Like seriously, think about how dumb the things are that these people are saying: “keeping prices artificially low?”. All prices are artificial, all prices are the result of human decision. When you sell your goods you’re usually the one who gets to decide how low or how high the price is, and you are free to make it as much under the “market value” as you please. You can even choose to sell stuff for less than the cost of production so long as you can balance that out with positive revenue from other sources. Not that i believe Chinese EV manufacturers are making a loss, but let’s say they were and let’s say the state was purposely enabling and allowing that by subsidizing them, so what?
It is the sovereign right of every state to exercise as much or as little control over any industries that operate on their soil as they wish. Everything that is made by Chinese companies, whether nominally privately owned or state owned, is ultimately under the jurisdiction of the Chinese people. And the Chinese state as the representative of the people has the right to decide who their goods are sold to and at what price. The fact that they usually choose not to interfere directly in how private enterprises are run and instead allow the market to more or less dictate prices doesn’t mean that they can’t or won’t interfere when the national interest of China is at stake.
And for the record i’m not suggesting that the Chinese state is itself setting the prices, of course it’s the companies themselves that do it and they do it because they have decided it is good for business to do so, to undercut the competition and expand into their competitors’ market space. All that the state does is help with some subsidies which is not unusual and nothing that Europeans or Americans haven’t done themselves at times. State intervention in the economy isn’t exclusive to socialist states like China.
As i said previously, this is simply sore loser behavior from the Europeans. They could be honest and admit that they need to employ protectionist measures because China as the bigger and more competitive economy will ruin their domestic industries otherwise. That would be ok. But if they admitted that then they’d have to admit that a) they are the inferior party (and their chauvinism won’t allow them to admit that) and b) that whenever they have forced weaker countries in the global south to open up their economies and markets to free trade they knew this was detrimental to those countries and not intended to “help” them as the IMF or the WTO usually claim when they impose such conditions.
I’d like to add a point (which I don’t think contradicts you). The EU and the US heavily subsidise their ruling class but, like ‘corruption/lobbying’ they call it different things. Take Dublin, for example. What are Dublin’s low taxes but a massive subsidy? There’s a market logic to it, so it’s not only for Europeans in a strict protectionist sense. But it does subsidise ‘business’ (at the expense of taxpayers).
There’s also the welfare state. By providing some necessities (albeit these systems are crumbling), employers can pay significantly lower wages. If not for welfare, the workers would simply be unable to survive and/or perform on their other wages. Plus agricultural and fossil subsidies, which keeps some prices lower, enabling the workers to eat calorie dense foods and travel to work on their shit wages (which are shit even topped up with welfare).
I agree with you, though. These redacteds don’t see these things as subsidies because their anti-trust laws say that they’re not allowed therefore the decision makers must pretend that something else is happening.
Additionally – or maybe it’s the same thing reworded – Anglo-European subsidies are often financial in nature. It’s a roundabout way of funding industrial/agricultural production but it has two major flaws that will lead to the demise of neoliberal capitalism.
First, by strengthening finance capital, they accelerate the gap between financial and, let’s say, productive capital. This is terrible for people as it contributes to rampant inflation and ‘justifies’ high interest rates. But it can only go on for so long before something like a war with Russia swings the bat of reality into their faces as they realise that increasing military expenditure to €Xbn doesn’t mean shit if the money isn’t spent on actual factories, etc. Same with the auto industry. It can only be used to leverage finance for so long before the cracks start to show.
Second, there’s no guarantee that the subsidy is applied efficiently. By that, I mean, the only guarantee is that if you give neoliberal vampires a tax cut the only trickling down they’ll be doing is with piss over the working class. The tax savings will be laundered through a tax haven.
In this sense, I suppose, these subsidies aren’t subsidies. They are a way of funneling social wealth into a few private hands. Which brings us to one of the EU’s unstated concerns: cheaper Chinese EVs (in cost, not quality) or any other commodity don’t just risk European company sales; they risk doing to the tracks of the gravy train what the yanks did to the tracks of their real trains through simple neglect. The EU top brass knows the real movement to abolish the existing state of things has started and they have zero answers. Poor them.
Like seriously, think about how dumb the things are that these people are saying: “keeping prices artificially low?”. All prices are artificial, all prices are the result of human decision. When you sell your goods you’re usually the one who gets to decide how low or how high the price is, and you are free to make it as much under the “market value” as you please. You can even choose to sell stuff for less than the cost of production so long as you can balance that out with positive revenue from other sources. Not that i believe Chinese EV manufacturers are making a loss, but let’s say they were and let’s say the state was purposely enabling and allowing that by subsidizing them, so what?
It is the sovereign right of every state to exercise as much or as little control over any industries that operate on their soil as they wish. Everything that is made by Chinese companies, whether nominally privately owned or state owned, is ultimately under the jurisdiction of the Chinese people. And the Chinese state as the representative of the people has the right to decide who their goods are sold to and at what price. The fact that they usually choose not to interfere directly in how private enterprises are run and instead allow the market to more or less dictate prices doesn’t mean that they can’t or won’t interfere when the national interest of China is at stake.
And for the record i’m not suggesting that the Chinese state is itself setting the prices, of course it’s the companies themselves that do it and they do it because they have decided it is good for business to do so, to undercut the competition and expand into their competitors’ market space. All that the state does is help with some subsidies which is not unusual and nothing that Europeans or Americans haven’t done themselves at times. State intervention in the economy isn’t exclusive to socialist states like China.
As i said previously, this is simply sore loser behavior from the Europeans. They could be honest and admit that they need to employ protectionist measures because China as the bigger and more competitive economy will ruin their domestic industries otherwise. That would be ok. But if they admitted that then they’d have to admit that a) they are the inferior party (and their chauvinism won’t allow them to admit that) and b) that whenever they have forced weaker countries in the global south to open up their economies and markets to free trade they knew this was detrimental to those countries and not intended to “help” them as the IMF or the WTO usually claim when they impose such conditions.
Great points, comrade.
I’d like to add a point (which I don’t think contradicts you). The EU and the US heavily subsidise their ruling class but, like ‘corruption/lobbying’ they call it different things. Take Dublin, for example. What are Dublin’s low taxes but a massive subsidy? There’s a market logic to it, so it’s not only for Europeans in a strict protectionist sense. But it does subsidise ‘business’ (at the expense of taxpayers).
There’s also the welfare state. By providing some necessities (albeit these systems are crumbling), employers can pay significantly lower wages. If not for welfare, the workers would simply be unable to survive and/or perform on their other wages. Plus agricultural and fossil subsidies, which keeps some prices lower, enabling the workers to eat calorie dense foods and travel to work on their shit wages (which are shit even topped up with welfare).
I agree with you, though. These redacteds don’t see these things as subsidies because their anti-trust laws say that they’re not allowed therefore the decision makers must pretend that something else is happening.
Additionally – or maybe it’s the same thing reworded – Anglo-European subsidies are often financial in nature. It’s a roundabout way of funding industrial/agricultural production but it has two major flaws that will lead to the demise of neoliberal capitalism.
First, by strengthening finance capital, they accelerate the gap between financial and, let’s say, productive capital. This is terrible for people as it contributes to rampant inflation and ‘justifies’ high interest rates. But it can only go on for so long before something like a war with Russia swings the bat of reality into their faces as they realise that increasing military expenditure to €Xbn doesn’t mean shit if the money isn’t spent on actual factories, etc. Same with the auto industry. It can only be used to leverage finance for so long before the cracks start to show.
Second, there’s no guarantee that the subsidy is applied efficiently. By that, I mean, the only guarantee is that if you give neoliberal vampires a tax cut the only trickling down they’ll be doing is with piss over the working class. The tax savings will be laundered through a tax haven.
In this sense, I suppose, these subsidies aren’t subsidies. They are a way of funneling social wealth into a few private hands. Which brings us to one of the EU’s unstated concerns: cheaper Chinese EVs (in cost, not quality) or any other commodity don’t just risk European company sales; they risk doing to the tracks of the gravy train what the yanks did to the tracks of their real trains through simple neglect. The EU top brass knows the real movement to abolish the existing state of things has started and they have zero answers. Poor them.
These are some excellent insights!