We're seeing increased pressure in the imperial core to reinvest in public funding for industry and social programs due to competition from a large socialist project.
This happened throughout the first cold war, so it's telling to see the same patterns re-emerging.
Something I missed a couple months ago - The Senate Overwhelmingly Passed a Bill to Bolster Competitiveness With China
Passed back in June, the "Innovation and Competition Act" only really picked up support when it was renamed from the "Endless Frontier Act" and positioned as being an anti-China bill.
The more than 2,400-page bill greenlit almost $250 billion in funding for U.S. manufacturing and technology. It passed with a 68-32 vote in a Senate that has otherwise been mostly gridlocked by electoralist excuses (parliamentarian, manchin, fillibuster, etc).
Really telling quote from a Republican senator at the end of the linked article:
“Frankly, I think China has left us no option but to make these investments,”
Another quote with Schumer saying the quiet part out loud again:
“They [China] believe that squabbling democracies like ours can’t come together and invest in national priorities the way a top-down, centralized and authoritarian government can. They are rooting for us to fail so they can grab the mantle of global economic leadership and own the innovations.” - source.
A spokesperson from China's foreign ministry said that bill was “full of cold war zero-sum thinking” that “distorts the facts [and] smears China’s development path and domestic and foreign policies". - Source
In a strange way, this could result in some benefits for those workers trapped in the Imperial Core as it could potentially lead to renewed spending on social programs, especially as China's standard of living continues to improve.
I unfortunately don't view that as a net positive since we're already experiencing a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes, but it is interesting to see Capitalism's ongoing response to its global power being challenged for the first time in decades.
What other examples of this have you noticed? Were benefits like the (still underwhelming) stimulus payments also caused by this pressure?
Curious why that didn’t happen last Cold War
Because after WW2 the US bought off the allegiance of the working class with the GI Bill and a homeownership middle class society. They did that because 1946 had the most strikes in US history, and the standards of living in the USSR were starting to put the US to shame, and they could because they were the only capitalist power not destroyed in the war and so had plenty of money and productive capacity.
They have no reason to do that now.
I mean China may give them one. Wouldn’t be surprised if being a DemSucc started becoming more socially acceptable again once the big wigs realize Sabre rattling at China ain’t gonna cut it.
Yeah they may well have one soon. Which i think is why the infrastructure bill passed.
Let’s hope. Homeless camps everywhere fucking sucks.
This county saw not inconsiderable uprisings after George Floyd’s murder. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have some sort of Bell Riots type incident in the near future that maybe motivates the bourgeois to go “shit we should probably throw the rabble a bone before they start kicking our doors in”.