Trouble in Cuba

Meh. You guys sure do believe a lot of propaganda.

Two years after signing the Tesla contract, Westinghouse Electric was in trouble. The near collapse of Barings Bank in London triggered the financial panic of 1890, causing investors to call in their loans to Westinghouse Electric.[87] The sudden cash shortage forced the company to refinance its debts. The new lenders demanded that Westinghouse cut back on what looked like excessive spending on acquisition of other companies, research, and patents, including the per motor royalty in the Tesla contract.[88][89] At that point, the Tesla induction motor had been unsuccessful and was stuck in development.[86][87] Westinghouse was paying a $15,000-a-year guaranteed royalty[90] even though operating examples of the motor were rare and polyphase power systems needed to run it was even rarer.[72][87] In early 1891, George Westinghouse explained his financial difficulties to Tesla in stark terms, saying that, if he did not meet the demands of his lenders, he would no longer be in control of Westinghouse Electric and Tesla would have to "deal with the bankers" to try to collect future royalties.[91] The advantages of having Westinghouse continue to champion the motor probably seemed obvious to Tesla and he agreed to release the company from the royalty payment clause in the contract.[91][92] Six years later Westinghouse purchased Tesla's patent for a lump sum payment of $216,000 as part of a patent-sharing agreement signed with General Electric (a company created from the 1892 merger of Edison and Thomson-Houston).[93][94][95]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

Westinghouse found Tesla in financial difficulty 40 years later, and paid his rent and a 'consultant fee' for the reminder of his life.

Ultimately Tesla failed because he backed the wrong idea. He took his funds from the lump sum payment for AC and got backing from JP Morgan to conduct wireless power.

But his idea was more science fiction than science - he believed he had found the correct frequency to turn the Earth itself into a transmitter, and planned on using it to send power anywhere on the planet.

Needless to say, that's not how it actually works. He rode himself into massive debt in this manner, and ultimately JP Morgan pulled his investment when it produced no results.

But that's not as fun a story as Edison ruining him or Westinghouse selling him out - neither of which turned out to be true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower

Hmmm.... in 'stuff that may interest only me', Popular Mechanics 65 biggest inventions of the last 65 years. I'll go through a few of them.

My guess is that it is the combination of public-private partnership that has driven Western technical advantages. Certainly for the last 100 years, capitalist countries have had more inventions than non-capitalist ones. That may be changing now however as China has eclipsed the US in patents gained in the last 5 years.

First 10:

Microwave Oven (Raytheon) powered by the Magnetron (Siemens)
Polio Vaccine (Salk) largely funded by FDR's March of Dimes
Computer Hard Drive (IBM) invented by IBM scientists for business accounting
Birth Control Pill Enovid (JD Seale and Company) private development
Jet Airliner - based on the Jet Engine, first successful Jet was the Heinkel He 178. Surprising (at least to me), that was produced as a privately funded proof of concept by Heinkel
Integrated Circuit, ENIAC - funded by the US Army Corps of Engineers
Wearable Artificial Pacemaker - while this version was definitely private, it was based on years of research from both private and public concerns, including the University of Toronto, which is publicly funded
Cordless Power Tools - Black and Decker, and while the legend has it that it was created for NASA, NASA's website itself says that isn't true, they were just one of the first purchasers.
Communications Satellite - conceived by Arthur C Clarke, it was a joint project between AT&T, Bell Labs,France Telecom on one side and NASA and the British Post office on the other.
Sketchpad, the first CAD system and the first computer GUI, by Ivan Sutherland. It was his PhD thesis at Carnegie Mellon. CM is a private university, and there was no government grant, so this one goes to the private capitalist side.

I'll do more later, if anyone cares.

Let's see Cuba's been under crushing economic sanctions for the better part of 50 years. Castro's legacy is still intact.

I'm reminded of what Harry S Truman said he would have done if Batista fell on his watch. He said he would have gotten Castro on the phone and said "It looks like you've won yourself a revolution! Now we both know you're going to need an awful lot of help and we know there's only two places where you can get it. So tell me what you need and we'll do everything we can to get it to you." How different might things have turned out if we had done that?

Next up -

UAVs, 1964, the Ryan Firebee. Another public/private partnership, US Air Force with the Ryan Aernautical Corp.
Kevlar, Dupont, for commercial use
High Yield Rice, from the IRRI in Manilla. The International Rice Research Institute is a partnerships between Ford, the Rockerfeller Foundation, and the government of the Philippines.
Coronary Bypass Surgery, Robert Goetz, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a private institution
Integrated Computing, Douglas Engelbart, through several subgroups of Stanford University. Largely a private investment, but no doubt some of the programs included public grant money
ARPANet from DARPA.
Fiber Optics, Corning.
Running Shoes - specifically the waffle shoe, created by University of Oregon, which later spun Nike out of it
Electronic Ignition, Chrysler
Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Paul Lauterbur, Stony Brook University, a public university

Speaking of Corning, the material for Corningware dishes was originally developed as a heat-resistant material for ballistic missle nose cones.

Knew that!

There’s a show … I think on the History Channel that talks about how stuff was invented for one reason, but is famous for something else.

Which is in no way the same statement as "communism always fails", nor does it in any sense abrogate the clear bias in how @Obiwan-Can-Blow-Me interprets evidence, which was the point.

Again, if communism is destined to fail under it's own weight, why the need to invest so heavily in the Cold War at all?

The two are to all practical purposes mutually exclusive and that exclusivity is what is at stake in this exchange.

Which side do you fall on?

Iraq was indeed intended to be a puppet state, it just didn't work out very well. Nonetheless you still maintain a deeply unwelcome military presence there.

Likewise you helped depose Gaddafi for your own purposes, not to be a benign saviour.

You'll happily accept the worst of monsters as allies when it serves your ends, only to "save" their people when that situation changes.

Whilst democratising them is in your interest.

What were the intentions of the Spanish?

Pretty sure they were capitalist even if the word wasn't in usage.

I did not mention the US causing it - that's you projecting.

The point being made was that in both instances millions died as a result of the unintended consequences of policy being put into effect, but your judgement is much much harsher where it comes to the communist example.

One is innocently unforeseen, the other cruelly shortsighted.

Because, as you have pointed out repeatedly, the damage had already been done. If there had been millions to kill, rape and maim and the young US had the means to do so do you really think your example would hold? The damage was limited by circumstances, not intent.

This isn't about the US. It's about the bizarre and self contradictory obsession with communism as a catch all bogeyman.

So, not really all that different at all?

No one claimed they wouldn't.

No one here (with the possible exception of Amaris) is in any sense offering support of communism.

Not sure why you'd even post this?

Still beside the point. This isn't about the US.

I know it's commonly seen this way but when people use the word capitalism they aren't necessarily using it as a euphemism for America.

Yup. Much as the Manifest Destiny was limited in scope by the resources available and the prior impact of the Great Dying, which you keep pointing out without realising that it has no bearing whatsoever on the point.

The Cold War was the alternative to a hot war, which doubtless would have gone nuclear, either when one side was on the verge of losing or another saw it as a road to quick victory. The Cold War was based on George Kennan's 1946 telegram suggesting that if Communism could be contained it would collapse. Interesting echo of ancient history where it appears that the Western Roman Empire collapsed when it ran out of new areas to conquer and loot. Without context and perspective The Cold War was a terrible business. It led to proxy wars (such as Korea and Vietnam) unjust interventions (Iran) and mind boggling waste of national wealth. However, when you look at the alternative, things could have gone a lot worse, conceivably resulting in a collapse of modern civilization.

Meanwhile back in the present day...

This.

Also relevant to the original topic, President Diaz-Canel takes some blame for the protests, admiting some of the problems came from government policies.

https://apnews.com/article/business...rus-pandemic-af57e3dd73cb54fa6507e256ba9e658e

And in particular, they changed one, that they had banned any Cuban from importing any medicine, food or hygiene products into Cuba to help deal with the issues.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/15/americas/cuba-lifts-food-medicine-customs-restrictions-intl/index.htm

Yep, they were banning their own people from bringing in medicine. The mind boggles.

It might have been your point, it clearly wasn't the only point. You don't get to unilaterally define the conversation.

I wasn't involved in that conversation at all. My stance is that investment in the Cold War was due primarily due to armed aggression by Communist states that imposed their ideology thoroughly on groups in both economic and political theaters. I think South Korea is pretty happy the West intervened. Look at the North.

Obi doesn't have a very detailed grasp of history, but the intent is clear - Communism needed to expand, and indeed, the ideology was intended to be one that dominated the world in its inception. Keeping it from expanding militarily did mean that the economies eventually faltered.

We see two responses to that in modern times in the few 'communist' countries that are left. Either rejection of the core pillar that disallowed private ownership, which we see in Vietnam and China (and the Soviet Union was attempting before it fell), or exert ever more totalitarian control.

The one true state where all ownership remains in the hands of the government, North Korea, is also the most repressive regime in the world, and arguably in all of history.

Oh, you have a source I take it for Iraq being intended as a puppet state then? Not just taking it as an article of faith? If so, how did they manage to squirm free when we had 150,000 troops stationed there?

Sure, the US plays the geopolitical game like everyone else. Everyone allies with monsters when necessary - say hi to Stalin for me.

But we didn't puppet either Panama or Libya when we deposed those monsters, nor did we do so in Iraq. Indeed, in realpolilitik, that's one of the primary arguments against intercession.

Both Libya and Panama are now democractic republics, when they previously had been dictatorships.

You might not value that, but many people do. There was a reason that the Arab Spring captured so much attention, and so much desire for US involvement, among their younger generations. Even if in most of those cases religious dominated parties ended up replacing the previous authoritarians. Because we didn't choose their next government for them.

Democracies tend to be more peaceful and more interested in trade than dicatorships and totalitarian states.

That's in everyone's interest.

Amazing so many people are anti-democracy these days. It's still the worst of all government types - except for all the others ever tried.

God, gold and glory. Spain was a mixed economy - much of it was done at the behest of the crown, and it was justified by the 'salvation' of the native from the Catholic POV. It certainly wasn't capitalist in the modern sense of the term. Was Genghis Khan a capitalist? Certainly no historian would describe him so.

Almost all European powers at the time of the Spanish Empire were mercantalists.

Adam Smith was one of the primary critics of mercantalism. He of course is regarded as the father of capitalism.

Capitalism certainly has its flaws, but it belives in the individual, communities, and nation's ability to generate wealth. Mercantilism was more about the best policies to extract wealth.

No, you referenced Rick explicitly, chastising me for a lack of consistency. Because you didn't understand the point - "then go on to question @@RickDeckard referring to Manifest Destiny due to the accidental deaths caused by disease."

Manifest Destiny didn't cause the genocide - it was 350 years after said genocide.

Not a matter of opinion, this is historical fact.

The point being Manifest Destiny had nothing to do with the many tens of millions of deaths due to the Spanish Empire. It's an absurd premise that you won't let go.

Yes, there is a moral stain on the fact that the US fought wars with the relatively small remaining numbers of natives and dispossesd them, forcing them into the reservation system. Certainly there were tens of thousands of casaulties, and that is no small thing.

No, that has nothing to do with the near complete apocalypse of their culture nearly 350 years before, before there were even English speaking settlements that could survive in the Americas.

Perhaps this is the key. If you define capitalism and mercantilism as the same, then I can see your POV. Some historians see mercantilism as a proto-form of capitalism, though clearly Adam Smith didn't. The Wealth of Nations was an overt call for the rejection of mercantilism.

His appendix to book 4 stated it explicitly: Conclusion of the Mercantile System: Smith's argument about the international political economy opposed the idea of Mercantilism. While the Mercantile System encouraged each country to hoard gold, while trying to grasp hegemony, Smith argued that free trade eventually makes all actors better off. This argument is the modern 'Free Trade' argument.

Western colonialism is certainly responsible for monstrous evil, but you need a pretty broad definition to include that as capitalism, when capitalism itself was a repudiation of that philosophy.

Of course, economic philosophy is not the same thing as reality, and yes there are capitalist countries that work on mercantilistic concepts even now. Personally I believe free trade utilizing comparative advantage with a benign social welfare state is the best answer when at all possible.

I'm going to address both of your posts in one here if that's OK.

I'm generally wary of being too prescriptive with definitions in this arena precisely because they so rarely actually apply in any given case. That's not to say words don't have meaning, but too often discussions break down through endless legalistic maneveurs over what does or doesn't constitute a particular system in practise.

There are no "capitalist countries" or "communist countries", there are countries which are all completely unique in their economic circumstances, histories, political systems.

Clarity is good but pedantry just leads to convenient technicalities which suit a given case rather than promoting discussion.

Communism, socialism, capitalism, these things all have so many variances, subsets, manifestations in practise that the words refer to platonic ideals rather than real phenomena.

By that logic yes, I'd say Spain at the time had far more in common with capitalism than any other currently relevant system, possibly barring the regimes of several OPEC nations.

Whether the Great Dying was caused by the English, the Spanish, the Portugese, is largely immaterial. What matters for this discussion is that it was an example of an unforeseen consequence of policies which we would recognise today as capitalist and therefore should be considered alongside the mistakes (not, it should be noted, the all too real abuses) of communist nations.

So, moving onto your objection about my dictating the terms of discussion. I'm pretty sure the roots of this debate were the OP followed by myself and others making a few very clear objections, no?

Most notably those objections focused on the lack of introspection and critical thinking on display in the kneejerk "communism fails again", which is what I at least have tried to continue limiting matters to.

*backs out of thread*
*looks at URL*
Yes, we are still on Wordforge. Where do you think you are?

While I can understand that point of view, IMO this is one of those 'choose the best answer' moments.

Mercantilism was about state power and monopoly. It was closer to a refinement of feudal agrarianism than it is modern capitalism. The state limited trade, controlled the economy, and in regions where it was extracting wealth explicitly removed the ability to make capital improvements. Self-reliance was to be avoided, dependence on the controlling state was the goal. One of the reasons that the US revolted was the mercantilistic practices of the Crown that kept the colonies from expanding their economy. Perhaps this is why we see the issue differently as that was a very important emphasis in education in my state.

Mercantilism in turn is different from China's 'state capitalism' in that China's wealth is largely generated by free market principles in international trade. Mercantilism explicitly tried to create monopolies against free trade with punitive tariffs or outright embargos.

I agree that 'communism fails again' is not a particularly relevant take here. But I do agree with Obi that communism has largely failed. Even China's state-owned corporations operate as if they were private entities, allowing investment in shares, working for profit, and retaining said profit for the company. Marx would certainly reject this as his philosophy - whether platonic or not. And there are non-state actors in abundance in the Chinese economy.

Regardless, even if I submitted to your take, if you extend 'capitalism' all the way back to the 15th century (or earlier, not sure what you consider the boundary) it's granted to have had more problematic moments, having dwarfed the life span of communism.

If you'll recall, my initial comments were on the issues that communism had within a much smaller cross section of history and of countries that have adopted it.

Anyway, good discussion!

Absolutely, there does come a point where categories start to blur but the alternate and all too common extreme is to rely on definitions so narrow they exclude all but those instances which support a case or, even worse, reflect only direct experience.

It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine a definition of capitalism which excluded the UK for instance, or communism which excludes China (indeed we've already alluded to exactly that earlier). Some of the Middle Eastern economies we have no issue calling capitalist now would arguably sit rather well within your description of renaissance mercantile economies.

If we are to equate self reliance with capitalism where does that leave nations with stock markets sat alongside UHC, lifetime disability benefits and state pensions?

As you say, hybrids are the observed reality.

By that logic how do we really say that a system "won" the cold War?

We can point to the overall outcomes as a contest between nations, but here we are in 2021 and some version of communism is still with us and arguably in the ascendancy.

Uh oh. Those pesky facts again.

No one has claimed otherwise.

By default, as far as TR is concerned, Liberals don’t mind facts. Never mind that all evidence points to the exact opposite …