There is no democracy, without an economy flush with employment. A society which doesn’t employ people disempowers them: they can’t even go on strike. Thus those who don’t want democracy, can destroy the economy first. That’s sneaky, and most efficient,
This is exactly what has been happening in the last three decades, as employment and economy has been sent increasingly from the wealthiest countries to developing countries… This brought decreasing employment in those wealthiest countries. Thus it disempowered workers while empowering the investors, owners and managers who employed dirt poor workers overseas unprotected by social laws… basically slaves. The more the owners and the international elite were empowered, by this displacement of the economy overseas, the more they manipulated the ruling ideology which they controlled through the media they own and the universities they finance.
This is not the graph I was looking for, which was world trade versus inequality. However, that’s a good proxy, as patents tended to be deployed in places like China… as the economy was displaced there!
…Actually the US Supreme Court, starting in 2006, and boosted by Obama after 2008, gutted the US Patent System: it’s always the same idea: favor the giant monopolies (patents are micro, temporally limited monopolies…) and overseas production… Disempower normal US citizens…
We saw it all before, with the Roman Republic. It disappeared when its elite escaped the absolute wealth limit taxation by going overseas, and sending the economy there, while controlling the political process. This voided Rome, and later Italy, of employment, thus power. They remembered that, early in the Roman Republic, to protest the elite, the Plebs had gone on strike… forcing more equalitarian laws.
Beijing just accused Washington of “economic terrorism”. China can self develop now. Time to bring jobs back to the USA, the EU. That will bring back not just employment, but democracy.
Patrice Ayme
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This was a comment to the NYT, which was approved so fast, they couldn’t possibly have read it (do I have friends?) Here is the beginning of the article:
“Trade War Starts Changing Manufacturers in Hard-to-Reverse Ways
ControlTek, which makes circuit boards in Vancouver, Wash., has begun shifting supply chains out of China and designing products that don’t require Chinese parts.
The New York Times
By Ben Casselman
May 30, 2019
PORTLAND, Ore. — When the Trump administration first imposed tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese imports in July, Andy LaFrazia figured it was just another curveball for his company.
“Everyone was saying: ‘Oh, it’s a negotiating tactic. It won’t last long,’” Mr. LaFrazia recalled.
But nearly a year later, the trade war shows no sign of cooling off. So ControlTek, the electronics manufacturer that Mr. LaFrazia runs near Portland, is taking steps to protect itself, a strategic shift that has been repeated in boardrooms and executive suites around the world in recent weeks.
ControlTek is rewriting contract language to make it easier to pass the cost of tariffs on to its customers. It is shifting supply chains out of China where possible, and redesigning products to avoid Chinese components where it isn’t. And as a tiny player in an enormous global industry, it is discovering that there is only so much it can do.
“We’re very much at the end of the whip getting thrown around,” Mr. LaFrazia said.
Despite dire warnings from economists, Mr. Trump’s trade war has so far done little to derail the decade-long recovery from the Great Recession. Economic growth has remained strong, and the unemployment rate last month hit a 50-year low.”
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