Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "TIKhistory"
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In answer to the original question in the opener, it IS capitalistic, in a sense, for the leaders of a socialist country to exercise functional ownership of all or most of the economy. It's like their own private piggybank. But if you're going to say it may as well be ownership, then you have to understand that it must therefore be a criminal enterprise, because you are taking those things by force from others. So it's not really private enterprise on a grander scale, even though you can make an argument for it being exactly that, on functional grounds.
I've gone down a similar rabbit-hole in my own thought experiments, because a socialist system STILL invests capital in various enterprises in order to obtain some sort of return. So in that sense, ALL systems are capitalist, and the distinctions between different systems are in who controls the capital. That's why I kind of shy away from "capitalism" as a term, entirely, and stick to "free enterprise and property rights." You either have property rights or you don't. Maybe that's a better term. Systems WITH property rights and systems without, and all gradations in between. But all systems are capitalist.
I don't think the Nazis ever nationalized Krupp Steel. Krupp just did what they wanted and they did what Krupp wanted, but last I checked, Krupp was still in operation. Some say that's the difference between fascism and socialism. You still OWN that company under fascism, but you do whatever the government tells you. Fascism, then, when viewed in economic terms, is functionally identical to socialism in that everything is how the government says, any time the government takes an interest and decides it wants something from you. That's why many in the West feel that we BECAME fascists in our war AGAINST the fascists, when you look at the regulatory web and the proliferation of government agencies regulating everything under the Sun. If you control the property, that's functionally the same as actually owning it.
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Trying to do for Stalingrad what you did for Crusader was EXTREMELY ambitious, and the 100,000 who loved it are possibly the only 100,000 people in the world who care deeply enough to do it justice.
With 250k subscribers and 100k views, you are hopefully making enough money to hire an able assistant or two. I never learned how to do that until injuries forced me to direct others, rather than just handle everything, myself. Especially the editing stuff, which you probably think only you can do. I'm that way with my math videos. But your strength is your research and analysis. If I were you, I'd take a step back and try to strategize what things to delegate and how to go about it.
I'm a great one to talk, because I make shit up as I go along, and delegate mundane tasks on an ad hoc basis. But I get better at it as I go along. The toughest thing for me is the helper not reading my mind, i.e., when they f*** up, it's because I didn't make myself clear enough and/or anticipate the bits that they need explained. The beauty of it is when you find somebody who's actually competent and self-disciplined enough, they don't need everything spelled-out, and just do things on their own initiative.
I bet you could find one or five people out there who'd love to do the heavy lifting for you for free or nominal compensation, just to work with you and get a mention.
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Yes and no. Keynesians love slurping up every erg of surplus energy available in the system, give it to government, and then say "$ee? Big government is why the economy is so big!"
On the other hand, the fable of $tone $oup teaches a vital truth of which Keynesians avail themselves and that is that the value of paper currency has more to do with the faith put in it than the actual value. Inflation always lags behind inflationary actions, and that lag does create wealth on paper.
Also, infrastructure projects: roads, bridges and dams, do appear to make everyone wealthier in the medium term, but maybe the spread of human civilization across the entire planet needs no artificial accelerants, and the great success of federal infrastructure projects only led to a more wasteful and destructive way of life than if infrastructure were left to entrepreneurs and local communities. Boy that federally-funded highway/railroad was great for trade, but maybe America would've turned out OK if the expansion were mutually agreed to, and negotiated, rather than imposed by force by larger populations on smaller populations that were living quite sustainably on those lands, already, and the unsustainable city folks have to steal to survive. They love "our democracy." "You have to move. We voted on it."
If your way is truly better, folks will adopt your way, over time, in the natural course of things.
Anyway, I've always doubted the "grow or die" philosophy. Growth mandated by political entities isn't organic growth, and it never worries about sustainability of its authoritarian arrogance. It only sees the problems it creates as being insoluble by anything other than more authoritarian solutions.
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Seriously, good work! BUT I'm still not sure that they wouldn't've been MORE ready in a year or two, and maybe Chamberlain at Munich convinced them the time was right, even though it was not. If things had continued as they were, without hostilities, Germany had a big lead in planes, tanks and subs and probably would've extended that lead, because it was such a high priority for them. And if they'd extended the peace, they could've traded for and squirreled away a war stockpile. They were pretty good at keeping their buildup below the level of Allied perception. The whistle-blowers in the West would've been dismissed as war mongers.
Newt Gingrich, who was a historian before he was a politician, who made a VERY similar case for Japan. Japan was the last Asian man standing in Asia, after the Europeans colonized and put all the trade and trade routes on lock-down. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere wasn't entirely without merit, although the Japanese practiced the concept in very brutal ways. Gingrich says that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a long-shot the Japanese were taking, because if they didn't do SOMEthing, the Americans were going to lock out the Japanese everywhere the Europeans already hadn't. So even though it was probably doomed to failure, the Japanese were looking extinction in the eye, and at least going to war had a CHANCE of turning out well for them. If they did NOTHING, the expansion of the USA into Asia looked to them like the death of Japan, for SURE.
We look back on Ghengis Khan as this great evil conqueror, but he rose to power because drought compelled steppe tribes to expand to new lands or perish. So one tribe gobbled up the next, and Ghengis, who was actually very enlightened and equal-opportunity for his time, ran his tribe as a meritocracy, rewarding performance and bravery with promotion, without regard to what tribe or nation you came from. Some of his top people were Chinese, promoted from the engineering ranks! So the biggest bad guy of all time, possibly, ran things in a more enlightened way than the position-by-birth that everybody else followed. That's why his tribe grew to be the biggest tribe of all.
Of course, having succeeded in becoming Kha Khan (Khan of Khans), he was still the leader of a tribe with too many mouths and too little grass! And it turned out that horse archers were the perfect instrument. And anything they didn't bring to the field, he didn't hesitate to adopt foreigners who DID bring it. Chinese engineers, Russian chargers... What he didn't have, he appropriated, on the basis of individual merit. Very rare for those days. Very enlightened. But also vicious, cruel and vindictive.
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