This was inevitable once the US threw Russia out of SWIFT. CIPS is essentially an alternative to SWIFT managed by China and adapts it down to even using the same formatting standards so that they are largely interoperable.
The US pulled this latest move of weaponizing SWIFT access within 2-3 months of seizing all of the savings of Afghanistan banks. The United States is increasingly demonstrating to capitalists internationally that it is not a reliable steward of a global banking system. This kind of erratic behavior is not conducive to the wealthy internationally and is clearly enough of an inconvenience for Russia's oligarchy to shift over to alternatives. Will be interesting to see what other countries follow suit.
I'm going to have to look into this more, but my suspicion is that America was able to impose financial embargoes on smaller countries in the recent past only because those tended to either be relatively exploited already or AES countries hostile to capital.
You do not fuck with the money of billionaires if you want to stay useful to them. It seems like the US decided to prioritize its own imperialist interests over those of the international bourgeoisie. That might have been a move that worked for them under Reagan, but the cold war ended over 30 years ago and that playbook is stale.
Most capitalists prefer a certain degree of stability in infrastructure and conditions because they are fucking lazy and consistency makes it easier for them to guess how to make the line go up. Cutting Russia off from SWIFT probably fucked a bunch of execs out of quarterly bonuses. Those execs are going to do whatever they can to stop that from ever happening again.
Doesn't this imply that international bourgeoisie sees China as a better steward of capitalism than the US? Indeed, my understanding of the CIPS system is that it is decentralized in some sense (I have no idea how this actually works), which I take to mean that international bourgeoisie would be insulated from the whims of the operator of CIPS (i.e., China).
While I don't want to live in a world where the US can rugpull people's assets for no reason, isn't it also concerning that this new "improved" system could completely insulate the international bourgeoisie from regulation/consequences? Or do I not understand the system?
To give an anecdote to your first question: I've sat on earnings calls for big , high-tech manufacturers where the gist basically was expressing dismay that "we've been cut out of these markets due to sanctions / trade wars. This is a hit to potential earnings. We're a global company blah blah blah."
The personal ideological convictions of the capitalist doesnt really matter because as a whole capital knows no loyalty to anything but it's growth and ever-increasing exploitation. it can't be controlled.
And its also cathartic because death to America ;)
Yes, of course - we all know they're not loyal in any sense. I guess I just have a hang-up on this subject because I want to believe that China can eventually pose a threat to capitalism, but it's hard to reconcile that with the idea that they're the best stewards of it in the near term.
The Communists really are the best at doing capitalism. The primary reason by my guess is that the capitalists learn too much :zizek: instead of learning how their system actually works.
:deng-smile:
"Yes, funnel all of your money into our banking system. We are much more stable than the US."
For someone completely ignorant of Dengist thought, can you give a sense of how this works? Is this somehow a trap...? Could use an admiral ackbar emoji right about now
It's not a trap, it's just China being better at capitalism because Marxists understand capitalism. The idea that China's going to go socialist anytime soon is a pipedream unless there's a second cultural revolution, and this time the army doesn't step in.
So if the Chinese are pretty much set on being capitalist in the near term, why are socialists supportive of them? I can understand the importance of a meaningful challenge to American hegemony but is that the only reason? Sorry for my ignorance, not really sure what reading to do to fill in these gaps in my understanding.
They're doing capitalism in a way that's raising people out of poverty. Their rapid industrialization is creating a multi-polar world, which historically, has been good for workers rights globally. They tend to negotiate kinder terms in international lending than the US or Europe.
There's also this bizarre assertion that Chinese liberalism is tricking capitalists into investing in China so that in 30 years they can socialize it all and implement socialism.
The west is coming after china next. No way they will allow loopholes in their hegemony.
im a dumbass but does this mean the petrodollar is on its way out?
Big domino to fall if true, but we have to be patient. If India starts participating in this, watch out.
India imports most of their weapons from Russia, and historically they were closer to the USSR than US even if the government is anti-communist now.
Not yet, but it's one of the steps necessary for that to happen. The US would need to massively fuck with the ability of the oil industry to move funds around. I wouldn't have thought that'd ever happen a year ago, but the US has demolished a lot of trust in their financial consistency over the last six months.
So if we ramp up, not even propaganda but information about the Saudi-russian oil cartel, we could hit America indirectly by using current anti russian sentiment against the Sauds and the oil sector?
