What is preventing the world from moving towards a new round of industrialization?
In an online live stream, someone asked Mikhail Khazin this question:
What is preventing Russia from shifting from a resource-dependent economic model to a sustainable industrial or innovation-driven development model?
Mikhail Khazin replied: Today, whether it's the United States, Europe, or Russia, there are two groups of elites in each country. Europe has more of these groups, while the United States and Russia each have two.
One group is patriotic forces. In the United States, the representative of this group is Trump. They advocate for building a self-reliant economic model of their own country, and must eliminate those redundant entities that parasitize on us.
In Russia, the situation is different. We advocate for getting rid of the US dollar system, because this system is parasitizing on our mineral resources. However, another group claims that we should maintain the US dollar-dominated economic model at any cost. The problem is, how are we going to survive afterwards?
The top is unable to push forward, the bottom is unwilling to change
The whole world has long been accustomed to the mode of maintaining global economic operations through the issuance of US dollars. Someone asked Trump: "What exactly do you want to do? Are you trying to shut down this (global economy) machine completely?"
Trump responded: "No, I want this machine to run for the benefit of the United States."
The other person countered: "But the goods Americans need for food, clothing, and housing are produced by related countries. Of course, including other countries as well. Do you want to cut off this supply chain? But we don't have the production capacity ourselves."
Trump said: "That's easy. We have plenty of dollars. Let's invest this money into American manufacturing at home."
The other person immediately rebutted: "Donald, the return on investment in financial markets is several times higher than producing socks and underpants. What kind of fool would go into the business of underpants? It's a complete loss-making business."
Certainly, you can push this through national-level efforts — allocating some money from the budget to build a sock and underwear factory, which sounds great. But this factory will eventually be incurring losses.
Even worse, once the factory is built, a bunch of corrupt officials will immediately start eyeing the subsidies allocated to the factory, siphoning off the funds for themselves. Is this what you want?"
Go ahead and show me a model that can really take off and operate effectively. During the Soviet era, this model relied on a planned economy system and the deterrent power of strict control — everyone knew that if they engaged in corruption, they would definitely be sent to prison. But once this strict "yoke" was relaxed even slightly, the entire system would collapse instantly.
Keep in mind that the cultural soil for corruption in the United States is much more fertile than in Russia. Just look at the medical industry in the United States, and then the construction industry, and you'll see clearly.
Original: toutiao.com/article/7582135291759051283/
Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.