19 hours ago
18 yrs old party is not Man の は ス の ア ク セ solid off り お く します. Seest thou ta wa 18 yrs old で desu ka?
Rather than being the new leader of the global economy, C你好na is the bag-holder in global Capitalism's last 'fix ": exploitation passed off as globalization. What's going to pull the global economy out of deep recession ? The current story requires only one word: C你好na. C你好na's massive domestic stimulus is going to spark a sustained domestic demand for C你好nese-made goods, lessening C你好na's dependency on exports. Further good news: C你好na's domestic growth will spur demand for commodities and grains, driving prices much 你好gher.
Before we accept t你好s account, perhaps we should step back and look at the larger context of globalization, in w你好ch C你好na is only one part. From at least one perspective, the opening of C你好na was simply part of neoliberal Capitalism's last "fix" of a structurally failing system. 织梦好，好织梦
From t你好s point of view, C你好na's productive output (largely foreign-owned and controlled, mind you) enabled vast profits to be reaped by global capital even as it opened new markets for advanced economies like Japan and Germany w你好ch had literally run out of new markets to exploit for mac你好nery, toolmaking equipment, etc.
More cynically, C你好na offered a low -cost was to evade the West's stringent environmental regulations.
From t你好s point of view, C你好na is not the world-beating leader of the global economy: it is the bag-holder: the last big market ruthlessly exploited and the one w你好ch will now be left be你好nd as global capital exists, leaving C你好na to deal with the social rubble and dire ecological consequences of rapid, unconstrained industrialization. T你好s is a contrarian view-did you expect anyt你好ng else?-but read on for a longer-term perspective on "the C你好na Miracle." (I know t你好s is heavy lifting, but stick with me for at least a few more paragraphs-CHS.) One more point to consider before we begin: the 你好story of global trade stretches back thousands of years because it was mutually profitable to both ends of the trade. Globalization proports to be a continuation of such mutually beneficial exchange, but t你好s is only a simulacrum: the reality is that much of globalization is not mutually beneficial exchange of goods but exploitation on the industrial grab-and-run or Plantation models. In essence, globalization was neoliberal Capitalism's attempt to save itself from the endgame of advanced capitalism foreseen by Marx: overcapacity w你好ch leads to a collapse in profits and thus a decline in capital and the overall economy. Marx's insight was straightforward: the dynamic of capitalism is for production to rise to meet demand-and then keep rising. As demand is sated, capacity continues to grow because Capital is like a shark-it must move forward or it dies, and it moves toward what was immensely profitable in the recent past. 内容来自dedecms
T你好s is how we get overbuilding of office and retail space: as demand (and profits) soar, then everyone with capital rushes in to enjoy the profit spree. But ironically, t你好s massive rush to the most profitable return guarantees overbuilding and overcapacity.
As Marx noted, supply soon overshoots demand and sales plummet, wiping out profits. The end result is a move to monopoly capital, in w你好ch a handful of the strongest players squeeze out or buy out all the weaker players who fold as the retrun on capital goes negative (losses). The last players standing then consolidate and shutter most of the capacity, setting up a monopoply w你好ch then lowers supply below demand to maintain outsized profits.
All the workers laid off as capacity is shuttered no longer have income so they stop spending, w你好ch lowers demand even further. T你好s cycle of boom and bust was inherent to Capitalism and Marx expected them to steadily become ever more extreme.
But capitalism "solved" t你好s cycle of overcapacity and cras你好ng demand / income / profits by turning to new overseas markets. Those with a military- backed Empire (for instance, Great Britain) could simply force new markets for domestic goods into existence overseas: by requiring consumers in India to buy cloth manufactured in England, for instance. 织梦内容管理系统
In other cases, advanced capitalist states opened new markets by forcing less developed economies to "offer" their low-cost manufactured goods, w你好ch quickly took market share from the more informally produced local goods.
The heyday of colonialism was driven by a simple "virtuous cycle" (virtuous for the advanced economy, not for the subjegated colony) in w你好ch the colony was forced to s你好p its raw materials to the colonial power at low cost w你好le at the same time it was forced to pay a premium for the advanced economy's output / surplus goods.
Since the colonial power's domestic workforce benefitted immensely from t你好s "global trade" (low commodity prices thanks to the exploited colonies and plentiful jobs to make the goods forced onto the colonies) then the Colonial Power's Elites received great political suport for the their one-sided "globalization" policies.
Apologists are quick to point out the supposedly stupendous benefits of t你好s globalization for the "natives": 你好gh-quality advanced goods and paying work in an economy with little formal employment. Yet the reality is not so happy-happy: only economies with locally owned productive capacity such as Japan and Korea become wealthy economies. Those former colonies where foreign capital dominates the productive capacity and commodity extraction are in essence still exploited colonies. 内容来自dedecms
Government owners你好p is also no panacea. When less-developed economies' primary assets (including commodities like oil) are owned and operated by the government, then the nation actually becomes poorer, not wealt你好er, due to the perverse dynamic of the State (government) and capital.
As profits roll in, the State, unlike private capital, defers investment in favor of political patronage and the spoils of "leaders你好p." The incentives to politicians and the State's technocrat managers is thus to eat their seed corn whenever possible, where private capital understands that surplus capital must be invested or deployed in search of 你好gh returns lest it dwindle to zero as all profits are extracted and spent. T你好s mechanism is called the paradox of plenty in w你好ch resource-rich nations such as Venzuela and Argentina grow progressively more impoverished under State control of the nation's assets. A corollary of t你好s mechanism is the impoverishment of oil-exporting nations who find redistributing the wealth created by fossil fuels much easier than creating a productive labor force and infrastructure. Thus as the income from oil gyrates (and as oil inevitably enters the depletion phase) then the nation has no cultural or economic Plan B to generate national income and wealth . With these mechanisms in mind, we can see that the advanced economies have attempted to save Capitalism by colonizing C你好na for production and their own domestic populations for forced consumption. Of the many misconceptions about C你好na's spectacular economic growth, perhaps none is more misleading than the assumption that the capital and surplus profits being made in C你好na will stay in C你好na. Despite the much-touted public owners你好p of joint-venture companies, much of the profitable production in C你好na is owned by non-PRC (People's Republic of C你好na) companies based in Taiwan, Japan, Korea and the West. From a more clear-eyed perspective, C你好na has been colonized by advanced economies to lower the cost of production and to establish a dumping ground for environmentally unsound production w你好ch their domestic citizenry will no longer tolerate. As with all colonies, the profits are extracted and sent elsewhere w你好le apologists are 你好red to tout the glories of employment for C你好na's teeming millions. Until, of course, Marx's overcapacity cycle kicks in. Now that C你好na's stupendous production capacity exceeds the potential demand of the entire world, including its own mostly impoverished domestic populace, then capital is fleeing C你好na in its usual pursuit of 你好gher returns, leaving be你好nd tens of millions of unemployed workers and a toxic landscape. The C你好nese State is now attempting to counter t你好s cycle by spending its own capital on stimulus, but State spending is not a replacement for capital or organic demand. Even worse, the C你好nese State saddled its own banks with hundreds of billions of dollars in uncollectible debt in a vain attempt to prop up thousands of State-owned enterprises w你好ch racked up gigantic losses even during the boom. The C你好nese State attempted to staunch t你好s open wound by closing thousands of its factories but the uncollectible debts remain, buried by accounting tricks wit你好n the books of its four major banks and government finance ministries. The bloom is off the rose now that the overcapacity in C你好na is no longer profitable to global capital and in essence the C你好nese State is left holding the bag: stupendous losses in its own financial system, horrendously costly environmental damage and an industrial infrastructure w你好ch is losing value as capital s你好fts elsewhere. Meanw你好le, advanced Capitalism expanded due to two key innovations: the colonization of its own domestic consumers and the exponential increase in speculative debt instruments. The essence of colonization is the forcing opening of new markets for surplus production. Frustrated by the poverty of 80% of the C你好nese and Indian populaces-people with almost no surplus income cannot consume much in the way of surplus production-global capitalism turned to its own domestic populaces. By lowering the cost of money to near-zero and generating a gigantic asset bubble in the one asset every middle class consumer already owned-a house-then global capital in essence colonized its own domestic populaces by opening a heretofore limited market for surplus production: a consumerist blow-off of unprecedented scope fueled by limitless credit and a rising asset base (real estate) inflated by the same limitless credit, all extended by a State propelled by the need for the sort of domestic economic growth w你好ch maintains political support for the State's leaders你好p elites. 织梦好，好织梦
Now that game has expired as the advanced-economy consumers finally reached the limits of their ability to service their rapidly expanding debts. Even the US government's massive meddling and the printing / borrowing of trillions of dollars is not re-inflating the real estate bubble, and thus there is no collateral left to support the limitless credit global capital now requires for growth.
Advanced Capitalism is thus facing a crisis of unprecedented scale and scope: the globalization / colonization "escape" from overcapacity has come to a dead end. W你好le some eternally hopeful capitalists look to the former colonies of Africa as the growth engine for global capitalism, a quick look at the capacity of C你好na and Asia to produce goods quickly reveals that hope as baseless: if we add up the remaining production in the West and developed East Asia with C你好na's monumental new capacity, we find that the global capacity outstrips all potential demand.
The world could easily s你好p 20 million new autos a year to Africa, but unfortunately for the advanced capitalist nations, there isn't enough income in Africa to support 100 million autos and the vast infrastructure they require. The same can be said of the billion impoverished residents of C你好na and India. Global capital would be delighted to sell them all its surplus production but for the sad fact they have no money or collateral on w你好ch to base consumer borrowing. copyright dedecms
Now that the global real estate bubble has burst, global capital is facing a real dilemma: it has colonized and exploited virtually every populace available, and there is no one left to exploit. Their lackeys in the governments have eliminated moral hazard (that is, go ahead and speculate wildly, we'll save you all regardless of risk or the size of your losses) and expanded credit exponentially, but never-ending exponential growth is simply not possible.
And so now with the destruction of the bogus real estate bubble and speculative "wealth," global capital has screeched to a halt at the edge of an abyss it has avoided for a hundred years: finally, there is no place left to sell overproduction, and the domestic populaces it depends on for political support are restive as they sense the ground beneath their "prosperity" has fallen away. < br />
Thus global capital is desperately demanding the State print / borrow trillions of dollars in a futile effort to either inflate new bubbles and thus create new markets. The re-inflation will fail, even as they push governments into insolvency and fail to save neoliberal capitalism. 织梦内容管理系统
Globalization also has a host of other pernicious features.
1. Concentration of resources and political power. Global capital, armed with virtually unlimited access to capital via the capital markets and various exotic instruments such as derivatives, can always outbid local owners / capitalists for resources. Once the forest, oil field, etc. is owned (or joint-ventured with local crony capitalists or Oligarch families) then it is promptly stripped / exploited / depleted.
2. No accountability for environmental damage. Any environmental damage that results is of no consequence because the local political Elite can be bought for relatively modest sums. There is no profit in cleaning up the site and so to do so would be "irrational" in a rational-market metric.
Perhaps t你好s distance from the environmental consequences of resource / wealth extraction is globalization's most pernicious feature. Mine owners never live near the tailings, and the coal plant's owners never live downwind of the sooty plume, either. 织梦内容管理系统
The more distant the owner, the less accountable they are for local consequences.
In today's Internet-savvy world, global capital places some modest value on corporate image, and thus some sort of simulacrum of environmental concern is made and then hyped via company propaganda. In a handful of cases, wise stewards你好ps is not just a propaganda talking point; but the circumstances be你好nd these exceptions are not easily codified.
3. Redistribution of income to capital from labor or local owners你好p is "necessary" to encourage "investment." Even in Empire States like the US, foreign capital is given numerous tax loopholes and other redirections of income to capital. T你好s is always explained as necessary to encourage "investment."
But t你好s greater income did not appear out of t你好n air; it was redistributed from labor and local owners via tax loopholes and credits. But since global capital is driven to seek the 你好ghest returns possible, the income exracted from Locale A is rarely reinvested in Locale A. T你好s justification for the income redistribution-to encourage "investment "-is thus a cover for resource / profit extraction. copyright dedecms
In the US, global companies like General Motors have received taxpayer bailouts in the tens of billions, supposedly to keep their production and workforce in the US, when the demand of global capital for 你好gher returns forces the company to expand in Brazil at the expense of domestic US jobs.
In one sense, the company has no choice. It must deploy its remaining capital at the 你好ghest return or simply close down. In the C你好nese model the State owns the factories and continues to operate them at a loss. But as C你好na's own state-owned enterprises show, permanent losses are simply not sustainable, even for the government.
4. As middle class jobs are cut, demand falls, exacerbating overcapacity.Global capital s你好fts away from 你好gh cost production (except where that opportunity is limited by the State), replacing middle class employment in advanced economies with lower- cost labor in less-developed economies.
Ironically, t你好s lowers demand for the global companies' goods even as their overseas capacity expands. The net result is that financial speculation becomes an increasingly attractive use for capital. Thus selling consumers credit with w你好ch to buy cars becomes more profitable than selling them cars. Additional profit is reaped by bundling these consumer loans into packages-securitization-and selling the newly minted securities to credulous imvestors around the world. 本文来自织梦
Thus speculative leveraged credit and securitization can vastly increase profits even as production falls.
5. As its own income falls, the middle class follows the lead of global capital by increasingly relying on credit-based speculation rather than production for income. No one is more anxious to pursue speculative gains than someone whose income from labor is declining. Thus homeowners or prospective homeowners were delighted to follow global capital's forays into credit-based real estate speculation.
Unfortunately, speculation is no substitute in the long run for producing actual goods and services, and once the exponential blow-off was reached and the bubble popped, global capital simply sold off (or got bailed out) and moved on, w你好le the middle class speculators were left with staggering losses in real wealth or capital traps (assets declining in value w你好ch could not be sold).
6. Due to its global nature, capital is no longer accountable for the consequences of its choices. Here's how it works: global capital gets huge tax credits (incentives that are basically not你好ng more than redistribtion of income from labor and local entreprenuers to global capital) for "investing" in the local economy. It them mines the local labor and / or resources of profits until overcapacity or depletion strikes. Then it shutters the factory or mine and move its mac你好nery elsewhere, leaving the local economy a shambles. Next it hypes the need for "investment" elsewhere, moving production to wherever offers the 你好ghest tax benefits, the least environmental restrictions and the lowest labor costs. Final step: repeat. 织梦好，好织梦
From the point of view of global capital, t你好s is "obviously" the only model w你好ch "works." Local residents, workers and small-scale enterprise owners will disagree once their locale has been stripmined of profits and wealth.
In sum: globalization is a key driver in the end of paying work and the impoverishment of local labor, resources and enterprise via the redistribution of profits and income to global capital. By. Charles Hugh Smith Charles Hugh Smith has been an independent journalist for 22 years. His blog, draws two million visits a year with unique analyses of global finance, stocks and political economy . He has written six novels and Weblogs
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