"England was to become the ‘workshop of the world'; all other countries were to become for England what Ireland already was — markets for her manufactured goods, supplying her in return with raw materials and food. England, the great manufacturing centre of an agricultural world, with an ever-increasing number of corn and cotton-growing Irelands revolving around her, the industrial sun. What a glorious prospect! …
But then a change came. The crash of 1866 was, indeed, followed by a slight and short revival about 1873; but that did not last. We did not, indeed, pass through the full crisis at the time it was due, in 1877 or 1878; but we have had, ever since 1876, a chronic state of stagnation in all dominant branches of industry. Neither will the full crash come; nor will the period of longed-for prosperity to which we used to be entitled before and after it. A dull depression, a chronic glut of all markets for all trades, that is what we have been living in for nearly ten years. How is this?
The Free Trade theory was based upon one assumption: that England was to be the one great manufacturing centre of an agricultural world. And the actual fact is that this assumption has turned out to be a pure delusion. The conditions of modern industry, steam-power and machinery, can be established wherever there is fuel, especially coals. And other countries besides England — France, Belgium, Germany, America, even Russia — have coals. And the people over there did not see the advantage of being turned into Irish pauper farmers merely for the greater wealth and glory of English capitalists. They set resolutely about manufacturing, not only for themselves, but for the rest of the world; and the consequence is that the manufacturing monopoly enjoyed by England for nearly a century is irretrievably broken up."
The same could be said today of the US and China.
The same technical advances created rapid growth in non industrialized non capitalist societies once they were introduced like the USSR or China. It's silly to say that orders of magnitude reductions in human labour needed to produce food, provide clean water, build sanitation and sewer systems do not result in steady growth regardless of economic system. Producing the food easily is more fundamental than deciding who gets what amount of easily produced food allocated to them.
What created rapid growth in both the USSR and China is precisely their respective transitions from non capitalist societies to capitalist societies. Regardless of the technical advances of the (very different) times.
> It's silly to say that orders of magnitude reductions in human labour needed to produce food, provide clean water, build sanitation and sewer systems do not result in steady growth regardless of economic system.
No, what’s silly is to talk about "economic growth" regardless of the economic system. The growth in "economic growth" is a growth of exchange value produced in a given year. It makes sense only where production is meant for exchange, i.e. in capitalism.
And no, it is not silly to say that orders of magnitude reductions in human labour needed to produce food, provide clean water, build sanitation and sewer systems do not result in steady growth in capitalism. It is silly that orders of magnitude reductions in human labour needed to produce food, provide clean water, build sanitation and sewer systems do not result in steady growth in capitalism. Capitalism is silly.
> Producing the food easily is more fundamental than deciding who gets what amount of easily produced food allocated to them.
Now that’s a silly thing to say. Producing food easily is useless if the producers themselves can’t access it.
That might give the reader the wrong impression. It is the same labour, but spread out over more commodities. You won't get to work less.
Rising productivity either means more stuff or lower prices.