the idea being that any two things produced by an hour of (human capital adjusted) labor must have the same value (btw, this “labor theory of value” goes back to Adam Smith, and was later promulgated by Marx).

Challenge: read the first chapter of Capital

Difficulty: impossible

"He's not an economist!" Yeah, good. Fucking junk-ass non-science.

the idea being that any two things produced by an hour of (human capital adjusted) labor must have the same value

when you definitely understand the labor theory of value

Okay this is not the nazcom guy, this is some anthropologist.

Economists shouldn't throw around accusations of "almost no understanding of Economics as a field" around near anthropologists or we'll pull out all the papers explaining why "Economics as as field" is a religion with at best a tenuous relation to any actually existing economy. You're on watch Economists don't fuck with us.

Okay back to whatever y'all we're doing.

s korea, Japan, Singapore

massive infusions of western capital in a desperate struggle against communism

china, Panama, Vietnam

socialism, dunno probably because they finally control the canal, socialism

n korea, India for second half of 20th century

sanctions and siege warfare by the west, and dunno

In many African countries, corrupt border guards will demand bribes to allow the movement of goods, which can make trade unprofitable; thus, many farmers, who would otherwise specialize in food for export, decide instead produce food for personal consumption (subsistence farming), which reduces the value of their labor.

Can’t really read that and keep a straight face.

Full blown Degrasse Tyson syndrome .

That is just like 50 people going "New Zealand is in the global north, BWAAHH?!?"

Obligatory

The whole Global North/South split is a pet peeve of mine as a social scientist working in development policy. It's a bunch of outdated garbage from the Cold War that was really just a thinly veiled dogwhistle for 'white/the good Asians' and 'not white'. It doesn't hold up to any rational examination. South Africa was part of the Global North until white rule under Apartheid ended, and now they're in the Global South. southern nations.

Translation:

"I'm going to call you racist and uneducated for pointing out how my empire categorizes your brown nation as the 'Global South' and pretend this isn't the ideological justification we use for exploiting your resources."

Jason Hickel is an anthropologist (read: not economist) and degrowther. Despite having no background and seemingly almost no understanding of economics as a field, he somehow continues to get 'economics' papers published in reputable journals despite their obvious low quality. But to anyone with a cursory understanding of economics, it should be entirely unsurprising that exports from developing nations to developed are more labor intensive than vice-versa. This is not a novel conclusion and is not 'appropriation', but is entirely explained by a concept in economics called comparative advantage.

Translation:

"Me no like Jason Hickel, he no worship muh economy. We make politically correct word for exploitation!!!"

This paper is a demonstration of why input-output (IO) models are bad for economic research. IO models were used by the soviet central planners to allocate resources. IO models are bad for research for the same reason the are bad for planning. The authors look at “embodied labor” (adjusted for human capital), the idea being that any two things produced by an hour of (human capital adjusted) labor must have the same value (btw, this “labor theory of value” goes back to Adam Smith, and was later promulgated by Marx).

Other facts that the authors’ framework will struggle to explain: why is it that the poor countries that most integrated with global trade networks became rich (s korea, Japan, Singapore) or are otherwise growing quickly (china, Panama, Vietnam)? Why is it that countries with severe barriers to trade with the global north struggle to grow (n Korea, India for second half of 20th century)? That’s very hard to explain if trade with the global north is fundamentally exploitative.

Translation:

"REEEEEE MUH GOMMUNISM IO SOVIET BAD!!!111!!! Why did these western military and trading outposts run by neoliberal dictators we pumped tons of money into.... get rich?!?! Why is socialism good?!?!? Why is it that sanctions and genocide make countries poor!?!??!?! THAT IS VERY HARD TO EXPLAIN!!!111!!!"

Top minds.

Other facts that the authors’ framework will struggle to explain: why is it that the poor countries that most integrated with global trade networks became rich (s korea, Japan, Singapore)

A state of america, an actual fucking empire, a city-state on a vital geographic chokepoint. Not exactly the best standards of comparison. And was Japan ever "poor" in modern history? Was Singapore really? I'm only sure that S Korea was poor (and poorer than the america-bombed DPRK for quite a period of time too)

China, Vietnam

So are they finally admitting that socialism is good

it should be entirely unsurprising that exports from developing nations to developed are more labor intensive than vice-versa. This is not a novel conclusion and is not 'appropriation', but is entirely explained by a concept in economics called comparative advantage

so... not really arguing against Unequal Exchange as a concept, just against the name that makes you uncomfortable

comparative advantage

hahahahaha so this is what taking psychic damage feels like

exports from developing nations to developed are more labor intensive than vice-versa

Fucker! Did you even READ our text books? Did you skip the section talking about perverse incentives and moral hazards?

Other facts that the authors’ framework will struggle to explain: why is it that the poor countries that most integrated with global trade networks became rich (s korea, Japan, Singapore) or are otherwise growing quickly (china, Panama, Vietnam)?

The country didn't get rich you fucks, SOME people in that country got rich you absolute bellends.

IO models are bad for research for the same reason the are bad for planning.

Just wait until this guy figures out how factories actually do resource allocation

Side point but Hickel's book "the divide", is probably the best introduction on unequal exchange and modern imperialism. There's so many other great books, but they can be a bit harder to read.

I thought that said Jackson Hinkle for a second at got really confused.

I've always hated reddit. Like, I used to be Angry Online about the existence of reddit before it was a normie hotspot - i know hexbear is running a similar system, but aglo driven discussion hierarhcy is literally discourse poison and at volume everyone is so stupid that what's popular will inevitably be really dumb - I love that the thread is filled with people throwing "degrowther" out like a slur, because it's really telling in the worst way that they worship Number Go Up and the upside of this is you can assume everything downstream in their book-length post is pure ideology and cope - and if you're smart enough to already know they're the court soothsayers whose main job is justifying American hegemony by exalting the virtue of Number and doing the equivalent of parlor tricks with numbers to categorize sub.Number.x-y in such a way that comports to their worldview and has, if not a moral justification, a "rationalized" one - something that a dumb person or a sociopath can go "hey it sucks but that's just the way It Works"

A traditionally trained Astrologer will literally have a higher predictive hit rate than these people for any matter they ostensibly went to school to "understand"

It would be funny if these people weren't a big part of how this massively unjust thing we all live under justifies itself.

(it's still pretty funny)

Anyone who thinks the economy is real is a fool

Anthropology is real, political economy is real, economics is fake. That's why an anthropologist can publish bangers in economics journals.

https://taiyangyu.medium.com/addressing-common-criticisms-of-the-labor-theory-of-value-bdf49281fab

I’m so confused by that last bit, do they think countries can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become perfectly developed without any trade? They’re literally saying “dang isn’t it weird that embargoes and harsh sanctions work” to prove their point. Yeah no shit you need to be integrated with global trade networks to gain access to resources you can’t extract/create internally. That doesn’t mean that trade deals with great powers are fair and not ruthlessly exploiting the different market conditions. Just because you get some benefit from a bad deal you’re strong armed into taking doesn’t make it not exploitative (labor). What a shock that becoming a puppet state in strategic location leads to more foreign investment, clearly this proves neo-imperialism is actually based and good for everyone

the poor countries that most integrated with global trade networks became rich (s korea, Japan, Singapore)

a bunch of investment and knowledge/technological transfer?

What's funny is if you ever talk to wealthy people they will admit to basically all this shit as long as you pretend like you don't have a problem with it. Like I had the misfortune recently of being around some yuppie types who talked like an LLM trained on Financial Times articles and I literally made a statement about how the US controls the world's financial system and it funnels resources from "poorer" countries and their response was essentially "That's exactly right!" with a chuckle. They just don't like when you point out that what they are doing by participating in the system is fucking evil.

I know it's fun to dunk on these people and it helps us build our own knowledge and understanding but never forget that these people know exactly what they are doing, this is all defensive posturing, and if you schmoozed them up at hotel bar all of their real thoughts and feelings would come pouring out. Don't get too mad or frustrated about this shit because it's all a performance. Yes I'm saying this mostly for myself.

Fubby2 is a redditer (read: not scientific journal editor) and wiener. Despite having no background and seemingly almost no understanding of scientific journal publishing, they somehow continue to act like they know better than the professionals who thought this was worth publishing.

Their criticism is "they didn't engage with conventional capitalist theories like comparative advantage," which they insist explains away the whole exploitation framing ("some countries are just better at producing certain goods"), though you'll notice in their comment they kinda completely gloss over the wage comparison that shows southern workers consistently get paid way tf less than their northern counterparts for the same work, which they are generally also doing more of.

They also complain that the paper references sources with titles about imperialism, exploitation, colonization, etc., and that this is a sign of bias. "Talk about the problem without using words I don't like." Capitalists chose not to engage with these issue in any way but to dismiss them or re-frame them as positive, so of course the literature is dirty pinko stuff.