Suggested Discussion Outline

[johnkarls]

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Suggested Discussion Outline


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AMERICAN TIANXIA

It is respectfully suggested that we spend the first half of our March 14 meeting discussing American Tianxia.

This can be done in terms of discussing sequentially any comments any participant has regarding each of our focus book’s four chapters and/or discussing any of the issues raised by the Suggested Answers to the First Short Quiz which are posted on http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org in the “Participant Comments” section for our 3/14/2018 meeting.

BTW, on p. 38, our author asserts that the current hysteria about the prospects of China’s soon becoming the world’s foremost economic powerhouse (such as, he notes, from Henry Kissinger, who Yours Truly notes is NEITHER an economist NOR an economics expert) are probably wrong for the stated reason that a country’s growth from low income to middle income is much easier than growth from middle income to high income.

Our author cites two historical examples.

First, South Korea grew from 1/30 to 1/3 of U.S. levels between 1960-1990, a growth trajectory even more remarkable than China’s, and a quarter-century later it has not reached 1/2 of the U.S. level -- all according to the World Bank.

Second, quoting our author (still from p. 38): “Before China assumed the mantle of world’s next economic superpower, that title was held by Japan. After a quarter century of economic and demographic stagnation, no one talks about Japan in those terms today.”

Yours Truly’s Example and Theory

When Yours Truly was an undergraduate economics major 1960-1964, the hysteria was MUCH GREATER than it is today and it focused at that time on THE SOVIET UNION becoming the world’s next economic superpower.

My Theory???

It is extremely easy for a nation to increase its economic output from low levels to mid levels by adopting (and, to a great extent in the case of the Soviet Union and China, STEALING) technology and business methods that are readily available from advanced countries.

But there are obvious limits when continued growth begins to require inventive ingenuity (both in terms of technology and business methods) from an indigenous population that has no such traditions and, indeed, whose national governments may not even provide any incentives for such ingenuity.

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THE FIRST NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY IN MORE THAN A DECADE

Since America’s “National Defense Strategy” announced 1/19/2018 is so integral to American Tianxia and vice versa, it is respectfully suggested that we spend the second half of our 3/14/2018 meeting discussing issues raised by the Suggested Answers to the Second Short Quiz which are posted on http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org in the “Participant Comments” section for our 3/14/2018 meeting.

And that we discuss, in particular, the Proposed Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaign to President Trump entitled “Applying Our Long-Standing MAD Doctrine to China Re No.Korea” and posted, together with this outline, on http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org in the “Suggested Discussion Outline” section for our 3/14/2018 meeting.