orange dave

I like this. I want to make it my screen name now.

No it doesn't! There are ways to colonize that don't involve butchering babies. That's like a baby-killer opening an ice cream stand, and nobody wants to buy ice cream, and concluding from that that ice cream is not a profitable sector.

Perhaps reading history doesn't an argument make...but I will say that you will look a lot more credible on these forums if you have some factual basis for your statements.

During the Cultural Revolution, students were encouraged to question their teachers...in fact, the entire educational system basically shut down for ten years because students would spend the entire class calling their teachers capitalist pigs. This was universally deemed to be a bad idea, and after Mao died some of its architects were hanged and things went back to normal.

BTW, are you now arguing that Confucian culture is even less economically viable than Marxism?

smallpox

No because since the Great Depression, Japan was convinced that capitalism did not suit her. And so it lead to its ideology that to secure resources it needed to proliferate its population abroad. While it did lead to a policy similar to lebensraum it does not necessarily disproves that resource grabbing was a major variable in Japanese expansionism.

"When I went to School in China" -- Yan Phou Lee (1880)

Ya, the cultural revolution, that is so what I meant when I was referring to liberal thoughts and questioning your teacher.
Of course I was intending towards some guidelines and regulations. I never advocate anything illegal or non-constructive. Advocating rhetorics and assault is not questioning learning. You don't have to purposely pretend an extreme to advocate another.

They're both different and both have elements leading to barriers to trade.

orange dave

Of course they have a cover story...they have a penchant for pulling these things straight out of thin air, they even did at the time in question. (I assume you know about all these historical revisionism issues...)

I'm just not going to believe this 'he's a baby-killer, but he's got good business skills' argument.

Tell me, if the Japanese were so clever, why did they attack the US at pearl harbor? They could have easily taken advantage of US distraction in Europe to cement their gains, and most of East Asia would quite likely still be called Japan to this day. This was probably the single most ill-advised move in modern history, which cost them their entire colonial empire. Do you think this might be a relevant fact to include in your analysis?

smallpox

What?! When have I ever argued that? the whole reason Japan even came up was to demonstrate that imperialism was not a good economic policy. If you're referring to the Meiji Restoration, then you're way off, wrong era and wrong government form.
Plus what argument is that? He can be a baby killer and a good business man, it's not like you can't have one without the other.

Have you been playing too much Civilization 4 lately or something?
First when I have ever said the Japanese were so clever? I was criticizing them....
What US distraction in Europe? The US wasn't involved in the war expect some arms exporting. Hitler declared war on the US in 1941....
And they already thought their Asian sphere of cooperation & peace was achieved since many except China were cheering the Japanese troops marching into their country, "saving" them from European imperialists.

Sure it proves me right -- when you put a government in charge; dumb stuff happens.
And no, Japanese imperialism would have gone sour quickly, as was any imperialism during that time. Plus the USA was not the hegemony it was in the Pacific, it proliferated quicker than expected.

orange dave

My point here is that there are significant factors you have not accounted for in your analysis.

And my larger point is that Japan's development model is definitely not one to emulate. The entire world - and most especially China itself - does not want to see China go down that path, regardless of what the (extremely) long-term benefits might be.

smallpox

I don't know if you realise, but Japanese industrialization during the Meiji Restoration was doing better and only after the Great Depression did militarism and removal of democratic reforms started. I for one relatively support the two party system of the Meiji Restoration -- even though it had a long way to go, it was still one party better than the current CCP.
Do I need to include every single little point? Resource grabbing was a major cause for Japanese lebensraum, case closed, from an economic logic perspective and from a historical precedent perspective. After resource grabbing, the atrocities were committed out of an ideological disorder, the supposedly "chosen people"

orange dave

Okay, but your question about the Bismark example is 'what came after.' I'm asking the same with the Japanese example - and Japan is more relavent anyway.

smallpox

Japanese expansionism was not a result of industrialization. Industrialization was only a tool, the incentive was the Great Depression.