Anti-Americanism on this board

[opebo]

The simplified truth is that Deadoman is right - people are poor because of bad institutions.

Yeah, the same institutions that make rich people rich.  The institution of capitalism.

[dead0man]

First off, I apologize for the statement "for someone of your character".  In hindsight it made me sound like a jackass.  So, I'm going to edit it out after making this post.

For the record, I didn't take it as an insult.  I (think) know what you meant.

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Yep, our history makes any talk of "saving" corrupt places worthless, because A. we don't have the will to do it for the "right reasons" and even if we somehow did, the arguments against it because of that history would be more than valid and would probably stop us from doing it anyway.  And B...well, I forget what B is as I'm a probably more drunk than I should be for discussing this logically in a way that wouldn't embarrass me later.  I'll be back tonight to flesh out my thoughts in a more....sober way

(and thank Og for those little red squirrely lines underneath misspelled things!)

[Mechaman]

First off, I apologize for the statement "for someone of your character".  In hindsight it made me sound like a jackass.  So, I'm going to edit it out after making this post.

For the record, I didn't take it as an insult.  I (think) know what you meant.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yep, our history makes any talk of "saving" corrupt places worthless, because A. we don't have the will to do it for the "right reasons" and even if we somehow did, the arguments against it because of that history would be more than valid and would probably stop us from doing it anyway.  And B...well, I forget what B is as I'm a probably more drunk than I should be for discussing this logically in a way that wouldn't embarrass me later.  I'll be back tonight to flesh out my thoughts in a more....sober way

(and thank Og for those little red squirrely lines underneath misspelled things!)

Hey man, I've kicked back a few as well!
Cheers!

[Gustaf]

The simplified truth is that Deadoman is right - people are poor because of bad institutions. Whether good institutions can be brought about through foreign intervention is a matter of debate though. It seems to have worked decently in Japan but less well in many other places.

I'm not so sure I would call the war with Japan "intervention" more so as "self defense", considering they attacked us.

That's not really my point though - it's just an example of successfully building institutions in a country through intervening.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The simplified truth is that Deadoman is right - people are poor because of bad institutions. Whether good institutions can be brought about through foreign intervention is a matter of debate though. It seems to have worked decently in Japan but less well in many other places.

I'm not so sure I would call the war with Japan "intervention" more so as "self defense", considering they attacked us.

That's not really my point though - it's just an example of successfully building institutions in a country through intervening.

No it isn't because most of those institutions had already been built (How else had Japan become a significant regional power before WWII?) - the Americans simply helped reconstruct them (to put it as simply as possible).

[Gustaf]

The simplified truth is that Deadoman is right - people are poor because of bad institutions. Whether good institutions can be brought about through foreign intervention is a matter of debate though. It seems to have worked decently in Japan but less well in many other places.

I'm not so sure I would call the war with Japan "intervention" more so as "self defense", considering they attacked us.

That's not really my point though - it's just an example of successfully building institutions in a country through intervening.

No it isn't because most of those institutions had already been built (How else had Japan become a significant regional power before WWII?) - the Americans simply helped reconstruct them (to put it as simply as possible).

I'm not sure what "those institutions" refer to here. Obviously they had a lot of working institutions before WWII as well.

[batmacumba]

Abolishing planned economy in favour of freer markets has done a lot to reduce the problem of world hunger.

Funny. I always thought that It was the 70's agricultural technology revolution conjoined with the opening of new agricultural frontiers (both heavily government sponsored) and the blessed oblivion, by great powers, of Africa and Latin America, after the end of the Cold War, which stopped the endless conflicts sponsored by the north.
Old non-sequitur is old.

Alas, is easy to blame others incompetence when you work hard to maintain the incompetents and to avoid any kind of effective government to take power.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The simplified truth is that Deadoman is right - people are poor because of bad institutions. Whether good institutions can be brought about through foreign intervention is a matter of debate though. It seems to have worked decently in Japan but less well in many other places.

I'm not so sure I would call the war with Japan "intervention" more so as "self defense", considering they attacked us.

That's not really my point though - it's just an example of successfully building institutions in a country through intervening.

No it isn't because most of those institutions had already been built (How else had Japan become a significant regional power before WWII?) - the Americans simply helped reconstruct them (to put it as simply as possible).

I'm not sure what "those institutions" refer to here. Obviously they had a lot of working institutions before WWII as well.

Yes, which weren't created by the Americans... which sort of disproves the idea that Japan's economic power is/was due to American intervention.

[Gustaf]

Abolishing planned economy in favour of freer markets has done a lot to reduce the problem of world hunger.

Funny. I always thought that It was the 70's agricultural technology revolution conjoined with the opening of new agricultural frontiers (both heavily government sponsored) and the blessed oblivion, by great powers, of Africa and Latin America, after the end of the Cold War, which stopped the endless conflicts sponsored by the north.
Old non-sequitur is old.

Alas, is easy to blame others incompetence when you work hard to maintain the incompetents and to avoid any kind of effective government to take power.

Where did this revolution come from? The Soviet Union? China?

If you're blind to the correlation between abolishing planned economies and general welfare I'm sorry for you. It's pretty well documented.

[Gustaf]

The simplified truth is that Deadoman is right - people are poor because of bad institutions. Whether good institutions can be brought about through foreign intervention is a matter of debate though. It seems to have worked decently in Japan but less well in many other places.

I'm not so sure I would call the war with Japan "intervention" more so as "self defense", considering they attacked us.

That's not really my point though - it's just an example of successfully building institutions in a country through intervening.

No it isn't because most of those institutions had already been built (How else had Japan become a significant regional power before WWII?) - the Americans simply helped reconstruct them (to put it as simply as possible).

I'm not sure what "those institutions" refer to here. Obviously they had a lot of working institutions before WWII as well.

Yes, which weren't created by the Americans... which sort of disproves the idea that Japan's economic power is/was due to American intervention.

I never really claimed that. The Japanese institutions before WWII led to...WWII. So they were far from perfect, even if they were certainly superior to most others in the Third World.

None of that was my point though. It was merely that the post-WWII institutions in Japan were a) largely put there via foreign intervention and b) largely successful.

That might then be an example of how foreign interventions can bring good institutions with them.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The simplified truth is that Deadoman is right - people are poor because of bad institutions. Whether good institutions can be brought about through foreign intervention is a matter of debate though. It seems to have worked decently in Japan but less well in many other places.

I'm not so sure I would call the war with Japan "intervention" more so as "self defense", considering they attacked us.

That's not really my point though - it's just an example of successfully building institutions in a country through intervening.

No it isn't because most of those institutions had already been built (How else had Japan become a significant regional power before WWII?) - the Americans simply helped reconstruct them (to put it as simply as possible).

I'm not sure what "those institutions" refer to here. Obviously they had a lot of working institutions before WWII as well.

Yes, which weren't created by the Americans... which sort of disproves the idea that Japan's economic power is/was due to American intervention.

I never really claimed that. The Japanese institutions before WWII led to...WWII. So they were far from perfect, even if they were certainly superior to most others in the Third World.

None of that was my point though. It was merely that the post-WWII institutions in Japan were a) largely put there via foreign intervention and b) largely successful.

That might then be an example of how foreign interventions can bring good institutions with them.

Japan was most certainly not part of the "third world" in 1937 (a term that doesn't really have meaning until the post-colonial period) - it was a significant though not giant colonial power. Would you suggest that Germany and Italy were "third world" in the same time period, even though Germany may well have been the world's second largest economy by the start of WWII (Okay, Third, if you count the British Empire as a whole but it increasingly wasn't...) and that Japan was much more of a power than Italy was (and NOBODY would claim that Italy's post-WWII success is due American-created institutions....)?

So, it is hardly an example of how intervention can create good institutions, most of the institutions were already there...

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Abolishing planned economy in favour of freer markets has done a lot to reduce the problem of world hunger.

Funny. I always thought that It was the 70's agricultural technology revolution conjoined with the opening of new agricultural frontiers (both heavily government sponsored) and the blessed oblivion, by great powers, of Africa and Latin America, after the end of the Cold War, which stopped the endless conflicts sponsored by the north.
Old non-sequitur is old.

Alas, is easy to blame others incompetence when you work hard to maintain the incompetents and to avoid any kind of effective government to take power.

Where did this revolution come from? The Soviet Union? China?

If you're blind to the correlation between abolishing planned economies and general welfare I'm sorry for you. It's pretty well documented.

He's talking about "The Green Revolution" I assume. Which was government supported (at least it was in India).

This issue depends on how one defines "Planned economies". Practically all economies are planned nowadays, though some are more planned than others.

[Gustaf]

The simplified truth is that Deadoman is right - people are poor because of bad institutions. Whether good institutions can be brought about through foreign intervention is a matter of debate though. It seems to have worked decently in Japan but less well in many other places.

I'm not so sure I would call the war with Japan "intervention" more so as "self defense", considering they attacked us.

That's not really my point though - it's just an example of successfully building institutions in a country through intervening.

No it isn't because most of those institutions had already been built (How else had Japan become a significant regional power before WWII?) - the Americans simply helped reconstruct them (to put it as simply as possible).

I'm not sure what "those institutions" refer to here. Obviously they had a lot of working institutions before WWII as well.

Yes, which weren't created by the Americans... which sort of disproves the idea that Japan's economic power is/was due to American intervention.

I never really claimed that. The Japanese institutions before WWII led to...WWII. So they were far from perfect, even if they were certainly superior to most others in the Third World.

None of that was my point though. It was merely that the post-WWII institutions in Japan were a) largely put there via foreign intervention and b) largely successful.

That might then be an example of how foreign interventions can bring good institutions with them.

Japan was most certainly not part of the "third world" in 1937 (a term that doesn't really have meaning until the post-colonial period) - it was a significant though not giant colonial power. Would you suggest that Germany and Italy were "third world" in the same time period, even though Germany may well have been the world's second largest economy by the start of WWII (Okay, Third, if you count the British Empire as a whole but it increasingly wasn't...) and that Japan was much more of a power than Italy was (and NOBODY would claim that Italy's post-WWII success is due American-created institutions....)?

So, it is hardly an example of how intervention can create good institutions, most of the institutions were already there...

Third world is something I used a shorthand here. I think you know what I meant. I also wasn't referring to 1937 but rather the period of time during which they built their institutions.

Then I'm not entirely following your argument. I realize that I might want to scratch the above comment, since we seem to use Third World differently. For you it seems to mean "small economy." To me it rather means non-Western - as I recall that was how the term was launched originally.

Now, Italy, as far as I know, wrote their own constitution after the war (more or less). Going to the all-mighty wikipedia, as concerns Japan, it says:

 The Allies sought not merely punishment or reparations from a militaristic foe, but fundamental changes in the nature of its political system. In the words of political scientist Robert E. Ward: "The occupation was perhaps the single most exhaustively planned operation of massive and externally directed political change in world history."

"Much of it was drafted by two senior army officers with law degrees: Milo Rowell and Courtney Whitney, though others chosen by MacArthur also had a large say in the document."

"The new constitution would not have been written the way it was had MacArthur and his staff allowed Japanese politicians and constitutional experts to resolve the issue as they wished. The document's foreign origins have, understandably, been a focus of controversy since Japan recovered its sovereignty in 1952."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Constitution

Thus, the institutional setup of Japan post-WWII was largely imposed from abroad. And it seems to have worked reasonably.

[Gustaf]

Abolishing planned economy in favour of freer markets has done a lot to reduce the problem of world hunger.

Funny. I always thought that It was the 70's agricultural technology revolution conjoined with the opening of new agricultural frontiers (both heavily government sponsored) and the blessed oblivion, by great powers, of Africa and Latin America, after the end of the Cold War, which stopped the endless conflicts sponsored by the north.
Old non-sequitur is old.

Alas, is easy to blame others incompetence when you work hard to maintain the incompetents and to avoid any kind of effective government to take power.

Where did this revolution come from? The Soviet Union? China?

If you're blind to the correlation between abolishing planned economies and general welfare I'm sorry for you. It's pretty well documented.

He's talking about "The Green Revolution" I assume. Which was government supported (at least it was in India).

This issue depends on how one defines "Planned economies". Practically all economies are planned nowadays, though some are more planned than others.

I'm using planned economies the way it is used in the English language - something like this: "A planned economy is an economic system in which decisions regarding production and investment are embodied in a plan formulated by a central authority, usually by a government agency"

In a free market economy the majority of decisions regarding production, investment and consumption are decentralized to individuals and companies.

Anyway, from what I can gather, what happened was that an effort was made to overcome the incompetent bureacracies in planned economies so as to implement solutions that already existed. So it doesn't seem like a great strike for planned economy. It is, after all, a system that is so generally indicted by history at this stage that it surprises me that anyone would still argue the opposite.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The simplified truth is that Deadoman is right - people are poor because of bad institutions. Whether good institutions can be brought about through foreign intervention is a matter of debate though. It seems to have worked decently in Japan but less well in many other places.

I'm not so sure I would call the war with Japan "intervention" more so as "self defense", considering they attacked us.

That's not really my point though - it's just an example of successfully building institutions in a country through intervening.

No it isn't because most of those institutions had already been built (How else had Japan become a significant regional power before WWII?) - the Americans simply helped reconstruct them (to put it as simply as possible).

I'm not sure what "those institutions" refer to here. Obviously they had a lot of working institutions before WWII as well.

Yes, which weren't created by the Americans... which sort of disproves the idea that Japan's economic power is/was due to American intervention.

I never really claimed that. The Japanese institutions before WWII led to...WWII. So they were far from perfect, even if they were certainly superior to most others in the Third World.

None of that was my point though. It was merely that the post-WWII institutions in Japan were a) largely put there via foreign intervention and b) largely successful.

That might then be an example of how foreign interventions can bring good institutions with them.

Japan was most certainly not part of the "third world" in 1937 (a term that doesn't really have meaning until the post-colonial period) - it was a significant though not giant colonial power. Would you suggest that Germany and Italy were "third world" in the same time period, even though Germany may well have been the world's second largest economy by the start of WWII (Okay, Third, if you count the British Empire as a whole but it increasingly wasn't...) and that Japan was much more of a power than Italy was (and NOBODY would claim that Italy's post-WWII success is due American-created institutions....)?

So, it is hardly an example of how intervention can create good institutions, most of the institutions were already there...

Third world is something I used a shorthand here. I think you know what I meant. I also wasn't referring to 1937 but rather the period of time during which they built their institutions.

Then I'm not entirely following your argument. I realize that I might want to scratch the above comment, since we seem to use Third World differently. For you it seems to mean "small economy." To me it rather means non-Western - as I recall that was how the term was launched originally.

Now, Italy, as far as I know, wrote their own constitution after the war (more or less). Going to the all-mighty wikipedia, as concerns Japan, it says:

 The Allies sought not merely punishment or reparations from a militaristic foe, but fundamental changes in the nature of its political system. In the words of political scientist Robert E. Ward: "The occupation was perhaps the single most exhaustively planned operation of massive and externally directed political change in world history."

"Much of it was drafted by two senior army officers with law degrees: Milo Rowell and Courtney Whitney, though others chosen by MacArthur also had a large say in the document."

"The new constitution would not have been written the way it was had MacArthur and his staff allowed Japanese politicians and constitutional experts to resolve the issue as they wished. The document's foreign origins have, understandably, been a focus of controversy since Japan recovered its sovereignty in 1952."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Constitution

Thus, the institutional setup of Japan post-WWII was largely imposed from abroad. And it seems to have worked reasonably.

No, I use "third world" in the original sense of the non-communist "developing world". Japan, while not western, has always been part of the "First world" since the term has been in use.

Indeed, the existence of Japan was why - until the 1980s - the terms "the west" and "First world" were never interchangeable. Japan was simply too advanced - which was due to processes which already been long in process before WWII...

Regardless of the role of America in developing Japan's constitution (which isn't really the best example of an institution), the point stands that Japan's development can't be seen as a good example - and certainly not a typical example, not in any way - of how foreign intervention can alter a country's economy.

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Okay fine, keep your defintions. But the "Green revolution" was in execution closer to 1 than to 2. (Though I will note that 2 is still a form of planning when done consciously).

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You shouldn't confuse collectivization with "planning" as a general concept.

[Gustaf]

I am well aware of how the Third World came into existence - I was using the West as a political concept (which to my mind would include Japan today). It seems to me to be a minor point either way.

If you want to claim that a constitution is not an institution...I'm not sure what you're even talking about. You seem to be using a lot of terms here in very confused ways. I've never seen a definition of institutions which does not include constitutions. In fact, I've never seen a definition that doesn't at the very least list "laws" as examples of institutions.

Furthermore, research in institutional economics typically show that laws (rather unsurprisingly) are fairly important institutions when it comes to economic development.

I believe Japanese GDP per capita in the 30s was something like a quarter of that of the US. Which is the same relative level of Kazakhstan today. They had great growth and was certainly a successful military power but those are different things.

Who is planning the economy in a free market system?

I'm not sure why you drag collectivization into it. I didn't. Obviously some level of collectivization would be necessary to have a planned economy, since you can't allow individual farmers to make decisions if you are to have a planned system. But the key problem of planned economies is that of information costs that make it unfeasible.

[Torie]

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And even if you didn't have that little prohibitive transaction cost, and information were at once free and precisely accurate (and even if "accurate" information were available, that doesn't mean it won't be deliberately distorted by its collectors and sorters to influence to just whom resources will go), experience suggests that just because government knows what is the most efficient way to get from A to B, doesn't mean that that is the path it will travel as opposed to one more reasonably calculated to preserve the authority of those in power (e.g., Solyndra, a company with which to boot Nancy Pelosi's brother or someone is associated). I mean if you can't win the next election, isn't everything else moot?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm glad to see that some intelligent discussion actually evolved out of this initial trainwreck of a thread.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I am well aware of how the Third World came into existence - I was using the West as a political concept (which to my mind would include Japan today). It seems to me to be a minor point either way.

Wait... wait... what? If Japan is the "west", then the concept of the west has no meaning whatsoever.

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It is an insitution, just a bad example of one in the context in which we were speaking, especially if it is frequently ignored in practice.

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Not doubting that.

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...All of which put far ahead of its neighbours and made it a significant power in its own right - unlike any other non-european country which suffered intervention (this is part of the point, the "intervention" in Japan was not in any way typical, as I keep saying.. the circumstances were very unusual and in reality, unrepeatable to any other country).

As for the GDP figures, yes, that is conceivably true but that would still have made it richer per capita than most European countries including large parts of Italy.

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Institutions. Is a constitution not a plan? You seem to be contradicting yourself.

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I dragged collectivization into it because I wanted to distinguish between a "planned" economy in general and the "collectivization" of agriculture that was practiced in Marxist-Leninist countries, which without doubt a collosal failure (perhaps the worst failure of the 20th Century, to be speak of it lightly). Agriculture in almost any country is planned to the teeth (it would hardly survive in the developed world without it) - but isn't collectivized. What is the CAP but a form of planning?

[Gustaf]

Sure it does. The West is obviously not a geographical concept (if it was it wouldn't include Australia and New Zealand). I think of it as a political entity. Anyway, it's not really important for the main discussion.

Constitutions can be ignored, that's true. Is this the case with the one in Japan? Has it had no influence on Japanese society? As you seem to agree, laws do in general have quite a strong effect on societies even though that is not a necessity.

Anyway, the average GDP per capita in Europe relative to the US in the 30s was about 50%: http://www.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/1/1699/papers/Broadberry_Klein.pdf

Italy for example was at that mark. So I'm not sure where you get the idea that Japan was really rich in the 30s. It wasn't much poorer than Eastern Europe though, so that's true.

A constitution does not plan how much steel a country should produce. Or how to organize coal delivery. Etc, etc. What one means with a planned economy is that someone plans certain things (such as how much to produce out of certain goods). In a free market system there is no one planning such things.

As regards agriculture - I don't see how the CAP is particularly successful. And I'm not sure what you mean by planned here either. Do you mean farmers planning what to sow? That's not part of a planned economy. Last time I checked, Sweden, at least, did not have a government agency deciding on how much wheat should be produced each year. Even though it is true that agriculture tends to be heavily regulated in large parts of the world.

[Insula Dei]

Uhm, Gustaf, the West is perhaps more of a cultural concept, no? Surely you see what sets Australia and New Zealand apart from Japan.

[Gustaf]

Uhm, Gustaf, the West is perhaps more of a cultural concept, no? Surely you see what sets Australia and New Zealand apart from Japan.

Yes, yes I know that is a way of using it. It's not really how I use it. It still does not really matter much for what we're discussing here though.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Uhm, Gustaf, the West is perhaps more of a cultural concept, no? Surely you see what sets Australia and New Zealand apart from Japan.

Yes, yes I know that is a way of using it. It's not really how I use it. It still does not really matter much for what we're discussing here though.

No, it does. Because Japan had very much its own history and culture which was separate from that of Europe. Before 1853, for over 200 years contact between "the west" and Japan was near effectively zero. It also existed as a political unity long before western contact, something which can't be said for most intervened places. After 1868 after a long lag it began slowly to industralize while maintaining its sovreignity as a modern state. Japan's pre-1940 development was unique in every way* - during the last years of isolation there was a significant prospect that the country would be carved up by the Euro-American Powers and that that didn't happen and that by the time of WW2 Japan was a major regional power seems to show that many of the foundation of Japan's growth well pre-dated the period of the occupation.

* (I remember once reading in a book about development that a common joke in development studies, which I think proves my point, was that there were four types of countries in regarding to development: Developed, Developing, Japan and Argentina)

Japan can't be at all compared to Australia or New Zealand in this sense, those are settler colonies which were at this time appendages of the British Empire. Japan is very different.

Constitutions can be ignored, that's true. Is this the case with the one in Japan? Has it had no influence on Japanese society? As you seem to agree, laws do in general have quite a strong effect on societies even though that is not a necessity.

My point was that consitutions by themselves are not great examples of institutions unless you can show how they work in practice.  

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I never said it was rich (but I did say "certain regions of Italy" not country itself, for pretty obvious reasons) but what I have tried to point out what was that it was not in any way a typical "third-world" country and a typical colonial appendage.

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Of course there is. But they are in the private sector (in a pure market system, that is, which never has existed). As the beginning of that paragraph, I'm tempted to point out that neither did the Soviet consitution.

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I was giving the CAP as an example of planning in agriculture - use of production quotas with an aim to set prices is planning, no? You seem to be referring to words like "regulation" and "planning" without realizing that in many cases they mean the same thing.

[Хahar 🤔]

Care to elaborate about Argentina? I know a little bit about what happened there, but not too much.

[Gustaf]

Eh, thanks for the lecture on Japanese history. I do know all these things, you know.

You don't really seem to engage a lot with what I said. Yes, Japan had a lot of institutions before WWII. I never denied that. And, yes, they were an important power able to wage wars. I never denied that either.

None of that contradicts that their post-war institutions were put in place by the US and that they became rich after WWII. (In fact, my argument does not even require them to be poor before WWII - even if they had been as rich as the US before WWII my argument would be unchanged) Nor did I ever infer that Japan was a colony or something like that. I'm not sure why that would be relevant.

And, of course, none of this bears any relation to whether Japan is considered to be part of the West today or not. Most obviously since we aren't really discussing Japan today that much here.

What is your point regarding Japan's constitution? Is that not a good example of an institution? It seems like an easy question to answer and if the answer is that it is, I don't see your point.

You seem to misunderstand how the free market works. There is a big difference between planning production for an economy and doing so for a corporation. The planning you think about is due to specific practicalities and production chains. Without a market you have no economy to observe so everything must be planned from the outset. The kind of planning done in an economy like the Soviet one does not happen in a market system.

For example. If you take a job you do have to plan your workday and things like that. But you don't have to plan what wage to have, for example. The wages are already there. You can just ask someone already having the kind of job you're going for what wage they have. In a planned economy someone has to plan this in a way that optimizes the aggregate outcome. This turned out not to work. And I know the Soviet constitution did not set production goals. That's irrelevant, and frankly intellectually disappointing from you. You claimed that constitutions planned the economy. Not I.

And regulation and planning do not mean the same thing at all. Planning within the context of a planned economy has a specific meaning. You seem to be arguing "I planned my vacation the other day, so I live in a planned economy, hur, hur" That's honestly such a silly semantic argument that it surprises me a little.