Trump, Tariffs, Mao and more
NOTE: the text below was not written by me and is from various sources (as indicated).
These tariffs are a radical action that rhymes with the “Four pests” campaign of Mao Zedong’s China which led to one of the worst famines in human history.
Defenders of these tariffs say they might bring back manufacturing or say they are a response to some bad effect of the current state of America… They don’t accept what the experts say, but what their authority says, and their authority says that these will bring manufacturing back. The current argument in the face of backlash is “let’s wait and see.”
Mao Zedong, another populist authoritarian who didn’t like to listen to experts or acknowledge reality implemented the four pests campaign. Sparrows were eating Chinese crops, much like trade deficits eat American labor. Mao decided it would be wise to kill these pests to protect the crops, failing to predict that the death of these sparrows would cause even worse pests to damage crops.
This led to one of the worst famines the world has ever experienced.
China’s cultural revolution (our project 2025) and great leap forward (liberation day) had truly disastrous effects like the four pests campaign for those who lived through them.
If there are no checks on this administrations power soon, we are likely to see even more short sighted incompetent policy that radically changes society that will damage us for generations.
In china they erase history because history gives you a foundation to judge your leaders. “Purifying” the Smithsonian is an admission that understanding history there there would make you dissent from what will happen or be dissatisfied with some of your leaders in the past who might be similar to current leaders. We should take the lesson’s of history and understand that what is happening now rhymes with everything the America I grew up in, including the conservative America, stands against, like unchecked power.
It might get better… but it can also get much much much worse.
Yes the current period is reminiscent of the Mao period in more than one way. You’ve got blind loyalty and optimism by the followers, unwillingness to listen to critism, anti-intellectualism, attempts to purge aspects of culture and dissappearing disliked people to faraway prisons.
It’s not gone nearly as far as in that period, but we ought to be careful not to get closer. When information countering government policy is suppressed, the mistakes keep growing bigger until the consequences become so grave they can no longer be ignored.
Reply from everybodyknows:
four pests
Mao’s “backyard” steel furnaces might be an even better comparison:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
This connection to communism was noticed elsewhere. Garry Kasparov on X:
If the goal was to bring back manufactoring, we know how to do that, A_D_E_P_T points out
There’s a way to do it. This playbook has been used repeatedly throughout the 20th century.
First you invite industry to reshore via subsidies and preferential access to government contracts. If necessary, the government must directly invest in new firms. (They already do this in a very small way with In-Q-Tel and others, so it’s not totally beyond the pale. For a time there was even a US Army VC firm.) If you talk to a Chinese factory owner or mine boss, many of them will tell you that they got their start with a >$2M direct investment from their government.
Second you gradually tighten the screws on foreign finished products, not industrial inputs like metals, plastics, ores, etc.
Third you streamline export paperwork requirements and relax things like ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulation).
Then, when that’s all humming along and the factories are working, you can launch blanket tariffs to protect your nascent industries, if need be. But you must exempt necessary industrial inputs from tariffs.
What’s happening now is completely backwards/inverted and it’s going to lead to total chaos.
The Big Picture since 1980 and how we got here by afpx:
Here’s my hot take on a messy topic.
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan began implementing Neo-conservative / Neo-liberal policies in the 80s. This shifted the UK and US economies to high margin things like pharma, finance, technology, and services. Those things stayed in the US. Everything was outsourced to developing countries.
It sounded great. Through free-trade, developing countries would improve their standard of living. Also, democratic countries didn’t go to war with each other. So, this led to the conclusion that improved trade between wealthy nations and developing nations would lead to global harmony. Everyone’s standards of living would increase, and we’d all be one happy globe.
The US kept trying to push democracy, often through force and by destabilizing governments. But, for some reason countries weren’t adopting it. The reason was that academics and political leaders didn’t account for the impact of culture. That is, a lot of countries didn’t want democracy and free-trade.
A lot of areas of the US eventually got wiped out economically. But, for a long time, they didn’t notice. Things stayed relatively stable for a few decades because prices kept falling from all of the incoming cheap goods. Meanwhile, they faced ‘brain drain’ - the next generation started getting college degrees and moving to the wealthy cities. Some areas became wealthy - the rest became poor.
The US became a powerhouse of tech, services, and finance. But, they didn’t have enough skilled labor in the cities. So, the US opened the door to immigration. As GDP increased, salaries went up. People started flocking to the US both for high-end jobs and also low-end jobs to support all of the urban areas. The poor areas of the US became enraged - new immigrants had more money than them, and they had less.
Trump (and I assume the think tanks behind him) believes these tariffs are a last ditch attempt to fix the system. Otherwise, the US dissolves.
The emphasis above is mine, since I (like some of the replies) disagree with the notion these economic problems were not noticed.