The most sorely lacking in self-awareness aspect of his post is that a16z is a primary driver of a flavour economic (and social) neoliberalism that is a 'root cause' of almost everything he lamented.
1) If non-college educated kids had a legit path into the market (like they do in Germany) then surpluses would be more evenly distributed and housing wouldn't be such a problem.
But they don't have path because a) industry won't train and b) the US is an economically liberal place - there is no communitarian impetus (like Japan/Germany) to structure. The US doesn't really care that much about citizen v. non-citizen - the economic benefit in the short term is outsource/insource - there is no consideration for the population.
US Citizens are an externality to the business world.
2) On the college side, the US has already financialized the college race, arguably to a nearly corrupt degree. There are tons of kids going to Uni in the US, many of them ill-prepared, and then will be over-indebted.
3) Silicon Valley VC does not want longer-term risky bets, they want to make short term bits with big near term payouts, with long term outcomes again, irrelevant.
It makes much more sense to invest in something like Twitter/TikTok/SnapChat than most other things in this context.
4) And who exactly built those supersonic planes? Was it VC's? No! It was generally the government, with the impetus of war, specifically WW2 and the Cold War! Literally ARPANET.
5) 'Building here' would entail a coordinated national strategy that is anemic to free-market types they usually can't even contemplate it. It would take something like an economy-destroying epidemic (!) to realize the consequences of their lack of strategic investment at very least in things like specific manufacturing (medical, medicinal) and food production. All of a sudden those farming subsidies start to look a little different!
6) So what issue ties all of Marc's seemingly disparate points together? Why didn't he look deeper at Taiwan, S. Korea, Singapore as examples? What's actually going on there at a more fundamental level that's different from the USA?
I'm not necessarily advocating for some big 'state-managed' anything or huge governmental intervention. But I am certainly advocating for rational and specific nationalist intervention, with a communitarian attitude - or at very least the contemplation of it.
The fact someone so enormously intelligent and influential 'didn't even go there' I feel is because the language is literally lost in North America. They have no idea what it even means. Much like entrepreneurialism, especially 'creative destruction' is a really hard concept for many business circles in Europe to get. It's like a foreign language.
I don't disagree on the primary point you're trying to make, but I feel like you have a warped image of -at least- Germany. Germany has a housing crisis as well, rent is through the roof in the major metropolitan areas.
> The US doesn't really care that much about citizen v. non-citizen - the economic benefit in the short term is outsource/insource - there is no consideration for the population.
That's very true for Germany as well.
Germany's Nazi-past has left the political climate in a state of explicit denial of self-interest. Obviously, Germany very much has political and economical interests as any nation will. The main difference compared to the US, Britain or France is that it's a big no-no to say so in Germany. Concerns about the impact of decisions on Germany's citizens are considered nationalist and suspect of being far right.
I'm a non-German who lived in Germany, the US, and other places.
As you say 'it's impolite' to talk about the citizens in a nationalist way, yes, but Germany (and many other nations) are still deeply ethnocentric - it's by default. Almost everything about Germany is 'German' and when almost all economic, political and social concern on a broader level is about 'Germany'. It actually takes some intellectual effort to go beyond and think in terms of 'Europe' or even 'The World'.
'Not being so nationalist' is a social artifact of many nations these days, and I suggest it's just a healthy dose of self-awareness, but it doesn't change the definition of what the community is in the minds of citizens.
FYI I should point out that I don't think the US in a 'Germany model' would somehow result in the government building rocket-ships, but it would result in healthcare, better employment terms.
Possibly, though it's a cultural thing, so I don't believe you can simply say "we're switching to a Germany model". The US is very individualistic, Germany is more collectivist. Individualistic cultures are more unequal, have issues with high taxes, government regulations and so on. They are much more flexible, can react to changes and move fast. And, as the Facebook motto goes (or went), sometimes they break things.
As for the claimed anti-nationalism, I fundamentally dislike it because it's a charade from start to finish. When "I want A" becomes amoral, everything gets wrapped in fifty layers of misdirection and rationalization, and finding compromise gets even harder because nobody can admit to what they actually want. It's a pathological trait in individuals, and I don't believe it's healthy on a society level. I'm not saying "that's how it has to be", rather "that's how it is, so let's not pretend it isn't". At the first sign of trouble, it's becoming evident anyhow, but if our arrangements are built on different assumptions, the damage will be much larger.
1) If non-college educated kids had a legit path into the market (like they do in Germany) then surpluses would be more evenly distributed and housing wouldn't be such a problem.
But they don't have path because a) industry won't train and b) the US is an economically liberal place - there is no communitarian impetus (like Japan/Germany) to structure. The US doesn't really care that much about citizen v. non-citizen - the economic benefit in the short term is outsource/insource - there is no consideration for the population.
US Citizens are an externality to the business world.
2) On the college side, the US has already financialized the college race, arguably to a nearly corrupt degree. There are tons of kids going to Uni in the US, many of them ill-prepared, and then will be over-indebted.
3) Silicon Valley VC does not want longer-term risky bets, they want to make short term bits with big near term payouts, with long term outcomes again, irrelevant.
It makes much more sense to invest in something like Twitter/TikTok/SnapChat than most other things in this context.
4) And who exactly built those supersonic planes? Was it VC's? No! It was generally the government, with the impetus of war, specifically WW2 and the Cold War! Literally ARPANET.
5) 'Building here' would entail a coordinated national strategy that is anemic to free-market types they usually can't even contemplate it. It would take something like an economy-destroying epidemic (!) to realize the consequences of their lack of strategic investment at very least in things like specific manufacturing (medical, medicinal) and food production. All of a sudden those farming subsidies start to look a little different!
6) So what issue ties all of Marc's seemingly disparate points together? Why didn't he look deeper at Taiwan, S. Korea, Singapore as examples? What's actually going on there at a more fundamental level that's different from the USA?
I'm not necessarily advocating for some big 'state-managed' anything or huge governmental intervention. But I am certainly advocating for rational and specific nationalist intervention, with a communitarian attitude - or at very least the contemplation of it.
The fact someone so enormously intelligent and influential 'didn't even go there' I feel is because the language is literally lost in North America. They have no idea what it even means. Much like entrepreneurialism, especially 'creative destruction' is a really hard concept for many business circles in Europe to get. It's like a foreign language.