Comment by kapitza | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kapitza | Hacker News Reader

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Version 1 (unless broadened) does not explain why exactly the same symptoms (if not always as extreme) appeared in many other American cities, not specializing in auto production, at the same time.

"Due to foreign competition" is also contentious -- an equal and opposite contentious statement would be "due to free trade," ie, attributing these events to an human political decision, rather than an abstract force of history.

Version 2 still contains the passive voice. Notice that both these versions trail off into "no one is responsible." This is consistent with a political memory hole.

It also seems deeply problematic (in a number of respects) to argue that Detroit declined because African-Americans moved there. Surely the proximate cause of the decline is not that a new population arrived, but that the old population departed?

Here's a clarifying thought-experiment. Imagine that Detroit was a city-state, and you were its absolute monarch, crowned originally in 1965. Then deliver the explanation as if you were talking to your bondholders. Extra points if you can use the phrase "our incredible journey."

If you think foreign competition was a major factor, the responsible parties are the executives and engineers of the Detroit automakers, for being worse at their jobs than their Japanese and German counterparts.

You jump straight from the condition "America makes worse cars" to "America should stop making cars and buy Japanese and German cars."

A mercantilist or protectionist would jump straight to "Americans drive worse cars."

So there is a policy choice: under free trade, Americans get to drive cute Beetles and sporty little Civics, instead of giant Pontiac boats. Under protectionism (assuming version 1), Detroit remains a city, not a bandit-infested wilderness.

Human beings (the Guardian would call them "neoliberals") made this choice. So, they're responsible. This does not constitute an apology for the '72 El Camino.

As I understand it, you propose a right to "conservation of prosperity": if something is prosperous now, we should use force to ensure that it remains so in perpetuity, and are morally responsible for the harm that comes from not doing so.

How do you decide what to freeze, and how do you decide which year to freeze it in?

I could argue we had a similar moral imperative to prevent the destruction of the livelihoods of horse-drawn carriage drivers. What if you had made this argument successfully in 1890 and the auto industry was never allowed to exist in the first place? Would you acknowledge the same responsibility for the nonexistence of Detroit that you assign to free trade now?

I believe we have a right to a government that does everything possible to support, cherish, protect and uplift its citizens -- whether by defending them from crime, or preserving their livelihoods.

Yes, I'm aware that this makes me a nutball -- some kind of communist or fascist or something. I used to be a libertarian, if that makes you feel better.

If horses were citizens, I'd definitely preserve the carriages. They're not, and the carriage drivers could become chauffeurs. Not that there was a plan, but that would have been a fine plan.

Sometimes things are going so well, you don't need a plan. Other times...

>and the carriage drivers could become chauffeurs

And the people in Detroit could move somewhere with productive economic activity. Why are they different from carriage drivers?

FWIW I used to be a protectionist. I became disillusioned with it when the choices around which things to protect, what to protect them from (foreign competition vs. automation), which status quo to lock in, and where we draw the boundaries of units that ought to be protected from each other, started to seem arbitrary.

I remember a particularly compelling line of argument from an economics textbook: okay, the US should make its own cars, but why stop at the national border? Why not have every state make its own cars? Think of all the jobs that would create! An auto industry in every state! But why stop at state? Why not make people sell their cars and trade to locally manufactured ones at every county line? Because it'd be a huge waste.

And, of course, many of the things we propose to protect "disrupted" something else not so long ago, sometimes in living memory. If we protect truckers from autonomous vehicles, for example, we will have to explain to the laid off railroad guys why we did not protect them from the truckers. Why we did not protect the longshoremen from the shipping container and crane.

It's the government's responsibility to take care of its citizens, absolutely.

Making people do work that they know is inferior to what could be done by machines (or foreigners) just seems like an extremely degrading way to go about that. I'd much rather see a good chunk of the output of "license to print money" operations taxed and redistributed.

Or, the quality of all cars sold in the US increased, including American cars. I suspect that the number of cars sold per capita, regardless of origin, has remained very roughly the same since Detroit's better days.

Those executives may have done a great job, improving the quality of their cars to the point that they can sell as many as they do today, in a wider competitive environment.

I suspect that the number of cars sold per capita, regardless of origin, has remained very roughly the same since Detroit's better days.

In the US, down about 25% since 1976, actually. This reflects cars lasting longer.

[1] https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2016/12/0...

Which is a good thing. I still have my 25 year old, first owner honda civic.

So, all things being equal ...

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