Anti-Americanism on this board

[Gustaf]

It's possible to be both too pro-American and too anti-American (duh) but at least people who are pro-American tend to be fundamentally on the right track. Anti-Americans never commanded much respect from me. They tend to be intellectually shallow in the extreme.

[Gustaf]

It's possible to be both too pro-American and too anti-American (duh) but at least people who are pro-American tend to be fundamentally on the right track. Anti-Americans never commanded much respect from me. They tend to be intellectually shallow in the extreme.

That's because you don't live in the US and don't have to deal with idiotic blind jingoism and the like, yet have to deal with some idiotic knee-jerk anti-Americanism. The latter is often annoying, but harmless since it has no real influence beyond message board trolls. The former as displayed in this thread is quite disgusting.

For an analogy I'm sure most American liberals would argue that the childish anti-French crap from American conservatives ("Freedom fries" and all that junk) is worse than French nationalism because they have far more familiarity with the former than the latter. However as stupid and childish as that nonsense is, I don't think many would argue it's worse or more dangerous than Le Pen and the FN.

That's a fair point, but trust me, it has influence beyond message boards. Our former UN ambassador described Fidel Castro as a "Renaissance Prince" who was "too large for his island."

Leaders of two of the parties in the (formerly) governing left coalition thought choosing between Castro and Bush was impossible because the choices were equally bad.

Hell, the leader of the Swedish Left Party was a member of the Swedish-Cuban Friendship Association, a pro-Castro organization financed by the Cuban government to spread propaganda on how Cuba is a democracy. And several high-ranking members of that party still insist that Cuba is a great country (I remember one of them claimed Cuba was at least as democratic as Sweden).

I've been to parties where people have not just Che Guevara t-shirts but bin Laden t-shirts and it's perfectly socially accepted.

Anti-Americanism also leads to stuff like (IIRC) 20% of the youths in this country being truthers.

[Gustaf]

It's possible to be both too pro-American and too anti-American (duh) but at least people who are pro-American tend to be fundamentally on the right track. Anti-Americans never commanded much respect from me. They tend to be intellectually shallow in the extreme.

That's because you don't live in the US and don't have to deal with idiotic blind jingoism and the like, yet have to deal with some idiotic knee-jerk anti-Americanism. The latter is often annoying, but harmless since it has no real influence beyond message board trolls. The former as displayed in this thread is quite disgusting.

For an analogy I'm sure most American liberals would argue that the childish anti-French crap from American conservatives ("Freedom fries" and all that junk) is worse than French nationalism because they have far more familiarity with the former than the latter. However as stupid and childish as that nonsense is, I don't think many would argue it's worse or more dangerous than Le Pen and the FN.

That's a fair point, but trust me, it has influence beyond message boards. Our former UN ambassador described Fidel Castro as a "Renaissance Prince" who was "too large for his island."

Leaders of two of the parties in the (formerly) governing left coalition thought choosing between Castro and Bush was impossible because the choices were equally bad.

Hell, the leader of the Swedish Left Party was a member of the Swedish-Cuban Friendship Association, a pro-Castro organization financed by the Cuban government to spread propaganda on how Cuba is a democracy. And several high-ranking members of that party still insist that Cuba is a great country (I remember one of them claimed Cuba was at least as democratic as Sweden).

I've been to parties where people have not just Che Guevara t-shirts but bin Laden t-shirts and it's perfectly socially accepted.

Anti-Americanism also leads to stuff like (IIRC) 20% of the youths in this country being truthers.

By "this country" do you mean Sweden or the U.S.?

Why would I use this country to refer to the US Inks?

This country is obviously my country, i.e. Sweden.

[Gustaf]

Half of the f***ing world struggles to put food on the table on a daily basis!

hyperbole or ?  Maybe 20 years ago, but I don't think that's true anymore.

Looking at the stats confirms my suspicions.  It's still an ugly ugly picture but the best thing we can do to fix it won't get done because we don't want to pay the price in blood and coin to do it.  There is plenty of food.

About 13% according to the below link.

http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm#Number_of_hungry_people_in_the_world

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Gustaf]

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

Argentina displayed a lack of understanding of economics similar to Gully's and thus managed to anti-develop - going from one of the world's richest countries a century ago to, well, what they are today.

[Gustaf]

Yeah, that's essentially all that I know about Argentina's development. How did it happen?

They pursued a lot of silly economic policies. I believe they were highly protectionist for example. It's often named as an example of how institutions are important to get economic growth (more important than accumulated capital, as people used to think).

[Gustaf]

It's more like I'm retaliating your unwarranted condescension towards me on Japanese history by giving you the same on economics.

You seem to think that statements like "Japan had growth before WWII" contradicts anything I said. That is not true.

This is my argument:

1. Japan's post-war institutions were to a large extent the product of intervention
2. Japan was successful post-WWII

As you can see this argument bears no relation at all to what happened before the war. Whether Japan had good or bad institutions before the war is not really relevant. Which is why I didn't mention much about Japanese history. You seem to be claiming that Japan could have been successful without intervention. That may well be true, but is also not relevant to my argument.

I also never claimed that this was paradigmatic. I pointed out at the very beginning that intervention has not worked in most other places. You have argued that Japan is different from  Congo/whatever which, again, is not something I've ever contradicted. Of course, you have yet to make any step towards proving why that is a relevant point. Is it harder to introduce institutions in a country that already has them? Again, most institutitional research actually suggests the opposite.

So, again, are you claiming that Japan's institution is one of those fake constitutions (like the Soviet one)? Or are you now claiming that the US constitution has not been important for US development?

You seem to try to be scoring points by using the fact that planning is a common verb in English. I'm not sure why you want to do this. It strikes me as a bit childish, to be honest. Either that or you have no idea what a planned economy is. You still seem to fail to grasp that the economy as a whole is not planned in a free market system. Individual actions may be planned, but that is different.

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

You seem to be arguing that a constitution somehow plans the economy in a way similar to that of the Soviet Union. Now you apparently find that ludicrous. *shrug*

I'm honestly not too familiar with the Indian government's role in the Green revolution. I'm also not sure how that even became part of the discussion. I do know that India's economy was stagnant for many decades due to rigid regulations. As I pointed out, India did not change from a free market to a planned economy which makes it an irrelevant example. Obviously, some planned systems may be better than others. I'm not trying to evade your point but I'll admit that I'm not sure what it is. If it is that all forms of planning, such as government regulation, does not always destroy everything, then, yeah. I'm not a libertarian.

The description of Argentina I have no qualms with.

[Gustaf]

Well, I think you've completely misinterpreted my point. The question I was trying to answer was whether introducing institutions from the outside can work at all. My point was never that all of Japan's post-WWII growth came from American institutions, but merely that their success was compatible with having a major aspect of their institutional framework imposed from the outside.

That is why I find a lot of the things you said here to be beside my point.

As for the sideshow of planned economy. Of course, there is no economy completely devoid of government intervention. But the term planned economy does not, as far as I know, refer to that. It refers to an economy where markets are essentially abolished and replaced by government directed production. Such as existed in the Soviet Union. That system is essentially a failed system.

That's all I said. You seem to want to rectify the word planning, so as to argue that plans can be a good thing. I'm not sure why you felt that I was attacking plans though.

[Gustaf]

Well, I think you've completely misinterpreted my point. The question I was trying to answer was whether introducing institutions from the outside can work at all. My point was never that all of Japan's post-WWII growth came from American institutions, but merely that their success was compatible with having a major aspect of their institutional framework imposed from the outside.

That is why I find a lot of the things you said here to be beside my point.

And I tried to show that that isn't necessarily the case and that Japan example was too complex to put down to the role of the United States. Or in other words, try and give me another example, please.

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Which shows the problem of terminology...

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Not necessarily that I want show that "planning" can be a good thing. I only rectify the terminological problem - which tends to obscure things - that I tried to show that "planning" can have benefits some times was only a byproduct of that process - not the aim of it.

What is not the case? Do you disagree that Japan's post-war institutions are to a large extent affected by the US? I'm not convinced you understand what my argument is here.

And I don't think it's a general problem of terminology - you just wanted to have a semantic argument for some reason. I've never met anyone before who wasn't aware of what a planned economy means.

[Gustaf]

Well, I think you've completely misinterpreted my point. The question I was trying to answer was whether introducing institutions from the outside can work at all. My point was never that all of Japan's post-WWII growth came from American institutions, but merely that their success was compatible with having a major aspect of their institutional framework imposed from the outside.

That is why I find a lot of the things you said here to be beside my point.

And I tried to show that that isn't necessarily the case and that Japan example was too complex to put down to the role of the United States. Or in other words, try and give me another example, please.

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Which shows the problem of terminology...

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Not necessarily that I want show that "planning" can be a good thing. I only rectify the terminological problem - which tends to obscure things - that I tried to show that "planning" can have benefits some times was only a byproduct of that process - not the aim of it.

What is not the case? Do you disagree that Japan's post-war institutions are to a large extent affected by the US? I'm not convinced you understand what my argument is here.

And I don't think it's a general problem of terminology - you just wanted to have a semantic argument for some reason. I've never met anyone before who wasn't aware of what a planned economy means.

*rolls eyes*. Of course I know what is meant by a "planned economy" but it is concept that doesn't refer to itself. Like I say, the common use of the term "planned economy" is economics equivalent of all those "anti-government" people who cheer strongly in favour of war.

Yes, so then you were waging some kind of crusade for the term "planned" Which I find a bit silly. It's not as if someone opposed to a planned economy opposes planning, claims to or is usually understood to. Which, as you admit, you already know. So what was the point?

Lots of words take on specific meanings in certain contexts. That's hardly something to be upset about. In Swedish, as is usually done here, it's one word: planekonomi ("planeconomy").  It seems linguistically a bit naive to demand that all words never change meaning regardless of context.

[Gustaf]

Because words tended to get rhetoric meanings - thus my example of champions of "small government" shouting for war. You need to look at this forum for examples. People argue for things they are rhetorically against all the time.

Sure, but did you have any indication that I was doing that? Or that anyone, for that matter, is doing so in this case? I can understand that anti-government implies being opposed to wars (sort of, at least) but being against planned economy does not mean being against planning. I don't think anyone thinks so.

Just like being opposed to a planned economy does not make one opposed to having an economy...

If you have an alternate term for planned economy that you prefer I guess you can propose it, but personally I don't think the need is that pressing.

[Gustaf]

Because words tended to get rhetoric meanings - thus my example of champions of "small government" shouting for war. You need to look at this forum for examples. People argue for things they are rhetorically against all the time.

Sure, but did you have any indication that I was doing that? Or that anyone, for that matter, is doing so in this case? I can understand that anti-government implies being opposed to wars (sort of, at least) but being against planned economy does not mean being against planning. I don't think anyone thinks so.

Just like being opposed to a planned economy does not make one opposed to having an economy...

If you have an alternate term for planned economy that you prefer I guess you can propose it, but personally I don't think the need is that pressing.

How about "Soviet-type economy" given that it is used all the time.

And yes, I knew what you were doing. I was being a pedant. But I think, a useful one. viz. Debates about healthcare or any other "economic" issue bring up the USSR as an example about the evils of "planning". And if you can't see how terms like "Planned economy" can obscure issues, then well.... I don't know what to say really.

But neither me nor anyone else in this thread was doing that! If anything obscured the issue at hand here it was you bringing in an unrelated tangent.

And your point is a bit weak, since, again no one ever says "you shouldn't plan your vacation, look at the USSR!"

I mean, if that was a common rhetoric I agree it would be a problemtic usage of terms, but it isn't. Charges about planned economy usually do refer to central government direction of production.

Of course they canbe hyperbolic or whatever, but that's true of all terms. Can you name a politically relevant term that is never used to obscure issues or is simply used in the wrong way?