History Lesson: Why China Wants to Become a Military Superpower — Harry J. Kazianis

Understanding the Chinese mindset means understanding their history.

Key Point: China plans on never being humiliated ever again.

Bingo. Harry J. Kazianis nails it.

The US-initiated "trade war" and the manufactured Hong Kong separatist revolt are eerily reminiscent of the British colonization of China and the Opium War. It is blazingly obvious to all Chinese people but is lost on the West that the intention is to keep China down and make it subservient to the the West, led by the US.

China is determined not to let this happen again.

There is not only a nationalistic factor here, but also a racial component. Explosive.

Needless to say, this is creating a very dangerous situation for the world.

The National Interest

History Lesson: Why China Wants to Become a Military Superpower
Harry J. Kazianis

The Great Switch: The Geo-Politics of Looming Recession — Alastair Crooke

This post is a review of British historian Adam Tooze's histories of WWII (The Wages of Destruction) – and of WWI (The Deluge), which Alastair Crooke applies to current world affairs based on US strategy to diminish political and economic rivals through economic (trade) policy that is really economic warfare. He posits that Tooze's work establishes a precedent for this

Strategic Culture Foundation
The Great Switch: The Geo-Politics of Looming Recession

Alastair Crooke | founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, and former British diplomat and senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy

See also at SCF

American Apocalypse

John W. Whitehead

Branko Milanovic reviews Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order.

How do you write about a book that is almost 600 pages long (in small print), has 25 pages of references, and the ambition to explain political institutions from the dawn of mankind to the French Revolution, from kinship-based bands of hunters to Voltaire? This was Francis Fukuyama’s objective in this monumental (yet eminently readable) book, “The Origins of PoliticalOrder” (note the plural).
My review, given the size and importance of the book, will be done in two parts, First, here, I will review the logic of the arguments put forward by Fukuyama. In the second review, I will engage into some critique....

Global Inequality
A Grand Fresco: The Origins of Political Order

Francis Fukuyama against mainstream economics

Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Frank Li — History 2.0

The dramatic rise of China over the past four decades not only has rocketed China's economy to the top of the world (in terms of PPP - purchasing power parity), with no end in sight, but also is ending western dominance over the past 200 years, at least.
What does that mean to the world? Everything, from politics (End of Democracy?) to economics (Adam Smith vs. Karl Marx)!

To understand the profound implication of this change, we must truly understand the past, for which we must re-examine the history, thus "History 2.0" ...

Important.

economicintesect.com
History 2.0
Frank Li | Chinese ex-pat, Founder and President of W.E.I. (West-East International), a Chicago-based import & export company, B.E. from Zhejiang University (China) in 1982, M.E. from the University of Tokyo in 1985, and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1988, all in Electrical Engineering

More on Marx

Positive.

Michael Roberts Blog
Marx and Keynes in Berlin
Michael Roberts

The Conversation
Karl Marx: ten things to read if you want to understand him

James Muldoon, Lecturer in Political Science, University of Exeter
and Robert Jackson, Lecturer in Politics, Manchester Metropolitan University

Negative.

Bloomberg
Remember Marx for How Much He Got Wrong

Noah Smith, Contributor

Grasping Reality
Understanding Karl Marx
Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Neutral

Collège de France — Books & Ideas
From Marx to Marxism: Histories of an Idea
An Interview with Gregory Claeys by Ophélie Siméon

Carl Zha — The Historic Background of China's Perception of the West

Backgrounder. Lots of pictures. And much that people in the West are unaware of regarding China and its historical relationship with the US. As with Russia, the US blew up its soft power with China.

Interestingly, the turning point for both China and Russia seems to have been the US bombing of Serbia, a traditional Russian ally, during which the US also bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and made a weak excuse for it.

At this point, both Chinese and Russians realized that spreading freedom and democracy was a sham and that the US was intent on pursuing its hegemonic interests as an empire ruled by an oligarchy.

Again, nothing new. The post shows how Woodrow Wilson betrayed China in the aftermath of WWI. And how Western imperialism had carved up China before that.

Moon of Alabama
The Historic Background of China's Perception of the West
Carl Zha, Clash of civilizations and empires podcast.

Lord Keynes — The 10,000 Year Explosion, Chapter 1: A Summary

Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending’s The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution (2009) is a truly extraordinary book that every person on the Left should read. In essence, Cochran and Harpending challenge the notion that human evolution stopped around 50,000 years ago....

Social Democracy For The 21St Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective
The 10,000 Year Explosion, Chapter 1: A Summary
Lord Keynes

Keith Hart — Preface to the Coming World Crisis

Why history is important and WWIII will be difficult to avoid. 

Does anyone sincerely believe that the West (the Whites) will peacefully hand over world leadership to the non-white global majority, led by the BRICS, whom they coerced into joining the world society they made, while they had a virtual monopoly of capital, industry, markets and transport and had mastered genocide by remote means? Or that the United States would relinquish its empire without a fight, when it holds so many of the world’s winning cards listed above?

Human Economy Blog
Preface to the Coming World Crisis
Keith Hart | International Director of the Human Economy Programme at the University of Pretoria

Diane Coyle — Civilising money

I am going to have to read this book. Fortunately, it is modestly priced. You can "Look inside" at Amazon.

Publisher's blurb:

In the aftermath of recent financial crises, it's easy to see finance as a wrecking ball: something that destroys fortunes and jobs, and undermines governments and banks. In Money Changes Everything, leading financial historian William Goetzmann argues the exact opposite--that the development of finance has made the growth of civilizations possible. Goetzmann explains that finance is a time machine, a technology that allows us to move value forward and backward through time; and that this innovation has changed the very way we think about and plan for the future. He shows how finance was present at key moments in history: driving the invention of writing in ancient Mesopotamia, spurring the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome to become great empires, determining the rise and fall of dynasties in imperial China, and underwriting the trade expeditions that led Europeans to the New World. He also demonstrates how the apparatus we associate with a modern economy--stock markets, lines of credit, complex financial products, and international trade--were repeatedly developed, forgotten, and reinvented over the course of human history.

Exploring the critical role of finance over the millennia, and around the world, Goetzmann details how wondrous financial technologies and institutions--money, bonds, banks, corporations, and more--have helped urban centers to expand and cultures to flourish. And it's not done reshaping our lives, as Goetzmann considers the challenges we face in the future, such as how to use the power of finance to care for an aging and expanding population.

Money Changes Everything presents a fascinating look into the way that finance has steered the course of history.

Finance and economics are two side of the same coin, one coin among the many, albeit a very important coin, that figured in the development of civilization and life as we know it today. But even today, finance and economics remain separate disciplines, and very few understand their intimate connection through price ("money") as the basis of markets, and accounting as the common language of finance, business and economics. 

The Enlightened Economist
Civilising money
Diane Coyle | freelance economist and a former advisor to the UK Treasury. She is a member of the UK Competition Commission and is acting Chairman of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation

David Stockman — Christmas 2015—–Why There Is No Peace On Earth

David Stockman joins Paul Craig Roberts as a premier critic of US foreign and military policy.

Why is there no peace on Earth? Follow the money and politics (military-industrial-governmental complex).

Good historical summary of why there is no peace and won't be until the Machine is dismantled.

On this analysis Stockman's perennial complaint about "unfunded social welfare entitlements pales against the rationale for defunding military adventurism and the neo-imperialism on which it is based.

The current Ukrainian policy farce emanating from Washington is not only a reminder that the military-industrial-beltway complex is still alive and well, but also demonstrates why the forces of crony capitalism and money politics which sustain it are so lamentable. The fact is, the modern Warfare State has been the incubator of American imperialism since the Cold War, and is now proving itself utterly invulnerable to fiscal containment, even in the face of a $19 trillion national debt. 

So 101 years after the Christmas truces along the Western Front there is still no peace on earth. And the long suffering American taxpayers, who foot the massive bills generated by the War Party’s demented and destructive policies, have no clue that Imperial Washington is the principal reason.

These concluding paragraphs of the long article are the only point at which Stockman introduces his erroneous monetary and fiscal analysis, but it is the logical conclusion of his primarily historical exposition. Hopefully, he will refocus on the the military extravagance  instead of his misdirected attack on the welfare state. But it is not likely.

Contra Corner
Christmas 2015—–Why There Is No Peace On Earth
David Stockman

Carl Bildt — Preserving the Ottoman Mosaic

The roots of the Middle East’s many conflicts lie in the unraveling of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century and the failure since then to forge a stable regional order. As the international community works toward securing a durable peace in the region, its leaders would be wise to remember the lessons of history.

Project Syndicate
Preserving the Ottoman Mosaic
Carl Bildt | Chair of the Global Commission on Internet Governance, member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Europe, Prime Minister of Sweden (1991-1994), and Foreign Minister (2006-2014).