The bigger issue IMO is how many American progressives have embraced 3 deeply reactionary ideas re:CN (with implications) that poor people deserve crap capital stock; that increasing it cannot reduce poverty; & that something called “social capital” is an immutable constraint on its productive use.
I find it interesting that you label this faction "American progressives" given that the dominant strain of thought in that faction currently seem to boil down to "tear up every regulation (that often exists for good reasons) and just build stuff".
There’s a significant part of US left post-neoliberalism that is obsessed with the issue that the Dems are not just losing elections, but are losing them because of their inability to reconstitute a Dem coalition imaginary circa 1966, which they blame on globalization, leading them here (IMO)
Yeah, but the coalition trying to recreate 1996 is still in power, so...
The point Pettis was making in that sentence is just stupid but I don't think it tells us anything. The US dynamic is driven locally, not from external first.
I don't think the argument you're making is wrong completely, especially at the elite level. But I don't think it is what is driving the popularity of nostalgia more broadly.
I did say “re:CN”, but “re:CN” plays a significant part in the overall argument on that side, leading in turn to some interesting ideological juxtapositions.
Does she believe the second stuff or does she say it because it is popular and she can smuggle in her agenda? Who knows.
Lot's of people talking China in the US are using it because it is the easiest way gain traction to challenge the status quo because you may get the nat sec types on board.
Also, you should probably have questions about an analysis that goes “we’ve seen this before in the USSR, Japan, and Brazil” since there might just be a few minor differences in outcomes among those three.
Comments
The point Pettis was making in that sentence is just stupid but I don't think it tells us anything. The US dynamic is driven locally, not from external first.
Lot's of people talking China in the US are using it because it is the easiest way gain traction to challenge the status quo because you may get the nat sec types on board.