I don't care about his other thoughts on Mexico, I care about this prediction he made about Mexico.
Yes, it deals with Mexico's economy. The Next 100 Years isn't a scholarly work; it doesn't have to be criticized on its own merits.
How does one measure a "level of exploitation" and how is Japan's active interference in Chinese politics going to work? And why is this, presumably, costly approach to sourcing labor (or is it productive capacity?) any better than what Japan has now for very little cost?
The first question is ridiculous. I can't predict those and I shouldn't have to. Japan, presumably, will exploit Chinese coastal regions to a degree that a centralized Chinese government would never allow.
Friedman made those claims. I'm just arranging them in a logical fashion and questioning how credible the resulting predictions (based on the totality of all of those claims) is.
No, you said that Poland could never catch up no matter what because Germany is
just too powerful. You then said that there were three Chinese scenarios and that Friedman picked the least probable. You finished by saying that Germany, forty to fifty years in the future, will be better placed to control Eastern Europe than Japan would to a "Balkanized China." None of these assertions are argued for.
I made no such assumption. I'm trying to critically engage with you on some of the more problematic aspects of Friedman's book.
Than please respond to the inconsistencies I've pointed out between your criticism and what the book actually says.
No, he's not, I agree. At no point does he say that Bill Richardson will turn-coat and become the governor of New New Mexico for the Mexican Occupation Authority. But he's certainly suggesting that Mexican-Americans are as a group potential traitors and fifth-columnists who might one day support enosis with Mexico in sufficient strength to carry off parts of the United States which is an extreme view actively promoted by anti-immigration extremists.
What does it matter if anti-immigration extremists promote the view? How does that have any bearing on its accuracy? I'm sure there were nuts in 1830's Mexico who ranted about the US wanting to annex the entire northern part of their country. Stopped clock, etc.
You've literally missed the boat. I haven't called Friedman a racist. In fact I emphatically denied that he was. To quote myself:
To which I responded, quoting Traitorfish:
That's
not what I said. It doesn't matter if you called Friedman a racist, you said there were racist overtones in his work. So I asked TF to see if there was anything in the book which seemed as such.
The next exchange is particularly... enlightening because it clearly shows that Mouthwash understands what I'm objecting too and even provides examples to show he understands. I also note that Mouthwash accepts that I'm not making a claim Friedman is a racist, but rather that the view is to quote myself "despicable".
I think you're confused about what "every Mexican being a potential traitor" actually means. There are two different ways this can be interpreted- to suggest that any given Mexican-American, taken randomly, would have a good chance of being a Mexican nationalist, and that any individual Mexican-American is psychologically capable of becoming a traitor to the United States. The former is obviously true (although the controversy is
how we should deal with ethnic nationalism), the latter actually is racist and despicable. And you're equivocating the two.
