Monday, September 13, 2010

China and the End of Capitalism

The argument is that China represents the last infrastructurally developed reservoir of cheap labor and market growth left in the world, and its now central role in the world economy represents an end stage in the modernizing phase of capitalism. Chinese production has been increasingly overloading the world capitalist system with goods, creating overcapacity on a global scale, with the U.S. running unsustainable trade deficits as the holder of reserve currency and 'consumer of last resort'. The system is overloaded; we have a global crisis of 'over-production' of proportions never before attained.

Two people associated with this view are Robert Brenner of UCLA and Minqi Li of the University of Utah, though their perspectives vary significantly as well; Li focuses quite a bit on ecology both in his book 'China and the Demise of the World Capitalist System' and in this interview.


1'The Real News Network'


2'Overproduction not Financial Collapse is the Heart of the Crisis: the US, East Asia, and the World' - Interview with Robert P. Brenner

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What about India, parts of Southeast Asia and even Africa?

There is a lot of slack in terms of moving labour into the capitalist system.

The Arthurian said...

Your footnote 2 -- Robert Brenner -- most interesting.

Art