Comments on: The War on Trade and its Theoretical Implications

By: Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor — Mon, 31 May 2021 09:48:28 +0000

I meant what I said, but apologies if my language needs translating! Put another way, my criticism is that looking at the problem doesn’t solve it, so I’ve drawn on my 84 years experience of Christian family life to suggest looking at its co-operative “bottom-up” solution to the warring of self-serving “top-down” governments and firms.

By: Oscar Ugarteche

Oscar Ugarteche — Sat, 29 May 2021 17:19:12 +0000

What are you meaning to say?

By: Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor — Thu, 27 May 2021 14:06:09 +0000

This paper fails to address the more fundamental questions of whether (contra Thatcher) there is an alternative to trade wars and (contra Machiavelli) to governments getting their way by deceit. These were the topic of the Judaic-Christian Bible, in which the paradise created for Adam by a loving Father is lost as a consequence of his disobedience, with subsequent generations interpreting this as a Creator’s vengeance, so trying to hide their guilt by killing the Father’s messengers. What Moses interpreted as God laying down the Law in terms of Commandments, Christ’s prayer,the “Our Father”, reasserted as Commendments: advice which is hardly necessary if like the Father we love all His children and what’s left of the paradise he gave us: i.e belatedly understand why the Father preferred Abel’s agriculture to Cain’s killing. Behind the questions are the axioms of choice: whether to deny this story as merely poetry, or to accept it as history and testimony conveyed with poetic licence. What is historically significant is Luther starting the Christian “reformation” (provoked no doubt by a Borgia becoming Pope) within four years of Machiavelli publishing “The Prince”. Where the story had been told of Christ the King washing the feet of his disciples, the reformers reverted to would-be Princes governing by laying down Laws and lines of succession: castes led by brahmins, manderins, administrators, economists and clergy so incestuously raised and trained as to have become (as has just famously been said in Britain) “like donkeys leading lions”. The early Christian way of governing was “bottom up”: sharing everything, and teaching all children how co-operation involves forgiving the mistakes of others and learning to control themselves.

By: Oscar Ugarteche

Oscar Ugarteche — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 18:46:34 +0000

Juan,
From what we observe in the analysis by Ripak and Slipak the China competition is extremely serious, but more so the Oriental competition to the West. It is a high tech competition, a financial competition, and a productive one. What changes is the East-West divide, following Martinez Avila’s thinking. The global leadership shift from West to East does not necessarily mean new rules for the world but a change in who organises the East and who the West. Multilateralism will probably change shape. Clearly, after WWII the US had the hegemony in the West and the Soviet Union in part of the East. The US designed the UN system and the Bretton Woods accord but they seem not to be very useful anymore. They were the extended arm of US foreign policy until the US decided to ignore the multilateral system resolutions if they went against their wishes. The world was split into a bipolar world before 1990. The situation now appears multipolar with each major country leading inside their area of influence. The US abandoned the concept of the West, synthesized in NATO and the Atlantic, over the past four years but will return maybe with a TTIP agreement. China in its way created RCEP in 2020 after a decade of negotiations. A new multilateralism is emerging.

By: oscarugarteche

oscarugarteche — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 14:59:54 +0000

In reply to Juan Vázquez Rojo. Thank you very much to all for your papers. Yes, I think we are in a complicated crossroads with a weak hegemon and a trade and innovation competitor. I saw Jeffrey Sachs argue in favour of multilateralism recently, with the poin that it is not the institution per see but the US that is misbehaving. Yet, over the past forty years we have seen the US attack the institutions it created. It reminds me of the US attack against the League of Nations after Woodrow Wilson invented it and her withdrawal in 1921. The issue is if existing multilateralism serves the US or not. It serves the world but that does not imply it serves the weakened hegemon that has lost leadership, cannot lead by reason and tries to do it by force. Bullying in international institutions has gotten worse but is not new. The impression I have with intellectual monopolies and other new subjects is that maybe a new set of rules of the game must be placed or are in process of development. The shift in the energy matrix towards cleaner energy is led by China and seconded by Europe. This places economic leadership in trouble spot that is not solved through protectionism. In that sense, kicking the old liberal rules with protectionism would be the beginning of something else and will not go away with any political party in Government in that country.

By: Juan Vázquez Rojo

Juan Vázquez Rojo — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 07:27:25 +0000

Hi Oscar,

It is a pleasure to share this space with you. I believe that your work promotes a key point discussion for future international affairs: The old and the new international institutions.

In general, I think it is a very important issue that the multilateral rules created after World War II were broken. The change in the international correlation of power and, more specifically, the rise of China implies that these rules do not represent this current relationship of forces.

In my view, the most important point is that the multilateral rule building erected after World War II no longer represents the current distribution of power and, for this reason, the current structure cannot stand for long. Precisely because of this, I believe that what you point out in the text is fundamental: we are necessarily walking towards a new building that will be constructed in the next few years.

One question that arises from this is What capacity does China have to reform or rebuild the building of international rules? In my view, China has great limitations because of its weak international and regional alliances (even taking into account the new strategy you point out in the text). Can this change in the short/medium term? How can this be related to the decoupling that we are beginning to see and the interdependencies that still exist?

Thank you very much.

Juan Vázquez Rojo
Universidad Camilo José Cela and Corporación Universitaria de Asturias