Chapter 40 Chapter 7 The End of the Empire 2

2 The capitalist world economy flourished even more in the age of empires, penetrated into every corner of the globe, and completely changed the face of the human world.Since the October Revolution, although the footsteps of capitalism have temporarily stopped at the gate of the Soviet Union, its momentum is no longer unstoppable. The Great Economic Panic of 1929-1933 thus became an important watershed in the anti-imperialist and Third World liberation movements.Because the forces of the North Atlantic that brought capitalism with them are coming fiercely; any region, as long as it has a certain degree of economic attractiveness in the eyes of Western businessmen and governments, regardless of its original political, economic and cultural conditions, will be destroyed. Inescapable, sucked into the grip of the world market.The only exceptions are those uninhabitable regions, such as the deserts of Arabia, which, although mysterious and colorful before the discovery of oil or natural gas, escaped the net of capitalism all over the world because of their lack of economic value.Generally speaking, the third world’s contribution to the world market is mostly the supply of agricultural products—including industrial raw materials, energy, and agricultural and livestock products—and it also provides investment outlets for developed countries’ funds, including government loans, transportation, etc. Communication and urban infrastructure.Without this aspect of construction, the resources of the dependent country will not be so convenient for them to exploit. During 1913, more than three-quarters of Britain's overseas investment—at a time when more money was exported from Britain than from all other countries combined—was concentrated in government stocks, railroads, ports, and transportation (Brown, 1963, p. 153).

However, the industrialization of these dependent countries was not anyone's intentional plan, not even in South American countries.In South America, where animal husbandry is well developed, it is the most reasonable development to process the locally produced meat and make it into cans for transportation.But the emergence of the canning industry was not intended to help the industrialization of South American countries.Speaking of which, doesn't Portugal also have sardine canning and wine bottling industries?But Portugal did not industrialize as a result.Nor was the industrialization of the country the purpose for which these two industries were established.In fact, the main way that the governments and industrialists of the northern countries deal with these subordinate countries is to support imports through exports, that is, to exchange income from local agricultural products for finished products manufactured in Western countries. The world economy under British control before 1914 was built on this basis (see Chapter 2 of The Age of Empires).However, in fact, except for the so-called "settler capitalism" (settler capitalism) in some countries established by colonists, generally the dependent countries do not digest the products of Western countries very much.The 300 million people on the Indian subcontinent and the 400 million people in China are all impoverished. In addition, the local production is sufficient for the daily needs of the people, and there is really no extra ability to buy any products from outside.However, the British Empire was lucky. In the years when it dominated the world economy, although the purchasing power of the poor people in China and India was small, the sum of 700 million baht could still maintain Lancashire (Lancashire, the British textile industry) business in the cotton spinning industry continued.The interests of the British textile industry are the same as those of other manufacturing industries in the northern countries. It is nothing more than making the dependent market more and more dependent on its products, and even embarking on the road of complete dependence.That is to say, let the former remain in the state of an agricultural economy that relies on the sky for food.

However, no matter what the West's intentions are, their wishful thinking often fails to succeed. Part of the reason is the strong attraction of the world economy and society.Once the local economy is thrown into this commercial whirlwind of buying and selling, a local market emerges, which in turn stimulates the production of local consumer goods.And local production facilities, the acquisition cost is naturally relatively low.Another part of the reason is that the economic production of the subordinate regions for many years—especially in Asia—has a highly complex and long-standing organizational origin and manufacturing background, as well as quite mature and complex production technology, as well as abundant and excellent manpower. resource.So the huge distribution cities—from Buenos Aires, Sydney, to Mumbai, Shanghai, and Saigon—became the typical link between the northern countries and the subordinate world.Temporarily under the umbrella of imports, these cities sprang up their own industries—although this trend was not the intention of their rulers.For a long time the imported Lancashire cotton was not only distant but expensive.Now there are both near Ahmedabad (Ahmedabad, the commercial center north of Mumbai).Local manufacturers in Shanghai—whether run by locals themselves or acting as agents for foreign companies—can easily supply the Indian or Chinese market nearby without much effort.In fact, this is exactly what happened everywhere after the First World War, when the future of the British cotton industry was ruined.

Marx's prophecy was obviously logical, and the spark of the Industrial Revolution finally spread throughout the world.However, while we ponder Marx’s predictions, we have to be amazed by another phenomenon: until the end of the imperial era, in fact, until 1970, the vast majority of industrial production never left the door of the developed capitalist economy. .Looking at the world industrial map, the only change in the late 1930s was the implementation of the Soviet Five-Year Plan (see Chapter 2).As late as the 1960s, the original industrial heartlands located in Western Europe and North America still accounted for more than 70% of the world's total gross production.As for "value added in manufacturing", that is, industrial production, it is almost as high as 80% (Harris, 1987, pp. 102-130). The old monopoly focus of the Western world continued until the second third of the 20th century. During the 1970s, major and significant shifts occurred, including the rise of Japanese industry - Japan's total production in 1960 was less than 4% of the world's total industry. So it was not until the 1970s that economists began to write books Discuss the "new phenomenon of the international division of labor." In other words, the industrial power in the old heartland has just begun to decline at this time.

Imperialism, that is, the "old form of international division of labor", obviously has a tendency to actively strengthen the monopoly position of the core power in industry.Imperialism has ulterior motives and deliberately perpetuated the backwardness of backward countries. It was strongly attacked by Marxists between the two wars. After 1945, a new group of scholars who studied various "dependence theories" also severely criticized the selfish mentality of imperialism.Such attacks are certainly justified, but the paradox is that the real reason why industrial construction remained at home in the early years and did not expand outwards lies in the immature development of the capitalist world economy.To be more precise, it is mainly because the technology of transportation and communication was not perfect at that time, which hindered the spread of industrial seeds.It is necessary to know that enterprises use profit-making as their purpose and capital accumulation as their means.According to their account, if it is not necessary, there is obviously no reason to keep steel production in Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh in the state is an important steel town in the United States) or Ruhr (Ruhr, a major industrial city in Germany).However, the governments of industrial countries are different, especially those countries that are prone to protectionism or have large colonies. In order to protect their own industries, they will naturally use all means to prevent the emergence of potential competitors.In fact, fundamentally speaking, the establishment of colonies is not without benefits to the imperialist government.But among the colonial countries, only Japan has made systematic attempts in this regard. After annexing North Korea in 1911, Japan set up heavy industry there. After 1931, heavy industries were built in Manchuria and Taiwan respectively.Japan's motivation is that it has taken a fancy to the abundant resources of the colonies, coupled with its close geographical location, it can make up for the shortage of raw materials in the country and directly serve Japan's industrialization.In addition, in India, the largest colony in the world, the colonial government was startled during the First World War that the industrial self-sufficiency and defense strength of the land were insufficient.So a two-pronged approach was taken, and a series of development policies protected and directly participated by the government were adopted to promote the construction and development of local industries (Misra, 1967, pp. 239, 256).If it is said that the war awakened the colonial officials and made them realize the harm caused by the shortage of colonial industries; then the great economic panic between 1923 and 1933 put them under financial pressure even more.The price of agricultural products fell, and the colonial government had only one way to maintain its source of income, which was to increase tariffs on manufactured products, which would affect the products imported from the home country (Britain, France, or the Netherlands) and would not escape the fate of high tax rates.Companies run by foreign merchants had been enjoying the preferential treatment of duty-free imports; although the colonies were regarded as a secondary market on the frontier in their eyes, at this time they also felt the need to set up local factories to directly produce and sell (Holland 1985. p. 13) .However, despite the stimulation of the two major factors of war and depression, the production focus of the dependent economic world in the first half of the 20th century, most of them remained in the nature of agriculture directly produced from the land.In contrast, after the middle of the 20th century, the world economy began to experience a "Great Leap Forward".The economic life that originally belonged to the status-dependent countries has since entered a dramatic turning point.