Friday, August 9, 2019

Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China

Click here to access article by Ellen Brown from TruthDig.

Brown essentially argues that a capitalist state should manage their corporations on behalf of the capitalist class like China does. This thesis confirms her support for the capitalist class which is what I've inferred from writings in the past. To argue her thesis, she cites a number of examples of countries (referred to as "Asian Tigers economies" and Japan) that between 1960s and into the 1990s had a strong government sector that supported their capitalist enterprises. 

They were quite easily taken down by the imperial USA in the 1997 Asian crisis, and she doesn't explain why they were defeated at the time by the neoliberal policies of the US Empire, and she doesn't explain why China wasn't (other than their economy was too big). I think that China's Communist Party were far more protective of their industries both private and state-owned. 

The shallow-thinking Brown doesn't hesitate to argue her thesis that the US should adopt such a government like China. To support her argument, she also draws on an article in Foreign Affairs, a core ruling capitalist class publication, in which surprisingly advocates a similar government arrangement for the US and argues against the belligerent policies of the Obama and Trump administrations! She summarize the argument of that article as being the following:
The implication is that China, being too strong to be knocked out of the game as the Soviet Union was, needs to be coerced or cajoled into adopting the neoliberal model and abandoning state support of its industries and ownership of its banks. [This she ignores.] But the Chinese system, while obviously not perfect, has an impressive track record for sustaining long-term growth and development. While the U.S. manufacturing base was being hollowed out under the free-market model, China was systematically building up its own manufacturing base and investing heavily in infrastructure and emerging technologies, and it was doing this with credit generated by its state-owned banks. Rather than trying to destroy China’s economic system, it might be more “favorable to U.S. interests and values” for us to adopt its more effective industrial and banking practices.
She has long argued that banking should be government owned, and this article is no exception--only she wants banks to support the interests of capitalists!  In spite of the fact that she recognizes that most industries are state owned in China, she still wants banks to support privately owned industries in the USA. This is another liberal argument in support of capitalism. That is, capitalism, must be guided by the capitalist class to more efficiently support US capitalists. 

She is right when she writes that "the free market model hollowed out America’s manufacturing base". US industries under the control of capitalists logically sought short-term profits by transferring their operations to China and a number of other countries where the cost of labor was much cheaper. She can't have it both ways: supporting US capitalists while wanting them to promote national interests. The US and all other capitalist classes only use the nation when it is convenient, and dispenses with the nation when it isn't convenient for their maximization of profits. The prime objective of capitalist ruling classes is that they always seek their own class interests: profits and power. The US/Anglo/Zionist Empire is guided by neoliberal policies which considers national boundaries irrelevant in their pursuit of profits.