I do understand that, but that’s just life. If countries don’t take a long term view and build up their own capacity, but instead just buy the cheapest stuff right now, that won’t be ideal for them. But the solution isn’t to try to dictate other countries’ domestic economic policy, that can’t possibly work. Even if China changes its policy on this matter those countries would still have to spend the exact same amount of money to build their own manufacturing base. Tariff imports a little bit if you have to, but most importantly put that money into actually building domestic capacity for the most important things. This is just the USA trying to put off doing that because the neoliberals are addicted to sucking everyone else dry through finance capitalism and manufacturing isn’t as profitable as tech-IP rent seeking.

the auto industry relies on Chinese imports for much of its materials, without extra investment only applying tariffs will hurt it too

I think they will also have to subsidise or otherwise incentivise manufacturing in their own countries to develop it but like I said their labour costs are lower than in China so they have some competitive advantage there already. I agree it’s bad that the capacity is not more distributed but I don’t believe that China’s internal subsidies will prevent any country from doing this, only post industrial countries which already have the money to buy large amounts of Chinese exports.

I replied with several specific arguments elsewhere in this thread, including a further on this comment chain.

Why would the goal be for “everyone to have a trade surplus”? More like, everyone retains manufacturing capability for at least the most critical things, and speculation which is not even grounded in at least some kind of industrial base is somewhat disincentivised.

Not directly, it’s just a prod to think about the subject a bit more. The IMF wouldn’t push for this if it was of benefit to anyone but the USA and maybe Europe.

The real answer is that, if by “historically oppressed” they mean “poor”, labour costs and purchasing power there are both lower and so it will be within their means to subsidise the manufacturing that they themselves are able to consume, probably even at a lower price than China. If they’re historically oppressed but actually have money now then obviously they can just use that.

Labour costs in China are not that low these days, that’s kind of the point of the subsidies. It’s also much more competitive to subsidise domestic production than to tariff imports. Without that, it just means that Americans pay more for the Chinese goods they’re going to buy anyway because they don’t have a domestic alternative. If the revenue from tariffs in America were actually used to improve manufacturing capacity it wouldn’t be such a problem.

Yeah, the IMF, defender of historically oppressed countries. Lmao.

Sure, of course they can, it’s just a self-own.

It’s only bad for other countries if they let it be, any country can subsidize their own manufacturing if they want. Why would China have any obligation to run their economic policy to benefit the USA? Insane level of entitlement.

So what you’re saying is directly contradictory to your previous comment, in fact it doesn’t produce good code even when you tell it to.

It’s not that it’s fully “wrong” but it’s misleading, since society has changed so much since the definition was coined. The Wikipedia article is rather better than the dictionary definition since it provides all this context.

Ohhh, that’s what I was missing, just tell it to write good code, of course.

Boris? Why always Boris…

Sorry, you don’t get any points for this prediction, because it already exists.

The one thing I’d dispute is

The modern day “middle class,” which another commenter rightly describes as the “petit bourgeois,”

As you correctly identify in your last paragraph, class is defined by your relationship to labour and the means of production, and not strictly related to how much money you have. The petit bourgeois may generally be what we commonly think of as middle class, but it more specifically refers to small business owners. People who make money from the labour of others, but still have to do real work themselves in order to maintain it. A doctor at a hospital is not petit bourgeois, but a doctor running their own clinic and employing a nurse and a secretary is, and would be even if they had less income. Even a sports player who makes tens of millions is not really petit bourgeois or bourgeois if that’s all they do - although they often go in that direction after some time.

Where it gets complicated in our financialised world is that our savings, if we have any, are often invested in corporations, and after a lifetime of working for a decent wage, some of us are fortunate enough to be able to live out our last decades or years from investment income. It feels a bit tough to describe retirees as bourgeois even though by the strict definition that would be the case.

Despite this complication, I think it’s much clearer to think of class distinction in terms of the relationship to work, as this is what mainly incentivises attitudes to political and economic policy. If you get your income from other people working for you, you’re more likely to want to drive wages down and not pay for healthcare. If you get paid for working, you’re more likely to want wages to increase, even if your wage is already high.

No, it means merchant class. Capitalists and industrialists, as opposed to hereditary nobility. They are the ruling class now and have been for well over a century at least, but it’s true that they were the middle class at the time the term was coined, although rapidly gaining in power.

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No, he won’t respond to any shame he feels except by doubling down. IMO It’s much more important for ordinary people in the us to know.

That’s a good point, and I feel that way about things like weapons manufacture or intelligence, and yeah, probably working for Google or Palantir. There is a limit to the abrogation of our responsibility because we need to make a living. But I still somewhat disagree with some of your point, on practical grounds, which is basically that “AI” doesn’t really work.