I’m skeptical that a ‘New Cold War’ would encourage more skilled immigration. If the West/New Allies frame the Rest (esp China) as fierce geopolitical rivals, surely those countries start cracking down on emigration of their most talented citizens. I’m not exactly sure how Nate envisions the geopolitical fault lines of this new Cold War, but reductions in Russian and Chinese immigration alone would be a clear roadblock to expanding skilled immigration. Not to mention India, which seems content to play at non-alignment. If they are forced to choose a side and choose Russia/China—not a totally implausible scenario given India’s economic ties with Russia—another door to a substantial number of skilled immigrations closes.
Russia strongly expelled dozens of thousands of people with war and mobilization (the latter, granted, happened after your post). Most of them would be very glad to emigrate to the West. It was Europe and US that have been staunchly opposed to letting them _in_.
As for India siding with Russia and China - unlikely, imo. As Noah put it: "In fact, if you squint very hard, you might see an Indian strategy of joining Chinese-led organizations and then neutralizing their effectiveness." (https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/brics-is-fake) India is threatened by China and, perhaps more importantly, by Pakistan (which is far more firmly in the Russia/China side). There's a kind of domino play: Israel and Saudi Arabia vs. Iran and its satellites vs. Afghanistan (_despite_ the Taliban takeover!) vs. Pakistan vs. India vs. China. And if Taliban does go to China's side, this will only threaten India even more.
Noah, I'm really puzzled as to why you so consistently frame Russia and China as an "axis" with common interests and requiring a common response. The two countries look very different to me. Russia is a declining petrostate with a weak manufacturing base. The poor performance of its armed forces in the Ukraine is consistent with a government which doesn't depend on a functioning economy or skilled workers for power because it can fund itself on raw materials. China, on the other hand, is a functioning industrial economy with a fairly strong technical manufacturing base and an increasingly skilled workforce. Importantly, because it is not a resource extraction based economy, China requires a functioning society and the Chinese political elites have to bring their population with them in a way that is not the case in Russia.
True, both countries are somewhat hostile to the USA at the moment, but this seems to be fundamentally different in nature. Russia needs foreign enemies to fight (and cheap successes) as the government has no other real source of legitimacy. Russia is also no a serious geo-political rival to the US (if you are failing in an invasion of a poor neighbouring country of c40m people with a weak military by definition you are not a great power).
China, on the other hand, is a geopolitical rival to the US and has the economic and military power to match. However, although its interests run counter to those of the US in a bunch of areas, there are also significant areas of common interest. Trade, for example, remains central to the health of the Chinese economy (and therefore the Chinese government).
I see little evidence of a China/Russia axis against the US (and the West more generally). This is partly simply because the relationship is so uneven (China + Russia might be a viable competitor to the US, but this would also be true of China + Lichensten - China is doing all the work in both cases).. There is little evidence of China offering Russia much active support in the Ukraine and China's interests don't really seem to align with Russia's here. I doubt that China's government is particularly sad that Russia is giving the US and Europe trouble, but I also doubt that China would make any significant sacrifices for Russia or for any "common cause" with Russia.
For one thing, Russia’s invasion is not “failing,” they are still very much advancing and they have taken territory the size of England. And it’s hard to classify the Ukrainian military as weak when they have been armed and trained for eight years by the world’s most powerful military alliance.
But anyway, the reason a Russia China axis makes some degree of sense, even if it’s not at WW2 levels, is that the two countries are symbiotic. Russia provides key raw materials to a comparatively resource-poor China, while China provides Russia a critical lifeline to global trade and new technologies. It’s pretty unlikely Putin would have made the decision to invade had he not signed that “no limits” partnership with Xi in early February. Ultimately, both countries chafe at the US-led international order and have this found common cause.
I'm no city prognosticator, just a country bumpkin. But, I would guess that folks treat Russia and China as an axis with common interests requiring a common response because Putin and Xi align their countries like an axis with common interests, which would require a common response at the baseline.
It comes from the top, based on what I've seen in the news these past several years, and both have an eye on a democratic territory near to them.
There are certain reservations I have with this. The first is this moral high ground that America wants to claim in this situation. Everytime America has faced what they perceive as an existential internal or external threat, they have went ahead to demonize the perceived or actual enemy and set America up as the shining patron of freedom and human rights. And the truth is far more complicated than that. For instance, the levels of American surveillance are pretty similar to the levels of Chinese surveillance.
Second, reshoring manufacturing is a good thing. The great flaw of neoliberalism was the pretence that economic interests were the only interests that existed. But economic goals and political values are inextricably linked. Countries have different pasts, different cultures, different traditions, and so different aims. The idea that all of that was going to go away on the altar of international co-operation was a myth. And so, it is in the best interests of America, especially when it comes to critical supply chains, to keep them as far away from Chinese control as possible in the same vein that in the best interests of China to keep them as far away from American control as possible. That is pure geopolitical reality.
The third is was the end of history narrative irredeemably flawed? Yes, yes it was. For several reasons. But people have gone from wars will never happen to wars are now inevitable. It's pretty much committing the same mistake in reverse. And the problem with the second perspective is it's partly self fulfilling. If you believe and act like a great war is inevitable, even if on reasonable grounds, you increase the chances that it will happen. That's pretty much how world war 1 happened.
Now, America needs to be prepared. Defence is critical. But I've always maintained that most of America's real problems are internal. You'll make much more progress in this fight, imagined or real, by cutting down your monopolies, boosting your infrastructure, deregulating certain sectors, and trying to repair a political system that obviously requires a lot of repair.
America is still better. Whether that stays that way is still entirely up to America.
This is a powerful, hopeful campaign message that would appeal to both blue and red nations: “Biden has also made reshoring supply chains a centerpiece of his economic message. And efforts to boost American manufacturing investment have accelerated under Biden, and are now starting to yield a few results.“
So, a new industrial policy for a new era's cold war and technology transition? Sounds right to me.
Semiconductors, next-pandemic vaccines, energy and batteries - we've got a lot of R&D-laden industries that could use the government's Big Push.
Industrial policy was a hard sell in the 70s and 80s, when the Big Push targets were hard to see. But now, for the first time in sixty years, I think the case is strong again. There are some real opportunities.
I don't know if it's truly a war economy. But I'll look forward to more articles on the New Industrial Policy.
Why should we pursue war (cold or hot) with China? What have they ever done to us? Oh they're "belligerent" are they? So fucking what?
The US does not officially recognize taiwan because it isn't a country, they're the Chinese equivalent to the confederacy only they've been propped up by outside forces for almost a hundred years. They lost the war so they don't get to be a country, that's how geopolitics fucking work
My enemies aren't in China or even Russia; my enemies are sitting on the Supreme Court, my enemies live in Texas and all the other remnants of the confederacy trying to take us back to the dark ages with their religious fundamentalism and if you try to redirect my righteous anger towards people who have never wronged me across the sea then you are my enemy too
We shouldn't be fighting China, we should learn from them and work with them.
China has high speed rail and their government knows how to handle conservative religious extremists, just ask Tibet or Xinjiang, and we should treat the American south the same exact way because if we don't, then the handmaid christians will kill or enslave us all
Do we actually think that Trump ushered in a new paradigm or that America actually cares about Ukraine outside of its own self-interests?
American Capitalism has never been less fair, less equal, less engineered to be good to women, minorities or young people.
In the next decade young people will start families less, due to the poor American economy of less opportunity.
What kind of "great reset" will unprecedented QT and stagflation truly cause? What occurs to capitalism amid more civil unrest internally as well as more geopolitical competition globally?
During Covid-19 the American health system basically failed. Now there is a mental health crisis that's going unanswered.
It will take more than theories to heal the wounds in the lack of trust in our institutions. America pretends to be in a position of strength, but that swagger isn't correlating with what's occurring on the ground.
I'm not sure that talk of Sanctioning China or whoever else likes Russia is the answer. America is going to have a housing crisis as rent inflation is occurring due to a supply-demand dislocation. America's population is aging and in poor health, both financially and health wise. A few tech monopolies stunt innovation and centralize it in a dysfunctional VC system.
I see no evidence American leadership is doing anything to address the issues you have thoughtfully exposed. Hope in Capitalism and Democracy in America is decreasing.
It's not just Biden, it's that we know the 2024 era will be no different. America's economic momentum with increasing levels of fiscal and monetary manipulation by a Central bank global cartel isn't doing us any favors.
I agree there needs to be some mechanism to drive the modernization of the US economy. However, on the War Economy, color me skeptical. One of the disfunctions dragging US economic performance down is a bloated military industrial complex. These companies, enriched by cost plus contacts, produce fighter aircraft inferior to prior generation fighters, ships which can not achieve their design mission, and the SLS which seems unlikely to be useful for space exploration. The one area where they are truly formidable is lobbying Congress to keep the gravy train flowing. Further entrenching the MIC, seems more likely to lead to disaster than national renewal. I look forward to the next essay of the series.
MMTT'ers also speak of a 'War Economy' - to fund transition to a green economy. In fact Jerome Powell could fund it for free, without causing inflation, because in a war economy you strongly intervene in the market economy, and make sure the resources you need to produce the desired outcomes are diverted from the market as required, by decree.
But you reject this.
Hence unsurprisingly, since most Americans aren't interested in 'paying' for a GND, you have concluded the only way we can achieve a War Economy (to gain acceptance for market intervention) is to identify an enemy, and - voila - we have a war economy.
Note: I'm not necessarily enamored of our Western "freedom values" associated with ever-increasing inequality, as has been the experience since Reagan; and hence I'm not inclined to embrace the "China threat' theory. without further evidence of it. {Taiwan is not a clear cut example of aggression, IMO. I think Xi will let it be so long as the US doesn't support actual Taiwanese secession and independence. And I think the Xinjiang genocide claims are false).
So you see a divided world as some sort of solution to deal with an opposing governing ideology.
By my calculations, given China's increasing technological clout, China + Russia + China-friendly countries in Africa and Latin America -and all their resources - won't be a pushover.
My preferred course would be reform of the UN.
Nuclear arms races to 'preserve peace', in the age of MAD, are so - primitive, to say the least.
Noah, you are certainly not living in my world. You appear to be a centralist expecting massive bureaucracies are capable of effectively managing hundreds of millions of people. Clearly, central governments have proven failures in every way for generations. See if you will consider an alternative political economy. But first, some comments:
"what will be the thing that forces us to come up with a new policy paradigm?" If you understand that the economy is an energy system and not a financial one perhaps we will have no option but to manage the inevitable transmogrification of our Western civilisation: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-the-end?s=w
"China’s increasing attitude of belligerence," WRONG. Only a dedicated American could say this. A cursory examination of recent history proves conclusively that it is the US who are the belligerents with over 800 military bases around the world? AND
"a clear case of a brutal and savage aggressor attempting an unprovoked imperial conquest of a peaceable neighboring country." WRONG.
Who was it that created the Maiden issue in 2014 (F*K the EU?) and failed to implement the Minsk Agreements? NATO has been expanding eastward for decades - YOU are the aggressors - no question and the EU is your fall-guy, UK is your puppy: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18610/eu-superpower-delusion
"We are in a technological, economic, and arms-race competition with enemies" Driven by America's extreme fear of losing its 'exceptional privilege''. Have you ever considered 'cooperation' rather than 'competition'? Eastasia is creating a multi-polar 'cooperative' world and USA will have to relinquish its unholy hegemony gracefully if it is to survive, albeit poorer. Weaponising the dollar and attempting to steal other state's financial reserves only delegitimises the credibility of the dollar which will be 'mighty' no longer. http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/07/why-nations-fail.html
AND a solution to your question? Localisation and minimal central governments. The WEF Great Reset is a megalomaniac's wet dream - it won't happen - there are too many of us 'producers' and so few of the parasitic elites. Watch Sri Lanka for a clue - maybe the canary in the coalmine?
Even more LOL for Keynesians. I can't think of any more of a screw up than this weapon of mass financial destruction but then, we will only know when the tide finally recedes.
I found South Africa energetically optimal if you disregard their too obvious deep state cabal. I wouldn't recommend Somalia although Mo did very well.
Lol you think climate change is a WEF cabal scam? Please explain why China thinks its important. Does the cabal also extend their tendrils into China? Does dear Klaus control them too? 😂
“We are not going to be able to deal with that problem by cutting taxes and opening our markets to more Chinese-made products and twiddling our thumbs and intoning quotes from Milton Friedman.”
I am biased towards your view..recently government officials, the bureaucracy and supranational orgs (UN, WHO, WEF, etc) have not shown any evidence of being able to rise to challenges. I am interested to see if Noah can change my mind
Notably, no mention of democracy. This is straight 19th century great power geopolitics, implicitly accepting the Chinese government's views that its internal affairs are its own business. The only dispute is whether Taiwan is an internal Chinese matter or not.
If you're talking about democracy in China, I'm not sure there's much anyone can do about that in any case so why bother mentioning it? Do you have some workable plan?
My plan would be to stop picking fights over silly stuff like the South China Sea, and make human rights improvements a central theme in bargaining over trade policy.
How could you possibly think the south China sea is the "silly stuff" after Russia has invaded Ukraine? It must be exceedingly clear now why China is claiming the entire SCS and arming it to the teeth.
Because Russia has done so spectacularly badly. If the Black Sea Fleet can't take, or even seriously threaten, Odessa, the idea that China can manage a seaborne invasion of Taiwan is absurd.
It's actually worse. Mariupol, a seaport surrounded on all sides by land, held out for weeks and the Russian Navy played no role in its capture.
> From the late 1970s through the middle of the 2000s, our organizing principle was what some people call “neoliberalism” — deregulation, tax cuts, free trade, and the shift of the welfare state towards in-kind benefits and work requirements.
Is it really true, through? What about FDA? If we're currently deregulated, what would 'regulated' state
You could imagine something like the App Store review process but run by the government, incorporating public comment, and taking months to years, to approve any change to any website or tech product.
You could also imagine more occupations working like medicine; Congress choosing how many people will be permitted to enter each year.
And you could imagine more sectors working like hospitals or banks; you can’t just open one, a relevant government body has to assess that there is a need for a new one and issue a charter.
We have a police department. If you kill someone, they'll arrest you. You might even wind up in jail. We supposedly have deregulation. What would it look like if we were regulated?
It is thought-provoking to think the US are in a new "era" versus requiring a mid-course correction. When I see your agenda, it seems primarily focused on the "hard aspects" of winning the "war." On this dimension of your blog my suggestion would be to ensure you focus on "leading" in the technologies that will determine key economic outcomes: cheap energy independent of volatile countries (batteries, solar, wind, fission, fusion?), semiconductor design and manufacture, additive manufacturing, low cost water distillation, carbon capture, cancer vaccines, diabetes therapies, etc.
However, I would also add a fifth chapter on soft power. One of my biggest concerns with the US is how much credibility the country has lost in the last twenty five years through poor policy decisions. Name your poison: the Iraq war (not viewed that differently in much of the world as Russia invading Ukraine), the chaotic COVID response, the mass killings, the hypocrisy over not joining key international institutions (e.g. the International Criminal Court), the Trump-instigated friction with traditional allies and NATO, the homeless situation in many cities, violence against Asians and other minorities. If the US does not inspire it cannot lead; if it cannot lead it cannot "win the next war."
Noah. We need much more:
1. Skilled immigration
2. An industrial policy
3. Housing and transit
4. STEM education
We need all of the above. And the time is now. Much much more needs to discussed, and actioned Into policy on all fronts.
Abundance agenda + industrial capacity + Growth mindset.
I’m skeptical that a ‘New Cold War’ would encourage more skilled immigration. If the West/New Allies frame the Rest (esp China) as fierce geopolitical rivals, surely those countries start cracking down on emigration of their most talented citizens. I’m not exactly sure how Nate envisions the geopolitical fault lines of this new Cold War, but reductions in Russian and Chinese immigration alone would be a clear roadblock to expanding skilled immigration. Not to mention India, which seems content to play at non-alignment. If they are forced to choose a side and choose Russia/China—not a totally implausible scenario given India’s economic ties with Russia—another door to a substantial number of skilled immigrations closes.
Russia strongly expelled dozens of thousands of people with war and mobilization (the latter, granted, happened after your post). Most of them would be very glad to emigrate to the West. It was Europe and US that have been staunchly opposed to letting them _in_.
As for India siding with Russia and China - unlikely, imo. As Noah put it: "In fact, if you squint very hard, you might see an Indian strategy of joining Chinese-led organizations and then neutralizing their effectiveness." (https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/brics-is-fake) India is threatened by China and, perhaps more importantly, by Pakistan (which is far more firmly in the Russia/China side). There's a kind of domino play: Israel and Saudi Arabia vs. Iran and its satellites vs. Afghanistan (_despite_ the Taliban takeover!) vs. Pakistan vs. India vs. China. And if Taliban does go to China's side, this will only threaten India even more.
Just re read this. It’s real clear and high quality stuff.
So HOW do we make it policy?
Noah, I'm really puzzled as to why you so consistently frame Russia and China as an "axis" with common interests and requiring a common response. The two countries look very different to me. Russia is a declining petrostate with a weak manufacturing base. The poor performance of its armed forces in the Ukraine is consistent with a government which doesn't depend on a functioning economy or skilled workers for power because it can fund itself on raw materials. China, on the other hand, is a functioning industrial economy with a fairly strong technical manufacturing base and an increasingly skilled workforce. Importantly, because it is not a resource extraction based economy, China requires a functioning society and the Chinese political elites have to bring their population with them in a way that is not the case in Russia.
True, both countries are somewhat hostile to the USA at the moment, but this seems to be fundamentally different in nature. Russia needs foreign enemies to fight (and cheap successes) as the government has no other real source of legitimacy. Russia is also no a serious geo-political rival to the US (if you are failing in an invasion of a poor neighbouring country of c40m people with a weak military by definition you are not a great power).
China, on the other hand, is a geopolitical rival to the US and has the economic and military power to match. However, although its interests run counter to those of the US in a bunch of areas, there are also significant areas of common interest. Trade, for example, remains central to the health of the Chinese economy (and therefore the Chinese government).
I see little evidence of a China/Russia axis against the US (and the West more generally). This is partly simply because the relationship is so uneven (China + Russia might be a viable competitor to the US, but this would also be true of China + Lichensten - China is doing all the work in both cases).. There is little evidence of China offering Russia much active support in the Ukraine and China's interests don't really seem to align with Russia's here. I doubt that China's government is particularly sad that Russia is giving the US and Europe trouble, but I also doubt that China would make any significant sacrifices for Russia or for any "common cause" with Russia.
I'll elaborate in the next post in this series!
For one thing, Russia’s invasion is not “failing,” they are still very much advancing and they have taken territory the size of England. And it’s hard to classify the Ukrainian military as weak when they have been armed and trained for eight years by the world’s most powerful military alliance.
But anyway, the reason a Russia China axis makes some degree of sense, even if it’s not at WW2 levels, is that the two countries are symbiotic. Russia provides key raw materials to a comparatively resource-poor China, while China provides Russia a critical lifeline to global trade and new technologies. It’s pretty unlikely Putin would have made the decision to invade had he not signed that “no limits” partnership with Xi in early February. Ultimately, both countries chafe at the US-led international order and have this found common cause.
I'm no city prognosticator, just a country bumpkin. But, I would guess that folks treat Russia and China as an axis with common interests requiring a common response because Putin and Xi align their countries like an axis with common interests, which would require a common response at the baseline.
It comes from the top, based on what I've seen in the news these past several years, and both have an eye on a democratic territory near to them.
There are certain reservations I have with this. The first is this moral high ground that America wants to claim in this situation. Everytime America has faced what they perceive as an existential internal or external threat, they have went ahead to demonize the perceived or actual enemy and set America up as the shining patron of freedom and human rights. And the truth is far more complicated than that. For instance, the levels of American surveillance are pretty similar to the levels of Chinese surveillance.
Second, reshoring manufacturing is a good thing. The great flaw of neoliberalism was the pretence that economic interests were the only interests that existed. But economic goals and political values are inextricably linked. Countries have different pasts, different cultures, different traditions, and so different aims. The idea that all of that was going to go away on the altar of international co-operation was a myth. And so, it is in the best interests of America, especially when it comes to critical supply chains, to keep them as far away from Chinese control as possible in the same vein that in the best interests of China to keep them as far away from American control as possible. That is pure geopolitical reality.
The third is was the end of history narrative irredeemably flawed? Yes, yes it was. For several reasons. But people have gone from wars will never happen to wars are now inevitable. It's pretty much committing the same mistake in reverse. And the problem with the second perspective is it's partly self fulfilling. If you believe and act like a great war is inevitable, even if on reasonable grounds, you increase the chances that it will happen. That's pretty much how world war 1 happened.
Now, America needs to be prepared. Defence is critical. But I've always maintained that most of America's real problems are internal. You'll make much more progress in this fight, imagined or real, by cutting down your monopolies, boosting your infrastructure, deregulating certain sectors, and trying to repair a political system that obviously requires a lot of repair.
America is still better. Whether that stays that way is still entirely up to America.
This is a powerful, hopeful campaign message that would appeal to both blue and red nations: “Biden has also made reshoring supply chains a centerpiece of his economic message. And efforts to boost American manufacturing investment have accelerated under Biden, and are now starting to yield a few results.“
A very informative read.
Too many are clinging to the post WWII societal order when the winds of change are clearly in the air.
More thinking and discussion like this is necessary at all levels of US society.
Looking forward to the rest of the series.
So, a new industrial policy for a new era's cold war and technology transition? Sounds right to me.
Semiconductors, next-pandemic vaccines, energy and batteries - we've got a lot of R&D-laden industries that could use the government's Big Push.
Industrial policy was a hard sell in the 70s and 80s, when the Big Push targets were hard to see. But now, for the first time in sixty years, I think the case is strong again. There are some real opportunities.
I don't know if it's truly a war economy. But I'll look forward to more articles on the New Industrial Policy.
Why should we pursue war (cold or hot) with China? What have they ever done to us? Oh they're "belligerent" are they? So fucking what?
The US does not officially recognize taiwan because it isn't a country, they're the Chinese equivalent to the confederacy only they've been propped up by outside forces for almost a hundred years. They lost the war so they don't get to be a country, that's how geopolitics fucking work
My enemies aren't in China or even Russia; my enemies are sitting on the Supreme Court, my enemies live in Texas and all the other remnants of the confederacy trying to take us back to the dark ages with their religious fundamentalism and if you try to redirect my righteous anger towards people who have never wronged me across the sea then you are my enemy too
We shouldn't be fighting China, we should learn from them and work with them.
China has high speed rail and their government knows how to handle conservative religious extremists, just ask Tibet or Xinjiang, and we should treat the American south the same exact way because if we don't, then the handmaid christians will kill or enslave us all
Do we actually think that Trump ushered in a new paradigm or that America actually cares about Ukraine outside of its own self-interests?
American Capitalism has never been less fair, less equal, less engineered to be good to women, minorities or young people.
In the next decade young people will start families less, due to the poor American economy of less opportunity.
What kind of "great reset" will unprecedented QT and stagflation truly cause? What occurs to capitalism amid more civil unrest internally as well as more geopolitical competition globally?
During Covid-19 the American health system basically failed. Now there is a mental health crisis that's going unanswered.
It will take more than theories to heal the wounds in the lack of trust in our institutions. America pretends to be in a position of strength, but that swagger isn't correlating with what's occurring on the ground.
I'm not sure that talk of Sanctioning China or whoever else likes Russia is the answer. America is going to have a housing crisis as rent inflation is occurring due to a supply-demand dislocation. America's population is aging and in poor health, both financially and health wise. A few tech monopolies stunt innovation and centralize it in a dysfunctional VC system.
I see no evidence American leadership is doing anything to address the issues you have thoughtfully exposed. Hope in Capitalism and Democracy in America is decreasing.
It's not just Biden, it's that we know the 2024 era will be no different. America's economic momentum with increasing levels of fiscal and monetary manipulation by a Central bank global cartel isn't doing us any favors.
Does anyone else remember Metal Gear Solid 4? I remember Metal Gear Solid 4.
Sorry, I can't hear "War Economy" without thinking of MGS4; I really think the setting and atmosphere of that game is very under-rated.
I do worry that a lot of money spent on these initiatives will get sucked up into patronage and corruption.
I agree there needs to be some mechanism to drive the modernization of the US economy. However, on the War Economy, color me skeptical. One of the disfunctions dragging US economic performance down is a bloated military industrial complex. These companies, enriched by cost plus contacts, produce fighter aircraft inferior to prior generation fighters, ships which can not achieve their design mission, and the SLS which seems unlikely to be useful for space exploration. The one area where they are truly formidable is lobbying Congress to keep the gravy train flowing. Further entrenching the MIC, seems more likely to lead to disaster than national renewal. I look forward to the next essay of the series.
MMTT'ers also speak of a 'War Economy' - to fund transition to a green economy. In fact Jerome Powell could fund it for free, without causing inflation, because in a war economy you strongly intervene in the market economy, and make sure the resources you need to produce the desired outcomes are diverted from the market as required, by decree.
But you reject this.
Hence unsurprisingly, since most Americans aren't interested in 'paying' for a GND, you have concluded the only way we can achieve a War Economy (to gain acceptance for market intervention) is to identify an enemy, and - voila - we have a war economy.
Note: I'm not necessarily enamored of our Western "freedom values" associated with ever-increasing inequality, as has been the experience since Reagan; and hence I'm not inclined to embrace the "China threat' theory. without further evidence of it. {Taiwan is not a clear cut example of aggression, IMO. I think Xi will let it be so long as the US doesn't support actual Taiwanese secession and independence. And I think the Xinjiang genocide claims are false).
So you see a divided world as some sort of solution to deal with an opposing governing ideology.
By my calculations, given China's increasing technological clout, China + Russia + China-friendly countries in Africa and Latin America -and all their resources - won't be a pushover.
My preferred course would be reform of the UN.
Nuclear arms races to 'preserve peace', in the age of MAD, are so - primitive, to say the least.
Noah, you are certainly not living in my world. You appear to be a centralist expecting massive bureaucracies are capable of effectively managing hundreds of millions of people. Clearly, central governments have proven failures in every way for generations. See if you will consider an alternative political economy. But first, some comments:
"It isn’t going to be climate change" Damn right. It has been debunked many times by serious scientists. Only the WEF cabal could perpetrate this scam: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/climate-fraud-exposed-rip-truth-is
"what will be the thing that forces us to come up with a new policy paradigm?" If you understand that the economy is an energy system and not a financial one perhaps we will have no option but to manage the inevitable transmogrification of our Western civilisation: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-the-end?s=w
"China’s increasing attitude of belligerence," WRONG. Only a dedicated American could say this. A cursory examination of recent history proves conclusively that it is the US who are the belligerents with over 800 military bases around the world? AND
"a clear case of a brutal and savage aggressor attempting an unprovoked imperial conquest of a peaceable neighboring country." WRONG.
Who was it that created the Maiden issue in 2014 (F*K the EU?) and failed to implement the Minsk Agreements? NATO has been expanding eastward for decades - YOU are the aggressors - no question and the EU is your fall-guy, UK is your puppy: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18610/eu-superpower-delusion
"We are in a technological, economic, and arms-race competition with enemies" Driven by America's extreme fear of losing its 'exceptional privilege''. Have you ever considered 'cooperation' rather than 'competition'? Eastasia is creating a multi-polar 'cooperative' world and USA will have to relinquish its unholy hegemony gracefully if it is to survive, albeit poorer. Weaponising the dollar and attempting to steal other state's financial reserves only delegitimises the credibility of the dollar which will be 'mighty' no longer. http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/07/why-nations-fail.html
AND a solution to your question? Localisation and minimal central governments. The WEF Great Reset is a megalomaniac's wet dream - it won't happen - there are too many of us 'producers' and so few of the parasitic elites. Watch Sri Lanka for a clue - maybe the canary in the coalmine?
https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-localisation?s=w
Lol Austrian economics
Even more LOL for Keynesians. I can't think of any more of a screw up than this weapon of mass financial destruction but then, we will only know when the tide finally recedes.
Yeah, the 1950s and 1960s were an economic disaster. That high growth rate and broad based prosperity was a DISASTER. NEVER AGAIN!
Central governments have been a proven failure? Are you volunteering to move to Somalia where you can live free (well, more likely, die)?
I found South Africa energetically optimal if you disregard their too obvious deep state cabal. I wouldn't recommend Somalia although Mo did very well.
Lol you think climate change is a WEF cabal scam? Please explain why China thinks its important. Does the cabal also extend their tendrils into China? Does dear Klaus control them too? 😂
“We are not going to be able to deal with that problem by cutting taxes and opening our markets to more Chinese-made products and twiddling our thumbs and intoning quotes from Milton Friedman.”
OK - how do we handle it then? A kinetic solution? It has always be the final option in the past.
I am biased towards your view..recently government officials, the bureaucracy and supranational orgs (UN, WHO, WEF, etc) have not shown any evidence of being able to rise to challenges. I am interested to see if Noah can change my mind
Notably, no mention of democracy. This is straight 19th century great power geopolitics, implicitly accepting the Chinese government's views that its internal affairs are its own business. The only dispute is whether Taiwan is an internal Chinese matter or not.
If you're talking about democracy in China, I'm not sure there's much anyone can do about that in any case so why bother mentioning it? Do you have some workable plan?
My plan would be to stop picking fights over silly stuff like the South China Sea, and make human rights improvements a central theme in bargaining over trade policy.
LOL. Good luck with that. South China Sea seems far more realistic, actually.
You are sadly misinformed, but misinformation on this topic is the norm, not the exception.
How could you possibly think the south China sea is the "silly stuff" after Russia has invaded Ukraine? It must be exceedingly clear now why China is claiming the entire SCS and arming it to the teeth.
Because Russia has done so spectacularly badly. If the Black Sea Fleet can't take, or even seriously threaten, Odessa, the idea that China can manage a seaborne invasion of Taiwan is absurd.
It's actually worse. Mariupol, a seaport surrounded on all sides by land, held out for weeks and the Russian Navy played no role in its capture.
> From the late 1970s through the middle of the 2000s, our organizing principle was what some people call “neoliberalism” — deregulation, tax cuts, free trade, and the shift of the welfare state towards in-kind benefits and work requirements.
Is it really true, through? What about FDA? If we're currently deregulated, what would 'regulated' state
even look like?
You could imagine something like the App Store review process but run by the government, incorporating public comment, and taking months to years, to approve any change to any website or tech product.
You could also imagine more occupations working like medicine; Congress choosing how many people will be permitted to enter each year.
And you could imagine more sectors working like hospitals or banks; you can’t just open one, a relevant government body has to assess that there is a need for a new one and issue a charter.
We have a police department. If you kill someone, they'll arrest you. You might even wind up in jail. We supposedly have deregulation. What would it look like if we were regulated?
It isn't an on/off switch.
It is thought-provoking to think the US are in a new "era" versus requiring a mid-course correction. When I see your agenda, it seems primarily focused on the "hard aspects" of winning the "war." On this dimension of your blog my suggestion would be to ensure you focus on "leading" in the technologies that will determine key economic outcomes: cheap energy independent of volatile countries (batteries, solar, wind, fission, fusion?), semiconductor design and manufacture, additive manufacturing, low cost water distillation, carbon capture, cancer vaccines, diabetes therapies, etc.
However, I would also add a fifth chapter on soft power. One of my biggest concerns with the US is how much credibility the country has lost in the last twenty five years through poor policy decisions. Name your poison: the Iraq war (not viewed that differently in much of the world as Russia invading Ukraine), the chaotic COVID response, the mass killings, the hypocrisy over not joining key international institutions (e.g. the International Criminal Court), the Trump-instigated friction with traditional allies and NATO, the homeless situation in many cities, violence against Asians and other minorities. If the US does not inspire it cannot lead; if it cannot lead it cannot "win the next war."