There's a war going on. No, wait, there's several wars going on of course, but the war against China is of a special kind; that's a trade war, not a real war. Not yet... Under Trump it could even be argued that there's a trade world war going on, as he pits the American economy against all other economies in a desperate attempt to gain economical ground on behalf of the American working class that voted him into office.
first director of the Women's Army Corps Oveta Culp Hobby - source: PxHere
This war could very well be painted as the modern day version of the war between capitalism and communism; a new Cold War. Unfortunately this propaganda war brings with it the same scare tactics used against the U.S.S.R. during the mid- to late 1900s; we are told lies, in other words, about the common enemy. Let me start today's post with debunking the lie most heard about the Chinese, which is that they are stealing all our technologies, that they copy the products that were invented and designed by brilliant western minds, and that they flood our markets with their second hand, inferior products that are usually a lot more reasonably priced to boot; this is killing "our" economy and gives ample motivation to paint them our mortal enemies in a war waged with tariffs and trades...
The Chinese are not dumb, have been ahead of the west during large parts of our common history, and, most importantly, have payed a fair price for the privilege to use those "western" technologies. In fact, it's us who offered them that privilege in return for 1) access to cheap labor and 2) a very large and quickly growing market to sell "our" products; this deal was made by western multinationals, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because it was hugely profitable for them to do so. This is besides the fact that this is how science and knowledge is spread throughout the world's history; scientists from all countries share their knowledge, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because it's the best and fastest way forward on the road of scientific and technological progress. So, recognize this smear of the Chinese being nothing more than thieves of intellectual property for what it is: war propaganda.
While we're on the subject of technological progression, let me pause and remark that in this eternal battle of ideas, there's this notion that there are only two highly contrasting models to choose between: the economy is either regulated by the rules of supply and demand in capitalism, or goods are distributed by the government through planning in socialism or communism. This is a strange dichotomy because markets can exist in either of them and can be excluded from both of them. The roughly sketched actual difference between the two is this: capitalism is a model of production in which the means of production are owned by a handful of people, where socialism is the same, except the means of production are owned by everyone who helps produce the products; markets are not intrinsic to either one of them. Socialism is nothing more than the extension of democracy into the realm of property, and is therefore the ultimate democracy and the best guarantee for a maximum amount of freedom, power and well-being for the maximum amount of people. If we propose to enhance that system, either one, with some careful planning, detractors always point to the failures of the U.S.S.R. Hence my short stop here to say that planning would be very possible now, because of all the technological progress made since the previous Cold War; if we can create artificial models to predict the climate, we sure as hell can make a distribution scheme for a couple of billion people.
Socialism and planned economies are rampant inside our capitalist societies, it's just that most people are blind to this fact. Let's take the case of large multinational corporations, the desired end-goal for all who start their own little business (yes, Zuckerberg, Gates, Jobs, Bezos are all role-models who started small); the internal economy of these corporations, some of which are larger than entire countries, is planned to the max. They leave nothing, or at least as little as possible to chance or something as unpredictable as the market. All these little kingdoms strife for ownership of all supply lines and all resources needed for the creation of their products, which enables them to perfectly plan how much is produced when and where. Only when the product is finished, it's released to be priced and distributed along the lines of supply and demand, and only if the corporation doesn't already have an effective monopoly in that market segment, which is becoming increasingly rare. These internal, planned economies are discussed in the popular book The People’s Republic of Walmart: How the World’s Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism.
Prof. Richard Wolff: Capitalism and the Family
"Jack Ma, the founder of China’s Alibaba Group — one of the largest and most valuable companies in the world — argues that previous state planners in the Soviet Union and the early People’s Republic of China failed due to insufficient information. He has predicted that over the next three decades thanks to artificial intelligence and the sheer volume of data to which we now have access, we will finally be able to achieve a planned economy."
source: Jacobin
Another unexpected place where we find socialism every day is in the family. Inside the family we allocate resources, labor and products without relying on supply and demand. When we sit down for thanksgiving dinner, the thanksgiving turkey is distributed among the guests for free! This example I've heard mention often by Richard D. Wolff, America's best known Marxist economist, and he always imagines what would happen when one of the kids did try to introduce market principles into the realm of family and friends. One of the parents would bend over the table, smack the son or daughter in the face and say: "this is a family ... we do things for each other because we love each other and care for each other!" Yes, even the smack in the face was motivated by love in this example, believe it or not. Introducing money in this situation would destroy its romance, its warmth, and would make it a cold place, just like the outside world. The thought here is very simple; if the marketplace destroys loving, caring and warmth inside the family, well, then maybe that goes for outside the family as well. Just look at all the antagonism, strife, jealousy, greed and complacent acceptance of wars, poverty, hunger, homelessness...; you know it's true. Now you might say that this is special, as the family members have a deep emotional bond with each other, but the next example shows just how malleable we are, and how this bond can be recreated on much larger scales.
Yet another circumstance in which markets are deemed harmful as opposed to helpful, is during wartime; real wartime. In wartime markets are routinely abolished, and replaced by a government distribution system called rationing. Because industries are being repurposed to aid the war effort, producing the tools of war, there's not enough capacity left to produce regular goods and services in the amounts produced before the war, making them relatively scarce. With such scarcity only the richest would be able to afford them, which they would hoard as much as possible in order to be able to sit out the unknowable duration of the armed conflict. Now, that's not the reason why markets are temporarily abolished; our leaders routinely don't care what happens to the least fortunate among us. No, the real reason why governments suddenly switch over to a completely planned economy, is that not doing so would destroy the unity among the people. In all other times it's okay to let the rabble compete among themselves, convict each other to the poor house or the grave, in all other times unity is not important, in all other times it's not done to give the people a sense that we, as a nation take care of each other. But in times of war our leaders suddenly have this urgent need to promote unity, for us to stand united against that common enemy. This is wartime socialism during capitalist wars, for all wars are fought over resources, labor, supply lines and trade routes.
How people are so blind to the obvious and indisputable existence, and the equally undeniable advantages of socialism, at least the ideological foundations thereof, is beyond my understanding. How some people manage to paint the government as intrinsically evil and utterly incapable is hard to grasp for someone with a functional brain and a memory that goes back further than just the past ten years. During war, the government gives milk-rations to families with children, but not to cat owners, rich or poor; that's the kind of micro management our government is capable of when it serves the needs of our real leaders, who are the owners of the mega corporations that started out as small entrepreneurs this generation or some generations ago. There is no meritocracy, there never has been, but there will be a real war against China, Russia, Latin America, the Middle East and the far East, any one or a combination of them, if we keep playing their stupid ruthless game. Stop it. Just stop paying lip-service to your economical masters who are the products of an ideology based on complete selfishness. Stop being their willing slaves if you want to be free, and see the reality of the world we all live in; if we're not here for each other, we're here against each other, only to feed the mouths of those who love to see s us fighting their wars, be they trade- or real wars. Watch this video and ask yourself: is scarcity really the only measure of our humanity? Is war really the only pretext we can use to create the kind of brotherhood, comradery and sense of caring for each other that's depicted here? Is war the only circumstance in which we can be truly equal, regardless of sex, ethnicity or religion? Are we that narrow-minded? I hope not.
Rationing in the U.S. During World War II
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