American Affairs Journal is a relatively new magazine, and has leaned heavily to promoting America First protectionism and Trumpism — its editor eventually wrote that he regretted voting for Trump.
I think the subject of the article is interesting and I’m looking forward to reading more about OWS in the years ahead. However, I think the true point of the article is to put this understanding of OWS on the political framework of the article’s many unsupported assertion. So, please read critically.
There are a lot of publications I disagree with politically but still find value in them so long as they argue in good faith. Strong Towns and the work of Charles Marohn is one good example of this, he leans conservative but a lot of his work is apolitical and focused on city design and solving the housing crisis, which has value regardless of what affiliation you have.
This article is similar. Free trade is a good thing, but right now we're seeing an influx of foreign firms and capture of key industries and supply chain stops by foreign authorities. Rebuilding a strong American private and public sector and re-diversifying our economy by not having it based solely on the service part is a fairly noble goal, and I do agree with the author that OWS is a massive success story that offers some elucidating details that could help rebuild our infrastructure and lead to more effective public-private partnerships.
I concur that it’s absolutely fine to read articles in magazines outside of one’s own narrow political spectrum. For folks on HN encountering this publication for the first time, it’s also useful to know some context.
> right now we're seeing an influx of foreign firms and capture of key industries and supply chain stops by foreign authorities
Who is capturing what? What data is there supporting it? People have been raising such alarms for generations (and usually the 'key industries' alarm is from a vested old guard trying to prevent economic change, and the industries were 'key' in the past).
Part of that is foreign ownership of capital. I believe around 30 to 40% of American capital is now foreign-owned.
However, there are several industries which have been decimated domestically. Off the top of my head, the US has lost its competitveness in the following industries:
What has changed? Is there more foreign capital or loss of industry?
Lots of industries has moved since the dawn of time. Generally, lower-paying, lower-margin, lower-skill business moves to places where that can be done more cheaply, and new high-skill, higher-margin businesses form here.
'Creative destruction' is essential to capitalism (and the economy); it reallocates resources from less efficient to more efficient uses. Otherwise, you get stuck in stagnent, less efficient uses.
Foreign capital seems like a great thing to me: It's a larger pool of finance to support Americans. Would it be better of someone needing investment to start a business or build a house had less financing available?
Honestly, it all seems xenophobic: Why are people on the other side of political borders somehow bad to do business with?
The problem in both foreign investment and offshoring is loss of capabilities critical to national defense. For the former, foreign ownership of capital enables foreign sabotage of critical sectors. Should the US be in conflict with a major investor nation (Who are we kidding? The most concerning such nation is China), capital can either be pulled out of the country or ownership can be leveraged to reduce key production.
For the later, well, Chinese shipyards can now build aircraft carriers at at comparable rates and at lower price than the US. Loss of US Navy power has not happened yet, but if China keeps innovating the writing is on the wall. Loss of US Naval monopoly would imply that the Pax Americana and the petrodollar itself are in jeopardy. Maybe that's a good thing if 'creative destruction' is the goal, but I would personally not be better off under a Chinese-led global order than under an American one.
You're absolutely right, so I was pleased to find a fairly low-political-content article, with little mention of Trump, adequate credit to Biden, and, mostly, a focus on the civil servants and government bureaucrats we rarely hear about -- who are arguably parts of the "Deep State" that Trump ran against, in fact -- and who the article lauds.
And if
> its editor eventually wrote that he regretted voting for Trump.
then at least he's seen the light, right?
The overall impression I get is that this particular author wants industrial policy, dammit, and he doesn't care if it's a Biden or a Trump who gives it to him -- or whether it's a "small government" Republican or a neoliberal Democrat who's getting in the way.
Arguably Biden has taken some of these lessons (he may be the perfect Democrat for this), and has been attempting to enact them with Build Back Better (admittedly with some sops to the "progressives"). Which -- if "Trumpist" means "the principled stance of American Affairs" and not "the buffoon pandering to white grievance" -- would paradoxically make Biden more Trumpist than the Republicans and "moderates" who are now blocking his efforts.
So how about I not call it "Trumpist" to begin with, given that Trump himself probably doesn't have many principles at all. It's simply: "Onshoring, Reindustrialization, and Industrial Policy". Or, "Make America Competitive with Germany and South Korea", you could say.
The author's closing theme is also in direct contradiction of some talking points we've seen from Republicans recently. They've been talking about "government incompetence". Yet here, this article speaks of OWS as a display of competence. So if this guy is a Republican, I don't think he's a Republican who's "on message".
The magazine does have its own ideological slant. But honestly, as it's begun to pivot away from Trump, it's not such a bad slant.
> The magazine does have its own ideological slant.
Yes, that’s why I commented—it is easy to nerd out on long pieces like this, but the magazine that hosts it does not have a neutral and/or nerd POV (nerds aren’t necessarily neutral, but are perfectly willing to write long explainers out of sheer enthusiasm).
There’s fine information to be had here, and interesting points to debate about industrial policy writ large. But the magazine’s an organized intellectual undertaking intended to influence, and so close reading and critical thinking are warranted.
> The overall impression I get is that this particular author wants industrial policy, dammit, and he doesn't care if it's a Biden or a Trump who gives it to him -- or whether it's a "small government" Republican or a neoliberal Democrat who's getting in the way.
I thought much the same, and I lean further lefty than most on this forum. It was a great read.
the magazine I think is pretty important because it serves an empty part of the US intellectual space, which is promoting an industrial / activist state attitude towards economics on the political right.
rather than being Trumpist if anything the point is to move people on the right away from unproductive culture war issues towards economics, at times they have straight up Marxist economic analysis on their site and manage to talk about it in a way that doesn't scare away Conservatives.
American Affairs is if anything guilty of the opposite of what you seem to imply. It's not trying to sell Trumpism by talking about OWS, it's trying to sell industrial policy to a conservative readership.
I mean, try to find an article about American Affairs Journal that doesn’t mention Trumpism. We can argue semantics back-and-forth, but there’s a population association in place nevertheless.
> American Affairs Journal ... has leaned heavily to promoting America First protectionism and Trumpism...
I don't have a dog in this fight, but this doesn't sound right. As newly minted socialist-libertarian (anarchist), I don't spend a lot of time parsing intellectual conservative notions, either movement conservative or otherwise.
OC contrasts DARPA with Operation Warp Speed. Like how programs and contracts are managed differently, in an effort to "right size" their respective efforts.
It's like the difference between angel and later stage investors. DARPA's remit is to try a bunch of crazy ideas, see what happens. OWS's mission was to rush promising ideas to market.
Being a huge fan of the book Diffusion of Innovations, the basis for pop-biz books like Crossing the Chasm, the need for Operation Warp Speed strategy is both obvious and necessary.
I think the subject of the article is interesting and I’m looking forward to reading more about OWS in the years ahead. However, I think the true point of the article is to put this understanding of OWS on the political framework of the article’s many unsupported assertion. So, please read critically.