Post

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
Click again on or Share Via icon
Click on Copy Link to Tweet
Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
More info at Twitter Help

Branko Milanovic

Sep 8, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X

When I read serious journalists writing about "preserving the integrity of the US electoral process" I am really not sure if they themselves know what they mean.

If they mean that no foreigner may be allowed to express opinion on US election that has clearly never been the case and is utterly unenforceable in the age of internet. Millions of foreigners openly express opinions and no one can stop them.

Moreover, its corollary would be that no American should express an opinion on any election elsewhere which is the "rule" that the self same journalists do not observe and to which the same problems as just mentioned apply.

If they mean that foreign state actors should have no opinion or right to express it, this is also meaningless because the distinction between state and non-state actors has become very thin.

Many actors (not the fewest of them located in DC) claim to be non-state actors while they are often fully or partially funded by governments, or other govt-affiliated organizations. Or their personnel is doing revolving doors between think tanks and govt institutions.

Thus, when you unwrap what the journalists are saying (regarding the expressions of opinion or so called fake news) it is either meaningless, goes against what people normally have been doing for ages, or is unenforceable.

The unambiguous and clear interference is the one that has to do with foreign money or provision of resources. That one has been used by many countries as the new book by Dov Levin shows:
global.oup.com/academic/produ…).

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @BrankoMilan

Branko Milanovic

@BrankoMilan

Apr 14

In 1974, it made sense to speak of the Three Worlds, as among themselves, and treating China that never belonged to the Third World apart, they accounted for 98% of world GDP (in PPP terms).
Capitalist core 62%
Socialist countries 13%
Third World 24%
China 2%

But now we have a different situation. The capitalist core has shrunk despite its geographical extension to E Europe. The socialist world has disappeared. The 3rd world is more important thanks to the rise of Asia.
Core 44%
China 22%
Politically heterogen. periphery 31%
RUS 3%

In political sense, we have a unified West with 44%, China with ½ of that amount, politically heterogeneous periphery with almost 1/3 of global GDP (but its political power is low because of that heterogeneity) and Russia that is obviously trying to punch above its weight.

Read 5 tweets

Branko Milanovic

@BrankoMilan

Mar 3

When in my recent talk in Edinburgh I claimed that Adam Smith could be seen as "a man of the left" (these terms btw are not used in the Visions of Inequality) this was based on the following:

Smith's extraordinary strong critique of how the rich have acquired their wealth (plunder, corruption, collusion, trade companies, monopoly, colonialism). That critique is often stronger than Marx's critique of "primitive accumulation".

Smith's view that of all social classes, only the interests of employers are opposed to the social interest because advancement of society implies a decrease in the rate of profit, and hence lower income for them. Netherlands is often cited there.

Read 7 tweets

Branko Milanovic

@BrankoMilan

Jan 23

My new paper "The three eras of global income inequality 1820-2020, with the focus on the past 30 years" is just out in World Development. Access is free for 50 days.
Here is the link:
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

It is an important paper. Not only because it gives calculations of global inequality over 200 years (following Bourguignon & Morrisson seminal work) but because it looks at the political implications of the three eras: the rise of the West, the Three Worlds & the rise of Asia.

It then focuses on the past 30 years. Global inequality went down by ~10 Gini points mostly thanks to China. But this is not the full story. The convergence happened in total numbers becase Asian countries are so populous, were poor ad grew fast.

Read 12 tweets

Branko Milanovic

@BrankoMilan

Jan 9

Much has been written about China's train system. But not enough. I think that it will be seen, with the system of canals and the Great Wall, as one of the most important contributions of China. One can see it as a proof that China excels in network industries.

The speed, punctuality and cleanliness of the system are absolutely remarkable. But even more striking to a visitor is how apparently simple and well-organized is everything so much that one cannot but wonder why other countries have not done the same thing.

Building no-nonsense train stations that look like airports, laying down the tracks, producing the trains, planning the exact number of cars by journey in function of ticket sales, building in redundancies, controlling the speed are not tasks requiring some new superb knowledge.

Read 4 tweets

Branko Milanovic

@BrankoMilan

Dec 10, 2023

Somebody asked me for book recommendations re. the classics, capitalism etc. (I am not exactly sure what b/c it is hard to judge what people are interested in from just a couple of sentences). Nevertheless, I sent a list of books. First, those published in the past 3-4 years...

Darrin McMahon, Equality
David Lay Williams, "The greatest of all plagues"
Glori Liu, Adam Smith's America
Marcelo Musta, The last years of Karl Marx
Krishnan Nayar, Liberal capitalist democracy
Fritz Bartels, The triumph of broken promises

Ian Kumekawa, Pigou: The first serious optimist
Kevin Andrson, Marx at the margins
Jamie Martins, The meddlers
Dannis Rasmussen, The infidel and the professor (Hume & Smith)
Michael Heinrich, Marx and the origin of the modern world

Read 6 tweets