There are many interesting arguments about which elite university in the US has done the most damage to the country – some claim Harvard business school have produced the greediest CEOs who have ruined the country’s industrial capitalism; some say Yale is the cradle of deep state actors filled with its Skull and Bones members.
Alexander Hamilton put in place the first industrial policy that led to the economic take off. the neoliberal junk economics is the polar opposite. a financialized economy is a parasitic one by definition but people don't know classic economics of Adam Smith, Richardo and Mill. I do think the higher education institutions have played a very negative role as a tool for the real economic rulers.
As a dropout from an Ivy League university who is very familiar with the "elite" educational institutions in America....I completely concur. Your Substack blog, Hua Bin, is excellent and you bring a wealth of insight and experience to most of your postings here.
Well put. I would add that the USA prior to the Neoliberal Era rejected not only the hyper-financialized, centralized model of today but also the classical economists mention The economic system of the country was not built on Adam Smith’s free trade idealism, Ricardo’s theories of comparative advantage, or Mill’s vision of market liberalization, in fact for every single day of the the first 200 years of its existence. Instead, the American system was founded on a mixed economy with industrial policies that deliberately cultivated domestic manufacturing, protected strategic industries, and maintained a balance between competition and regulation. The classical economists, particularly those advocating free trade and minimal government intervention, were largely ignored in favor of economic nationalism, protective tariffs, regional economic balancing, and variable and diversified government interventions. Unlike today, Harvard, Yale, and Chicago werent dominant ideological centers shaping economic policy; the country’s intellectual and policy direction was far more pluralistic. Additionally, much like China was from the 1980s until recent years, the United States was economically and politically decentralized, with robust state and even local capital flow inhibitors, along with moderate trade frictions, which allowed for regional industrial bases to thrive rather than being consumed by national or global financial networks. The transformation into today’s financialized system was not a natural evolution but a deliberate shift, particularly after the 1970s, as power became centralized in elite institutions and the ideological foundations of the economy were rewritten to benefit a narrow class of actors. And those actors, who are in some ways socially concentrated but in other ways, since they sort of steer national and global network, are also fairly diverse, well, those actors/networks are to blame, not Yale or Chi or Harvard, the so called "Macro-Economists"
Excellent analysis... it's why "conservatives" in America who have wholeheartedly embraced the neoliberal rentier financialization of the country by parasites and oligarchs as if it were the machinations of the "free market" cannot seem to recognize that limitations on financialization and concentration of wealth at the top inherently do more to protect family, tradition, and culture than letting financial and tech oligarchs run amok.
The USA was once a politically decentralized, economically decentralized, governmentally decentralized, and scientifically decentralized system that diffused each of those spheres with deliberate redundancy across a large and very dense network of semi-autonomous nodes...
In recent times I sometimes see little things, hear little things feel little things, there may very well be a specter haunting America... the specter of the United States' Old Republic.
Henry Carey (1793-1879) from The Harmony of Interests on TARIFFS: "The foremost practitioner of free trade in the nineteenth century was Great Britain. As Carey explained, "The object of [Britain's] colonial system was that of 'raising up a nation of customers,' a project 'fit only,' says Adam Smith, 'for a nation of shopkeepers.' (sounds familiar?!)
In contrast, said Carey, the United States had a different mission. "Two systems are before the world.
The one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the labour of all; while the other looks to increasing
the proportion engaged in the work of production, and
diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with
increased return to all ....
One looks to increasing the quantity of raw materials to be exported, and diminishing the inducements to imports of men, thus impoverishing both farmer and planter by throwing on them the burden of freight; while the other looks to increasing the import of men, and diminishing the export of raw materials, thereby enriching both planter and farmer by relieving them from
payment of freight...
One looks to increasing the necessity of commerce; the other to increasing the power to maintain it .... One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization.
One looks towards universal war; the other towards
universal peace.
One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system."
DJT often references this period in American history.
Want to build a nation? It's not going to happen under the Central banking system.
"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe".
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison (20 December 1787), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (19 Vols., 1905) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. VI, p. 392.
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto".
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Lomax (12 March 1799)
any economic system is an articificial construct. who benefits is a function of who designs it. the US system today is designed by financiers not industrialists as in early 20the century. the result is financial oligarchs take most of the wealth. Henry Ford warned about this long ago in his collection of essays in the book The International Jews.
"The neocons are directly responsible for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. These wars have cost taxpayers over $7 trillion, estimated by Brown University’s Watson School".
As well as killing well over 3 million people on the receiving end. No one in the West has ever seemed to care, or even notice, that. Could it possibly be because the dead were mainly brown Muslims?
"It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis".
- Harold Pinter, Nobel Lecture December 7, 2005.
I shan't apologise for repeating those words of Pinter's, no matter how often I do so. His whole speech should be required reading by every citizen and in every school.
this goes to show how corporate media artfully distract and disfranchise the population into unknowing and unthinking zombies. the populace is nothing but a host for the parasite to extract wealth and gaslit into believing its nonexistent virtue and undeserved self righteousness.
"Interestingly Leo Strauss studied in Germany under Carl Schmitt, the chief Nazi legal scholar and political theorist."
Surprised you did not mention that the Rockefellers established U of Chicago, and Rockefellers also engineered Leo Strauss's migration from Germany to USA and Chicago.
Rockefellers were active on both sides of the wars in Europe, including in working with Jewish architect Erich Mendelsohn to perfect forumulas for maximally efficient firebombing of civilian housing.
Milton Friedman started the current craze of free market fundamentialism. the chicago school has monopolized Nobel economics prizes for several decades now. all the other schools on the east coast teach the same ideas. this is a classical case of bending economic theories to serve the interests of the ruling class. in this theory, rentier class or economic parasite is justified and even glorified. Read Michael Hudson on this topic. he is by far the best living economist in the world today.
I'm humbled. Prof Hudson is a hero of mine and greatly influenced how I understand economics. He taught in China for years and is among the most influential economic thinkers there. Too bad people in the US don't get exposed to his thoughts more. of course, the oligarchs would never allow that.
Hi, I think “financialisation” of the US economy was supported across both conservative and liberal economists, whether in Chicago, Harvard or elsewhere. Just my impression. All mainstream economists supported trade liberalisation, paying only lip service to helping US workers retrain themselves.
It was in the anti trust jurisprudence where the Chicago school was especially influential, enabling the rise of businesses with market power and IP rights.
Alexander Hamilton put in place the first industrial policy that led to the economic take off. the neoliberal junk economics is the polar opposite. a financialized economy is a parasitic one by definition but people don't know classic economics of Adam Smith, Richardo and Mill. I do think the higher education institutions have played a very negative role as a tool for the real economic rulers.
As a dropout from an Ivy League university who is very familiar with the "elite" educational institutions in America....I completely concur. Your Substack blog, Hua Bin, is excellent and you bring a wealth of insight and experience to most of your postings here.
Well put. I would add that the USA prior to the Neoliberal Era rejected not only the hyper-financialized, centralized model of today but also the classical economists mention The economic system of the country was not built on Adam Smith’s free trade idealism, Ricardo’s theories of comparative advantage, or Mill’s vision of market liberalization, in fact for every single day of the the first 200 years of its existence. Instead, the American system was founded on a mixed economy with industrial policies that deliberately cultivated domestic manufacturing, protected strategic industries, and maintained a balance between competition and regulation. The classical economists, particularly those advocating free trade and minimal government intervention, were largely ignored in favor of economic nationalism, protective tariffs, regional economic balancing, and variable and diversified government interventions. Unlike today, Harvard, Yale, and Chicago werent dominant ideological centers shaping economic policy; the country’s intellectual and policy direction was far more pluralistic. Additionally, much like China was from the 1980s until recent years, the United States was economically and politically decentralized, with robust state and even local capital flow inhibitors, along with moderate trade frictions, which allowed for regional industrial bases to thrive rather than being consumed by national or global financial networks. The transformation into today’s financialized system was not a natural evolution but a deliberate shift, particularly after the 1970s, as power became centralized in elite institutions and the ideological foundations of the economy were rewritten to benefit a narrow class of actors. And those actors, who are in some ways socially concentrated but in other ways, since they sort of steer national and global network, are also fairly diverse, well, those actors/networks are to blame, not Yale or Chi or Harvard, the so called "Macro-Economists"
Excellent analysis... it's why "conservatives" in America who have wholeheartedly embraced the neoliberal rentier financialization of the country by parasites and oligarchs as if it were the machinations of the "free market" cannot seem to recognize that limitations on financialization and concentration of wealth at the top inherently do more to protect family, tradition, and culture than letting financial and tech oligarchs run amok.
The USA was once a politically decentralized, economically decentralized, governmentally decentralized, and scientifically decentralized system that diffused each of those spheres with deliberate redundancy across a large and very dense network of semi-autonomous nodes...
In recent times I sometimes see little things, hear little things feel little things, there may very well be a specter haunting America... the specter of the United States' Old Republic.
Henry Carey (1793-1879) from The Harmony of Interests on TARIFFS: "The foremost practitioner of free trade in the nineteenth century was Great Britain. As Carey explained, "The object of [Britain's] colonial system was that of 'raising up a nation of customers,' a project 'fit only,' says Adam Smith, 'for a nation of shopkeepers.' (sounds familiar?!)
In contrast, said Carey, the United States had a different mission. "Two systems are before the world.
The one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the labour of all; while the other looks to increasing
the proportion engaged in the work of production, and
diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with
increased return to all ....
One looks to increasing the quantity of raw materials to be exported, and diminishing the inducements to imports of men, thus impoverishing both farmer and planter by throwing on them the burden of freight; while the other looks to increasing the import of men, and diminishing the export of raw materials, thereby enriching both planter and farmer by relieving them from
payment of freight...
One looks to increasing the necessity of commerce; the other to increasing the power to maintain it .... One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization.
One looks towards universal war; the other towards
universal peace.
One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system."
DJT often references this period in American history.
Want to build a nation? It's not going to happen under the Central banking system.
"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe".
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison (20 December 1787), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (19 Vols., 1905) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. VI, p. 392.
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto".
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Lomax (12 March 1799)
any economic system is an articificial construct. who benefits is a function of who designs it. the US system today is designed by financiers not industrialists as in early 20the century. the result is financial oligarchs take most of the wealth. Henry Ford warned about this long ago in his collection of essays in the book The International Jews.
"The neocons are directly responsible for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. These wars have cost taxpayers over $7 trillion, estimated by Brown University’s Watson School".
As well as killing well over 3 million people on the receiving end. No one in the West has ever seemed to care, or even notice, that. Could it possibly be because the dead were mainly brown Muslims?
"It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis".
- Harold Pinter, Nobel Lecture December 7, 2005.
I shan't apologise for repeating those words of Pinter's, no matter how often I do so. His whole speech should be required reading by every citizen and in every school.
this goes to show how corporate media artfully distract and disfranchise the population into unknowing and unthinking zombies. the populace is nothing but a host for the parasite to extract wealth and gaslit into believing its nonexistent virtue and undeserved self righteousness.
"Interestingly Leo Strauss studied in Germany under Carl Schmitt, the chief Nazi legal scholar and political theorist."
Surprised you did not mention that the Rockefellers established U of Chicago, and Rockefellers also engineered Leo Strauss's migration from Germany to USA and Chicago.
Rockefellers were active on both sides of the wars in Europe, including in working with Jewish architect Erich Mendelsohn to perfect forumulas for maximally efficient firebombing of civilian housing.
didn't know this but more dots there. the banksters naturally breed spokesmen, under the guise of academic legitimacy, who justify their rule.
Milton Friedman started the current craze of free market fundamentialism. the chicago school has monopolized Nobel economics prizes for several decades now. all the other schools on the east coast teach the same ideas. this is a classical case of bending economic theories to serve the interests of the ruling class. in this theory, rentier class or economic parasite is justified and even glorified. Read Michael Hudson on this topic. he is by far the best living economist in the world today.
Good analysis mr. Hudson.
"Mr Hudson"?? The author is Hua Bin, although I think Michael Hudson would agree.
I'm humbled. Prof Hudson is a hero of mine and greatly influenced how I understand economics. He taught in China for years and is among the most influential economic thinkers there. Too bad people in the US don't get exposed to his thoughts more. of course, the oligarchs would never allow that.
Hua Bin's musings are beautiful gems, wonderfully clear and valuable.
Hi, I think “financialisation” of the US economy was supported across both conservative and liberal economists, whether in Chicago, Harvard or elsewhere. Just my impression. All mainstream economists supported trade liberalisation, paying only lip service to helping US workers retrain themselves.
It was in the anti trust jurisprudence where the Chicago school was especially influential, enabling the rise of businesses with market power and IP rights.