Cromwell

So the Beijing Olympics are here.

From the last one it’s less than a year.

Will we ever win gold?

Will the losing get old?

Did the Putin-Xi meeting strike fear?

Let’s be clear about this: the voting “reforms” the GOP has rammed through in numerous states have no justification in any showing of “fraud,” and are intended to make voting more difficult for minorities and other economically disadvantaged people. The Democrats are right to complain loudly about them, and to attempt to reverse them. That said, do they really matter that much? Would an otherwise clean election with those “reforms” in place be illegitimate?

All of the available evidence suggests that the “reforms” will only make a difference in an extremely tight election. The answer to the questions is no.

But what about other potential efforts to steal the election? I will address them throughout the week.

I don’t have the technical ability to draw this on my site, but imagine a graphic in which one axis runs from “Self-Interest” to “Values” and the other from “Elitism” to “Populism.” The various groupings in the two parties would fall in the following quadrants:

1. PBPs and CLs: Elitism/Self-Interest
2. Progressives: Elitism/Values
3. The Moderate Left: Populism/Self-Interest
4. Reactionaries: Populism/Values

You might initially object to the placement of Progressives in the Elitism/Values quadrant, but the fact of the matter is that most relatively wealthy members of the left identify with experts and vote against their economic self-interest (their wealth and status derive from factors that have nothing to do with government) in an effort to protect the country from the cultural excesses of the reactionary right. In that sense, they are truly the other side of the coin from the Reactionaries, who consistently vote for GOP members who oppose programs that would help them in order to save, as they see it, the primacy of traditional moral and political values. Members of the moderate left–typically, although not exclusively, workers and minorities–vote for Democrats who promise them real, if limited, economic benefits and protection from the right. Finally, the PBPs and CLs believe that only they have the right and the ability to run the country, and vote for GOP members who deliver them tax cuts and deregulation.

The idea behind the American version of Abenomics was to reduce inequality by running a very hot economy, thus creating labor shortages and driving up wages. The pandemic assisted in this process. American companies have responded, however, by raising prices to protect their profits; the resulting inflation has caused the real value of wages to remain stagnant. The Fed is also threatening to raise interest rates to cool the economy down and reduce wage increases. The attempt to break out of the dollar store economy has, therefore, failed.

What can we learn from this? That simply increasing wages, either through legislation (minimum wage increases) or by creating labor shortages, will not help workers or reduce inequality by itself. Additional assistance is necessary, including changes to the tax code to benefit workers over capitalists, and, in some cases, antitrust action to prevent unjustified price increases.

A well-known author and lecturer at Georgetown Law School has been placed on administrative leave by the school for a tweet complaining that Biden’s Supreme Court choice will be a “lesser black woman” instead of a clearly better Asian-American candidate. Michelle Goldberg argues that he should not lose his job for this fairly stupid statement, and that the liberal left needs to stand up for free speech against the illiberal left; otherwise, the door will be open for the right to use its political power to impose an even more obnoxious form of censorship. Is she right?

Absolutely! The moderate, liberal left has to be willing to stand up to the woke left, or it will have no credibility with the public in its battle with the more dangerous DeSantis right. I’m doing my part. I hope the rest of you will, as well.

The RNC just passed a resolution describing January 6 as “legitimate political discourse.” That puts the party on record as supporting the insurrection. In addition, the RNC censured Cheney and Kinzinger for putting the health of American liberal democracy ahead of party unity. Opposing the lawless actions of the extreme right is, therefore, officially GOP heresy.

Consider what this means for the future. There are no limits on the extreme right; no action or statement is too outrageous to be acceptable now. Anyone in the center who objects in public will be drummed out of the GOP for damaging party unity. The inmates are officially in charge of the asylum.

There was a consensus within the leadership of both American parties that admitting China to the WTO would ultimately result in a liberalization of the Chinese political system. As we know now, that was a mistake. No such liberalization has occurred–in fact, quite the opposite.

It occurred to me this morning that the irony here is that the analysis from the US was impeccably Marxist; a fundamental change in China’s economic system must inevitably lead to a corresponding change in the superstructure. But in China, at least, Marx was wrong (for that matter, so was Gorbachev, who was a better Marxist in this respect than Deng). The superstructure calls the shots; economic change and political reform do not necessarily move on the same track.

As I started to read what appears to be an excellent biography of Stalin, it occurred to me that there are clear analogies in Chinese history to the grim periods of the Soviet experience. For the Great Leap Forward, see the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture and the diversion of resources to industry in the 1920s and 1930s; for the Cultural Revolution, you have Stalin’s purges. In both countries, dictatorial excesses were followed by periods of oligarchical rule, which were subsequently replaced by another era of dynamic one-man rule (Gorbachev; Xi). Are there any lessons to be learned here?

The first thing you would note is that the analogies are not perfect; the Soviet period of crash collectivization and industrialization had monstrous results, but it at least created a country that was capable of resisting the Nazis in World War II, while the Great Leap Forward was just a disaster, with no mitigating impacts. On the other hand, Stalin’s purges were directed by a single psychopath operating within the chain of command, while the Cultural Revolution was an effort by Mao to use people on the street to overcome resistance within a leadership over which he had lost control. And nobody would say that Xi resembles Gorbachev in any way.

What you should take from this is that communist revolutions and rule create similar issues regarding leadership structures and economic growth, but that different countries answer the questions in different ways. Individual agency still matters, even in China. Xi was a choice, not an inevitability.

Let’s look at the censorship issue from a more macro perspective. What are the available options, and how would they work?

There are essentially three options as to the social media companies: no censorship; censorship by the companies themselves; and censorship by the government. The first option is the one the companies prefer, as it makes them the most money and creates the least amount of inconvenience. However, it has led to ferocious criticism about the spread of clear misinformation from large number of consumers and from their own employees, while widespread lies on social media have destabilized entire political systems, the US not excepted, which is a potential danger to the very existence of the companies. The second option is consistent with First Amendment jurisprudence and avoids potentially dangerous government involvement, but it exposes the companies to constant criticism about unequal treatment from both the right and left, and costs lots of money to boot. The companies would thus prefer the third to the second option, as long as it is done with a light touch. That, unfortunately, cannot be guaranteed. Once government censorship starts, there is no guarantee it won’t be used by partisans of one side to stifle the opposition. Government involvement, therefore, can only work if the two political parties are trustworthy, and behave in good faith.

Does that sound like America in 2022 to you?

While Trump clearly saw Taiwan as a bargaining chip to be used in trade negotiations with the Chinese government, the mainstream of the GOP is publicly supportive of defending the island, and the Democrats are, too. Does this mean that America would necessarily come to the aid of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese blockade or attack?

No, because the American public hasn’t been consulted on the matter. It isn’t clear to me that the electorate as a whole would be willing to risk war with a nuclear power for an island thousands of miles from the US mainland. A lot of preparation would have to be done before military action is a politically viable option. As of now, I see no evidence that the leadership of either party is attempting to educate its partisans on this issue.

In a physical, military, and geopolitical sense, today’s Taiwan resembles West Berlin at the beginning of the Cold War. Assume that the Chinese at some point impose a blockade, as the Soviets did to Berlin in 1948. Would it be possible to supply the island by air in the same way in an effort to avoid both war and surrender?

Technology has improved since then, and America would have the assistance of Japan, Australia, and possibly the Filipinos, but the vastly larger population of Taiwan relative to Berlin would make it a huge challenge.

My best guess is that enough food could be provided to (barely) sustain the population, but that it would be impossible to deliver enough fuel to keep the Taiwanese economy going. At a minimum, life on the island would become extremely difficult.

Let’s hope we never find out.

When I was growing up, access to the marketplace of ideas was controlled by the owners and editors at the three TV networks and a few periodicals. You could say that it was censorship of a kind, but it wasn’t run by the government, and it wasn’t partisan. It kept out extreme ideas. It was a censorship of moderation and good taste.

First cable TV, then the internet, and finally social media have blown up this model. Today, the extremes rule, to the benefit of the owners of the social media companies. Any moron with a modem is entitled to broadcast his opinions for the entire world to hear. As a result, bad ideas drive out the good ones, partisans live in bubbles, and both sides fear the fringes of the other.

This situation is unsustainable. It cannot last. We are headed for a new model of censorship, which is already evolving in several countries throughout the world. This one will be run by the government, and will be partisan. The only question is who will control the new regime. The most likely answer is the right in the short run, and the left in the long run.

The great would-be emperor Xi

Wants to crush Taiwan under his knee.

Will the Chinese attack?

Will the island fight back?

Can it count on the land of the free?

Unlike his predecessors, Xi has embraced an aggressive “wolf warrior” style of diplomacy. As a result, China is widely perceived as an obnoxious bully throughout the world, which undercuts its expensive attempts to enhance its soft power. It seems counterproductive. What’s the point?

It all revolves around the government’s legitimacy. The regime obviously has no reasonable claim to be “democratic.” Since it no longer believes in Marxism, its right to rule cannot derive from its status as the vanguard of the working class, or its superior knowledge of dialectical materialism. That leaves the CCP only with its record of making China great again, which it exploits to the hilt with the public by swaggering on the world stage.

That’s a problem for both China and the world. Under normal circumstances, Chinese nationalism focuses on the superiority of Chinese culture, and is not militaristic. The new version promoted by the government is angrier and more grievance-based, and sounds a bit like Germany between 1870 and 1945. We know how that turned out.

Can the government continue to turn off angry nationalism as easily as it turns it on? Does it have the ability to back down in a pinch? We had better hope so.

When the British sent an embassy to the Chinese Emperor asking for trade rights and diplomatic equality in the 18th century, Qianlong swatted them away, saying that China was perfectly self-sufficient. As we all know, that didn’t end well for the Chinese. They have never gotten over the resulting conflict.

Xi’s ultimate objective is to create a China which, unlike Qianlong’s empire, actually is completely secure and self-sufficient. The overriding purpose of the New Silk Road is to create infrastructure, relationships, technology, and outposts which will eliminate any physical, military, or economic choke points for the Chinese economy.

Can it work? That, and how an invulnerable China would respond to the rest of the world, are the biggest geopolitical questions of the early 21st century. What I can say today is that it will be extremely difficult, but the Chinese have made a lot of progress, and the size of its market is a big asset.