Confessions of a 'leftist' Capitalist
From commodity trader to a centrist
Apparently I am perceived by some in my group of (Indian) male friends here in Switzerland as a leftist. In fact, I have never thought of myself in that way.
With a long career spent in trading of industrial commodities, I always claimed to be a free market capitalist. The essential purpose of life is to make money. Only the fittest will survive. If you want to give me your money and I can take it by legitimate means, I will.
For most of my working life, I was employed by companies that had American owners. Amongst other benefits, this allowed me to travel frequently to the US and appreciate its good and bad aspects. I specially appreciated its open attitude to world trade.
However, I have been troubled lately.
Trade is a two way street and an exchange between consenting adults - goods for money - has been the foundation of human activity. I might even venture to say that trading is the oldest profession in the world.
I looked up some data from 2019 onwards, choosing this year because it was the last full year before the COVID-19 pandemic, and global economies were showing signs of slowing growth, especially due to U.S.-China trade disputes and weakening industrial production in many developed countries.
According to IMF estimates, world GDP in 2024 was $110.06T, up from $87.4T in 2019. In other words, during a very tumultuous 5 years for our planet, we still managed to grow GDP by almost 26%. During this period, the share of US grew from 24.5% to 26.5% ($21.4T to $29.16T).
If we consider the S&P index as representative of US wealth in general, these same five years saw an increase of 83.8% in the SPY ETF.
According to a certain section of people, the past four years have been the worse period in America’s history and they feel the responsibility and obligation to correct this travesty. While I was unable to find an estimate of Q1 2025 GDP, we do know that SPY is down 13.79% this year so far, making it the worst performing stock market this year.
I’m going to make one more point, which is topical, since I have been talking recently to my good friend Paul Hodges who writes the substack
on the subject (and I follow it a bit). The price of US benchmark crude WTI dropped about 10% in two days.US is the largest producer of oil & refined oil products in the world. Let this sink in:
Production of about 22 mbpd (EIA data), equal to about 22% of global production.
About 43% of that in Texas.
US exports about 11 mbpd of oil and oil products (EIA data)
The 10% price drop is a hit to the US economy that has not been fully highlighted in the popular media yet. I would contend that this will lead to a fall in US oil production and, combined with reciprocal tariffs, lead to a fall in US exports as well.
No pain, no gain? I’m sorry, but that philosophy popularised by Jane Fonda in the 1980s was already being criticised by medical professionals in the 1990s; and is totally out of vogue in the current times. Pain just causes injury, and if you're swinging a sledgehammer at your own knees, the damage may be irreparable.
My contention, not a surprise, is that trade is essential to the prosperity of the world and barriers (tariffs or otherwise) take the grease out of this well oiled machine.
So … am I a leftist?
In my formative years, a “leftist” to me was a Communist, a Naxalite, or maybe a Socialist. These were people whose philosophy of life did not benefit the group that they were trying to influence. I did not have much opportunity to learn about the “rightist” movement, since it was not a thing in India.
I believe that extreme views, whether left or right, are equally harmful to society.
I believe that I sway somewhat to the left or right of centre, depending on the context.
I believe that the current wave of right wing authoritarianism can only harm the world - the lack of tolerance for divergent views is a particularly poisonous feature.
I believe that a tyrant always falls, though history tells us that the revolution that topples a tyrant puts another one in its place, more often than not.
Am I rambling? Yes, I think so. Political view to trade, and back to political view.
But maybe it’s all connected.
Endnotes:
For those who are familiar with Indian history:
In her book “This Unquiet Land”, Barkha Dutt quotes form the political economist Rajani Kothari’s book “Politics in India”: from 1947 to 1967, the ruling Congress allowed free political discourse within the party which stopped the leadership from being authoritarian. However, Indira Gandhi changed this culture. She also variously muzzled the press and imposed President’s Rule a total of 48 times. This eventually led to the downfall of the Congress. India has fallen in Press Freedom rankings under the current regime.
The podcaster Abhishek recently talked with Marcel Dirsus, author of “How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive”. The main takeaway is this: Tyrants project invincibility, but all of them fall. I have not read the book, but I strongly recommend listening to the podcast.
I have drawn from open sources on the internet to write this piece, and given credit wherever I could; but the opinions and views expressed here are entirely my own. There was more to write, but with every keystroke I was afraid of going out of date - events are ,moving way too fast in the last few days.
As usual, thanks for reading this post. Please like, comment, share and subscribe for free to appreciate and support my writing, and receive new posts.
Thanks Indranil. I watched the video - it is excellent and breaks it down for anyone to understand.
Chang strikes an optimistic note about Trump not having ideology, but I am pessimistic because he overlooks Trump’s ego, incompetence and delusion of always being right.
In his early days, he took learning and advice from his lawyer Roy Cohn. “The most important thing is to NEVER admit your mistakes. ALWAYS blame someone else.” This is shown in an excellent movie called “The Apperentice”, which chronicles Trump until 1987.
Brilliant article Ashok. It's good to show that GDP has increased enormously in nominal terms. Maybe inflation has increased quite a bit of it (at least half of the increase, I would say). Especially telling is the point that the US has taken an increasing percentage of it. Americans make great intangible products (Windows, Word, Movies, Music, Gmail, Linkedin etc) and I spend most of my days using American products. But their greed and need to dominate seem to know no bounds (otherwise they wouldn't have elected and accepted this President). I don't mind if inequalities increase because they are making more money, but to reduce/destroy what others have is really going too far. My apologies to all the nice Americans I have met: but as you say, if I have met you its because you are outgoing and traveling and not the typical American.