A commenter on Politics Done Right said China was hoodwinking countries by indebting them into dependence. And ???
China has a great teacher
Ironically, the commenter does not understand that the United States does that implicitly. Unfortunately for the United States, we have been blowing so much up with the wars we seem to love. There is little goodwill we are sharing around the world in the process.
China is investing all those excess dollars they made from our corporatocracy selling out the American worker in other countries. They are gaining goodwill and likely financial leverage and with that political leverage.
Interestingly, what the commenter was complaining about China doing to other countries is what our corporatocracy has been doing to Americans for decades now. They invested just the minimum into Americans. Instead of American wages growing with productivity, it was “easy debt” that they gave Americans. And with that, they own many. Whether reverse mortgages, car loans, home loans, and many others, owning people via debt is the new form of owning people.
China’s capitalism is not much different than our own. And they are getting better with the smoke and mirrors we have already perfected.
We have perfected the belief that there is a correlation between capitalism and democracy. China proves capitalism may work best under an autocracy.
But is that different for us? Corporations are neither democratic nor inherently benign. Let’s recall that the most recent god of capitalism, Milton Friedman, made it clear that corporations’ fiduciary responsibility is not to workers, society, environment, etc. but solely to the shareholders.
Today’s corporate executives know how to create the perfect house of smoke and mirrors. When you watch a pharmaceutical ad, it sure seems like that corporation cares about you and your well-being. Well, they do if you are willing to pay an inflated price. Those beautiful women strolling happily in a field after positive results from the medication give you the false impression that the corporation cares. If they did, would the price be orders of magnitude more expensive than the cost of manufacture? Remember, the taxpayer already paid a large portion of the research in many forms.
But I must digress. This article is about China using its capital to indebt others into submission. The operation of our entire economy domestically and internationally provides the template. Given that China spies on all that we do, their citizens and the rest of the world may go from one “benevolent” superpower to the next.