I interpret it like this: A slaver whips his slaves if they don’t meet their quotas, while Trump just starts off whipping slaves and wonders why cotton isn’t magically appearing. Cruelty as means vs cruelty as the end.
But Trump doesn't care about those. He cares about being a robber baron. He's explicitly stated that the time of the Gilded Age is what he considers to be when America was "great".
Exactly, it's not an accident. The self awareness in this was that these policies have never been good for anyone. It's an admission from a neoliberal that neoliberalism is full of holes and operates less as a cogent theory and more as permission structure that has simply lost its usefulness.
It’s not. Invading countries for natural resources makes the invading country poorer as the cost of invading and occupying a country far outweighs the value of resources obtained from it.
This is partially correct. The raw material value is usually not worth he hustle. Most Western colonies weren't profitable which is the SOLE reason why they got released. In fact Belgian Congo which was the most brutal colonies ever, is the only clearly net positive colony. Unless you literally treat people worse than animals paying people a wage and have the care for everything themselves and less uproars are cheaper than slavery. Especially when it comes to higher qualified people. Slave like, but "free" people are way more motivated that actual slaves.
However:
1. Conquering Venezuela also allows you to threaten other countries into good trade deals with you.
2. Denying strategic resources to international competitors. The Monroe Doctrine ensures that no European country intervenes in the USA dominating South and North america. However, that one does not bind China. the USA is enforcing their grip on the region and forcing China out of the market.
3. You are thinking in nations. That is WRONG. You need to see capital interests separated from working class interests. If the working people have to pay 20 billions to fund the military and the capitalist class earns 1 billion from oil from it, that is a net positive for the capitalist class. And no, that is NOT only a plus of 1 billion for them. It is also another 10 billions for them. Who do you think owns the military companies that build the war machines that the state pays for? Crisis are the GREATEST tool of the rich to funnel wealth into their hands from the poorest to the richest and wars are the most easily orchestrated crises. Hence, the 1% are VERY interested in wars going on. For the same reason they are interested in the climate catastrophe, it allows them to sell overpriced band aids when the ONLY solution to fixing it is clearly abolishing capitalism as capitalism needs to keep growing faster and faster, which is not possible on a limited planet.
Conquering Venezuela makes other countries less likely to trade and collaborate with you, hurting growth.
The Monroe Doctrine is obsolete.
Most US tax dollars are paid by the wealthy so you’re wrong at face value, but moreover, what you’re describing is true (to varying degrees) of literally all government spending. The issue is wasting money on a war in Venezuela has far less return for both the poor AND rich than manufacturing subsidies, infrastructure construction, expanding welfare, and so on.
Sidenote: Abolishing capitalism would not do a single thing to solve climate change. The fundamental problem is most Americans aren’t willing to make any sacrifices to reduce CO2 emissions; this will persist in any economic system.
Sacrifices at the level of the individual are, at least at this stage, inconsequential in comparison to the absurd amounts of industrial carbon emissions. The american military for example is one of, if not the single greatest polluter on the planet. And thats just in terms of carbon emissions, not even counting absurd amounts of toxic waste they produce and just let seep into the ground & groundwater, like in Hawaii.
Individual sacrifices are only relevant when any degrowth policies are actually implemented. And again, those would still be ultimately inconsequential.
Oh, we wont just buy a new appliance anytime something breaks but we will actually maintain and repair electronics and appliances, what a huge sacrifice that is.
Not true. The sum total of emissions from regular Americans driving cars, going on flights, and heating/cooling homes is gigantic.
And why are you discounting industrial sources? Beef companies only produce cattle because American consumers want to eat hamburgers and steaks, and will not tolerate the price increases required to make the process more environmentally sustainable under any circumstances.
Blaming consumers for externalities is classic corporate propaganda. I'm no socialist, I believe in the emergent progress that capitalism fosters. But I'm also not going to sit around and be told that:
Externalities are my fault; while also,
It's anti-capitalist for me to want my government to regulate those externalities.
But that is precisely the corporate line and has been since at least the anti-littering campaigns of the seventies.
No it isn’t. Corporations are not pointing a gun at consumers and forcing them to buy pickup trucks and live in exurbs and eat beef. Those are consumer preferences and said consumers deserve the vast majority of the blame.
I quite explicitly didnt discount industrial sources?
Also, in the context of individual sacrifices, your example of car based transportation or heating of homes makes very little sense, because, in the context of abolished capitalism, the simple solution is broadly available mass transit. Like even capitalist countries are able to build up and operate, if theyre not beholden to the petrol lobby to the extent that the US is anyway.
The beef thing is sorta valid, but its also incredibly marginal. Ofc, not the emissions, but just the idea that some people wouldnt want to switch over to, idk, consuming chicken as their most common source of protein, if not moving to plant based all together. We see the trend even now.
What happens if we abolish capitalism but the suburbanites and rural people still don’t want to pay for public transit or allow more density near their homes?
Their dislike of transit and urbanism would not vanish even if they owned the means of production.
Most people dislike transit cuz its shit where they live. Thats one.
Also, they dont have to specifically pay for it, but its obviously much more productive for tax money to be spent on infrastructure as opposed to bombing other countries, so its not like the money is the actual issue here.
Most people who don’t live in cities are not interested in their tax dollars funding transit in other cities, see Pennsylvania’s refusal to fund SEPTA. That doesn’t change if capitalism is eliminated.
You clearly do not even fathom the concept of abolishing capitalism.
If we abolish capitalism nobody PAYS for public transport. We just build them. It is called democracy. When the majority of people decides to have public transport instead of individual cars, you will not have a car produced, hence you have to accept public transport or walk.
The Soviet Union still had fares for transit so you’re wrong at face value
Public transit is very resource-dependent to both build and run. What do you mean “We just build them”? Where do the resources come from to do so?
Why are you assuming socializing the means of production would make suburbanites suddenly decide to give up their cars? Urbanism and socialism are 2 different issues and they’re pretty unrelated.
So are military imperialism and prioritizing hard power over soft power but small-minded people like Trump and Putin don't understand such complicated concepts. They'd rather just take what they want and ignore any negative consequences, because those consequences won't affect them.
that is the standard response from the right. "Everything bad that (R) did is all your fault, and we will vote (R) again because you did not fix the mess fast enough."
Yglesias is a Democrat. He's not voting R again, he's voting for """moderate""" Ds and blaming the out-of-power left for failing to fix the government the Ds are part of.
No. He’s saying invading Venezuela for oil is a stupid idea that will harm both sides, but a lot of dumb leftists argue the US benefits from invading countries for natural resources.
Isn't it usually those who advocate for imperialism who argue that the US would benefit from such invasions? I usually see leftists arguing that as the reason why imperialists choose to do such things or that interventions based on "spreading democracy"/"stopping terrorism" are done for ulterior motives, not that they personally believe the US as a whole actually benefits from those actions.
Yeah, MattY is getting continually dunked on for this on various social media (for whatever that's worth).
It doesn't matter that this is shoot-the-messenger crap. It doesn't matter that MattY lived through the Iraq invasion and knows, from first-hand experience, that this is the sort of thing that the US has done before. It doesn't matter that suggesting that Trump somehow needed leftists criticize using force to take what you want for him to get the idea to do just that is fucking laughable. It doesn't matter that if MattY's belief is true, it means that he and all of the other talking heads need to immediately stop speaking (lest they give other bad guys ideas on bad stuff they could do). It doesn't matter that this is the equivalent of blaming weathermen for causing hurricanes.
None of that matters because, dammit, Matthew Yglesias's job relies on him not understanding any of it and so he will do his best to not understand.
The thing is, it will work in relative terms. The USA might not be richer objectively, but if every other country ends up poorer by a wider margin than the USA is harmed then that's all that matters in the imaginary game of number go up.
This is stupid. You are the stupid one. It is clear that Trump and leftists agree on a dumb idea which is that imperialism is the source of American wealth. The takes are bad and Trump is destroying the basis of American wealth which is peaceable trade and long term planning.
Eh, I don't like this take. It reduces any situation to "there is only one leftist take and one right wing take". It's tribal and immature. Mind you, I'm not condoning Trump's actions with Venezuela.
Leftist take: “The reason the west is rich is entirely downstream of imperialism.”
If Trump engages in imperialism and that makes the US richer (which it’s not clear it will), that has no bearing on the truth or falsity of the leftist take.
Nobody is contesting that imperialism can be a way for countries to increase their wealth. The take MattY is calling “dumb” here is the claim that the ONLY reason western countries are rich is imperialism (see: communist criticisms of Nordic countries)
Also: I don’t know why everyone in this thread is acting like MattY is somehow blaming leftists for this. He’s just saying it’s funny how Trump seems to have a similar view as leftists as to how growth happens (albeit with very different moral commitments springing out of that).
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Huh. It's almost like all that class warfare stuff is spot on. Weird, right?
Careful now you'll make MAGA chuds have a meltdown. The hissy fit will be one for the ages.
Wow, almost sounds like the "bad leftist takes" are correct analysis of the history of imperialist nations.
I interpret it like this: A slaver whips his slaves if they don’t meet their quotas, while Trump just starts off whipping slaves and wonders why cotton isn’t magically appearing. Cruelty as means vs cruelty as the end.
He’s never been very bright.
The point he's making is it doesn't work for national prosperity or the achievement of national goals.
But Trump doesn't care about those. He cares about being a robber baron. He's explicitly stated that the time of the Gilded Age is what he considers to be when America was "great".
Exactly, it's not an accident. The self awareness in this was that these policies have never been good for anyone. It's an admission from a neoliberal that neoliberalism is full of holes and operates less as a cogent theory and more as permission structure that has simply lost its usefulness.
It’s not. Invading countries for natural resources makes the invading country poorer as the cost of invading and occupying a country far outweighs the value of resources obtained from it.
This is partially correct. The raw material value is usually not worth he hustle. Most Western colonies weren't profitable which is the SOLE reason why they got released. In fact Belgian Congo which was the most brutal colonies ever, is the only clearly net positive colony. Unless you literally treat people worse than animals paying people a wage and have the care for everything themselves and less uproars are cheaper than slavery. Especially when it comes to higher qualified people. Slave like, but "free" people are way more motivated that actual slaves.
However: 1. Conquering Venezuela also allows you to threaten other countries into good trade deals with you. 2. Denying strategic resources to international competitors. The Monroe Doctrine ensures that no European country intervenes in the USA dominating South and North america. However, that one does not bind China. the USA is enforcing their grip on the region and forcing China out of the market. 3. You are thinking in nations. That is WRONG. You need to see capital interests separated from working class interests. If the working people have to pay 20 billions to fund the military and the capitalist class earns 1 billion from oil from it, that is a net positive for the capitalist class. And no, that is NOT only a plus of 1 billion for them. It is also another 10 billions for them. Who do you think owns the military companies that build the war machines that the state pays for? Crisis are the GREATEST tool of the rich to funnel wealth into their hands from the poorest to the richest and wars are the most easily orchestrated crises. Hence, the 1% are VERY interested in wars going on. For the same reason they are interested in the climate catastrophe, it allows them to sell overpriced band aids when the ONLY solution to fixing it is clearly abolishing capitalism as capitalism needs to keep growing faster and faster, which is not possible on a limited planet.
Very good point on #3
Conquering Venezuela makes other countries less likely to trade and collaborate with you, hurting growth.
The Monroe Doctrine is obsolete.
Most US tax dollars are paid by the wealthy so you’re wrong at face value, but moreover, what you’re describing is true (to varying degrees) of literally all government spending. The issue is wasting money on a war in Venezuela has far less return for both the poor AND rich than manufacturing subsidies, infrastructure construction, expanding welfare, and so on.
Sidenote: Abolishing capitalism would not do a single thing to solve climate change. The fundamental problem is most Americans aren’t willing to make any sacrifices to reduce CO2 emissions; this will persist in any economic system.
Sacrifices at the level of the individual are, at least at this stage, inconsequential in comparison to the absurd amounts of industrial carbon emissions. The american military for example is one of, if not the single greatest polluter on the planet. And thats just in terms of carbon emissions, not even counting absurd amounts of toxic waste they produce and just let seep into the ground & groundwater, like in Hawaii.
Individual sacrifices are only relevant when any degrowth policies are actually implemented. And again, those would still be ultimately inconsequential.
Oh, we wont just buy a new appliance anytime something breaks but we will actually maintain and repair electronics and appliances, what a huge sacrifice that is.
Not true. The sum total of emissions from regular Americans driving cars, going on flights, and heating/cooling homes is gigantic.
And why are you discounting industrial sources? Beef companies only produce cattle because American consumers want to eat hamburgers and steaks, and will not tolerate the price increases required to make the process more environmentally sustainable under any circumstances.
Blaming consumers for externalities is classic corporate propaganda. I'm no socialist, I believe in the emergent progress that capitalism fosters. But I'm also not going to sit around and be told that:
But that is precisely the corporate line and has been since at least the anti-littering campaigns of the seventies.
No it isn’t. Corporations are not pointing a gun at consumers and forcing them to buy pickup trucks and live in exurbs and eat beef. Those are consumer preferences and said consumers deserve the vast majority of the blame.
I quite explicitly didnt discount industrial sources?
Also, in the context of individual sacrifices, your example of car based transportation or heating of homes makes very little sense, because, in the context of abolished capitalism, the simple solution is broadly available mass transit. Like even capitalist countries are able to build up and operate, if theyre not beholden to the petrol lobby to the extent that the US is anyway.
The beef thing is sorta valid, but its also incredibly marginal. Ofc, not the emissions, but just the idea that some people wouldnt want to switch over to, idk, consuming chicken as their most common source of protein, if not moving to plant based all together. We see the trend even now.
What happens if we abolish capitalism but the suburbanites and rural people still don’t want to pay for public transit or allow more density near their homes?
Their dislike of transit and urbanism would not vanish even if they owned the means of production.
Most people dislike transit cuz its shit where they live. Thats one.
Also, they dont have to specifically pay for it, but its obviously much more productive for tax money to be spent on infrastructure as opposed to bombing other countries, so its not like the money is the actual issue here.
Most people who don’t live in cities are not interested in their tax dollars funding transit in other cities, see Pennsylvania’s refusal to fund SEPTA. That doesn’t change if capitalism is eliminated.
You clearly do not even fathom the concept of abolishing capitalism.
If we abolish capitalism nobody PAYS for public transport. We just build them. It is called democracy. When the majority of people decides to have public transport instead of individual cars, you will not have a car produced, hence you have to accept public transport or walk.
Socialism is just democratising production.
I guarantee I’ve thought about it more than you.
The Soviet Union still had fares for transit so you’re wrong at face value
Public transit is very resource-dependent to both build and run. What do you mean “We just build them”? Where do the resources come from to do so?
Why are you assuming socializing the means of production would make suburbanites suddenly decide to give up their cars? Urbanism and socialism are 2 different issues and they’re pretty unrelated.
So are military imperialism and prioritizing hard power over soft power but small-minded people like Trump and Putin don't understand such complicated concepts. They'd rather just take what they want and ignore any negative consequences, because those consequences won't affect them.
Ah, Matt Yglesias will never understand it, dude benefits professionally from not understanding, after all.
I used to respond to his takes with the Star Trek Darmok meme but with “Yglesias, on the toilet” as the text.
Delightful
You still have that handy?
No, but it’s easy to create one here
https://imgflip.com/memegenerator
Search for Darmok
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
He's a literal intentional moron. The perfect centrist to be a far right mark.
"Fucking Cassandra that bitch how dare she make this happen!" - Matt Y.
So... the leftists were completely correct in their analysis of imperialism, and this makes imperialism their fault somehow?
that is the standard response from the right. "Everything bad that (R) did is all your fault, and we will vote (R) again because you did not fix the mess fast enough."
Murc’s Law
TIL.
Yglesias is a Democrat. He's not voting R again, he's voting for """moderate""" Ds and blaming the out-of-power left for failing to fix the government the Ds are part of.
No. He’s saying invading Venezuela for oil is a stupid idea that will harm both sides, but a lot of dumb leftists argue the US benefits from invading countries for natural resources.
Isn't it usually those who advocate for imperialism who argue that the US would benefit from such invasions? I usually see leftists arguing that as the reason why imperialists choose to do such things or that interventions based on "spreading democracy"/"stopping terrorism" are done for ulterior motives, not that they personally believe the US as a whole actually benefits from those actions.
Trump reading 🙄
He's so close to getting it yet so far.
Yeah, MattY is getting continually dunked on for this on various social media (for whatever that's worth).
It doesn't matter that this is shoot-the-messenger crap. It doesn't matter that MattY lived through the Iraq invasion and knows, from first-hand experience, that this is the sort of thing that the US has done before. It doesn't matter that suggesting that Trump somehow needed leftists criticize using force to take what you want for him to get the idea to do just that is fucking laughable. It doesn't matter that if MattY's belief is true, it means that he and all of the other talking heads need to immediately stop speaking (lest they give other bad guys ideas on bad stuff they could do). It doesn't matter that this is the equivalent of blaming weathermen for causing hurricanes.
None of that matters because, dammit, Matthew Yglesias's job relies on him not understanding any of it and so he will do his best to not understand.
Trump didn't do anything wrong it was the leftists who kidnapped him. /S
Like these dumbasses would even recognize a "leftist take" if it slapped them in the face.
They don't even know what a "leftist" is because they think the most neoliberal take ever is indistinguishable from communism.
Centrists have a vested interest in never allowing leftist to thrive.
No, because we don't know if they're working yet and they probably won't.
Bad leftist take: The West is only rich because of imperialism.
Trump's interpretation: If we do imperialism, we'll get rich, so let's do imperialism on Venezuela.
If America does end up richer because of it, then the takes make sense, but I'd be surprised.
The thing is, it will work in relative terms. The USA might not be richer objectively, but if every other country ends up poorer by a wider margin than the USA is harmed then that's all that matters in the imaginary game of number go up.
That's not much of a comfort to people whose quality of life goes down.
We're both gonna be in that group.
That's what I meant.
Unfortunately, Trump does not care about you or I, so even if he knew this it wouldn't change anything.
This is stupid. You are the stupid one. It is clear that Trump and leftists agree on a dumb idea which is that imperialism is the source of American wealth. The takes are bad and Trump is destroying the basis of American wealth which is peaceable trade and long term planning.
How did the USA come into being?
Eh, I don't like this take. It reduces any situation to "there is only one leftist take and one right wing take". It's tribal and immature. Mind you, I'm not condoning Trump's actions with Venezuela.
That's where we are. Trump is a leftist. Matt Y pushing fascism for all he's worth again. Democracy lost.
No.
Leftist take: “The reason the west is rich is entirely downstream of imperialism.”
If Trump engages in imperialism and that makes the US richer (which it’s not clear it will), that has no bearing on the truth or falsity of the leftist take.
Nobody is contesting that imperialism can be a way for countries to increase their wealth. The take MattY is calling “dumb” here is the claim that the ONLY reason western countries are rich is imperialism (see: communist criticisms of Nordic countries)
Also: I don’t know why everyone in this thread is acting like MattY is somehow blaming leftists for this. He’s just saying it’s funny how Trump seems to have a similar view as leftists as to how growth happens (albeit with very different moral commitments springing out of that).