Oh Luko, you can do better than that.... or perhaps you can't. I never said 100% of Chinese goods are shipped overseas. I did say that exports account for 35-40% of China's GDP, and that export production is based on FDI [foreign direct investment, in case you forgot], and the revenues from those exports are not actually China's, but a revenue stream belonging to foreign investors.
I didn't make up the "cheap labor policy." The CCP did. I also said China has almost half its population tied to agriculture, and despite recent improvements, productivity in that sector is extremely low. China can build all the infrastructure it wants in the current downturn. Japan did a lot of railroad building during the 90s--- didn't do very much to remedy deflation, but still they built it. However, without an expanding domestic market, the railroad China builds will be tracks to nowhere. And an expanding domestic market requires high agricultural productivity. Draw your own conclusion. As for China's high speed trainsets-- look what you wrote: bogies [we call them "trucks" in the US] and electric/electronics from a Siemen's platform. Hey Luko, what else is there to a train? Propulsion and trucks are the guts, the high value parts-- everything else is shell, padding, bells and whistles. Like the supposed "moving up the value chain" of China's exports, this too turns out to be a revenue stream for FDI. I'm sure China is laying good track-- that's the thing about engineering-- it's translatable, its transferable, capitalism and capitalist development produces good engineers. And the engineering of high speed trainsets can also be translated and transferred, so you would expect China to be able to engineer its own trainsets in the near future. That's no problem. And it's also no solution. The issue is the cost, the maintenance, the value form that surrounds, encapsulates, such engineering and development. Of course, everything, including that value form, looks just peachy in China, and it will continue to do so until it just doesn't. One other thing, you assert China has "overtaken" the US in freight rail operations. What are the data for this overtaking. How is it being measured. Is it in gross ton-miles, revenue ton-miles, total trackage, revenue ton-miles per track, revenue ton-miles per employee. Makes a big difference. For example, looking at gross agricultural output in both volume and value, you can conclude that China has "overtaken" the US in agricultural output-- until of course you look at the output per person, the yields, etc.-- all that good stuff we call productivity. If you're measuring simply on the basis of gross output-- that means nothing as the former USSR proved. Put down your pom-poms, Luko, and lose the cheerleading. Just for a change. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lüko Willms" <[email protected]> To: "David Schanoes" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 3:39 AM Subject: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway (was:railroads) Michael Perelman ([email protected]) wrote on 2009-08-30 at 18:53:48 in about [Marxism] railroads: > ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
