Trade Wars Are Class Wars: Part III -- Credit Cycles and Growth Models

After the ‘End of History’

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Mario and Tom

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Episode 23 returns to Pettis and Klein's Trade Wars Are Class Wars, focusing on chapters 2 and 3 to discuss how the mere willingness to trade is insufficient to make trade happen. How is the growth of finance central to the authors' argument about the mechanisms of trade imbalances? What are the stakes for International Relations Theory and stability in the inter-state order?
While trade and finance have been linked for thousands of years, the marriage has not always been a happy one. We look at the book's periodization of credit boom and bust cycles from the early 19th century through the present and discuss the different ways to think about the relation between trade and finance in the age of capitalism modernization and imperialism. Challenges in managing this relationship have proven to create unstable distortions in the macroeconomic system.
We then pivot again to our focus on China. The conversation concludes by setting up an in-depth look at the country's "four stages" of current-day economic development, bringing Pettis & Klein's insights to bear on Deng's market reforms beginning in 1978.
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