23 ms·

> There is no logic to economic nationalism, other than as wealth transfer from taxpayers to a few wealthy people. It doesn’t have to be that way, and phrased

by 9dev 2y ago

> There is no logic to economic nationalism, other than as wealth transfer from taxpayers to a few wealthy people. It doesn’t have to be that way, and phrased a little more benevolent, economic sovereignty is a good thing. It’s for that reason the EU has invested a lot of money into Galileo instead of just using GPS. Or look at the Ariane rocket program. It mandates an absurdly complex manufacturing schedule with thousands of European companies, effectively costing a lot more than just relying on SpaceX. At the same time, though, it creates a lot of jobs and distributes wealth throughout the union. Embezzling is a problem, and politicians funneling money to their cronies too. But it can be done differently.

kazen44 2y ago
Having your own manufacturing and industrial base is also very, very important from a geopolitical perspective. (as european countries have come to realise after the invasion of ukraine). you need your own industrial base to manufacture and develop the machinery you need to defend and project hard and soft power across the globe. Globalisation was supposed to "solve this issue" by making economies so interconnected that this would be no longer needed. Sadly, we have learned that that simply does not hold up.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > Sadly, we have learned that that simply does not hold up. We've learned that the world now is more divided and violent than we had hoped, with the revisionist Chinese and Russians on one side and the US Republicans on the other (or sometimes on the same side as Russia!) So we depend more on the military, and also we can't depend on China's manufacturing to supply military goods. But can the US depend on Europe's, South Korea's, Japan's, Canada's, Australia's? I think so. Also, efficiency is everything in the competition with China: China, with ~ 4x the population of the US, can outproduce the US with just over 1/4 of the US's productivity. The US must maximize not only volume but productivity. Adding the countries listed above greatly increases volume, and the US can't afford the productivity cost of spending on inefficient manufacturers - the US needs to maximize output per dollar.
  - philwelch 2y ago
    > But can the US depend on Europe's, South Korea's, Japan's, Canada's, Australia's? I think so. If our goal is to be robust against the risks of a great power conflict, we can't necessarily depend on manufacturing from these countries because a great power conflict might either overrun or cut off our supply lines to these countries. In fact, control over East Asian shipping lanes is the central point of the current cold war with China.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      I agree there is some risk for the East Asian countries. I think China would be hard pressed to stop all that production and trade, but certainly they could impact it and who can say what a 21st century war would look like? Still, it's a risk, not a deal killer. China could bomb US production too.
      - umbra07 2y ago
        China can't bomb American production unless we suffer absolutely catastrophic, unimaginable, WW3-escalatory levels of naval losses in the Pacific (because Chinese bombers from the Chinese mainland don't have the range to reach the American mainland).
        mmooss 2y ago
        I'm not sure that's true. The US can't defend an entire Pacific front, obviously, and has a shortage of ships, many of which will be busy doing other things. Anyway, I was thinking of missiles, which China has many of, and which can reach the US (including from submarines and other ships that can maneuver closer to the US).
        philwelch 2y ago
        There is close to zero escalation room between Chinese missile strikes on the US mainland and nuclear war. If we detect incoming missiles from China there’s a good chance the US assumes nuclear warheads and makes a retaliatory strike. That’s a real risk, but because neither side of a conflict wants to actually escalate to a nuclear exchange, it is not very likely that China will launch missiles at the mainland US. (Likewise I think the US is unlikely to strike mainland China.) Conversely, whichever side maintains naval superiority in the western Pacific Ocean can cut off any supply chains to and from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and mainland China itself, without the risk of nuclear escalation. And as I stated, this is the entire issue. If you control the seas of East Asia, you basically control the world.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  The US doesn't have too much trouble manufacturing things like aircraft carriers and submarines and 5th-gen fighter jets and missiles, and indeed builds plenty of those, even exporting some. It does have trouble building an icebreaker, but it doesn't need those very often, so it can't keep any company interested in the business when it only wants one every ~30 years or whatever. It doesn't make sense to spend a ton of money just to build one ship, when they can just buy it from Finland.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    FWIW, the US does have problems producing ships. For example, the US military and Congress very much want to increase the rate of submarine production, and haven't been able to do it. If you look at current news, you can see the desperate measures they are pursuing.
mmooss 2y ago
> It doesn’t have to be that way, and phrased a little more benevolent, economic sovereignty is a good thing. It’s for that reason the EU has invested a lot of money into Galileo instead of just using GPS. Or look at the Ariane rocket program. You haven't established that it's a 'good thing', but it does exist. I don't suppose Galileo is about economic sovereignty as much as strategic military independence. Modern militaries require satellite PNT systems - they are necessary to precision munitions, without which your military operates on a 1980s level. As close as the EU-US military relationship is, they perhaps don't want to give the POTUS a button to shut down, e.g., a French military operation. The POTUS might like Galileo too - they might not want the pressure to use that power. (I'll skip having another HN SpaceX discussion!) > it creates a lot of jobs and distributes wealth throughout the union Or it just shifts money and jobs from all people - the taxpayers (including businesses) - to a few, the ones that get those jobs and especially the business owners. It's arguably better to just give people the money and have them do something they can do efficiently. It's make-work welfare, in a way.
- 9dev 2y ago
  The point I was trying to make was that keeping the technological manufacturing expertise alive is valuable in itself, even besides the geopolitical advantage of having the system itself in place. By retaining the ability to get payloads into space and use as well as operate an independent positioning system, even if a political conflict with former partners arises, the EU can make its foreign policy decisions without fear of retaliation through technology dependencies—or phrased differently, we avoid being vulnerable to extortion. The key to this ability really is to keep the knowledge alive and the related industries strong, to be able to tap into it when it's necessary. And that involves having a broad range of companies actively involved into creating critical components.

by 9dev 2y ago

kazen44 2y ago

Having your own manufacturing and industrial base is also very, very important from a geopolitical perspective. (as european countries have come to realise after the invasion of ukraine). you need your own industrial base to manufacture and develop the machinery you need to defend and project hard and soft power across the globe. Globalisation was supposed to "solve this issue" by making economies so interconnected that this would be no longer needed. Sadly, we have learned that that simply does not hold up.

mmooss 2y ago
> Sadly, we have learned that that simply does not hold up. We've learned that the world now is more divided and violent than we had hoped, with the revisionist Chinese and Russians on one side and the US Republicans on the other (or sometimes on the same side as Russia!) So we depend more on the military, and also we can't depend on China's manufacturing to supply military goods. But can the US depend on Europe's, South Korea's, Japan's, Canada's, Australia's? I think so. Also, efficiency is everything in the competition with China: China, with ~ 4x the population of the US, can outproduce the US with just over 1/4 of the US's productivity. The US must maximize not only volume but productivity. Adding the countries listed above greatly increases volume, and the US can't afford the productivity cost of spending on inefficient manufacturers - the US needs to maximize output per dollar.
- philwelch 2y ago
  > But can the US depend on Europe's, South Korea's, Japan's, Canada's, Australia's? I think so. If our goal is to be robust against the risks of a great power conflict, we can't necessarily depend on manufacturing from these countries because a great power conflict might either overrun or cut off our supply lines to these countries. In fact, control over East Asian shipping lanes is the central point of the current cold war with China.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    I agree there is some risk for the East Asian countries. I think China would be hard pressed to stop all that production and trade, but certainly they could impact it and who can say what a 21st century war would look like? Still, it's a risk, not a deal killer. China could bomb US production too.
    - umbra07 2y ago
      China can't bomb American production unless we suffer absolutely catastrophic, unimaginable, WW3-escalatory levels of naval losses in the Pacific (because Chinese bombers from the Chinese mainland don't have the range to reach the American mainland).
      - mmooss 2y ago
        I'm not sure that's true. The US can't defend an entire Pacific front, obviously, and has a shortage of ships, many of which will be busy doing other things. Anyway, I was thinking of missiles, which China has many of, and which can reach the US (including from submarines and other ships that can maneuver closer to the US).
        philwelch 2y ago
        There is close to zero escalation room between Chinese missile strikes on the US mainland and nuclear war. If we detect incoming missiles from China there’s a good chance the US assumes nuclear warheads and makes a retaliatory strike. That’s a real risk, but because neither side of a conflict wants to actually escalate to a nuclear exchange, it is not very likely that China will launch missiles at the mainland US. (Likewise I think the US is unlikely to strike mainland China.) Conversely, whichever side maintains naval superiority in the western Pacific Ocean can cut off any supply chains to and from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and mainland China itself, without the risk of nuclear escalation. And as I stated, this is the entire issue. If you control the seas of East Asia, you basically control the world.
shiroiushi 2y ago
The US doesn't have too much trouble manufacturing things like aircraft carriers and submarines and 5th-gen fighter jets and missiles, and indeed builds plenty of those, even exporting some. It does have trouble building an icebreaker, but it doesn't need those very often, so it can't keep any company interested in the business when it only wants one every ~30 years or whatever. It doesn't make sense to spend a ton of money just to build one ship, when they can just buy it from Finland.
- mmooss 2y ago
  FWIW, the US does have problems producing ships. For example, the US military and Congress very much want to increase the rate of submarine production, and haven't been able to do it. If you look at current news, you can see the desperate measures they are pursuing.

mmooss 2y ago

> It doesn’t have to be that way, and phrased a little more benevolent, economic sovereignty is a good thing. It’s for that reason the EU has invested a lot of money into Galileo instead of just using GPS. Or look at the Ariane rocket program. You haven't established that it's a 'good thing', but it does exist. I don't suppose Galileo is about economic sovereignty as much as strategic military independence. Modern militaries require satellite PNT systems - they are necessary to precision munitions, without which your military operates on a 1980s level. As close as the EU-US military relationship is, they perhaps don't want to give the POTUS a button to shut down, e.g., a French military operation. The POTUS might like Galileo too - they might not want the pressure to use that power. (I'll skip having another HN SpaceX discussion!) > it creates a lot of jobs and distributes wealth throughout the union Or it just shifts money and jobs from all people - the taxpayers (including businesses) - to a few, the ones that get those jobs and especially the business owners. It's arguably better to just give people the money and have them do something they can do efficiently. It's make-work welfare, in a way.

9dev 2y ago
The point I was trying to make was that keeping the technological manufacturing expertise alive is valuable in itself, even besides the geopolitical advantage of having the system itself in place. By retaining the ability to get payloads into space and use as well as operate an independent positioning system, even if a political conflict with former partners arises, the EU can make its foreign policy decisions without fear of retaliation through technology dependencies—or phrased differently, we avoid being vulnerable to extortion. The key to this ability really is to keep the knowledge alive and the related industries strong, to be able to tap into it when it's necessary. And that involves having a broad range of companies actively involved into creating critical components.