Except that it is only local or small risk minimization; the catastrophic existential risks end up maximized to the point of becoming inevitable.
With companies, the MBAs happily optimize away anything that isn't immediate revenue. So manufacturing gets offshored, along with all the deep knowledge of how to make things. R&D gets shrunk and minimized because it is a quarterly expense with returns not immediately specified. They kill or sell off all the "dogs" of products and try to milk the "cash cows". This makes the numbers look great until things change and the "cash cows" need updating for a new market environment. But the company now has no idea how to do it because they have no seasoned and up to date product development, no R&D technology development, and no manufacturing know-how. So, it goes into a death spiral if it hasn't already been disrupted.
On the societal level, MBAs justified the western world outsourcing all the manufacturing because it was "fungible" and cheaper to do it offshore, made more profits this quarter. Meanwhile, all that know-how was stolen by China, who isn't interested in quarterly profits, but in global hegemony, and now has both economic and strategic chokeholds on the western democracies (everything from corners on lithium and solar panel markets, to spies in western corporations, to backdoors in key commercial and likely military microchips). The entire strategic advantage of the west was sold out for a few dozen quarters of increased profits. This will go down as a colossal strategic blunder of historic proportions.
>...all that know-how was stolen by China, who isn't interested in quarterly profits, but in global hegemony...
This seems a little simplistic? "China" isn't a monolith, and I'm pretty sure Chinese companies are just as interested in quarterly profits as Western ones. It's not like they're all state enterprises. And they didn't "steal" know-how - they earned it, by doing stuff (aside from the odd case of corporate espionage, which certainly cuts both ways). Nor is the United States any less interested in global hegemony than China.
I suggest that the reason for manufacturing moving to China is simply because labor is cheaper there (large population and weak labor laws). The Chinese government has played its hand well, but it doesn't represent some grand asymmetry in strategic planning - it's just the hand of the market as always.
Isn't it? If the companies all take orders from the state, and have state representatives on their boards, that seems pretty close.
> And they didn't "steal" know-how - they earned it, by doing stuff (aside from the odd case of corporate espionage, which certainly cuts both ways).
Espionage is asymmetric, and there are also cases of China seizing whole companies outright from foreign investors. Capital controls and controls on the ability of foreign companies to do business are very much asymmetric.
You do not need the whole china to do it. And you do not need the majority even. Just some and then recreate from parts to WeChat to TikTok … and it is one way street as well as not many steal anything back.
I still think the west is doomed. But both hk and Ukraine is a wake-up call. When they act very badly can you fight back or just be German. Too many dependence …
Good luck. You need it. We all need it. As only left thing is luck. I hope not. But your response …
> Nor is the United States any less interested in global hegemony than China.
In as far as United States is a democracy, it is not interested in global "hegemony". It is interested in Democracy spreading all over the world. Democracy is not hegemony but freedom for one person to have one vote and nobody being above the law. Of course that could change. A Nazi party could gain the power in US. Then you could say that US is interested in global hegemony for sure.
The US maintains the largest military in the world, despite the mainland being virtually unassailable by virtue of geography, and has overthrown numerous democratically elected governments while leaving brutal and regressive regimes intact. American financial interests are a much better predictor of foreign policy than "spreading democracy". As for nobody being above the law, that isn't even true in the US itself, never mind its satellite states.
Politicians love to assert as you do, but I'm afraid actions speak louder than words.
The simple fact of the matter is that if you want to live a self-determined life, or have a self-determining government, you must be better armed, better prepared, and better allied than the local bully or the autocracies.
If you are not better armed, prepared, & allied, the local bully WILL steal your lunch money every time, and your democracy WILL be overrun by an autocracy. Just speak to anyone with Baltic or Finnish heritage about their history with the Russians/Soviets/Russians.
The US just happens to be the largest democracy, so it leads. But if you think that the US could get away with a withdrawn isolationist policy because it is so "geographically unassailable", and let the other democracies fall, that would be a catastrophic failure. Hell, we are already under attack from inside with direct support from Russia.
And yes, no large organization will make every move without mistakes, even strategic errors. That does not mean that it is somehow equal, or even close to the autocracies (this will no longer be true if an autocratic party takes over US, which is a very real and present danger).
Please learn how the world really works before you spout simple-minded false equivalency.
The USA maintains military bases in all corners of the world. From Australia to Guam, Eastern Europe to Brazil. If they're not interested in hegemony and all they want is to spread democracy (sounds eerily similar to the jesuits in the 1500's trying to christen the savages) why would they do that?
If US is able to spread democracy all around the world, it will not be the "Hegemony of the US". It will be the "Hegemony of Democracy".
Consider Germany after WW2. Allied won over Germany but did US establish a "US Hegemony" in Germany? No. They established Democracy in Germany. Once you give people the freedom to self-govern, you can not have hegemony over them, unless you are a corrupt state. But assuming that US is a working democracy, corruption will be rooted out, because people will vote for its removal.
If you want a more recent example Iraq was crushed, but not put under the US’s boot. It may have failed nation building in Afghanistan, but it tried rather than adding more territory.
Right, only authoritarian governments are interested in conquering territory.
Russia is trying its best to annex Ukraine to itself. But it is not "Russia" that is doing it, it is the authoritarian government of Russia. When did US last annex territories?
The workhorse of authoritarian politics is tribalism. They try to say it is a competition between countries and or races and or religions. They get supporters by making them believe it is their tribe against other tribes that is threatening their very existence.
But the real fight is not between countries or "tribes". It is between Democracy and Autocracy, and that fight is happening in every country.
The simple fact is that, anyone who wants to live a self determined life, and have a self-determining country MUST be better armed, prepared, and allied than the local abusers and bullies or the global autocrats.
If you are not better armed, prepared, and/or allied, then the local bully will steal your lunch money every day, and the global autocrats will keep taking whatever they want, whenever they think they can get away with it. See China and Tibet, Hong Kong, "9-dashed line", Taiwan, etc. See Russia and Chechnya, georgia, Syria, Ukraine, Baltics, etc. Neither has EVER lived up to an agreement. They cannot be honestly bargained with.
They will not stop, unless they are stopped by an external power. That power must come from the democracies of the world. Without the US, EU, Australia, etc., being able to project power, we WILL soon find them on our doorsteps. Yes, the US has ended up being the 'worlds policeman' since WWII. This is literally what enables free trade (hint: the piracy problem off Africa kinda died once the US Navy started getting quietly involved, and that's just one example).
Please learn about how the world actually works before spouting false equivalence.
The entire strategic advantage of the west was sold out thanks to trying to standardize management? Come on, there's certainly an element of truth with relation to the downsides of globalization, but that's some pretty heavy hyperbole.
In terms of what is wrong with this apocalyptic view of the future, I would start with the idea that China has some unassailable chokehold on the West. A lot of influence over our supply chain (which is at the moment divesting), sure. Someone like Peter Zeihan can articulate it better than I can here (ex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzT38jCUpgU), but China is really on its knees at the moment owing in large part to the instability of authoritarian regimes. We might see them get back on their feet in the next few years but we might just as easily see a catastrophic collapse of their government and economy. Time will tell.
It is not heavy hyperbole. Compare the relative positions of the west vs China only 25 years ago vs today. Before, China had neither military technology to that could challenge the West, nor the size of its economy. Today, it has ripped-off designs of fighter jets for everything from the F-16 to the F-35, carrier-killer missiles, six nuclear attack submarines, a domestically produced aircraft carrier, etc.++, and is the 2nd largest economy in the world. All in a quarter of a century.
We gave away the forking store. And CCP has used that new position to violate it's agreements on Hong Kong, and now continuously and explicitly threaten war on Taiwan.
The great experiment has been tried and resoundingly failed. It was thought that open trade and information exchange would result in openness and democracies in the autocratic countries. Instead, it empowered and emboldened the dictators.
That said, we have noticed, and China has blown it so that they no longer have the benefit of the doubt; we know the experiment failed, and know their absolute intentions to remain autocratic, and grow at the expense of democracies.
So we are now strategically pulling back. I do not think it is anywhere near over. I would not bet on China winning long-term.
But, the west, by trying the Great Experiment (which was truly generous-minded), without restraint (which was stupid) has put ourselves in a far more vulnerable position than we would have otherwise. It will be far more costly and risky to get the democracies of the world out of this mess than it would be if we'd avoided it in the first place
US needs China and China needs US. The Wealth of Nations. The only problem as you say is the authoritarian regime in China which opposes progress for its people, because the authoritarians have taken over so of course they look after their own interests not the interests of the majority. Therefore progress is coming very slowly to the masses. China used to be ruled by a "junta" but now it seems it is ruled by a dictator, a single person. He might be a good person, or evil, and so will his follower. At some point there will be a very evil dictator just like in ancient Rome.
It's more accurate to say: "China needs the cooperation of the US and EU in order to sustain its growth. But with enough effort, the US and EU can find a replacement for China."
You can relocate supply but you can't relocate demand. The West can find new partners to buy stuff from, like India and Vietnam, and is doing so now. If it really wants to it can pump money into those countries to speed up the process. World leaders are now acutely aware of China's political instability - I think no matter what happens, the era of China being the whole world's indispensable supplier is over, no one is really comfortable with it anymore. Between Covid and Jinping, China has only itself to blame.
The main thing that gives me hope is that the type of knowledge generation environment in the western world still hasn’t been acquired by dictatorial powers like China. Given the exponentially increasing technological change we’re experiencing, the knowledge transferred via the method you described will likely be surpassed and rendered obsolete relatively quickly (hopefully) and make that transferred knowledge less likely to undo the progress made towards global order and uplift.
Because China is experiencing all kinds of internal demographic and political turmoil, and they’re still much further behind than people realize, what I worry about more in the long run is decay of western education than anything externally driven. We are our own worst enemy, and we risk hollowing out what has historically been the engine of innovation for the majority of the world (I am talking primarily about the pipeline feeding people into US University systems since World War II and high level technical/tinkering environments, as I think European education seems to have lost a decent amount of innovative capability a while ago, though I know much less about it). That problem is deeper than the problem of products of that system being sold off as you describe, but related. That poses a far bigger long term risk to domestic and global prosperity than China, imo, although China is still a massive risk for at least the next decade if Xi continues his current trajectory, and the education problem is of course related to our ability to confront that.
I see two extremely important problems that need to be solved:
1. The most intelligent and competent members of the public need to be pulled from all backgrounds, colors and creeds and be rigorously evaluated purely for ability and merit regardless of all other criteria. Historically there has been bias in favor of the host nation population. Now there is bias in favor of restorative education and nepotism. While truly restorative education has merit, it cannot interfere with attempts to identify and nurture the best of the best, which is of upmost national security importance, and is important for the maintenance and improvement of the machinery which has given us so much material prosperity.
2. We need to accept that not everyone is able to handle the complexity of the world we have created and educate those who are not in that first highly selective pool of people how to be good citizens, participate in complex systems in a way that’s beneficial for all parties despite the complexity, achieve high status, and create a compact that actually rewards them for being good citizens regardless of intellectual ability. There is a very toxic aspect in the upper echelons of modern society where those not able to handle the insane complexity and competitiveness of technocracy are essentially lied to by most of our educational system to continue schooling and training indefinitely, or they are ousted from the training environment and treated like livestock. Many people then end up clinging on to large bureaucratic systems for meaning and survival, which becomes further and further out of sync with real societal needs. This is a much harder problem to solve than the first given modern organizational complexity, but people will not accept the solution to the first problem (which is inevitably unbalanced and discriminatory against those less able) unless the system as a whole is explicitly rewarding and accepting everyone for participation and giving them achievable pathways to high status.
I see that second problem as THE problem of the 21st century. If that problem is not solved, or if it is forcibly “solved” arrogantly and stupidly, I worry the world will be plunged into a level of dysfunction that makes the past 3 years look like nirvana. If that problem is solved we could find ourselves enjoying the highest levels of prosperity, meaning, belonging, and global uplift in the history of mankind in the decades to come.
You are completely correct if the meritocracy fails to provide a fair allocation of resources.
The way it is going, the "merit" scale equates merit with ability to gain control of money. Honesty doesn't even matter; there are many more Madoffs and SBFs of the world that haven't yet gotten caught, and everyone hails them (at least until they fall). Madoff died in jail, but only after he lived decades at the top; some would see that as a good life bargain career plan.
If we build a real meritocracy AND provide for equitable distribution of resources to even the least among us, we can do very well.
There is a lot of movement in that direction, but until the abusers at the top get the point that there will be no society even worth living above without equity, we could be headed for real darkness.
Aiming towards a legitimate meritocracy is the least dystopian aim possible.
Aiming at anything else will simply be a less effective, more corrupt, more unjust, more arrogantly constructed system.
True meritocracy requires aiming away from corruption, towards justice, and towards humility. That will never be perfectly achieved, but the lack of willingness to even aim at the target in large sectors of society at the moment is something I find both incredibly depressing and incredibly counterproductive strategically. There are tools and procedures that can be systematically employed to measure merit that, while imperfect, are better than nothing, and seem to be increasingly rejected because people don’t like the results. Those results are not something that should be considered static nor perfectly calibrated to merit nor reflective of worth as a high status member of society. But the incredible amount of sensitivity around any attempt at identifying and nurturing people with signs of high potential regardless of background is a giant achilles heel affecting all of society. Failing to properly address and assuage those sensitivities so we can pursue meritocracy to the extent possible harms everyone in the long run.
“Blessed self appointed teachers” should not and cannot exist in any functional actually meritocratic system. In order for mass civic education to be effective there needs to be a core set of criteria for what constitutes a good teacher and a good citizen that all parties negotiate on and largely agree on (to the extent possible) that’s actually (not just superficially) bottom up and not imposed by social engineering types.
The exact criteria for what constitutes a good citizen can and should be varied based on location and can and should be driven by the values of any given local community. But there also needs to be a convergence on higher order values that can help negotiate between communities that have different values. A good education system needs to incorporate local community values while also fitting into a larger system.
That is incredibly difficult to achieve, and impossible to fully realize. But that should be the aim. What we have now is based off an old Prussian industrial model that is serving fewer and fewer people while also increasing disunity by preaching grievance. The education system could be much much better and both serve and be run by everyone in a much more unifying and cooperative way if there was better leadership, less inertia in the old system, and a much clearer and beneficial social contract at the foundation of the system.
> That is incredibly difficult to achieve, and impossible to fully realize. But that should be the aim.
What makes you confident that not fully realized version of your utopia does not end up being a dystopia? For reference, see what happened for the not fully realized utopia of communism in Soviet Union
Every functional organization throughout history has been some form of meritocratic system. Functional does not guarantee benevolence/a meritocratic system is neither utopian nor dystopian in and of itself, but some attempt at meritocracy is a prerequisite to being able to aim a system at all and keep it from causing harm through dysfunction.
Whether or not more local emphasis is better when talking about civic education is a much longer conversation. Determining what proper civic education should be is an extremely difficult balancing act. That difficulty and the long term ramifications of education is why I think it's likely to be THE most important problem in upcoming decades. In order to avoid dystopian outcomes that difficulty needs to be confronted honestly and pragmatically. Systems become most dysfunctional and dystopian when they pursue a vision without regard for pragmatic considerations and are willing to become increasingly "in debt" to a vision by doing things that are very bad in the short term to medium term for an imagined, non existent benefit in the long term. I think it's perfectly possible to aim a system in pragmatic directions towards actually viable paths to betterment which balance short, medium, and long term considerations without the type of indebtedness to vision that leads to bad outcomes. Those paths won't be perfectly defined, and the benefits might end up being modest. In short I don't think I'm advocating for anything utopian, just intentional, pragmatic, and in service of whatever best paths make themselves visible. I think we are not looking at paths which are much better than the one public education is currently on. Exactly how much better civic education could be is a big unknown, but my hope is that it could be drastically improved.
Indeed. This gives rise to the triumph of robotomorphism over anthropomorphism, i.e. HR as human robots.
It's easier to hire humans that act like robots than to design robots that act like humans. Robots have an uncanny valley described on wikipedia, that, when reversed, leaves us with a robot-centric human critique:
In aesthetics, the uncanny valley is a hypothesized relation between a human's degree of resemblance to a robot and the emotional response to the human. The concept suggests that humans that imperfectly resemble actual robots provoke uncanny or strangely familiar feelings of uneasiness and revulsion in observers. "Valley" denotes a dip in the human observer's affinity for the robotic human, a relation that otherwise increases with the human's robot likeness.
One size fits all is less efficient at both the managerial and employee levels, the advantage is largely risk minimization.