The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 21

Considered from the perspective of industrial capital as an abstraction, all of these different standards, rules, regulations and so on are irrational, but industrial capital, like everything else in the world, does not exist as an abstraction, but as a reality. That reality is one in which industrial capital developed within the context of the nation state, and each of those nation states created their own standards, rules, regulations, laws and so on, in order to protect and advance the interests of industrial capital, not in the abstract, but in the concrete reality of that state.

Britain adopted the standard gauge for railways in the 19th century, as noted earlier. One of the reasons for adopting it, rather than the broad gauge used by Brunel, was that the Stephensons had built more engines and track, using their standard gauge, and so were able to convince parliament to adopt it, even though there are numerous reasons for thinking that the broad gauge was technically superior. A similar thing occurred with the adoption of VHS as the standard for video recorders, even though Betamax was technically superior. As the leading industrial power, in the 19th century, Britain exported locomotives across the world, as well as building railways in its colonial Empire. In so doing, it created the same standards used for production in Britain, and so gave its own manufacturers an immediate advantage. Had motor vehicles been developed earlier, most of the world would drive on the left side of the road and have right-hand drive cars, as in Britain, rather than left hand drive cars, as in the US, where, from the start, most of them were produced.

In the post-war era, although the first programmable, electronic computer was built in Britain, and used at Bletchley Park to decrypt German codes, it was the US, which dominated the global market for mainframe computers. The number of these computers in operation was tiny, compared to the number of computers produced and used today. They were nearly all used by governments or large corporations. Countries like Britain, therefore, subsidised and protected their own small mainframe computer companies like ICL. But, ICL was never going to be able to dominate the global mainframe computer market, in the way that IBM did, because the limited size of the UK market meant it did not have the scale of production enjoyed by IBM. Had Britain been part of the EU, in the 1950's, it might have been able to help create a European mainframe computer industry of a size that could have competed with the US, but it wasn't.

Moreover, the US developed its computer industry in large part to assist in its military capability. The computers controlled missiles and so on. Given that the US produced the majority of the weapons systems used by NATO, and deployed in Europe, it ensured that it was those US computer standards that were adopted. In the 1980's, when the microchip revolution took place, it was, then, the US which dominated the market for personal computers. Even when other countries, and companies produced personal computers, they quickly had to be sold as being “IBM compatible”. Similarly, the operating system used on those “IBM Compatible”, PC's had to be Microsoft's DOS, a factor which enabled Microsoft to dominate the global software market.

This is also seen, in relation to the Internet, and global communications systems. The difference is that the US, in the 1980's and after, having shifted a large part of the production of hardware to other parts of the world (mostly Asia), content that 90% of the value of the end product came from the skilled complex labour, embodied in the intellectual property, retained in the US, opened itself up to the possibility that having become the dominant producers of the hardware, companies in these other regions would, also, develop their own firmware, and software. They would, inevitably, develop their own standards and protocols. As the world's largest market for almost everything, China has a huge advantage in that regard. The Chinese state, as the centralised planner of the economy, has a massive advantage in being able to pursue that course.

The EU, developed its own Atomic Energy Industry, to be able to compete with the US, and belatedly, the EU has been prompted by the regime of Trump, to begin separating itself from the US domination of the Internet and technology.  The EU Parliament has already banned use of several US platforms for its MEP's and staff, and has developed EU alternative systems.

Amazingly, even in the 21st century, the railways continue to play a significant role in that respect. China has developed its high speed trains linking up the vast expanses of the country. But, as part of its “Belt and Road” strategy, it has provided the capital for railways to be constructed across Asia. The real significance of railways has always been in relation to the movement of freight, particularly bulk freight. Over short, local distances, railways are too rigid to be useful means of passenger transport. They lost out, prior to car ownership, to buses, which could provide flexible routes. But, buses too are too rigid, compared to private motor cars. Over longer, inter-city, journeys, trains are less rigid but, as families bought cars, and as companies provided company cars for their representatives, and as motorways were developed, trains could not compete. Only on much bigger land masses could high speed trains compete, over even larger distances, for passenger traffic, and there, they initially faced the already established airlines.

Railways, like canals, are significant as a means of, effectively moving bulk freight, particularly over large distances, and that is what China has done, spreading out from China itself, into Eurasia, and across to the Middle East and Europe. Last year, it sent a freight train from China to London. As I have set out before, Eurasia is a rational economic entity, just as is the EU. Trade within these two entities, inevitably increases, and drives towards, the adoption of common rules, standards, laws, regulations and so politico-economic integration and centralisation. But, the fact that the EU and Eurasian bloc share a common land mass, also means that trade between these blocs, will also increase, relative to with the US etc.

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SNNS 52

 

Northern Soul Classics - SWIM - Bobby Freeman

 

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Northern Soul Classics - I Just Can't Forget That Boy - Little Rena Scott

 

The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 20

Unlike the UK, the US is a huge economy. Unlike the UK, the US, also, has long established trade with its neighbours in Canada, Mexico and Central and South America. So, the US can, within its own borders, do what the Brexiters ridiculously claimed that Britain could do. It can set its own rules, and those that wish to operate within the US, or to export to it, have to accept those rules, including the EU and China. Even so, the US was led to create NAFTA, before Trump blew it up, and was then led to replace it with the MCA. Because Trump sees himself as an old style King or colonial Emperor, rather than as a modern imperialist, he is driven in the same general direction, but using the old, abandoned methods of colonialism, land grabs, militarism and annexation. Its what his vulgar approach to Canada, Greenland/Iceland and so on reflects. No wonder his ideology fits seamlessly with the ethnonationalist/racist, settler-colonial ideology of Zionism.

From the perspective of industrial capital, in the abstract, all of these different rules and regulations are irrational, and an impediment to its free expansion. Its why industrial capitalism, in its first flush, had to get rid of all the multiplicity of rules and regulations of feudalism, and create the nation state. The railways provided another example of it, as they quickly required a standardisation of gauge for the tracks, which, also, meant a standardisation of the locomotives and carriages. It also brought about a standardisation of time without which train timetables would have been meaningless. The Bolsheviks, who had appreciated, all of this, and the scientific management methods of the Taylorists, as one of their first revolutionary changes in production, in the USSR, introduced a comprehensive standardisation of sizes and so on, down to the smallest component of production.

Not only did it make production of each component much cheaper, because they were now produced on a much larger scale, but the industries using those components no longer had to waste time in production, ensuring they had the right size of component, taken from the stock room. It also meant that the actual amount of capital held unproductively as stock was reduced. Without such standardisation, none of the advantages of assembly line production, or of time and motion studies could have been realised. When the US sent a delegation to the USSR in the 1920's, that lesson was quickly observed, and the US, in turn, implemented a similar process of standardisation. The example of the social-democratic/corporatist ideas of Herbert Hoover find a pale reflection in the ideas, as far as they can be discerned, of Andy Burnham. But, it also, shows why, if Brexit was a reactionary, delusional adventure, the growing claims about the benefits of breaking up even the nation state, and return to the divisions of regionalism, each ruled over by their own local Bonaparte, are even more reactionary and delusional.

US imperialism has discovered that, although it remains the dominant industrial capital, in many areas of production, having, as I noted earlier, moved away from the old labour intensive, manufacturing and extractive industries, and into new capital intensive spheres, it is China that now dominates global manufacturing industry, and as with the process of combined and uneven development throughout history, it is China and India that are rapidly developing in those areas of high-tech industries into which US industrial capital previously shifted. The rise of China as the global manufacturing superpower, over the last 40 years, had other consequences. It is that manufacturing industry that absorbs huge amounts of raw materials, and China developed global trading relations with many countries in South America, Africa, Australia, and the Middle-East that supply it with those raw materials, and primary products.

At a time when US imperialism was more concerned to have Dollars flowing back to the US to buy up financial assets, so as to keep its asset price bubbles inflating, Chinese imperialism, was paying for its raw materials, energy supplies and other primary products, by exporting not only vast amounts of cheap manufactured commodities, but also by exporting capital. It set up production in DRC etc., to mine the copper that was then exported to China, and those mines used Chinese machines and so on. Like British imperialism in India, in the 19th century, China invested in the creation of additional infrastructure in these countries, tying them ever closer to Beijing. By contrast, the US offered the opportunity to buy already inflated US financial and property assets, the attraction of which was undermined when that bubble burst in 2008, but being, also, another reason that having built its model around it, US imperialism had to reflate it. Alternatively, US imperialism offered to build luxury hotels and facilities for the global elite, in these, economies as with Dubai, which offer little benefit for the masses in those countries, other than the chance to work as a precarious labourer serving the wishes of that elite.

In Afghanistan, US imperialism exported its troops and weapons, to wreak destruction rather than construction. When it ultimately left, the Taliban simply returned, because, unlike with Britain's involvement in India, US involvement in Afghanistan resulted in no export of capital, no industrial development of the economy, no creation of a modern working-class, as the basis of modernising ideas. Once again, as US imperialism and its subordinates withdrew from Afghanistan, it is China that is establishing those kinds of relations, as it develops trade and investment.

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