China's New Leader Signals Signs of Economic Reform

[Thanas]

The Third Reich had also been a democracy like 12 years before it collapsed, unless you think the wealth should all disappear overnight.
.

How ignorant of history are you to not know that the destruction of wealth by the Weimar democracy was what directly caused the rise of the fascist dictatorship? People do not suddenly wake up and go "hey, I'll vote Nazi today". Heck, the weimar republic, or the Kaiserreich are just a few of the examples which demolish your theory that democracy leads to wealth.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

The Third Reich had also been a democracy like 12 years before it collapsed, unless you think the wealth should all disappear overnight.

Imperial Germany had bugger all to do with democracy, and still fought its democratic neighbors to a standstill in a conflict where outproducing your enemy was more important than outmaneuvering him. Your argument has, like, a flaw.

[mr friendly guy]

I wonder what he's going to say...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to replace a landmark 1995 apology for suffering caused in Asia during World War Two with an unspecified "forward-looking statement", a newspaper reported on Monday.

Funny you should mention that, because South Korean courts may have responded (or they could have done what they would normally done anyway, but it seems like a big fuck you to Japan regardless).

SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean court sided with China on Thursday in a fight between Beijing and Tokyo over the custody of a Chinese man accused of an arson attack at the Yasukuni Shrine for Japan’s war dead.

Even before Mr. Liu was released from a South Korean prison, Tokyo and Beijing had filed competing requests for his extradition.

During the investigation by the South Korean police, Mr. Liu said that he had carried out an arson attack that burned the main wooden gate of the shrine in Tokyo in December 2011. The shrine, which commemorates several Japanese war criminals from World War II, as well as the common war dead, is seen by many Koreans and Chinese as a symbol of Japan’s past aggression, and Japanese politicians’ frequent visits there have prompted anti-Japanese emotions in the neighboring countries.

His lawyers, reportedly hired by the Chinese government, cited a provision at the South Korea-Japan extradition treaty that allowed each country not to extradite people accused of political crimes.

In his verdict, Mr. Hwang said a decision to extradite Mr. Liu to Japan for “his political crime would be tantamount to denying the political order and Constitutional ideas of South Korea, as well as the universal values of most of the civilized nations.”

He also said the Yasukuni Shrine carried some “political symbolism” even if it was listed as a religious property in Japan.

Mr. Liu’s extradition trial came amid concern in South Korea over the growing political power of right-wing nationalists in Japan, as demonstrated by Shinzo Abe’s return as prime minister.

During Mr. Liu’s hearings, right-wing South Korean activists demonstrated outside the courthouse, opposing his extradition to Japan and calling for South Korea to instead give him an “award.”

At his trial, Mr. Liu appealed to the South Korean judge “to understand, as a fellow Korean who shares the same blood, the anger my grandmother and I felt.” He linked his attack at the shrine to the acts of some South Korean nationalist activists who have in recent years cut their fingertips to show anger at some Japanese politicians’ annual visits to the shrine.

Damn it, those Koreans are joining China in raising tensions which don't have to be raised in a region with too much tension already (but we can't be bothered to work out why its raised, lets just blame some countries we don't like as much, I hear that works).

[Ziggy Stardust]

Imperial Germany had bugger all to do with democracy, and still fought its democratic neighbors to a standstill in a conflict where outproducing your enemy was more important than outmaneuvering him. Your argument has, like, a flaw.

To be fair, that stalemate had more to do with the utter incompetence, at both tactical and strategic levels, of most of the important commanders involved. The Germans were pretty thoroughly outproduced during the war, even before U.S. involvement, but Joffre, Haig, and other high-ranking allied commanders were just perpetually unable to think of a battle plan that involved anything other than just marching their soldiers into machine gun nests.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Imperial Germany had bugger all to do with democracy, and still fought its democratic neighbors to a standstill in a conflict where outproducing your enemy was more important than outmaneuvering him. Your argument has, like, a flaw.

To be fair, that stalemate had more to do with the utter incompetence, at both tactical and strategic levels, of most of the important commanders involved. The Germans were pretty thoroughly outproduced during the war, even before U.S. involvement, but Joffre, Haig, and other high-ranking allied commanders were just perpetually unable to think of a battle plan that involved anything other than just marching their soldiers into machine gun nests.

Aye, but Germany was also much smaller than the sum of England, France and Italy. Do you have any figures comparing production between countries? Please, don't count Russia and the Ottomans.

As to incompetence... well, how could it have been different? I am aware of the whole "lions led by donkeys" narrative, but current narrative is that it couldn't have been waged much differently due to technology; the Romans didn't wage trench warfare either.

If it comes to that, though, I'd always wager Currie would kick total arse.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Aye, but Germany was also much smaller than the sum of England, France and Italy. Do you have any figures comparing production between countries? Please, don't count Russia and the Ottomans.

To be perfectly honest, I don't even know how to go about finding those figures without searching through my old books to see if they happen to cite them.

As to incompetence... well, how could it have been different? I am aware of the whole "lions led by donkeys" narrative, but current narrative is that it couldn't have been waged much differently due to technology; the Romans didn't wage trench warfare either.

There were just so many missed tactical and strategic opportunities; and while I realize that hindsight is 20/20, there were plenty of contemporaries that viewed, for example, the strategies employed at Third Ypres and the Somme to be idiotic. Hell, at the Somme the British were virtually marching across no-man's-land arm-in-arm, because they were so convinced that the preceding artillery strike would have wiped out the German front lines (despite multiple previous battles where that didn't happen). The commanders were also obsessed with the idea that a breakthrough was imminent, and even after days or weeks of an assault being stalled with heavy casualties they would keep just throwing men at the front-lines hoping it would break. Haig, for example, even as late as 1918 was throwing cavalry forces at men armed with machine guns, which is blatantly moronic (Lloyd George even said as much).

While the war certainly would have still been long and bloody as a result of the at-the-time-new wave of technological developments, it is hard to completely overlook the incompetence that made it last even longer and cost more lives than it needed to. Look at the Battle of Tannenberg on the Eastern front, for example, in which a superior (numerically) Russian army basically allowed itself to be defeated because one of the Russian generals essentially hated the other one and refused to move strategically in support. Or the constant political battling between Hindenburg/Ludendorff and Falkhenhayn, which resulted in deliberate misallocation of resources and reinforcements.

Or, for the most infamous example, everything about the way the landings at Gallipoli were handled. The naval assault was stopped because they feared that their battleships would be destroyed (though the enemy was low on shells and mines with which to destroy them), forcing them into an amphibious assault, which could have been successful if not that some of the divisions were landed on the wrong beaches, and the field commanders weren't given clear instructions on what to do when they landed, allowing the Turks to get their reinforcements in place (several of the British and Anzac forces landed on completely unopposed beach-heads, but since they hadn't been given clear orders from Hamilton they just sat on the beaches until enemy troops showed up hours later).

EDIT: To be a bit more clear: it sounds stupid to pick out these examples as evidence for the entire war, but they are far from the only examples. And yes, the technology was so new you expect growing pains and adjustment time. But there were generals on both sides that even as early as 1916 realized the futility of the tactics and strategies being implemented, and they were often ignored if not outright dismissed, so you can't say that this is all hindsight on my part. Generals like Petain, Currie, and Hoffman (to name a few) tried to convince their superiors to abandon the bloody and ineffectual mass infantry assaults, but to no avail. Basically, a lot of men died because of prideful generals being too stubborn to admit when they were wrong.

[Metahive]

Well, there was also the fact that Germany was blocked off from many strategic resources during the war. In fact, if german scientists hadn't found artificial alternatives to certain resources, like saltpeter, the war might have ended after just one year. Germany was out-produced by its enemies, but since its enemies were four of the most powerful nations at the time, I would hardly conclude that this proves anything regarding its political system.

In fact, considering that Germany hung on for four years while having to drag around useless allies like the KuK Monarchy shows that Germany was actually remarkably capable.

[Lusankya]

You are aware that the current tensions in the Diaoyu Islands were started by the Japanese government attempting to purchase the islands from the current private owners, and have been exacerbated by Japanese ministers going and visiting the islands even amidst all the tensions, right? And furthermore, it's not just a Japan vs PRC claim. Taiwan also claims the islands, and the only thing that's really stopping Taiwan from being a major player in the tensions is relative population and not the fact that Taiwan is a democracy.

Also, when the hell did "better than the Congo" suddenly become our main criterion for judging whether or not countries are acting ethically?

Wasn't the purchase motivated by Chinese claims to the islands too?

The purchase was motivated by the owners wanting to get rid of them because they're useless. The Chinese claim to the lands was along long before that, and got more aggressive in the light of the Japanese government's decision to buy along. Then it got even more heated, because rather than just waiting and hoping the situation would calm down, Japan instead sent ministers out to survey the islands. Because sending elected officials into a tense situation always makes things calm the shit down.

China is being pretty ridiculous with their Japan-hate at the moment, but if we're going to criticise people for increasing tensions, then we should all at least admit that Japan started it, and they've been doing plenty of their own escalation throughout this mess as well.

[Iron Bridge]

The Third Reich had also been a democracy like 12 years before it collapsed, unless you think the wealth should all disappear overnight.
.

How ignorant of history are you to not know that the destruction of wealth by the Weimar democracy was what directly caused the rise of the fascist dictatorship? People do not suddenly wake up and go "hey, I'll vote Nazi today". Heck, the weimar republic, or the Kaiserreich are just a few of the examples which demolish your theory that democracy leads to wealth.

Are you claiming that the Weimar Republic's choice of political system caused the Great Depression?

That's amazing.

More amazing even than thinking Germany became poorer during the Kaiserreich? Although that was an imperfect democracy to say the least.

[Simon_Jester]

It seems to me, Bridge, that you want to have it both ways.

When a state that restricts capitalism suffers an economic reverse, it's because they lack the glories of the mighty CAPITALFREEDOMISM or whatever we call it.

When a state that does not restrict capitalism suffers a reverse, it's nobody's fault, or at least not the fault of the system that collapsed.

Blaming Weimar for the Depression doesn't make sense- but neither does saying "Weimar should have been more successful because it was more democratic." It's more complicated than that- Naziism got a lot of support and power from Germans who felt that the Weimar government was failing to protect their wealth. Corporate, industrial concerns saw Naziism as a reliable ally. Much of the middle class saw them as a pro-free market force to protect their own savings and lifestyle from the menace of communists, and for that matter all kinds of socialism and even relatively mild stuff like trade unions.

Political tyranny and market freedom can get along very well with each other.

[Iron Bridge]

It's potentially reasonable to blame the Great Depression on "capitalism". I don't necessarily agree but I will listen to your argument.

Blaming it on the Weimar Republic is ridiculous. Germany as a whole, whatever policy it could have adopted, had only very marginal influence on the depression, which originated in the US financial system to which Germany was inextricably linked by its WWI debt. There is no policy, short of risking war with the Entente, that could have substantially decoupled Germany from the world economy. And even then it would have had devastating economic consequences that might not be preferable to the depression.

The claim was Nazi Germany proved that high GDP per capita dictatorships with diversified economies were significant in the past, but this is not true.

Also, as claim of fact, no one saw Nazis (full name: National Socialist German Workers' Party) as "pro-market". They were explicitly anti-market, not that that was bad for them as almost all Germans rejected markets in the wake of the depression. All the major parties in Germany in the 1932 election explicitly favoured moving from markets to a planned economy. And the economic system the Nazis established was the second most centralised in the world outside the USSR at the time.

[Metahive]

Thanas isn't sayint that the Weimar Republic caused the Great Depression, just that it did nothing to halt the destruction of the wealth of its citizens, although Brüning's boneheaded economical decisions regarding national debt surely didn't help. In a more deliberate example, in the early 20's the Weimar Republic deliberately caused massive inflation to get around the reparation payments and so willfully accepted destroying the monetary savings of its people.

Also, as claim of fact, no one saw Nazis (full name: National Socialist German Workers' Party) as "pro-market". They were explicitly anti-market, not that that was bad for them as almost all Germans rejected markets in the wake of the depression. All the major parties in Germany in the 1932 election explicitly favoured moving from markets to a planned economy. And the economic system the Nazis established was the second most centralised in the world outside the USSR at the time.

O with the ignorance. Nazi Germany's economy didn't become centralized until halfway into WW2, when Hitler finally allowed Speer to create a war economy. You know, Hitler was deathly afraid that restricting the economy would cost him the sympathy of the people and its "planned economy" boiled down to funneling an obscene amount of its budget towards the arms industry, but that's not so different from what the US is doing even today.

[K. A. Pital]

Also, as claim of fact, no one saw Nazis (full name: National Socialist German Workers' Party) as "pro-market". They were explicitly anti-market, not that that was bad for them as almost all Germans rejected markets in the wake of the depression. All the major parties in Germany in the 1932 election explicitly favoured moving from markets to a planned economy. And the economic system the Nazis established was the second most centralised in the world outside the USSR at the time.

Privatization in Nazi Germany. Nuff said. What "planned economy"? The Nazi German system did not abolish private property; in fact, Hitler explicitly said that National Socialism is a private property based economy with a social support network for the workers. Of course the Nazis saw themselves as "pro-market" - they were fighting against the Marxists and their ungodly anti-private property teachings. And large industrialists and small bourgeois overwhelmingly voted Nazi and supported the Nazis. How can big and small capitalists be "anti-market"?

The claim was Nazi Germany proved that high GDP per capita dictatorships with diversified economies were significant in the past, but this is not true.

Nazi Germany was a First World dictatorship. There's nothing you can do to avoid this fact. You can't accept it obviously, since you are a racist Western supremacist, but try to stay consistent and admit you are proud of anything the First World does, since regardless of what has been done, the West is always right.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Also, as claim of fact, no one saw Nazis (full name: National Socialist German Workers' Party) as "pro-market". They were explicitly anti-market...

Google any Nazi Germany tank. Panther, Tiger, StuG, Panzers, any of them, or even their fucking cars. All were made by private enterprises. In deep contrast, all Soviet tanks were produced by the state.

You know, this reminded me of the uneducated idiots who try to debate a leftist by saying that the Nazis were leftists too.

[Iron Bridge]

Also, as claim of fact, no one saw Nazis (full name: National Socialist German Workers' Party) as "pro-market". They were explicitly anti-market, not that that was bad for them as almost all Germans rejected markets in the wake of the depression. All the major parties in Germany in the 1932 election explicitly favoured moving from markets to a planned economy. And the economic system the Nazis established was the second most centralised in the world outside the USSR at the time.

Privatization in Nazi Germany. Nuff said. What "planned economy"? The Nazi German system did not abolish private property; in fact, Hitler explicitly said that National Socialism is a private property based economy with a social support network for the workers. Of course the Nazis saw themselves as "pro-market" - they were fighting against the Marxists and their ungodly anti-private property teachings. And large industrialists and small bourgeois overwhelmingly voted Nazi and supported the Nazis. How can big and small capitalists be "anti-market"?

"Ideological motivations do not explain Nazi privatization." from your paper. More importantly, "private" industry in Nazi Germany was subject to state cartels, just the same as formerly private unions were. The main difference between Nazi (and other fascist) economic policy and Soviet communism is that the fascists were far more incoherent. At the same time as Hjalmar Schacht was trying to convince the British and Americans that Germany was still a responsible part of the free world economic system, you had Nazi grandess establishing entire parallel economies. The book Wages of Destruction is an excellent academic overview of the Nazi economy, and if you are interested go further into the bibliography.

One thing you will quickly find is that saying things like "Nazis are obviously free market because they hate Russian Bolshevism" makes as much sense as saying "Protestants obviously don't believe in Jesus because they hate Catholics". The hatred and bloody wars (at least, at the time of emergence) are very real, but that in no way makes the ideologies "opposites".

The claim was Nazi Germany proved that high GDP per capita dictatorships with diversified economies were significant in the past, but this is not true.

Nazi Germany was a First World dictatorship. There's nothing you can do to avoid this fact. You can't accept it obviously, since you are a racist Western supremacist, but try to stay consistent and admit you are proud of anything the First World does, since regardless of what has been done, the West is always right.

Right, I am trying to unfairly denigrate Nazi Germany because I am a racist! Have a fucking medal for that feat of deduction, Inspector Clueso.

Suppose the US were to become a soviet dictatorship tomorrow. Would you also attribute US's ~$47k GDP per capita to being a soviet dictatorship? Wait, why am I asking, of course you would!

[K. A. Pital]

The book Wages of Destruction is an excellent academic overview of the Nazi economy

Of course, but Tooze is a history expert whose works I enjoy; you on the other hand are just an uneducated racist supremacist. So...

[Iron Bridge]

I don't see how you can read that book and come out with the conclusion that the Nazis were little proto-Friedmanites. I am beginning to think you're deliberately dishonest.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't see how you can read that book and come out with the conclusion that the Nazis were little proto-Friedmanites. I am beginning to think you're deliberately dishonest.

I never said the Nazis were "proto-Friedmanites", your moronic strawman exists only in your stupid head. Of course when you make up preposterous statements like this, arguing becomes fun.

[Iron Bridge]

Then what do you think they are? Do you think they opposed markets or favoured them? Do you think Nazi Germany was more of a free market economy than the Weimar Republic? It's all vacillation and deliberately twisted and misleading statements from you.

[Questor]

Then what do you think they are? Do you think they opposed markets or favoured them? Do you think Nazi Germany was more of a free market economy than the Weimar Republic? It's all vacillation and deliberately twisted and misleading statements from you.

Do you seriously think that it's a binary state?

BTW, you do understand that attempting to use Schacht as proof of what the Nazi's wanted to do when the man barely escaped the regime with his life (he was a part of Stauffenberg's coup attempt) and was in opposition to the primary economic/production drive of the regime is just a little bit insane, right?

[Iron Bridge]

I think it's pretty clear I used Schacht as the figurehead of the most market liberal wing of the Nazi movement. The fact he was eventually deposed and very near killed says a lot about the Nazis' stance on that, especially as the man was basically a Keynesian anyway. My whole point, explicitly made, was that the Nazi movement was incoherent and driven by internal power struggles and charismatic individuals grabbing government competences for themselves, vs the carefully planned centralisation of the USSR.

[Questor]

Schacht was a market liberal? In what sense? His policies were blatantly protectionist and he conceived of "autarky!"

[Iron Bridge]

He was one relative to the rest of the party.

[Questor]

He was one relative to the rest of the party.

You just said that he was "basically a Keynesian anyway". How on earth is a dramatically protectionist economic policy Keynesian? I'd say his predecessors under von Schleicher were much more Keynesian than he was. In fact, they were almost stereotypically Keynesian, but I hate to let facts get in the way of your delusions.

The idea that you cannot understand how a non-communist "co-ordinated" economic policy could possibly be non-free market is just proof that you've never stepped beyond basic economic concepts. Just because they sucked at centralizing and planning the economy doesn't mean they didn't try.

Exactly which of the many state sponsored monopolies of the Nazis do you consider to be forces of the market? And let's not even talk about the economic insanities that happened under the guise of "Arayanization."

EDIT: Good lord, I couldn't type at all...

EDIT AGAIN: It's possible I may have been confused as to who was taking which positions. Lets just leave it at this, trying to describe Nazi Germany on the Capitolist-Communist continuum is a bit like trying to find the solution to 1/0. What they did had heavy, heavy, shades of centralized economic management, while at the same time, they maintained many other aspects of the "free market," at least on a de jure basis, even while interfering in the economy for political reasons to an extent that really dwarfs just about anything else other than Stalin at the same time.

[Iron Bridge]

I thought people were arguing with me because I said the Nazis weren't free marketeers? I entirely agree that the Nazis and their cartels and nationalised industries were an anti-market movement. Schacht tried to restrain their insanity to at least some extent, and largely failed. He was appointed to appease the British/American creditors, not because the Nazis actually liked him.


edit: "EDIT AGAIN: It's possible I may have been confused as to who was taking which positions." Actually, you're right, I think people are just arguing against me at this point rather than what I am actually saying, which bears little resemblance to the various things I am accused of. I shouldn't have bothered.