i think the main reason there is progressive social concepts tend to be universalist in nature sociopolitically whereas that isn't always true for conservative ones

Tru

ive thought theres a deep irony in the fact that most neocons who talk about federalism domestically are the same people who basically advocate for regime change and american hegemony abroad, whereas meanwhile countries with strong authoritative centralization like china advocate for the international equivalent of self-determinate federalism

I feel like that has a lot to do with the fact that federal state has often been less reactionary than those states who have relatively lower populations

something something dialectics

I'm myself generally opposed to federalism unless there's a good reason, in a multi-ethnic state it can be a good thing to allow for cultural freedom, but politically and economically i'd say it's usually a bad thing

It can alao often lead to unnecessary ethnic divisions that didn't really exist before to that extent (like in Ethiopia rn)

I don't think it's connected tbh. It's not like China really cares if a state is reactionary, they were recognizing and actively trading and doing diplomacy with Chile under Pinochet and that was at a period when they were far less capitalist than they are now. It seems more like an epistemological thing.
I think americans who believe in federalism in the modern era (on a macro level) only really tend to believe it as a cope because they think due to widespread affirmation of concepts among institutions and the like that federalism is the only way to "win". I think this is the same reason people like Bannon obsesses with Lenin and talks about destroying the state but keeps a distance from libertarian ethic. It's because they realize there isn't a realistic shot at which they just dismantle institutions or influences so they simply want to isolate things until institutions fail. However abroad the problem is they realize this operation - whether domestic or abroad - requires working within a very specific structural framework so the advocating for federalism is more strategic domestically, whereas abroad the inverse philosophy is done to keep the framework said federalist strategy works in viable.

possibly one of the largest grifters of this era

I was speaking specifically abt the US there, like smaller states in terms of population are more often more reactionary than not

But i see what you mean

I don't actually think he's a grifter tbh. Or at least not in the traditional sense. He's not a candance owen who has this whole fake everything and it's all for money/opportunism.
Bannon definitely believes much of what he reaps & sows and the fact he's flown to Italy to arm literal nazis to try and overthrow the government is proof of that. That's not grifter behavior. The fact he flew to the Vatican to talk to Cardinals and give a speech about Evola and tearing down western civilization is not a grift. He's engineered policy in Hungary and has links to actual non-LARP far right cells in europe and stuff.
The thing is that Bannon is very smart. He's not a dumbass with money trying to line his pockets further like the Mercers or something, he really legitimately believes in the deep far right Evola stuff. The thing is that the grifter side of him is he deeply hates America and the American working class, who he thinks lacks any form of culture and has a resentment for them as the RW equivalent of lumpenprole. So he thinks their only worth is extracting money for his real political ventures through grifts engineered specfically for the purpose of how stupid he thinks they are (no comment on the success there).

wasnt aware of his actions overseas, interesting.

Unrelated, but I've noticed it's the small western European states which couldn't expand on the continent that did colonialism abroad. Eastern Empires could either expand regionally and got so big they grew kind of satisfied or were already the center of trade.

Geographics had a lot to do with it for sure but also technological advances in the west

personally i think it's funny that like every european country's imperialism was basically driven by economic desire and then racism came as a result of it

and then there's f***ing Belgium whose imperialism was solely based on being racist and the economics came later

we fr gotta s*** on belgian people more, literally had human zoos stocked with african people in them all the way up to the f***ing modern era of the 60s. a level of racism not achieved literally anywhere else in europe

Is thie what marx meant when he said Base => Superstructure => Base

belgium's imperialism is legit one of the only times in history where if someone made some weird lib-style pop pathology statement about it it'd be objectively correct

literally was King Leopold being like "damn i have no b****es and hate black people, what is there left of africa to f*** over"

Yeah but about the technology, isn't it about what states feel the need to invest in?

Absolutely, and that’s if they even invest in it, let alone have the resources to invest in it competitively in the first place

Small European countries were still in the competitive and thus super-progressing technical battlefield of Europe, and using their skills, they went to lands where those skills and means didn’t exist to exploit. Same way highly centralized Asian empires went to other areas of Asia that lacked the same means

That as well, but if we're gonna look at the industrial revolution, those technological advancements were gonna be beneficial everywhere eventually

I think when looking at why eastern european empires such as the russian empire hadn't expanded further abroad when they had pretty much conquered all territory in eurasia technology is more important, in which the lack of capitalist development played a big role

Ofc it would also depend on what type of technology, more advanced modes of transportation would obviously be more beneficial for a country having colonies overseas already like many in western europe, but as Marx laid out the development of machinery driven manufacturing predated the steam engine, and the development of streamlined manufacturing was the result of the development of capitalism. So in this case i think in this instance it's more so a change in the relations of production leading to a change in the forces of production than the other way around if we're gonna get real marxoid about it

Russia only finished expanding in the late 19th century though. If we look at spain/portugal/france they were very "backwards" compared to England/the Dutch but they still went out there. So I think it was more a matter of geography.

That's true, I don't think geography played no part at all, but there were also other factors, and I think its role diminished over time when it had less room to expand in Eastern Europe and Asia, although it was still important.

For up until the era of New Imperialism it still had plenty of places to colonize, but by the time of the scramble for Africa it had done most of its expansion. But by that time they that time they just didn't have enough resources to conquer and defend parts of Africa compared to the compared to European countries including those like Spain by now. If the Ottomans wouldn't block the Black Sea I think it coulda been differently but who knows

didnt the discourse start over keeping slavery/segregation in the south anyway?

Yeah its been used to argue against public infrastructure, public schools, the Central Bank, the Postal service, Environmental Regulations, Worker rights, Desegregation, Slavery abolition, Universal suffrage, etc. Everytime this has reached a climax the feds were willing to use military force, idk if thats the case anymore.

The broadcasts were now resumed. One reporter felt he should mention the difficulty Mrs. Kennedy was having in getting rid of her bloodstained stockings. Fidel exploded: “What sort of a mind is this!” He repeated the remark several times: “What sort of a mind is this? There is a difference in our civilizations after all. Are you like this in Europe? For us Latin Americans, death is a sacred matter; not only does it mark the close of hostilities, but it also imposes decency, dignity, respect. There are even street urchins who behave like kings in the face of death. Incidentally, this reminds me of something else: if you write all those things I told you yesterday against Kennedy’s policy, don’t use his name now; speak instead of the policy of the United States government.”

the coming recession is gonna be nuts, a few months ago i said it wasn't gonna be as bad as 08 w/o a full tech crash, i think i'm changing my prediction. still doubt theres gonna be a full tech burst but the tech & finance crash is coming alongside the wider recession. not gonna be pretty