Thiel Questions are arguments or views that others don’t share. The last time I updated them was more than a year ago.
Time to add a few more. I’ve written about each of these before but didn’t treat them as Thiel.
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(1) Standard “history” tells us that we didn’t offshore to Europe or Asia in the 1950s because we were the only country that wasn’t ruined by WW2. Our industry thrived because we were supplying products TO those countries instead of importing FROM those countries.
The first part of the standard view is close to true. US and Canada lost plenty of soldiers but weren’t bombed. The second part is false. We were exporting food but not industrial products. Our industry was thriving because our corporations were still following Henry Ford and FDR. Pay our OWN workers enough that they can buy what they produce. Closed loop. Laws and unions and government enforcers kept corporations in line. Starting in 1975 the laws, especially enviro and Die-Versity laws, made it easier to produce in countries that didn’t have such laws. Starting in 1980 we totally surrendered to China.
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(2) Semi-related but trivial. The conventional story tells us that Canadian divisions of our automakers were limited to producing only a few models, because “economies of scale” made it relatively cheaper to turn out a wide variety of types for a larger population. “Economies of scale” is generally valid, but it didn’t apply to our foreign divisions in Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. Those countries created MORE variety from the same basic products. Each of them turned out the same types of Dodge and Rambler and Chevy and Ford that we had here, PLUS several new variants that required custom tooling. The tooling “shouldn’t” have been worthwhile, but it was obviously profitable. Their laws required local content, and perhaps they simply enjoyed being creative. Pride in accomplishment is one form of payment.
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In both (1) and (2), national laws favoring national production made solid employment and pride possible.
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(3) The standard story of the 1959 “palace revolt” at GM says that stylists took a sneak peek at the new ’57 Chrysler products and realized GM was on the wrong track, so they abruptly changed their planning for the ’59 models onto a more Chryslerish track. This fails completely because the ’57 Eldorado Brougham ALREADY incorporated the same theme as the ’57 Chrysler products. It looks very much like a ’57 Plymouth. If GM intended to change path, the change was ALREADY well underway. They didn’t need to learn from Chrysler and in fact they didn’t learn from Chrysler. The ’59 GMs copied Ford.
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(4) Blood for oil is the BIGGEST shared lie. Starting with Vietnam, our leftists have steadily assumed that our foreign conquests are meant to acquire resources. Purely false. We were mercantilist from 1812 to 1912, and then Wilson got rid of RATIONAL imperialism. Since 1946 all of our wars are pure evil. We don’t want resources here or elsewhere. When our chosen victim country has oil or coffee or wheat, we WIPE OUT the oil fields and farms. We also WIPE OUT our own oil fields and farms, along with our own industries. We only want to produce Share Value and War.
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(5) Another shared lie from the same leftists. Marx DID NOT SAY “to each according to his needs”. Marx said “to each according to his WORK.” The Soviet Constitutions of 1917 and 1977 repeated this, adding “If you don’t work you won’t eat.” Marxism is all about SKILL. The from each / to each slogan means:
Everyone is ENTITLED to a suitable job that uses his skills and talents for the public good, and everyone is OBLIGATED to use his skills and talents for the public good.
The “needs” lie enables the standard distorted view of socialism as Free Stuff. No practical economic system makes everything free. The Soviet system was even more profit-based than ours. Our economists need this myth to justify depriving Americans of work and replacing all real business by counterfeit and debt. See MMT and UBI.
Polistra's Mill 