@bgrinter I so want to change the word Phantom to Mango 
@bgrinter I haven’t watched it in a long time so I had to go back and check that this was real. Excellent meme
@bgrinter
That was a long time ago...
@bgrinter Saw this and suddenly had "Duel of the Fates" play in my head.
I have a bad feeling about this.
@bgrinter Holy shit, this is real. Trump took Phantom Menace intro as guide.
@bgrinter fitting that it's the worst film from the whole SW universe. Yes, I will uphold caravan of courage as being better than all the prequels until to my dying breath.
@adamantichrist my son was 5 when it came out - it’s “his” Star Wars to me so it’s got a special significance for us
I’ll still sit down and watch it’ whenever it comes on
George Lucas famously said that crises usually start with trade disputes.
The older I get, the more I understand how much wisdom he had in his naïve stories.
WTO probably does keep the current regimes happy and thus helps avoid wars by creating environments where they don't have to resort to violence.
There's also a concessus that at the same time it entrenches global north and south by making labour harder to unionize (eg. global capital, local workforce).
It also leads to overspecialisation, which in turn leads to rising Gini, and thus more have-nots even in the North.
(I'm qualified to talk of this stuff to undergraduates.)
@iju
In that light, it would seem that breaking economic ties by increasing tarrifs for trade with partners and competitors does two things:
1: Satisfy Trump's ego because hurting people makes you feel strong (and look strong to his target audience)
2: Change the economic and political situation to make wars of aggression cheaper because part of the economic cost has already been paid when he strangled trade, and everyone is already at each other's throats economically.
Also worth mentioning that the existing trade agreements were negotiated US POV) from position of strength, using both soft and hard power.
Power USA doesn't have anymore due to losses post-WTC, and due to Trump.
@iju,
apart from *not doing whatever Trump does", what do you think would reduce/prevent negative effects of the current WTO rules, of entrenching northern countries as the rich and driving up inequality everywhere?
Mutual economic dependence sounds good, but there'd have to be something to prevent people, countries, companies from leveraging power imbalances to their advantage and others' detriment... what could that be, and who could impose it?
Generally speaking, WTO rules are meant to solidify power imbalances as they existed in the early 1990s. You can't really do anything on those within WTO rule-set without forcing a break-up by either introducing an alternative framework that would aid a critical number of countries (in the past poor countries were robed into WTO by using colonial-era dependencies), or by Trump being an idiot.
½
2/3
As for your other point, you're assuming that the tragedy of commons would apply. That is to say, that players (both countries, international companies, and smaller entities) wouldn't have a vested interest to make rules, both written and unspoken, as their lack is the largest hinderance of trade (creating needs for all-sort of costly insurances).
If something were to unbalance this, it's a proof that the politics weren't in line with the practices.
2/3
3/3
For example, the Black Wednesday in 1992 happened partly due to forcing UK to ERM from political reasons with expectation that the economic reasons would follow suit (instead of changing economic reasons to suit political needs; this can work).
Once the faultly built foundation started to creak, the UK govt made the additional mistake of spending money to save face, without understanding that such political actions don't have enough power.
4/3
To underline: the problem wasn't that UK wanted to do this or that, but they wanted to do this and that without paying the cost (eg. have a cake, and also eat it).
You can handle your trade (international and internal both) in several ways and they can all work within certain tolerances. The problems start when those tolerances aren't identified and/or respected.
Which is basically what Trump is doing now.
@iju @Akshay @bgrinter
I didn't think I assumed the Tragedy of the commons, but I suppose you mean the question of "who would impose such rules"?
Hey, if countries could make better rules than WTO, that's cool! Any system that can stabilize itself is an amazing thing!
Does this imply that abolishing the WTO could make a better world happen because it would be in everyone's interest? The risk may not be the tragedy of the commons but a small number of bullies sabotaging the commons.
To make sure we talk about the same thing:
I understand the Tragedy of the Commons to be the assumption that noone cares about something that is mutually beneficial to everyone. I think that situation applies rarely, if ever.
What seems more relevant: A very small number of sociopaths trying to "steal" the commons, ultimately ruining it for everyone, including themselves.
Any society/collaboration requires trust, and blind *distrust* seems really popular these days.
Tragedy of the Commons is a situation where the society that administers the commons vanishes or otherwise becoming impotent, leading to eventual destruction of the of the commons.
The usually given example is a fishing village next to a lake keeping tabs both on how much fish is in the lake, and how much is being drawn from it. If someone overfishes, that person is being notified, then socially avoided, and ultimately mugged and their boat destroyed.
I suppose our mix-up comes from the fact that the person who originally coined the the tragedy of the commons didn't understand why it happened, leading some people using it as an hobby horse to privatise commons.
Tragedy of the Commons usually happens when someone who's not dependant on the society gains access. For example: wikipedia worked untill companies started leeching it for knowledge without paying for servers or redirecting traffic back.
I would add that classical liberalism often boils down to creating situations where society/community doesn't have rights to administer things that affect it.
You may, for example, think a labour union in a company town being such a community.
It's worth noting that GATT turning into WTO is often critized with that the "improvement" of trade happens by disqualifying labour/communities as interested parties.
(i'm sorry, I'm starting to have a migraine for unrelated causes, and will shut down computer for today. i'll come back to this when I can.)
No issue. You've given me *plenty* to think about already, and I also have a job to do... hopy you get better soon. And if you can direct me to some online article or such where I can read up on this stuff rather than making you explain it in toot-sized bits, that'd also be great!
Happy to have helped. Looking back, I wasn't making too much sense. Blaming partly migraine, but partly my mind was somewhere else.
I'm happy if you got something out of all that!
As for articles.. The first one that comes to mind is this from "State of the World 2008 (Chapter 10), which back in the day introduced me to the topic of Commons. It might be useful intro to you as well:
@Akshay
but...but... the trade dispute in Phantom Menace is never explained!
Who imposed taxation, who opposed it, who benefitted, why try to kill the negotiators (wouldn't you want to negotiate something to your advantage, whatever that would be?), or what anyone in that whole thing actually hopes to gain or defend... there's no rhyme or reason, so how can it explain anything?
okay, Trump's talk is also incoherent, but his actions can be reasoned *about*, that's not that hard.
@iju @bgrinter
@bgrinter as it stands, the US (if compared to the Galactic Republic) is in the second year of the Clone Wars in terms of the political power of the leader, while being probably 1 or 2 years before the Clone Wars in terms of well, fighting a war
@bgrinter JarJar Vance?
@SadMonk wait a minute indeed
@bgrinter THIS IS TENSE!
@bgrinter
"Somehow, JarJar has returned..."
@bgrinter Grand Moff Tarkin: "The U.S. Senate will no longer be of any concern to us.
"I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved The Congress. Permanently.
"The last remnants of the U.S. Republic have been swept away.
Admiral Motti: "That's impossible! How will The Emperor maintain control without The Bureaucracy?"
"Red State Governors now have direct control over their territories.
"Fear will keep the Blue States in line.
"FEAR of this Battleship."