Is China the problem — or is it American capitalism's greed?

© 2019 Peter Free

 

16 May 2019

 

 

Recently, I mentioned that China probably will not cave to Trump's tariffs

 

I also expressed an implied reservation about our US penchant for trying to (literally and figuratively) bomb adversaries' legitimately held national interests away.

 

 

Today, I return to the parallel theme that we are our own worst enemy

 

In China's case, for instance, it is not "them" but "us" who have most heavily contributed to America's de-manufacturing and trade problems.

 

 

Let's think this through

 

American manufacturing allegedly fled to China because labor was too expensive here.

 

Ostensibly, that meant that Reality had "forced" good-hearted American capitalists to transfer what was previously American factory clout over to China. And everywhere else that poor people were willing to work for nearly nothing.

 

Evidently, it did not (and still has not) occurred to dimwitted American leadership that a manufacturing-depleted United States is not going to be able to defend itself from nations (like China) that still make their own stuff.

 

The national security interest in keeping factories over here was eagerly overlooked. Just as it was with our voluntary departure from rare earths mining and refining.

 

In view of the fact that capital-monopolizing corporatists prosper wherever they go, nobody influential cared.

 

Recall who runs American government.

 

 

Similarly, no one paid attention to the fact that nations exist to serve their publics

 

The US says this, right off the bat, in the Preamble to its constitution.

 

We ignored this credo also. And (thus) we allowed corporations to flee US-located business for other shores, while simultaneously not taxing them on the profits they make there.

 

 

This is a lose-lose for the American public

 

We lose our jobs. And we lose more of our incomes in paying more taxes to make up for those American corporations are dodging with their offshore schemes.

 

I don't think that Common Sense would judge this to be an especially desirable societal model.

 

 

Paul Craig Roberts put the problem this way

 

He wrote that:

 

 

The jobs were taken to China by US global corporations, along with the technology and business know-how, for the sole reason of maximizing US corporate profits.

 

Half and perhaps more of the “cheap goods” imported from China are the goods of American firms, such as Apple, Levi, Nike.

 

They are not “cheap Chinese goods.” Do you think an iPhone is cheap or a MacBook Pro is cheap?

 

The tariffs will reduce the profits of American overseas production exported to the US and raise prices to US consumers, who have already lost the incomes from the manufacturing jobs that American companies moved abroad.

 

[T]ariffs are not a solution.

 

The way to bring the jobs home is to tax corporations on the basis of the geographical location in which they add value to their products.

 

If US corporations produce in the 50 states for their US market, the tax rate would be low. If they produce abroad in China or elsewhere for sale in the US, the tax rate would be high.

 

The tax rate on offshored production for US markets would be calculated to offset the lower labor and regulatory costs abroad.

 

© 2019 Paul Craig Roberts, The Tariff Issue, Unz Review (14 May 2019)

 

 

Roberts' "well, duh" solution has been ignored . . .

 

. . . because corporatists do not want American laissez-faire policy to change.

 

They know that much of their excessive material wellbeing and influence come from reaping profits that directly derive from grossly undervaluing labor.

 

Their game is to find the cheapest workers, in the least regulated regions, to produce products — and then sell those in a market that has just enough more (than the cheap labor does) in its wallet to produce a yet increased profit margin.

 

Americans call this "capitalism".

 

I call it the most efficient way to put most of humanity into a toilet of our own making.

 

 

The moral? — Achieving human dignity requires recognizing one's worth

 

Corporate and government propaganda are specifically directed at preventing most of humanity from realizing this.

 

That's why I continually harp on the desirability of being able to think critically.

 

Until we do, we have only the economic value accorded to acquiescently flushed, disposable matter.