The Zero-Sum Society: Distribution And The Possibilities For Change
Comments:
This 1980 book
https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Sum-Society-Distribution-Possibi...
made a damning indictment of the protectionist policies pushed by the Mellon family [1] to support US Steel which was unwilling to replace its obsolete open health furnaces with the modern basic oxygen and electric arc plants that competitors were using in Europe and Japan. It not only hurt US consumers but it hurt the rest of US industry, particularly the car industry, because it meant our industry was paying more to make products out of inferior quality steel.
Tariffs are not an "us-vs-them" policy but rather a "them-vs-us" policy which will let tired monopolies in the US conspire with tired monopolies in other countries to not compete.
Things changed and 1980 looks like an inflection point although for China in particular the inflection point could have been when Nixon went to China in 1972.
Until then China was more aligned with Russia but Nixon and Kissinger really hit it off Mao and Zhao Enlai and eventually you got Deng Xiaoping who had slogans like "To get rich is glorious" and China went on a path of encouraging "capitalist" economic growth that went through various phases. Early on China brought cheap labor to the table, right now they bring a willingness to invest (e.g. out capitalize us) such that, at their best, they bu make investments like this mushroom factory which is a giant vertical farm where people only handle the mushrooms with forklifts
https://www.finc-sh.com/en/about.aspx#fincvideo
(I find that video endlessly fascinating because of all the details like photos of the founders using the same shelving and jars that my wife did when she ran a mushroom lab)
Contrast that to the "Atlas Shrugged" situation we have here where a movie studio thinks they can't afford to spend $150 M to make a movie that makes $200M at the box office (never mind the home video, merchandise, and streaming rights which multiply that) which is the capitalist version of a janitor deciding they deserve $80 an hour.
This book by a left-leaning economist circa 1980
https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Sum-Society-Distribution-Possibi...
points out how free trade won hearts and minds: how the US steel industry didn't want to disinvest in obsolete equipment which had harmful impacts on consumers and the rest of our industry. All people remember though is that the jobs went away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHnJp0oyOxs
That focus on winning at increased international competition meant that there was no oxygen in the room for doing anything about interregional inequality in countries.