GUEST BLOG: Pat O’Dea – Trade War

Capitalism is an economic system doomed to perpetual crisis, Imperialism is an economic system doomed to perpetual war.

Joe Biden has imposed huge new tariffs on imports from China, a move that Donald Trump says do not go far enough

Jonathon Yerushalmy – The Guardian Wed 15 May

Joe Biden has unveiled US tariffs on an array of Chinese imports, unleashing a potential trade war with Beijing,…..
…..The US is concerned by the prospect of cheap, subsidised Chinese goods flooding US markets and undercutting the billions of dollars of government investment that have been poured into key manufacturing sectors via Biden’s Chips and Inflation Reduction acts.
In the electric vehicle market, for instance, there are reports that China is producing 30m EVs a year, but can only sell 22m to 23m domestically.
The Alliance for American Manufacturing has said the dumping of Chinese EVs to the US market would be an “extinction-level event”…..

How dangerous are trade wars between the major capitalist powers of the world.

Rosa Luxemburg forecasting the First World War gives us a clue

Capitalism is an economic system doomed to perpetual crisis.

The Accumulation of Capital (full title: The Accumulation of Capital: A Contribution to an Economic Explanation of Imperialism, Die Akkumulation des Kapitals: Ein Beitrag zur ökonomischen Erklärung des Imperialismus) is the principal book-length work of Rosa Luxemburg, first published in 1913….
Her conclusion that the limits of the capitalist system drive it to imperialism and war led Luxemburg to a lifetime of campaigning against militarism and colonialism.[1]

Luxemburg argued that capitalism needs to constantly expand into non-capitalist areas (colonies) in order to access new supply sources, markets for surplus value, and reservoirs of labor.
Marx had made an error in Capital in that the national population of a capitalist country could not afford to buy all the commodities they produced, it is impossible for capitalists to make a profit in a closed-capitalist system since the demand for commodities is always too low, Therefore much of the value of commodities can not be transformed into money, [unless they can be exported]
Luxemburg, wrote that to realise profits capitalists need to export surplus commodities…..

According to Luxemburg, every capitalist economy, must by necessity be an export led economy.

Every capitalist country needs to export. Stronger capitalist economies (imperialists) demand a positive trade balance at other countries’ expense, Weaker capitalist economies. (neo-colonies) are forced to suffer a negative trade balance, that impoverishes their local population, forcing these countries into borrowing and debt to the stronger capitalist economies.

Imperialism is an economic system doomed to perpetual war.

Infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible

By the end of the 19th Century, capitalism had pretty much expanded to encompass the whole world and couldn’t expand any further. Faced with the end of growth, the major developed capitalist powers turned on each other. After capitalism had encompassed the whole world, the only place that the the major developed capitalist powers could expand into, was in to each other’s spheres of influence.

“Politics is concentrated economics”, VI Lenin
“War is politics by other means”, Von Clausewitz

Paraphrasing Lenin and Clausewitz, A ‘World War’ is a concentrated ‘Trade War (by other means)

Donald Trump’s Hyper Nationalist America First extremist views are well suited to the needs of American imperialism and trade.

When Donald Trump says that Joe Biden’s economic trade war against China doesn’t go far enough – you can bet that to preserve American economic domination in the Pacific region. a Trump administration won’t hesitate to use ‘politics by other means’.

Beginning in the 20th Century there were no more new non-capitalist conies left to offload surplus commodities onto, they had all been taken.

Ben Morgan the Daily Blog’s resident milblogger provides us a regular detailed look into both sides preparations to fight this war.

It makes sense to invest heavily in war preparations if your rival is threatening to drive you out of world markets and ruin your country’s economy.

Both the Chinese and US imperialists know they can’t drive each other out of the world market solely by economic and political means which is why they are both preparing for war.

Can We Compete With China While Avoiding War? – A Quincy Institute Panel Discussion

by Joel Wong
June 13, 2024
1 Comment

https://www.joelwong.net/2024/06/13/can-we-compete-with-china-while-avoiding-war-a-quincy-institute-panel-discussion/

War Room – U.S. Army War College

…Carl von Clausewitz implicitly defined grand strategy in his magnum opus, On War, as the sum of the tools of statecraft. Consequently, states should use this definition of grand strategy accommodated to present political conditions….
….. “The trend is toward an increasingly Chinese-dominated political, economic, technological, and strategic ecosystem in the Indo-Pacific,” which is doing more to hinder American power projection than overt military measures.

What if they gave a war and nobody came?

Whether you believe the US can compete with China while avoiding war, or not, the strategy for New Zealand in the best interests of its people, is to stay out of it, cut all military and intelligence ties with all foreign powers and declare ourselves a neutral country, a friend to all an enemy to none. Who knows? Maybe the idea will catch on and other Pacific nations may decide to opt out too.

 

Pat O’Dea is a staunch unionist and activist