#精品长文创作季#
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The public did not cross the river, but the public crossed the river, crossed the river and died, what could he do?
If the United States wants to continue to maintain its competitiveness with China in the industrial field, it can only go out of that road, and it is a dead end, a dead end that is really destroying the country and the species, but even if it knows all this, the United States will still go down that road.
destroy
In 476 A.D., Odoac, the leader of the Germanic mercenaries, led his army to the city of Rome, and the soldiers defending the city opened the gates of the city in tacit agreement, all of which was so logical, because most of the soldiers defending the city were also Germanic.
Odoacer led Germanic mercenaries to plunder the city and depose the Western Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus, bringing the Western Roman Empire to an end.
The millennium of Rome has come to an end.
It is not uncommon for the capitals of powerful empires to fall in history, some of them were burned in flames, and some of them were shed in rivers of blood, but these are not the most ironic compared to the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
The fall of the Western Roman Empire proceeded almost in a silent way, with barbarians swaggering into the cities, looting, killing, and deposing emperors, but none of this seemed to cause much social repercussions.
The Western Roman Emperor was deposed, and if he was abolished, he was abolished, and the incident ended with the Christian archbishop coming forward and giving the Germanic mercenaries a sum of money to send them away, as for the deposed emperor, no one cared about him, no one wanted to set him up again, and no one wanted to exterminate him, so he was left to fend for himself.
The mighty empire that once dominated the Mediterranean for five centuries disappeared so lightly, giving people the feeling of "there was nothing in the first place, where to stir up dust".
What made the Western Roman Empire exit in such a comical way, and what hollowed out the foundations of this once glorious empire?
Reindustrialization
In 2010, China's industrial output surpassed that of the United States to become the world's largest, and the American elite immediately proposed that industrial output was more valuable than gross domestic product (GDP), and that the United States must do everything to bring American industry back to the top of the world.
At the helm of the White House was Democratic President Barack Obama, who raised the slogan of "re-industrialization".
Obama's slogan of "re-industrialization" is loud, and the Democratic administration led by him seems to have put forward a fairly reasonable guide to this goal.
Specifically, there are two points: the first is to use the advantages of the United States in science and technology, land cost, and energy cost to compete with China on the core issue of industrial cost.
This idea seemed very reasonable at the time, because the United States had advantages over China in terms of energy and land costs at that time, and compared with China, the cost disadvantage of the United States and China mainly came from labor costs, but with the development of China's economy, labor costs were bound to be pushed up, so China's labor cost advantage will be slowly weakened.
Of course, the United States will not be willing to just quietly watch the increase in Chinese labor costs drag down the competitiveness of Chinese goods, so there is a second trick, simply put, the United States should take the initiative to expand the influence of Chinese labor costs, the specific way is to take the initiative to contact and support Southeast Asian countries with lower labor costs and competition with Chinese goods, increase investment in these countries, and accelerate their substitution of Chinese industries.
According to this set of theories, the effect that the Americans want to achieve is to attack China on both sides, on the one hand, the medium and high manufacturing industry returns to the United States, on the other hand, the low-end manufacturing industry goes to Southeast Asia, so that China's manufacturing industry can not go up and down, and then use financial means to burst the real estate bubble, if this set of operations to achieve the expected goals, China will fall directly into the middle-income trap and cannot extricate itself, becoming a low-profile version of Japan.
If purely theoretically, this set of methods can not be described as incomplete, it cannot be described as inaccurate, but what about the result?
The operation is as fierce as a tiger, and the actual effect is two hundred and five. The industrial output of China and the United States continues to grow.
The theory seems to be fine, but what's the problem?
Don't worry, in fact, Obama deliberately avoided a question when he put forward the slogan of "re-industrialization": the labor cost of American workers is several times that of Chinese workers, and if we want to make American products more competitive, we must face one question: who will do the dirty work in industry?
Obama wants to say goodbye on this issue, but he is very honest physically, and he has already thought about who will do the work.
Texas
A few days ago, the Texas incident caused a stir in the United States, the governor of Texas publicly angrily scolded President Biden, and the Texas National Guard confronted the US federal army.
At the root of all problems is none other than one thing: immigration.
Illegal immigrants, to be exact.
The U.S. market advertises itself as an immigration country, which is true, the United States opens its immigration channels to the world every year, accepting immigrants is a powerful means to maintain the core competitiveness of the United States, skilled immigration allows the United States to absorb talents from all over the world, and investment immigrants can also activate the U.S. economy, but please note that these immigrants are legal immigrants.
The number of immigrants is not large, but the contribution to American society is not small, after this part of the immigrants came to the United States, engaged in most of the high-end industries, for this part of the immigrants, the attitude of the Democratic and Republican parties as a whole is relatively welcome.
Texas will not let these immigrants turn against the federal government and make Texas unbearable for some other immigrants with more special status: illegal immigrants.
Illegal immigrants are foreign nationals who forcibly bring themselves to the United States through a range of other means without being able to obtain legal immigration status, and the "lecturers" who have recently gone viral on the Internet fall into this category.
Most of these illegal immigrants live on the streets, evading immigration and doing odd jobs to make ends meet, often doing dirty jobs that Americans don't want to do, and because they don't have status, employers can arbitrarily lower their wages.
In the United States, the lifestyles and social positioning of these two types of immigrants are completely different, and many Chinese middle-class people who "walk" to the United States yearn for the life of the first type of immigrants, but what awaits them is the treatment of the second type of immigrants, so there will be those ironic things.
With regard to illegal immigration, the attitude of the Democratic and Republican parties is very different, and the Republican Party, which represents the interests of industrial capital and middle- and lower-class whites, is very clear: it does not support illegal immigration, and it is better to get rid of illegal immigrants.
The Democratic Party's attitude towards illegal immigrants is much more ambiguous, and the little ninety-nine in their hearts is like this:
The labor cost of illegal immigrants is much lower than that of the average American, which happens to be a force that can be exploited, and if these people flood into the industrial field in large numbers, the industrial cost of the United States may be pulled down as a whole, and low cost is competitiveness.
If you want to compete with China in the industrial field in an all-round way, you should use all the resources you use, and illegal immigrants are good and cheap, so why not?
So for illegal immigration, just turn a blind eye.
The reason for this Texas outburst is that Texas is in a border area, and a large number of illegal immigrants from Mexico have to enter the United States from Texas.
Speaking of which, the main differences between the Democratic and Republican parties are gradually becoming clear:
The Republican Party wants to completely return industry to the United States, and let pure Americans complete industrial production by themselves, so as to achieve the goal of reindustrialization.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, believes that relying on the Americans themselves, the cost of manpower is skyrocketing, and they simply have no ability to compete with China.
On the issue of reindustrialization, there is no disagreement between the Democratic and Republican parties, and the difference is over who will reindustrialize.
Octavian's regrets
On the question of reindustrialization, which of the two parties is more reliable? Don't be in a hurry to answer, history has the answer.
At the beginning of the Roman Republic, most Roman citizens were yeoman farmers, they farmed in peacetime and joined the army in wartime, at that time Roman social cohesion was strong, the whole Roman social atmosphere was also positive, industriousness and courage were valuable qualities to be encouraged, and extravagance was considered despicable.
However, as time went on, the land annexation deepened, and a large number of Roman citizens became displaced people, which not only caused many social problems, but also eventually led to the replacement of Rome's proud republican system with a military dictatorship.
After Octavian became the de facto emperor of Rome by the Senate, he began a series of reforms, including an attempt to solve the problems of Roman society once and for all.
With the end of the war, Octavian gave the land he had acquired in the war, as well as the land he had taken from the senate nobles, to the veterans who had become yeoman farmers again.
According to Octavian's vision, Rome was so chaotic in the late republic, and its economic root cause was that ordinary Romans did not have land, and now they were given land, and the fundamental problem would be solved, and the world would be peaceful.
But as a result, Octavian was slapped in the face, and after the redistribution of the land, the Romans did not revert to becoming yeoman farmers, as Octavian had envisioned.
Most of the officers who were allocated more land gave the land to slaves to cultivate, and they were only responsible for collecting the money, and after collecting the money, they had to take it to the city of Rome to spend it.
Most of the soldiers who had less land rented their land to others for farming, or perhaps simply sold their land for some gold and silver, and then remained in the city of Rome.
Octavian was desperate to find that the soldiers who had been dismissed by himself with his land had gathered in Rome a few years later to earn a living.
Octavian obviously found the right way, but why did it work so poorly?
The answer is still the city of Rome, where all roads can be reached.
All roads lead to Rome
Why did Octavian's veterans return to Rome even though they had already acquired the most important means of production of the agricultural era?
Because the city is so breathtaking, with the resources and wealth of the entire Mediterranean converging here, not only the colourful life, but also the abundance of opportunities, the few acres of thin fields in the countryside pale in comparison.
What's more, because Roman citizens have votes, so those who are in the city of Rome with citizenship and citizenship, even if they don't do anything, the Roman government and politicians will try to curry favor with this group of people for the sake of votes, in Rome City, Roman citizens can buy cheap food, fill their stomachs, with the help of the government will not spend too much money to solve the problem, in order to pull votes, some politicians will hold banquets, sports meetings to invite civilians to participate for free.
Since Rome provided its citizens with the most basic means of subsistence, it became a very uneconomical option to return to the countryside to become a yeoman farmer, because the hard work in the countryside was nothing more than food and clothing, but the comfortable city life and the theoretical possibility of prosperity were abandoned.
Now, let's try to consider a slightly more complicated question: even if some Roman veterans did work as yeoman farmers in the countryside, would they have a competitive advantage?
From the late Roman Republic onwards, the economic form of Rome changed from a dominantly yeoman economy to a manor economy.
In the case of the manor economy, which is already quite regular, even if some people are allowed to turn back to yeoman farmers again, will they be able to compete with the aristocratic manors that have already become a system of scale?
Many things look beautiful, but in reality they simply cannot be realized, heaven and earth are not benevolent, and anything that tries to violate the laws of society will be punished by the laws of society.
After most of the Romans stopped farming, the task of farming was handed over to slaves, and when most Romans were no longer willing to do dirty work in the cities, these tasks were left to the inhabitants of the provinces.
Rome is changing color little by little in this way.
Eventually, change came to Rome for one of the last and deadliest professions: the soldier.
The Romans, after being unwilling to plow, unwilling to work, finally came to the last step: unwilling to fight.
Since the middle of the Roman Empire, the Roman legions have continuously recruited barbarian soldiers into the army to replenish the army.
The barbarian soldier gradually changed from the initial auxiliary role to the core of the army, and so the scene at the beginning of the article occurred.
The Romans succeeded in putting their fate in the hands of others over the course of hundreds of years, and the Germanic mercenaries who finally broke into Rome were only one last kick on a dilapidated house that leaked on all sides.
The American conundrum
In 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump, who bravely entered the White House as a political amateur, tried to get traditional U.S. manufacturing companies such as Apple and Tesla to bring overseas funds back to China in his usual simple and crude way, and then directly invest in building factories in the United States.
After some tugging, Apple and other companies have agreed to increase the number of direct factories in the United States.
Because Apple has taken the lead, Trump has made no secret of his excitement, praising Apple CEO Tim Cook as a patriot, but Cook does not seem to be optimistic about the future of the American factory, four years ago, he personally visited Zhengzhou, China, where he saw the unprecedented scale of the Apple foundry, and when he returned to the United States, he said to then-President Obama: Mr. President, those industries will never come back.
During Trump's tenure, there were also Chinese manufacturing companies such as Fuyao and Foxconn to invest in the United States to build factories, and during Biden's tenure, he successfully persuaded TSMC to build factories in the United States.
The Americans who kept shouting that they wanted to work, and the so-called Rust Belt American workers, who often shouted that illegal immigrants had taken their jobs, would immediately rise up at the slightest dissatisfaction with their treatment, and they and the unions behind them had a hundred ways to make the factories yellow.
The performance of American workers begs the question: Do they really want to work?
The human brain has a mechanism that downplays its pain and leaves its good parts for a long time ago, and goes to work happily in the factory to feed the family, but the unreal narrative after brain processing, when the roar of the machine rings in the ears again, the American workers who have been accustomed to the welfare life will think about fleeing at the first time.
Some things, once started, can never be returned.
Wall
Now, the competition between China and the United States has entered the deep waters, and the gap between the two countries in the industrial field is getting wider and wider, and the United States will not sit idly by.
At the beginning of the epidemic in 2020, the United States tried every means to move its industry in China to a place they thought was "safe" on the grounds of industrial chain security.
There are roughly three "safe" places: Southeast Asia is the lowest level of security, the United States is the highest level of security, and somewhere in between, what is considered medium security is particularly noteworthy: it is Mexico, the southern neighbor of the United States.
The effect of the U.S. transfer of industries to these three places is that the efforts to transfer back to the United States are basically in vain, and the efforts to support Southeast Asia with capital and technology have achieved certain results, but Southeast Asia is close to China's geographical location, and there are many complementary industries, so even if these industries are transferred, they may not be able to completely break away from China's industrial system, and the industries transferred to Mexico have also made some progress.
From both a safety and practical point of view, opening a factory in Mexico has become a good choice.
In the short term, there is not much danger in investing in Mexico, because at least for now, the United States can hold Mexico firmly in terms of economic strength and comprehensive national strength, so it is feasible for the United States to treat Mexico as its own backyard factory.
However, in the long run, there is a great possibility that the United States will be "replaced" by Mexico.
The aforementioned Democrats are suspected of conniving at illegal immigrants entering the United States to engage in low-end manufacturing, most of whom are from Mexico.
For those who have been on the U.S.-Mexico border for many years, the border wall is an ornament, and there are countless ways for them to "black" from Mexico to the United States to work.
And Americans only need to offer more than local wages in Mexico to attract such illegal immigrants.
The construction of a large number of factories in Mexico, and the introduction of a large number of illegal immigrants from Mexico, at present, this is the only way for the United States to reduce the overall cost of its industry.
When the United States exaggerates the theory of the China threat, it often mentions one sentence: The United States cannot put its fate in the hands of China.
But judging from the current situation, if the United States really wants to do this, it can only vigorously support Mexico, and this is tantamount to putting its destiny in the hands of Mexico.
Today, Mexicans are the most populous group in the United States after whites, and more importantly, they have the highest fertility rate in the United States.
In a few years, the combined number of Mexicans in the United States and Mexicans in Mexico will exceed the number of white Americans, and of course, even if they outnumber them in a short period of time, it will not make much of a wave, because most of the wealth is still in the hands of whites.
But let's not forget that as Mexico industrializes and more jobs are occupied by Mexicans, the wealth gap between white Americans and Mexicans in the United States and Mexico will show a trend of ebbating and waning, and wealth will slowly flow into the hands of Mexicans.
The rise of China will only make the Americans lose their hegemony in the world, but if the Mexicans in the United States and Mexico really rise, what awaits the United States will only be "changed".
From the perspective of long-term interests, there is no doubt that Mexico's enlargement will do more harm to the United States, but a person who is dying of starvation will not care about long-term interests, and in the face of that precarious hegemonic position, the United States will certainly run wildly towards that dead end.
Power is the poison of the world, and it will make people run to the abyss they know without hesitation.
This is true for people and for nations.