[lbo-talk] Crunch time for US capitalism?

Dennis Redmond dredmond at efn.org
Mon Dec 6 20:42:30 PST 2004


Seth Ackerman wrote:


> Maybe the success of Japan-Korea-China
> is one of the main symptoms of the problem the system is facing. The
> system
> "wants" a free flow of goods and therefore an international division of
> labor. But nationalists in Japan-Korea-China wanted to build a full
> production set of their own.

The great irony, though, is that East Asian capitalism is narrowly nationalistic in the cultural/ideological field, but their keiretsu/chaebol structures are deeply multinational -- just the opposite of the US, which has a fairly cosmopolitan corporate multiculturalism, but an economic structure run mostly by Wall Street rentiers.


> The only possible outcomes are (1) an end to the free flow of goods; Asia
> produces for the Asians, America for Americans, etc; or (2) a nasty
> shakeout where one side or the other is forced to shut down its production
> capacity.

There's a third alternative: the US goes down the tubes, and the EU and East Asia step in at the last second with a suitably magnanimous bailout -- at a suitably exorbitant price. Maybe the oiligarchy will sell a couple blue states to the ECB.

-- DRR



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