RE TRUMP'S TRANSITION SPEECH THE OTHER DAY

The speech, as far as it went, sounds great.

There are a lot of problems with doing what he claims he wants to do.

One important point is that what he proposes, without much more, would not accomplish what he says he wants to do.

 

In order to do something like that, one would have to have a sort of Marshall Plan for the US, on steroids.

 

There are contemporary examples of states which have done something like this. I can name a few, which have successfully carried out enormous industrial and technological developmental programs.

 

One big difference, is that they were enabled to develop under peace time conditions with enormous trade and investment subsidies incentives and concessions, from the US and the West to undergird their initiatives.

 

The US, were it to embark on such a program of redevelopmentalism, would enjoy none of those advantages now or in the foreseeable future. It is especially tragic that such a reform is likelier to occur, if at all, only in small bits, in the context of ongoing military encounters which not only do not favor such a sweeping domestic reform agenda for its own sake, but would drain away resources for peace time domestic development.

 

It would require enormous political reform, and require decades of focussed and determined effort to carry out. The US has never enjoyed such a situation, and was not designed politically to accomodate such a thing.

The only analogous episode in American history, in terms of scale, is the mobilization and conduct of WWII.

In terms of reform, the only two examples of radical reform, of the kind Trump's alleged program would really require, and not be tantamount to revolution, were the liberal reforms in Britain in the 19th Century, and "the Revolution from Above" in Prussia and certain other princely states after 1800.