> It's arguably treason.
If I can give some feedback, this last line undermines the rest of your points. Not everything selfish is treason.
If I can give some feedback, this last line undermines the rest of your points. Not everything selfish is treason.
These companies tossed the heavy manufacturing capabilities of the United States to a geopolitical rival. To be clear: there is no China with superpower ambitions if the American shareholder class hadn't made it happen.
I would like to see this broken down by decile over time; I suspect that doing so would show a shift favoring higher income deciles and disfavoring lower income deciles. If Bill Gates eats at a restaurant, the median net worth of the restaurant's customers makes them billionaires. But that doesn't mean they are all that well off. The same is true for income and for the US population.
But for it to be considered treason they would have to committed that act with the intent of betraying the United States for their enemies. I think you will have a hard time showing that was their intent when a much more obvious and likely intent was making a profit.
If you take out the intent part of treason then it would apply to all sorts of scenarios and would severely restrict the freedom of US citizens. For instance would you consider a US citizen who is loyal to the United States but takes a year to volunteer at an Iranian hospital to be committing treason? What about a US factory worker who strikes for better working conditions and the strike gives an advantage to a Chinese competitor?
The decrease has been far from marginal. You don't get an increasing amount of political extremism from marginal changes in economic fortunes. You get them from a ton of alienation, desperation, and despair.
The strategy at that point is better comparative advantage. Education, capital improvements, infrastructure. Protectionism doesn't generate value .
Not saying it's overall beneficial but it likely pushes the working class towards other areas like infotech and more specialized trades which could lead to innovation in those spaces.
Creates a trade dependency however.
Information technology was great for a handful of states - well, cities, really; I can't help but notice the lack of a MacOS Bakersfield - but not across the geography of the United States. The capital concentrated in those areas to an absurd extent. During the low interest rate days, VCs in these areas were far more likely to invest in an absolutely terrible idea within a fifty-mile radius of their offices than they were to invest in a good idea 800 miles away. They also drastically overvalue businesses that can throw on a thin whitewash of "tech company" on an otherwise-conventional business model, even if the execution of that business model does poorly in actually producing value for the non-shareholder parts of the market economy.
was great for a handful of states - well, cities, really
All of which these areas lack because of revenue structuring that makes it impossible for them to pay for it.
Congress doesn't carve out that much money to make sure that some kid in rural Missouri actually has what he needs from schooling to compete in the global economy. Even if they did, you'd have some conservative super PAC-funded state level politician arguing against it because it's "a way for out of touch Washington bureaucrats to attack local traditional values".
Just opening up that cash, even if super PAC blocks it's reuse as tax, works wonders at an individual level at improving infrastructure.
Remember China is not the ally of the US.
You don’t ship fentanyl and other synthetic drugs to a country you are friends with.
China actively works to disrupt the US. They only go as far as they currently think they can get away with.
For a given meaning of adversary it is, for others it isn't, clearly the line in the sand at least for the US is when they are at war, arguably when a trade ban happens if we want to be a bit more relaxed with definitions. If you do disagree and believe the line in the sand encompasses china the real worry should not be a "measly" 3 billion from random VCs but the 1 trillion dollars of the US national debt china holds.
> You don’t ship fentanyl and other synthetic drugs to a country you are friends with.
You ship them to where people are buying them, unless you're saying it's a government operation and not a case of lax export regulations, which I'd be very surprised if it was the case, at least directly.
For one, because treason refers to an enemy, not an adversary, and China is not legally an enemy of the US (at war). You can't just assert that China is an enemy in court without some legal basis.
Note that not even the Rosenbergs were charged with treason for sharing US nuclear secrets with the Soviet Union. That's how high the bar for treason is.
They were used later against US forces but wasn't something the US necessarily expected.
There's an argument for it, which is sufficient to leave alone unless you want to argue the merits (not quibble about a specific definition).
Case in point if slackers were found guilty in China (or any country of Asia) destroying millions of lives using prescription drugs he would have been shamed, his company would have been desolved and executed immediately instead of wasting years of time in court debating on the technicality of the issue in the name of giving proper justice.
The raft of trade deals, tourism, cultural exchange, investment and massive trade relationship would say otherwise.
> "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
> the Court explained that a person could be convicted of treason only if he or she adhered to an enemy and gave that enemy “aid and comfort.” As the Court explained: “A citizen intellectually or emotionally may favor the enemy and harbor sympathies or convictions disloyal to this country’s policy or interest, but, so long as he commits no act of aid and comfort to the enemy, there is no treason. On the other hand, a citizen may take actions which do aid and comfort the enemy—making a speech critical of the government or opposing its measures, profiteering, striking in defense plants or essential work, and the hundred other things which impair our cohesion and diminish our strength—but if there is no adherence to the enemy in this, if there is no intent to betray, there is no treason.”
https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/art...
I'd say the terms under which many investments in PRC were made fall under the first standard.
By saying you think aiding the enemies of the United States alone is sufficient you are disagreeing with the Supreme Court. If simply aiding the enemies of the United States is sufficient for a treason conviction then would everyone who goes on strike at a factory that makes something important to the US military (steel lets say) be committing treason? The Supreme Court and myself say its only treason if the strike was done out of adherence to a foreign power and not if done for other reasons (like better working conditions).
I think the Supreme Court's interpretation is much more practical and less prone to abuse then yours. https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/art...
I say this agreeing that these investors really hallowed out America. My father was in one of those factories and I remember him specifically training his Chinese replacement (who they flew over for 6 months).
It devastated my family. That said, I don’t think treason is the correct term.
There are CCP-controlled/tolerated commercial ventures that participate in the market economy. If you're investing in China, you can be sure there's a Party boss who's getting to wet his beak and dictate terms on which the deal will be accepted. Investments in China are not handled for the benefit of private interests; they are handled for the benefit of a strategic goal of the state.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Put your own desires over those of the people in your own country to a large enough extent and it sure starts to feel like something treasonous.