- cross-posted to:
- videos@hexbear.net
- cross-posted to:
- videos@hexbear.net
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The US itself ran a trade surplus from 1870 to 1970. Coincidentally that is also when the US was strongest in terms of industrial capacity and economic growth. Why should China adopt the newer model of the US based on running a trade deficit when this model has coincided with a period of deindustrialization and deterioration in living standards? How can China even do that if they don’t control the global reserve currency? Why would they want to control the global reserve currency if that requires giving up on capital controls? Does China want to become US 2.0?
Before 1971, during the gold standard and Bretton Woods era, most countries had fixed exchange rate which means that those that ran trade surpluses actually accumulated something valuable (gold, dollar pegged to gold).
After 1971, the US began to export its manufacturing capacity to the Global South, and the latter countries that since ran trade surpluses receive a number in their bank accounts in return (a number that the Fed could make up by simply typing in keystrokes). Huge difference here.
That’s how super-imperialism works. The wealthy Global North countries exploit the cheap labor and resources, and extract the surplus values from the Global South simply through financial means, through the power of their currency exchange rate.
Anyone who supports this really is a crypto-imperialist who wants the Global South working class to work even harder but receive no real benefits in return in the form of imported goods and services.
Ironically, Trump is right. China should give Trump exactly what he wants. Let the American workers be the world sweatshop workers for once lmao. Let the Global South countries enjoy the fruits of American labor for once, for they have extracted from the rest of the world for far too long.
The US’s global hegemony isn’t based on financial domination, it’s the other way around: the US’s financial domination is based on its global hegemony. That global hegemony was established through military dominance and even more importantly through economic dominance, through having the world’s biggest industrial base. Once that productive industrial base is hollowed out and disappears, it is only a matter of time until the global military and economic dominance cannot be maintained. And after that is gone, their finance primacy won’t last long.
This same thing happened to the British empire. The finance-imperialism model only works as long as there is something real underpinning it.
The simple reality is this: in a relationship where one side has all the goods and the other side all the money, the side with the goods will always ultimately have the upper hand. Because you can live without money. You cannot live without goods. We have seen this demonstrated very clearly in the context of the economic war waged against Russia: why did the sanctions fail to bring Russia to its knees? Because Russia has the resources that everyone needs. That is where the real power lies, not in numbers in some bank account.
We saw this same dynamic play out again in the context of the US defeat in the trade war against China. China as the only seller of rare earths in sufficient quantities was always going to have more power than the US as the buyer. China is indispensable. The US is not. There are always other buyers. That gives China immense power and it would have to be utterly stupid to give that up, to make itself dependent, as the West has done, on imports from other countries.
It is this self-sufficiency that makes China truly sovereign and independent, which very few countries are.
It is very clear to me that China has no intention of deviating away from this strategy, and that it has no intention of becoming like the US.
And also, Trump’s strategy is never going to work. The US cannot reindustrialize, not because of China but because it is stuck in this neoliberal financialized paradigm.
The British empire was a global creditor. The post-Bretton Woods US empire is a global debtor. Huge difference here.
The British empire needed gold. The US empire simply has to type in a number into the computers. Huge difference here.
The idea of a trillion dollar surplus is just insanity. It means, in a very simplistic sense, Chinese workers breaking their backs producing 1 trillion dollar of surplus values while getting no real goods and services in return. How is that not exploitation?
If your idea of socialism is workers from Global South countries working hard to send cheap goods and services for wealthy Global North countries to enjoy while receiving no real benefits in return but a mere number in bank account, which in turn perpetuate neo-colonial exploitation and surplus value extraction, then so be it, but understand that this is just Western left wing crypto-imperialism.
The US empire is not sustainable. It will collapse and it is already collapsing.
I’m not saying Chinese labor isn’t being exploited but also I would say that a 500% increase in average real wages over the last few decades plus the general year over year increases in standards of living and quality of infrastructure isn’t “getting nothing to show for it”
I’m sitting in america getting paid less every year in real terms due to inflation watching everything around me literally crumble
You can have well paid workers with 500% increase in real wages without having to rely on running an export-led growth strategy. That’s my point.
It is neoliberal ideology that made countries do that.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
