Comment by jknoepfler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jknoepfler | Hacker News Reader

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No, it doesn't. Let's take an actual country rather than something vacuous like "The West". To start a company in the United States (for example), you do not need "an American business partner" controlled by the federal government of the United States. The fate of your company is not tied 100% to the approval or disapproval of that business partner's actions, which in the case of China are vigorously and actively policed. Whatever your political views, and in particular whatever you twit, or facebork, or say on camera, you will not be denied the right to do business in the United States of America. If you could get an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that Western Capitalism is corrupt, Marx was the one true prophet, Emperor Norton was the legitimate sovereign ruler of the United States, and frankly you think the ideal government is a blend of Iran and North Korea (two countries which the United States does embargo), you might have to deal with some weird fallout from public reaction, but you'd still be in business. Furthermore the editor of the Wall Street Journal who published your editorial might suffer some backlash for the utterly weird thing they chose to publish, but they would not be fined or imprisoned or tortured or executed by any state-run apparatus (as they would in China).

Embargoes are the exception, not the rule, and they are not used as a means to enforce political speech. It'll be a cold day in hell before I try to defend the foreign policy tactics of the United States, but to pretend that a business embargo on a select few countries constitutes something on the order of the Chinese stranglehold on business in their country is just false.

> Furthermore the editor of the Wall Street Journal who published your editorial might suffer some backlash for the utterly weird thing they chose to publish, but they would not be fined or imprisoned or tortured or executed by any state-run apparatus (as they would in China).

I recommend reading manufacturing consent. Censorship is entirely unnecessary and you hit on the core social mechanism there.

> suggesting that Western Capitalism is corrupt, Marx was the one true prophet ... but you'd still be in business.

I wonder how that would have gone at the height of McCarthyism.

I wonder how long McCarthyism lasted. I also wonder how long the CCP has been in power for.

Make an argument, don't be intellectually lazy. How do you think it would have gone?

Spitballing some historical fiction for the admittedly bizarre editorial? There would have been a public hue and cry. The editor who published the opinion piece would have lost their job, heads would have rolled (figuratively, not literally) in the WSJ editorial board.

The person who wrote the editorial would have had a bad time in the public sphere (they still would).

The author of the editorial would almost certainly not have gone to jail or been arrested, tortured, or executed, nor would they have lost their property or business, nor would their family. Nor would the editor who published the editorial.

If the author had been a government employee, they probably would have lost their job. If they were a high-profile public persona (an actor, for example), they probably would have been blacklisted.

But to be clear, that would be the worst of it - even during an extraordinary period of paranoia and fear.

If you believe otherwise, dig up some historical precedent to support the argument.

For the record: I do not think the United States of America is a just country in many regards, but if you're going to complain about injustice, at least get the facts straight.

(Edit: I'm just so puzzled by the bizarre false equivalence on this issue. It's like suggesting that Norway and the United States have the same track record on public healthcare because the Norwegian state health plan stopped covering acupuncture from 1985-1990 (imaginary example). They don't have the same track record, it's not close, slapping some words together on the internet doesn't make it so.)

As you confirm, the facts are straight: "The editor who published the opinion piece would have lost their job, heads would have rolled, etc"

The public pressure to adopt a particular line was comparable. The consequences for a company or personality not adopting a similar line were, and often still are "tied 100% to the approval or disapproval" which sees someone step down after a foolish quote.

Hundreds were imprisoned during the McCarthy era, so that's not an unreachable stretch either. It's not unthinkable.

To your edit: The equivalence is the equal pressure to conform (to the views of China / the prevailing views of the US), with similar consequences. The main difference is that a US corporation is conforming to an international view - because of that market, along with the speed that pressure can build via the internet.

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