Central planning doesn't work as it misallocates resources. The US would be making a mistake by trying to copy China's Belt and Road system.
An American 'Belt and Road' Would Logically Shrink U.S. Global Influence
This rates mention in consideration of China’s own “Belt and Road” initiative in countries not China. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Navy secretary (Reagan), U.S. senator (D-VA, 2007-2013), and novelist extraordinaire James Webb described “Belt and Road” as “China’s pursuit of massive infrastructure projects in developing countries, where it seeks to cement long-term relations.” Webb views this as China “gaining influence” around the world, leadership in Beijing presumably feels the same way, and Webb thinks the U.S. should do the same. Let’s hope we don’t.
Implicit in infrastructure building is the same knowledge problem that underlies all other governmental allocations of precious resources always and everywhere produced in the private sector first. We all know from when China’s economy was wholly controlled from the proverbial Commanding Heights that the result was economic desperation. Central planning fails. See the 20th century. Webb knows this well.
Which is why it’s odd that he would embrace more of the same, albeit from the U.S. What fails in total doesn’t stop failing when practiced in limited fashion. With a U.S. “Belt and Road” initiative, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump (will he run again in 2024?) would be the central allocators of resources better left in the private sector. Government spending is a tax on growth precisely because governments can only spend insofar as they arrogate to themselves a portion of private production. In this case, they would extract resources from U.S. producers only to foist their planning on other countries. If such policies were consistent with economic growth, then it’s certainly true that West Virginia (where Robert Byrd’s name is seemingly on everything) would be one of the U.S.’s richest states.
Read the entire article at the link.Which speaks to the meaning of the United States globally. The U.S. is a symbol of freedom. It’s a symbol of living life to the fullest, without limits. American products are surely great, but the American brand is arguably even greater. As a global symbol of unfettered freedom, people around the globe want what emerges from this Land of the Free. After which, free people in the U.S. have the freedom (in concert with enormous amounts of global capital seeking U.S. exposure) to relentlessly create new products and services. In short, freedom begets more of the Americana so desired by the rest of the world.
The above truth speaks to why an American “Belt and Road” initiative would be a colossal waste of precious resources that would, if anything, shrink U.S. influence. What enhances U.S. stature is its people living as they wish, keeping what’s theirs, and rushing the future into the present through the matching of the free and talented with capital not consumed by politicians.
Government spending is a tax on what makes the U.S. spectacular in the eyes of the world, and by extension it limits the intrepid ways of the American people in their production of aspirational goods and services. Add the lockdowns to the list of what shrinks the U.S. in the eyes of the world. When we act foolishly, we give the rest of the world cover to do the same.
The main thing is that the U.S. needn’t mis-allocate what its people produce in return for influence. The greatest source of U.S. influence is freedom itself. Keep it. Leave discredited Keynesian folly to others.
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Originally Posted by mamooth
