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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   35848 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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That's Juche.

Economic self-sufficiency (자립; jarip) is required to achieve political independence, according to adherents of Juche.

In On the Juche Idea, Kim Jong Il argues that a state can achieve economic self-sufficiency only when it has created an "independent national economy" based on heavy industry, as this sector will drive the rest of the economy. He also emphasizes the importance of technological independence and self-sufficiency in resources.

I’m not sure if you’re providing additional info or criticising by analogy. If the latter, it would be nice if you say so.

Personally I don’t find ‘a tiny, bent state once did this, so if you do it you will turn into a tiny bent state’ hugely convincing. Circumstances matter.

That's true, but the situation is different. North Korea did Juche out of necessity. They were a small, backwards nation being embargoed by most of the world, and also completely lacking in oil and other key resources. Today they're... still small and backwards... but they've survived, much longer than anyone thought possible (albiet with a lot of help from the USSR and China). The USA is different. We're large, rich, and have basically every kind of natural resource within our border somewhere. There's no particular the USA should have to trade with other countries if it doesn't want to. The usual econ argument is that free trade and specialization of labor makes countries more prosperous, bu the counterargument is that it leads to income inequality, alienation, and fragility as our entire industrial base moves overseas.

fragility as our entire industrial base moves overseas

We can talk about industry being shipped to countries with lower wages and laxer environmental regulations, but none of that really applies to Canada.

It may not apply to Canada. It does, however, apply to other countries that use Canada as a point of entry into the US economy.

There are a fair number of "made in Canada" products where the final transformation is done in Canada with the rest of the processing chain being overseas.

(Ditto Mexico.)

Trump is putting higher tariffs on Canada than on China (25% vs 10%).

I think the 10 % on China is on top of existing tariffs, so that the total is bigger than 25 %.

I dont care about lower wages or environmental rules much. But i do think it its a bad thing when global capitalism concentrates all te production for something critical into a single place. Case in point, some people are joking that we can't oppose Denmark because they control the entire world supply of ozempic.

So long as everyone makes something that everyone else needs, it should be fine, right? Denmark can't oppose Taiwan beacuse both need each other.

Unless the Taiwanese just don't overeat, in which case the Danish have no hold on them.

”Folks, the bourgeois, they're no good everyone is saying it. All these workers, very handsome workers come up to me and say, Comrade Trump there is a specter haunting Europe, and you know what, they're right. These bourgeois are very nasty people very very rude and very unfair to the workers. They are stealing our surplus value and no one is doing anything about it. The proletariat comes up to me everyday and says, Comrade Trump will you lead the revolution? And I gotta turn to them and say, Look the instruments of capitalism will be used to bring about its destruction believe me you gotta trust me on this one. The means of production, obama never wanted to seize them. Well guess what? I'm seizing them. Landlords? They're done for folks. Everyone told me they said, Comrade Trump you won't be the vanguard of the revolution and they would laugh, the media laughed the democrats laughed, guess whose laughing now?"

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