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- Hacker News
- It's annoying that Trump squandered a political opportunity to help America reindustrialize key areas. He had political support to use protectionism and general Trumpiness that could have enacted some useful onshoring reforms, and instead ended up setting illegal tariffs on the Heard Island and McDonald islands.by petesergeant
- Didn't we also create a very large internal jobs program to 'enforce immigration law'?
instead of creating a very large internal jobs program to build/repair fundamental infrastructure?
Such a waste. The ROI from 'better roads' is massive.
- > It's that it is possible to resuscitate dormant or shrinking sectors. It is possible to re-industrialise quickly.
China managed to go from peasantry in the grip of communism to arguably the biggest economy in history over a remarkably short period. And it is hard to get a read on exactly what is going on in that country but that seems to be despite heavy state intervention in the economy and without the benefits of political free speech. I'd also rate their rule of law as a bit rubbery. It is clear that industrialisation can happen like lightening if best-of-breed policies are adopted.
Which is to say, policies in the West since the end of the cold war have been an absolute disaster and we are well due some political remove-the-spec-from-your-own-eye reflection on our industrial strategy. And, frankly, the endless reign of military terror that the middle east is subjected to doesn't seem to help. Keeping the military at home has been a massive win for China, all of that money went into investments instead of pointless murder.
It is enough to make you wonder if it is the politicians or the voters who are more evil and incompetent.
by roenxi - > China managed to go from peasantry in the grip of communism
Communism is what brought China out of peasantry. They were literally peasants for a couple thousand years, then they became Communists at which their standard of living started to improve and never stopped. Admittedly the Communism became a lot less Communist, but to paint Communism something that existed at the same time or even as a contributor to peasantry was weird.
> policies in the West since the end of the cold war have been an absolute disaster
The US adopted socialist policies after shattering the organized left, pouring money into the safety net, elevating unions, and subsidizing housing, health care, education and technological innovation. In the late-70s to the early-80s it gradually stopped, and that's why we have what we have now.
> It is enough to make you wonder if it is the politicians or the voters who are more evil and incompetent.
What?
by pessimizer - In some ways China acts more like WWII Germany than SU Marxist Leninism or Maoist China. Private enterprise exists and encouraged but the state ultimately dictates what happens and has party members in leadership positions in those companies.by mc32
- > And it is hard to get a read on exactly what is going on in that country but that seems to be despite heavy state intervention in the economy and without the benefits of political free speech.
It's because the free market is not perfect (as is often claimed). "Central planning" has been debunked (at least with 20th century technology), but it's become pretty clear that state control + markets > markets alone.
> Which is to say, policies in the West since the end of the cold war have been an absolute disaster and we are well due some political remove-the-spec-from-your-own-eye reflection on our industrial strategy. And, frankly, the endless reign of military terror that the middle east is subjected to doesn't seem to help. Keeping the military at home has been a massive win for China, all of that money went into investments instead of pointless murder.
I think the "keeping the military at home" has been a marginal reason. The real reason is Chinese government can redirect resources to where they're needed, and they've got a long-term vision for what they want to do.
by palmotea - Not despite heave state intervention. Because of it!by one33seven
- > [to your comment]
Unfortunately it seems that often Western governments serve narrow interest groups (sometimes overseas) over their own people. In other words, open systems that have been usurped by these interest groups, including the military-industrial complex, to your point.
It is a pity, because values of the Enlightenment can be truly beautiful, and are often in fact embodied by the people themselves - just not their economic and governmental systems.
> [to the article more broadly]
If one presumes certain material wealth is in support of the people, then hopefully fixing the underlying resource allocation system away from interest groups can, as evidenced, lead to these industries being reborn.
But the core issue to fix is the underlying systems I think. How? Well, it's tough, but perhaps some garbage collection on structures that don't actually serve the nation(s).
by frobisher - It's probably obvious to say, but I think a nation's most important resource is people. And if you can just order them around and kill the dissenters and not care about what individuals want, then you can achieve quite a bit, be it industrialization or war or agricultural surplus.by paleotrope
- > despite heavy state intervention in the economy
Arguably because of state intervention in the economy. They give generous cash subsidies across various industrial sectors -- and as "investors" they have a remarkably light touch! Their standard modus operandi is to subsidize a number of competing ventures per sector (which number could be somewhere in the dozens or hundreds) and have competition take care of the rest. This is always good for the consumer, good where the perception of fairness is (internally) concerned, and good for the government's position of power. They don't build monopolies, nor are most firms left to scramble for multiple successive rounds of VC funding.
America prefers protectionism and tax credits; a markedly inferior overall strategy. We know this from the past five decades of economic history. Subsidies to high-value and growing technological industry are the best way to go from poor to rich, and the best way to go from "not producing much" to "producing everything we want."
by A_D_E_P_T - This gives me sickening vibes of the "War is a racket" take.
Both side's agreeing to enable each other's massacre of their own country's downtrodden young masses, while all sorts of profiteering going on at the back no doubt.
by polotics - When you have time, you might wish to track down the history of Krupp[1]. A German company, they sold arms to all sides in WWI, having gained the the freedom to do so by previously threatening the Kaiser with moving their operations to Russia.
My recollection is that Krupp was paid a premium based on the effectiveness of their artillery shells - which, again, were being sold to both sides. Said effectiveness was calculated based on casualty numbers... so the more soldiers died (on both sides) the more Krupp was paid.
by GolfPopper - Very much a two-way street, that.
The "economist" faction in the British government (that is, those who wanted to fight a limited war, sparing men and materiel) semi-deliberately failed to ramp up domestic production as part of their campaign to constrain the extent of any conflict. Their opponents did the opposite, exaggerating the lack of production as part of their campaign to move the economy much more completely onto a war footing.
It came to the head with the "shell crisis" in 1915 when Lloyd George (previously chief amongst the economists) switched sides and, with the aid of a coordinated series of attacks in the press, caused the fall of the government and its replacement by a coalition.
The coalition massively increased war production by borrowing heavily and taking over huge swathes of the economy. Conscription was introduced, and millions were shipped off to the trenches. Lloyd George soon became prime minister, the military expanded massively, the economy grew, and the war was won.
On the other hand, hundreds of thousands more lives were lost, the increased industrial capacity was largely destroyed in the economic retrenchment of the 1920s, and the unsustainable levels of borrowing almost bankrupted the country (and the Empire in general - with Egypt and India bearing much of the burden).
Of course, Germany also followed the "total war" model and suffered terribly for it too. In both cases, it's hard to say who was driving who - the politicians, the industrialists, or the military. The first stirrings of the Military Industrial Complex, half a century before Eisenhower talked about it.
by roryirvine - A while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36739279
- With a single comment, from 2023.
Generally, it's considered useful to post prior links with significant discussion. I usually consider that to be about 20 comments or so.
by dredmorbius - I find it interesting that the book is available about everywhere save for North America according to the author, but the first distances in the text are given in yards, mainly used only in North America. Ok, this is not the exact book text, but still, it looks as a misfit to the audience of the book.by raphinou
- A yard and a meter are basically the same anyways within a reasonable margin of error for lengths less than 5 or 10 meters.by wpm
- It comes out mid-August according to https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0593467426/by zrail
- Never met a Canadian who used yards, unless they're talking about the grass in front or back of their house.by soperj
- In England they still use imperial for some things, like miles, mph and mpg for cars, pints for drinks etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if shooting still used yards as well.
- Britain has a strange relationship with metric units, and there are certain things particular imperial units are still used for. Beer and milk is in pints (but nothing else), people are in stones, and how far you can sling something (a golf drive, a rugby ball, or a bullet) would be yards.by rozab
- The UK wasn’t on the metric system during the first world war.by cestith
- Its interesting to read post WWII accounts of the early amateur telescope making hobby. There was a fear there would be a second glass famine in WWII so a somewhat massive cottage industry sprung up to make optics which indirectly led to easily available supplies and ability to make homemade amateur telescopes. Which led directly to "The Amateur Scientist" column in the old Scientific American Magazine. And that column led indirectly to magazine columns like "Computer Recreations".
I had only read the WWII and post WWII coverage so it was interesting to read the linked article about the original WWI glass famine.
In a strange way, overtaxing window glass in the UK in the 1800s indirectly resulted in me implementing a Mandelbrot calculator on an 80s home computer based upon some interesting columns.
by VLM - > The picture above is a clue. In the 18th and then 19th century there was a sequence of taxes on glass. Most famous of all is the window tax of the 18th century which, in fairness, wasn’t primarily a tax on glass. It was mostly a tax on housing (the more windows, the more you paid - hence why people bricked in windows).
Eighteenth century Britain levied a great many consumption taxes on things that were disproportionately bought by the wealthy. These were the taxes that the Boston Tea Party rebelled against.
> Here’s a chart I dug out of the UK National Archives while researching Material World. It shows you optical glass supplies to the UK. And look: the standout thing is how quickly UK domestic production rose.
> The UK didn’t need German glass by the time that deal was done because it was producing plenty by then, and output was rising fast. UK factories had swung into action. They turned around the deficit so quickly that by the end of the war they were producing more than they needed - enough to supply their allies.
> The glass famine, in other words, was followed by the glass feast.
> (the other thing to note is what happened AFTER this chart: having rebuilt its glass industry, the UK allowed it to waste away again. By the post-WWII period it was back in the doldrums. Most of the optical producers shut down. It was a short-lived feast).
There's a strange pattern of Britain performing best when it's least prepared. I think this ties in well with the observation that the British establishment is unconcerned with 'theory' and wholly concerned with practical matters, which I first read in The Sloane Ranger's Handbook. Compare also the discourse surrounding the US Bill of Rights to that surrounding the English Bill of Rights, which includes pretty much the same rights (including the right to bear arms).
by cjs_ac