I swear I was taught in literal high school at 14 years of age that the way western economies got rich through colonialism was import of cheap raw materials, export of high-added value manufactures. When did politicians in the west forget about that and decide to let the industry move to China lmao
When did politicians in the west forget about that and decide to let the industry move to China lmao
the 70’s and early 80’s when they wanted leverage against domestic unions.
Neoliberalism beginning in the 70s had capital looking to export industry to increase profit margins. Imperial core domestic policy still tried to keep technological advantage (which is one angle of looking at the purpose industry served) through IP and high tech but of course we can see that there was no discipline there, profit-seeking won out. This was the basic gamble of some Dengist policies and they were correct that capitalists would just straight-up give you their industrial base so long as you allowed your population to be exploited and required tech transfer agreements.
As another commenter mentioned this also allowed US companies to crush unions. But I think it is more about increasing profits and companies just used threats of offshoring to discipline labor. Given how much cheaper labor was in China, it already made fiscal sense to offshore, they just needed to build up to their preferred inflection point, have PR ready to go, and get their ducks in a row for how they would close entire factories and not get sued or murdered.
One of the sadder things is that if the USSR could’ve held on for two more decades it would have had an industrial base while the imperialists did not. And imagine a Sino-Soviet reunion driven by the factors that led to BRICS.
China stays winning. Honestly one of the only bright spots in the world right now.
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What an unplanned economy does to a mfer
Western economists when the USSR slows its growth from 1975 to 1985 due to a variety of reasons including hesitation to fire workers from outdated workplaces, increased difficulty in resource extraction due to prime deposits being exploited, leniency with a black market of stolen state property, lack of F&D in civilian sector of the economy due to resources being pulled by the military because of US pressure, and some inefficiencies in allocation of workers remaining from the Fel’dman model, all while still increasing real purchase power by 3.5% per year per capita in the same period: This is absolute and final proof that planned economies must never be tried again
Western economists when the EU can’t recover its 2008 level after 16 years of neoliberal austerity policy under capitalism, continuously eroding the welfare state, worker rights and the purchase power of citizens in those countries year after year: “This is by far the best system history has to offer”
would be interesting to also see a line chart with absolute values to go with the pie chart of relative percentages. The pie chart shows China’s mega-growth, but are the other main competitors still growing, stagnating, regressing, etc.?
From what I’ve seen, mostly stagnating or regressing based on the industrial PMI numbers. One other country that’s having big industrial growth right now is Russia.
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/china-worlds-sole-manufacturing-superpower-line-sketch-rise
You might be able to find some of what you’re looking for here
