this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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Kinda hard to argue against a country that consistently focuses on increasing the development of their productive forces. Tarrifs in the US are a way to protect dying industries from competition with more productive and efficient countries. The only way out for the US is re-industrialization, either through strong federal expansions a la FDR with some type of mega Green New Deal, or replacing the system with Socialism (at which point relations with China would likely cool down).
Social Democracy, however, would only delay the inevitable.
you forgot the third option: military and/or financial intervention, forcing other countries to stop trading with china or face consequences like regime change; political instability; economic destruction; etc.
the mindset of american "patriots" since the cold war when it came to a nuclear holocaust was that if 4 russians are still alive after the nuclear missile stopped falling and there were 5 americans left alive, then we've won; that mindset is still alive, well and in charge right now.
Even if the US doubles down on millitary action, and commits, that isn't a way out. The US has no other manufacturing overseas or domestically that can keep up with its consumption, it needs to re-industrialize regardless.
The US economy is too based on rent seeking for that to happen without a system disintegrating crash.
That is, maybe some polity occupying the territories formerly known as the United States could do it.
Which might be something motivating this "network state" bullshit.
Hence why I said it would need essentially a mega-FDR admin or Socialism to achieve, and the mega-FDR admin would merely be a delay of crashing.
This is still a financial assessment, not a real one. There aren't enough people who know how to architect, build, design, deploy, and operate the kinds of factories America would need. It would take 30 years minimum to even get to place of approaching where China was 20 years ago. By 2055, China will be so far ahead it's ludicrous.
And that's just the US trying to play catch up. China dominates academic research in high tech. The US would take at least 30 years to rebuild its university system to produce enough research and innovation that it could compete in the next century's high tech arena.
And the US's public schooling system doesn't have what it needs to produce workers for that economy. Another multi-decade project.
And all of that doesn't even touch the infrastructure problem. Transit just for employees is untenable for what would need to be done due to suburban sprawl and lack of public transit. But the rail, the roads, and the bridges aren't in good enough repair to handle reindustrialization. And neither is the power grid, the water system, nor waste management. China is so far ahead on all of these aspects of infrastructure, it would take 30 years and about 4 New Deals worth of investment to just be able to compete with China of 2015.
There's no way. The US is well and fully cooked.
For what it's worth, I agree, hence why I said it would delay. The US's only real hope for the future is Socialist revolution and building ties with the PRC so they help build up the US's real productive forces.
PRC will never help the USA build up industry because the USA is a criminal settler colony. China will help whatever state emerges from the ashes of the USA rebuild after decolonization.
That's more what I was talking about.
Not really. In the scenario of the US no longer being the world empire, I don't see why the US couldn't enlist help from other countries to re-industrialize. It could rebuild industrial capacity and educational capacity in parallel if say, it imported capital from China. You could drastically cut down rebuilding times with a planned economy.
What other countries? England? Germany? France? The industrial center has moved to China. The only country that could help would be China. And China is not going to help the USA build up the industrial capacity of a genocidal settler colony that will use that industrial capital to produce weapons.
No, it's not realistic to assume that anyone is going to come and just help America. When America is no longer the world empire, the process of decolonization will eliminate this particular state and replace it with something unrecognizable. It won't be called America, it won't be Eurocentric, it won't be trying to compete in world markets. It will be dismantled and gone.
There are plenty of other countries with decent levels of industrial manufacturing in the global south. India, Brazil, Russia, Vietnam come immediately to mind. But that's besides the point, since by the time that the US collapses, more global south countries will join the ranks of moderately/highly industrialized countries.
Well, uh, the thing that comes after America would be helped by the rest of the world. America would be gone, but the land and the people won't be.
100%, and is the most optimistic path within the realm of possibility.