If Mort Divine ruled the world

just on the title (thesis?) alone it's not surprising. Japan is like 99% ethnic Japanese and can't even find themselves to like those from a different island of Japan let alone foreigners
 
It's a compilation of cherry-picked clips that some douche put together, I didn't realise that before I posted it. I was only posting for the Takaaki Mitsuhashi clips due to the economic debate happening in here.
 
I don't deny the benefits of global trade. I'd agree that capitalism was a positive development in the history of a) economic productivity and b) individual prosperity, and that globalism is directly responsible for the level of technological development we enjoy today. One critical aspect of capitalist development, however, is that it's historically tied to the dynamics of imperialist expansion, which is part of what Deleuze and Guattari describe as the modern State. Given this historical connection, it's impossible to extricate poverty from success.

Eugenics is historically tied to the progressive moment, that doesn't mean it's impossible to extricate eugenics from progressive politics.

Every imperialist regime with some mode of capitalism made others suffer through anti-capitalist acts. The Irish didn't starve because they were out-competed by superior British agriculture, they starved because the British forbade trade. Iran didn't have an uprising against the West and British Petroleum because enterprising Anglos purchased their oil fields at market value, they had an uprising because the oil fields were taken as a part of war and then later privatized.

You respond to many of my points already, which is that protectionism and imperialism were crucial components of capitalism (and still are today, to perhaps a lesser degree).

Hardly crucial, at least to a degree that it impoverishes other nations. America was more or less isolationist until McKinley and the Spanish-American war; they had fairly high tariffs and protectionist policies, but I'm unaware of evidence that those tariffs were necessary for capitalism. The South, obviously, was quite opposed to protectionism. And it obviously does not explain how tiny city-states like Singapore, Hong Kong, etc become incredibly wealthy with virtually no military and minimal trade barriers. Protectionism has always been used as a populist ploy to convince workers that they should be honored to pay their masters more for a good than pay someone else. The continued success of neoliberal governments along with the growth of most economies worldwide, not to mention things such as the fact that countries that trade almost never go to war.

You suggest that this leads to "temporary war and economic depression," which is accurate; but it's not followed by significant improvement of the standard of living for all citizens (additionally, all citizens didn't enjoy higher standards of living before communist revolutions; only some did). More often than not, the extraction of imperialist powers either a) opens the door for corrupt local officials to swoop in and take over, or b) establishes a dictatorial regime that leads to the kinds of coups we see in Cuba and Afghanistan. The resultant effects aren't unrelated to the capitalist efforts of imperialist nations that colonized and occupied these territories. Venezuela's current situation isn't a result of their government's meddling or "kicking the capitalists out"; it's an effect of the 1973 oil embargo and its lingering impact. Likewise, as Orwell suggests in the piece quoted by Dak, India's poverty was an effect of Britain's domestic standard-of-living (that is, the British could enjoy the products and wealth that they did only because India couldn't fully enjoy the fruits of their labor, most of which went to the Brits). This is all part of global markets and trade as much as it is part of government meddling or other purportedly "anti-market" activities.

The overwhelming majority of citizens enjoy higher standards of living, even though there are obviously those that become wealthier. Where are you observing this? People predicted that outsourcing to China would only profit Nike executives and Chinese factory owners. Obviously not true; China has the largest middle-class in the world now. Their poorest are those unable to participate in capitalism, largely rural minority groups and the illiterate (both shrinking classes in China). More often than not, Western leaders in both politics and industry work together with foreign nations to ensure that things are stable.

Cuba is the most extreme success story of a communist regime (and it's worth noting that they remained poor not so much because of their leadership (which gradually mellowed and began to accept trade - albeit with a redistributive and authoritarian aim - but because of America's excessively long trade embargo), and Afghanistan was never exactly properly conquered and made an imperial possession.

I won't deny that countries like Cuba and Venezuela are poorly managed and that their internal economic policies are insufficient. I won't deny that capitalism has done more for global development in the past two centuries than socialism. I will deny that capitalism can solve the third world's problems.

The current economic standing of countries like Afghanistan, Guinea, Haiti, and of colonies like Puerto Rico, are results of capitalist history. There's no way around this point. Does that mean capitalism is primarily responsible for their current situations? I won't argue that, no, because I don't think I have enough information to figure out what the primary factors are. But I can say with certainty that these situations aren't unrelated to capitalist intervention over the past century or more.

Capitalism is lifting Africa out of poverty right now, thanks to China building infrastructure and bringing money in exchange for natural resources and political influence. The vast majority of the world was "third world" by current standards just 100 years ago. I don't understand how you can say that capitalism has done any good, without accepting that it enriched the once-destitute nations all over the world.

Afghanistan is poor primarily because it's a rural fundamentalist shithole filled with tribal pedophiles. The British hardly even had a chance to extract wealth out of there via any form of trade. File under halfway under #2, a USSR-curious -stan, but with other extenuating factors. Guinea I'm not familiar with; skimming Wikipedia, what makes their history particularly different from any other colonized African nation? Apparently they had a socialist revolution in the 50s-70s, nationalized any French owned industries, killed some people, etc. Obviously slavery and imperialism hurt Africa, but that wasn't capitalism. Just compare the outcome of Guinea with that of Cameroon, also a French colony but one that maintained a good trade relationship with France, now one of the more promising sub-Saharan nations. File under #1. Haiti was a nation of African slaves that killed their masters and spiraled into illiteracy and death. Compare them to their next-door neighbor in the Dominican Republic, populated with many subjugated to Spanish colonial rule, but founded in support of trade and property rights. File under #1, by proxy.
 
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afaik Takaaki Mitsuhashi is something of a meme and more like Japan's top protectionist/populist, iirc not even a real economist. The only things that even touch on economics are where he cherry-picks labor participation rates saying that if they were the best in the world (apparently the Netherlands) that they would have 4 million more people to do jobs rather than immigrants, not considering that Japan already has a fairly high participation rate regardless, not to mention the more realistic concerns which are that a bunch of NEET hikkos aren't going to suddenly become engineers. He cherry-picks another figure of the maximum number of employed construction workers and engineers; without checking, I'll assume it's related to Japan having a massive economic boom up through the 80s until they began a recession that they never fully recovered from to this day. Construction is an intrinsically boom-bust related career and a terrible metric to use for anything on broad employment trends. No one worth listening to would use it. He's a dumbass.
 
Woman charged with laundering money via bitcoin to support ISIS.
Zoobia Shahnaz, who lives in Brentwood on Long Island, was charged with bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of money laundering. The five-count indictment was unsealed Thursday in federal court in Central Islip, New York.

"The defendant defrauded numerous financial institutions and obtained over $85,000 in illicit proceeds, which she converted to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies," the DOJ explained in a statement. "She then laundered and transferred the funds out of the country to support the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham ("ISIS") ... After consummating the scheme, the defendant attempted to leave the United States and travel to Syria. Shahnaz, a U.S citizen, was arrested yesterday."
 
Yeah that's pretty fucking brutal. I don't want to be that guy and from all I've seen I think the scumfuck is guilty, but to cancel such a massive tour over allegations against one faggot involved with the company is pretty hysterical. They're allegations and none of them include him doing anything physical, just verbally creepy.

Seems like an overreaction.
 
Yeah that's pretty fucking brutal. I don't want to be that guy and from all I've seen I think the scumfuck is guilty, but to cancel such a massive tour over allegations against one faggot involved with the company is pretty hysterical. They're allegations and none of them include him doing anything physical, just verbally creepy.

Seems like an overreaction.
Not in the current climate. Regardless he's the director of the company and people aren't buying that the other guy knew nothing about it. So that's that unfortunately.
 
It's not going to work I don't think. The other guy should start his own company ASAP to further disassociate from him and rebook the current bookings under the new name. Chelsea Wolfe and Wolves in the Throne Room are both also booked to play here soon.
 
I like that the cunt is falling back on progressive language in his apology.

View attachment 13143

Too late to virtue-signal now ol' mate, you're fucking done.

It's basically the new religious trend, ala Ted Bundy citing his viewing of pornography as a child for his own behavior, to then be accepted unquestionably by the religious right for telling them what they wanted to hear. Adopting the language of your surroundings and prey is an essential skill for any good sociopath.
 
Eugenics is historically tied to the progressive moment, that doesn't mean it's impossible to extricate eugenics from progressive politics.

Every imperialist regime with some mode of capitalism made others suffer through anti-capitalist acts. The Irish didn't starve because they were out-competed by superior British agriculture, they starved because the British forbade trade. Iran didn't have an uprising against the West and British Petroleum because enterprising Anglos purchased their oil fields at market value, they had an uprising because the oil fields were taken as a part of war and then later privatized.



Hardly crucial, at least to a degree that it impoverishes other nations. America was more or less isolationist until McKinley and the Spanish-American war; they had fairly high tariffs and protectionist policies, but I'm unaware of evidence that those tariffs were necessary for capitalism. The South, obviously, was quite opposed to protectionism. And it obviously does not explain how tiny city-states like Singapore, Hong Kong, etc become incredibly wealthy with virtually no military and minimal trade barriers. Protectionism has always been used as a populist ploy to convince workers that they should be honored to pay their masters more for a good than pay someone else. The continued success of neoliberal governments along with the growth of most economies worldwide, not to mention things such as the fact that countries that trade almost never go to war.



The overwhelming majority of citizens enjoy higher standards of living, even though there are obviously those that become wealthier. Where are you observing this? People predicted that outsourcing to China would only profit Nike executives and Chinese factory owners. Obviously not true; China has the largest middle-class in the world now. Their poorest are those unable to participate in capitalism, largely rural minority groups and the illiterate (both shrinking classes in China). More often than not, Western leaders in both politics and industry work together with foreign nations to ensure that things are stable.

Cuba is the most extreme success story of a communist regime (and it's worth noting that they remained poor not so much because of their leadership (which gradually mellowed and began to accept trade - albeit with a redistributive and authoritarian aim - but because of America's excessively long trade embargo), and Afghanistan was never exactly properly conquered and made an imperial possession.



Capitalism is lifting Africa out of poverty right now, thanks to China building infrastructure and bringing money in exchange for natural resources and political influence. The vast majority of the world was "third world" by current standards just 100 years ago. I don't understand how you can say that capitalism has done any good, without accepting that it enriched the once-destitute nations all over the world.

Afghanistan is poor primarily because it's a rural fundamentalist shithole filled with tribal pedophiles. The British hardly even had a chance to extract wealth out of there via any form of trade. File under halfway under #2, a USSR-curious -stan, but with other extenuating factors. Guinea I'm not familiar with; skimming Wikipedia, what makes their history particularly different from any other colonized African nation? Apparently they had a socialist revolution in the 50s-70s, nationalized any French owned industries, killed some people, etc. Obviously slavery and imperialism hurt Africa, but that wasn't capitalism. Just compare the outcome of Guinea with that of Cameroon, also a French colony but one that maintained a good trade relationship with France, now one of the more promising sub-Saharan nations. File under #1. Haiti was a nation of African slaves that killed their masters and spiraled into illiteracy and death. Compare them to their next-door neighbor in the Dominican Republic, populated with many subjugated to Spanish colonial rule, but founded in support of trade and property rights. File under #1, by proxy.

All good points, I'll keep them in mind. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to attend to all these details without skipping over things--too many things piling up at the end of the semester, and my evenings have been busy.

I find myself agreeing with a lot of what you say, and not sure that all of it contradicts what I've been saying, which leads me to believe I need to frame my comments differently. But that'll have to wait.
 
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