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
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.
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
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.