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PaperclipPerfector
9mo ago
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Transnational Thursday for February 22, 2024
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No? Every dollar spent on the military-industrial complex is a dollar not spent on the education-managerial complex.
And it is the education-managerial complex that's actually on the back foot here because the vast majority of its power rests upon the existence of cheap Chinese manufacturing (both chips and otherwise). Their time is over as soon as the Chinese missiles leave their launchers no matter which way you slice it.
Why invest in a pre-emptive solution that would require you give more power back to the middle class (which is one of the things a large manufacturing base is famous for doing) when you could just do nothing and enrich yourself in the meantime? If China never tries to take back Taiwan, you'll still keep your power and didn't have to spend a dime to do it; if China tries to take back Taiwan and explodes the EMC's money-making machinery, now you've put your political enemy in a more difficult position, which is good because should they win and fix everything they'll be less able to resist you 20 years down the line. Same dynamics as climate change but with the political valence reversed.
Progressives' job is ultimately to convince China to leave their money printer alone specifically because their rule weakens the US. If China disregards that advice and the US ends up turfing its hyper-conservative (as in "no new development ever") ruling class as a result of the financial problems that destruction would create they're going to be a lot harder to fight.
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