friends and allies - and evolution is always preferable to revolution. I went into the 2016 campaign fully expecting to vote Remain. But being told, effectively, that Britain's economy was doing brilliantly, and that we should not mess it up with Brexit, was jaw-dropping, as discussed above. It made me suspicious of the credentials of those making that case.

And some of this comes down to "picking winners".

You ask what Britain should specialise in. I think that's been part of the problem. Two generations of the British elite have decided we should a) specialise in financial services and b) deliberately skew our trade towards Europe.

Neither makes much sense, either from a free-market viewpoint, or from a left-wing one. The idea that it's a good idea for a country to specialise its economy is very close to madness - it's an outright misunderstanding of the theory of competitive advantage. The economist and ex-Venezuelan finance minister Ricardo Hausmann explains why this is the case in pained-sounding clarity [here] (https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/gindart/2013-12-30%20-%20The%20specialization%20myth.pdf).

Secondly, choosing to skew our trade towards one part of the world is also a bit deranged. Ten years ago Jagdish Bhagwati, who as you probably know is a free-trade militant and famous for it, wrote [an entire book] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001OD41SO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) on why such regional deals undermine free trade.

After all, their sheer proximity gives European companies an advantage in the British marketplace. Why should we reward them with further tariff and regulatory breaks? Why are we slapping a 20% tariff on imports of Australian orange juice - potentially a vital source of vitamins for poor Brits? Shouldn't we just be trying to buy food from whoever produces it most cheaply?

In exchange for market access for the City of London, we agreed to buy Europe's overpriced food and drink. By way of analogy, it's a bit like a bank manager winning the account for his local Waitrose by promising that his family will do all their grocery shopping in Waitrose, forever. I'm not convinced that deal makes the bank manager's family wealthier.

As for immigration, I would cite the government's UK Govt Migration Advisory Committee report, [September 2018] (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/741926/Final_EEA_report.PDF)

> The small overall impacts mean that EEA migration as a whole has had neither the large negative effects claimed by some nor the clear benefits claimed by others.

Whereas the Remain campaign gave the strong impression that mass EU immigration had made Britain's existing population much wealthier.

I have many friends and indeed relatives who are EU migrants, and I'm very grateful they came here. But I don't blame voters who get angry at being told that immigration has assisted the prosperity of indigenous Britons. The facts don't support this claim.

Hence the Leave focus on immigration. I agree that the referendum was fought on emotive buzzwords. Most people can't articulate the kind of nuance that we're discussing here, but they understand many of these points at an instinctive level. Thus, the winning side was the one that was most adept at selecting buzzwords that tapped into this unease.

Leave did that very well, mainly by studying the rhetoric used in the 2014 referendum in Scotland, and honing it. Stupidly, Osborne and Cameron believed the 2014 referendum to have been a "victory" for their side (despite it having converted many unionist Scots into confirmed nationalists) and so decided to repeat the same tactics.

Remain was extremely unfortunate in its leadership, in this regard.

Where do we go from here? I don't want "frictionless" trade with the EU. It would simply preserve the harmful status quo, with more and more resources pouring into London. We cannot spatially or sectorally rebalance our economy within this organisation. The EU knows this is a problem, by the way, and has commissioned a huge amount of [research] (https://www.espon.eu/programme/projects/espon-2006/thematic-projects/enlargement-eu-and-its-polycentric-spatial-structure) into how it can defy economic gravity to create a "polycentric" Europe that promotes development in the geographic fringe, rather than in the Central European core. But it's impossible; the entire economic logic of the Single Market is the creation of EU super-clusters, not the preservation of existing national-level ones.

Nor do I want any permanent FTAs with other countries; all such deals should include a 5-year sunset clause so they can be cancelled by the next government. Democracy requires this, as much as anything else.

I have a horrible feeling, however, that some "deal" will be done with the EU to preserve our current pattern of trade, in perpetuity, with no means of evolving out of it. I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect I'm not.

> It’s just a guy with an opinion, like you, like me. How many of his statements did you try to prove for yourself?

Yeah, just a guy...

Peter Zeihan has worked for the U.S. State Department, has been a part of the DC think tank community, and served as Vice President of Analysis for Stratfor, one of the world's premier private intelligence companies. He is an expert in his field. He's not just some schmuck in a fancy suit chatting shit.

>Let me tell you something. Europe has 600million inhabitants, almost double of what the US has, triple that of Russia.

The size of a population isn't as important as birthrates and demographics. Europe is in a death spiral of low birthrates. Why do you think your elected leaders are importing refugees en masse? Just because it's humane? Oh my sweet summer child. It's all about money. In two generations you won't have a tax base otherwise.

>And who thinks that the NATOs only reason for existence was the US having to protect everyone is making a big mistake.

I'm wondering if you even watched the video. NATO exists to protect global trade, and to contain Russia. Nobody is even suggesting that it wasn't in our interests or something we profited from, of course it was and of course we did.

The suggestion that the only point where NATO became effective is after 9/11 is just laughably wrong. I don't know how old you are, but my parents and I lived through the cold war. I suspect you didn't so I would suggest picking up a book or 12 and actually reading up on it instead of just talking out your ass about it.

>The US doesn’t have the only strong military in the world, either, Europe combined owns many nukes and our total military size exceed those of the US in a few areas, too. Apart from that I wouldn’t know what military size has to do with the potential success of a country.

Lol. Just... lol. First of all, that video didn't talk about military size. It talks about force projection. You can fill your ranks with every able bodied man in Europe and it won't mean shit because no country can match our ability to project force in any substantial way. And it matters because our force projection is what keeps the oil flowing and the money changing hands. We don't need free trade or oil anymore, but Europe does.

>This dude tries to make lies sound like facts by making a somewhat professional appearance, he’s mostly chanting bullshit. Most of his statements can be easily debunked or just use polemic to get a point across.

Then debunk them. Don't just chat shit, do your research, present an actual argument against anything he's said. All you have are vague notions of what's going on in the world. He wrote a whole book on the subject, complete with citations. What research have you done?

>Your „Europistan“ bullshit perfectly explained what you think about us. It’s the lies you see on Fox News every day that makes you think we are foes to you Americans. And here we thought we are friends, through similar culture, for the longest of times.

I don't even watch Fox News, other than the occasional Tucker Carlson clip on youtube. I read books. You should try it sometime.

Europe is going to be Islamic in about 2 generations without a serious shift in policy. It's just a matter of demographics. How many kids do your European friends have? Be honest. Now how many kids do you see being pushed in strollers or walked around by all your new Islamic friends? This isn't just some slur, it's the truth. Europe as we know it is going the way of the dodo. You should be far more concerned about your own country instead of worrying about our politics.

I read about the Indiana case, Bowman v. Monsanto Co., and it's worth noting that the decision in the case was unanimous in favor of the plaintiff. If you can get 9 U.S. Supreme court justices from across our ideological spectrum to agree that you're in the wrong, I'm ready to take their word for it. As for the Farmer suicides, I'm ready to concede that there's lots of challenges facing farmers in poor countries, and yes, perhaps the business practices of agribusiness companies could be less ruthless, and their lot would be improved, but even the Wikipedia article you cite includes a number of factors which arguably contribute to the phenomenon:

"the most prominent being meteorological factors such as failure of monsoons, unseasonal rains and hail that can destroy crops, high debt burdens, detrimental government policies, lack of irrigation and the lowering / poisoning of ground water, high costs of seeds (seed monopolies) and high rates of interest charged by private money lenders."

That is a lot of blame to roll around. Then there's the question of the farm subsidies that we pour on our domestic farmers, which in turn depresses the price of staple crops the world over. There's a very provocatively titled, but also excellent book I'd recommend you check out, which discusses, among other things, how Western agricultural policy impoverishes poor growers in the wider world.

But neither of these cases really make the case that GMO crops are by themselves harmful. Rather the reverse, they make the case that they're so good that people who don't use them are unable to compete in the marketplace without using them. Or, at least, unable to do so without having a Whole Foods to sell their wares at much higher prices.

I have read books on Russian revolution and Lenin. Just not the kind of books you would like.

Anyway here is the evidence for the murdering of peasants.

https://youtu.be/6TK9c-caEcw

Edit: For these of you who for some bizarre reason find a recording of Russell about his meeting with Lenin unreliable evidence, you can read all about Bolshevik atrocities during the Red Terror period here

https://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Ravaged-Century-Robert-Conquest/dp/0393320863

It includes tens of thousands of dead and tortured every year and brutal suppression of workers and peasants. Bolsheviks weren't actually popular among the working poor at all.

Communists have always seen the poor as nothing more than cannon fodder to be used in their murderous attempts to achieve their utopia.

That's Lenin's vanguardism in practice, but Reddit socialists of course prefer "theory" and their circle jerks to real history.