This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Canada's finance minister quits over Trump tariff dispute with Trudeau
Seems like Trudeau is floundering for some ways to keep his job and his head economist didn't approve. I'm not sure why Trump wants to mega tax Canada but it certainly can't have helped. This may end up bringing down the Trudeau government.
I wonder to what extent Trump's win will inspire regime change in western Allies.
The panic in Canada, Mexico, and Europe over Trump's tariff proposals has revealed how weak these countries are in relation to the U.S. It's basically a meme at this point. "While you were relaxing in cafes and expanding pension benefits, we were mastering the
bladeLLM. And now you have the audacity to come to US for help!?"Why should the Trump administration open U.S. markets to regimes who fought his election, in some cases quite directly?
They backed the wrong horse, and now its time to pay the piper. Trump's tariff threats are pretty savvy, and I think he will be able to extract valuable concessions on migration and defense. But better yet would be if these countries join the movement themselves, align their policies with the (IMO more forward thinking) American policies, and get better treatment as a result.
I assume you mean heavy tariffs against china in a futile bid to turn back the time and reindustrialize. I don't understand how diminishing trade between US and allies is supposed to convince them to end their trade with china. When one supermarket's closed, you go to the next one.
If you don't understand, it would probably help to work on the metaphor.
A tariff barrier is not a closing of a supermarket, not least because tariff barriers already exist between American allies. That is what the EU common market is- a trade barrier between the European group of allies and their other allies, including the Americans, the Brits, and so on.
Even more relevantly, a threat of tariff barriers is not a closing of a supermarket either, particularly when everyone (should) understand that the threat is conditional on [insert trade / political concession here]. The conditionality is critical because it can be used to create and either-or dilemma of which supermarket the consumer goes to, as opposed to the consumer has no choice.
The rise of deglobalization and the multipolar world order is not a close off of markets entirely, but a process of choosing / forcing choices of which markets to associate with. Globalization may have been a 'choose any supermarket you want' dynamic, but deglobalization is a mutually exclusive membership program, where association with one supermarket will lead to increasing limits with the other.
The issue for some countries, of course, is that the two supermarkets are not anywhere near to competitive in attractiveness. The European Family, for example, is not going to fine any meaningful offers from ChinaMart on in the 'expeditionary armies to fight in your defense' market, particularly when ChinaMart is close business partners with 'WeSwearWeWon'tBlackmailYou' Russian Discount Gas, which is currently in a special hostile takeover operation against the cousin down the street.
It’s a supermarket simultaneously raising its prices while rolling out an anti-competitive new policy where you can’t buy there if you also buy from the competitor. It assumes that the supermarket has infinite leverage, that it is so unilaterally indispensable that the customer has no choice. This kind of blackmail works until it doesn’t, like russia banking on europe’s gas dependency.
Psychologically, people prefer a less competitive supermarket to being coerced in that way. I think you overestimate your leverage, and how “rational” your customers are. I’m way more pro-american than average, and even I think US allies should tell trump to take a walk.
Who knows how "rational" Europe is in this scenario but the US has a lot of leverage. In a world where
Europe is now
The only way for Europe to collectively mitigate these problems is to build a large military, quickly, or to develop European autarchy, relieving the need to trade with China (or possibly both!) But Europe hasn't demonstrated the ability to do that. Building a conventional navy is extremely expensive and the requisite nuclear capability is fraught (I can absolutely see Russia attacking Poland if they try to develop nuclear weapons). And this is assuming Europe can pull this off in perfect harmony instead of getting locked in another European arms race or getting dominated by the only European power with nuclear weapons (France – I doubt England splits from the US and I'm counting Russia as its own thing.)
I dunno the exact numbers involved so who knows how the math plays out. But to me it seems like the supermarket has a lot of leverage.
The relative cost of this goes down the more nakedly transactional the US gets in US-European relations. If your choices are to get bent over a barrel now by the US or maybe get bent over by a barrel later by China, cutting a deal with China is going to start looking a great deal more appealing.
A large part of US power is that it doesn't demand very much of its allies (occasional Article 5 moment aside); the more the US tries to treat its allies like vassals or tributaries, the weaker that soft power grows. And if you're stuck dealing with a transactional superpower, you might as well go with the one offering money instead of demanding it.
Give me your scenario for a US-EU war.
You reversed the incentive structure of cutting a deal.
The issue with this framing is that in the non-hypothetical the EU is already getting bent over a barrel by China. This is most notable in the field of green technology (solar panels, EVs, etc.), where for a lot of notable (and sometimes ethically questionable) reasons the Chinese state owned / backed enterprises have cornered the European markets in fields that the Europeans a decade or so thought they would dominate. Moreover, the expectation of China as a forever growth market has given way to the general recognition of PRC mercantilist strategy of IP theft and domestic protectionism, which limits than reverses chinese market share of industrial production, i.e. the great big German hope.
There are other fields and contexts as well, but the construct of a guaranteed versus uncertain screwing has since been passed by the paradigm that Europe is already getting screwed by the one that is presented as the hypothetical lesser risk.
As such, this framing should be reversed for understanding the actor perspectives. There is no choice about Europe being bent over a barrel now- it's already happening- but it's already happening with the Chinese, whereas the potential US risk may be mitigated by cutting a deal.
This confuses money flows between various actors, which undermine the monetary argument.
The 2022 China-EU trade balance was roughly 390 billion Euros in China's favor. The 2022 US-EU trade balance was about 130 billion in the EU's favor. Europe is already dealing with a transactional power, and paying quite a bit for the privilege.
The issue with your framing is that you neglect a third and more relevant patron-client relationship: the protectorate. In a protectorate relationship, the patron party subsidizes the client rather than extracts the resources. In the US-European context, this subsidy has been through granting the Europeans favorable access to US markets without reciprocity for US firms to access European markets since the early Cold War.
While in economic terms there is no meaningful difference between raising taxes or decreasing subsidies, in diplomatic terms there is a difference between demanding money and offering less of it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link