Dr Madsen Pirie, President of the Adam Smith Institute, describes value. (Hat tip: Samizdata)
That is all very well. But Marxist economists object that a reliance on market valuation will eventually result in the inequality of wealth. In their view, only central planning can modify that situation and make things “fair”.
The central allocation of state resources is essential in most countries because of regional inequalities in resource endowment, immigration, productivity, demand for products or for a wealth of historical reasons. Only a decision made at the centre can redistribute resources to compensate less developed regions, classes, gender and racial groups adversely affected by the above factors. Otherwise, the “market” tends to favour those with historic advantages and favorable endowments creating polar patterns of development or even fostering inter-regional/class exploitation and ethnic conflicts.
Left to itself, the market will result in a society of ‘obscene’ wealth and glaring inequality. Hence, the need for the guiding hand of central planning. Moreover, such planning does not have to be onerous. If the planners can control the high ground of the economy — key sectors like energy, banking, housing and health care — then the detail of the economy can be more or less allowed to set prices based on some kind of market rate.
planning does not mean detailed specification. The size of social budgets can be decided nationally by elected representatives and allocated according to public assemblies where citizens can vote on their local priorities. This practice has been successful in Porto Alegré in Brazil for the past several years under a municipal government led by the Workers’ Party. The relation between general and local planning is not written in stone, nor are the levels of specification of expenditures and investments to be determined at the “higher levels”. General allocations to promote strategic targets that benefit the whole country, such as infrastructure, high technology and education, are complemented by local decisions on subsidising schools, clinics, cultural centres.
This, it is argued, is the only way to achieve a “fair” society in which wealth may be more moderate, but with the inequalities less pronounced. Which was better formed the core of the debate between Barack Obama and “Joe the Plumber”. “When you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.”
To the accusation, that Marxist economics has always failed, the answer is simple: that is because past generations of Marxists made mistakes. But failure in the past does not mean failure in the future. “They look at the demise of communism in the late 1980s and not to its revival in the mid-1990s.” This time, they’ll get it right.
Thus the debate is far from settled. While professor Madsen Pirie may think that “value” resides in the appraisal of the mass of human beings, Marxists believe they know better; and that certain visions are intrinsically more valuable than others. The problem is simply in getting others to accept it.
But as this video about the Great Leap Forward shows, a command economy without price signals leads to catastrophic waste. Factors like the furniture used to fire the village steel smelters was unvalued and used profligately to produce worthless “steel”. Although the central planners accepted the products of the commune as production, in reality it could not be sold for love or money on any market, being entirely substandard. The same problem beset the “grain production” mandated by the central planners. With no no market to actually trade the grain, inflated claims of grain production were accepted at face value. One bureaucratic lie led to another, and soon the Great Leap Forward had assumed the aspect of a wrecking ball destroying the economy of China.
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $3.99, print $9.99
I may be wrong, but isn’t this the essential divide between “economic man” and “political man”? Through political action, a man can derive the rewards of economic action without actually having to “produce” anything and therein lies politics ultimate attraction, and the bane on our economic society that it has become. After all what is the difference between modern neo-marxist central planning and Louis XIV’s “Sun Kingdom”…language and methods differ, but didn’t they both end up enriching those who gamed the system, rather than those
producing what folks would willingly exchange for? Of course, in the end, the political incentive structure influences all but the most hardy (or bull-headed) entreprenuer.
“If the planners can control the high ground of the economy — key sectors like energy, banking, housing and health care — then the detail of the economy can be more or less allowed to set prices based on some kind of market rate.”
Follow the money, the commies do.
“The problem is simply in getting others to accept it.” Nothing that the murder of a few million people wouldn’t solve. No man, no problem and Uncle Joe knew that all value accrues to those in the top rung of the Ponzi scheme and it is especially nice to be king.
I don’t care what Marxist economics predicts what will happen in theory; in practice, everywhere it’s been tried, the end result is more inequality. A small class is extremely well-to-do and the majority of the populace has little or nothing. Not coincidentally, the small class that does well is comprised of politicians and their cronies. Anywhere you want to look – North Korea, Cuba, China (even today going from communism to crony capitalism) the USSR – that’s how it played out. Now look at America today – Barack Obama, a basically useless blowhard in a position of supreme power, flying around, playing golf, living the life of a billionaire, a life that he, unlike the people he routinely demonizes, did nothing to earn. If he has his way, it will play out again, here.
BOF@3: “If he has his way, it will play out again, here.”
You’re right. But if I have my way, it won’t. And if he has his way, then I won’t be around to suffer through it, having been mowed down by his “kinetic military specialists”. But if it comes to that, I hope I take at least one with me.
Philippines may allow greater U.S. military presence in reaction to China’s rise
http://wapo.st/ws4f3U
Philippines Asks US Forces To Return After 20 Year Exile
– http://bit.ly/ygqgZ5
“Philippines Asks US Forces To Return After 20 Year Exile.”
Well, I predicted it back in 1997 when debating the issue with some people. They believed a “zone of neutrality and peace” was possible. I argued that geography had condemned the Philippines, like it condemned Poland and Belgium, to being doubtful ground. It would always be contested by powerful nations. You just had to pick your poison.
With Japan and China in the neighborhood and with a host of relatively powerful countries nearby, the Philippines can only defend itself by alliances. The reason the Muslims came to the Philippines, then the Spanish, then briefly the British, then the USA, then Japan and the USA again is geography.
It was no accident that the bulk of the Japanese Army in the Pacific died there; nor that the IJN fought the USN to the greatest naval conflict of all time in those waters. It was geography.
Now, the South China Sea is China’s intended bastion and Manila has to realize, no matter the lunacy of the leftist academic fringe, that there is no way on God’s green earth that the Philippine Navy and Air Force are ever going to keep the territorial waters even moderately in hand against the Chinese Navy.
But in 1997 you couldn’t convince the Left of that. The Colonial Power had to go went the indignant thumping. But as usual, reality triumphs over fantasy once they are up against it.
Someday the Left will figure out that it is in their own best interests to bury Marxism. I mean, who needs it? What has it ever gotten anyone, except grief? Most especially the Left, who should know, if they haven’t figured it out yet, that one is as likely to die at the hands of “comrades” than any so-called enemy. I remember once asking a group of people:
“Who is the enemy?”
“US imperialism!!” came the answer.
“Who is the friend?”
“The Communist Party!!!”
“Everyone who knows someone who’s been killed by the New People’s Army for anti-Party activities or crimes against the Party raise your hand!”
A whole bunch of hands went up.
“Everyone who knows someone who’s been killed by the US Army raise your hand.”
“Now wait a minute,” the objection came.
“What, no fair?” I asked.
Nope. No fair. Yes. Reality always win in the end. Or at least that’s what I hope.
Getting back to income inequality…Using real money, the estimated amount of silver above and below ground comes out to about three ounces per capita for the planet’s entire population. Let’s say the planners distribute it all evenly, all at once, so next Monday at 9:00 GMT everyone alive has three ounces of silver, no more, no less. No other wealth, just three ounces of silver. Income equality.
By the following Thursday, that income equality will be blown to hell and some will be rich, some will be poor. My bet is the “planners” would be unfairly represented among the rich.
“While professor Madsen Pirie may think that “value” resides in the appraisal of the mass of human beings, Marxists believe they know better; and that certain visions are intrinsically more valuable than others. The problem is simply in getting others to accept it.
To point out that central planning hasn’t worked in specific instances (such as Cuba, North Korea, and the Soviet Union) is not the way to discredit the practice. But Ludwig von Mises in his book Socialism, showed that the price at which the producer can sell his goods enables him to know if he is breaking even, losing money, or making a profit. Without economic calculation, he won’t know, therefore won’t be able to continue production. If a single business can’t do it, how can an entire “planned” economy?
This is the theoretic basis for all those empiric failures.
The fact alone that the politicians by and large are lawyers (and generally failed lawyers for that matter) would insure that any attempts at redistributing value would not work. Apologies to the attorneys out there, but this profession is not known for its ability to create economic value.
Yep, “Militant Mediocrity” at work.
Price in a planned economy is set by the calculation of the bureaucrats, based on such notions as the labor value used, the “cost of materials”, the allowed return. Stalin remarked that price setting required “a lot of book-keeping”. This begged the question of how you found the cost of materials and of labor to begin with. The whole thing was self-referential. Things were based on determinations made by other authorities. And round it went. Ultimately price setting required a determination based on some kind of statistical or calculated determination. To find the price of a thing, you looked in some table of authorities, itself built on some table of authorities.
Judge Clark, reflecting on the President’s SOTU speech tried to figure out what it all meant for the finance and housing industry:
It means whatever the President wants it to mean. So go hire a lawyer. As Stalin noted, central planning requires a lot of book-keeping. The fundamental trouble with command economics is that it never actually reflects the resource scarcities implied by nature. Because prices can be set by human fiat, politics will control resource allocation. Che Guevara believed that most of human resources should be devoted to “basic human needs”. But what are those? Well, some bureaucrat has to decide. And what is “most”? Again, some bureaucrat has to decide. Ultimately everything is decided at the top, which could lead to problems.
The book-keeping required for central planning certainly exceeds that of a regime operating its books without a budget for 1000 days. It’s worse than that, according to Fredrick Hayek. I should have mentioned his Nobel speech on The Pretense of Knowledge. According to Hayek, there is not enough computer processing power, nor ever will be, to calculate the requirements of a developed nation by central planning.
Wall St Journal
BUSINESS ASIA
JANUARY 25, 2012, 4:11 P.M. ET
The Day the Capital Fled
The market may leave Beijing with less scope to ignore a banking problem than it used to have.
BY JOSEPH STERNBERG
Can China’s banks survive the departure of $34 billion? The question comes on news that Beijing’s foreign-exchange reserve fell by some $21 billion in the last three months of 2011, implying a net capital outflow of anywhere between $34 billion and $100 billion depending on how you count. The answer is yes, with a big asterisk.
The decline in reserves is notable for being the first time such a thing has happened since the Asian financial crisis in 1998.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204555904577168113063238798.html?KEYWORDS=china
Judge Clark, reflecting on the President’s SOTU speech tried to figure out what it all meant for the finance and housing industry
Accounting is for peons.
Anyway, Bernanke has obsoleted the very concept. He prints it, Obambus distributes it. Taxes are for social and behavioral purposes, not economic.
Mau-mau economics.
Obamacare? Deficit? Solyndra? Porkulus? Unemployment participation numbers? Border problems in Arizona? Europe and Euro? No mention. Never mention bad stuff. Don’t look back. Run up the ladder faster than the rungs break. Chuck Schumer is out there today, the Democratic line is the president is “optimistic” compared to the pessimism of those wascallay Wepublicans.
Where is the MSM on this? Gone to fish wrap every one.
When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?
Now what is the value of the labor of these book keepers? Are they allowed to charge for whatever number of hours they put into compiling these endless lists of prices and the constant revisions to them, like a consultant with a blank check?
Why not? After all, the more they calculate, the more labor value they expend. Who doesn’t believe that regulation produces value and therefore more regulation produces more value? And given a constant allowable rate of return the more output the more value. Why not devote all available manpower to the task of socialist book keeping? What is wrong in principle with that?
Why, you could have entire economy consisting of nothing but central planners and their supporting book keepers. Since the government would demand their services they will always be in full employment. But that’s absurd, you say, since what about food? Well what about it? How can you sell it equitably without central planners to allocate resources to grow crops, plan distribution and set prices?
The first thing is to create a department to calculate how many resources should go food production. But since plows will be needed, there has to be a department in charge of plows. And a department in charge of steel. And one in charge of mining. And another in charge of vehicle production. Roads, asphalt, graders, rock crushers, etc.
Central planning is hard work. Consider for example, what’s needed to produce a pencil. Growing the wood, mining and refining the graphite, clinching the core. Producing the little eraser at the end and binding it to the pencil stem with a copper band. Each of these implies a whole industry. And therefore a whole ministry. And what about health care for the workers? What treatments should they be allowed? A Death Panel Ministry then, is in order.
It sounds ridiculous. Yet this is precisely what is taking place in Western countries. Fifty three percent of Britain’s GDP consists of government spending, up from 40 percent ten years before. In November, 2011 Statistics Canada reported that public sector increased much more rapidly than the private sector. I remember reading somewhere that the USDA actually employs more bureaucrats than there are farmers to regulate. And as to Greece, well, the problem with that country is that they haven’t tried socialism hard enough. So chances are, the central planners will get to producing food just as soon as the Ministry of Food production is established. First things first, comrades.
The important thing is the trend. Public sector growth, once socialism takes hold, leads to absorbing states. Whatever falls into that maw never climbs out. Like some kind of black hole it imposes a political event horizon from which nothing can escape. Eventually bureaucracies of that sort wind up having nothing to regulate but themselves. And this they do through turf struggles and purges. But it leads to a “fair” outcome we’re assured. It’s failed so far, but only because we lack the faith.
Sigh….and if I may point out the obvious, it is not just the academic and otherwise left in the Philippines that is having a problem with reality. It’s pretty obvious in the US, Europe, but it can be seen in Japan also. In South Korea escaped N. Koreans really hate the S.Korean leftist. They don’t buy the supposed good the left did in opposing the S. Korean military regime, considering everything who could blame them, except the academic leftists in the S. Korean Universities.
Hayek said it all. Central planning ensures that the actions of the State will be unpredictable – see the present total economic uncertainty in the U.S. – so that no one can make any plans for themselves. This is the complete opposite of the Rule of law which ensures that the State’s actions will be predictable and individuals will be left free to do their own planning.
That SOTU speech was absolute nonsense. Bring back Professor Irwin Corey – the world’s foremost authority.
While all pigs are equal, some are more equal. Socialism is nothing more then the government choosing the more equal pigs.
That’s kewl, bacon is OK in small amounts.
OT, but this dude claims to be Teh Won’s cousin. He IS funny;
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/23/titans-grapple-for-southern-advantage/
Truth of the matter is that “fair” and “adequate” are mortal enemies.
Take my home county for example: Before the oil strikes everything was “fair” in the sense that the handful of ranch families there all had euqal amounts of marginal income. Then came the black gold. The more fortunate of those old families suddenly had 50 times the wealth of their neighbors who had to make do with a mere tripling of income——–and having to work for it to boot. The county? Well it now supports 150 times the population of BP (Before Petroleum). AS(Ano Seismographus) has made income inequality a permanent feature of our permanently prosperous landscape. Mess with those arrangments—if you are tired of living!
Wretchard, I like you, predicted that Uncle Sam would have to return to the PI region sooner or later. Just wondered how difficult it would be.
As the key terrain for the region is apparently the Paracels, it might be best for the USA to annex those islands as a trust territory and use the oild revenue to offset the cost of the Pacific Fleet/Air Arm.
Your thoughts on that sir?
Paul Johnson, writing in Modern Times, observed that Lenin was really just an accountant at heart. Human beings were nothing more than figures in a ledger, which is why it was so easy for him to kill them in such great numbers.
Re the PI: I thought the U.S. was going to invest in Guam as its primary base in the Western Pacific?
Dave,
Here’s an overview of the geopolitics of the area. As you see, China is encroaching on Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. The Philippines is just one of the parties involved.
I would not be surprised if the US chose as its strategic partner, not Manila but one of the other countries, who despite their lack of historical connections with the US are nevertheless more aware of their national interests and are willing to protect them.
Obama’s SOTU, the short course:
All Animals Are Equal,
Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.
or
Obamanics Will produce new small (in fact really really small) businesses.
1. Start with medium sized businesses,
2. Decapitalize.
Another triumph for the Mom & Pop friendly Democrats.
wretchard 6,
“Everyone who knows someone who’s been killed by the US Army raise your hand.”
There should be a sea of hands for the pre-alerted media and a ready tear jerking story.
1. Things happen,
2. They Lie.
Together these explain much.
I’m betting we’ll see the U.S. return to Cam Ranh Bay. For the Vietnamese, war with the U.S. was a passing unpleasantness; but hatred of China is ancient and eternal.
6. wretchard
My friend, you MUST write an autobiography, the scene you described certainly had to have a very interesting prelude, and it is just a tiny glimpse into what has had to be an amazing life.
“Price in a planned economy is set by the calculation of the bureaucrats….”
Anybody recall that insanity that was let loose in Washington state (I am more and more convinced it was named after DC and not George) a few decades back? It was the concept of “equivalent work.”
An example was teachers’ pay. It was pointed out that garbagemen made more than schoolteachers in some locations. This was called manifestly unfair, since schoolteachers just had to be more valuable than garbagemen. Never mind that there were far more people willing to work as schoolteachers than garbagemen, and the “career” of a garbageman has to be much shorter than that of a teacher.
So a panel would review such cases and decide whether one form of work was worth as much or more than another, and salaries would be set accordingly.
And the salaries of the panel? That’s easy. When Congress votes some Pork they never ever think it should cost anything to administer the pork effort. With a Fed Govt big enough there’s always gonna be enough bureaucrats.
Roughcoat #25:
At the Pentagon in the early 1990’s we were astounded when a visiting Vietnamese suggested just that.
“Fifty three percent of Britain’s GDP consists of government spending, up from 40 percent ten years before.”
We have arrived at Peak Government. When the housing bubble was in the process of bursting, citizens immediately started to de-leverage themselves and sell off property. After 8 years of “compassionate conservative” profligate spending and running the till dry, the Dems found someone bold enough to throw caution to the wind and double down the debt, like the race car driver who cannot make the turn decides to accelerate or to mangle another analogy; when the crew started throwing over ballast to steady the sinking ship, the rats mutinied and ordered full sail ahead. A devolution powered by disgust for weak conservative principles brought Marxists into power, like a student revolution in Egypt will bring Islamic austerity. Commies are fools.
As someone that was forced to grow up and learn the Judeo-Christian morals, I would say the debate the President wants should not be about fairness, but about whether American’s live up to the “One Nation Under God” creed or should we dump it because we collectively fail to uphold the banner.
If we are indeed a nation, voluntarily, under the almighty, fairness would not be an issue.
If you want to know Christ, than give your all to the poor and follow Him. But remember that to live in Christ is to suffer for the Truth and the widows and orphans and sooo much more.
“The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” Most of you have no idea how true those words are.
29. Dougman: “Most of you have no idea how true those words are.”
Names, man. I want the names of those heathens so that they might achieve your level of enlightenment.
the goods coming out of soviet factories had less net worth than the raw materials going in — they removed value!
it’s interesting how the government is now obese, just like so many citizens are obese. hopefully with the same end result.
@Roughcoat: Too many names to list.
Here is a name which I suffered for.
Saxum. (The word made flesh is what I can testify to.)
“…but that attention was especially centred upon the great stone (ingens saxum) which was dragged into its place by magistrates and people together.”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14303a.htm
Who among you can fashion a Great Stone out of five rocks and sling it at the Goliath that is Islam?
The biggest part of the problem stems from allowing Socialists to define fairness.
If one compares work to reward, a whole ‘nother picture of what’s “Fair” emerges. Effort should translate to income. Work should equal wealth. The fact that it sometimes doesn’t is more the fault of Socialism then Capitalism.
Regardless of how one feels about Wall Street Raiders like Bain, they work very hard finding the right firms to plunder. I would bet Bill Gates STILL works a 70 hour week.
What the OWSers and other economically dis-functional types don’t seem to get is that the so called 1% works a LOT more then 40 hours per week. Just to stay ahead of the Bain’s of the world if for no other reason.
32. Dougman
@Roughcoat: Too many names to list.
Oh, come on now. Belmont Club has at most about 20 regulars, if that. Surely it would not be too exceedingly difficult for you to provide 20 or fewer names of the unenlightened among us.
4/out
Please, do not feed the affected.
wretchard @ 6 said:
“It was no accident that the bulk of the Japanese Army in the Pacific died there; nor that the IJN fought the USN to the greatest naval conflict of all time in those waters. It was geography.”
It was my understanding that MacArthur was criticized by other American general officers for his insistence upon reconquering the Philippines. Supposedly the bulk of opinion was the Philippines should have been bypassed and Japan attacked more directly. I was going to challenge Wretchard’s assertion that the greatest naval conflict of all time was fought near the Philippines. I was assuming that the Battle of Midway and/or the Battle of the Coral Sea were more important. I then did my research and to my surprise, Wretchard was correct! The Battle of Leyte Gulf is generally considered to be the largest naval battle of World War II and, by some criteria, the largest naval battle in history.
I did not see that one coming.
What about Wretchard’s other assertion that the bulk of the Japanese Army died in the Philippines. Surely most of the IJA died on the Asian mainland? Apparently the IJA had 60,000 casualties in Operation Ichi-Go which was the main Japanese campaign in China. Remarkably, the IJA had 95,000 killed in the Battle of Okinawa. It appears that the Japanese lost more soldiers on the small island of Okinawa than in all of China! Finally I get back to the Philippines and discover that the IJA has 336,000 killed in the Philippines (three times greater than Okinawa). So color me stupid! I had no idea.
I still suspect that MacArthur was wrong and the Philippines should have been bypassed. Never the less, most of the fighting in the Pacific War did indeed occur in the Philippines. I find myself wondering, if MacArthur had been overruled and the Philippines bypassed, would all those dead Japanese merely not been part of the war or would they have ended up being killed somewhere else? Based on the William T. Sherman theory of war, a war does not end until one side has had a critical number of soldiers killed. A corollary is that a belligerent’s ability to wage war is limited by the number of its second lieutenants. Supposedly after all the second lieutenants have been killed then its time to sue for peace.
r @ 34: Oh, come on now. Belmont Club has at most about 20 regulars, if that.
Depends what you mean as regular, but for occult reasons I started to list names on BC I recognize, who posted over about a two-week period, and came up with 60 easily, fwiw. I was surprised, too.
As to what you and Dougman are discussing, I have no idea even what the question is.
@Roughcoat
I thought we were talking about the collective of Americans where you were limiting the scope to just this blog. My mistake.
@Annoy Mouse-You wasted a comment on me? I’m flattered
Ask Bill Whittle why he was in awe of me, at one time.
I would someday like to see the USN return to both Subic Bay & Kam Rahn Bay.
The Philippines was the scene of the largest surrender of US forces in history, Bataan. On it occurred the greatest urban battle of the Pacific War (Manila, 100,000 civilians dead, more than either Hiroshima and Nagasaki). It was the birthplace of the Kamikaze, the graveyard of the Japanese Army, the end of the road of the Japanese Navy. And in the nearby waters, the subs based in Fremantle ravaged the Japanese shipping bringing oil, rubber and tin up from the Malaya and Indonesia.
In statistical terms nothing can compare with it. Kokoda, Tarawa, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima — even Okinawa are dwarfed by combat in the Philippines. It was also the scene of three mass rescues of US civilians. Santo Tomas, Cabanatuan and Los Banos.
The Cabanatuan raid was made into the movie “The Great Raid”. But First Cav’s armor columns rescued the civilians at Santo Tomas, and an attack across the Laguna lake rescued those interned in Los Banos. The drama of the liberation of Manila was straight out of fiction, especially First Cavalry’s dash down the Luzon plain.
Today politicians commemorate the bombing of Hiroshima, which a tragedy no doubt. But no President I can remember, least of all the current incumbent, has spared a word for the 100,000 American nationals (for that was what Filipinos were in 1945) who died in the Battle of Manila, not infrequently as volunteer scouts and auxiliaries for the US Army.
Not that it matters. I remember talking to one former guerrilla and asking him why he didn’t apply for backpay or recognition in the years after the War. He said, “I never gave it a thought. After all, you are supposed to defend your country out of duty. You don’t have to get paid for that.”
Guam is OK for launching aircraft though Okinawa is closer and in comparison has more room especially if your concern is Korea. I’ve heard Guam called a large fixed position aircraft carrier. However if you want someplace for ships and a relay point for aircraft the P.Is are hard to beat. They have the room, great harbor, and an English speaking workforce.
With the Navy’s and the Air Force’s thrust toward the longer ranged armed drones the distance factor is not quite as critical and as Wretchard’s referenced article shows, the Islands put in a good position to a lot of allies and enemies.
Having accepted the remarkable truth that the Philippines was the focal point of the War of the Pacific, I find myself flapping around like a fish out of water trying to understand Why?
Wretchard brought up the point that the Philippines was important due to geographical location. Maybe it simply boils down to that. However I would counter-argue that Singapore and Malaysia were more important geographically. In terms of conquering a potential helot/slave population, China should have been the obvious focal point. However the IJA deaths in China were relatively modest. If natural resources were the driving factor then Indonesia and Australia should have been the focal points. It doesn’t really make any sense for the Philippines to have been the focal point. I guess similar arguments could be made about Stalingrad. Why have 478,741 killed or missing for an obscure town out in the middle of no where? Stalingrad is now called “Volgograd”. When was the last time you heard anyone say anything about Volgograd?
Speaking of winners and losers, here’s another one (loser, that is) courtesy of Zerohedge:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/taxpayers-lose-another-1185-million-next-obama-stimulus-pet-project-files-bankruptcy
Hope that Richard and everyone else take a look at the last thread and see what our most assertive Paulbot and Confederate nostalgist dropped at #37. Now is he merely only a cranky old man who abandoned America and slipped past the usually tight Swiss immigration system, because they do not need anyone who hurts their reputation, or is he just a Democratic Underground Moby Troll sent to discredit this blog? I’d like to hear a sincere Libertarian or Paul supporter claim that they feel that person does not represent them and might be sent to discredit them. Boasting about how you have been banned from other blogs, as our usually more sophisticated Kremlin Rep does also, is a sign of troubling self absorption. CH’s itching inability to not inject racial and religious bigotry, with a veneer of preemptive accusation at those who object, indicates his real motives. This is a sad sickness. Really it seems like a variance on some sexual dysfunction that he simply has to resort to it like a compulsion.
Why even respond or mention this? The dictum to not feed the troll is a good one. My reason, and I am willing to hear criticism, is the Gingrich Principle. Liars and fantasists and petty totalitarians seek to control and shape the conversation by injecting outrages that decent people avert their eyes from. By challenging them and denying their legitimacy we preserve the integrity of the process. All goods should be offered in the market but counterfeit coin should be rejected.
Could we get Tocque back and at least consign such ranters to Oblivion?
Good post, Blast. Excellent.
Wow, and to think that ConfederateH hates Jews. What a surprise.
Not.
@15. wretchard
“Yet this is precisely what is taking place in Western countries. Fifty three percent of Britain’s GDP consists of government spending, up from 40 percent ten years before.”
Yes Wretchard, but please don’t exclude members of the MIC from your calculations. Like the accountants you disparage the MIC never has to account for the true benefits and costs of their line items, all they do is increase their petty little empires while making sure that the budget always gets spent. Just like the accountants.
But Austrian economists laugh at you Keynsians the same way you Keynsians laugh at those Marxists. This entire Keynsian bubble began BEFORE the revolution in Russia with the founding of the Fed in 1913. A century of currency debasement and debt growth has reached its logical conclusion, yet BC members here think that choosing one Keynsian, say Romney, over another, say Obama, will somehow right the ship. As if Nasa trips to Mars, 2018 Winter olympics, or any other Republican style keynsian stimulus is going to magically bring the massive debt acquired over the last century under control. Well the Austrians have been yelling this from the rooftops for decades yet when the only Austrian style presidential candidate articulates this message BC members cover their ears, call him a kook and scream “we need another war with Iran” just as Krugman wants them to. Well you guys are just as ignorant as the stupidest marxist. So please read my lips:
America is broke and needs to get the troops home before the dollar collapses. The military is way over extended and should no longer be used as a tool to support the dollar as reserve currency for the benefit of the global banking elite. The military should be used for defense only as is defined in the constitution.
Eggplant #42:
It seems to have been a matter of perception. The PI meant more to the Japanese. Before the US invasion the Japanese leadership announced that if the PI were lost so was Japan. They not only used Kamikazes for the first time (first against Taffy 1, the CVE Santee being hit at the same time when Taffy 3 was fighting the IJN Center Force), they ordered the heaviest displacement carrier ever launched, the IJN Shinano, to the PI, loaded with the first production of the new rocket powered Ohka “Baka” bomb. The USS Archerfish torpedoed it.
I guess that the PI looked the most like Japan to the Japanese. It was a new set of Home Islands.
And note that the PI are well within B-17/B-24 range of Taiwan and within B-29 range of the Japanese home islands.
@44. Blast From the Past:
Wow, what a confirmation. Thank you BFtP. Stating that the US has no obligation to defend Israel brings on the following ad hominem attack:
- a cranky old man
- who abandoned America
- slipped past the usually tight Swiss immigration system
- just a Democratic Underground Moby Troll
- Boasting about how you have been banned from other blogs
- troubling self absorption.
- Racist
- Religious Bigot
- itching inability to not inject racial and religious bigotry
- a veneer of preemptive accusation at those who object
- a sad sickness.
- some sexual dysfunction that he simply has to resort to it like
- a compulsion.
- Liar
- fantasist
- petty totalitarian
- seeking to control and shape the conversation
- injecting outrages that decent people avert their eyes from.
- counterfeiter of coin
This also shows how “conservatives” are really little different from “liberals”. The primary difference being not in the degree to which they wish to wield the power of the state but merely in the minorities that they wish to attack and make pay. This is why so many people now say that there is no difference between the two parties. I would say that this difference is like that between Home Depot and Lowe’s Hardware. The difference in purely superficial and worse, both parties will collude to sell out the customer at the first chance. Yes, the Republicans and Democrats both stand for fascism in exactly the same way that Home Depot and Lowe’s stand for crony capitalism.
I’m sorry, but it is simply NOT POSSIBLE to conduct a rational conversation with a man who with his spouse routinely micturate away tens of millions of taxpayer dollars living large, using the Nation’s Most luxurious and expensive 747′s to jet off to exotic vacations accompanied by hundreds of retainers, scores of armored vehicles, and battalions of media ass-licks, and then turn around and talk about FAIRNESS.
Marie Antoinette was by comparison a model of fiduciary and personal probity.
This man, his supporters, his appointees, and his policies are doing more damage to this country than a decade of Katrinas.
RWE @ 47 said:
“I guess that the PI looked the most like Japan to the Japanese. It was a new set of Home Islands.”
You may have hit the nail on its head. The Japanese definitely had Lebensraum issues and would have regarded the native Filipinos as Untermenschen to either be slaughtered or enslaved. The Imperial Japanese probably did see the Philippines as a “New Japan”.
Okay, that explains why the Japanese invested so much of their military resources on the Philippines (also explains why they invaded Formosa/Taiwan). Next question: Why did we chose to dance with the Japanese in the Philippines? Better yet, why the Philippines and not Formosa? Formosa is significantly closer to Japan and would have been a better place for staging B-29 attacks.
Seems to me that MacArthur should have been shouted down and we focused everything on destroying the Japanese home islands. Had we played our cards right, the Japanese industrial base would have been destroyed, their navy sunk and the bulk of the IJA bottled up and useless on the Philippines. It’s conceivable that Japan’s situation would have become so bleak that they would have negotiated a truce in order to bring their troops home from the Philippines (we could have used those bottled up IJA troops on the Philippines as a bargaining chip). In an alternate history it’s possible that the War of Pacific could have ended without our needing to use nuclear weapons.
FREE KINDLE BOOKS
Again, with Wretchard’s kind permission, I invite all Belmont Clubbers who are Amazon Prime members to download, free, and to own permanently, my science fiction novel HITTITE during the period 26 Jan thru 30 Jan. Every five days there will be a new free book offered until I run out them (there are 14 all told). Click the link below to reach my Listmania page, where clicking on the title will take you directly to the book’s Amazon page. Kindle owners who are Amazon Prime members may borrow, from the Kindle Lending Library, for free, any of my 10 novels and 4 books of collected verse. The lending period is one month, you may borrow one book a month, and may borrow the same book more than once, all at no cost. Simply click on a title on the Listmania page and you will be directed to the appropriate Amazon page. Reviews are always helpful, feedback is good.
http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Erickson-s-Novels/lm/R1RT20GYEZD2FM/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full
Happy reading, and thanks for the response to my previous offer.
Walt
I think that the PI are important because of geography but also its defensibility. Guam can be wiped out pretty easy but the PI are big and inhabited with Philipinos who would make any invader pay and pay. That is what happened during WWII and it would happen again in a simular scenario in the future. It isn’t good enough to be close to strike with drones, one must be able to hold ground and strategic resources close to the theater of operations and the PI is nearly impossible to invade or embargo. It fits the bill in spades.
42. eggplant said: “… However I would counter-argue that Singapore and Malaysia were more important geographically. In terms of conquering a potential helot/slave population, China should have been the obvious focal point. However the IJA deaths in China were relatively modest. If natural resources were the driving factor then Indonesia and Australia should have been the focal points. It doesn’t really make any sense for the Philippines to have been the focal point. I guess similar arguments could be made about Stalingrad. Why have 478,741 killed or missing for an obscure town out in the middle of no where?”
Causalities correlate to an enemy’s willingness and ability to fight, not to the importance of the objective. This was clearly demonstrated at Stalingrad.
The oil fields of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) were Japan’s primary strategic objective, and they were easy to take. Singapore was, as you say, of great strategic importance, but it was easily taken after a short fight by an inferior Japanese force which had run out of ammunition at the time of the city’s surrender. In China, Chang’s forces simply lacked the ability to effectively fight the IJA.
Your numbers show that high IJA causalities can be directly correlated to encounters with Americans. That was an additional reality faced by the Japanese high command as they considered surrender after our demonstration of a new weapon on two of their cities.
Thanks Walt!
To other BCers: I’ve bought two dead-tree titles “Hittite” and “Soliloquy” and I can attest they’re as deftly written as Walt’s BC entries. After reading archeological accounts of the Hittite culture, I was really knocked out by his rendering of the battle between the Egyptians and the Hittites. Brought’em to life, as we animators like to say.
Every time I put the book down, yielding to the demands of my clamoring creditors and anxious doggies, I had to steel myself to walk away till the next chance to find out what was going to happen. Great yarns, well told.
Mad Fiddler/54
Thanks for the very kind words. Now if you could just put those words in an Amazon review…
51 @Walt
Thanks so much for your generosity! I grabbed “Hittite” and look forward to reading it. Based on your wordsmithing on BC, I have no doubt it will be excellent.
44 @Blast From the Past
I’m shocked we haven’t heard “Israel-Firster” slung around yet. Well, I guess we have, just in slightly different nomenclature.
Darn near the entire conservative republican establishment dumped on Newt today.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/01/nancy-reagan-1995-ronnie-turned-that-torch-over-to-newt/
I hate Newt’s liberal border talk in Florida but the collective establishment Newt dump gives a body pause. Why? Because the pubbie establishment opposed Reagan and now Reagan’s son endorses Newt. As well, Nancy Reagan in 1995 said that Reagan’s torch went to Newt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ec_Nunb6izo
In the very least, anyone who supports Newt has to know they also have to get in his face–as well as bringing rapid change–like Reagan –newt is quite capable of making republic killing boners–especially on border issues.
Charles @ 57,
I’ll disclose that I’m pro-Newt Gingrich and will vote for him if possible. This dump on Newt worries me. This can be interpreted in three ways:
1) Politics has gotten nastier than it needs to be.
2) Obama’s operatives are more afraid of Gingrich than Romney so they’re working their magic against Gingrich.
3) Old guard Republicans are so freaked out by the possibility of Obama’s reelection that they’ll sabotage any candidate who polls less than current Obama-vs.-Romney polls.
Explanation 1) is the most likely. Explanation 3) would be incredibly stupid if true. Explanation 2) worries me the most because it would indicate that Obama’s operative are actually being effective.
[#4 of 4] I’m done
58. Eggplant
you have to know that Newt is just as capable as Reagan of doing boners that totally screw up the country as happened in 1986 with Reagan’s amnesty bill.
Below is the key provision in Newt’s proposal to let in illegals.
…………
“
Congress must charge the Department of Justice to establish a “citizens’ review” process for those here outside the law. It would establish committees to process these cases in individual communities and determine who will continue on this path to legality, and who will be sent home. Congress must define understandable, clear, objective legal standards that will be applied equally during this process.
http://www.newt.org/solutions/immigration
“
………….
This is the key language where the USA would get screwed. The problem here is not that Congress would set out clear guidelines—rather the problem is that local would have the ultimate AUTHORITY to determine “who will continue on this path to legality”.
It absolutely does NOT matter what guideline the Congress lays down. It will be obeyed to the letter in American counties. But in counties that have heavy illegal populations —distant congressional directives will be totally IGNORED. These counties will let in EVERYONE—especially from countries of the county’s dominant ethnic group. These counties will become counties that attract illegals from all over the USA. Further these counties will attract and give entry to illegals from all over the world.
If you don’t get this then study what happened to the Reagan law that was passed in 1986. The border enforcement part of the law was totally ignored and the Mexicans saw the law as a surrender and began to pour over the border.
Deciding who is and who not a citizen is the job of the sovereign. If you delegate that task you make a whole bunch of new smaller sovereigns.
58. Eggplant
3) Old guard Republicans are so freaked out by the possibility of Obama’s reelection that they’ll sabotage any candidate who polls less than current Obama-vs.-Romney polls.
…….
The thinking is among establishment types is that if Romney goes up against O–the election will be about O. The thinking among establishment types is that if Newt goes against O the election will be about Newt.
I confessed to be up in the air right now. My head goes with Mitt. My heart goes with Newt. I go back and forth. Each candidate feels like they’ll need to be opposed regularly once they get in office. Who is wise. I think that either Newt or Romney can beat O. Why? There’s less of O there than even of Romney. The unemployment numbers won’t break below 7. The independents won’t break for O.
I’m content to go with whoever the pubbies elect. (Paul not so much.)
The Dutch East Indies (Java, Borneo, Sumatra, etc), which Imperial Japan referred to as the Southern Resources Area, was the focal point of Japanese expansion. Well, wait, back up a sec. China was the goal of Japanese Army aggression, and if there was a Lebensraum issue, China was the space Japan was looking for. But involvement in China brought pressure from the US, and eventually led to the oil embargo that threatened to cripple Japan’s economy and, more importantly to the de facto Military Junta that ruled the country, it’s military.
So, in order to occupy China, Japan first had to capture the Southern Resources Area to replace the embargoed strategic materials (oil, steel, etc). It was easy to seize, especially with European nations busy fighting for their lives with Nazi Germany. But, in order to get the resources of the Southern Resources Area back north to Japanese industry, they had to be shipped across the China Sea. The Philippines made an idea location for US raiders to interdict those shipping lanes.
So, in order to control the resources needed to break the embargo caused by the Chinese adventurism, Imperial Japan needed to deny the Philippines as a base to the US.
That’s why Japan invaded at the start of the war.
As to why the US invaded in 1944 instead of isolating and bypassing the Philippines… that’s a tougher question. Original US strategic planning for war with Japan (War Plan Orange and it’s descendants) called for a drive across the Central Pacific, siezing bases as needed, with the ultimate goal to establish a ring of bases around Japan to blockade and bomb (“bombard” in the first plans, written before aircraft were potent weapons, “bomb” afterwards) the islands into surrender. The Philippines were not part of that plan. If the original plan had been followed, the PI would have been isolated and the IJA garrisons there dealth with after Japan proper surrendered. Likely the casualties and suffering on the islands would have been even worse than it was.
But MacArthur wanted to go back, felt an obligation to do so. Certainly that suffering was a major consideration in his thinking. Pride perhaps was too. But whatever is motivations, he was able to push the Joint Chiefs into adding the liberation of the Phillipines to the plan (which continued, culminating in the atomic bombs that finally did end the war). The liberation of the Phillippines did nothing to further or really even hasten US victory over Japan. But perhaps it did alleviate a great deal of suffering. That is debatable, since it caused large battles, including as Wretchard said, the battle of Manila where so many lives were lost. But it also meant the people of the islands were out from under the IJA’s yoke perhaps a year earlier than otherwise would have been.
Charles 59,
Deciding who is and who not a citizen is the job of the sovereign.
On the subject of the flawed Gingrich proposal and the local committees I agree with you. On the Constitutional issue you are on less firm, although not incomprehensible, ground.
Before the XIVth Amendment the states shared with the federal government the power to grant or withhold citizenship. The ultimate sovereign in America is the people. Each is individually responsible before God and the Law for their actions. Collectively they act through the Legislature. The Executive is their agent and not their sovereign. Some of the citizen’s authority to act is delegated to those sworn to act on their behalf using the Police Power. In so doing the police are a branch of the militia, as are the Grand and Petite juries.
Obviously individuals or groups may not set themselves up as free lance police or juries in defiance of those operating under the authority of the legislature. Only if the constitutional order broke down would such action be justified. Even the Civil War did not represent such a complete loss of legitimacy by the delegated agents of the People, although for a time in some states the government was unable to function and the postal system, the only federal government that most people encountered in that time, was withdrawn.
Eggplant 58,
1. It has been even nastier, bad as this is.
2. Not only are Democrat/Socialist/Chinese/Islamist agents acting under both open and false flags to shape the political landscape and destroy Obama’s opponents but they are doing so with massive funding from foreign and hostile interests. That is the big change, the infiltration of the American system by enemy agents, yes I mean Soros et al, and the collaboration by willing dupes. We had good strong partisans on the Left in the past who drew the line at America’s safety. George Meany would not fit in today’s AFL-CIO.
3. While the stampeding of some Republicans against Gingrich is understandable, they do not want another Cain to blow up on them and some do feel properly that they should render a judgment to protect the party and nation if they strongly feel someone is unfit, a role the senior Democrat Super Delegates failed to fulfill in 2008, some is also an indication of how prepared the Axelrod machine is to manipulate the GOP and after the storm I expect that the Establishment Republicans will serve with Gingrich if he is the nominee. More of a concern would be if many conservatives get tricked into staying home again as they did in the last election.
Regarding the Philippines, remember that was American territory and those were US citizens. Of course we had to go back and liberate them. They chose independence and we granted it to them in 1946. They are our brothers.
JMH @61
The Great Pacific War, Hector C. Bywater, ISBN 0-312-06364-4 ( got to love that pen name — such word play ) is the source for Japan’s grand tactics.
“Until now, historians have believed that Japan’s opening gambit was conceived independently by Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, who was killed in 1943. However, in a biography of Bywater published earlier this year [ 1991 Ed ] I [ William H. Honan ] pointed out that a few months after The Great Pacific War had been published in the United States and while it was still provoking controversy, Yamamoto, then a captain in the Imperial Navy, arrived at his post as naval attache at he Japanese embassy in Washington. Documents in the Diplomatic Records Office ( Gaiko Shiryokan ) in Tokyo reveal that he reported to his superiors about Bywater’s book. Two years later, when he returned to Japan, Yamamoto delivered a lecture at the Imperial Navy Torpedo School at Yokosuka in which he adopted Bywater’s ideas as his own.
Yamamoto and Bywater met in 1934 in London at the Preliminary Naval Limitation Conference, and whiled away an evening discussing the prospects for peace and war in the Pacific.
…
The similarities between what Bywater prescribed in 1925 and the strategy and tactics Yamamoto pursued are striking. Bywater not only called for a surprise attack against the American force in the Pacific, but described simultaneous attacks against the Philippines and Guam, naming several of the precise beaches on which Japanese troops would set foot sixteen years later.
Furthermore, Bywater’s novel explains the mystery of why Yamamoto, after demonstrating the supremacy of the aircraft carrier at Pearl Harbor and Coral Sea, should have planned the Battle of Midway as a Jutland-style slugging match between battleships, relegating the aircraft carrier to a kind of naval picador. Look at Bywater’s description of the Battle of Yap. There is the source for Yamamoto’s plan. Once again, he had fallen under Bywater’s spell.”
From the 1991 introduction by W.H. Honan
——
BTW, MacArthur NEVER convinced the Joint Chiefs — he sold it directly to FDR. That did it.
The USN was never on board — Nimitz advocated Taiwan.
An even better idea would’ve been to just land — unopposed — on the east shores of China. It would’ve been a walk-over. We could’ve just started out handing out M-1 carbines — forming up light infantry at the double quick.
Even a smallish tank force would’ve run riot through IJA rear areas.
As it was, we didn’t ever romp around Asia with our Shermans — where they would’ve been as dominant as the Tiger was in Europe.
When the IJA faced T-34 tanks it imploded upon contact. That would’ve been true in 1944, too.
wretchard @ 11:
“The fundamental trouble with command economics is that it never actually reflects the resource scarcities implied by nature. Because prices can be set by human fiat, politics will control resource allocation”.
As I have mentioned before: The fundamental trouble with command economics is lag induced instability. Personal freedom is inevitably lost as the commanders try to slow the system enough that the oscillations, and crashes, can be controlled.
W: “Marxist economists object that a reliance on market valuation will eventually result in the inequality of wealth. In their view, only central planning can modify that situation and make things “fair”.”
The Marxist model assumes that the Marxists are not contaminated like the other “little people” by traits such as greed, envy, rage and violence – the assumption that Marxists will not become tyrants – history and common sense say otherwise.
“Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings [or Marxists] to govern him?” Thomas Jefferson
The Marxist model assumes that the Marxists do not themselves become immensely wealthy and powerful – the assumption that Marxists are not to become a class of not-to-be-equalized equalizers.
“The usual understanding of “equality,” when applied to people, entails equality of rights and sometimes equality of opportunity. But what is meant in all these [Socialist] cases is the equalization of external conditions [social and economic outcome] which do not touch the individuality of man. In socialist ideology, however, the understanding of equality is akin to that used in mathematics, i.e., this is in fact identity, the abolition of differences in behavior as well as in the inner world of the individuals constituting society. From this point of view, a puzzling and at first sight contradictory property of socialist doctrines becomes apparent. They proclaim the greatest possible equality, the destruction of hierarchy in society and at the same time a strict regimentation of all of life, which would be impossible without absolute control and an all-powerful bureaucracy which would engender an incomparably greater inequality.” Igor Shafarevich
http://www.robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html
“It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called “abolition of private property” [Communist Manifesto] meant in effect the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before… In the years following the Revolution it [The Socialist Party of Oceania] was able to step into this commanding position almost un-opposed because the whole process was represented as an act of collectivization… It had always been assumed that if the Capitalist Class were expropriated Socialism must follow; and unquestionably the Capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses, transport, everything had been taken away from them; and since these things were no longer private property it followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc [Socialist Principles of Oceania], which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist program with the result; foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.” George Orwell – 1984
Charles @ 57
Heard theory today that reason R establishment is bad-mouthing Gingrich is that they’re afraid that if he is the nominee, he will do something that will prevent the R take-over of Senate and more house seats. That’s the prize they want more than the Oval office.
Don’t know if it’s true but I think fans of Newt realize that he could well do it.