I am German and I can only wonder what moves our government to drive us visually against the wall. your analyses are the best I have read so far, simply explained and easy to understand, and also absolutely well-founded, because the information can be found everywhere. here all the pieces of the puzzle are put together. please continue, it is so important what you are doing.
When you say that wages are high in the west, that is only true to some extent. For the largest percentage of people wages (in the west) are pushed down by (forced) immigration. They see their purchasing power decline year after year.
What you write about the west is valid for say.. the upper 5% of earners. Another 15-20% are doing very well indeed, but for the remaining 70-75% you are getting to the level where they struggle to make ends meet.
I don't want to detract from the main point you made, which is certainly true. I do wish to point out that when you talk about "the west" it is mostly the upper echelons of those nations that do the profiting. The west is internally divided, and increasingly so.
(Extra: It even seems like it that the upper echelons actually WANT to decrease the consumption of the lower tiers, but that is an entirely other subject)
"They won’t need to sustain an empire and a ridiculous huge and expensive military."
That is ultimately the question... will a multipolar world be free of forceful intimidation? Remember, the US Navy was formed because we got tired of pirates on the Barbary Coast. The history of Central Asia is replete with aggressive "toll booths"... I enjoyed your analysis, I hope you're right. As an American I would rather be equal in the world instead of, somehow, over it (hegemony).
A slight quibble with respect to “the heartland.” Overland transportation is far less efficient than waterborne transportation (it’s just physics) so the availability and orientation of inland waterways are a constraint. Heartland powers will still likely need ocean access and correspondingly strong navies to facilitate and protect shipping, if only along coastal destinations among heartland nations.
Reading this made many "pennies drop" for me, thank you Aleks. I do wonder if the pandemic and climate alarmism is interlinked, fabricated to control or occupy the global population whilst the world resources are being harvested, split, stolen etc until the outcome of the uni versus multi polar system battle is established. Do you have an opinion on that at all?
You need an editor who has excellent English skills. I do that sort of editing and as I read thru your essay I was mentally making notes on all of your errors - beginning with COMMAS! You have NO idea how to use commas! :-) Overall an excellent beginning. I'll look forward to the next section (although not the horrible commas! I will dread them)
As I lived for 30 years in Romania - 20 under communism and 10 under “new capitalism” I can correct you that western capitalism didn’t just sit around waiting for the former factories to fail and shut down - no sir! - they “bought” them at scrap metal prices or less (trough corruption and bribery) and dismantled them.
This served 3 purposes with huge win only for the west:
1) eliminated competition
2) created unemployment so those skill workers immigrated in west creating cheap labour for the west
3) created a new market but the people were poor by western standards so they facilitated the sales of everything second hand, used, obsolete or substandard in the west - clothes, TVs, cars, appliances, electronics - all freeing the western population of used goods so THEY in the west woukd buy the new car or appliance.
Bonus round - the west benefited from skills of doctors engineers and other skilled laborers, paying them cheap AND the west didn’t had to pay / subvention their schools, colleges and universities.
So you see it was a deliberate campaign by the west to destroy Eastern Europe economies and lifestyle and the ability to sustain themselves. The east Europeans had no choice but to borrow more from….western banks (FMI).
This is the equivalent of looting performed by the western corporations akin to Genghis Khan hordes.
I admit Insider read it all - Buț this is a big issue for the east Europeans and the west didn’t even want to acknowledge it.
Great article. I would like to ask something regarding control of sea trade (and generally trade routes) since I heard this so many times but newer fully understood mechanism of control "forcing the world economy to trade most resources and goods by sea, and in the same time having control over the sea, the Western powers had the control over the world trade and economy as well." What would be practical example of such control in everyday life? I imagine other market players would avoid developing their trade over rutes where their trucks or ships could be attacked or confiscated etc?
The purpose of wars is not necessarily outright victory as we are taught. The goal can be to change the balance of forces. Many people think the Nazis lost WW2 but they didn't. Not if you think of the 'Nazis' as the elites that funded the Nazis and pointed them at the USSR. They first deciided to betray their funders (US/U/K) but eventually they turned East and inflicted enough damage on the USSR and killed enough important leaders that revisionist appeaser Khrushchev was able to take over and rot the USSR from inside. Same story for Vietnam. US did enough damage that sanctions could asphyxiate the nation post-war and force it to make market reforms, allowing capital accumulation by a bourgeoisie class which would serve as an internal ally to the US. The war against Russia and the coming war against China will provide similar opportunities to combine external pressure with internal sabotage. The Western rich don't want to destroy Russia/China. They just want to be able to export their capital there and control production.
Well, you certainly oversimplified a lot... :) If I had to sum my complaints into a single sentence, that sentence would go something like this: "sometimes, shit happens all on it's own, without any malice or even incompetence". :) Sort of like 2008 Great Recession. Yes, you can point to a large number of causes and 60% of them will be derivatives (ha!) of malice... however the overall shitshow had no overarching goal, purpose or guidance. And it's the exact same thing with transferring of industry from USA to China. Shit just happened all on it's own, without a guiding intellect.
Fantàstic analysis of what's going on now and what may the world aiming to 👍. I only miss a few parameters in your views: climate change + scarcity of resources due to past over-explotation! I thing those two parameters will make very difficult the development of emerging countries at a "western level", ever... Some of the developing countries of the "south" might even suffer climate conditions (+lack of water) that makes life impossible. We can't predict how thoses changes and scarcity of resources will affect and ad chaos and impredictible elements to your "prévisions".🤷
The Slavyangrad Telegram article brought me to your series of articles. I am pleased that I have found your channel, Aleks. You bring together the common threads about how the Western world has been developing since the collapse of the Soviet Union into a really good economic history. I'm a Brit myself and I found your comment, that the economic empire that occupies the USA is a manifestation of the British Empire, very prescient. I look forward to reading the other articles in your series.
Economics and Empires
I am German and I can only wonder what moves our government to drive us visually against the wall. your analyses are the best I have read so far, simply explained and easy to understand, and also absolutely well-founded, because the information can be found everywhere. here all the pieces of the puzzle are put together. please continue, it is so important what you are doing.
Many greetings from germany
When you say that wages are high in the west, that is only true to some extent. For the largest percentage of people wages (in the west) are pushed down by (forced) immigration. They see their purchasing power decline year after year.
What you write about the west is valid for say.. the upper 5% of earners. Another 15-20% are doing very well indeed, but for the remaining 70-75% you are getting to the level where they struggle to make ends meet.
I don't want to detract from the main point you made, which is certainly true. I do wish to point out that when you talk about "the west" it is mostly the upper echelons of those nations that do the profiting. The west is internally divided, and increasingly so.
(Extra: It even seems like it that the upper echelons actually WANT to decrease the consumption of the lower tiers, but that is an entirely other subject)
"They won’t need to sustain an empire and a ridiculous huge and expensive military."
That is ultimately the question... will a multipolar world be free of forceful intimidation? Remember, the US Navy was formed because we got tired of pirates on the Barbary Coast. The history of Central Asia is replete with aggressive "toll booths"... I enjoyed your analysis, I hope you're right. As an American I would rather be equal in the world instead of, somehow, over it (hegemony).
A slight quibble with respect to “the heartland.” Overland transportation is far less efficient than waterborne transportation (it’s just physics) so the availability and orientation of inland waterways are a constraint. Heartland powers will still likely need ocean access and correspondingly strong navies to facilitate and protect shipping, if only along coastal destinations among heartland nations.
Reading this made many "pennies drop" for me, thank you Aleks. I do wonder if the pandemic and climate alarmism is interlinked, fabricated to control or occupy the global population whilst the world resources are being harvested, split, stolen etc until the outcome of the uni versus multi polar system battle is established. Do you have an opinion on that at all?
You need an editor who has excellent English skills. I do that sort of editing and as I read thru your essay I was mentally making notes on all of your errors - beginning with COMMAS! You have NO idea how to use commas! :-) Overall an excellent beginning. I'll look forward to the next section (although not the horrible commas! I will dread them)
As I lived for 30 years in Romania - 20 under communism and 10 under “new capitalism” I can correct you that western capitalism didn’t just sit around waiting for the former factories to fail and shut down - no sir! - they “bought” them at scrap metal prices or less (trough corruption and bribery) and dismantled them.
This served 3 purposes with huge win only for the west:
1) eliminated competition
2) created unemployment so those skill workers immigrated in west creating cheap labour for the west
3) created a new market but the people were poor by western standards so they facilitated the sales of everything second hand, used, obsolete or substandard in the west - clothes, TVs, cars, appliances, electronics - all freeing the western population of used goods so THEY in the west woukd buy the new car or appliance.
Bonus round - the west benefited from skills of doctors engineers and other skilled laborers, paying them cheap AND the west didn’t had to pay / subvention their schools, colleges and universities.
So you see it was a deliberate campaign by the west to destroy Eastern Europe economies and lifestyle and the ability to sustain themselves. The east Europeans had no choice but to borrow more from….western banks (FMI).
This is the equivalent of looting performed by the western corporations akin to Genghis Khan hordes.
I admit Insider read it all - Buț this is a big issue for the east Europeans and the west didn’t even want to acknowledge it.
Great article. I would like to ask something regarding control of sea trade (and generally trade routes) since I heard this so many times but newer fully understood mechanism of control "forcing the world economy to trade most resources and goods by sea, and in the same time having control over the sea, the Western powers had the control over the world trade and economy as well." What would be practical example of such control in everyday life? I imagine other market players would avoid developing their trade over rutes where their trucks or ships could be attacked or confiscated etc?
The purpose of wars is not necessarily outright victory as we are taught. The goal can be to change the balance of forces. Many people think the Nazis lost WW2 but they didn't. Not if you think of the 'Nazis' as the elites that funded the Nazis and pointed them at the USSR. They first deciided to betray their funders (US/U/K) but eventually they turned East and inflicted enough damage on the USSR and killed enough important leaders that revisionist appeaser Khrushchev was able to take over and rot the USSR from inside. Same story for Vietnam. US did enough damage that sanctions could asphyxiate the nation post-war and force it to make market reforms, allowing capital accumulation by a bourgeoisie class which would serve as an internal ally to the US. The war against Russia and the coming war against China will provide similar opportunities to combine external pressure with internal sabotage. The Western rich don't want to destroy Russia/China. They just want to be able to export their capital there and control production.
Well, you certainly oversimplified a lot... :) If I had to sum my complaints into a single sentence, that sentence would go something like this: "sometimes, shit happens all on it's own, without any malice or even incompetence". :) Sort of like 2008 Great Recession. Yes, you can point to a large number of causes and 60% of them will be derivatives (ha!) of malice... however the overall shitshow had no overarching goal, purpose or guidance. And it's the exact same thing with transferring of industry from USA to China. Shit just happened all on it's own, without a guiding intellect.
Fantàstic analysis of what's going on now and what may the world aiming to 👍. I only miss a few parameters in your views: climate change + scarcity of resources due to past over-explotation! I thing those two parameters will make very difficult the development of emerging countries at a "western level", ever... Some of the developing countries of the "south" might even suffer climate conditions (+lack of water) that makes life impossible. We can't predict how thoses changes and scarcity of resources will affect and ad chaos and impredictible elements to your "prévisions".🤷
The Slavyangrad Telegram article brought me to your series of articles. I am pleased that I have found your channel, Aleks. You bring together the common threads about how the Western world has been developing since the collapse of the Soviet Union into a really good economic history. I'm a Brit myself and I found your comment, that the economic empire that occupies the USA is a manifestation of the British Empire, very prescient. I look forward to reading the other articles in your series.