>>14745>Capitalism is defined by crisis every ten years or so>If the Chinese continue to have no crisis then by definition it is not capitalismChina never had much trouble since Deng's liberalization because they make big bucks from international trade, their trade balance has (almost) always been positive so far.
But Chinese growth is also predicated on a large amount of debt (see Evergrande) that is expected to be reimbursed, and unlike the US, they don't control the world's reserve currency, on the contrary the renminbi is soft-pegged to the USD for devaluation purposes, in order for the US domestic market to absorb a lot of the glut of Chinese manufactured goods circulating on the world market.
In short, the Chinese have been unironically developing the productive forces using supply-side economics, but a different kind than Reagan, focused on gaining the upper hand in manufacturing.
It was the whole philosophy behind Deng's catchphrase, more or less "让一部分人先富起来", which was incorrectly translated as "To get rich is glorious", but more accurately means "Let some people get rich first" — if you want the real speech, take a quick look at
http://keywords.china.org.cn/2021-01/11/content_77102316.html.
They did a great job at this, but the problem is that now, worldwide recession is happening — and crises have long-lasting effects, remember 2008, it's the main historical reason why you feel so miserable all day!
What I expect is the following:
>1) Western consumers absorbing the glut won't be able to afford as many Chinese goods as before, due to economic depression.Imagine you are a Chinese factory supervisor, you see a ton of products rotting in stock, you don't have enough facilities to store anymore, and stopping the production is more expensive than letting the machines run. What would you do? Imagine this at the scale of China.
This is called an over-production crisis, and it's a real possibility.
>2) Chinese private companies — and perhaps public companies too, if they have tight budgets, reminder China is the size of Europe and local governments have a lot of autonomy — don't like to pay workers a lot, because it's unprofitable.This means some Chinese companies are looking forward to delocalize their production to nearby countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, etc.
In turn for Chinese workers, the direct advantage they gain from GDP growth will recess, just like it did in the West before, and a more important part of GDP will be fueled by high-tech companies (and certainly financial capital as well).
Urban workers who aren't highly qualified will most likely be left out of the rat race, and be reduced to sell their labor power to
Uber Eats 美团 in order to deliever food to PMCs and single parents in exchange for a substandard wage, just like in the West right now.
The working class might, as a side effect, eventually rediscover its rich socialist history in the process.
Oh wait, it's already happening right now, that's why 躺平 and 摆烂 became memes in the Sinosphere around the same time the /r/antiwork admin was being interviewed on FOX News, and young Maoists who get a tad bit rebellious get thrown in jail.
>3) The US will not want to get rid of their "exorbitant privilege" regarding the dollar.I don't feel like explaining why it's not a good omen, you jerk off enough on the end of the petrodollar and the Russo-Ukrainian war already, you already know what I'm talking about.
I'll just quote a bit from Wikipedia, in case a Washington D.C. bureaucrat reads this:
<In a speech delivered in March 2009 entitled Reform the International Monetary System, Zhou Xiaochuan, the Governor of the People's Bank of China called Keynes's bancor approach "farsighted" and proposed the adoption of International Monetary Fund (IMF) special drawing rights (SDRs) as a global reserve currency as a response to the financial crisis of 2007–2010. U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner expressed interest in the idea of greater use of SDRs as a reserve.<However, he was criticized severely for this in the United States, and the dollar lost 5 cents against the euro in exchange markets following his statements. He and President Barack Obama shortly afterwards backtracked Geithner's comments. [Source is Adam Tooze's 2018 book "Crashed"]I recommend reading the introduction of
Trade Wars Are Class Wars by Pettis and Klein (2020) if you can find a copy of it, it analyzes the current trade war between the US and China, taking cues from Hobson's theory of imperialism and Keynes.
I'm excited for the future of China, not because it will collapse in 3 weeks, not because a glorious socialist future is forecasted for 2050, but because
it will experience the same current problems of the West as it's basically a developed country now, and this will foster more international working class solidarity when ecological problems will pile upon us exponentially and we'll have truly no other choice than socialism or barbarism.It's a good time to get immersed into Chinese culture.