It’s absolutely hilarious because what the US has done in Ukraine has about sealed their fate it seems. They’re making Europe hate them, they’re driving China and Russia close, and they’re accelerating the US dollar no longer being the global reserve currency. Europe’s running out of energy not even a year into this, and they can still trade with China.
I legit cannot understand why US didn’t let Russia join NATO when Putin was ready to be a second Yeltsin. That single move would change everything. Now if there is a conflict Europe has zero Russian gas, and they can’t surround either Russia or China. What am I missing that the US ruling class seems to see? They obviously understood this at the time of the Sino-Soviet split.
The type of personality traits that capitalism naturally rewards with positions of power lesds to this exact sort of short-sighted, petulant incompetence. Capitalism does indeed slowly kill itself in this way.
Another factor to consider is intra capitalist conflict. Within the capitalist class, there are actors who would sell their own mothers to make a quick profit. So if Raytheon can profit from the Ukraine war, at the expense of Walmart or a German steel manufacturer, it will do so.
Of course, there’s less room for intra capitalist conflict than ever, because BlackRock and vanguard seem to own everything. But there’s (1) too much to oversee to ensure consistency even between subsidiaries, and (2) capitalists are driven by the same contradictions that will bring capitalism tumbling down. There’s only so much to be done with internal planning before inherent contradictions become antagonistic.
E.g. if a German invests in Raytheon, etc, they’ll encourage arms sales even if it lowers the value of their investments in German industry. Because if not, their arms investments won’t yield the expected return. They might then try to sell their shares in the German factory and move their capital with the factory to the US. They might even plan for this in advance. But they’re firefighting contradictions that they don’t understand; because business as usual has worked so far (if not, they’d be in the pool of failed capitalists).
That, and drinking one’s own kool aid. Unlike during the late twentieth century, the dominant thinking is that history is over. Communism had it’s day. It was trialled and failed.
Marxists are ignored or not taken seriously. So there’s a consensus view about China that does not correlate to reality. It seems the CPC has been content to encourage this view. “Nothing to see here; we’re just interested in trade and keeping our trade routes open.”
Western ideological state apparatuses are happy to push the same message. 30+ years of end-of-history school-leavers and graduates means almost the whole working age population in the West does not understand BRICS, BRI, the petrodollar, or multiparity, to say the least. Decades worth of economics, sociologist, law, and politics PhDs who have never heard the phrase ‘political economy’ and / or who don’t know what it means if they have heard the term. How can anyone make good decisions with this level of ignorance?
The only people who would give a public counter narrative are the ignored Marxists. Secret services might know what’s up, but they’re ideologically confused. Plus, there is some separation between the state and the capitalists even if they’re all on the same team. So intelligence is not always passed on to the decision-makers.
There are too many chess pieces on the board that have gone unnoticed. China was a pawn till around 2010, when it sneaked right to the other side and became a queen. And it took another five years to catch anyone’s attention. Too late. And while the West is now focused on destroying China and Russia, other pieces are getting into place.
Most of the capitalists don’t even understand the rules of the game. Try talking about China or Russia objectively in academia. Nobody wants to hear it. There will be a lot of shocked Pikachu faces soon, as the ‘experts’ come up realise they were asleep at the wheel.
The west had been opening itself up to a classic broadside. Very few people have seen it coming. And the implications of Ukraine are just the first effects of Western capital walking straight into a booby trap / quicksand / off a cliff / name your metaphor (the more mixed, the better!).
I tend to align somewhere close to this. It seems like the Chinese people are just far far better educated, and there are 1.6 billion of them, compared to 350 million USians. This gives them a much much larger pool of talent going into every sector of society. AND their society is much more organized for ready collaboration amongst people.
These two things are an absolutely colossal advantage that China has that simply cannot be replicated under American material conditions. In other words, if things continue as they are - like had the US continued to ignore China, or isn’t able to gain some additional huge advantage - Chinese victory is basically inevitable.
This is why the US plays to this strength so often (tech advantage), because strategically it is right to do so. The US is also trying to dismantle Russia to surround China as well, which reflects its other strength, NATOs geographical positioning. Then of course there is Taiwan, dominated by a fascist government, right on Chinas doorstep.
Once the general level of technology in China surpasses the US things will REALLY start to look different, as that will be one major prong of the US offensive that will be strategically inert.
It’s absolutely hilarious because what the US has done in Ukraine has about sealed their fate it seems. They’re making Europe hate them, they’re driving China and Russia close, and they’re accelerating the US dollar no longer being the global reserve currency. Europe’s running out of energy not even a year into this, and they can still trade with China.
I legit cannot understand why US didn’t let Russia join NATO when Putin was ready to be a second Yeltsin. That single move would change everything. Now if there is a conflict Europe has zero Russian gas, and they can’t surround either Russia or China. What am I missing that the US ruling class seems to see? They obviously understood this at the time of the Sino-Soviet split.
The type of personality traits that capitalism naturally rewards with positions of power lesds to this exact sort of short-sighted, petulant incompetence. Capitalism does indeed slowly kill itself in this way.
Warning: oncoming mixed metaphors!
Another factor to consider is intra capitalist conflict. Within the capitalist class, there are actors who would sell their own mothers to make a quick profit. So if Raytheon can profit from the Ukraine war, at the expense of Walmart or a German steel manufacturer, it will do so.
Of course, there’s less room for intra capitalist conflict than ever, because BlackRock and vanguard seem to own everything. But there’s (1) too much to oversee to ensure consistency even between subsidiaries, and (2) capitalists are driven by the same contradictions that will bring capitalism tumbling down. There’s only so much to be done with internal planning before inherent contradictions become antagonistic.
E.g. if a German invests in Raytheon, etc, they’ll encourage arms sales even if it lowers the value of their investments in German industry. Because if not, their arms investments won’t yield the expected return. They might then try to sell their shares in the German factory and move their capital with the factory to the US. They might even plan for this in advance. But they’re firefighting contradictions that they don’t understand; because business as usual has worked so far (if not, they’d be in the pool of failed capitalists).
That, and drinking one’s own kool aid. Unlike during the late twentieth century, the dominant thinking is that history is over. Communism had it’s day. It was trialled and failed.
Marxists are ignored or not taken seriously. So there’s a consensus view about China that does not correlate to reality. It seems the CPC has been content to encourage this view. “Nothing to see here; we’re just interested in trade and keeping our trade routes open.”
Western ideological state apparatuses are happy to push the same message. 30+ years of end-of-history school-leavers and graduates means almost the whole working age population in the West does not understand BRICS, BRI, the petrodollar, or multiparity, to say the least. Decades worth of economics, sociologist, law, and politics PhDs who have never heard the phrase ‘political economy’ and / or who don’t know what it means if they have heard the term. How can anyone make good decisions with this level of ignorance?
The only people who would give a public counter narrative are the ignored Marxists. Secret services might know what’s up, but they’re ideologically confused. Plus, there is some separation between the state and the capitalists even if they’re all on the same team. So intelligence is not always passed on to the decision-makers.
There are too many chess pieces on the board that have gone unnoticed. China was a pawn till around 2010, when it sneaked right to the other side and became a queen. And it took another five years to catch anyone’s attention. Too late. And while the West is now focused on destroying China and Russia, other pieces are getting into place.
Most of the capitalists don’t even understand the rules of the game. Try talking about China or Russia objectively in academia. Nobody wants to hear it. There will be a lot of shocked Pikachu faces soon, as the ‘experts’ come up realise they were asleep at the wheel.
The west had been opening itself up to a classic broadside. Very few people have seen it coming. And the implications of Ukraine are just the first effects of Western capital walking straight into a booby trap / quicksand / off a cliff / name your metaphor (the more mixed, the better!).
I tend to align somewhere close to this. It seems like the Chinese people are just far far better educated, and there are 1.6 billion of them, compared to 350 million USians. This gives them a much much larger pool of talent going into every sector of society. AND their society is much more organized for ready collaboration amongst people.
These two things are an absolutely colossal advantage that China has that simply cannot be replicated under American material conditions. In other words, if things continue as they are - like had the US continued to ignore China, or isn’t able to gain some additional huge advantage - Chinese victory is basically inevitable.
This is why the US plays to this strength so often (tech advantage), because strategically it is right to do so. The US is also trying to dismantle Russia to surround China as well, which reflects its other strength, NATOs geographical positioning. Then of course there is Taiwan, dominated by a fascist government, right on Chinas doorstep.
Once the general level of technology in China surpasses the US things will REALLY start to look different, as that will be one major prong of the US offensive that will be strategically inert.