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Comment by tartoran | Hacker News Reader

This is it pretty much, not sure why it took so long to come to this realization. Was it greed that caused a warp in rational and common sense?

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Greed. When China was becoming manufacturing powerhouse, it was incredibly cheap, and Chinese government seemed extremely willing to play ball by making sure there was no government caused slowdowns. This obviously worked until it didn't but even now, it's so expensive to change, corporations are screaming about their quarterly stock price and US being so financialized, US in a real gordian knot.

Just the religious belief that The Free Market will solve everything on its own and there should be no attempt to interfere with it.

I never understood this, I believe very strongly in the free market, but only where there is a free market. Of course you can let the free market run free up to the border of e.g. the US but surely it won't solve international trade since many countries do not have a free market. Unless we agree some international rules such that the boundary of the free market "sandbox" becomes the earths borders.

It's why I also think it is possible to hold a pro-free-market pro-tariff position simultaneously without contradiction. Tariffs could be used to "level set" manipulation from foreign governments and make the incoming goods behave as if they were not manipulated (thus also reducing the incentive to manipulate in the first place).

Not sure this is how tariffs are being used in reality.

You are 100% correct. Free Trade hasn't been disproven, only the inane notion that one should pursue unreciproval free trade with a countries that perform mercantalism against them.

The consumer isn't everything, the worker does matter just as much.

There seems to be some sort of general belief that everyone acts at least roughly in good faith. And sure, there are hiccups, but things will work out fine in the long run as the world moves towards peace, liberty, and freedom.

It would be nice if that was the case. Personally I think it has all the well-intentioned naïvety of a 14-year old "why can't we just abolish the military?!" pacifist.

Greed sure, but also optics. In the US at least, we love to condemn China for being "communist" and not a real democracy. Remember, for the US, communist has been the number one enemy for a long time. Obviously, we can't do what they do.

But we do what they do, and China isn't even communist.

China is communist. Interesting how often outsiders are so sure a country led by the CPC isn’t Marxist.

China isn't communist because they have many free markets sectors of their economy and many private institutions.

People just don't know what communism is. Calling yourself the communist party doesn't magically make you communist. You have to do communism, which they no longer do.

It's a very simple test. Can I own assets, such as a factory? If the answer is yes, you're not communist. China isn't communist.

Having your mode of production focus on people and not profit. Having a dictatorship of the proletariat is the most important thing.

The end of private property is an eventual goal but it’s not close to the primary issue in 2025. The actual fight is against imperialists and global capitalists. Private property can be a tool in that fight. Being revisionist like China still makes you a communist/Marxist.

I mean, I just disagree. China has only gotten more capitalist and less isolationist with time. It's very western-like.

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