I find these short articles well written. It provides food for thought and a little direction of the rabbit holes that exist where more information can be found. I know if you went into great depths, your articles could be volumes of books. I appreciate and enjoy your articles. You are a very good writer who has the ability to outline enough from start to finish capturing relevant points. And now I can enjoy them just a bit earlier. Thanx.
Thanks Lynz! One of my struggles is trying to find the balance between expounding on details (which I love and think is super important) and being able to succinctly convey big picture ideas. I’m glad that you have found them enjoyable and useful.
Nice article, TLBS. A loss of trust is the implicit theme running through your article. Trust supports cooperation, which produces abundance. It is as if the foundation of the global system has been crumbling.
I'm pretty disappointed I came to subscribe to this only to find this extremely spineless take that doesn't really take into consideration the global, historical and political context the world has gone through in the last 50 years and you as an individual fail to realize that your comforts really came at the expense of other nations which were exploited of their wealth and labor. "Please stop fighting!" is just a tone deaf cry into the ears of no one and lacks perspective.
Its due time, its obvious that there are repercussions to what you call "economic prosperity and harmony" came with its expenses. The global economy and conditions of the average QoL has definitely increased but at the cost that of such immense economic disparities on the class scale.
Introducing a psychological study as a framework to how the world works on an economic and more importantly political scale is facile, lacks nuance and ignores the geopolitical complexities that a meager economist really doesn't understand.
Nations are unwilling to cooperate because they are propelled by self interest. People working together by fulfilling their own needs first with a division of labor modelled after a theoretical communal village's individual responsibilities is a neoliberal pipedream. Nations fulfill their needs to supply "more stuff" by exploiting other nations, whether it be labor, material goods, raw resources, what have you. It can be through private contracts, kickbacks, a coupe de tat, war even.
Nations working together in self interest with a plea to cooperation is fundamentally unsustainable as a economic or political model. I was born in 92, a year after the soviet union collapsed and when francis fukuyama wrote that capitalism won. Its now eating itself alive.
Good article and want to give you some information to look into.
Minsk Agreement was broken and Ukraine was moving towards NATO. Ukrainian government had been targeting ethnic russians with death in Ukraine since 2014. See Angels Alley.
Russia warned not to break agreements of neutrality and to stop targeting Russians as Russia would protect its people.
An agreed line was crossed over and there are consequences to these actions.
Western medias are posturing to try and blame decades of fiscal fiat irresponsibility on a country protecting its people. If Russia was malicious they would have shut off the gas/oil and fertilizers to Europe and west day 1. They didnt. Why? They have a bone to pic with the deep state MIC moneychangers and not the people that inhabit its captured countries.
You might want to think about these things before casting broad strokes of unprovoked aggression, which is inaccurate.
So we should have stuck with the one rabbit and one jug of water a day do you think?
I really enjoy your writing, it is refreshing to read well constructed conversation, your perspective is only yours and doesn’t necessarily have to capture the entire brief (who can).I think people need to converse more instead of going immediately to polars and arguing,face to face and on platforms
I think the bright side of this post is that economic cooperation is really really great... its inherently stable because its mutually beneficial, and it unlocks human prosperity. So in that sense its an awesome tool for pacifism - if we all rely on each other, there is less likely to be death and destruction because its in no ones interest.
As far as today - I think the west has shown a strong preference to use its economic power rather than military power if at all possible. This works well for small countries that simply can't compete with that force (say, cuba, n. korea, venezuela, iran to some extent). But when you start lobbing economic bombs at China and Russia you need to start considering the effect it may cause back to you. I feel to some extent that we have ignored those realities and have waged total economic war (against Russia) without realizing there could be collateral damage.
Is that still preferable to physical war? probably? does the US or western countries have an obligation to help Ukraine, and at what cost? That is much more of an ethical and moral question that needs to be decided by the citizens of those countries.
And my post certainly was not being directly critical of the US or others helping Ukraine. But there is a renewed hawkishness that seems to be permeating that feels very dangerous. If we can avoid WWIII, we should try to do that. This sounds silly and obvious, but a lot of popular positions would tilt us closer to that outcome.
Separately, thank you very much for the kind words. This feedback is what keeps me encouraged and motivated to continue writing.
Being a citizen of an Eastern European country I can confirm that things are not good at all in EU. But how it feels now after a couple of months (just my opinion) of war is like this: US and NATO provoked Russia, Russia responded and now US is winning big by selling expensive gas and other goods in EU. EU leaders are not doing much because they don't know what to do and because always when hard times are coming, there are certain individuals and companies that are winning big.
I think the losers will be Russian people and EU countries people. The oligarchs and EU leaders with lots of companies will be big winners. US with this war has a big change to avoid a recession and China with it's problems I thinks doesn't want a war for Taiwan.
The big looser here is the EU and EUR who is in danger of collapse.
Anyway very good article. You are really talented and smart. Thank man.
Yes I think this was a broad generalization for stylistic purposes, and thinking more from an ethical and human perspective. LNG companies could be considered “winners” (and were the subject of last weeks post!). Oil prices are now below where they were in February surprisingly enough
While reading through a phrase caught my attention:
"Ultimately, the economic system of mutually beneficial self-interest, capitalism, practiced by the Western Bloc proved far more fruitful and resilient than economic systems ostensibly motivated by collective interest, communism or socialism, practiced by the Eastern Bloc. "
The US came out of WW2 arguably stronger than it was before, at least relative to other nations if not in absolute terms, with extremely favorable future prospects. Its economy had much better foundations compared to that of the USSR, which suffered immense losses both in human lives (~25-27 million civilian and military casualties), morale, infrastructure and capital. The US would hold the West's gold, put the dollar in the center of the world's economies and provide whatever was necessary for the West to rebuild itself, which was a net positive to its industry.
What I am alluding to is that capitalism had significantly higher chances of success from day 1 (relative to the end of WW2) compared to communism due to the much more robust economic foundations at the country which introduced it to the world. A big factor contributing to how all this played out must have been geographic proximity between nations. The US had immense bodies of water to protect it from invasion in an age when the world was much less interconnected, due to the state of technology at that time.
I am not suggesting of course that capitalism's dominance was the product of luck, but that there must have been a lot of factors contributing to its success over communism apart from its inherent dynamics/properties as a system.
This is a great point and something I thought about highlighting in the article. The WWII comparison seems relevant to today as well considering the US benefits from energy exports to Europe as Europe bears the brunt of the economic pain of the war so far.
As you say, there are always confounding variables that make these issues far more complex than capitalism=good communism=bad. That being said, there are other datapoints beyond just the US’s relative success that help make the case, such as east vs west Germany, north vs South Korea, or even China/Vietnam pre and post market reform. While it’s impossible to empirically “prove” things in complex systems like these, I think there is enough evidence to build the case.
Fully agree. Keeping an open mind and trying to imagine possible scenarios of how things could have turned out if factor x or y had been historically different is probably a good way to imagine potential future outcomes.
Especially as today's systems are much more complex compared to those of the past. A layer of complexity that I cannot get over and keep on thinking about for example, is how in today's world history is written real time on social media. Countries' leaders had to wait for days or months to get citizens' feedback on various matters via protests, opinion polls, revolutions or simply through elections. This is not the case today where anyone can data scrape the web and see what people think in real time or within minutes/hours.
Drawing a parallel to today's world, what if BP had not issued a statement on a Sunday saying that they would exit their Rosneft stake as part of self-issued sanctions? I can imagine that this put pressure on a lot of other companies to prove to the world that they are equally conscious of matters other than their balance sheet - and indeed they followed. This must have put an incredible pressure on decisions makers to act swiftly, potentially impeding their ability to construct well thought out plans. What if they actually had an extra week to look at the numbers a bit more closely? History could have been different in any way (for better, or worse).
To be clear, I am not saying that any of the sanctions were right or wrong. This is a very long discussion. I am just trying to point out how a seemingly meaningless action could have extremely important knock-on effects on the world and its future. The amount of those seemingly meaningless actions has grown exponentially large in the interconnected (in many ways) world we live in, compared to the past.
Have a great week ahead and thanks for the great content and sparring on the comments section :)
We indeed live in the social media age. The power of these information networks has defined many of the political movements of the past decade, and I think history will note the importance of these new technologies. Going forward, we will continue to see the splintering of the gatekeeping of institutional knowledge, with both positive and negative implications.
Personally, I have been amazed with the ability of these networks to transmit information that otherwise would be impossible to find. At the same time, there is a ton of bad and misleading information. To me, it feels like the new frontier of information, dialogue, truth and power. That is part of my motivation to continue writing on the internet.
amazing stuff. thanks a ton for your insight!
Thanks for reading!
All your writing is crystal clear and does a great job to recalibrate to a big picture amidst data and noise. Thank You
I find these short articles well written. It provides food for thought and a little direction of the rabbit holes that exist where more information can be found. I know if you went into great depths, your articles could be volumes of books. I appreciate and enjoy your articles. You are a very good writer who has the ability to outline enough from start to finish capturing relevant points. And now I can enjoy them just a bit earlier. Thanx.
Thanks Lynz! One of my struggles is trying to find the balance between expounding on details (which I love and think is super important) and being able to succinctly convey big picture ideas. I’m glad that you have found them enjoyable and useful.
Whenever I see TLBS, I click. Here I am at it, again ;-)
See you every Friday morning!
For sure, keep it coming!
Nice article, TLBS. A loss of trust is the implicit theme running through your article. Trust supports cooperation, which produces abundance. It is as if the foundation of the global system has been crumbling.
Indeed. Both domestically and between nations
I'm pretty disappointed I came to subscribe to this only to find this extremely spineless take that doesn't really take into consideration the global, historical and political context the world has gone through in the last 50 years and you as an individual fail to realize that your comforts really came at the expense of other nations which were exploited of their wealth and labor. "Please stop fighting!" is just a tone deaf cry into the ears of no one and lacks perspective.
Its due time, its obvious that there are repercussions to what you call "economic prosperity and harmony" came with its expenses. The global economy and conditions of the average QoL has definitely increased but at the cost that of such immense economic disparities on the class scale.
Introducing a psychological study as a framework to how the world works on an economic and more importantly political scale is facile, lacks nuance and ignores the geopolitical complexities that a meager economist really doesn't understand.
Nations are unwilling to cooperate because they are propelled by self interest. People working together by fulfilling their own needs first with a division of labor modelled after a theoretical communal village's individual responsibilities is a neoliberal pipedream. Nations fulfill their needs to supply "more stuff" by exploiting other nations, whether it be labor, material goods, raw resources, what have you. It can be through private contracts, kickbacks, a coupe de tat, war even.
Nations working together in self interest with a plea to cooperation is fundamentally unsustainable as a economic or political model. I was born in 92, a year after the soviet union collapsed and when francis fukuyama wrote that capitalism won. Its now eating itself alive.
Thank you for the feedback
Good article and want to give you some information to look into.
Minsk Agreement was broken and Ukraine was moving towards NATO. Ukrainian government had been targeting ethnic russians with death in Ukraine since 2014. See Angels Alley.
Russia warned not to break agreements of neutrality and to stop targeting Russians as Russia would protect its people.
An agreed line was crossed over and there are consequences to these actions.
Western medias are posturing to try and blame decades of fiscal fiat irresponsibility on a country protecting its people. If Russia was malicious they would have shut off the gas/oil and fertilizers to Europe and west day 1. They didnt. Why? They have a bone to pic with the deep state MIC moneychangers and not the people that inhabit its captured countries.
You might want to think about these things before casting broad strokes of unprovoked aggression, which is inaccurate.
Hope that helps.
Thank you for your perspective
Anytime. You may want to add this to your reading.
https://bioclandestine.substack.com/p/international-military-tribunals
thanks. these are great
So we should have stuck with the one rabbit and one jug of water a day do you think?
I really enjoy your writing, it is refreshing to read well constructed conversation, your perspective is only yours and doesn’t necessarily have to capture the entire brief (who can).I think people need to converse more instead of going immediately to polars and arguing,face to face and on platforms
Thank you
I think the bright side of this post is that economic cooperation is really really great... its inherently stable because its mutually beneficial, and it unlocks human prosperity. So in that sense its an awesome tool for pacifism - if we all rely on each other, there is less likely to be death and destruction because its in no ones interest.
As far as today - I think the west has shown a strong preference to use its economic power rather than military power if at all possible. This works well for small countries that simply can't compete with that force (say, cuba, n. korea, venezuela, iran to some extent). But when you start lobbing economic bombs at China and Russia you need to start considering the effect it may cause back to you. I feel to some extent that we have ignored those realities and have waged total economic war (against Russia) without realizing there could be collateral damage.
Is that still preferable to physical war? probably? does the US or western countries have an obligation to help Ukraine, and at what cost? That is much more of an ethical and moral question that needs to be decided by the citizens of those countries.
And my post certainly was not being directly critical of the US or others helping Ukraine. But there is a renewed hawkishness that seems to be permeating that feels very dangerous. If we can avoid WWIII, we should try to do that. This sounds silly and obvious, but a lot of popular positions would tilt us closer to that outcome.
Separately, thank you very much for the kind words. This feedback is what keeps me encouraged and motivated to continue writing.
TLBS
the best blog that I've found to date. thanks, keep it up please :)
Thank you very much! I will keep writing if you (collectively) keep reading. Looking forward to it.
War pigs will eat anything.
so war is bad - I guess the snowflakes actually need to be told this
Being a citizen of an Eastern European country I can confirm that things are not good at all in EU. But how it feels now after a couple of months (just my opinion) of war is like this: US and NATO provoked Russia, Russia responded and now US is winning big by selling expensive gas and other goods in EU. EU leaders are not doing much because they don't know what to do and because always when hard times are coming, there are certain individuals and companies that are winning big.
I think the losers will be Russian people and EU countries people. The oligarchs and EU leaders with lots of companies will be big winners. US with this war has a big change to avoid a recession and China with it's problems I thinks doesn't want a war for Taiwan.
The big looser here is the EU and EUR who is in danger of collapse.
Anyway very good article. You are really talented and smart. Thank man.
The US is certainly better positioned than the EU - not too dissimilar from WWII.
Thanks for your contribution to the discussion, and as always, thanks for reading!
Amazing write up, thanks TLBS!
Thank you sir!
I don't agree. "There are no winners in a physical or economic war, only losers." Oil and LNG companies have been winners.
Trying to figure out who the winners are if China invades Taiwan which I give a 20% chance. Haven't come up with much (phosphate, aluminium?, tin?)
Yes I think this was a broad generalization for stylistic purposes, and thinking more from an ethical and human perspective. LNG companies could be considered “winners” (and were the subject of last weeks post!). Oil prices are now below where they were in February surprisingly enough
Great and thoughtful as always. :)
While reading through a phrase caught my attention:
"Ultimately, the economic system of mutually beneficial self-interest, capitalism, practiced by the Western Bloc proved far more fruitful and resilient than economic systems ostensibly motivated by collective interest, communism or socialism, practiced by the Eastern Bloc. "
The US came out of WW2 arguably stronger than it was before, at least relative to other nations if not in absolute terms, with extremely favorable future prospects. Its economy had much better foundations compared to that of the USSR, which suffered immense losses both in human lives (~25-27 million civilian and military casualties), morale, infrastructure and capital. The US would hold the West's gold, put the dollar in the center of the world's economies and provide whatever was necessary for the West to rebuild itself, which was a net positive to its industry.
What I am alluding to is that capitalism had significantly higher chances of success from day 1 (relative to the end of WW2) compared to communism due to the much more robust economic foundations at the country which introduced it to the world. A big factor contributing to how all this played out must have been geographic proximity between nations. The US had immense bodies of water to protect it from invasion in an age when the world was much less interconnected, due to the state of technology at that time.
I am not suggesting of course that capitalism's dominance was the product of luck, but that there must have been a lot of factors contributing to its success over communism apart from its inherent dynamics/properties as a system.
GM Fanis,
This is a great point and something I thought about highlighting in the article. The WWII comparison seems relevant to today as well considering the US benefits from energy exports to Europe as Europe bears the brunt of the economic pain of the war so far.
As you say, there are always confounding variables that make these issues far more complex than capitalism=good communism=bad. That being said, there are other datapoints beyond just the US’s relative success that help make the case, such as east vs west Germany, north vs South Korea, or even China/Vietnam pre and post market reform. While it’s impossible to empirically “prove” things in complex systems like these, I think there is enough evidence to build the case.
Hey Bear,
Fully agree. Keeping an open mind and trying to imagine possible scenarios of how things could have turned out if factor x or y had been historically different is probably a good way to imagine potential future outcomes.
Especially as today's systems are much more complex compared to those of the past. A layer of complexity that I cannot get over and keep on thinking about for example, is how in today's world history is written real time on social media. Countries' leaders had to wait for days or months to get citizens' feedback on various matters via protests, opinion polls, revolutions or simply through elections. This is not the case today where anyone can data scrape the web and see what people think in real time or within minutes/hours.
Drawing a parallel to today's world, what if BP had not issued a statement on a Sunday saying that they would exit their Rosneft stake as part of self-issued sanctions? I can imagine that this put pressure on a lot of other companies to prove to the world that they are equally conscious of matters other than their balance sheet - and indeed they followed. This must have put an incredible pressure on decisions makers to act swiftly, potentially impeding their ability to construct well thought out plans. What if they actually had an extra week to look at the numbers a bit more closely? History could have been different in any way (for better, or worse).
To be clear, I am not saying that any of the sanctions were right or wrong. This is a very long discussion. I am just trying to point out how a seemingly meaningless action could have extremely important knock-on effects on the world and its future. The amount of those seemingly meaningless actions has grown exponentially large in the interconnected (in many ways) world we live in, compared to the past.
Have a great week ahead and thanks for the great content and sparring on the comments section :)
We indeed live in the social media age. The power of these information networks has defined many of the political movements of the past decade, and I think history will note the importance of these new technologies. Going forward, we will continue to see the splintering of the gatekeeping of institutional knowledge, with both positive and negative implications.
Personally, I have been amazed with the ability of these networks to transmit information that otherwise would be impossible to find. At the same time, there is a ton of bad and misleading information. To me, it feels like the new frontier of information, dialogue, truth and power. That is part of my motivation to continue writing on the internet.