The administration is trying to definancialize the economy. Everything points in that direction, from tariffs to foreign policy moves that would reduce the dollar’s status as a reserve currency.
Not sure what does it mean in the context of the economy in general.
Consider what high tariffs would do, for example, to Apple. Since Steve Jobs died, Tim Cook has focused on increasing profits by building a hyper-optimized Chinese supply chain. That doesn’t help American workers, and I’d argue in the long run it hurts innovation. But imagine if Apple had to be an exorbitant tariff for every foreign-made iPhone. Had such a policy been in place 20 years ago, we may have dramatically changed the direction the cell phone industry went in the country.
Agree, and that's kind of obvious.
> we may have dramatically changed the direction the cell phone industry went in the country
Not sure. Even less sure how instantaneous and very tariffs can help with that. Also it's not clear how that less of the financealisation.
Depends on your definition of 'help,' no kid in school thinks "Gosh I hope I can become a factory laborer when I grow up."
Let's be realistic, it doesn't help US geopolitical strategy and doesn't maintain US hegemony. The US doesn't need or want factory workers, it wants citizens who are self-actualized. It might need some factory workers to realize that aim, but human drudgery powering factory production isn't an end in itself.
Ideally the US leapfrogs all this and gets to fully automated production before anyone else. People want purpose in life, and being a factory drone is a pretty lousy purpose.
The revealed preference suggests you're wrong. That's why the messaging of every politician that has resonated with the working class, from Bernie to Obama to Trump, it's focused on bringing back manufacturing jobs.
> The US doesn't need or want factory workers, it wants citizens who are self-actualized.
You can't be a citizen in a participatory democracy if you're not needed. The cognitive elites that call half the country "deplorables" might choose to give you a dole, but they'll hold it over your head and it'll come with strings attached.
Everyone focuses on bringing them back, because you're correct that it resonates. However, what goes unsaid is that everyone hopes it'll be someone else going to work in those factories.
> You can't be a citizen in a participatory democracy if you're not needed. The cognitive elites that call half the country "deplorables" might choose to give you a dole, but they'll hold it over your head and it'll come with strings attached.
The 'cognitive elites' never called half the country deplorables. One person called half of Trump supporters that, referring to an undeniably real subset of that voting block that is racist/homophopic/xenophobic. The (Number of Trump Voters) * 0.5 is nowhere near half the country.
This is of course a derail from the derail, which is the claim that you can't be a citizen if you're not 'needed.' You can be and are, and 'needed' is a value judgement by the ruling class who can divide and conquer the citizenry by manufacturing mass media telling citizens who is 'needed' and who is not.
According to whose value system? By the standards of your typical knowledge worker, almost everyone in my home country of Bangladesh is “racist/homophobic/sexist.” But why do they get to decide? You can bet that in your hypothetical, the cognitive elite will use their leverage over the government dole to impose their value system on everyone else.
Who is “needed” is not a “value judgment” it’s a structural fact about the economy. In a future where the machines make all the goods, you’ll need cognitive elites to operate and maintain them. But most people won’t be needed. And they’ll never be allowed to be full participants in a democracy—which necessarily includes development of social and moral norms.
This is what the elites often assert before the mobs with guillotines, torches, pitchforks, etc come for them.
Who gets to decide who is a participant? Ultimately it's the group that seizes power. You might think that a tiny group of despotic people can hold out against the overwhelming majority (South Africans sure tried, and some are still bitter that they failed at it) forever, but this type of thing never lasts, fortunately.
Just to review: the South African apartheid regime was famously overthrown, peacefully.
> Post-Apartheid, South Africa is basically two countries in one country
Not where it matters. South Africans, no matter their ethnicity, all have the same vote and the same elected leadership. The place isn't perfect but it's no longer operating as a wholly morally repugnant regime.
This is just one example, mind you. It's the whole "The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" pattern. Despotic rule by a tiny minority never lasts, no matter what temporary technological advantages they might have.