Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

The Unifying Goal Of Right & Center Elites

Getting elites attention

What the right wants from its followers is for them to be riven by hatred of any difference, thus making them easy to manipulate and willing to sell out their economic values in exchange for seeing brown people beaten, and women and trans people losing control over their own bodies.

What neoliberals want is for their followers to be convinced that each group, even each micro group, is on its own, unable to understand each other and thus that solidarity is impossible and all one can hope for is that some member of the identity group is allowed to join the elite, while most of all groups remain in poverty.

They’re very similar, really. In both cases hatred of other groups is inculcated as the core value, as a way of making manipulation easy and avoiding having to actually deal with broad issues of well being.

Both of these are variations on “divide and conquer”. It costs a lot less to give a few people something than to give many people something. “Want some women and minorities in power? Sure. Costs us almost nothing.”

“Want women to be forced to bear rape children and die in pregnancy due to lack of necessary abortions? Sure, costs us nothing. Our women can still get abortions.

“Want trans people excluded and denied health care? Sure, they’re a tiny part of the population and rich trans people will be fine.”

On the other hand giving everyone healthcare would cut a lot of profits. Giving everyone a liveable wage or assistance to those who can’t work or find jobs: that would cost a lot of profits.

“You can have anything you want, as long as it doesn’t make elites poorer.”

On that the right and center are unified.

This blog has always been free to read, but it isn’t free to produce. If you’d like to support my writing, I’d appreciate it. You can donate or subscribe by clicking on this link.

 

Capitalists Only Respond To Threats

Stumbled on this chart recently:

Kind of tells its own story.

It’s worth reading the Communist manifest. People have weird ideas about it, but a lot of it is really unexceptionable. For example, Marx and Engels demanded pensions for old folks.

Capitalists looked at this and said, “oh, we can do this if the alternative is worse” and introduced them. Someone as hard headed as Bismarck responded this way.

The threat of a credible enemy ideology which treats ordinary people better than capitalists do forces capitalists to change. For a long time we haven’t had that, but the single party “Marxist but with capitalism” CCP offers another, and yes, they do, overall treat their workers better, as well as being better at capitalism than capitalists. No one is as obsessed with how markets actually work as Marxist economists.

Let’s look at another of my favorite charts:

Oh hey, having powerful organizations taking the part of workers matters.

Something happened right after Reagan took power:

Strikes involving more than 1,000 workers

Strikes involving more than 1,000 workers

Then there’s this:

(The numbers have gone down since then, but are still vastly high, and far, far higher than China.

Break the unions and lock up the people who won’t obey bullshit (aka. drug) laws.

Class war is real, and constantly ongoing, and elites have won that war.

Power and fear is all that capitalists ever respond to.

Always remember that.

This blog has always been free to read, but it isn’t free to produce. If you’d like to support my writing, I’d appreciate it. You can donate or subscribe by clicking on this link.

The Horror of School

Back during the pandemic two things happened with students. Overall they committed more suicides, BUT when schools were closed, suicide rates went down. (I predicted the latter at the time.)

Then there’s this lovely chart:

Well, well, well. Seems forcing people to do what they don’t want to do, in what is usually a socially oppressive environment, is bad for them.

There are, of course, those who thrive in school, and love it, usually the socially dominant kids. But for a lot of kids, school is Hell.

This has a lot to do with alignment of goals, I think. I wrote recently about the epidemic of AI cheating and how to avoid it, but I think the smartest commentary I’ve seen on AI cheating, and cheating in general is this one:

Has anyone stopped to ask WHY students cheat? Would a buddhist monk “cheat” at meditation? would an artist “cheat” at painting? No. when process and outcomes are aligned, there’s no incentive to cheat. so what’s happening differently at colleges?

Back in the stone age, I took an introductory sociology class. The professor asked those who were intending to be teachers to put up their hands. A forest. She told them to keep their hands up, and asked everyone who was planning on social work to put up their hands.

Out of a class of about a hundred and fifty, only three people’s hands weren’t up.

One hundred and fourty-seven students weren’t taking sociology because they were interested in it, but because it was a waystation on the way to a goal.

The problem with “higher” education is that good jobs are locked by the requirement for degrees. The vast majority of students aren’t in university because they want to learn, they’re there because they need the credential. They don’t see the applicability of what they’re learning to their future jobs, in most cases correctly, so they just want to get thru the courses with the least effort possible while getting the necessary grades.

Of course they cheat. They’re being forced to waste three or four years and huge amounts of money on a chance of getting past the gatekeepers.

I used to amuse myself by talking to graduates. I’d ask them what their major was, then discuss it with them. Nine times out of ten, I knew more about the subject than they did, even though I’d never taken a single course in the topics at hand. They memorized enough to pass the tests, then immediately forgot it, because it had no relevance to their goals or their life.

The only case for requiring a bachelors degree in a job that doesn’t use the knowledge taught by that course is that it screens out people who won’t put up with bullshit and who won’t do what their told when it doesn’t align with their goals. A B.A. certifies to potential employers “this person will do what their told and put up with your bullshit. They barely need to be coerced, they do what is expected of them.”

Problems is, it also certifies “they will put in as little effort in the job as they can, unless it serves them to do otherwise.”

If it were up to me, I’d make it illegal to require unrelated educational credentials. Want to hire an engineer (an actual engineer, not a programmer)? Fine, ask for a degree. But if it’s just some unrelated job, no.

But I’d go even further, I’d mandate exams to test for job knowledge. (In person, supervised) similar to how a lot of companies test programmers. “Can you actually make a small program?”

Testing for jobs used to be pretty standard. Almost all civil service jobs were gated behind exams and so were a lot of private sector ones.

Then see how they perform for a few months.

Forcing people to do what they don’t want to do is sometimes necessary, to be sure. But it has to make sense. There’s plenty of evidence that good home-schooling teaches students skills faster than classroom teaching (and no, not all  home schooling is right wing nutjobs, where I grew up it was hippies.) As for socialization, there are other ways to socialize children, most of which are probably more pleasant and less harmful than the often hellish social circumstances in schools, especially high schools.

As for spending time with adults, well, that’s what children did for most of history. They weren’t stuck just with kids for most of the day, then just their parents. After all, you’re a kid for a lot less longer than you’re an adult, and it’s the adult world you need to know how to navigate.

I’m not saying mass schooling has or had no benefits. It obviously does and did. But can we find a better way to teach children?

This blog has always been free to read, but it isn’t free to produce. If you’d like to support my writing, I’d appreciate it. You can donate or subscribe by clicking on this link.

“Art of the Cave”: Trump Walks Back China Tariffs For 90 Days

Well, maybe. Who the hell knows what he’ll do. Anyway, tariffs are back to 30% on China and 10% on America.

This is exactly what China demanded, for tariffs to go back to what they were before April 2nd.

There will still be a two month trade burp. Ships weren’t leaving China for the US at all, literally zero. Lot of freight companies are about to make a mint, though. So expect some shortages, but nothing worse than Covid, and hopefully lasting less time.

The fundamental problem remains, however, which is that there’s no certainty around any of this, so business people can’t make long term plans, including plans to build or relocate manufacturing. Trump and the US can’t be trusted to stay steady on policy, so avoiding making big plans involving the US makes sense.

The Great Power picture is clearer, however. The US tried to impose its will on China and failed. China wouldn’t negotiate till its pre-conditions were met. The world has two great powers, with the EU bidding to become the third (I think they’ll fail, but that’s what the rearmament is about.)

And, in economic terms, China is by far the pre-eminent great power. It isn’t even close. The era of American hegemony is officially over. The US tried to impose its will on the world and failed.

This blog has always been free to read, but it isn’t free to produce. If you’d like to support my writing, I’d appreciate it. You can donate or subscribe by clicking on this link.

 

Western Leaders Continue To Live In A Delusional LaLa Land With Respect To The Ukraine War

Putin's Goals by GrimJim

Putin’s goals by GrimJim

So, the Europeans have said that Russia must grant an unconditional 30 day ceasefire, or they’ll ramp up aid to Ukraine and put on more sanctions, including some against Nord Stream II. They claim Trump is onside, but Trump hasn’t confirmed this.

The Russians have indicated willingness for a thirty day ceasefire, but they have a condition: for those thirty days, weapon shipments from the West to Ukraine must stop and Putin has straight up rejected the unconditional ceasefire.

What a surprise.

What Europeans want is for Russia, which is winning on the ground, to give them thirty days to rearm Ukraine. Can’t imagine why Russia won’t go for that.

The Euros are delusional. They have no leverage. They’ve already said they intend to end all energy purchases from Russia as soon as they can. (That isn’t yet, they’re buying tons of Russian energy still, it just goes thru India first.)

Why the hell would Russia agree to give Ukraine time to re-arm and entrench without something in return.

Once again, Russia’s best alternative to a negotiated agreement is to simply win the war. And while advances are still slow, they’re all on Russia’s side and the Ukrainian army is showing signs of being near the breaking point. They’ve also been pushed past almost all of their prepared defenses.

Personally, I think Putin is being incredibly generous offering a ceasefire at all. I think that’s a mistake.

But the Euros are living in LalaLand. They don’t have any real leverage and they keep acting like they do. Ukraine is losing. Nothing the US and Europe can do, short of declaring war, will change that fact. And since the Euros have admitted the Minsk accord were signed with the intention of building up the Ukrainian army for another war, well, why the hell would Putin want to make a new deal that creates another frozen conflict?

Just insane. Europe doesn’t get that they are a has-been power, in serious decline and that they just can’t push other nations around any more. They don’t have the muscle or the industrial base or the tech lead any more.

The war will be ended on Russia’s terms unless Putin is incredibly foolish. That’s possible, contrary to the Western narrative Putin isn’t a Hawk, he’s the least Hawkish person anywhere near power in Russia. If he was to have a heart attack tomorrow, whoever replaced him would be far more militaristic and far less restrained. Putin prefers peace. He’s just learned, probably, that peace can’t be made with the West, it must be imposed.

This blog has always been free to read, but it isn’t free to produce. If you’d like to support my writing, I’d appreciate it. You can donate or subscribe by clicking on this link.

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – May 11, 2025

by Tony Wikrent

 

Strategic Political Economy

Congressman Casten: Trump’s Assault on the Rule of Law Is Causing Capital Flight Out of U.S. by Foreign Investors

Pam Martens and Russ Martens, May 5, 2025 [Wall Street on Parade]

Last Wednesday, Congressman Sean Casten, Democrat of Illinois, stated the following in an open meeting of the House Financial Services Committee:

“For the first time in my memory, foreign investors are not only fleeing U.S. equities but are fleeing U.S. Treasuries. I met with banks last week – banks under our jurisdiction – who said that the international community is putting a risk premium on investments in the United States because of regulatory risk and because they question whether the rule of law that they depend on to execute contracts in the United States will be executed as it will be in European markets where that capital is running to.

“So, if you need to tell yourself before you go to bed that you’re a deficit buster, fine, but just acknowledge you’re lying. This is not about deficit busting. This is about making rich people richer, and that’s it.”

 

Has Asia just taken a step away from the US dollar?

Alice Li, 7 May 2025 [South China Morning Post]

Asia’s largest economies have broken new ground by approving an emergency financing tool using the yuan and other local currencies

Великая Отечественная война — The Great Patriotic War

Soviet War Propaganda showing gratitude for the allies. I own about a dozen WWII Soviet posters.

This post is for a Russian friend of mine. Руфина Сергеевна Гашева, Rufina Sergeyevna Gasheva was born 14 October 1921. Ruffik, as she asked me to call her–was proud to have a young American friend. I have a stack of letters to prove it.

I met Ruffik back in 2002. I was in Moscow with my soon to be wife and her best friend, Nastya (diminutive of Anastasia). Nastya dearly wanted to see her babushka, which was the last thing I wanted to do. Hear stories from some old lady? Good grief. But I went to keep my wife-to-be happy. One of the best decisions I ever made. After meeting Cpl. Ed Neidermeir of the 42 Division (aka: Rainbow Division) who saw his first action on 16 June 1918, meeting Ruffik and hearing her stories–I made it a point to visit her the next time I was in Moscow to hear more–was the single most serendipitous event of my life.

95 of the 12,777 recipients were women.

Ruffik was an educator her entire life and appreciated my historical knowledge. That’s probably why we hit it off. An hour or so after we had tea and had listened more eagerly after each anecdote she hobbled out of the room, down the hall and dug into a closet. She brought back a box and asked me to open it.

I gasped. I held in my hands a Герой Советского Союза (Geroi Sovietskovo Sayuza – Hero of the Soviet Union) the literal equivalent of a Congressional Medal of Honor. Speechless, I pulled a very heavy gold star on a red ribbon from the box. The Diameter of the star was 30 mm, and it weighed 33.04 grams.

So what did this affable and garralous octogenarian do to win such an incredible honor. First, she volunteered in September of 1941. She very quickly mastered the Po-2 Kukuruznik (the mule); an all weather, Soviet multi-role biplane. Its first flight was 24 June 1927, a year later the first hundred of an estimated 30,000 Po-2 entered service. In 1941 some wiseacre decided it would make an excellent light night bomber. It was fitted with a machine gun for the navigator and each wing was fitted with either two 50kg bomb carriers or one 100kg bomb carrier.  The renamed U2-vs Войсковая серия – (voyskovaya seriya) was born just in time for Ruffik’s graduation in February 1942.

Her first posting was in Engels, on the Volga River, with the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. Her baptism by fire was in May 1942 in the Battle of the Kavkaz (the Caucasus). She went on to fight in every major battle on the Eastern Front, all with the 588th, which as an all female regiment was soon called the Night Witches by the Nazis.

Wikipedia explains the 588th’s effects on the enemy quite well:

The material effects of these missions may be regarded as minor, but the psychological effect on German troops was noticeable. They typically attacked by surprise in the middle of the night, denying German troops sleep and keeping them on their guard, contributing to the already high stress of combat on the Eastern front. The usual tactic involved flying only a few meters above the ground, climbing for the final approach, throttling back the engine and making a gliding bombing run, leaving the targeted troops with only the eerie whistling of the wind in the wings’ bracing-wires as an indication of the impending attack. Luftwaffe fighters found it extremely hard to shoot down the Kukuruznik because of two main factors: the pilots flew at treetop level where they were hard to see or engage and the stall speed of both the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 was similar to the U-2s maximum speed, making it difficult for the fighters to keep a Po-2 in weapons range for an adequate period of time.

An unexpected weapon.

By the end of the war she flew an insane 848 combat missions. It was in December of 1944 after her 823rd sortie that she was nominated for the Hero of the Soviet Union. She recieved it on 23 February, 1945. Ruffik lived a long, happy life, she was 91 years old on May 1, 2012, the day she died.

I bring Ruffik, this remarkable woman, to your attention because of Trump’s most recent utterly disrespectful and ignorant comments about the United States of America’s role in World Wars One and Two. Trump said about both wars: “nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance” in both world wars, and that “we did more than any other country, by far, in producing a victorious result in World War II.”

Two rebuttals. First, give this eloquent young woman a listen. She knows of what she speaks.

If I’ve given anyone the idea we were sitting in therapy circles farting  The White Album a few facts are in order: it is indisputable that the United States built and gave away (most to the Soviet Union) an enormous amount of trucks and other non-lethal industrial goods, including food. We also beat the snot out of the Japanese in the Pacific single-handedly. The Chinese and Japanese slugged it out with a level of brutality that was only superceded by our nuking of them. Simultaneously we rebuilt Britain’s Atlantic destroyer fleet–necessary to hunt submarines. We also fed Britain to a large degree and did what we could for France until it fell. Anyone stupid enough laugh at and poke fun at the French for their performance in World War Two doesn’t understand fuck all about the losses France endured in World War One. On a per capita basis they lost more to war and disease than the Soviets did during World War Two. Moreover, we liberated Algeria, Tunis, Libya, Sicily, Italy and France at the cost of 407,316 dead.

But . . .

First, let’s discuss Soviet fighting and German deaths for a moment. In 1942 during El Alamein, Montgomery faced 4 1/2 divisions of the Wehrmacht (76,000 soldiers). At the same time 190 German divisions (3,230,000 soldiers) were slugging it out with the Soviets across the entire Western face of the Soviet Union. From Leningrad to Stalingrad and right up to the Caucasus Mountains Übermensch transcended traditional Western morality and killed untermenschen for sport. (Too bad they shot back!)

Second, when we landed on Normandy on 6 June 1944, 93% of ALL German casualties were on the Eastern Front.

Finally, by the time we got to the Rhine 2/3’s of all German soldiers had been felled by the Red Army. We may have been the arsenal but as John Mearsheimer describes it better than any other commentator I’ve ever heard: The Soviets paid the blood price.

All 27,000,000 of them.

PS–Ask me to explain France and World War One sometime, then you will understand what happened in World War Two.

Open Thread

Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

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