Rant about "Free market" until you lose the competition. Then its all out, hypocritical, double-standard protectionism, even economic warfare.
- Who is ranting about the free market. Republicans? Really just a select few and only in specific contexts. But they haven't ever voted in that interest so I'm not sure this is anything new.
- It feels like it is implying China has the moral upper hand. The same country who takes US invented products and sells them 10x cheaper under a different brand, violating international intellectual property laws. Buy Spot for $75k or Weilan's Alpha Dog or Unitree's Go for $2.5k?
- China complains about US taking their technology and talent while taking US technology and talent. Is this not hypocritical, double-standard protectionism, or even economic warfare?
- The comment implies that one side is morally right and the other isn't. Instead it is quite possible that the two have been engaged in soft economic warfare for decades and that neither is morally "right" (who has the high ground is arguable, but they definitely both are in the mud).
- This comment is boiling the situation down and decades of (complex) context into a singular point of time and singular action. It discourages looking at the events that led to this event and why the choices involved were made. This is bad faith.
So I want to encourage discussion on the topic, but I don't understand how this comment is anything but bait. It is reactionary and promoting reactionary comments. I suggest others don't take the bait.
If I'm wrong in my analysis I'm open to it. But I needed to explain why I don't think this comment is engaging in good faith nor promoting a healthy and fruitful discussion.
This is right out of the USA playbook from the the late 1700s.
<< Under the Patent Act of 1793, the United States barred foreign inventors from receiving patents at the same time as granting patents to Americans who had pirated technology from other countries. “America thus became, by national policy and legislative act, the world’s premier legal sanctuary for industrial pirates. Any American could bring a foreign innovation to the United States and commercialize the idea, all with total legal immunity.” >> [0]
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_paten...
The US doing something bad 200 years ago doesn't justify the bad actions of today. Either it is bad in both cases or it is okay/good in both cases. It is unclear which you are saying because I'm interpreting it as whatbaoutism. That's not productive nor in good faith. Especially referencing something that happened 200 years ago. There were a lot of bad stuff that we did 200 years ago and that doesn't matter who "we" is. Thomas Jefferson was still Secretary of State at this time. The nation was less than 20 years old. That applies to literally every country on the planet. We've all progressed.
But also, this problem was resolved by 1836, when foreigners could be granted patents. Thomas Jefferson had only been dead for 10 years by this time. This is still decades before the civil war and a century before America became part of the global stage. There were only 25 US states at this time and it wasn't long after the Louisiana Purchase happened. Decades before Texas was annexed. So I'm extra confused.
This comment too feels like bait because I can't find any relevance to the conversation at hand. It appears to be pure distraction and not in good faith. No one is saying America didn't do a lot of bad shit in the past (Americans are pretty open about our historical atrocities). But in absolutely no way do historical atrocities justify actions of today. I mean what, are you going to say that the Trail of Tears justifies genocide of Ughygurs or that it justifies Hitler killing the Jews? Clearly it doesn't. All these things are wrong. Now and then. One historical wrong doing in absolutely no way shape or manner justifies modern wrongdoings.
Please don't astroturf.
The US has always done it. It backstabbed the Brits and the French, stealing their nuclear fission research and not giving them access to Manhattan Project. It kept doing corporate spying on everyone including its allies using ECHELON. So much that a few years ago entire US State Dept. diplomat cadre were ordered to do corporate spying by the US State Dept itself.
The US, the UK, all its satellites. It was 40 years of 'free trade and free market for all' cacophony. Everyone were either persuaded to it, or were coup'ed or bombed into doing it.
But now that the US is losing the competition, voila, suddenly free market is not cool anymore.
But its ok - the US can bring back protectionism and mercantilism under the excuse 'national security'. No one will bat an eye in Angloamerica.
> - The comment implies that one side is morally right and the other isn't.
The comment does not imply that. It outright says that. The US has been pushing 'free market' down everyone's throats. Now that it is losing the competition, its literally eating its own words. That's morally wrong.
> This comment is boiling the situation down and decades of (complex) context
There is no complex context in this. The US has always employed double-speak. It was 'free market for me, not for thee'. Even the closest allies were subjected to tariffs and quotas in order to be able to export anything to the US even at the heyday of 'free market'. So it was doublespeak from the start.
Today, we just see the dropping of the public facade of something that the US was always doing. Japanese would know - they got the Plaza Accords. China is bad, because it did not even entertain signing any such sociopathic document.
> The US, the UK, all its satellites. It was 40 years of 'free trade and free market for all' cacophony. Everyone were either persuaded to it, or were coup'ed or bombed into doing it.
I'm not sure why you are cherry picking my argument. This too feels like bait. You're painting with a really broad brush, putting things into neat aggregated boxes, and ignoring the difference between history and current days. I also don't think one country doing wrong in the past (or even currently) justifies another country doing wrong.
Can we just all agree that if something is wrong that it doesn't matter who does it? I've assumed this is such a non-controversial statement that it need not be said, but it appears I am wrong.
It likely feels so because especially the people who live in the US have internalized all the propaganda. You are born into the 'free market' propaganda, and you never notice that it exists. Hence you don't notice any stark difference.
But overseas, the 'free market' propaganda was an immutable cacophony that dominated the privately owned press for ~40 years now. All the neoliberal reforms that were pushed on our countries were pushed by being backed and rationalized on that propaganda.
And now all the principles that were sold to us are being invalidated, being proven to be lies from the start.
> Can we just all agree that if something is wrong that it doesn't matter who does it?
Really, we cannot - there is one country that pushed all of this onto ENTIRE world. Forcing them to adopt its false religion and to privatize, literally sell out everything in every country to corporate profit. We got coups, regime changes, invasions, bombins to make it happen. The US did it. This is still going on. It hasnt gone anywhere. Even as the US itself closing its economy to everyone, its still forcing others to open up its economy.
Calling this out is long overdue. And that is something everyone including you, should do. Because the establishment that is responsible with this has no qualms in destroying its own for profit like it destroyed everyone else. And it is already doing that.
Its amazing how this even needs to be said...
Is chip fabrication on the negative list? I can't find any references to it being on the negative list. On the contrary, I've found references to foreign investment in semiconductors being explicitly encouraged by a few provincial governements.[0]
0. https://cms.law/en/chn/publication/china-releases-its-revise....
It's OK if country X decides to subsidize sector A or B -- it's just free money for the world. The logic of this is the same as within countries. It's OK if Google uses search to subsidize it's smart phone operations. On the highest layer, it's still capitalism and should still work. We don't kick Google out of US markets just because it's internal departments don't use free markets to allocate goods.
The international free market is still supposed to work even if a country doesn't have internal free markets. That the US is going back on the first shows that in the end, it was always about geopolitics. When free markets aligned with US geopolitics, it was nice to be able to say "oh we're being principled".
That is self-proving as false and does not follow automatically what-so-ever. You're talking about mediocre economic theories that don't even make sense in theory.
> That the US is going back on the first
The US has never been the free market in practice or ideology that you're proposing. Not at any point in its history.
The US has very heavily utilized things like tariffs and restrictive trade agreements throughout its history, as have all large economies and without exception. The US has even utilized sanctions and blockades when it sees fit, going back 60+ years. If it was ever close to being a free market, that is well over a century in the past.
I find it astounding that anybody could be confused about the US being a particularly free market economy today. It's not even close to that. All you need is to have a primitive grasp of the scope of its vast economic regulations, its huge welfare state, and taxation to understand that. The US is a bureaucracy-heavy mixed economy at best.
I think we should err on the side of "freer" markets, but market restrictions have their place, and are often an essential tool to achieve good outcomes.
To the extent that anyone believes free markets are good, the usual argument of their goodness does not at all rely on sub-levels to be free markets. Now you might be saying even "free markets are good" is suspect. Attacking that axiom is fine in my book.
> The US has very heavily utilized things like tariffs and restrictive trade agreements throughout its history,
I support this view. However, the early 90s "Washington Consensus" was that in international spheres to talk up how good free markets are. The US should drop that pretense entirely then.
Tell that to the American steel industry.
He was mentioning it in connection with the French government of the time (I think he wrote all that down during Napoleon's reign, even though it could have been during the Restoration, too lazy to check) subsidising the export of their "luxury" products, the Sèvres porcelain if I remember correctly. He was explaining that, in effect, the French government was putting money in the pockets of foreign clients/entities.
As such, the same thing will happen (happens) when it comes to US steel industry, even though in this case one also has to take into consideration the opportunity costs of losing the knowhow of that industry for good if it is allowed to die in the face of foreign competition. One could say that today's US taxpayers, by in effect subsidising the US steel industry, are paying for future generations to have the opportunity to build tanks and munitions and other war-related stuff without having to worry about having enough steel stocks at hand.
Is that really the case? You mention Google but there's a reason we have antitrust laws and try to keep monopolies under control.
Or take a family, if the mother gives the nephew a lot of spending money, that's also not free markets.
Yet families and startups in the US work well on the country level.
The wisdom and second order effects of those policies is a secondary discussion.
China has been in a state of economic warfare since the 1920's.
Would that make you feel better? It would be some steps in the directions of ending hypocrisy and double-standards anyway.
Like there's nothing new about this. Also the market was never free ...
Not sure who you're talking about, the Biden administration has definitely not been "ranting about 'free market'".
Similarly shouldn't weapons to Russia either, and it would be silly to complained about the free market when they are literally killing people right now.