#Mercantilism

[racefortheironthrone]

Why do economists need to shut up about mercantilism, as you alluded to in your post about Louis XIV's chief ministers?

In part due to their supposed intellectual descent from Adam Smith and the other classical economists, contemporary economists are pretty uniformly hostile to mercantilism, seeing it as a wrong-headed political economy that held back human progress until it was replaced by that best of all ideas: capitalism.

As a student of economic history and the history of political economy, I find that economists generally have a pretty poor understanding of what mercantilists actually believed and what economic policies they actually supported. In reality, a lot of the things that economists see as key advances in the creation of capitalism - the invention of the joint-stock company, the creation of financial markets, etc. - were all accomplishments of mercantiism.

Rather than the crude stereotype of mercantilists as a bunch of monetary weirdos who thought the secret to prosperity was the hoarding of precious metals, mercantilists were actually lazer-focused on economic development. The whole business about trying to achieve a positive balance of trade and financial liquidity and restraining wages was all a means to an end of economic development. Trade surpluses could be invested in manufacturing and shipping, gold reserves played an important role in deepening capital pools and thus increasing levels of investment at lower interest rates that could support larger-scale and more capital intensive enterprises, and so forth.

Indeed, the arch-sin of mercantilism in the eyes of classical and contemporary economists, their interference in free trade through tariffs, monopolies, and other interventions, was all directed at the overriding economic goal of climbing the value-added ladder.

Thus, England (and later Britain) put a tariff on foreign textiles and an export tax on raw wool and forbade the emigration of skilled workers (while supporting the immigration of skilled workers to England) and other mercantilist policies to move up from being exporters of raw wool (which meant that most of the profits from the higher value-added part of the industry went to Burgundy) to being exporters of cheap wool cloth to being exporters of more advanced textiles. Hell, even Adam Smith saw the logic of the Navigation Acts!

And this is what brings me to the most devastating critique of the standard economist narrative about mercantilism: the majority of the countries that successfully industrialized did so using mercantilist principles rather than laissez-faire principles:

When England became the first industrial economy, it did so under strict protectionist policies and only converted to free trade once it had gained enough of a technological and economic advantage over its competitors that it didn't need protectionism any more.

When the United States industrialized in the 19th century and transformed itself into the largest economy in the world, it did so from behind high tariff walls.

When Germany made itself the leading industrial power on the Continent, it did so by rejecting English free trade economics and having the state invest heavily in coal, steel, and railroads. Free trade was only for within the Zollverein, not with the outside world.

And as Dani Rodrik, Ha-Joon Chang, and others have pointed out, you see the same thing with Japan, South Korea, China...everywhere you look, you see protectionism as the means of achieving economic development, and then free trade only working for already-developed economies.

[sprintingowl]

Leadbellies

Leadbellies is a 30 page tactical merchant mecha ttrpg set in a pastoral world.

It is the direct consequence of me watching too much Spice And Wolf while attempting to fall asleep, and it's about as cozy as a scythe.

Anyway, you take on the roles of mech pilots in a country that is recovering from the last war and carry goods from town to town, trying to avoid scraps with the weird holdout militias that are convinced that with another couple years of war they could totally win this time guys it would definitely be worth it.

Leadbellies uses d6s and a chess board and plays like red rover.

You have a variety of mech frames and loadouts. You can upgrade your mech. You can fill your hold with old bluegrass CDs.

I dunno what else to tell you. You've formed an opinion about the game by this point.

[gailhai1storm]

Ok so i want to take a look at the idea of "earning a living”.

first of all its a fucked up concept in and of itself, the idea that you only deserve to live baced off of the work you do, its fucked up.

but what fasinates and horrifies me about it is that I am willing to stake money on that I know ere historically the idea can be traced.

this is going to be long so I'm going to put a keep reading thing here

Im going to start with feudalism.

In a feudal system you work to make food to provide food for the people who are meant to protect you, the nights.

thats how its ment to work.

but it didnt really, well it did for a bit and then broke down, as does any system. In actual feudalism you were still paying the nights for protection via your harvest but not protection from outside forces or powers but protection from the nights themselves.

if you give us food we wont kill you.

the peasants were held at gunpoint to a deal that only hurt them.

so quite literally your wages, your production were your earn your living you worked inorder to not be killed.

now feudalism came to an end (slowly and there is more to it ill go into at a later date) but mercantilism took its place, especially in northern Europe and England.

Now im the most formiliar witht his transition as it took place in England because that's what I've been specifically studying for a hot minute. So we will use that as our case study.

In England there is a shift away from feudalism, this happens in large part because agricultural techniques improved and less people were needed in the feilds.

This decrease in need for labor in rural areas drives many many people to flood to the cities. These people in the cities are poor. Very poor.

So there is a mass flood of impoverished people who have no experience withworking in an urban environment, and there aren't jobs for them, and suddenly everyone has to see the poor people.

So how do the nobility and middle class cope? How do they justify this disparity?

Well you tell the same lie people tell themself now.

If you work hard and you "pull yourself up by your boot straps" you will “earn your living”.

Youll even be wealthy, so clearly these people who are destitute and have been forced off their land, by the same people who have been holding them at gunpoint for generations, who would not in a million years have chosen to be poor or destitute. They must be choosing it, they must be imoral, must be slothful, because why do you deserve to be comfortable and these people don't if they are working hard.

Now we are a deeply religiouse society, and immorality is obviously bad, so you want these people to work, because as a government you have to do something about it. Now you have to do something about it so you set up housing and governmental programs to help these people who are suffering.

But now the idea that these people not working has been ingrained as bad and immoral, so you make workhouses.

You make houses where the people work till they are raw, work sometimes till they die. You make houses were the poor must work, to stop being immoral, to deserve a roof and a vile meal.

And you are desperate, cause you cant make money any where, there is no other work, because you are poor so no one will hire you, because you must be immoral.

So you turn to the workhouses and you “earn your living".

So ye, the idea that you have to work to live, it is a vile vile thing, that stems from vile systems.

It is an idea that stems from systems built on suffering.

Everyone deserves to live.

[bongscape]

the other history teachers dont like me because, im not 'supposed to' refer to the suez canal as 'the biggest ultra shortcut this side of the atlantic' even though that clearly conveyed its importance

[nutmeg-puppygirl]

Playing through Assassin's Creed: Liberation, and its really weird that despite the main character's professed anti-slavery politics the opening act appears to have her...preventing a slave revolt? Because it happens to be associated with the Templars? (And the Assassins are loyal to the Kings of France. But that's from a later game.)

Coupled with the main character explicitly benefitting from agricultural trade in the Gulf of Mexico in the mid to late 1700s, which was dominated by unfree labor, and uh...oof.

[kramlabs]

The defense contractors (and Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Agra, Big Gov, along with all retail and tech) are all owned by the Militarized Index Funds descended from Anglo-American Whig Mercantilism

Central Banks (and now index funds) win every war and every election, and humanity keeps losing. They manipulate us, divide us and initiate crisis all for profit and control.

[juvenalesque]

I wanted to include the video here, but tumblr seems to refuse to allow it. I recommend watching before reading my article following. Welcome to my blog:

This video begins a very important conversation in a way almost everyone can understand. Each "different economic system" in our history has only been repeating the one proceeding it in every way: except for those minimum concessions made that are appeasement enough that the oppressed willingly accept the enthusiastic new way of presenting the roles and rituals of the ways of life. Propaganda has been effective each time more readily than the last for the ones who barely grasped to keep ahold of their power educated themselves & cooperated with more zeal to promote their agenda. Whether it be the religion that stands for building a firm foundation for the construction of loyalty or those that conveniently reach the same result while claiming freedom from the cultural constructs of religion, these power modules do not rest when it comes to finding ways to increase their benefit while never releasing a life of extreme luxury as to avoid any useful labor or participation in the function of society. If there is one thing they engrain into their ways it is a simple fact that the truest power is knowledge. This provides the knowledge that to divide is to conquer, to destroy unity and utilize discontented disorder for their justifications, or even to go so far as to allow large parts of the system to be pruned for the preservation of the desired organism. When you see an apocalypse, a war-torn nation of dust, ancient languages lost as quickly as the literacy of a nation of revolution, leaving way for the oath of new ownership called freedom. This is freedom at last. Never again, but every time. To obliterate anyone with a new way of looking at things so that we can bury our heads in the sand of cognitive dissonance for the truth is inconvenient. This is the history of the world, but it is our present. Colonization moved locations, servitude became employment, and loyalty to one another became nationalism/patriotism to the ruling class, and time to yourself become a luxury because if you have time to tarry you have time to think, & that makes you dangerous. If you have basic decency & kindness, you have brotherhood, & that breeds altruism. If you have United thinkers, you start a controlled demolition. The mistake always made by the masses is the one built into the training of every mind born into the existing world as one knows it: foresight becomes the afterthought. It is only by grassroots organizational patterns, voluntary associations, education on facts & commonalities of compromise that the human race can survive this time. IF humanity fails to unite with a new slogan, "Earthlings for Terra & Terra for all Earthlings" or a phrase of the same sentiment, then tick-tock will go the clock, & past stops existing in the present while the future is obliterated by nuclear proportion...possibly literally. People think about how their very presence in the past would change their present if they had access to time-space-travel, but nobody stops to think about how each thing they can do in the present has the same ripple effect on the future. Non-objection is compliance is to be complicit. Wake up every day and choose to always be open to new ideas and change your mind when presented with new and valid information. Maybe you'll be the most valuable piece in saving the world. Above all: be kind. You may realize that this short story also alludes to how our for-profit prisons have been used in this same manner, as we replaced ourselves with nationalism/patriotism, our ears perk at the posh remodeling of language to quench our thirst for peace with pleasant lies so we don't have to swallow the truth. We are not free. We all should be. Yet, just as colonialism never ended, now the capitalist ideology has implemented the military-industrial complex as a means to the expansion of territory and resources-- one of those resources being human beings.

[tribow]

I feel like when people are trying to make the point and shift the blame on capitalism they reslly hurt their argument.

If you blame capitalism you will imply the solution is change to a new economic system and that's a herculean task to say the least.

Like I get it, the foundational sructure of our society is flawed, but do you know how vague it is when you just say "capitalism?" Please be more specific, you sound like you don't know what you're talking about.

[salvarelsmots]

[ousarsonhar]

Depois que aluno virou cliente, a satisfação do cliente é prioridade.

A transformação do aluno em cliente reflete uma mudança profunda e preocupante na concepção da educação, onde o mercantilismo passou a dominar o cenário acadêmico. Essa abordagem mercadológica prioriza a satisfação do cliente-aluno, muitas vezes em detrimento do rigor acadêmico e da formação crítica e cidadã. No modelo mercantilista, as instituições de ensino podem ser pressionadas a moldar seus currículos e práticas pedagógicas para atender demandas imediatas e superficiais, visando mais à retenção e ao lucro do que ao desenvolvimento integral dos estudantes. Essa inversão de valores compromete a qualidade do ensino e ameaça o papel da educação como um processo de construção de conhecimento, reflexão crítica e transformação social.

Nesse contexto, o conhecimento deixa de ser um fim em si mesmo, tornando-se uma mercadoria que deve ser empacotada e vendida de acordo com as preferências do "cliente". A educação, que deveria fomentar a autonomia intelectual e preparar indivíduos para enfrentar os desafios complexos do mundo, corre o risco de ser reduzida a um serviço que precisa agradar, muitas vezes com soluções rápidas e superficiais. Isso pode levar a uma erosão dos padrões acadêmicos, à desvalorização dos profissionais da educação e à precarização das condições de trabalho dos docentes, que se veem forçados a adaptar suas práticas pedagógicas a essas novas demandas. Em última instância, esse modelo compromete a missão essencial da educação: a de formar cidadãos críticos, capazes de questionar o status quo e contribuir para uma sociedade mais justa e equitativa.

Referências bibliográficas comentadas:

1. Giroux, H. A. (2002). "Neoliberalism, Corporate Culture, and the Promise of Higher Education: The University as a Democratic Public Sphere." Harvard Educational Review, 72(4), 425-463.

- Este artigo discute como as práticas neoliberais estão reformulando as instituições de ensino superior, transformando-as em entidades orientadas para o mercado.

2. Naidoo, R., & Jamieson, I. (2005). "Knowledge in the Marketplace: The Global Commodification of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education." Management in Education, 19(3), 5-8.

- Os autores exploram como o conhecimento está sendo comercializado globalmente e o impacto dessa mercantilização na prática educativa.

3. Lynch, K. (2006). "Neo-liberalism and Marketisation: The Implications for Higher Education." European Educational Research Journal, 5(1), 1-17.

- Este artigo examina as implicações da neoliberalização e da mercantilização para a educação superior, incluindo a mudança do aluno para a posição de cliente.

4. Brown, R., & Carasso, H. (2013). "Everything for Sale? The Marketisation of UK Higher Education." Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.

- Uma análise aprofundada de como a educação superior no Reino Unido está sendo transformada por políticas de mercado, com foco na relação entre instituições e estudantes.

5. Williams, J. (2013). "Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can't Be Bought." Bloomsbury Academic.

- Embora seja um livro, este trabalho é amplamente citado e discutido em artigos acadêmicos. Williams argumenta contra a visão do estudante como consumidor e as implicações dessa mudança para a educação.

6. Frigotto, G. (2005). "Educação e a crise do capital: A escola pública e a mercantilização da educação." Educação & Sociedade, 26(92), 1377-1399.

- Este artigo discute a relação entre a crise do capital e a mercantilização da educação, abordando como as políticas neoliberais impactam a escola pública e transformam a educação em mercadoria.

7. Dias Sobrinho, J. (2010). "Avaliação, globalização e políticas de mercantilização: Modos de ser e agir nas universidades." Revista Brasileira de Educação, 15(45), 74-90.

- O autor analisa como a avaliação educacional, influenciada pela globalização e políticas neoliberais, contribui para a mercantilização das universidades e a transformação da relação entre instituições e alunos.

8. Gentili, P. (2003). "A mercantilização das políticas educativas: O laboratório chileno." Cadernos CEDES, 23(61), 39-57.

- Este artigo explora o processo de mercantilização das políticas educativas no Chile, destacando como a educação se transforma em um serviço regulado pelas leis do mercado e a consequente mudança na percepção dos alunos como consumidores.

Por Felipe Filgueiras Facklam

[racefortheironthrone]

Many of your economic development plans call for the LPs to climb the "value-added chain". In a late medieval context, what value-added product would give you the most bang for your buck when it comes to timber?

Timber is a bit trickier than the classic case of textiles (where there are more links in the value-added chain from raw wool to carded wool to spun thread to plain woven cloth to dyed cloth to higher-end fabrics).

The first place to start is to shift from timber (i.e, the harvesting of raw, unprocessed logs from trees) to lumber (treating and seasoning, and sawing the logs into standardized boards, planks, beams, posts, and the like that can be used by carpenters to make furniture, housing, etc.). This requires the construction of sawmills (usually water- or wind-powered), usually downstream from the timberland so that logs can be easily floated down to the sawmill rather than going to the effort and expense of carting them overland.

The next step is to encourage the development of associated industries like furniture-making, construction...and most prized of all, ship-building. These industries continue to climb the value-added chain, because there's more money to be made from selling artisan furniture than selling raw logs and more money to be made in real estate than selling planks retail, and thus they allow you to maximize your profits from your natural resources. More importantly, if you can get into ship-building, you not only make money from selling and repairing the ships, but it's a pretty easy step from there to branch out into commerce on your own account (since you are already producing the main capital investment that seaborn commerce requires).

This is why various forms of Navigation Acts were often a key strategy of mercantilist policy during the Commercial Revolution, because if you could make sure that foreign trade was carried out by your nation's ships crewed by your sailors and your pilots and financed by your merchants, that the profits from trade would be more likely to be re-invested at home rather than exported to someone else's country.

[sprintingowl]

All Wolf No Spice

It is pre-industrial Germany and you are a wolf. Through no fault of your own, you have obtained a large cart full of expensive spices. If you can sell all of it, perhaps you can pay humans to stay out of your ancestral forest and leave you alone.

(All Wolf, No Spice is a 1 page TTRPG about standing on your hind legs and trying to convince one or more humans to buy a bag of pepper.)

[hanban371213]

welcome back to hannah's history lessons, check the first tag for the first post with context

Book 4 - Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries - society, power and colonial dynamics.

Part 2 - Triumph of the States and colonial dynamics in the 17th and 18th centuries

At this time, the prominent economic model is Comercial Capitalism, where the main form of profit is comerce (in contrast, right now its financial capitalism, where profit comes from banks, and stocks and stuff like that). Within this model, various states started implementing Mercantilist policies, who had as a goal develop industrial production, as means of turning the country self-suficient, and the increase of customs tax on foreign products, to reduce imports.

England and France both had slightly different aproaches to Mercantilism.

French Mercantilism was characterized by the big importance given to manufactories, owned and controled by the State. France wanted to be as self-reliant as possible by manufactoring everything it could ever need.

British Mercantilism was more flexible, and charactertized for the valueu given to the navy and comerce, through the Naval Acts, that made it obligatory for all British products to be transported in British ships, making it so that Britain gained a big and strong merchant fleet. (different than from example Portugal, that just hired the British and the Dutch to carry their stuff)

With this, the French and British economies were able to become self-suficient.

France, Britain and the Netherlands went through a series of conflicts, caused by economic motives, at the end of which Britain ended up as the biggest colonial power, having annexed French and Dutch colonies in the Americas, Africa and Asia.

Britain saw itself on the agricultural vanguard after a series of improvements in crop rotation, the creation of enclosures by the big landowners(replacing the old traditional open field camps) where plants and animals were selectively bred, and also with the invention of new agricultural equipment. (Agricultural Revolution)

All internal customs tax were abolished, creating a single big unified internal market, alongside the creation of new roads and canals, and externaly British products impose themselves across the Continent.

Britain also posessed an advanced financial system, having created the Bank of England, that unified all of the old smaller country banks.

The textile industry was totaly mecanized, the metalurgic industry became the most important and was indispensible to industrialization, and the vapor machine and first motors were invented, making it possible to replace manpower with machines, this being the begin of the Industrial Revolution and Industrial Capitalism(main source of profit is industry).

All of this, the massive colonial empire, the agricultural advancements, the expansion of it's market, the advanced financial system, and finaly the industrial revolution, all of it led to Britain becoming an international hegemonic power.

Back in Portugal, we're suffering a severe comercial crisis. This is because our industry doesn't exist and our economy is entirely suported by re-exporting colonial goods, specificaly sugar. Said sugar just happened to be usurped by the Dutch(when Portugal was a part of Spain for a few years we were dragged into wars, the Dutch invaded the north of Brazil, took the sugar production to the Caribbean), and was later spread to the French and British. This, alongside mercantilist policies to reduce imports, made it so that Portugal no longer profited from sugar exports.

Amidst the crisis, our Minister of Finance, Count of Ericeira, decided to implement mercantilist measures, heavily inspired by the French model, focusing on developing manufactories to replace imported goods.

Foreign experts were hired to teach the Portuguese workers, privileges and subsidies were granted to the newly started industries, mainly textiles, company monopolies were granted, and the importation of foreign luxury goods was banned("Leis Pragmáticas")

By the end of the century the crisis was basicly over. However. Gold and Diamonds were found in Brazil. In THEORY this SHOULD be a good thing. Portugal was kickstarting it's industry from scratch with nothing, and this money should be a massive boost to develop the nation. But that is not how the Portuguese mind works. Portugal is like that stereotypical person who wins the lottery, and then proceeds to waste it all on luxurious goods. Now imagine if that person won the lottery 20 more times and wasted it all every time, and that's all of Portuguese history.

ALL of the manufactories were abandoned, why struggle to produce local when you can buy British textiles? The ban on foreign luxury goods was also lifted with the Methuen Treaty. 500 tons of gold went into the country, most of it immediately left, 3/4s of it going to Britain. Seeing his life work crumble and be abandoned, Count of Ericeira commited suicide.

Soon enough the gold and diamond mines are depleted, and Portugal is faced with yet ANOTHER economic crisis. The Prime Minister, Marquês de Pombal, decides to implement mercantilist measures to develop the country's industry.

He creates the Junta do Comércio, responsible for all economic activities of the country; he creates company monopolies; he revitalizes the abandoned manufactories and creates new ones; the bourgeoisie is socialy promoted, many gaining the status of Nobles, as to make it a more atractive activity; and the Aula do Comércio is created, the first comercial school in all of Europe.

With this, the national economy prospers again.

[schizzodoll]

Finally got the opportunity to be part of a mercantile!

[psychreviews2]

Object Relations: Fear Of Success Pt. 7-3

Accusation In A Mirror

The most relevant example of projection in politics was covered in the paper Accusation in a Mirror, by Kenneth L. Marcus, and he explained the conscious awareness of these tactics, the strategies involved, and their aims. "Accusation In A Mirror (AiM) is a rhetorical practice in which one falsely accuses one’s enemies of conducting, plotting, or desiring to commit precisely the same transgressions that one plans to commit against them...AiM has historically been an almost invariable harbinger of genocide. [It] has been commonly used in atrocities committed by Nazis, Serbs, and Hutus, among others. This is a peculiar feature, not of genocide, but of AiM since non-genocidal forms of AiM have also been ubiquitous with respect to other forms of persecution."

For many people, they can see a projection of this enormity if they pay attention to politics and watch news stories unfold with continuity, but what about people who aren't political junkies and are busy with their lives? Marcus described this odd strategy and how it can work with people who are unconscious of the motives. They all steer a population into a fear state where the only response is to be pre-emptive, which is ultimately an incitement for one side and a chilling effect on the targets. The goals are "...to shock, to silence, to threaten, to insulate, and, finally, to motivate or incite...[and] do unto others as they would do unto you..."

Leon Mugesera sentenced to life for 'inciting' genocide in Rwanda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABrVyinrD8s

The stigma surrounding Christine Anderson - True North: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ETB-y_FKds

Hillary Clinton Says Trump Poses Danger to America's Democracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ-N0dHJAaE

Clinton calls for ‘deprogramming’ of MAGA ‘cult members’: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DH3SgIY7S5A

Tucker Carlson - "Always trust your gut." - https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1727090631850492257

Brace Yourself For What's Coming in 2024 - Victor Davis Hanson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V6jH-6F6K0&t=630s

When AiM is first used the first effect that is intended is to shock. "No one tells Holocaust survivors—or a nation of Holocaust survivors and their children—that they are Nazis without expecting to shock. The same can be said of the inversive accusations leveled at Bosnians, Tutsis, and Copts." As mentioned on prior episodes where Social Psychologist Susan Fiske was quoted, there's an inherent trust in accusations in that people believe that they must be true, otherwise why would they lie? The target then is afraid that there will be a confirmation of guilt if there's a strong response to the unjust accusation, meaning the strength of the response becomes a confirmation of the accusation. Silence follows because the targets are "...afraid of seeming too powerful." The freezing of any response to the outrage is also a threat of being disciplined. "...Ascription of guilt carries with it the threat of punishment." As the freezing continues, the outrage of the false accusation can insulate because it is treated as a legitimate accusation. Kenneth described how "holocaust inversion has been protected from normal anti-discrimination enforcement by its ability to replicate or mimic the tropes of a dissident political discourse." AiM at this point can swirl around without too much violence until the perpetrators are able to legitimize their arguments. The difficulty is to be able to manufacture a danger to the population that Aim needs for incitement. False flags need to operate where people who are on the side of AiM dress up as the targets and they say and approve those shocking comments to bring reality to the false pretenses. "With such a tactic, propagandists can persuade listeners and 'honest people' that they are being attacked and are justified in taking whatever measures are necessary 'for legitimate self-defense.'" Something that is not in the paper, but could be easily inferred is the use of mentally ill people who can be incited much easier. If they can say those shocking things with ease, and even more, if they commit an act of violence, it can catch a population unawares and goad them towards pre-emptive attacks that are worse. "AiM is motivating or inciting. That is to say, AiM not only provides a reason or justification for aggression, as other less effective forms of incitement also do; more insidiously, it also communicates to the listener that it is necessary to attack another group in order to avoid having the same fate visited upon one’s own community...Other rhetorical techniques such as demonization can make mass-murder seem acceptable, but AiM makes it appear necessary."

Biden delivers address outside Independence Hall on 'extremist threat to democracy': https://www.youtube.com/live/XC-k-lhml4o?si=a96yknsZ44SGxhZF

Naomi Wolf: Joe Biden Demonized Almost Half Of The American Nation With Speech Meant For Unity: https://rumble.com/v1iklcj-naomi-wolf-joe-biden-demonized-almost-half-of-the-american-nation-with-spee.html

Laura Loomer uncovers Massive Conspiracy: Nazi Terrorists being Protected by FBI & CIA - InfoWars: https://rumble.com/v3gp88q-laura-loomer-uncovers-massive-conspiracy-nazi-terrorists-being-protected-by.html

Joe Rogan's Opinion On Patriot Front: "You Ever Seen Anything That Looks More Like Feds?": https://rumble.com/v188ksx-joe-rogans-opinion-on-patriot-front-you-ever-seen-anything-that-looks-more-.html

A New Development in the Gretchen Whitmer Kidnapping Trial: https://rumble.com/v3hzmfa-a-new-development-in-the-gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-trial.html

Why politicians, the military, governments, businesses, or even gangsters want to use any of these techniques is because they all want a monopoly of one kind or another, which is their idea of success. All the manipulation and bullying that one finds in school extends into the adult world. Corrupt people are always looking for an angle, and the unaware, the distracted, or the busy, don't know what's happening until their dreams start to shatter. Now that we have moved from the ancient past to recent history it's time to face modern politics of power and money to see how it can chase you down, even when you are living life inconspicuously.

Psycho-Political-Economics

"It's Friday and I'm mad as fuck...When was America ever great? Did you all forget that underneath my President Donald Trump we were the biggest producer of crude oil in the fucking world and now we ain't got no gas four months later are y'all serious?

Anybody else need their fucking Trump back? When was America ever great? We had gas. We had electricity. We had jobs. We had food. Now we sitting at home with no gas, some people no electricity, no jobs, waiting for a stimulus check, waiting on the goddamn extra food stamps. What's going on?

We wasn't going through this shit for the last four years. We were winning, winning, winning, winning and all ya'll sitting home being quiet and shit. Now somebody say something. Tell me why the fuck you support Joe Biden. Right now! Everybody want to get rid of fucking President Trump. What's up?

Look at this goofy ass shit. People ain't got shit to say no more, just sitting around like sheep, goofy ass sheep. All they can do is wait. All they can do is wait. All they can do is fucking wait. The Democrats tell us that they got a Green New Deal for 2030. You ain't got no fucking plans for everything to run off electricity in 10 years. You DO got a plan to fuck up everything within the next 10  years.

I want my goddamn Trump back...Everybody had a lot to say when Trump was in the White House. Ain't anybody got shit to say with this fucking old ass bum in there. Fucking about fucking country fucking up the economy. These motherfuckers projected that we gonna have a million new jobs, two hundred thousand new jobs, and where the fuck are they at? Probably two hundred thousand illegal immigrants that you motherfuckers proud about the border got new jobs, but we don't. We hurting in America!

Everybody quiet as shit! Where the fuck are the Joe Biden supporters? I can tell ya'll why I support Trump. Tell me why ya'll support this motherfucker? Ain't doing shit but fucking us up everyday, fucking us up...

When was America ever great? I guarantee you motherfuckers could wish you could go back to the day that Donald Trump won. That was a good fucking day. You might was mad in your fucking mind but I bet your ass was on the way to work. I bet you was on your fucking way to work. I bet you weren't standing at a fucking gas station looking for gas. I bet you wasn't waiting for a fucking stimulus check. I bet you weren't waiting for an extra $300 on your fucking food stamps. I bet you!

I'm pissed! The people walking around anybody saying shit. Everybody had a lot of fucking energy when Trump was the fucking president, a lot of fucking energy. It was never their plan for Trump to win. For four years they've been brainwashing ya'll to get rid of Trump so they could do what the fuck they want to do...

We right back to where we was four years ago! What part ya'll don't get? You made a mistake! You made a fucking mistake! 'Get rid of Trump,' stop Trump for what? We right back to where we was four years ago, drawing lines in the sand, people with motherfucking Russia, bombing the fucking Middle East. All types of kids coming across our fucking borders, all this shit to we're trying to stop.

Can't tell me shit better for you. You can't tell me nothing is better for you underneath your body. Not nothing is better for you. You sitting at home waiting for more fucking money on your food stamps. You had $300 worth of food stamps and now you got $800 worth of stamps that the Democrats want your ass depended upon them. I want to go the fuck to work, well I'm at work, but I want my motherfucking peoples to go to work! This is fucking stupid!"

SemoreViews "I Want My Trump Back!": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdqxwWXqRkA

In the modern world, as in the past, conflicts don't just appear out of nowhere. They come from people pursuing their self-interests and the interests of their family and friends. For example, in the micro you might witness nepotism and cronyism in your workplace. This can expand into alliances and cultures throughout governments and businesses and then spill over internationally. Summarizing from the René Girard chapter above, if you are in a weak position where you can't retaliate in anyway or fight back, you tend to be scapegoated and any aggression can vent itself on those individuals or groups through scapegoating. Boring contract disputes can suddenly be not so boring when the consequences are different groups turning to resentment when left behind. In economics, money is a form of power that allows one to access resources and relieve the tension of poverty for extended periods of time. If tensions cannot be released and if emotions can't be regulated, pathological behaviors ensue. Some people commit crimes, others turn to court systems, and if there are no laws that protect individuals, then gangsterism moves into the forefront, with politics being a legalized form of gangsterism. If all those avenues fail, especially if there is a violent incitement, war typically breaks out until a negotiation for peace can be arranged.

In the 21st century, economically there is still a 20th century hangover from the period after WWII, the rise of the United States, and then trade with Asia. Throughout this thread psychologically there is always one common denominator: People don't like being disrespected. The area that is not so common is for people to give respect to others at the same level they demand for themselves. This all relates to power and as the tables turn, the actor parts may change, but the complaints don't and are based on the same power differentials.

These cycles have been with us since the beginning of human awareness, as can be seen in the prior chapter on human ancestry. You can either produce what you need to consume, trade what you produced with others, or steal what you don't have through violent means. In the modern world, violence and theft has typically been denounced and trade has been considered the adult way of distributing resources. You can imagine the complexity of Freudian psychoanalysis and how everyone is trading with everyone else to satisfy libido, or cravings, which is essentially an energy exchange. Cravings always return but the ability to produce for oneself may not always be reliable, with the predictable mental health results.

As these cycles have returned again and again, along with war and strife, many theories arose on how to deal with conflicts. Almost all the theories involve some satiation that has to happen in the mind. When I'm hungry and I eat, I am satisfied for a few hours, until the hunger returns. If there's abundance there's a risk for addiction, and when there's poverty there can be a scarcity mindset and an escalating hostility. This is a tenuous balance where a people in an environment without social supports will want to save a lot of money, but then in order to earn a return they need to invest it in others, incurring a risk. As economies developed into the 20th century, tax and social support structures were developed from Marxist ideas as well as other older socialist ideas. Some countries went further with more centralized systems, but the fear of corruption has always hounded any centralized power scenario. The west settled for a solution where the government and the private sector negotiated repeatedly the different areas where it appeared that one side or another was best situated. Leaders in the private sector showed a distain for anything not related to the bottom line and they liked the simplicity of paying taxes so that others could deal with the homelessness, poverty, core social programs for education and healthcare, with cultural differences in each western country.

With the industrial revolution and the abundance that was offered for those who worked hard, some countries outperformed others. Some of this had to do with borders, domestic resources, and intellectual capital. Governments learned that if they didn't kill the goose that laid the golden egg they could get more tax revenue from less than 50% taxes rather than greater than or 100% government ownership. Humans are generally reward oriented and rationing systems tend to be jealous and miserly. In environments like the latter, motivation to work reduces, and since money is simply a medium of exchange, to decrease the limitations inherent in a barter system, less production = less wealth. This was a big problem for the Soviet Union, and as it collapsed, there were many triumphant theories on how the way of the West would influence the rest of the developing world.

The main Communist country that avoided that fate was China. Being very close to a similar fate as the Soviets, as seen after the Tiananmen Square riots, the U.S. went in the direction of working with the government, much to the chagrin of freedom protestors in China who complained about government corruption. The students protesting the government had sympathy from leaders like Zhao Ziyang who was the most supportive of liberal reforms and a successor to Hu Yaobang who was also in favor of market reforms. Unfortunately Deng Xiaoping and other party members felt threatened by the power shift. Deng determined that "'the entire imperialist Western world plans to make all socialist countries discard the socialist road and then bring them under the control of international monopoly capital and onto the capitalist road'; he stated further that if China did not up hold socialism then it would be turned into an appendage of the capitalist countries." The protest crackdown led to thousands of casualties, but the total number of dead has been an ongoing controversy. In A World Transformed, Deng was explicitly admitting the desire to punish when he told the U.S. that "China will persist in punishing those instigators of the rebellion and its behind-the-scenes boss in accordance with Chinese laws. China will by no means waver in its resolution of this kind. Otherwise how can the PRC continue to exist?" The protest never got the support it needed to overthrow the Communist regime, and the rest is history.

When Globalism was born - Jack Posobiec: https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1608528342843592706

From George H.W. Bush, through Clinton and the younger Bush, China did liberalize the economy but not without protections for the political class. By the time China entered the World Trade Organization, they were given most-favored-nation status by the U.S. which allowed them to setup a mercantilist system where they were able to protect their markets while having access to western markets under a system of slave labor that tempted corporations and owners of capital to take advantage of the increased profits. The loss in jobs in the west was dubbed the China Trade Shock.

China Trade Shock: https://chinashock.info/

Since that time, many trade experts could not avoid noticing the changes, including former trade advisor to President Donald Trump, Robert Lighthizer. He grew up in an affluent manufacturing area in Ohio, but then saw the devastation since the North American Free Trade Agreement and China's WTO inclusion. "We had lost millions of jobs and thousands of factories while wages had stagnated." Despite the obvious destruction that was happening, there was not enough of a push to reverse what happened. "The political establishments of both the Republican and Democratic parties, under the influence of multinational corporations and importers, were unwilling or unable to recognize their mistakes. Instead, they remained convinced that rather than protect American workers and manufacturers, government policy had to put them at risk amid a quest to maximize corporate profits and economic efficiency while minimizing consumer prices."

The difficulty of course is that cheap prices only matter when you have a good paying job. If you are displaced and have to renegotiate wages to a lower level, the result is that nothing is cheap. "While corporate profits soared for a select group of importers and retailers, many of America’s manufacturing companies were hollowed out—forced either into bankruptcy or into moving their factories abroad. And what about ordinary Americans? Though prices for some products declined, wage growth in this country has utterly stagnated since the 1980s—driven in large part by the decline of manufacturing sector employment. As a result, increasingly, working-class families must rely on two full-time incomes in lower-end service sector jobs to maintain the same quality of life one manufacturing sector income once provided. It is no exaggeration to say that American leaders traded the health of the US industrial base and the good-paying manufacturing jobs it supported for current consumption and little more."

Lighthizer was a trade lawyer and he felt that a more nuanced view was required that looked at how skills are developed and the variety of jobs available. People have different personality types, different levels of skill and intelligence. The new model always relied on cheap products from Asia while workers without a super value-added education in the area of high tech could only try to get reeducated or work more hours in service jobs. The manufacturing gap was neglected and in many ways it still is. "When all citizens—including those without college degrees—have a chance to be productive, it’s good for the country...International trade, like all economic policy, is beneficial only if it contributes to the well-being of most of our citizens, if it makes families stronger, and if it makes our communities better...I feel strongly that the course we set for trade policy must rest on a more complete and nuanced understanding of the effects of international trade in the United States—and throughout the world—than can be captured by the question of how much we pay for televisions and toys."

For many Gen-Xers and later generations, they found that when they left school that finding a job that matched their education was exceedingly difficult compared to what baby boomers experienced. They found little sympathy from economists and politicians of any stripe. "Advocates for free trade seemed to accept the growing distress in so many manufacturing-centered communities with the easy assurance of those whose understanding of the calamity was wholly theoretical. It was also hard to dismiss the sense that the proponents of free trade whose voices were heard the most were not trying very hard to see the reality of those costs in the context of the people and families whose lives were affected. Impersonal, inexorable market forces provided an acceptable fig leaf for the turn to globalization that was always the preferred course regardless." Since increased profits from lower wages, and wages being the largest expense on an income statement for most companies, owners didn't have a vested interest in changing their good fortunes. Profits are either given to owners in dividends or reinvested. "New jobs would develop in new industries that would grow. Workers would move to new locations. Government job training would fix any remaining problems. Everything will work out, they said and continue to say. By the time that it became apparent that everything was not working out and that there were devastating costs to many communities, most people in DC didn’t worry very much, because it was all happening someplace far away to people they didn’t know. Nothing useful could be done to hold back the tides of inexorable market forces. This was all aided, of course, by the fact that many in the Washington business trade associations had become far more concerned with the interests of importers than those of US manufacturers. The lobbying money was on the side of free trade."

Even more, popular presidents like Ronald Reagan were quoted all the time and used as a baton to bash critics of free trade, but "President Reagan distinguished between free trade in theory and free trade in practice. He imposed quotas on imported steel, protected Harley-Davidson from Japanese competition, restrained imports of semiconductors and automobiles, took on the overvalued dollar, and pursued similar steps to keep American industry strong during the 1980s. Indeed, after he left office, one group of rabid libertarian free traders said that he was the most protectionist president since Herbert Hoover. I can’t hide the fact that I always took that as a compliment...The costs and benefits of trade liberalization were calibrated relative to national interests and changing political circumstances. No one would have argued for free trade and economic interdependence with the Soviet Union."

Donald Trump Teases a President Bid During a 1988 Oprah Show | The Oprah Winfrey Show | OWN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEPs17_AkTI

In glib news reports of Chinese trade practices, many in the world ignored what was going on and focused on cheaper prices. The access to world markets for China was much larger than what China allowed on their turf for the rest of the world. "The reality is that it is a mercantilist nation that wants to impose its system on the world. It is opposed to the liberal democratic order and wants to put an end to American hegemony...The post–World War II strategy of reducing barriers to imports in return for the hope of new exports seriously went off the rails in the 1990s. The United States placed an all-or-nothing bet on free trade in the form of three consecutive deals. Since that time, we have seen the loss of millions of jobs and exploding trade deficits. The United States needs to insist on fair trade in our market and reciprocal access in foreign markets. Decades of poor trade deals have produced neither. We need a policy that assures balanced trade. We cannot afford to continue to transfer our wealth to foreign countries in return for consumer products. These are the realities...Extensive state ownership, enormous state subsidies, a closed home market, currency manipulation, rampant government-sponsored theft of intellectual property, and every other mercantilist practice. Trade deficits skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. We were allowing China, a foreign adversary, to use all forms of state-sponsored, government-organized unfair trade to run up a more than $270 billion trade surplus with us and to take US jobs in the process...The 'China shock...was so severe that even the usual advocates for trade started to get a little nervous."

Conservative critic of modern schooling and abstract economic theories, Charlie Kirk, had to renounce his old opinions because reality couldn't be ignored. "If I had to indict philosophical libertarianism, of which I used to believe a lot of this stuff, because it's young. It's compelling. You read Ayn Rand. You read Hayek, and some of it's interesting, and some of it I still agree with, but a lot of it is nonsense because it's an indifference to the result." The results of course affect the psychology of the displaced, which moves out of scope for so many globalist economists. "Between 2000 and 2016, the United States lost nearly five million manufacturing jobs. Median household income stagnated. And in the places that prosperity left behind, the fabric of society frayed. Since the mid-1990s, the United States has faced an epidemic of what the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have termed 'deaths of despair.' They have found that among white middle-aged adults who lack a college education—a demographic that has borne much of the brunt of offshoring—deaths from cirrhosis of the liver increased by 50 percent between 1999 and 2013, suicides increased by 78 percent, and drug and alcohol overdoses increased by 323 percent. From 2014 to 2017, the increase in deaths of despair led to the first decrease in life expectancy in the United States over a three-year period since the 1918 flu pandemic." For those who ignored those results, often by blaming the people for being morally inferior, there were other arguments about the benefits of currying favor with enemies to change their tune, but like in situation with Deng Xiaoping, the trade negotiations changed the West much more. "One hears about the need for America to use its economic prowess to gain friends and to influence events. We need to trade more—read: import more—so that other countries will like us instead of, say, China. For others, trade is really about obtaining the cheapest products for our consumers. For these people, if the result is the loss of manufacturing and related jobs, that is a fair exchange. Cheap televisions trump American factories." There was also an argument based on fears related to trade protectionism before the U.S. entrance into WWII. "Anything other than full-throated support for free trade was regarded as a throwback to protectionism and isolationism, as well as an invitation to trade wars."

Charlie Kirk: The CATO Institute Deserves No Seat In The Conservative Movement: https://rumble.com/v1n00vo-charlie-kirk-the-cato-institute-deserves-no-seat-in-the-conservative-moveme.html

Adam Posen and displaced workers: https://humanevents.com/2022/10/09/posobiec-ultra-capitalist-adam-posen-admits-he-wants-your-family-to-suffer-so-elites-and-ccp-can-get-richer

Gen Z chicks are finding out that their college degrees are totally worthless - Benny Johnson: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vT6FMnIj3C4

[1929crash]

Slavery then and Now

Votes are what repeal bad laws. Idiots are what reelect looter politicians. When China deported East India Company’s Opium Detail Men in December 1836, Britain sold off American municipal improvement bonds to rearm for the Opium Wars. Whigs blanked this out entirely and invented a fabulous fiction that the Panic of 1837 resulted from Andrew Jackson’s opposition to an opposition party central…