The Killer's Henchman by Gowans Stephen;

Author:Gowans, Stephen;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Baraka Books

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The United States is a model of state-directed economics as much as is China. It simply pretends otherwise. It bids other countries, and at times coerces them at the point of a gun or under the threat of starvation, to do as it says it does rather than as it actually does. So it is that George W. Bush could sing paeans to free-trade, while in the same breath announce steel tariffs. Barack Obama could rhapsodize about how the US “free-enterprise system drives innovation,” and then add that “throughout history our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support that they need” because it is not “profitable for companies to invest in basic research.”50

The difference between US- and Chinese-state-directed economics is that a micro-elite of wealthy US shareholders, investors, and bankers, acting through a power elite in government, uses the US state to steer the US economy in directions that protect and promote their interests, while in China, the Communist party steers the Chinese economy in directions that protect and promote the economic development interests of the Chinese people as a whole. In the former case, state-directed economics is yoked to the interests of a US financial class as a project of minority wealth expansion; in the latter, it is yoked to the project of China’s national rejuvenation. While the models are alike, the differences in the aims are illustrated in this observation from The Wall Street Journal: “A figure like [Apple Inc. Tim] Cook commands a great deal of respect, even deference, in Washington. In Beijing, he’s treated like any other business executive—as a supplicant, angling for favors to keep his market hopes alive.”51 In the United States, capitalism is an end in itself. In China, it’s the means to an end.

The implication for public health emergencies is that if capitalism is in command the response will reflect capitalist interests. If profits aren’t in command, governments have the latitude to act in the public interest.

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