Everyone thought that as new countries got richer, they would follow in the steps of western values (democracy, free markets, etc.). Yet, all we really achieved is to fund the CCP. And now they're not letting investors get their money out and they're putting military bases where they swore they would never. Great.

Of course, the world is more "equal" in general, but not in the concrete edge cases. For already developed countries, it's a nightmare that destroyed the industry and the middle class. For developing countries, it's a nightmare where a powerful few (CCP) have more resources than ever to suppress their people and relinquish power.

The only way forward is back. Let's keep the diversity and the share of information and progress. Let's reverse the economic dependency hell we've cornered ourselves into.

P.D: I have nothing but sympathy for the Chinese people. I admire their resolve and creativity. I hate the CCP and how people all over the world have come to relativize even our core values as a society (democracy, freedom of speech, etc). We're really close to a middle-ages screw up if we don't remember what we stand for.

Maybe the markets enthusiasts were sold that idea, but even if I was too young to be into politics, I do remember that some circles (leftist) were pretty skeptical of the globalization push, which was seen as imperialism and a way for the elites to enrich themselves. After all these years, not only the pro-market camp's promises didn't came true, but maybe the chinese were also keen to participate trying not to come too affected by the imperialism.

This is the key idea that has failed: the idea that prosperity equals or leads to social liberalism and human rights, or that the two are interdependent.

This idea appears to be wrong, having been disproven by China.

Totalitarianism and prosperity can co-exist just fine. Totalitarianism and capitalism can even co-exist to a degree, with the totalitarian tendency to kneecap the extremely wealthy being outweighed by the totalitarian ability to forcibly suppress workers' rights movements and pushes for higher wages. Totalitarians can also backstop the economy, stepping in in the event of a crash and forcing number to go up by edict. That benefits the investor class at the expense of the working class by effectively writing down wages and inflating assets.

This means utilitarian arguments for freedom and human rights fail. That's a big deal and undermines at least a half century of libertarian and neoliberal talking points. It means human rights must be argued for on purely spiritual, moral/ethical, or hedonic grounds, not utilitarian grounds.

I think the collapse of this key idea is as much a driver of the global push-back against globalism as working class economic concerns and cultural xenophobia, if not more. Human beings are philosophical beings and coherent narratives and ideas matter to us. When China showed that you could have totalitarianism and prosperity, the bottom fell out of the argument for the whole project.

I didn't believe this until the lockdown. Being told what to do is something that makes you instantly appreciate freedom.

There will always be revolt, given enough time. CCP have outdone themselves in that department though. They've learnt from USSR and Cuba.

In USSR/Cuba people know. They talk to outsiders and realize the don't live like they're better. China has learnt and told their citizens that they're bullied everywhere so the CCP was made to protect them. Genius really.

That is fucking scary. We have invented a set of technologies that could be used to create an un-overthrowable dictatorship and permanently enslave the human race... to get people to click ads.

Of course, with time, any approach expires. The new approach is lacking. Not surprising considering the finger-picked positions.

Certain extreme expressions of subjective human freedom can harm people more broadly. Someone building an atomic bomb in their basement is a threat to my human rights, as is a company blowing unfiltered coal smoke all over my town. Enough people emitting enough fossil CO2 globally might threaten the rights (and damage the property) of a vast number of people. Enough people refusing to vaccinate might even be a threat (though this has to be evaluated carefully), since they're increasing my odds of contracting a disease.

Balancing absolute freedom with human rights and the broader experience of liberty and prosperity is as we would say an "AI hard problem." There exists no simple set of rules that when followed will always yield a positive result. It requires a continuous input of fully engaged intelligence and a continuous deliberative political process.

What we can say is that certain things do not do this. One-party totalitarian surveillance states, grievance-based populism, fascism, or Russia-style mafia-theocracy do not do this.

If the economy is good, then yes.

If the circumstances are daring enough, then yes.

Otherwise no

The only thing that could challenge that is:

1) World war (please no)

2) China is chopped up (but that's why they crack down on Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc)

So I think we might see another rebranding about what it means to be the n1 economy. Or they might come up with a new metric hehe.

The fact of the matter is that China's rule won't last long because:

1) It's governed by a bunch of hand picked corrupt and ignorant bunch called the CCP (although they've done propaganda and brainwashing far better than the USSR, I'll give them that)

2) There's a demographic bomb incoming for China (not enough children).

Second, we should not hope that an opponent does worse than us to make us look better but we should simply better ourselves in the first place. Currently I'm seeing only decline and disunity in the western civilization, very short term thinking and lack of vision, but I'm aware that's just a phase that is possible to flip anytime.

The question is whether they will fall soon enough

This lack of immigration probably wouldn't be easily reversed, because Chinese governance and perhaps culture aren't well suited to absorbing heterogeneous groups.

IMO China doesn't need immigration to survive the demographic crisis, it needs excess labour to manage the transition, declining / smaller total population is the goal - simply too many people right now. Tons of labour can be arbitraged between poor and rich provinces or imported from poorer neighbors on remittance basis without the massive welfare commitments of immigration. Western countries with comprehensive social welfare systems sustained by massive immigration have greater risk of collapse - note all the protests happening in first world countries due to system already fraying. Versus China where the bottom 50% will incrementally improve because they're barely above poverty in the first place. The income gap is so massive that it takes relative less resource redistribution to maintain stability. When 600M / 40% of the population accounts for 7% national GDP, a few years of "slow" national growth @5% generates enough wealth to increase their welfare by 40%. Compared to west where all signs indicate each generation will struggle more than the previous, combined with massive immigration and you have recipe for political instability. Unsustainable social safety net and demographic change due to immigration is as much of a ticking time bomb as declining demographics.

The western world can't. The world is only so big and the remaining sites of refuge for cheap, exploitable labor and Potemkin regulatory regimes are few. Almost any alternative place you might cite is either already beholden to China (the viable parts of Africa) or too unstable (due to endemic corruption, external threats, etc.) to risk.

Insourcing is obviously out of the question; the wealthy Western establishment is violently intolerant of industrial expansion.

As far as I can tell, it’s simply more expensive to insource, taking into account wages, labor regulations, and environmental regulations. If and when other countries catch up to the production costs in the US, then there won’t be a reason to ship things halfway around the world.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/more-on-the-myth-of-...

I couldn't figure out what point the article you linked to was trying to make, but the fact that pretty much everything you buy is not stamped with "Made in USA" means that the cost to make it in the US was higher than elsewhere, and presumably people would choose to not buy it.

It wasn't because there was a manager's convention and they all agreed to send the work abroad so they could have more power and control. It's because if they didn't, their competitor would have, and Walmart would have chosen to put that cheaper product on their shelves rather than yours.

Products high up on the value chain - the kind you don't dress up in your best slacks to go and buy at Walmart are a different story, however.

I can count several software projects that were outsourced off the top of my head that were ostensibly done for cost savings purposes and were utter disasters. These disasters are routinely covered up and bullshitted, too.

This has at the same time not dampened the appetite for outsourcing software much. Coordination (i.e. management) costs are higher. Consulting companies can bill millions for these projects.

This is the point the article was making - pretty cogently.

It's less of a smoke-filled room conspiracy and more of a mundane "conspiracy" to shape the supply/demand curve.

I'm not sure if you've been paying attention, but supply chains have been moving to Vietnam/Malaysia/Indonesia/India/Mexico for the last few years, and the trend is only increasing.

There's literally a growing military alliance (US, India, Australia, Japan) against China right now. Also not to mention other countries (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, US) actively incentivizing their companies to onshore or move out of China. And because South China Sea is crucial to the growth of SE Asian economies, now France/UK/Germany along with Japan/US have warships sailing there to stop China's expansion.

So yes, the western world can.

They can't blow up their existing relationships in the mean time, but they can blow them up once they have another option in place. At the very least, they'll have more leverage in negotiation.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-vietnam-apple-exc...

Adidas & Lacoste: https://www.glossy.co/fashion/lacoste-and-adidas-pledge-to-c...

Nike: https://www.gq.com/story/nike-adidas-shifting-production-asi...

Hasbro: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/hasbro-to-cut-china-producti...

Samsung: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-china/samsun...

GoPro: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/10/gopro-is-moving-camera-produ...

LG Electronics: http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=5...

Sharp: https://9to5mac.com/2019/08/02/out-of-china/

Hyundai: https://tfipost.com/2020/04/big-hyundai-steel-and-several-ot...

Nintendo: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2019/07/09/ninten...

When Westerners see an absurdly profitable company, they think, "why aren't they paying their employees more??!" and start a union to parasitize earnings.

When Asians (including the Japanese and Koreans) see an absurdly profitably company, they think, "why are they able to charge such high prices???!" and they kneecap the company's ability to exploit their market.

It's an important difference for manufacturing physical things and it's why the West loses out to Asia in manufacturing outside cutting-edge tech. It's defective wetware in our heads and how we think about wealth and creating value, so don't expect manufacturing supply chains to return to Western countries any time soon.

Saying that employees expecting a livable wage is "parasitizing earnings" is a pretty outrageous claim.

>It's an important difference for manufacturing physical things and it's why the West loses out to Asia in manufacturing outside cutting-edge tech.

The West lost out to Asia because their standard of living was so much lower that it was basically slave labor for a decade. You apparently have missed out on the repeated protests at factories across China with their workers demanding better working conditions and wages.

Expecting to be able to be able to do something more than just not starve to death isn't a western ideal, it's a human ideal. When the company you work for is printing money and you're living in poverty, something eventually gives. As has happened at literally every point in human history to date. Sometimes through violence, sometimes through government intervention. But the "unwashed masses" won't stay ignorant forever.

More defective programming in the wetware. Why is pay the only part of the equation? When Japan realized that their housing market was undermining living standards in the late 90’s, they cracked down on NIMBYism and took housing and land zoning authority away from cities. The housing market almost immediately corrected itself and housing prices in suburban Tokyo have been in free-fall ever since. You can get a 2000sqft family home for the equivalent of about 200k just 30 minutes outside downtown Tokyo today. We don’t do that because... why?

The West lost out to Asia because...

Again, more defective wetware. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan - these are democratic states with a high standard of living that have been able to control costs in ways that the West hasn’t. More people are homeless in the US per capita than any of those countries and it has everything to do with defective programming and talk of “liveable wages”. Of course everyone needs to be able to afford to live. But your own mistaken assumptions are emblematic of the political and social dysfunction of the West. Until we address that, no - those supply chains won’t be returning.

The world does exist outside of Silicon Valley. I can get exactly what you're describing in over half of this country, pick your state including the entirety of the midwest.

>Again, more defective wetware. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan - these are democratic states with a high standard of living that have been able to control costs in ways that the West hasn’t. More people are homeless in the US per capita than any of those countries and it has everything to do with defective programming and talk of “liveable wages”. Of course everyone needs to be able to afford to live. But your own mistaken assumptions are emblematic of the political and social dysfunction of the West. Until we address that, no - those supply chains won’t be returning.

The median income in South Korea is $3,000 less than the US. And they have universal healthcare.

Someone's wetware is defective, it isn't mine. You might want to do some research before showing up with that kind of condescending attitude.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...

This is equivalent to saying sky-high housing prices in Tokyo didn't need fixing, since folks could always just live in Hokkaido--a pragmatic absurdity.

A city is a giant organism that needs people to play a variety of roles in order to thrive. All those people deserve (and arguably, for the health of the city, need) to be able to earn enough to live with some dignity. If only the wealthy can afford decent housing near a city, that city is no longer a functional community--it's a NIMBY bubble that creates a feedback loop of socioeconomic disparity.

It isn't even remotely the equivalent of saying that. The land mass of Japan is a fraction of the US, and the jobs are highly concentrated in their large cities. The US, as a whole, is nothing like that.

Regardless, it was a pointless argument for him to make in the first place, he was just moving goal posts by trying to equate calling employees parasites to San Francisco zoning laws. There was absolutely no point going down that path other than to distract from his original (disgusting) statement and implying that somehow people wanting more than minimum wage should really be blaming the Mayor of San Francisco for high housing prices. Which again... is completely irrelevant to the vast majority of the population of the US.

Most US industrial production is concentrated in about 5 regions. The US isn't that different.

Regardless, it was a pointless argument for him to make in the first place, he was just moving goal posts by trying to equate calling employees parasites to San Francisco zoning laws

Nonsense. Housing costs are the great misery-multiplier in the West and it isn't specific to SF. Look at Berlin or London or Paris or Toronto. Everywhere the dysfunction is the same and everywhere the working poor live with crushing housing insecurity, in spite of living in thriving job markets. With reasonable urban housing prices and rent most of the people in the "working poor" would advance to middle-class status and a lot of the inequality issues we have would be tractable. Instead, we just keep ignoring pricing theory and we just keep dumping more wealth into supply-constrained markets and we just keep wondering why these problems don't get any better.

There was absolutely no point going down that path other than to distract from his original (disgusting) statement and implying that somehow people wanting more than minimum wage

Ptooey! Pardon me, but I had to spit out all of the words you're stuffing in my mouth. I said nothing about minimum wage. You did. This is the same neurotic defective programming I'm talking about. The projection of intent in your response is what's disgusting.

Which again... is completely irrelevant to the vast majority of the population of the US.

Go look up what a lower-middle class family needs to pay for rent in suburbs in Atlanta or Austin or other cities with good job opportunities.

And besides, relaxing zoning is far from enough - you need to build vast and performant public transit systems, and in the case of Tokyo you need to make housing a depreciating asset.

South Korea was not a democratic state during most of its crucial growth period either - it was only after a revolution in the 80s, and even then democracy is a very gracious word for a country that was literally ruled by a cult for half a decade.

Taiwan also was in quasi-dictatorial KMT rule for most of its rise, and Japan to this day on the national level is basically ruled by the LDP in perpetuity.

But crucially, Japan, SK and Taiwan aren't where the kind of production China does happens. They are just as economically beholden to China as we are, sometimes moreso.

Yes - and as I said, this is the defective programming in minds of Westerners. The government does what we tell them to do and most people want this. It's everywhere - it's the entitlement to a suburban home and the subordination of all other interests, even the concept of personal property, in service to this. The fact that the media doesn't discuss these things in spite of the fact that smart people like Warren and others write about it is evidence of the bad programming.

South Korea was not a democratic state during most of its crucial growth period either - it was only after a revolution in the 80s, and even then democracy is a very gracious word for a country that was literally ruled by a cult for half a decade.

Taiwan also was in quasi-dictatorial KMT rule for most of its rise, and Japan to this day on the national level is basically ruled by the LDP in perpetuity.

Is it your contention that these countries aren't democratic and prosperous today? Is that your claim? Is your claim that their citizens live in near slavery, as the previous poster's was?

But crucially, Japan, SK and Taiwan aren't where the kind of production China does happens. They are just as economically beholden to China as we are, sometimes moreso.

The company that I worked at previously had to assess manufacturing alternatives to China in the wake of Trump's tariffs. Most of the parts on the BOM could reasonably be sourced by other Asian countries like those three at a small premium. US manufacturers either weren't available or were completely priced out. If the West could even just get their manufacturing costs in parity with those three - TW, SK, and JP - that in itself would be huge progress.

For reference, the US has roughly twice the manufacturing output of Japan.

The idea that manufacturing boomed there because the workers were almost slaves is fairly accurate.

It's much more to do with the steadily increasing complexity of products due to humanity having become very much a global species with heavy interdependence.

Look around the room you are sitting in: There will be items in it manufactured all over the world, from components also coming from all over the world.

That's not only how we manage to make these things so affordable, that's how we got them at this scale and complexity in the very first place.

The idea that a single country could emulate that, in complete isolation, is bluntly said childish. Isolationism like that doesn't lead to progress or innovation, it leads to North Korea style impoverished hermit kingdoms.

It's mind-boggling how few people seem to understand this reality in the year 2021, we are so interconnected that we can instantly communicate with somebody on the other side of the planet by just pulling a small device out of our pocket, it's considered the most normal thing in the world.

Instead we get shortsighted and small-minded nationalist blowback in the form of Brexit and "America first!" politics.

Even with the EU showing that economic cooperation and integration is one of the best and most constructive ways to ensure peace, stability and prosperity, particularly vs the alternative of alienation and vilification of whole nation states and their people as "enemies" that need to be fought in every way possible.

> The idea that a single country could emulate that, in complete isolation, is bluntly said childish.

Who is this “single country” straw man you are referring to? The western world is comprised of 50+ nations with over $40 trillion in GDP.

If you retool all of that to suddenly do something else, than you will be missing something else.

Because it's not like these 50+ nations with over $40 trillion in GDP are just sitting there and wondering what to do with all of that productivity, they are already plenty busy doing those things that got them all that GDP, the things they are good at.

That's why it's not really a "straw man", as the original argument implies globalized supply chains that emerged out of a given supply&demand could be artificially transplanted and rebuild in "the West", however that's even defined, to somehow reverse the reality of globalization.

Except that it is a straw man. This "childish" nation that seeks to thrive with no foreign trade ("in complete isolation") is a fiction inside your head that you're sharing as a target for your argument. It doesn't exist except as a straw man.

Nations such as China erect fig leaf regulatory regimes that are both ineffective and corrupt and are designed to attract Western capital that are avoiding the regulatory burdens (environmental regulation, labor regulation, etc.) in Western nations. These are Potemkin structures in that they offer plausibly deniable cover to the Western establishment for the purposes of trade agreements and other international instruments.

There is the other aspect of copyright violation and clones of products built when something is observed selling in the market. Still unresolved.

That said, when a few Chinese companies shipped consumer facing products that contained chemicals or other material that effectively poisoned people, my remembrance was that the management was executed.

Yes, those pesky employees should just STFU and be thankful for the scraps.

The people who outsourced things weren't simply trying to reduce gains made by unions, they were looking at price differences that could not exist in the US due to cost and standard of living. They certainly weren't looking at both sides of this in terms of long term effect either!

I don't want employees to get those earnings. I don't want investors or shareholders to get them either. I want consumers to get lower prices.

they were looking at price differences that could not exist in the US due to cost and standard of living

Again, what does that mean, "standard of living"? That we indulge industrial labor monopolies and pay more for manufactured goods than we need or want to like the 60's? How do you feel about paying $5000 for that computer? Or that we reward landlords and enrich landowners for participating in the creation of dysfunctional regulations?

I agree - Western industrialists have been able to play both sides of the equation - outsourcing production to places where industrial cost-control is effective and selling in to markets where there's a large upper-middle class of well-compensated credentialed professionals like us and entitled land-owners.

But I don't think that the solution is to give more power to industrial labor unions. My own pet solution is German worker councils - if only because they empower workers and make managers and industrialists accountable to employee needs, but at the same time can't coordinate labor demands across an industry. Managers can't ignore employee welfare but also employees can't gang up on consumers. But no one else wants this - industrialists hate the idea of inviting unions in to C-level planning and unions at their core want labor monopolies.

It means something very plain: nobody in the US would have accepted those wages to prevent profit-based outsourcing. So it wasn't a question of union parasites forcing people overseas, it just was something that would not have worked, structurally.

Consumers getting lower prices forever and ever is a single-dimension focus, like you otherwise seem to be decrying, since you're not answering any of the other questions there about how to prevent profiteering or powerful wealthy people from playing both sides. You're looking at just one side but proclaiming it as a secret insight that is the only way to move forward. I don't think worker councils would've done anything to let US production and labor prices compete with offshore labor prices in the past 50 years... if you can make t-shirts cheaper by stripping those labor costs to the bone, but the cost of everything else those workers need is untouched, how will it fix it?

"Choose to" tap into that market. No company "needs" to be in China.

Just like there are thousands of companies in Europe that do not do business in the United States, and thousands of companies in Brazil that do not do business in Russia.

If Chinese consumer market growth continues as it has been, it may the biggest market for Apple. Hard to be the largest luxury goods company in the world without the largest luxury goods market...

OP is right. This gives China influence. Supply chain influence is a minor thing, relative to "I'm your biggest customer" influence.

I guess that's why I like the "chooses to" framing because it highlights that leaders of companies can choose to not pursue markets or go with higher priced suppliers if they can make the argument as to how it might help them in the long term.

Edit: typo

From the point of view of any particular company the choice you're talking about may well exist, especially where the company is founder-led. But that doesn't mean the outcome you're hoping for can be achieved on a purely voluntary basis.

It may work in exceptional cases though, Apple being one of them.

That said, I think there is a decent amount of determinism at play here. It's like the "why are all politicians such politicians?" problem. The companies with an interest in entering the Chinese market will, mostly, do it. It's predictable. Predictable isn't determinism, but it's en route.

For a more poetic take, I'll paraphrase leonard cohen on "do you believe in free will?":

I think free will exists, but I think it's over-rated. Mostly, we act because we are compelled to.

A lot of investors and pension funds are starting to add more criteria to their investments than just a profit.

For example, Apple being able to lock up all the supply of higher end chips and smaller companies not being able to compete.

The US is the world's largest market, by a lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_consumer_marke...

There is however a huge problem with sanctions: you need to have a realistic plan for what you want to accomplish with your sanctions, or else it does little more than adding some friction to trade.

That means that if you want to actually change the behaviour of a nation using sanctions, you need to have modest goals, an acceptance of compromise, and a readiness to let the other side come out looking like a respectable partner. These are basically things the US cannot muster in the relationship with Iran and North Korea, and the American violation of the JCPOA has significantly eroded US ability to persuade other countries to impose their own sanction.

For China and Russia, the US alone cannot impose any important amount of sanctions and have them be upheld by third parties, the USA trying to block all imports from China would just mean the rest of the world needs to switch to using Yuan or Euros because that volume of trade simply cannot be replaced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

Russia GDP: ~1.7 trillion

Iran GDP: ~0.45 trillion

North Korea GDP: ~0.028 trillion

Meanwhile, China GDP: ~14.34 trillion

It's just a matter of time before more sanctions arrive. Because dictatorships are short-sighted and incapable of change. So let's say China tries to prod Taiwan with some military approach and fails. Or escalation of border war with India or Vietnam or Japan. Or increasing purchases or Iranian goods.

When there's a mini-war started by China in Asia, you will see a full worldwide sanction on China.

It depends on your definition of "successful."

You can have a successful movie and not distribute it in China. It won't make the absolute maximum number of dollars possible on planet Earth, but it can still be a successful movie.

The business success or failure of a movie is entirely determined by how much money it makes. To maximize that success (or even to be considered a success), you must publish in China.

Even without your movement of goalposts, a movie can still be successful without being in China.

The most successful movies in history were released, and massively profitable, before China's market opened to the rest of the world.

To maximize that success (or even to be considered a success), you must publish in China.

This is simply false. There are plenty of successful businesses, movies, video games, and other enterprises that never touch China. I hate to break it to you, but China is a non-factor for the vast majority of businesses on the planet.

By the way, nothing was better for China than the big show provided by Trump and his minions in the US during the last four years. It showed that nobody can trust 100% on the US to uphold democratic values.

- check https://chinalawblog.com and you will see that companies are indeed moving out of China at a quick pace. In fact, the site advocates that you do not think of China as the default manufacturing...

- most citizens in other countries hates China now. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-vi.... this dictates shifting consumer behavior (more and more people will choose items made not in China). US citizens has a 20% favorable view of China. https://thehill.com/homenews/news/543354-view-of-china-as-gr...

- No one wants to go to China right now. If you want to go, you are subjected to an anal swab covid test, mandatory spyware on your phone, plus visa incentive that requires you to use their state covid vaccine (50% efficacy!). Not to mention foreigner kidnappings and disbar from leaving the country. No company in their right mind would send their staff to China to increase footprint there

- from footwear https://footwearnews.com/2021/business/trade/us-footwear-imp..., to furniture https://www.furnituretoday.com/opinion/sourcing-strategies/b... to electronics https://www.wsj.com/articles/samsungs-shift-away-from-china-..., there's a steady pace of companies (big and small) moving out of china

Everyone I know is out to make money. Apple is the most profitable because they’re selling something with high demand that people are willing and able to pay for.