Exactly, steel production is key for a whole range of important industries. It’s also key for having any serious military capacity. The west is now finding that it simply can’t match Russia in terms of weapons and ammunition on the battlefield.
Exactly, this is a fantastic read on the subject. There’s also a prisoner’s dilemma scenario happening between all the companies. If one company were to reshore manufacturing then their input costs go up relative to their competitors making them unprofitable. So, unless all companies decided to reshore together it’s not really possible to bring manufacturing back. And even if a single state decided to force their companies to do this then they lose competitiveness with other capitalist states. This problem has no solution.
A healthy working class is necessary to deploying an effective fighting force in the 21st century:
The american oligarchy,by suppressing and breaking into a thousand pieces their industrial workforce, has doomed itself to be defeated in any conflict with a peer or near peer. Steel is the lifeblood of modern militaries.
Edit: I should mention the prison industrial complex which provides a significant portion of american military gear. but still, steel is a hard data point.
I remember the shock therapy in the 90’s in Poland. Most industry destroyed*. Explanation - industry is obsolete*, now is the high tech time, now is the services and information based economy time. Everyone asking questions such as “How are we gonna build in the future, with straw and mud?” or “But we don’t have any high tech, you destroyed this too?” and “Who’s gonna produce things?” were either ignored or publicly sneered as “homo sovieticus”. And here we are, 30 years later.
*Let me also tell the tale how it was. Industry in Poland was outright sabotaged by the government with measures such as tax from rising wages (in the hyperinflation!) or property tax - yes, fucking property tax for heavy industry, imagine being this scummy. Outright sabotage by state officials (like Wałęsa purposefully scamming mining industry into heavy debt in 1992). And despite all of that, it still survived and their fabled “private industry”, despite facing none of the aforementioned sabotage and all kinds of incentives and selling everything for pennies to random whomevers, never materialized.
Yes of course, this is how imperialism works, it need constant expansion seeking the cheapest labour possible. When it’s not possible anymore, they need to make some cheap labour - by pushing other countries into poverty (or their own citizens, but that tend to backfire more).
Lenin described this mechanism, but he didn’t dreamt in even worst nightmares that it would prove so repeatable and resilient and would turn out into at least century of misery.
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Exactly, steel production is key for a whole range of important industries. It’s also key for having any serious military capacity. The west is now finding that it simply can’t match Russia in terms of weapons and ammunition on the battlefield.
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Exactly, this is a fantastic read on the subject. There’s also a prisoner’s dilemma scenario happening between all the companies. If one company were to reshore manufacturing then their input costs go up relative to their competitors making them unprofitable. So, unless all companies decided to reshore together it’s not really possible to bring manufacturing back. And even if a single state decided to force their companies to do this then they lose competitiveness with other capitalist states. This problem has no solution.
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A healthy working class is necessary to deploying an effective fighting force in the 21st century:
The american oligarchy,by suppressing and breaking into a thousand pieces their industrial workforce, has doomed itself to be defeated in any conflict with a peer or near peer. Steel is the lifeblood of modern militaries.
https://juanfitzcarraldo.substack.com/p/oligarchy-aristocracy-and-democracy
Edit: I should mention the prison industrial complex which provides a significant portion of american military gear. but still, steel is a hard data point.
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Not only in the XXI century, it was always so.
how so?
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I remember the shock therapy in the 90’s in Poland. Most industry destroyed*. Explanation - industry is obsolete*, now is the high tech time, now is the services and information based economy time. Everyone asking questions such as “How are we gonna build in the future, with straw and mud?” or “But we don’t have any high tech, you destroyed this too?” and “Who’s gonna produce things?” were either ignored or publicly sneered as “homo sovieticus”. And here we are, 30 years later.
*Let me also tell the tale how it was. Industry in Poland was outright sabotaged by the government with measures such as tax from rising wages (in the hyperinflation!) or property tax - yes, fucking property tax for heavy industry, imagine being this scummy. Outright sabotage by state officials (like Wałęsa purposefully scamming mining industry into heavy debt in 1992). And despite all of that, it still survived and their fabled “private industry”, despite facing none of the aforementioned sabotage and all kinds of incentives and selling everything for pennies to random whomevers, never materialized.
deleted by creator
Yes of course, this is how imperialism works, it need constant expansion seeking the cheapest labour possible. When it’s not possible anymore, they need to make some cheap labour - by pushing other countries into poverty (or their own citizens, but that tend to backfire more).
Lenin described this mechanism, but he didn’t dreamt in even worst nightmares that it would prove so repeatable and resilient and would turn out into at least century of misery.
deleted by creator