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It's not just Americans, look at what's happening in England right now after Brexit. Most people have a very shallow understanding of where things come from. As

It's not just Americans, look at what's happening in England right now after Brexit. Most people have a very shallow understanding of where things come from. Ask them where their phone came from and they'll say it was made in China but that's not the whole truth. I had this argument with an individual who claimed to be "anti-collectivist" whatever the fuck that means. He claimed he wanted to live in a society where everyone was free to be individuals. I retorted that in this current age of manufacture its impossible. I said, if you want to truly independent then try to build a computer from scratch, and I don't mean from off the shelf components. I mean, fabricate every component from scratch. He responded that's impossible because I don't have the resources to build the ICs and dies required. I said then you can't be anti-collectivist because you exist as a member of a collective that produces products that are readily available for you to consume, you are therefore as much a member of the collective as anyone else, if you want to go be an individual then give up technology and live off the land.

eucryphia 5y ago
Read up on the 'socialist calculation debate' and you'll find what he meant. 40 million Chinese were murdered before Deng ditched 'collectivism'.
exporectomy 5y ago
If you look up what collectivism means, I think that entire conversation will become clear to you.
orwin 5y ago
Collectivism is a take on a Marxist "To everyone from his means to everyone to his needs". Their is multiple ways of doing this, the ordo-liberal + socialist way (You give up to XXXX€/month to every handicapped adult, depending on his handicap), or the marginalist (pre-1920 capitalism from Menger and Walras) + communist way, which is what USSR under Stalin attempted with no success and china did with great failure. It is deeply rooted in general equilibrium model theory (Again, read Walras) and suppose that a perfect market balance exist (theoretically true), and that the State can organize it. More modern takes on marginalism make the assumption that as market are chaotic, only deregulation can lead to true market balance but as that was tested 150 years ago and did not work, it feel to a lot of young economists that general balance is oversimplified and is pretty much useless in real life, although partial equilibrium might be attainable (MIRAGE) in microeconomics. Macroeconomics are complicated, tied politically, nobody really understand it, no even macroeconomists, but everyone fake it enough. If economy interest you, you should read economists books (commented, because those are hard to understand), probably from Adam Smith and upward, and notice each of them turn their comprehension of previous to their political advantage (Hello Mankiw!). Its basically the same work ethics as continental philosophy, maybe even worse.

eucryphia 5y ago

Read up on the 'socialist calculation debate' and you'll find what he meant. 40 million Chinese were murdered before Deng ditched 'collectivism'.

exporectomy 5y ago

If you look up what collectivism means, I think that entire conversation will become clear to you.

orwin 5y ago

Collectivism is a take on a Marxist "To everyone from his means to everyone to his needs". Their is multiple ways of doing this, the ordo-liberal + socialist way (You give up to XXXX€/month to every handicapped adult, depending on his handicap), or the marginalist (pre-1920 capitalism from Menger and Walras) + communist way, which is what USSR under Stalin attempted with no success and china did with great failure. It is deeply rooted in general equilibrium model theory (Again, read Walras) and suppose that a perfect market balance exist (theoretically true), and that the State can organize it. More modern takes on marginalism make the assumption that as market are chaotic, only deregulation can lead to true market balance but as that was tested 150 years ago and did not work, it feel to a lot of young economists that general balance is oversimplified and is pretty much useless in real life, although partial equilibrium might be attainable (MIRAGE) in microeconomics. Macroeconomics are complicated, tied politically, nobody really understand it, no even macroeconomists, but everyone fake it enough. If economy interest you, you should read economists books (commented, because those are hard to understand), probably from Adam Smith and upward, and notice each of them turn their comprehension of previous to their political advantage (Hello Mankiw!). Its basically the same work ethics as continental philosophy, maybe even worse.