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That was the main argument for global trade already in 1914. France was Germany's most important commercial partner, and vice-versa. All German rifles had stock
by wazoox 4y ago
That was the main argument for global trade already in 1914. France was Germany's most important commercial partner, and vice-versa. All German rifles had stocks made from French walnut wood! All French locomotives had German-made tubing! This stupid mantra was repeated ad nauseam after 1991, too, with silly op-eds from Friedman and friends about how two countries with McDonald joints in both can't be at war and similar inanities. Surprise surprise, such wars happened many times since then (the latest being, of course, Russia vs Ukraine).
- FooBarWidget 4y agoA connected world is not a guaranteed sufficient condition for peace. But that does not mean it's not a necessary condition for peace. One could argue that without economic interconnectivity, Europe could have fought WW1 much earlier, or would have had wars much more often.
- madrox 4y agoWhile I ultimately believe you're correct (along with open borders and travel) I wish there were more rigorous proofs that this were the case. I think about the line in West Wing: "Free trade is essential for human rights...the end of that sentence is 'we hope because nothing else has worked.' ...Chinese political prisoners are going to be sewing soccer balls with their teeth whether we sell them cheeseburgers or not, so let's sell them cheeseburgers." While war and human rights are different, they're also pretty correlated.
- FooBarWidget 4y agoHuman rights is more than just political rights or speech. Hundreds of millions of Chinese lifted out of poverty is a huge win for human rights. When you're poor, you're not free. Having grown up with dirty streets and beggars, you can't possibly imagine how big a deal it is for me to see my hometown transforming into a modern metropolis, and how my grandparents-in-law (in a different city, in a rural area) finaly have... Wait for it... A fscking toilet instead of a hole in the ground, as well as free health insurance. To me and millions of Chinese, these matters much more than being able to vote for the president. A recent study by the Democracy Perception Index shows that Chinese feel that their country is democratic. But this is ludicrous, how can this be? It's because Chinese define democracy by whether they believe their government works for their interest and whether they yield good results, not by how their government is elected. It's not just propaganda; this result is consistent with earlier studies by Harvard and York University, as well as by my own experience on the ground. https://latana.com/democracy-perception-index/ https://latana.com/democracy-perception-index/ The concept of 民主 is much more in line with the 19th century definition of democracy, when the concept was brought to China. It was only in the latter half of the 20th century that (in the west) democracy became synonymous with electorialism. So, not commenting on any other countries. But in case of China, Chinese view democracy and human rights differently. I think we should let them.
- azinman2 4y ago[flagged]
- madrox 4y ago> It's because Chinese define democracy by whether they believe their government works for their interest and whether they yield good results, not by how their government is elected. I'm going to be thinking about this sentence for the rest of my life
- MrLeap 4y agoThat sentence stuck out to me too. It makes me wonder if the nature of America's representative democracy lowers the threshold by which our elected officials actually have to do a good job / serve the will of the people. They constantly fall short, even of the narrow interests of whatever their particular constituency is. But there's kind of a floor where we just throw up our hands and say "WELL THEY WERE VOTED IN" Do our officials receive less psychic pressure? Does the Chinese government work harder to align the populous' desires with their actions? Pretty fascinating rabbit holes.
- mrslave 4y agoStudy: Congress literally doesn’t care what you think[0] Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all. [0] https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/ https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/
- astrange 4y agoThat study is false. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-...
- 4y ago
- mlyle 4y agoInterconnectedness means that there's additional price everyone pays for (even a small) conflict erupting, and social ties that can disarm smaller conflicts before they get large. On the other hand, the cost of significant armed conflict is already very, very high.
- alldayeveryday 4y ago
- munk-a 4y agoInterconnectedness exposes your countrymen more to other countries cultures - it is much harder to war against a people who you can't paint as a demonic "other". I don't really think that the private industrial sourcing concerns have any real pressure to apply against war - those industries aren't the government and, even with modern supply chain minimalism, it'll take a while for one or two industry sectors to really cause widespread pain to an economy. Those personal connections across borders, though, those are the best defense against war.
- eastbound 4y agoThere are ethnic rivalries today in France. I’ll spare you the list, but lowly are paying with their life for some, and girls with their intimacy. It’s systematic in most big cities, anyone who hasn’t been bullied isn’t really living the diversity (spare me the “I know a guy and he’s very nice” – you haven’t lived the real diversity, the unchosen one). Sometimes, when it doesn’t touch you, you have some fancy theoretical poetry about it; the closer you are, the more you notice how the other is, indeed, wow, gruesome. Not all cultures can mix.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> wish there were more rigorous proofs It's a deep area of research with conflicting results [1][2]. [1] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.854.279&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.85... [2] https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=oRbfdWw4ozUC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=trade+peace&ots=V88GyEeV6Q&sig=-GXryKM6MFf80INx-dtkfe-q73w#v=onepage&q=trade%20peace&f=false https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=oRbfdWw4ozUC&oi=...
- IfOnlyYouKnew 4y agoAh... West Wing. Even the cynicism was better than it is in reality.
- makin17 4y agoI would not go so far as to call selling our time to produce what ads and marketing create demand for as free trade. Polls show little interest in making McDoubles and tons of interest in healthcare and education jobs. Somehow there’s always financing for cheap consumer jobs while costly jobs face more uncertainty: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1505597901011005442 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1505597901011005442 The market is unfalsifiable like a religion now. Free trade is captured by rent seekers who believe past success in one special context makes them the best person to handle any context. The memes are no longer based in historical religion, but the lack of critical challenge and blind allegiance to normal humans self aggrandizing story, being dictated at by they who live privileged lives far away is as traditional as it gets. I’d like to see a rescope of political power that better conforms to where all this value comes from: https://www.unlv.edu/news/article/future-american-city-state https://www.unlv.edu/news/article/future-american-city-state https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700 https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the... Coddling certain sensibilities and foisting nostalgia driven politics on the masses, tacit ageism towards youth through hand me down gossip and schooling of industrialist owners who need cheaper labor, are hardly hallmarks of a free society. We moved manufacturing into rural areas a century ago seeking cheaper labor, then overseas for the same reason. Human agency is dictated by financiers empowered by political tradition. There’s no theory I know of that concludes they are absolutely making sound choices for anyone but themselves. The blind faith in grand schemes thing has got to go.
- christkv 4y agoEh have you looked at the list of wars in Europe in the 19th century?
- FooBarWidget 4y agoWell multiply that by 3x if there were no interconnectedness.
- BurningFrog 4y agoAs I recall, it was much less that previous centuries. I'd start the 19th century after the Napoleon wars for this argument, of course.
- nautilius 4y agoEasily disproven by all the countries that were not constantly at war despite low connectedness. In the (absurd) limit: There was no war between Australia and the Roman Empire in 100BC. More practical: existence of a Cold War in the 20th century.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- abledon 4y agomore interconnectedness = less % chance of war not absolute 0 % chance of war
- systemvoltage 4y agoI like how everyone here is doing precise statistics on something so imprecise as geopolitics.
- alldayeveryday 4y ago> more interconnectedness = less % chance of war What evidence do you have to make this claim? A simple thought experiment proves the counter. Let's say there is a population on one island, and another population on another island, and these populations have no way of reaching each other or even knowing of each others existence. These not-connected populations are guaranteed not to go to war. However, give one of them the means of reaching the other population, and most assuredly the chance of war has gone up not down.
- avh02 4y agoIf you like ad absurdum arguments: if you connect the countries together so much, they eventually decide to become one country and the chance of war goes down, not up (excluding civil war)
- shlurpy 4y agoI don't think they like ad absurdum arguments. But without systematic evidence, there is not way to determine if if such an argument is actually any less valid then the initial claim.
- hinkley 4y agoAustria, World War II. Some people saw annexation, others saw reunification, others still saw a bunch of cowards surrendering without firing a single shot. With all of these things, context matters. If memory serves, Austria being an independent state was one of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, so if that had been the last act instead of the opening chapter, there still would have been hell to pay. Perhaps not on a par with Caesar crossing the Rubicon, but definitely starting something that requires a resolution.
- andruby 4y agoHow many more wars would there have been without this interconnectedness?
- lazide 4y agoWhen we find a solid way to A/B test the universe, we might know. Otherwise, good luck!
- gumby 4y agoYou can and should have both. It's a form of defense at depth. The theory of comparative advantage (David Ricardo) means it's worth specializing. But the counter argument (local resiliency) is also important -- but it may mean less efficiency in the short run, as a kind of investment against risk. All that is fine, but it opens up the opportunity for short-sighted decisions (basically a mercantilist view that exports = good and imports = bad) like tariffs to protect local mfrs (which removes incentives for them to be efficient). In short, like everything in life, there's not a sharp decision.
- BurningFrog 4y agoThis is the same logic that because some vaccinated people get Covid, vaccines are stupid and don't work.
- thomasz 4y agoIt is actually pretty easy to provide a proof of effectiveness for vaccines. The theory of peace through interconnected and colonies is more complicated. All we have are arguments, and these are not even that convincing. Every trade connection requires compromise, and risks one party feeling taken advantage off. Often rightfully so.
- nradov 4y agoMcDonald's is now leaving Russia. A local company is taking over operations there and will operate under a different brand name. https://www.npr.org/2022/05/16/1099079032/mcdonalds-leaving-russia https://www.npr.org/2022/05/16/1099079032/mcdonalds-leaving-...
- shlurpy 4y agoThe McDonald's leaving thing was always totally absurd to me for this reason. There are real examples of economic dependence that could and do cause problems. The owners withdrawing ownership though is a pure benefit to Russia. Threemployees get paid by the customers and get supplies from suppliers and all of that is totally unaffected. The only thing that changes is they pay less money to American buisness owners, so if anything, pay might go up or prices might drop as less is skimmed off the top.
- jhgb 4y agoHow is it a benefit? I somehow doubt that with the supply chains interrupted, the new owners will be anywhere as efficient at their business as their predecessors.
- rowanajmarshall 4y agoAnd in 1812 the UK was the US's biggest trading partner. And that created major tensions in the US, with New England almost threatening secession over it. But the war still happened.
- mywittyname 4y agoThe economic relationship between New England and the UK had historically been adversarial up to this point in time. New England was in direct competition with the UK, as both regions were industrial and educated. The monarchy did everything in their power to starve New England of the resources and tradesmen they needed to succeed. This is in contrast to the rest of the USA, which was supplying raw resources for industry. Trade needs to be fair and mutually beneficial.
- verve_rat 4y agoIn 1812 the monarchy of the UK wasn't doing shit. The Government of the UK called the shots.
- mgfist 4y agoIf Taiwan didn't have the world's most advanced semiconducter industry, which China (and all other nations) rely on, China would have long ago attacked it. So that's an easy example of how trade helps keeps peace.
- shlurpy 4y agoCounterfactual imaginings make for poor evidence. But ideology can make a fool of anyone.
- noselasd 4y agoThat's a made up scenario, it provides no example. We don't know what china would or wouldn't have done in that situation. One may as well argue if Taiwan didn't have the world's most advanced semiconducter industry, it would have voulentarely joined China.
- colechristensen 4y agoThe economic sanctions against Russia really do seem to be creating quite a lot of internal pressure to stop the war in Ukraine which is not going so well. Without those sanctions, it is quite conceivable that a troubled war effort would not be nearly so much of a problem, but because of the trade dependency Russia feels quite threatened by the consequences of war. Not enough to have prevented it in the first place, but they overreaced.
- Dma54rhs 4y agoIts the same for Ukrainians since EU big powers want the end of war because of economies even if it means Ukraine giving away their territories. You could argue without globalism and a lot of trade that pressure wouldn't exist.
- eastbound 4y agoEntering war in 1914, one of the French traditional soldier costume included bright red pants (that made them easy to spot and shoot into on the field). The dye came from Germany. And it was very cheap!
- mike_hock 4y agoSee, that's the problem with franchises. If every McDonald's was run directly by McDonald's HQ, then surely McDonald's would have pressured Putin not to attack Ukrainian cities with McDonald's restaurants in them.
- ISL 4y agoMcDonald's has the same incentives with a franchise system -- the parent makes money when the franchisees thrive.
- jhgb 4y agoI'd like to think, though, that today's economic connections are less replaceable than wooden stocks or steel tubes. Try replacing modern electronics with local resources when you're Russia, for example.
- labrador 4y agoFriedman launched what I call Friedmanism: The belief that vapid and banal observations are the best way to understand the world. His McDonald's observation launched a thousand opinion writers to imitate him
- roguas 4y agoYour analysis is incomplete at this point. We do not know what will be the outcome of war. How long will sanctions and general isolation of Russia hold and what that might result in. Perhaps it will(as it seems now, also) be seen as catastrophic mistake. Like Russia selling Alaska to US. My point is, it is way to early to tell and even if we knew the outcome: we have to have few events/outcomes like that for them to become an example of mistake to not make. Generally countries can do whatever, despite all. It is more important we deter them and have tools to do that as broader "world" community. Otherwise we would have to forcefully own "other" countries to secure such peace.