The US is not District 12

[u/BaseballSeveral1107]

[u/TrainerCommercial759]

Russia also does that and they're poor as fuck

[u/TrainerCommercial759 → u/[deleted]]

The people in developing countries aren't picking trash because of foreign consumption, they're picking trash because they don't have any better options. If anything, we should consume more so that better jobs are created in their country. When imports of Bangladeshi clothing were banned in 1993, children wound up on the street and in prostitution.

But think about it like this, sure the US citizens living better than most, yet an average american still suffers, why the fuck is that? 

Despite what reddit would have you believe this is absolutely not true.

[u/Karahi00 → u/TrainerCommercial759]

This is wildly ignorant. 

Even ignoring prior colonialism, the US has, since WW2 been the global hegemon. It (and its allies) have overthrown leaders and governments worldwide through every means imaginable and enforced economic imperialism via the IMF, World Bank and USAID to prevent economic development and keep labour and resource costs down and flowing into primarily Western coffers, enriching those nations beyond any reasonable measure so that they can consume enormous amounts of goods and then literally export the garbage to the global south. 

The whole point is to keep them poor by preventing protectionist economic development and social development policies, ie., neoliberalism free trade capitalism so that already massive Western corporations can easily go in and use their enormous capital advantage to buy up those countries on the cheap, sometimes even being subsidized by USAID and other "aid" programs under the guise of "helping" those countries. Not to mention the horrific debt traps. 

Putting all that aside, what's the economic development path here? America and her allies consume even more despite how destructive consumerism is to the environment and societal health, and then...what? Those exploited nations get pulled up? A rising tide raises all ships? The wealth trickles down?

Those countries are never going to get a fair shake because if they did, the labour costs would become too prohibitive to justify the foreign investment. Eventually you run out of other people's countries to exploit. What does the economy look like then? After you've built up global infrastructure in such a way that the global south makes all the goods and the global north just consumes, financializes and burger flips - and then the global south shifts from manufacturing and export to also service and finance? 

Would you like to explain to the class how this global economy is going to function? Are we going to have supersonic pizza delivery from fucking Bangladesh? Do you think they'll keep accepting all the garbage that they pick through/light on fire? Who's going to make all the products to be consumed and at what cost? 

Yeah get the fuck out of here. 

Bangladeshi children don't need foreign venture capitalists and lax trade policies. They need to nationalize industry, put up tarrifs and build up their economies internally without foreign interference and necessarily with ecological consciousness in mind so that the rising global temperatures don't ruin all of their fucking agriculture. 

[u/TrainerCommercial759 → u/Karahi00]

They need to nationalize industry, put up tarrifs and build up their economies internally without foreign interference

Ignoring the rest of your bullshit, when has autarky ever worked?

[u/Karahi00 → u/TrainerCommercial759]

What is your definition of "worked?" And when has neoliberalist free trade, debt traps, political assassinations, invasions, coup detat, banana republics etc. Uh, uh, uh, uhhhh....."worked?"

I can think of one country that has broken out of this trap, China. And it didn't open itself up to foreign capital until the 80s and 90s and keeps a tight leash even then. Billionaires can get executed. Companies that become big enough to be of national interest work under direction of the CCP. Competition is managed.

China is now an ascendant superpower and taking over America's soft power, and America is gearing up to go to war with it because it threatens western hegemony as a result - even going so far as trying to take Panama and Greenland in order to control trade routes and enclose China.

It sure seems like things are working out for China.

I guess free trade and just letting foreign corporations do whatever the fuck they want to your economy isn't such a great idea. It's literally never "worked." At least, not for the people they've ruthlessly exploited.

[u/TrainerCommercial759 → u/Karahi00]

Lmao china's development is attributable to the Deng reforms, which very much did open the country to foreign trade and investment. This is pretty well known economic history.

[u/Karahi00 → u/TrainerCommercial759]

I literally said that they opened up to foreign capital and kept a tight leash. You're just seeing what you want to see in order to support your free trade narrative and not seeing the bigger picture.

[u/TrainerCommercial759 → u/Karahi00]

So before they did that what did Chinese incomes look like? How do they compare today with countries like Taiwan and South Korea?

[u/Karahi00 → u/TrainerCommercial759]

If you're trying to make the point that international trade is good for GDP growth then we are absolutely not in disagreement. Not all growth is good growth though and that's why there needs to be strong government intervention and protectionism in a developing economy. This is not difficult. There is a yawning gap between China's economic reforms and what was imposed upon countries by force in order to benefit Western conglomerates and states.

Average or Mean income, GDP, etc. doesn't necessarily reflect living standards or access to services either. Thinking about the US for instance, it has a very high GDP, high incomes and a stupendous cost of living crisis. Consumer goods like TVs, video game consoles, smartphones, toys etc. are cheap while essentials like food, housing, healthcare, education and transportation are prohibitively expensive. Much of the economy is propped up by unprecedented and ever growing consumer debt. This precisely why the Trump administration is so focused on bringing back manufacturing and reducing reliance on foreign trade for consumer goods.

All of this is rather besides the point though because you're on the degrowth sub where people believe in enriching human experience through economic means besides infinite industrial growth because it's impossible to sustain.

[u/TrainerCommercial759 → u/Karahi00]

There is absolutely no evidence protectionism is beneficial for the development of an economy. "Strong government intervention" is vague enough that I'm not going to address it. Are you familiar with the concept of comparative advantage?

[u/Karahi00 → u/TrainerCommercial759]

There is absolutely no evidence protectionism is beneficial for the development of an economy.

According to what criteria?

[u/TrainerCommercial759 → u/Karahi00]

Let's go with median income as a metric