Paul turned me on to this interesting 20 minute lecture on China by Martin Jacques. Even more interesting to me, I found that I mostly agreed with the remarks of this fairly well known, English, communist. And further, I totally agree with this commie’s closing conclusion which is that there is much to be optimistic about when considering the rise of China. Who would have thunk it?
Martin Jacques: Understanding the Rise of China TEDSalon, London, October
We hear a great deal about China from the neocons, libertarians and progressives, most of which is total nonsense. [Don’t even start me on the FOX and AM radio knuckleheads.] Jacques seems to have it right. He gives us two graphs early on:
Note: I tried to verify these graphs – the guy’s a commie, after all – and found them to be reasonable; predicting the future has its limits. These figures are a little lefty in that they give heavy weight to oil – that does not make them wrong. Note that Germany falls behind the UK in 2050 – a topic of its own. If we stick to macros and ignore specific numbers, the trends suggested are right.
This sort of graph makes me think many things:
1. America’s economy will double in the 25 years after 2025 – that is a very, very good thing folks.
2. What a great opportunity! Look closely at the 2050 graph and the position of nations.
· America needs to grow its exports and the more consumers, the better our chances.
· Thank God for George W. Bush pushing a relationship with the shunned India. Think of all the real reasons the United Kingdom and EU were against our deal – it has little to do with nukes.
· What a damn shame that America – Bush and Obama especially – can’t get off our butts and make trade deals all over South America, starting with Brazil.
· Thank God for Bill Clinton and NAFTA – look at Mexico. Laborites and progressives are so astonished that most Americans are negative about unions – stupid is stupid. It’s past time to end the war on drugs and do some serious nation building in Mexico.
3. Why are we messing around with protracted wars? We should be making our kids repeat a line from George Washington’s farewell address after the Pledge of Allegiance every morning:
“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”
- George Washington, 1796
4. America’s culture – movies, music and possibly games – will remain an export but in other areas, we must continue – perhaps return to – emphasis on efficiency and innovation.
Why have Western economies been declining and why has the EU declined faster than we have? We ought to find out. I think we know this much:
· First, it’s about efficiency and innovation to beget growth and it’s not about making everyone dependent on government, emphasizing banking over manufacturing, preferring lawyers to mathematicians or trying to mange results through central government planning.
It certainly means an educated work force – more and more American kids can’t read.
· Second, we know we need an immigration policy that welcomes all the foreign talent we can attract – we want the foreign scientists and engineers who graduate from our colleges to stay here. Skilled foreign workers should be welcome.
· And finally, we need business and trade friendly local and national policies. We need efficiency and innovation in our bureaucracies that matches private industry and we need to force the radicals out of government, be they pinko-commie progressives, Bible thumping Luddites or brain dead libertarian anarchists.
Allow me yet another of my endless digressions. A recent visit to a thriving city in South Carolina [Greenville] reminded me of the amazing transformation in the textile industry during the course of the nation’s history – a relevant story, I think.
· In the beginning, the American south grew the cotton that was made into cloth in England – making cloth here was Illegal. The workers were illiterate slaves.
· Then came the cotton gin whose efficiency made cotton far cheaper, which made the superior cotton cloth and resulting clothes available to the masses and we had a boom.
· We began to make cloth here. Vast numbers of new jobs were created and more slaves were needed. Not just anybody could operate the industry’s equipment.
· As time passed, we continued the efficiency trend, products grew cheaper and jobs became fewer but better and more skilled. Supporting and surrounding jobs grew rapidly.
· With more time, the equipment became operable by less and less skilled workers. Jobs were fewer and paid less and industry margins declined.
· Eventually, competition forced the equipment into the developing world where labor was vastly cheaper. In America, vast numbers of unskilled workers had no employment. Greenville went into decline.
· But wait, the textile and chemistry industries invented new kinds of thread and from that they are making new materials made on reinvented machines. Cloth can stop bullets and be made into airplanes [again] as well as almost anything we ever made of wood or metal. The jobs are excellent and the numbers are growing with the industry.
· And what of Greenville? High tech fabric is made here by companies from every western nation. Germany makes its most expensive luxury cars there. Why is that? How long will it last? We had better look at taxes, regulations, education, unions, ports, immigration and a host of other things until we understand why and get out of our own way.
Progressives see the EU as a laboratory of policies that America should emulate; I see it as an important example of both what to avoid and why. I am a fan of China’s foreign policy example – Iran and North Korea excepted – their policy was once ours.
Jacques argues, importantly, that the West does not have a clue about the world’s developing nations. We don’t speak their languages, study their history or culture and therefore are consistently wrong about other nation’s intentions and future actions. Looking at Tunisia, Egypt and Libya not to mention America’s foray into Afghanistan and Iraq, I think the man’s point is made beyond question.
The CIA has grown like a weed since WWII, been stripped of its powers of action on both foreign and domestic soil, it has been duplicated within both the Defense Department and National Security Agency and yet we can’t predict the downfall of the Soviet Union, the international proliferation of nuclear weapons [by than root-pullers in the Punjab!], the intentions of a couple hundred radical clerics or apparently connect any dots at all.
It is past time to reduce the size of our intelligence operations, reform their complexity, drastically reform both oversight and mission, emphasize foreign operations and operatives and give the savings to the State Department. And, each employee should carry a little card with Washington’s rules for foreign engagements.
When Jacques closes with optimism, he seems to be thinking of multiculturalism but I’m thinking of those other things I wrote.
· Wouldn’t it be nice to not be the “richest” nation on earth and everybody’s target of choice?
· Wouldn’t it be nice if this fear of change led a bipartisan American move back to basics?
I know, dream on.
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