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mitigatedchaos · 6 months ago

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The Floating Causation of Vulgar Anti-Racism

Post for August 12, 2024 ~7,400 words, 36 minutes

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The late 20th century and the early 21st century were an excellent time for 'catch-up' development in under-developed countries. For example, the GDP per capita of the People's Republic of China rose from $312 in 1980, to $12,720 in 2022, more than a 40x increase. This is despite the People's Republic being nominally communist, 92% Han Chinese, and one of the largest potential geopolitical rivals to the United States. This is not a one-off – exports from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the United States rose from $50 million in 1994 to $114 billion in 2023.

While the ideologically liberal government of the United States did invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and placed strict limits on Iran, in practical terms, the United States was willing to direct hundreds of billions of dollars of demand, for everything from disposable gloves to rice cookers, to countries that were neither majority white nor, officially, capitalist, which allowed these countries to build up their industrial base.

Inside the United States, as of the early 2020s, Americans of Indian descent, Americans of Asian descent, and a number of other non-white groups are outperforming the median household income of white Americans. It's not uncommon to see an Indian-American as the CEO of a major US corporation, such as Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Google's Sundar Pichai, or IBM's Arvind Krishna. And while Americans of Nigerian descent aren't earning quite as much money as Sundar Pichai, they are doing better than the U.S. national average. [1]

The American economy is willing to award non-white Americans and non-white immigrants with average pay higher than that the average pay for white Americans, and American society is willing to award members of these same groups with highly prestigious positions – Google is one of the most famous American companies, and to be its CEO is highly prestigious indeed.

Why is it that vulgar anti-racists aren't content to leave well enough alone on negative racial messaging, and take advantage of this opportunity to focus on personal development, ingroup development, and national development? Why is it that they have a strange totalitarian bent, such as Ibram Kendi proposing to give veto power over all government policy to a body of unappointed race experts, which would de facto end democracy?

Last month, @max1461 wrote a post, attempting to find a balanced compromise between the social justice movement and its critics in the discourses on racism over the past 10 years. Perhaps this was intended to close the books and allow the participants to move to a saner footing going forward. Subsequently, Max flagged the post as unrebloggable in order to prevent it from being beat up like a piñata. Near the end of the initial chain, Max wrote:

I can’t stress enough that, for all the excesses of DEI seminars and modern anti-racist academia and whatnot, for however unhelpful or even regressive these things may often be, what they exist in response to is fundamentally a horror of an entirely different and incomparable scale; something unspeakably evil and destructive. And, after 200 years of such an evil world order, which only really began to melt in 1945, I think it would be incredibly naive to believe that all the wounds are now healed.

It would seem that for the most part, the wounds that Japan suffered from America in World War II have already healed. The country already went through reindustrialization, followed by a boom period (which startled Westerners), and then a subsequent crash and the 'lost decade' of the 1990s. The Japanese have a favorable view of the United States, as perhaps they should – Japan has prospered in the Post-WW2 international order, in which they can simply purchase whatever materials they need on global markets with no need to invade or occupy anyone.

Yet for others, the past lingers on.

Ibram Kendi is one of the most famous contemporary self-identified anti-racists, a New York Times bestselling author (his most famous book was titled "How to Be an Anti-Racist") who was not only platformed by major corporations such as Microsoft (in 2020, an advertisement on the login screen of Windows 10 computers linked to a search for "anti-racism books," with his at the top), but even received funding for his own anti-racism center (now under attack for its ineffectiveness).

At one time, Ibram Kendi thought that white people were aliens. A roommate talked him out of it, asking how it was that white people could have children with everyone else if that were the case. To his credit, Kendi did change his mind.

...but how could anyone have come up with Kendi's conclusion in the first place?

In school in the United States, children are taught that the Spanish conquered the Aztecs. It is true that Spanish military forces brought about the downfall of the Aztec Empire, but often people forget the details of what they learned in school, and often what they learn in school is itself a simplified story, designed to be told to children. Encyclopedia Britannica's summary of the Battle of Tenochtitlan largely agrees with the gist of Wikipedia's more detailed article on the Fall of Tenochtitlan, which is littered with instances of "[citation needed]."

Wikipedia, however, provides more numbers. In particular, Wikipedia's version provides one of the Internet's favorite parts of wiki battle articles, a listing of the balance of opposed forces (with citations):

There is a racist narrative of the conquest of the Americas in which the brave Spanish explorers overcame the savage, human-sacrificing hordes of the Aztecs. There is an inverted, anti-racist narrative of the conquest of the Americas in which the powerful, cruel Spanish showed up to oppress the weak, innocent Aztecs.

And then there is a third narrative - a narrative that politics happened. A number of tributary states had grievances with the Aztecs, and the small number of Spanish probably didn't seem like enough to conquer the whole territory from the perspective of the tributaries, but did seem powerful enough to rally around to fight the Aztecs and win.

Nobody comes out looking good in this third narrative. The Spanish brought about a brutal war with tens of thousands of casualties, and devastating disease followed their arrival. The Aztecs and tributaries combined failed to overcome a foreign invasion due to (relative to the foreigners being from another continent) local infighting. The Aztecs were awful enough that a number of tributaries sided with an army of foreigners against them.

Now, suppose that we delete the 200,000 native allies from the balance of forces above, but still record a victory for the Spanish. The effect of the native allies remains, but the cause of that effect disappears. This creates an effect without a cause – unattributed causation, which is disconnected from what came before, or what we might call, "floating causation."

Some might call overcoming a force of 80,000 with only 1,000 or so men a miracle. For those not so inclined, the 'floating' causation gets attributed to the Spanish soldiers – their equipment, their valor, their tactics, and their discipline. Each of a thousand Spanish infantrymen is now somehow worth 200 native warriors.

In this cartoon version of history, the Spanish are an unstoppable psychic warrior race. Their steadfast will in the face of danger and their unit cohesion are quite nearly inhuman, and their technological advantage is overwhelming. The natives have not merely made a political miscalculation similar to others of the pre-modern era, such as the decisions of states facing Genghis Khan, but are buffoons to the slaughter, incapable of putting up any real defense.

In this cartoon, the Spanish can go anywhere. They can do anything. And because of this, they are the only people with agency in the whole world.

They sound... like aliens.

Trying to rebalance this cartoon only leads to greater absurdities, such as the idea that only Europeans ever meaningfully engaged in conquest (contradicted by Genghis Khan), or that industrial technology and its resulting pollution are "European" in nature (China has been quite aggressive about industrializing), or that only "European" countries waged modern and industrialized wars of conquest (the Empire of Japan used guns, bombs, and tanks as part of its project to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere).

All three of the above counter-examples are from Asia, which is usually conspicuously absent from self-identified anti-racist thinking, but none of them are obscure.

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It is my belief that floating causation is a source of distortions across the ideological spectrum.

Ideology is not independent from human beings. Manifestos, one might say, do not print themselves. From the other direction, it is not a piece of paper which murders somebody – it is a human being who pulls the trigger.

There is ideology, which is a system of related rules and beliefs, and there are adherents who adopt ideology, spread beliefs, and put ideological rules into practice.

An ideology can contain taboos which prohibit noticing or explaining the true cause of some outcome, separating the cause from its effect. Practitioners can then attribute that effect to a preferred ideological construct instead, making it seem much more powerful, and often dangerous, than it really is.

The Elephants

Imagine (as this example is entirely made-up) that there is some village in which elephants are considered sacred, but the elephants in the area have a habit of trampling crops in the night. To avoid loss of face, the damage to crops is attributed to "bandits" by an initial group of elders. The young children who do not know better are then taught this explanation. Later, after the death of the elders, the initial truth is lost. Anyone claiming to have seen elephants trampling the fields is denounced as choosing the vile bandits over the virtuous elephants. An outsider who did not realize what was happening might be quite impressed to hear that a bandit in the region ruined a dozen fields in a single night, and assume that the bandit has tremendous physical stamina.

But floating causation is not necessarily the result of an ideological taboo. Someone may be ignorant about the cause of an effect, unable to understand the process by which an effect came about, have powerful emotions about the topic which they are unwilling to confront or may not even be aware of, or may simply have poor judgment. An adherent may be drawn to an ideology for these reasons.

Continuing with our example, a fresh-off-the-boat colonial administrator arriving at the village might be unaware that elephants exist, or trample crops, and conclude that there were ongoing feuds driven by animosity among the villagers, with bandits as the cover-story. Alternatively, the new colonial administrator might love the elephants and hate the villagers, and be unwilling to consider the possibility that the elephants are trampling the crops, including cooking up rather elaborate rationalizations.

Ideology

Issues with not understanding a process are more likely to come up with things like economics – occasionally a worker will post a video to social media complaining that he is not paid the full value of the items he sells or creates, ignoring all the money that went into the construction of the facility, the work from other workers putting together the input materials, and so on.

Liberals in the late 00s and early 2010s had an interest in memetics, which concerns the replication and spread of ideas. (This field is where the term "Internet meme" comes from.) Then, as now, they had a tendency to treat people as too similar to each other, and some of them leaned towards the idea that any person could hold any ideology. Ideologies do (in my judgment) influence behavior – there are far fewer monarchists around these days, and far fewer monarchs with real power, for example – but how a set of beliefs is expressed depend on the emotions, motives, and temperament of the person who holds those beliefs.

So do people choose ideologies, or do ideologies choose people?

One way to view this matter is as a cycle. Someone's social environment is partly a matter of choice, and partly a matter of circumstance. The ideologies that show up in someone's environment are generally going to be ones that spread (as ideologies that don't attract new adherents will die out), but which ideology someone actually chooses and how they practice it will be influenced by what type of person they are.

Another way to view this matter is that emotions, motives, temperament, and beliefs are all things that make certain actions or thoughts either easier (and cheaper) or more difficult (and more expensive). A drug addict who believes in hard work and free market capitalism, but finds himself stealing to feed his habit, may find that the influence of his beliefs is not enough to overcome his addiction. (He is likely to feel miserable.) However, when a religious person is choosing what time of day, or day of the week, to worship, the explicit belief of their religion is likely to have a great deal of influence.

Yet another way to view this matter is to treat things like social relations, ideology, and temperament as interacting layers, and then propose that politics spans multiple layers.

Human Talent

I don't believe that all human beings are equally talented, and I don't believe that they all have identical temperaments. Therefore, one of my beliefs is what might be called the "human capital theory of movements." Ideologies consist of networks of related beliefs which can be used to interpret the world, to guide behavior, or to create arguments. But ideologies do not create beliefs or arguments themselves. Humans do.

When a movement has a lot of talented, virtuous people working for it, these people can create new arguments in order to win debates, and change parts of the ideology, the network of beliefs, to adapt the network to changes in conditions. Without talented people, the ideology of a movement will drift farther from environmental conditions, causing its responses to become more misaligned with conditions on the ground.

Talented people are also needed for the implementation of an ideology. An ideological book is just an inert text. No matter how complex it may be, it is fundamentally limited in its complexity. Applying that text in the environment, bridging the gap between what the text says and what that means in the reality of a specific situation, requires both intelligence and good judgment. Not every person is equally talented, and not every person is equally informed. If someone more talented and with better judgment is around, they can read the situation and come up with some simpler rules or orders for others to follow.

The less talented the adherents of a movement are, the lower the ability of the movement to adapt to conditions over both the short-term and the long-term.

A shift in the distribution of talent can precede other forms of political change. Ideologues may smile as the most disagreeable members are driven out of their movement, but at the same time, the lack of criticism will reduce the movement's ability to respond to change.

There are trade-offs. The use of floating causation may make an ideology less aligned with reality, but it may also be useful for the movement to stoke the emotions of their followers in order to drive action. (This emotional motivation bit is why every election in the United States is "the most important in your lifetime.")

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Beliefs are not intelligence. Nonetheless, a person with a belief may act as though they are smarter (or even wiser) than they actually are. This is just the nature of knowledge (as cached intelligence, wisdom, and observation).

I developed the talent theory in the prior section by observing opposition to racism in the United States prior to 2014. In the United States between 2000 and 2014, there was substantial support for individualist "colorblindness," while at the same time, there was immense social pressure against overt white racial organizing.

Racial organizing takes time and effort. Because white Americans were not subject to racial discrimination, they could simply go out into the market and earn what their work was worth. For talented white Americans, the gains from white racial organizing would be marginal, so the penalties could easily overcome those gains. The less talented would have the most to gain due to the ability to reduce the amount of economic competition they would be up against, but they were also less able to organize. [2]

There was somewhere famous for white racial organizing in the US during this era: prisons.

Racial prison gangs have been particularly noted in the California prison system. Prison gangs offer inmates a credible threat of retaliation if the inmate is harmed, so every inmate has an incentive to join one, and the bigger the gang the better that threat of retaliation is, so every gang has an incentive to recruit. If you're a gang member and a new guy comes in and starts causing trouble, and you don't want to escalate (and thus risk extra charges for your guys or reduced privileges), what are you to do? You would prefer to negotiate with someone that has leverage on him. Race is very visible, even if inmates move around between prisons, so if all inmates get sorted into gangs by race, then someone is responsible for this guy, and by talking to the right people, you can make sure he knows it. (If the troublemaker still doesn't respond, and his own gang cut him loose, then you can punish him without fear of retaliation from other inmates.)

Different incentives produce different results.

Four Options

Glenn Loury is a black man, and an economist at Brown University. He views himself as an American and therefore an inheritor of human rights philosophy of the American founders and their English forebears. He has his own show on YouTube in which he regularly discusses matters with John McWhorter, another black man, who is a linguistics professor at Columbia University. (John strikes me as more liberal, and I heard that he was frightened of Donald Trump, a sentiment shared by many white American culturally liberal Democrats.) Both of these men are quite smart, and if you watch the show, you'll see them easily consider arguments from various perspectives and toss hypotheticals back and forth.

Neither of these men are vulgar anti-racists.

Roland Fryer is a black man, and is an economist at Harvard (although he was suspended for 2 years) who I have discussed previously. He thinks like an economist, and has conducted studies such as paying children to read books. In previous appearances, it seemed that he believes that education gaps can be closed through extremely rigorous selection of teachers and other methods.

Mr. Fryer does not appear to be a vulgar anti-racist.

These men are all relatively prominent voices. If you go looking for the sort of content they produce, they aren't that hard to find. And they're all smart. They might have disagreements with each other and with some of my readers, but smart people can disagree.

However, during the 2014-2022 era, when it was decided to push a black academic to prominence, political forces settled on Ibram Kendi instead. There must have been dozens of other candidates.

When I think about why that happened, I suspect that the answer is that while the first three men care about the interests of black Americans, all three of them are willing to say, "No." Although I doubt they would phrase it in exactly these terms, I suspect that all three understand human rights as rooted in high-order consequences, limits on information, and human bias.

If you proposed to John McWhorter that we should give veto power to a committee of unelected race experts, he would immediately recognize the problem with just that.

Why Vulgar Anti-Racism?

With all of that said, I believe we can think about vulgar anti-racism by means of comparison.

a. Economics

Loury and Fryer are both economists. They know about gains from trade, prices as a distributed form of economic planning, property rights as enabling investment, specialization of labor, economies of scale, and dozens of other things. They understand where wealth comes from.

The typical vulgar anti-racist that you will encounter on an Internet discussion board has little knowledge of economics, and tends to think of total production as fixed. From their perspective, if someone has more resources than another person, it has nothing to do with production, and is purely the result of hoarding.

The typical vulgar anti-racist also doesn't think in terms of entropy, the tendency of things to break down over time. They tend not to discount temporally-distant advantages. (If a well was built 400 years ago, they treat that advantage as retained today.) They tend to think of capital as fixed and not as something that is constantly being rebuilt and adjusted. They don't understand that the ability to create new capital is generally more important than the initial capital in the long-run.

Thinking about production is probably why we see Fryer focused on educational gains. His theory is likely that if the children have a good base of education, they'll be able to produce more, avoid losses, overcome entropy, and net accumulate wealth. If they don't have a good base of education, then they'll be less productive, and entropy will eat a higher percentage of their earnings, leading to reduced wealth.

If someone doesn't know economics, then the wealth of developed countries is "unexplained," and so are the motives of many people within developed countries.

b. History

I don't know about Fryer specifically, but Loury and McWhorter seem to have a good grasp of history.

A solid understanding of history leads to seeing actions as emerging from their historical contexts. This places a limit on the range of expected behavior.

For example, for most of history up until about the 1900s, the child mortality rate was about 50%. That example is relevant for feminism, as under such brutal conditions, we would expect any society that didn't push for women to have at least 4 children to die out. Gender-based oppression didn't occur for no reason, or because of pure male greed, but was influenced by material circumstances.

If we run this understanding backwards, it follows that 1700s or earlier gender norms would be unlikely to return without 1700s or earlier child mortality rates.

Likewise, some basic historical knowledge would reveal that wars of conquest have happened pretty much everywhere, so it's quite unlikely that Europeans are uniquely conquerors. You end up having to declare everything from feuding Chinese kingdoms, to the Māori, to chimpanzees, be "European" in order to fit the model.

The typical vulgar anti-racist's position is, implicitly, "Everyone lived together in peace and harmony, until one day, for no reason at all, the Europeans became possessed by the spirit of greed, and attacked."

If someone somehow doesn't know that war existed outside of Europe prior to 1492, then the wars of colonialism are "unexplained," and so are the motives of the people who fought them.

When vulgar anti-racists do research history, they generally focus on collecting racial grievances in order to build up a case that the group they favor are poor, oppressed, not responsible for anything bad their group has ever done, and are owed indefinite benefits for incalculable harms. They don't proceed from the idea of, "How does this work?" They don't, say, look at the tremendous economic success of South Korea, and ask, "Based on how South Korea obtained their wealth, how can our group achieve such riches?" (They don't even look at South Korea's birthrate and ask how they can avoid such a fate!)

Even before World War 2, Japan did look afar to ask how they could become rich. That kind of mentality is part of how they were able to become a developed country (who could threaten other people with tanks) in the first place.

Looking to Asia is useful for people making comparisons to figure out how things work, but is not useful for collecting racial grievances in order to build up racial claims to make demands. That's why vulgar anti-racists often don't know basic facts about Asian history, like that state testing to determine government positions was practiced in ancient China. [3]

c. Racial Attachment

Even during the individualist colorblindness of 2000-2014, there were still white Americans with some talent engaged in racial organizing. In general, these were people to whom race was very important, and thus who were out-of-step with the mainstream of white America.

It's my opinion that there is a natural range of tribalism among human beings. Sometimes, the rival tribe on the other side of the mountain just want to trade. Other times, they really are out to kill you. The trait doesn't disappear, because wars still happen, and even if they didn't happen, someone could just reinvent war and start it all back up again.

In my view, this tribalism trait isn't attached to race specifically. It can attach to religion. It can attach to sex. Some of the rhetoric from radical feminists sounds the same as rhetoric from hardcore ethnic nationalists – or at least it would, if we treated men as an ethnicity. In our modern environment in which race is highly legible due to intercontinental travel, for a lot of people, it gets attached to race.

Rather than assigning people a single number on a scale from "moral" to "immoral," it's probably better to think of people as having virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses.

Some level of racial attachment itself is not inherently evil. Based on his research topics, for example, Roland Fryer seems interested in bringing about the success of people with a similar background to himself. His virtue (his interest in truth) and his strength (his intelligence) convert that attachment into something that's beneficial to society.

High levels of racial attachment fly much closer to the wire. A highly racially attached individual might do good work in other domains, but there's a risk that they'll end up routing too much of their sense of self-worth through their race, and become obsessed with guarding their race's self-perceived reputation. For such a person, any information deemed unflattering to the group may be interpreted as an attack on himself (or herself).

The Mayo Clinic (a network of hospitals in the United States) describes narcissism as:

Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.

A number of users on Twitter (now known as X.com) began using the term "ethnic narcissism" to describe this sort of disordered thinking when done on behalf of a racial or ethnic group rather than oneself specifically.

2019 and 2020 were banner years for platforming this sort of behavior, with the nation's leading newspaper arguing, in its own words, that we should make the suffering of a particular racial group the core narrative of American history, that everyone should define their identities around:

The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

Obsession with self-perceived ethnic reputation is part of what leads to the "rebalancing the cartoon" behavior I discussed earlier:

How does someone end up so ignorant that they don't know that Genghis Khan existed? By being the kind of person that doesn't want to know that Genghis Khan existed. They don't look it up. If you tell them, they either forget or they take a conflict theorist approach and think that it's some sort of trick.

Unfortunately, while a fairly accurate description of the behavior at issue, the term "ethnic narcissism" can also be used as an attack by ethnic narcissists themselves, as well as people engaged in ethnic conflict. This makes it of limited utility in practice.

The Mysterious Anglo

Option #1: In general, the right wing would consider the vulgar anti-racists to be liars working to selfishly advance their own personal interests and those of their preferred groups. Left-wingers would tend to take a negative view of this, as they believe that right-wingers are unjustly dismissive in order to 'protect the unearned and unquestioned advantages of the privileged.'

In this version, vulgar anti-racists won't drop the issue and hit the GDP gym because they're bullies who think the particular groups they dislike are easy targets. The appropriate response is to become a harder target by systematically defunding any institution that supports them, putting them on the same footing as conventional racial supremacists in the US.

I tend to agree that many of the vulgar anti-racists are just being selfish. There is a question of just how consciously aware of it they are, however.

Option #2: A left-wing view would be that the vulgar anti-racists are "good people, just a bit misguided." Right-wingers tend to take a negative view of this, because if a right-winger published a book titled "Black Fragility" that was as circular in its reasoning as the "White Fragility" of Robin DiAngelo appeared to be, he would be hounded as a racist.

In this version, vulgar anti-racists just need patient guidance to put their empathy back on the right track.

I tend to believe that a good chunk of the vulgar anti-racists are just low-tier progressives who get their opinions socially. If the social consensus changes among progressives, they'll forget ever fretting about "microaggressions." Arguing with them individually mostly won't work, though, because it doesn't override their social consensus, and it won't make them think harder about the issues.

Many left-wingers would disagree with me on this assessment.

Option #3: A more centrist view would be that vulgar anti-racists are a mix of people with excessively high racial attachment, enthusiastic people who are underinformed, and people who serve their niche of the information and political economy, and that this isn't that different from the lower quality wings of other left and right political movements (look how bad "degrowth" is, for example), except that race feels much more core to people's identities (it's certainly not easy to change one's race), so it evokes more powerful emotions. A centrist would likely say that there are more academically and philosophically serious opponents of racism out there, but because the things they say are more serious, they're less controversial, so they get less coverage. ("You wouldn't expect a textbook in the Sunday paper.")

A person with this perspective would say that the appropriate course of action is mostly just to wait for it to blow over.

I would disagree. If vulgar anti-racism is taught in schools for a generation, it would create an expectation that racial blame is the default course of action. This would create a situation which is much more favorable for racial conflict, so it should be shut down now to prevent that from happening.

However, I feel that this does not adequately explain the totalitarian bent. What about other values society might have? What about trade-offs? [4] I would like to throw a fourth possibility into the ring.

Option #4: Life inside the vulgar anti-racist worldview is anxiety-inducing and subtly terrifying.

I don't fully endorse this view, because I think that vulgar anti-racism is a coalition of multiple groups (see the previous three options).

However, while I learned from school that racism and ethnic conflict are extremely dangerous in general (e.g. they can boil over and result in mass murder), the susceptibility of vulgar anti-racists to, "It's impossible to be racist to white people," which is very obviously racist, strongly implies that what they learned was, "Jews good; Germans bad" – basically just a list of which groups are acceptable, and which groups aren't. [5]

I reverse-engineered a sophisticated moral worldview, and when I was young, I assumed that everyone else had done so, too. And for a little while, society approximated that view closely enough for that misconception to kind-of work.

I think that a significant number of people in the vulgar anti-racist coalition don't understand white people.

In terms of anxiety, a number of them seem to think that Europeans and their descendants think about race as much as the vulgar anti-racists do – that they are silently passing judgment, or saying nasty things when others are not listening.

I've been around middle-class and above white Americans my entire life. I've seen some kids make stupid racist jokes, and I can imagine bullying targeting race if it looks like an axis of vulnerability, but in general, among themselves, they don't talk about race much at all.

A skeptic reading this may say that that's just anecdotal. However, according to surveys, "white conservatives" have about the same "racial/ethnic" "ingroup favorability" as either "hispanic moderates" or "asians." "White liberals" were the only group on the chart to have a "pro-outgroup bias."

If we interpret these ingroup favorability measures as racism (which is a stretch, because a favorability measure is not itself a discriminatory policy), then white conservatives have a "normal" (as in typical of most groups) amount of racism. White liberals (probably in the sense that the label "liberal" is used for the entire left in the US) are the only ones who loop around into what might be called "anti-racism." (Razib Khan has his doubts about the stability of this arrangement of anti-racism as opposed to non-racism.)

A vulgar anti-racist doesn't know this, and doesn't want to know this.

Now, for the "subtly terrifying" part. If someone accepts, for instance, that the British were sincere in sending warships to intercept slave traders, then there are all sorts of explanations that they can come up with for that behavior, such as it being a natural result of industrialization, or maybe a result of rising literacy, or motivated by Christianity in combination with previous political developments in England, and so on.

From Wikipedia, here's a map of the British Empire, a map of the Spanish Empire, and a map of the Portuguese Empire. While from the perspective of Europeans at the time, the European states were in competition with each other, if taken together as a group, they were closer to achieving true world conquest than anyone else in history. (Sure, the Mongol Empire was huge, but they didn't make it over to the Americas.)

If someone believes that the Europeans turned off the slave trade for some sincere or enduring reason, then the 1700s are unlikely to come back. If someone believes that the Europeans turned off the 1700s for no reason, or for a secret reason, then one day, they could just... turn the 1700s back on.

And maybe that thought isn't entirely conscious. Maybe it just sits quietly, at the back of the mind.

And they get stuck, much like people who are still focused on "overpopulation" as birthrates plummet in industrialized countries throughout the world.

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Whether they consciously intend to or not, vulgar anti-racists leverage social taboos to make it difficult to argue for one group's innocence without making another, generally more vulnerable, group, look worse. People don't want to be mean and say mean things about a vulnerable group. Vulgar anti-racists exploit this. (This kind of behavior is immoral, but I'm not sure how much vulgar anti-racists consciously understand that.)

Online Tactics

I've developed tactics to argue with them in online space, but I haven't tried them out in in-person institutional spaces where they have institutional influence (power).

In general, you cannot argue with vulgar anti-racists grievance-for-grievance. Building up an ammunition depot of racial or ethnic grievances on behalf of "overperforming" groups won't work – vulgar anti-racists will dismiss you as irrationally motivated by racial hatred and dismiss your entire collection, and normal people will also think it's weird (even though they still don't think many racial or ethnic minorities collecting grievances is weird). [6]

A better approach is to pick one or two grievances to shut down the idea that the group you're defending are "invulnerable." Morally, you shouldn't have to point to, say, children or minors being mass victimized, because it should be obvious that people of any race can be victimized. But that's just the world we live in.

Collect examples of institutional policy, such as by governments, corporations, or universities, that is racially discriminatory against the group you're defending, in order to show that the intent of vulgar anti-racists is racial discrimination. Use center-left, mainstream sources to prevent dismissals. The goal is not to show major harms; most Democrats who are not social justice critical will initially attempt to deny that racial discrimination is a goal of vulgar anti-racism.

(If necessary, it can be emphasized that not wanting to be racially discriminated against is a normal thing to want.)

Vulgar anti-racists will try to shut you down by reciting their list of grievances. Memorizing racial grievances is something that they are strong at. Redirect the conversation to where they are weak: demand that they show whatever policy it is that they want will actually improve things and permanently close racial outcome gaps.

If you find someone who has memorized a list of successful academic or nutrition interventions, you've likely found a philosophical liberal. In my experience, almost no vulgar anti-racist has any even modestly-successful intervention memorized. If they propose an intervention, demand evidence that it will work.

It's possible that they could propose something scientific, but science is undergoing a replication crisis, and 'race scholars' have come under fire for scientific misconduct. If a vulgar anti-racist does come up with something, the next step is to get a binding commitment to close the racial claims against their target group.

If their political leaders will not agree, in writing, with binding mechanisms (and punishments with teeth if they don't follow through), to close out the racial claims against their target groups, conditional on some social intervention going into effect, then they don't believe that the intervention will work.

A working intervention is win-win. Outcomes improve, and the odds of conflict (over this particular issue) decrease.

IRL Tactics

X user CantonaCorona must live somewhere very different from me, because I never hear vulgar anti-racism from people in real life. His advice?

100%. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve been in a friendly/polite mutual friend gathering, and someone who knows 10% of the room will add “gawd, white people, gross” etc.

The issue is they are also the person lacking social skills to see the room gets uncomfortable

In 2023ish I started responding by asking them very honest seeming questions and leading them into saying really crazy stuff.

Takes a lot of finesse to not sound like a schizo, but if you can pretend to be genuinely curious it works wonders and someone else will call them out

It does, indeed, take a lot of finesse, even online. Because vulgar anti-racists are exploiting taboos, they have a huge terrain advantage in most encounters due to normal people not wanting to touch reputationally-damaging information. Successfully navigating the situation without sounding "schizo," and without sounding cruel, is difficult.

The advantage of the tactics discussed above are that you don't have to attack the reputation of the vulnerable group that vulgar anti-racists are using to justify their own bad behavior. It isn't surprising that, like a successful hostage rescue, it requires being more careful than the hostage-takers.

"Corrective" racial discrimination that does not permanently close racial outcome gaps is not actually a correction, it's just extra harm for no reason, and the motives of people who support it are suspect.

Demobilization

While the online tactics I've discussed above are reasonably effective for an online debate or argument format (and vulgar anti-racists are increasingly retreating to protected contexts where they don't have to engage in open debate), the long-term goal needs to be demobilization. Ethnic conflict interferes with stability and good government.

There are some supporters that don't recognize the logical errors in their positioning, but they can sense, "Wait, this guy isn't like the others," and flee rather than risk being split off from the social approval of their group.

I propose the fear theory for the potential to develop new angles. If the real motivation is fear, then addressing most of the intermediate arguments won't work, as the intermediate arguments are just products of the fear.

Reportedly, black musician Daryl Davis demobilized many Klansmen just by befriending them. [7] I suspect that most vulgar anti-racists already know a number of white people personally, so that tactic probably won't work here.

I have not conducted field experiments (either online or offline) on using the fear theory during encounters, so I can't provide solid information on its tactical use, yet.

-★★★-

[1] Stylistically, I have chosen to capitalize nationality while not capitalizing racial groups. On a quick reading, the tables provided by Wikipedia don't appear to disaggregate between first-generation immigrants, who have foreign nationality of origin and American citizenship, and second-generation immigrants who only have American nationality. All three CEOs listed were born in India.

[2] The ability to buy off competing talent is one of the reasons for the endurance of capitalism. Capitalist systems tend to be extremely productive. They can offer wages from increased productivity that are higher than the wages that other systems offer from rents.

[3] This is one of the reasons I got into writing about politics. It became common to find people whose professed opinions implied they'd never even heard of Genghis Khan, and at that point, I figured the bar was set pretty low.

[4] Positions on migration appear related, but I'll touch on that in another essay.

[5] One reason it wasn't obvious that people were just making an acceptable targets list at the time was that quite a few people from all over the world have a tendency to get wacky about Jewish people specifically, so putting antisemitism off-limits looked like it was backed by more sophisticated reasoning than it actually was. Obviously, people shouldn't hate Jewish people. The problem with the acceptable targets list approach is that it's fragile – since the list is based on social approval rather than deeper philosophical principles, it can end up being "readjusted" later.

[6] I also suspect that continuing to constantly expose yourself to the worst behavior of other groups may be corrosive. Watching a video where a man is shot on some other street, in some other city, may give you a jolt of adrenaline while you sit helplessly in your chair. Reading about atrocities may make you feel helpless and doomed.

[7] This behavior is morally praiseworthy, not morally obligatory.

#politics #criticism of social justice #idpol #epistemic blues #sj critical #flagpost

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rotationalsymmetry · 2 years ago

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For instance, historical national accounts suggest that GDP per capita in the Spanish-occupied Philippines increased by over 15% between 1820 and 1902 (Bolt & van Zanden, 2020). Yet parish records indicate this was a period of increasing mortality, due to “a general deterioration of peasant livelihoods… a consequence of the rapid commercialization of peasant agriculture” (Smith, 1978, pp. 51-52). Similarly, Indian GDP per capita increased by 27% from 1870 to 1921 (Bolt & van Zanden, 2020). Yet during that time, British colonial policy induced serial famines that killed tens of millions of people, with life expectancy collapsing by 20%, “a deterioration in human health probably without precedent in the subcontinent’s long history of war and invasion” (Davis, 2002, p. 312).

Highlights

The common notion that extreme poverty is the “natural” condition of humanity and only declined with the rise of capitalism rests on income data that do not adequately capture access to essential goods.

Data on real wages suggests that, historically, extreme poverty was uncommon and arose primarily during periods of severe social and economic dislocation, particularly under colonialism.

The rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality.

In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, wages and/or height have still not recovered.

Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began only around the 20th century. These gains coincide with the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements.

Sullivan, D., & Hickel, J. (2023). Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century. World development, 161, 106026.

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dinaritexch · 25 days ago

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De-dollarization of Iraqi Dinar. Iraqi Dinar Speculations.

Iraq’s recent banking reforms mark a significant shift in its monetary policy as the country pursues the de-dollarization of Iraqi Dinar. The nation’s central bank implemented strict new transaction regulations in early 2024, consequently reshaping the relationship between the local currency and the US dollar.

Furthermore, these changes affect not only Iraq’s domestic financial operations but also its international trade relationships and regional economic stability. This article explores the historical context, current implementation strategies, market responses, and potential future scenarios of Iraq’s currency transformation while considering the broader implications for regional trade and economic stability.

Historical Context of Iraqi Dinar’s Dollarization

The Iraqi dinar’s journey began in 1932 when it replaced the Indian rupee as the nation’s official currency. Initially pegged to the British pound, the dinar maintained remarkable stability until 1959 when it switched to a US dollar peg at a rate of 1 dinar to USD 2.80.

Pre-2003 Iraqi dinar status

The period between 1960 and 1980 marked the golden era for the Iraqi dinar. During this time, the country experienced substantial economic growth, with real GDP expanding at approximately 8% and per capita growth reaching 4.7%. Subsequently, the dinar’s value strengthened to USD 3.38 by 1973.

Impact of Gulf Wars on Currency

The onset of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980 marked a turning point for the Iraqi economy. The situation deteriorated further when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, carrying a foreign debt exceeding USD 70 billion. Accordingly, the United Nations imposed economic sanctions, preventing Iraq from accessing high-quality currency printing services.

The currency crisis deepened as:

The government resorted to printing lower-quality notes

Hyperinflation rapidly eroded the dinar’s value

By late 1995, one US dollar traded for 3,000 Iraqi dinars

Emergence of dollar dominance

The extensive dollarization process intensified in the early 1990s. The Iraqi government faced significant budget imbalances after losing oil export revenues, therefore resorting to printing money to fund expenses. A table highlighting the currency’s decline shows:YearExchange Rate1980USD 3.221995USD 3,0002000GDP less than half of 1980

Following the 2003 invasion, the Coalition Provisional Authority introduced new Iraqi dinar notes between October 2003 and January 2004. Nevertheless, the dollar’s dominance persisted as Iraqis typically used dollars for significant purchases, given that large amounts of dinars would be needed for substantial transactions.

The extensive dollarization resulted from various factors, including the banking system’s fragility and the public’s diminished confidence in the local currency. Moreover, the Iraqi economy became predominantly cash-driven and dependent on US dollars.

Current De-dollarization Implementation

In late 2023, the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) unveiled extensive measures to limit the flow of US dollars, specifically as part of its de-dollarization of Iraqi Dinar initiative. The implementation of these reforms marks a significant transition in Iraq’s monetary policy landscape.

2024 banking reforms

Beginning January 1, 2024, the CBI implemented a comprehensive ban on cash withdrawals and transactions in US dollars. In essence, this strategic move aims to curtail the misuse of approximately 50% of the USD 10 billion that Iraq imports annually from the New York Federal Reserve.

The banking sector has experienced notable improvements, as evidenced by:

Daily regulated dollar transactions increasing from USD 50 million to USD 200 million

Implementation of the SWIFT system for enhanced transparency

Establishment of stringent compliance measures for international transfers

New transaction regulations

The CBI has established a centralized electronic platform to regulate wire transfers, particularly focusing on preventing fraudulent transactions. As opposed to previous systems, banks must now provide comprehensive documentation, including:Transaction ComponentRequired InformationCustomer DetailsIdentity verification and source of fundsBeneficiary DataComplete profile and purpose of transferTrade ParticularsSupporting documentation and contracts

In particular, any bank found transferring funds to sanctioned individuals faces permanent exclusion from the foreign currency sale window.

Digital payment initiatives

The Digital Payment Regulation No.2 of 2024 represents a cornerstone in Iraq’s financial modernization strategy. The regulation introduces advanced infrastructure for electronic payment tools and financial services specifically designed to reduce cash dependency.

The CBI anticipates reaching 3 million digital payment users by year-end, with implementation focusing on:

Streamlined operations through POS systems and e-wallets

Enhanced data visibility for transaction monitoring

Improved financial security measures

The transformation extends beyond mere technical upgrades, as Iraqi banks wanting to access dollar reserves held in the United States must now process transfers through the electronic system. The Federal Reserve examines these requests and maintains the authority to block suspicious transactions.

International Relations and Currency Control

The relationship between Iraq and the United States remains central to the ongoing de-dollarisation of Iraqi Dinar, with significant implications for regional economic stability.

US-Iraq financial relationship

The United States maintains its position as Iraq’s most significant partner in economic development. Above all, since 2014, the US has invested nearly USD 3.50 billion in humanitarian and development assistance. A comprehensive breakdown of recent US assistance includes:YearEconomic DevelopmentHumanitarian Aid2023USD 150.00 millionUSD 114.20 million

The bilateral trade relationship continues to expand, with two-way trade in goods reaching USD 4.60 billion in 2021. Coupled with this, Iraq has emerged as one of the largest trading partners for the US, with Iraqi exports to America totaling USD 3.80 billion.

Iran sanctions impact

It is important to realize that Iraq’s banking sector faces significant challenges due to US sanctions on Iran. In light of these restrictions, the US Treasury has implemented powerful tools to protect Iraqi and international financial systems from illicit activities.

The banking sector has experienced notable changes:

The US Federal Reserve examines all dollar transfer requests

Iraqi banks must provide complete transparency for international transactions

Several Iraqi banks face restrictions on dollar transactions

Regional economic implications

The de-dollarization efforts have created ripple effects across the region. Iraq has become an essential economic partner for neighboring countries, although this has created challenges in maintaining compliance with international sanctions.

The International Monetary Fund notes that Iraq’s fiscal and external positions have improved, with external current account surpluses reaching 17.3% of GDP. At the same time, the Central Bank of Iraq’s foreign exchange reserves rose to USD 97.00 billion, equivalent to 11 months of imports.

Under those circumstances, Iraq faces the challenge of balancing its regional relationships while maintaining compliance with international financial regulations. The World Bank reports that despite record oil revenues, the country’s non-oil sectors have shown limited growth, highlighting the need for continued economic diversification and structural reforms.

Market Response and Exchange Rates

The Iraqi financial markets have experienced significant volatility as the government implements its de-dollarization strategy. Meanwhile, the gap between official and parallel market rates has created notable economic challenges for businesses and citizens alike.

Official vs parallel market rates

The disparity between official and parallel market rates has reached significant levels. The Central Bank of Iraq maintains an official exchange rate of 1,296.48 dinars per dollar, whereas the parallel market rate has climbed to approximately 1,600 dinars. This disparity represents an estimated inflation rate of 23.41% in the black market.Exchange Rate TypeRate (IQD per USD)Official Rate1,296.48Parallel Market1,600+

Banking sector challenges

Iraq’s banking infrastructure faces substantial hurdles in implementing the de-dollarization reforms. Straightaway, several key challenges have emerged:

The US Treasury and Federal Reserve have banned 14 Iraqi banks from conducting dollar transactions

Financial access remains amongst the lowest globally, with merely 19% of adults owning bank accounts

The private commercial banking sector struggles with limited capacity to support financial intermediation

Public reaction to reforms

The implementation of new financial measures has triggered widespread public response. Altogether, the reforms have particularly affected businesses dependent on dollar access. Citizens have expressed their concerns through various means, including protests over the declining value of the Iraqi dinar.

The banking sector’s transformation has faced resistance from the public. An estimated 90 trillion dinars are stored at home rather than in banks, which significantly reflects deep-seated distrust in financial institutions, even among business owners.

The impact on daily operations has been substantial, with many local banks limiting dollar cash withdrawals. In one notable instance, video evidence emerged showing a depositor threatening to burn down a Baghdad bank after being denied access to cash dollars.

The reforms have created additional pressure on Iraq’s impoverished families, who constitute over 40% of the population. The situation has intensified as businesses increasingly turn to the parallel market for their dollar needs, thereby driving up costs for essential goods and services.

Future Scenarios for Iraqi Currency

Looking ahead, the Central Bank of Iraq’s ambitious de-dollarization initiative presents both opportunities and challenges for the nation’s economic future. The transformation of Iraq’s monetary landscape hinges on several critical factors that will shape its success in the coming years.

Economic stability prospects

The Central Bank of Iraq expects some initial volatility in the dinar’s value as new measures take effect. Certainly, the bank’s commitment to providing dollars at the official rate for legitimate purposes suggests a strategic approach to maintaining stability. The economic outlook shows promising signs, with:

Non-oil GDP growth reaching 4.4% to 87.7 trillion dinars in 2023

Foreign reserves rising to USD 64 billion in 2021

Implementation of renewable energy programs worth 1 trillion dinars

Banking system modernization

The Iraqi banking sector is undergoing substantial structural changes. Generally, state-owned banks dominate 88% of banking sector investments, indicating the need for comprehensive reform. The modernization efforts focus on several key areas:Reform AreaImplementation FocusDigital ServicesElectronic payment systems and platformsRegulatory FrameworkEnhanced compliance and security standardsPrivate SectorIncreased competition and efficiency

The Central Bank has granted licenses to 17 companies for digital wallet operations, analogous to successful implementations in other developing economies. Additionally, e-payment transactions have reached 18 trillion Iraqi dinars, demonstrating the growing adoption of digital financial services.

Regional trade implications

Iraq’s economic relationships are evolving rapidly, as evidenced by its strengthening ties with various international partners. The country has emerged as China’s top importer in Western Asia, with bilateral trade reaching USD 49.70 billion last year. In addition, Chinese investments in Iraq have surpassed USD 34.20 billion, establishing a strong foundation for future economic cooperation.

The banking sector’s transformation presents notable opportunities:

Enhanced international trade capabilities through modernized payment systems

Improved compliance with global financial standards

Greater integration with regional economic partners

The Islamic banking sector shows particular promise, with assets growing to a 9.7% market share by end-2023. As a result of these developments, Iraq’s financial system is positioned for significant evolution, notwithstanding current challenges in banking penetration rates, which remain at 81% of the adult population without bank accounts.

The World Bank’s involvement through various development initiatives suggests sustained support for Iraq’s financial modernization. In concert with the International Monetary Fund’s guidance, their technical assistance programs provide crucial frameworks for implementing these ambitious reforms.

Conclusion

Iraq’s journey toward de-dollarization represents a pivotal transformation in its economic history. Though the path presents significant challenges, particularly with exchange rate disparities and banking sector reforms, the country shows promising signs of financial evolution.

Recent developments demonstrate Iraq’s commitment to modernizing its financial infrastructure. Digital payment initiatives, stricter transaction regulations, and enhanced compliance measures signal a determined push toward a more stable economic future. Meanwhile, the nation maintains crucial international partnerships while pursuing greater monetary independence.

The success of these reforms depends largely on public trust and participation in the formal banking sector. Despite current challenges, Iraq’s growing foreign reserves, expanding non-oil GDP, and strengthening regional trade relationships point toward positive economic prospects. The combination of banking modernization efforts and strategic international partnerships positions Iraq for potentially significant economic growth.

Looking ahead, Iraq’s financial transformation extends beyond simple de-dollarization. The country stands at a crossroads, balancing traditional economic structures with modern financial innovations. This careful approach, supported by international financial institutions and regional partners, suggests a thoughtful strategy for long-term economic stability and growth.

Source:- Dinarit

#Iraqi Dinar de-dollarization #Iraqi Dinar de-dollarisation #Iraqi Dinar connected to USD #Iraqi Dinar connected to the Dollar #Iraqi Dinar dependability on USD

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gorizont-biz · 28 days ago

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India Economic Overview

India's economy is an emerging mixed economy characterized by a large public sector in strategic industries and broad government influence. It ranks fifth in the world in nominal GDP and third in purchasing power parity (PPP), but ranks much lower in per capita income. From 1947 to 1991, India's economic policy was characterized by Soviet-style protectionism, heavy government intervention and regulation, resulting in inefficiency. Liberalization of the economy in 1991 marked the transition to market-oriented growth, although the government retains significant control over key sectors such as railroads, banking, defense, and telecommunications.

Domestic consumption accounts for nearly 70% of India's GDP, making it the fourth largest consumer market in the world. Government spending, investment and exports also contribute to the economy. India is a major player in global trade, ranking as the 10th largest importer and 8th largest exporter in 2022. The economy is dominated by the services sector, which accounts for more than half of GDP, and agriculture and industry employ the majority of the labor force. Despite these strengths, India faces the challenge of high unemployment, income inequality and structural economic problems, resulting in a lack of jobs.

Labor Market

India's labor force, the second largest in the world, suffers from low productivity despite long working hours. In recent years, economic data has been scrutinized for possible manipulation. Social welfare spending, at 8.6% of GDP, remains low compared to the OECD average. Rural areas, home to 65% of the population, contribute half of GDP but are characterized by significant poverty and inequality. In 2021, most Indians lived on less than 10 dollars a day.

The country is actively attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), which reached 82 billion dollars in 2021-22, with the leading sectors being finance, banking and research and development. Free trade agreements with various countries have strengthened economic ties. Challenges of unemployment, declining aggregate demand and income inequality remain, though India remains an important player in global manufacturing and services.

Key industries

The petroleum and chemical sectors play a critical role in India's economy, accounting for more than 34% of export earnings and are major contributors to industrial GDP. India has an extensive network of refineries, including Soviet-era refineries in Barauni and Gujarat, as well as the world's largest refinery complex in Jamnagar, which processes 1.24 million barrels of crude oil daily. The chemical industry, valued at 178 billion dollars, contributes 5% of GDP and is the third largest in Asia.

India leads the world in the production of agrochemicals, polymers, dyes, and various organic and inorganic chemicals, but remains a net importer to meet domestic demand. Employment in the sector reached 17.33 million in 2016, and forecasts point to significant growth, potentially reaching 400 billion dollars by 2025.

India's fertilizer industry comprises 57 large plants producing a range of nitrogen fertilizers, as well as smaller plants producing other chemical fertilizers. The country is heavily dependent on coal and crude oil, which account for 85% of primary energy consumption. India's proven reserves of crude oil and natural gas, although significant, meet only 25% of domestic demand. Offshore and onshore oil fields including Bombay High and the Krishna-Godavari basin are central to production. Reliance Industries Limited, with its refinery in Jamnagar, represents India's private sector in refining, while public sector giants such as ONGC and IOCL dominate the market.

Electricity production has also shown significant growth, with India ranked as the world's third largest power producer by 2013 and achieving a power surplus by 2015. The energy mix is dominated by thermal power, although renewables such as solar, wind and biofuels are gaining ground. Stagnation in nuclear power has been offset by the India-US nuclear deal and discoveries in the Tummalapalle belt, which promise to expand nuclear capabilities.

India's agrochemical sector has achieved global recognition and has become the second largest exporter of agrochemicals. Exports have doubled in six years with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13%. Indian agrochemicals are valued for their affordability and quality, making them a trusted choice for millions of farmers around the world. The Crop Care Federation of India has called for measures to increase domestic production and reduce dependence on imports.

Financial Sector

The financial sector remains a pillar of the economy, contributing 809 billion dollars (37% of GDP) in 2016. Post-liberalization banking reforms have diversified the sector and increased efficiency and competition. Despite these achievements, rural banking coverage remains limited, with only a fraction of villages served by conventional banks. In 2006-07, gross domestic savings amounted to an impressive 32.8 percent of GDP, with a significant portion invested in physical assets.

Conclusion

India's economy relies on a diverse range of industries, from a strong petroleum and chemical sector to pioneering efforts in agrochemical exports and energy production. The financial sector complements this industrial growth by fostering innovation and inclusiveness. Together, these sectors contribute to making India a sustainable economic leader on the global stage in the future.

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atplblog · 2 months ago

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Price: [price_with_discount] (as of [price_update_date] - Details) [ad_1] A $55 trillion Indian economy rivalling the world’s largest in 2047, when India celebrates its centennial—audacious or achievable? In India@100: Envisioning Tomorrow’s Economic Powerhouse, Krishnamurthy Subramanian explores this once-in-several-centuries opportunity knocking on India’s doors. With a bold vision grounded in Indian realities, India@100 argues compellingly that India is at an inflection point that cannot be ignored. The country can grow at 8 per cent annually by reforming the economy zealously and doubling down on the sound policies implemented post 2014. Since 2007, when its GDP per capita was equal to India’s current level, China exploited its demographic dividend to grow at about 8 percent for about two decades. Similar growth for the next two decades will make India a $55 trillion economy by 2047. Through meticulous research and insightful analysis, Subramanian explores four key pillars to propel India’s growth: (i) macroeconomic emphasis on growth; (ii) microeconomic focus on social and economic inclusion; (iii) a vision of ethical wealth creation; and (iv) a strategy of a virtuous cycle triggered by investment. Within each pillar, he comprehensively covers the policy choices and the areas that require reform. India@100 effortlessly ignites the reader’s imagination and inspires a collective drive towards a future where India emerges as a dominant economic force. This is an invaluable book for anyone interested in the rise of the Indian economy. From the Publisher Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rupa Publications India (1 August 2024); Rupa Publications India Language ‏ : ‎ English Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 520 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9390260833 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9390260836 Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 680 g Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 21.6 x 14 x 2.99 cm Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ India Net Quantity ‏ : ‎ 1 Piece Importer ‏ : ‎ Rupa Publications India Packer ‏ : ‎ Rupa Publications India Generic Name ‏ : ‎ Book [ad_2]

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ebelal56-blog · 2 months ago

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youtube

Bangladesh Surpasses India's RICHEST State in Wealth!

Let's take a moment to dive into a fascinating comparison between two regions that share cultural ties but stand apart economically: Bangladesh and West Bengal. Now, you might be thinking, "Why should I care about the economies of two places that seem so similar yet so different?" Well, the answer is simple. Understanding their economic profiles not only sheds light on their current situations but also highlights the impact of governance, policy decisions, and even geography on their growth trajectories. First, let's talk about size. Bangladesh, a sovereign nation, boasts a nominal GDP of about $465 billion, making it the 37th largest economy in the world. That's impressive, right? With a population of around 170 million, the GDP per capita stands at about $2,900. Now, compare that to West Bengal, a state within India, which has a nominal GDP of approximately $235 billion and a population of around 100 million, leading to a GDP per capita of about $1,760. So, while Bangladesh has the edge in overall economic size, West Bengal is no small player either, being the sixth largest state economy in India. What's driving this growth? For Bangladesh, it's all about textiles and garments-these sectors account for a staggering 85% of their export earnings. The country has experienced sustained growth rates of around 6-7% annually over the past decade. On the other hand, West Bengal is also on a growth path, with rates hovering around 7-8%. However, its economy is more diversified, heavily relying on agriculture, industries like tea and jute, and a growing services sector. It's a bit of a mixed bag, but the challenge lies in the fact that West Bengal is lagging in industrialization compared to other Indian states. Now, let's dig deeper into the industries and exports of these regions. Bangladesh is a global leader in textiles, which not only employs millions but also brings in about $55 billion in export earnings. In contrast, West Bengal's major exports include tea-think of the famous Darjeeling tea-jute, leather, and handicrafts. Kolkata serves as a regional trade hub, yet it doesn't quite match the export-driven dynamism of Bangladesh. When it comes to agriculture, both regions showcase their strengths. Bangladesh relies heavily on crops like rice, jute, and fish, but faces challenges from climate change and natural disasters like floods. West Bengal, blessed with fertile soil, produces rice, tea, jute, and potatoes. But even here, challenges abound, especially with political interference affecting industrial policy and economic growth.

#youtube

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amitjaiswals-blog · 2 months ago

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Fresher Jobs in USA

USA has the biggest GDP at massive US $ 28,780,000,000,000. The projected real growth GDP for the year 2024 is 2.6 per cent and GDP per capita income stands to US $ 85,370. It builds an excellent career to the people.

Why People Should Go to USA

USA holds an extraordinary appeal to the people who are searching for jobs . It presents an attractive opportunity to the people who are looking for jobs.

A) Career Opportunities: - Many entries type positions across various industries are provided to the people who are searching for jobs. It helps to develop skills to the people and helps in building the career.

B) High earning potential: - Various salaries and benefits are excelled in USA.

C) Global Exposure: - People who are working at USA gets accessed with international market, global business practices and networking opportunities.

D) Educational and technological hub: - In USA there are prestigious universities and tech companies which helps in promoting innovation and improving the professional development.

E) Quality of life: - As USA has excellent healthcare, public services, and lifestyle so people can have ambitious standards for living in USA.

Top Career Opportunities in USA for Indians

Numerous opportunities are offered too the people who have come to study at USA. All students are protected against background, ethnicity, and gender. It also offers career opportunities to Indians. Indians can earn a salary of Rs 70,00,000 – Rs 1,20,00,000. People need to built certain skills so that their career can be established. If a person wants to become a software engineer must pursue a course at software engineering. If a person wants to work at finance should study course in finance and management.

Career occupation

Salary Earned

Data Scientists

Rs 67,00,000 – Rs 93,00,000

Engineers

Rs 64,00, 000 – Rs 74,00,000

Financial Officer

Rs 61,00,000- Rs 78,00,000

Business Development Manager

Rs 52,00,000- Rs 71,00,000

Digital Marketer

Rs 48,00,000- Rs 59,00,000

How Can Indians Earn Money Online

Indians who are graduates and freshers need to find the jobs which are suitable for them. Several things such visa, passport, which jobs are popular and which companies people like to work for are the things people should know when they are searching for jobs. In the job market of USA people find a job in the company where they can like their skills and experience . New graduates earn a salary for Rs 55,00,000 which depends on the which field they are working. People need to do some research work so they can meet new people and can change the applications of jobs for adding the information which the company may need which helps in finding the job required and can help in finding a new career.

Job Profile

Average salary earned in India

Average salary earned in USA

Customer Service Representative

Rs 54,00,000

Rs 34,70,000

Library Assistant

Rs 2,30,000

Rs 26,30,000

Content Writer

Rs3,60,000

Rs 51,61,000

Research assistants in science labs and tech labs

Rs2,20,000

Rs 32,40,000

Sales Executive

Rs 2,00,000

Rs 1,60,00,000

How can the person become eligible for job at USA

The academic requirements for working at USA differs from one university to another while some standards may need eligibility regardless of background.

Academic needed

Bachelor’s Requirements

Work experience

Proper work experience is needed

Language Proficiency

IELTS (6.0-6.5)

TOEFL (80-100)

PTE (50-65)

References

Both personal and professional

Visa

H1-B, H2, H3, L, O, P, Q visa

Apart from this people needs to get a sponsorship for the work visa. It helps in applying for the visa and helps in tolerating the costs involved in the process. The employer will support the people who are searching for jobs so that process will become much more convenient to them.

Top Recruiting Agencies for Indian Freshers

People should find right jobs so that their career should be settled in USA. Several recruiting agencies focuses in helping international candidates such as the Indians who have done their graduation recently and wants to work at USA. Several companies help the candidates so that they can get connected with potential employers, they help in assisting with the job applications, can get prepared with the interviews and offer career guidance. They can match the skills with suitable openings and sometimes provide temporary or contract jobs so that people can have job experience.

Top job recruiting agencies in USA

a) Robert Half is a well-known company which focuses on accounting, finance, and administrative roles.

b) Kelly Services is a well-known company focuses on IT, healthcare, and engineering.

c) Manpower Group is another well known company which offers wide range of industries from technology to finance.

d) Ranstad USA: - It is well known company for freshers. It offers profile in IT, engineering, and healthcare.

e) Aerotek: - It is a well-known company which provides jobs in engineering, management, and technology.

f) TEK Systems: - It is a well-known company which provides job in IT profile for the people who have technical and software skills.

g) Adecco USA: - It is a well-known company which offers profile at tech, manufacturing, and marketing.

Types of work visa at USA

1) H- 1B Visa: - This type of visa is for foreigners who are working at occupations specially in bachelor’s degree . Indian IT experts and engineers use this type of visa.

2) H-1B1 Visa: - This type of visa is used by the people who are working in Singapore and Chile.

3) H-2A Visa: - This type of visa is used by the people who have opt for temporary work such as Indian agricultural workers perform agricultural work who had come to foreign country for work.

4) H-2B Visa: - This type of visa is used by the people temporarily who are engaged in non agricultural activities and other industries such as hospitality and landscapes.

5) H 3 Visa: - This type of visa for the person who has come to USA for job training or education mostly special education.

6) L Visa: - This type of visa is used by intracompany people so that they can get connected with various multinational companies.

7) O visas: - A person who is gifted or has achieved in various streams such as se commerce and arts.

How Jobs can be secured at USA

a) Candidates must understand the various work visa categories and should select the one which is suitable for her or him.

b) He or she should tailor the resume and cover letter to American standards.

c) He or she should build professional networks through LinkedIn and must attend job affairs and networking events.

d) Candidates should install Indeed, Glassdoor and LinkedIn so that they can search for jobs.

e) He or she must prepare for an interview so that their skills and adaptability can be emphasised.

f) He or she should cope up with American workplace and culture.

g) He or she must have proper qualification and certifications in USA and if so, they should also have to give an extra exam for it.

h) He or she must connect with Indian alumni network or association.

Can a fresher from India can get job at USA?

Yes, Indian freshers can get a job at USA. They should apply for jobs at technology or science. They should do networking, apply for internships, and use several job platforms.

Are there any jobs in USA for Indian 12th pass freshers?

There are many online jobs in USA for Indian freshers. Digital marketing, chat support and freelancers are offered at USA.

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commercialnoidas · 9 months ago

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Will real estate market crash in 2024?

Is The Price of Indian Real Estate Inflated?

We will assess the Indian real estate market in this piece and determine whether a crash in the Indian real estate market is likely.

This commercial noida blog will address all of your inquiries about the collapse of the real estate market, including: • Will there be a real estate collapse in 2024? • Is There a Bubble in the Indian Real Estate Market? Will you be able to tell whether or not the real estate market is going to implode after reading this blog? What state is Indian real estate in at the moment? The Indian real estate sector is now experiencing tremendous growth. The markets for both residential and commercial real estate have grown, and prices are rising quickly.

Economic estimates predict that between 2020 and 2030, the Indian real estate market would expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.7%.

By 2030, it is anticipated to reach $1 trillion.

When discussing the Indian residential real estate market, Google users frequently pose the following queries:

Will the market for real estate decline again?

Will the cost of real estate in India decline?

These Google search searches reveal the level of market insecurity among investors.

Don't worry, though; residential real estate is expanding gradually and sustainably.

According to a survey conducted by Economic Times, there will be a 10-15% increase in residential real estate transactions in 2024.

The Statista analysis predicts that commercial real estate will expand at a yearly rate 11.19 percent.

Let's now assess how long this real estate boom will endure.

Will 2024 See a Real Estate Market Crash? The collapse of the real estate market is a topic of much discussion on social media and television.

All around you, you can hear individuals and some so-called experts refer to the current boom in India as a bubble and predict that it won't last.

That isn't the whole story, though.

First off, builders and brokers have neither created or driven this real estate boom.

Let's take a quick look at the actual causes of this surge in Indian real estate.

• The population of India is expanding dramatically. • An abrupt increase in the quantity of businesses. • An increase in people's income. • The digitalization of property

• Support from the government for the development of infrastructure

India's GDP and per capita income are rising along with the country's population.

India's growing housing need has made many eager to invest in real estate.

Businesses require additional room to accommodate people due to the expanding population.

The cost of rent is rising quickly.

Let's examine every aspect of the real estate boom and the reasons it is sustainable.

What factors contribute to the rise in real estate? The population of India has increased to 150 crores as a result of the growing demand for residential real estate, including homes, apartments, and land.

People prefer to acquire larger homes in order to be protected in the event that a pandemic of that nature occurs again, which has led to an upsurge in demand for larger homes following Corona.

For full blog visit commercialnoida blogs and If you want to invest in the Noida real estate market, contact us at commercialnoida or 7053707070.

#will real estate market crash in 2024 #will real estate market go back down #is real estate market going to crash in 2024 #is real estate market going to down #will real estate prices go down in india #noida real estate future #noida real estate news

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firstwatercapital · 10 months ago

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This is India’s decade; we focus on the mid-caps, says Arun Chulani of First Water Capital Fund

Indian market is poised for gains in the long term and industries and businesses that will benefit from the ‘China + 1’ initiative, as well as the ‘Minus China’ movement, are the focus of Arun Chulani, Investment Advisor, First Water Capital Fund. In an interview with MintGenie, he talked about his view on the market.

Edited excerpts:

What is your view on the current market trajectory? For how long this rangebound move of the market may continue?

As a value investor, I think it is futile to try and predict the market’s short-term movements. It is far better to look at long-term themes and build conviction around a company’s intrinsic value.

Can the inflow of foreign flow sustain considering the strong gains in the dollar index and the rate hikes?

Again, to second guess what foreign investors might do and whether they will pull out their funds is of course important but while we may give credence to it, we prefer to focus on value. Of course, Uncle Sam wants some of his money back and conventional thinking might suggest that higher rates will allow some investors to better price risk and re-allocate to “perceived” more risk-free assets, which in turn might lead to outflows.

Are you positive about the domestic theme? What pockets are you bullish on?

Yes, most definitely. We are very hopeful that this is India’s decade. Much has been written about it in the press and there are multiple pockets that we would like to focus on. We are keen on industries and businesses that will benefit from the ‘China + 1’ initiative as well as the ‘Minus China’ movement. The latter are industries in which China itself is reducing its capacity – areas such as steel, chemicals, etc., as it looks to both reduce its pollution and upscale the products it focuses on. We are also keen on flexible packaging which is a relatively cheap proxy for the much fan-fared FMCG sector.

Can the mid and smallcaps outperform benchmarks? Please explain your views.

We very much focus on the mid-caps, and we believe that it is here that one can find value and companies that can create alpha. Of course on the flip side, you have to sometimes deal with opaque information and illiquidity. But with some luck and effort, one occasionally finds a diamond in the rough.

Is there more steam left in the auto stocks? What are the major challenges that the sector is still facing?

Autos are certainly an exciting space to be in, but I find them generally pricey. There is good scope for the sector but of course, there will always be risks due to high fuel prices, high input prices, and improvements in public sector transportation amongst other things.

The number of Demat accounts crossing 10 crores is a proud landmark. What factors have facilitated the rise of retail investors? Because of this, do you think the clout of FII will decrease in the Indian market?

We hope that this increase is due to a combination of factors. Ease of access, digitization, lower broker fees, and general education of making your money work. The market is one of the places where anyone with excess capital can invest and not only become an owner of some of India’s best companies but also benefit from India’s hopeful wealth creation. Of course, as the domestic investor becomes more disciplined and the GDP per capita grows, it will be more attractive for the FII.

The views expressed are the authors own. Please consult your financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

To know more information visit us on:

#best equity funds in india #business #hedgefunds #india

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mapsontheweb · 7 months ago

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Indian state's GDP Per Capita in US dollars(2024)

#maps #india #gdp per capita #2024

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bdb-india · 11 months ago

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BDB is Business Strategy consulting firm India.

BDB India Private Limited is a leading global business strategy consulting and market research company in India. Since 1989, BDB has been providing clients with solutions to expand their businesses in the Indian and international marketplace. We are an ISO certified company. BDB is Business Strategy consulting firm India.

India’s Real GDP and Real Per Capita GDP from 2023-2030

Despite the fact that India’s economy is still in a good place due to its momentum, resilience, favourable demographics, and rising productivity (1), this decade’s growth is most likely to average less than 6% annually. Through 2023 to 2030, India’s real GDP and real per capita growth rates will continue to exceed those of the rest of the world.

India appears promising since it has the capacity to absorb significant investments. These investors want to restrict or cut future investments in China. India is eager to develop logistics and go through a digital transformation. The gross domestic product per capita might rise from $2,500 to $5,000 in six to seven years, with an expected annual growth rate of over 6%.

Read More…https://bdbipl.com/index.php/indian-economy-and-industry-trends/.

#consumer goods market research in india

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 11 months ago

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youtube

“We are where we are because our culture is special” Konstantin Kisin LIVE in Melbourne

Before I say anything else, it's such a pleasure to be in Australia. It's my first time here. I didn't really know what to expect. I was actually on the flight over. This Australian guy recognized me, he came over, we started chatting, he found out I was doing a few talks and he said, oh mate, watch out we've got a big problem, political correctness in Australia. I didn't know what to think. So, I get to my hotel, I check in, lady gives me the card says, this is your card for your room and if you want to have breakfast tomorrow, go to the two fat Indians. I was like, this is my kind of place. Wouldn't happen in the UK. We don't use the word "fat" anymore, we say "people of girth."

Now, thank you all for coming out. As Scott said it's so lovely to see so many young people here, many of you under 50. So, thank you for coming. All six of you. It's a pleasure to see you. I'm not going to speak for very long, I'm really keen to get to your questions in the Q&A that we're going to do with Glenn in a minute.

But the thing I wanted to talk to you about tonight, just to set the tone of our discussion really, is something that I'm constantly talking about now, and Scott mentioned the title of my book "An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West," is the West.

What is the West? How do we define it, how do we think about it? And the reason I think about it is, as he mentioned, I was born in the Soviet Union and grew up in that country, in that society, and then in early '90s - mid 90s - I moved to England. And by the way, those of you who've seen my ARC speech, you'll remember I mentioned Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. And somebody later claimed online that I was comparing myself to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. This is ridiculous, of course, there's no comparison. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn spent most of his life in a prison camp where he endured terrible conditions, punishments and brutal beatings and a starvation diet. I went to an English boarding school. That's where the similarities end.

But what is the West? I think it's very important to think about this and particularly here in Australia, because you're a Western country in the middle of Asia. And it strikes me that if you were to conduct an experiment to prove that Western civilization is special in some way, you would do what the British did here. You'd find a barren continent on the other side of the world full of venomous creatures. You'd collect a few thousand of your least law-abiding citizens, let's put it diplomatically, right. You'd ship them over, you'd leave them there for a couple of centuries, you let them crack on with it, and then you'd come back and have a look. Right? And what would you see? What would you see? Well, you'd see a society that, broadly speaking, is thriving.

What do I mean by thriving? Well, there's different ways to look at it. We could talk about GDP per capita or some kind of boring poll numbers. When I think about it, I think about the fact that, how many Australians are taking their children, climbing into rickety boats and braving shark infested waters in search of a better life? And yet, thousands of people are doing the exact opposite to come here. That's what I mean by thriving. Nowm it seems to me that that West experiment requires some kind of explanation. We know that it's not random. Millions of people are streaming through the southern border of the United States, dealing with Mexican cartels and putting themselves and their children in danger to go to the United States. Tens of thousands of people are getting onto boats and crossing the English Channel, which again is a perilous journey. And so on? Why is this happening? It seems to me that this requires some kind of explanation. This is not an accident. This is not an accident at all. But we seem to not really understand that anymore.

And I think about it like this. If I was to wake you up in the middle of the night and put a gun to your head and ask you why is this happening? Why is the West attracting people to come here? And we've got to a point in our culture where quite a lot of people would rather die in that situation than admit the truth. Which is our societies are better. I don't mean superior. I just mean they're better at producing in the things that human beings seem to want. Right?

Now, what are they? What are the things? Well, if you watch too many Hollywood movies, you say, freedom and democracy! Okay, well, why are they good? Why is freedom good? Why is democracy good?

That's the silence I'm talking about. It's the silence in all of our heads because we no longer are able to articulate the reason that our civilization is successful as it is. And I think this is a big problem. A big, big problem. The West has become -- I talked about this in my book -- it's a little bit like a cargo cult. Most of you probably in this neck of the woods know what one is, but I'll explain anyway.

During World War II, the Americans and the Japanese used many small islands in the Pacific to station troops to have munitions dumps, to station their supplies, etc. And what happened was the local tribes that lived there were fairly primitive technologically. They benefited massively from the fact that they were able to get access to Western medicine, Western food, Western supplies, clothing, etc. And their quality of life improved dramatically. And then the war ended, and the Americans and the Japanese packed up and went home. And the western food and the western supplies and the western clothes ended or started running out. So, what did the native tribes that lived on these islands do? Well, they saw what the Americans had been doing and the Japanese, so they started imitating. They made headphones out of coconuts. They made radio towers out of bamboo. They created fake landing strips and marched up and down with fake rifles made out of bamboo.

And this is increasingly what we do in the West with our own values. We say these words, freedom, democracy, but we have no idea what they mean anymore. We can't explain to our children why they should value those things, because we don't think about them, because we've been trained not to.

So, what do I mean, exactly? Let me try and articulate it in a simple way. People don't come to our countries and risk their lives for freedom and democracy. Very, very few people do. The reason people come is our society is very, very good at creating the things that all human beings want: safety, prosperity and the ability to choose your gender.

Now, why are our societies so good at creating safety and prosperity? I asked Jordan Peterson this once at dinner. I said to him, what is Western civilization? And Jordan did what Jordan always does, he launched into a 20-minute monologue where you have no idea what he's talking about... for the first 18 minutes, right. And then at about the 19-minute mark, it all makes sense. And this is what he said. He said, there are chimp troops, and in a chimp troop there two primary strategies for how an alpha male can control that troop.

The first is, you're the biggest and the most powerful and the strongest and you will dominate through force and power and brutality anyone who challenges your authority. And this is an effective strategy, but only in the short term. Only as long as you are the strongest, only as long as you are the most powerful. The moment you take your eye off the ball, you get injured, you're a little bit weaker, you're a little bit older, you meet with a very brutal end because another chimp or another couple of chimps will come in and they will tear your head off, right?

There's another strategy, and it's the reason that actually most alpha male chimps are often the smallest in the troop. And the reason is, that they are able to build coalitions by grooming the other members -- in a good way. And exchanging things, they build coalitions. And the first principle of Western civilization that has made us as successful as we are, what we call democracy, what we really mean is government by consent. The idea that the individual matters enough that when he's governed by others, It Is by consent. And this is very different, as you're probably well aware, to many other societies around the world.

Now this doesn't just apply to government. I'm not just talking about politics. This matters at every level of our societies. Our armies fight better because the soldier on the ground is able to feed information up the chain of command. In almost every aspect of our society, that freedom of the individual and the fact that the individual matters, creates better results and better outcomes,

Think about this. I mean, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine because no one can tell him the truth anymore. He was told that Ukraine would fold in three days, the Ukrainians would welcome them with bread and salt. That's not what happened, and while the war is not necessarily going that well for Ukraine, probably not going that well for either side, Vladimir Putin did not expect it to go like this. And the casualties and losses he's taken are completely unexpected. Why is that? Because in our system, our leaders are kept firmly on the ground. Their egos are kept in check and we do not create these power vacuums where one person controls everything. And we're not able to speak truth to power at all.

This ideal of consensual leadership matters in everything. It's the reason there's never been a Chernobyl-level nuclear disaster in the West. Because the kinds of human errors that were made in that disaster could never -- not never -- but they're much, much less likely in our societies because of the fact that the voice of the individual matters.

Which is where we come to the second pillar of our civilization, which is freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom of research. You know, it's so funny that people call me right-wing because I said freedom of speech matters. I kind of thought that was a universal position in the West, but I've discovered that that is now how it's coded. And the reason I think freedom of speech matters is that you cannot think without speaking. You have to speak to think. And when you speak, you will very often find out that what you think is utter crap. Because other people will tell you. This is Twitter in a nutshell, right? And it's this sharpening of idea against idea that is the reason that the Western societies have produced scientists and researchers and thinkers who've been able to ask and answer questions that you could not even raise in other societies. This is the bedrock of our success. The technological superiority that our societies have enjoyed through the ages are impossible to explain in any other way.

Think about this, and please understand I'm saying this in a morally neutral manner, it's just an example of that gap. Hernán Cortés arrived in Central America with a few hundred conquistadors, and because of his technological advantage, he was able to conquer an empire of five to six million Aztecs in a matter of years. That is the kind of superiority that we enjoy because of the way that we think freely, comparatively freely, because we are comparatively free from the dogma of religious control, authoritarian control, government control and social restriction, too, and cultural restriction.

So, these things have a very real and practical consequences. Did you see, by the way, how many of you have seen the Oppenheimer movie? Quite a lot of you. If you haven't seen it, it's a movie about the Manhattan Project, the way that the nuclear bomb was made. And if you weren't paying too much attention, you wouldn't have noticed that it being a Hollywood movie they sort of talk about, oh you know, reds under the bed, red scare, McCarthyism getting out of hand, and everybody was getting hounded for being communist. And right at the end, they just slip in the fact that actually it was Communists in America that gave Stalin the nuclear bomb, right.

And why is that interesting to me? Well, the first Russian nuclear bomb was called RDS1, and RDS stands for "Rossija dellajet sama," "Russia does it by itself." Which is ironic, given that it was almost entirely stolen from the Americans. The second greatest superpower in the world at that time could not produce it by itself. It had to steal it. That is the level of technological and scientific superiority that we in the West enjoy.

Now, please understand I'm not even remotely suggesting that the West has some kind of monopoly on genius and Innovation and creativity. It's not the case, of course. People have great ideas everywhere. The Chinese invented gunpowder. But every single development in the history of firearms since, pretty much, from the musket to the cruise missile, has been made here in the West. Now, why is that? The reason is that we have an incentive structure in the West that encourages people to pursue innovation in a way that is completely impossible anywhere else.

Now what do I mean by that? Well, again, it's a word that we no longer understand the meaning of: capitalism. But what capitalism really means is, private property and the rule of law. And it's amazing to me, the extent to which people do not understand in the West how rare these things are. There is no private property in Russia. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the richest man in Russia. And then he gave some money to an opposition party, and he was no longer the richest man in Russia. He spent 10 years in a penal camp instead. In the penal, prison system, right. Because he gave money to the opposition party.

I don't know who the richest man in Australia is, but I don't imagine if he gave money to the opposition party that would be the case with him. It's the same in China. Or, someone thinks maybe will happen, I don't know, things are getting out of hand here. The same thing is true in China. Jack Ma makes some comments about banking regulation, of all controversial things, and disappears the next day and all sorts of trouble. Bao Fan, this is a billionaire in China again, no one quite knows what he did but disappeared for a year, turned up a few weeks ago after a year of being completely unheard of, and miraculously resigned from all his positions.

Private property and the rule of law are rare and unique. Now, why does this matter? Well, if you don't get to keep the things that you create then the incentive is not to innovate, the incentive is to comply. The reason we innovate in the West as much as we do is we get to keep the benefits of our creations. And it's an incentive structure that means that we are of service to our fellow citizens. In the Soviet Union, where I grew up, or in Russia today the way you get ahead is not by providing or creating things that are of value to other people, it's by doing things that -- and it's not just, by the way, Communist societies or Russia today, it's corrupt regimes everywhere -- the way you get ahead is not by looking after the needs of your fellow citizens, creating things that they want to buy or they want to consume. You get ahead by pandering to the corrupt regime that's in charge. Or to the clique of people that service the corrupt regime that is in charge.

Capitalism is a way of aligning our incentives to create things that are of real value to our fellow citizens. And that is why we have the innovation that we have. This system drives our prosperity, and prosperity drives our strength and the stability that we've had.

Now, government by consent, freedom of expression and freedom more generally and capitalism, I put it to you ladies and gentlemen, that all three of these pillars of our civilization are under threat today. Not only from the outside, but also from the inside. We'll talk more with Glenn about it in the Q&A, but we've got a real problem with democracy for reasons that we can get into later.

Our young people are not being brought up to understand why capitalism is the system that has produced the amazing things that we have. And freedom of expression, I think we all know is being eroded. Why is this happening? Well, my view is, and I think this is well documented at this point, that we have two or three generations of people in our societies now who have not been taught the things that we've just discussed. Instead, they've been taught to hate their own societies. They've been taught to hate the values of their own civilization. Iit is no surprise, therefore, that we're heading in the direction that we're heading.

This is what Orwell talked about when he said that, he who controls the past controls the future. If we do not understand our past and where we come from, we will not get to a bright future that we want. And when you dare to bring this up, you know, people keep saying, oh you're so brave. I'm not brave, I'm just saying some very, very obvious things that everybody knows, that's it, right.

But when you bring this up, I think what people mean is, people say, oh that these are culture war talking points. As if a society's culture doesn't matter. We are where we are because our culture is special. We are where we are because our culture is unique. And so, the real message that I have for you tonight, and I hope that we get to talk more about this is, our culture is very, very important, and if people are going to call me a culture warrior ,well that's fine. Because I think it's worth fighting for.

Thank you very much.

The people who want to "destroy capitalism" also Tweet from their current-generation smartphone that they want free stuff produced by the same system they want to destroy, and don't think they sound like morons. The people who call the West evil and corrupt with the confidence of a Gender Studies bozo have never lived anywhere else, have no idea, and don't think everyone can tell. The people who claim to want to tear down their comfortable, safe, Western country are the same ones who object to immigration restrictions and can't see how braindead they are.

This self-hatred isn't humility, it's performative sadomasochism.

#Konstantin Kisin #western civilization #western civilisation #western culture #innovation #capitalism #freedom #security #prosperity #war on the west #freedom of speech #free speech #authoritarianism #religion is a mental illness

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