Why is the West So Rich?

Twitter: @YaBoiHakim

00:00 Introduction
00:43 How Free Markets Rhetoric Developed
04:46 The Cannibalization of Japan (The Rigging of "Core-Core" Competition)
08:46 Interfering in Competition As a Feature of Capitalism
14:37 Economic Imperialism and SAPs
17:58 The Meme of Modern Protectionism
20:33 Conclusion

Addendum: Japan is a core nation, but has had strategies normally aimed at the periphery imposed on it (much like the "lesser" European countries) through i.e. the Plaza Accords. The point of the Japan example and the "core-core competition" section is to show how competition isn't allowed even between "allies". The reason I highlighted currency value manipulation instead of the usual unequal exchange/value transference is because I've covered that extensively in earlier videos. Had I had more time, I would've expanded the example to include examples from the periphery instead of just pointing you to another video of mine. I realized that this could cause confusion upon rewatching this so I'm leaving this addendum.

[Kumo-sf]

No no, habibi. If I bring an AR that my daddy bought me to an airsoft competition in which everyone else's guns mysteriously "went missing, " then clearly, I'm just the best airsoft player ever and everybody else is just entitled and lazy.

[whatabouttheearth]

US Capitalists: "free trade"

US Capitalists: "Cuban embargo/blockade"

[YaBoiHakim]

*Addendum:* Japan is a core nation, but has had strategies normally aimed at the periphery imposed on it (much like the "lesser" European countries) through i.e. the Plaza Accords. The point of the Japan example and the "core-core competition" section is to show how competition isn't allowed even between "allies". The reason I highlighted currency value manipulation in a "wealthier" nation instead of the usual unequal exchange/value transference in "poorer" ones is because I've covered that extensively in earlier videos. Had I had more time, I would've expanded the example to include examples from the periphery instead of just pointing you to another video of mine. I realized that this could cause confusion upon rewatching this so I'm leaving this addendum.

[shriekinambassador]

competition in capitalism doenst make sense even in the framework of capitalism. If I want to be a capitalist. my goal is to have as little as possible competition

[The_platform]

As Kropotkin said, "Competition is the law of the jungle, cooperation is the law of civilisation"

[TenebrisNatus]

This channel needs a million subscribers. One of the best political channels on YouTube.

[greasergaming]

Thank you for all the time you've invested in educating me and others in the online space

[kenseitakesi]

Almost 800 years of colonalism and slavery make you very rich

[alexgrunde]

“Competition is for losers” - Peter Thiel

Interestingly, the dynamic of resource extraction in the periphery and wealth concentration in the imperial core was one of the motivating factors in the American Revolution. Raw goods were extracted in the colonies, shipped off to England, and then the colonists would buy the good manufactured using the raw goods back from the wealthy merchants and corporations in England. Suppressing production in the colonies was part of the Crown’s economic policy.

[EayuProuxm]

I remember reading about the Dutch East India Trading Company. Nice to know capitalism been anti-competition since ever.

[juliahenriques]

Kicking Away the Ladder is such a great book. I remember when I brought it to a class in college. The teacher had a list of great books for people to read, but I asked him to bring in my own instead. Ha Joon hasn't been off the official curriculum for over 20 years now. Later I learned that our Foreign Affairs adopted it as basic read. I'll take this small win.

[shafiq_ahamed]

Capitalism is few people doing extremely well and others serve the few

[ronmackinnon]

(8:46) 'The system doesn't reward competition. It rewards those with the power and wealth to crush it.' Thank you for that.

[k_roxana]

Pakistan has been suffering from IMF's structural adjustment program ever since the 90s. Now it's gotten to the point where our economy is dependent on loans and the amount of leverage in economic policy we have to change that is very little. Furthermore, every government that has been in office is hellbent on implementing neoliberal market reforms like privatization, taxes on the poor and salaried, government budget cuts and we even have large IPPs which are like private owned power production and distribution companies. We are unironically de-industrializing.
But every government in power still clings on staunchly to free market neoliberalism and there's rarely any talks of alternative economic policies.

Even living within the US as a citizen, there are countless examples all around demonstrating what really drives market forces, dispelling the countless lies we are told. It takes an active and curious mind not blinded by chauvinism to see it.

Just for reference, the phrases "free market" and "free trade" were originally mercantilist chants for a market in slaves. "Freedom! Freedom! How I hate thy chant! Formed to be slaves. Yet struggling to be lords... Strut forth from their slave marts and shout for freedom with rapine in their hearts." So the true story behind behind that capitalist myth again goes all the way back to slavery and slave markets.

[frenzalrhomb]

Now that the Americans have Trump "back in their lives, " we'll all be able to see in real time, just how well protectionism works in the modern Capitalist State! .. Should be very informative!!

[samaval]

Even real competition leads to only a few winners, who leave behind the rest
Competition winners are monopolists.

[nihilnothings]

Kendrick dropping, JT dropping, and now Hakim, this is truly an early November pre-Christmas miracle.

[mysteryshake]

Never a bad video from you, Hakim, each one better than the last. This video is no exception

[podemosurss]

I got an ad for a Masterclass from the CIA 😅

As a sidenote to complement your video, it's also important to mention that most of the wealth stolen by the West has gone to a small minority of the population there. I'm from Spain, and here until only a few decades ago poverty was extremely high, and so was in other Western nations (coincidentally, it lowered due to the social security measured that the various Governments were forced to establish due to the fear of Revolutions and/or after several brutal strikes). Public healthcare in Spain began in the 1870s as a consequence of a very harsh epidemic in which the King himself (Alfonso XII, one of the few good Monarchs we have ever had) was infected, and public schools weren't a thing until the 1910s. Worker protections, the 8-hour labour day and so on were established in 1919 after an extremely brutal strike that lasted for 42 days and which saw shootings between the CNT (National Confederation of Workers, an anarcho-syndicalist Union around which an entire mass front was organised in a horizontal manner) and the police, and in which the Parliament was forced to pass those laws because the strike had paralysed the entire country. So it's not even "the west", but a small bunch of western rulers who used their military power to get even wealthier at the expense of the entire Globe (in fact, Lenin has an excellent analysis of that on his book "War and Revolution", written in 1915). ¡NO PASARÁN!