2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[Grey Fox]

[Jacob]

The ignorance of this forum today is really hard to take. 

I'd say it's about average for languish 

[Josquius]

China  is undoubtedly capitalist.

They are mixed.  Undoubtedly X infinity.

Like every country in the world.

The ignorance of this forum today is really hard to take. 

Sounds like you're quite ignorant on this one if you can't recognise this obvious fact.
Even Somalia and Afghanistan have a limited public sector.

[crazy canuck]

Sounds like you're quite ignorant on this one if you can't recognise this obvious fact.
Even Somalia and Afghanistan have a limited public sector.

A simple definition of a mixed economy is that some economic activities are privately owned and some are publicly owned.  On a very superficial level China meets that definition, and for a while it looked like they might even become a mixed economy with actually private ownership of corporate interests.  But of course that was not to be.  China went hard authoritarian, jailed or disappeared corporate leaders the party did not like etc. 

The state owned part of mixed economy is obvious enough, but I think where you could become a little more sophisticated in your analysis is what private ownership actually means.  In the G7 private ownership is protected by the Rule of Law.  I grant you that it is diminishing in the G7 as well, but at least we have not reached to stage of authoritarianism (and the associated corruption) that defines business relations in China today.   

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't think it is necessary to engage in a terminological debate about "capitalism" and exactly how the special Chinese case fits or doesn't fit the definition.

The claim that the problems associated with global warming lies with "unfettered capitalism" is a claim that the cause of the problem is the relatively free operation of private capital without sufficient policy restraint.

As applied specifically to the 21st century PRC, that claim does not carry because although the PRC has a market based economy, the key decisions on energy and transport are made by the state and the Party.  And that impact has cut two ways. On the one hand, the Party has pursued a development-oriented policy emphasizing raising energy consumption and thus coal.  That has clearly been a policy decision from the Party with state entities in the lead.  On the other hand, the Party also seems to concerned about the potential impact of warming given the population concentration in low lying coastal areas and thus has also heavily directed investment into batteries, solar, and green tech.

Hypothetically, a counterfactual true capitalist PRC would probably end up roughly in the same place: capital constraints might have slowed the breakneck expansion of energy expansion but green tech development might have been slower as well.   As for a hypothetical true Communist regime, both the Stalinist and Maoist models were not exactly known for environmental concerns.  Such a regime would have attempted to do worse in terms of pursuing energy output at all costs, but perhaps not resulted in a worse outcome due to its failure to achieve the targets.

Arguments about capitalism IMO miss the point.  We are where we are because:

1) In the developing world, even those countries facing potentially stark consequences from climate change have tended to privilege expanding energy access to the mass population over carbon control.  The PRC and India being the largest in size but hardly the only examples.

2) In the developed world, democratic political regimes have failed to convince their populations to make economic trade offs needed to achieve the carbon reductions required.  I don't buy that this outcome is entirely or even principally because of capitalist propaganda, but because the mass of the people simply aren't willing to sacrifice present gain for future insurance.

These are consequences of political choices, and focusing on abstractions like capitalism IMO distract from the relevant concerns.

[mongers]

Trump found guilty in a New York court of inflating his ego to 3.6 billion.

[Sheilbh]

Anyway my statement wasn't based on hypotheticals but the reality of our world today. I think Sheilbh's post bears repeating as that's a well stated argument that I'm sympathetic to. I don't think we have a world where people innocently come into and maintain great amounts of wealth where they have fellow citizens who are struggling to meet basic human needs (and ofen failing).

I personally feel implicated when I think about my standard of living versus those of my neighbors in my largely working class (though due to be displaced) neighborhood. And I don't have an obscene amount of wealth that I could never manage to spend in multiple lifetimes.

Yeah. I think climate is definitely part of it and I agree on the experience of living at the cutting edge of gentrification in a big city on a professional's wage. But the example I always think of with Benamin's fragments in mind is that I, like everyone here I imagine, own devices which include materials mined by children in unimaginable conditions and that fuels some of the world's longest running conflict. Not only that but because of my brand preference it is assembled in a work unit in China of the type that was locked down during their zero covid policies to prevent workers from leaving.

On the one hand they are absolutely artifacts of progress and civilisation that have changed the world for the better. On the other, you read anything about their material build and it is barbarism. We are enmeshed and even energy transition won't end that - again it's going to require lots of those materials, but also other more "benign" ones like copper that are going to be essential but wherever they've been mined in the past leave environmental and social degradation.

My point is simply if that's the position of a consumer albeit a comfortable one then I think billionaires are likely to be more implicated however many indulgences they buy. On that I'd add that as well as my other criticisms of these "trusts" and "foundations", they're nothing new - there's a long history of people with extreme wealth and reforming instincts attempting to solve social issues or resolve poverty etc. There's a reason we don't remember any of those 19th century attempts - because they didn't work. You need the scale and the power of the state. They'd arguably be better for their own reputation and human legacy just getting back into old school patronage and building a few concert halls - those legacies last.

I don't think it is necessary to engage in a terminological debate about "capitalism" and exactly how the special Chinese case fits or doesn't fit the definition.

I agree but also I think it is too focused on the "how" (and I think this is symptomatic of a wider issue). There is a tick list of features of different social or economic models. I think those economic models structure what a society does and what it can do. But the bit that's missing from the "China's just capitalist now" point is the "why" - what are the goals, what is the Chinese state trying to do, what is it working towards and what shapes that. Putting big picture questions about China aside I find the idea that Deng Xiaoping, with his biography, ended up being "capitalist" slightly inane but that is where that check list leads you.

And I think that's where ideology matters. Politics is in the service of social and economic goals, shaped by ideology and at some point it feels like a lot of western conversations about politics has sort of flipped all of that. So our social and political goals are subordinated to our politics. But also, I think we've maybe lost the imagination that you need when facing a genuine ideological opponent - like the USSR, or fascism etc. I think we currently too often think difference is actually just a bagatelle or a performance.

The heritage, the myths, the traditions - all of those things that shape an institution and the way it thinks and behaves - are profoundly different in the CCP. I think there are definitely distinctive Chinese characteristics but they are also the inheritors of the Leninist worldview. You know, you get documents from the CCP that refer to Stalingrad or Kursk - because that is the tradition they stand in. I think it's why I also really struggle with the articles saying Meloni's post-populist and mainstream right in Europe can and should work with her. I don't think the issue is populism or not which is just a style of politics, but that she comes from a post-fascist tradition founded by men who were involved in the Salo Republic (and indeed initially rejected people who had only been fascist when it was easy/pre-43). It is more than attitudes to populism that should distinguish that political tradition from Christian Democracy, and for a very long time there was. Same, for that matter, goes for a "no enemies to the left" approach.

[crazy canuck]

Trump found guilty in a New York court of inflating his ego to 3.6 billion.

And the fact he committed fraud will barely register with the GOP.

[Savonarola]

House Democrat Dean Phillips launches primary challenge against President Biden

This is late to start a presidential campaign, and even under the best of circumstances he's be a long shot.  The only president to come directly from the House of Representatives was James Garfield; who had also been a Brigadier General during the Civil War (and had devised his own proof of the Pythagorean Theorem using trapezoids; those were different times.)

[Josquius]

I suppose what would be really good is Sanders or so launching a campaign just to shore up the moderate conservative support for Biden? (he ain't one of those socialists)

[Sheilbh]

I suppose what would be really good is Sanders or so launching a campaign just to shore up the moderate conservative support for Biden? (he ain't one of those socialists)

No

I think that's very much too clever by half and underestimates Sanders' support.

[Savonarola]

I suppose what would be really good is Sanders or so launching a campaign just to shore up the moderate conservative support for Biden? (he ain't one of those socialists)

No, a serious third party contender would force Biden to spend money during the primaries and drain resources that he'll want during the main election.  (IMO even Dean Phillips is playing with matches; but he doesn't have anywhere near the name recognition or fund raising ability of The Bern.)

[FunkMonk]

I think a lot of former Bernie Bros think Sanders sold out to Biden and that he is too close to him. They've moved on.

[The Minsky Moment]

I think a lot of former Bernie Bros think Sanders sold out to Biden and that he is too close to him. They've moved on.

If true, it shows they never understand Sanders.  And why Sanders himself is greater than the sum of his supporters.

[Sheilbh]

I think a lot of former Bernie Bros think Sanders sold out to Biden and that he is too close to him. They've moved on.

If true, it shows they never understand Sanders.  And why Sanders himself is greater than the sum of his supporters.

I totally agree and I think, in the nicest possible way, the US left/radical left have gone in some very odd directions since 2016 and Sanders losing.