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42 sats \ 8 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 14h \ parent \ on: Elon Musk’s Hostile Takeover of the US Government (Financial Times, Big Read) econ
Certainly industrialists play a major and visible role but where do they get the access to raw materials, rule of law, security, infrastructure and access to markets from?
Who builds the network of access to materials and markets?
It is GOVERNMENTS and their military.
Britain in the Industrial Revolution was the British Empire!
It controlled most of the planet via the British GOVERNMENT and its global military domination.
Read about India, read about the OPIUM WARS where British steam rolled themselves into China forcing the Chinese to concede Hong Kong and establishing multiple trading posts in China through the FORCE OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENTS MILITARY to enable British merchants access to the vast and lucrative Chinese market.
Diplomacy, backed up by military brute force is what positions a nations merchants to become wealthy.
The BRITISH EMPIRE- the global network of colonies and trading posts backed up by the British Navies domination of the seas.
And during the period from WW1 to WW2 where the USA gradually took over the global hegemony of Britain culminating in the Bretton Woods agreement shortly after WW2.
Read some history.
GOVERNMENTS ARE CRUCIAL to the wealth of nations.
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Perfectly correct.
As success breeds entitlement and the strength and unity that builds empires evaporates and citizens clamour and demand more and more 'bread, circuses and rights' from the government while offering less and less.
Look at the USA today- seething with various groups demanding their 'rights' and a complete breakdown of any sense of unity and purpose. People in a declining empire forget the importance of unity and government - they assume they will always be the dominant culture. They adopt such absurd notions as Libertarians do ignoring the historical fact that governments and their role have always been crucial to the wealth of nations.
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I would argue that you have described bugs (not features) of pretty much all political systems.
I still insist that the (economic) progress and achievements are due to the individuals and their capitalistic/liberal thinking. I agree with you that the states do play a role, we just won’t agree on whether it is positive or negative.
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I never claimed the state always plays a positive role so you are misunderstanding me.
I do claim that there has never been an empire or wealthy nation without the government of that wealthy nation playing a major role in the success of its economy.
And you cannot name any exception to this.
Merchants, inventors, industrialists, workers, consumers and entrepreneurs all rely upon the legal system provided by government and access to materials and markets that governments provide- or don't provide.
It is a governments role to maximise the wealth of the nation and some succeed, and some fail, with most somewhere in between - it is the ability of the nation to defend its resources and markets and project its power to obtain the markets and resources of other regions that is crucial to whether its economy is a successful one or not. This requires the government to control its own military force, or to make alliance or subservient tribute status to a greater power.
A good government can put in place multiple protocols, institutions and infrastructures that strengthen its economy- for example a good monetary system and a decent legal system are fundamentals without which enterprise cannot easily function.
Without the security of property that a nation state must provide enterprise is hopeless.
These are not bugs, but the fundamental requirements a good government can provision which can enable its citizens to prosper.
The naive Libertarians denial of these realities is fundamentally flawed and destructive - it undermines the economy and wealth of the nation wherever their absurd ideas take hold.
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His analysis fits very much into the dialectic of historical materialism that there is no capitalism without a state. I don't think you're a Marxist, and it's none of my business either, but I see in your comments your attempt to show that capitalists don't know how capitalism works. This is a very common criticism that national developmentalists and communists make.
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If Libertarians believe themselves to be capitalists, and presumably they do as they believe in the supremacy of the free market, then yes, some capitalists or at least Libertarians who call themselves capitalists, do not understand the underlying requirements of capitalism, as you cannot have strong functional capitalism without property rights and the rule of law that government provisions.
But the crucial point beyond that, which I suspect you are missing is that in a world where people are organised into competing groups, under governments, - nation states are competing for resources - raw materials, labour, capital and markets - and it is the nation state with its diplomats and the military standing behind the diplomats that strongly influence the availability to raw materials, labour, capital and markets.
'Free' markets do not exist in isolation from the laws and monopoly over the use of force that nation states claim.
Good government is essential to enable strong economic growth and wealth creation.
Government is a crucial driving factor in the wealth of nations.
In denying the crucial role of government Libertarians commit economic treason by seeking to undermine the fundamental requirements of a strong economy.
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I'm not mistaken, because I can't fight the reality "The free market doesn't exist"
A merely superficial analysis of history is enough to see how nations relate to each other: colonization, espionage, sanctions and embargoes.
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Yes and nearly all the interactions and conflicts between nations and their governments are of an essentially economic nature- it is all about the contest for access to resources and markets...governments and the nation state are inextricably enmeshed with the functioning of markets and thus play a major role in determining the wealth of nations.