{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781608461042","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","uuid":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","normalized_title":"zombiecapitalismglobalcrisisandtherelevanceofmarx","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781608461042","isbns":["9781608461042"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":426,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Zombie%20Capitalism%20Global%20Crisis%20and%20the%20Relevance%20of%20Marx","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/search"},"page":{"printed_page":250,"pdf_page":250,"physical_index":250,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"d4f4c9e111aa25b9c29e96e52e795aaa421a8760c42de79d1c867107290c7aad"},"chapter":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","content":"Japan's biggest export market, while it was in turn the second biggest exporter to the US (just behind Canada and just ahead of Mexico).61 Its role in importing components from elsewhere in East and South East Asia and raw material from Latin America and Africa made it central to all their economies. And, most importantly, the huge receipts from its trade-much of it with the US-were deposited in the US. Along with the similar surpluses made by Japan and the oil states, it provided the lending which enabled US consumers and the US government to keep borrowing until the \"credit crunch\" of the summer of 2007. Effectively it lent money to the US (and to a lesser extent to certain European states like Britain) to buy goods it itself made. This added to the appearance of stability of the world system.\n\nYet those who believed Chinese growth could pull the world system forward if something went wrong in the US and Europe not only forgot that the unbridled markets unleashed in China could not lead to stable as opposed to wildly fluctuating growth. They also failed to take into account the relatively small weight China still had in the world system. In terms of current exchange rates, GDP in 2006 was \\$2,600 billion-just behind Germany, just ahead of the UK and less than a fifth of that of either the US or the European Union. \"Purchasing Power Parity\" estimates (based on the buying power of incomes in the domestic currency, the yuan) seemed much higher, at about 50 percent of US or EU GNP according a revised World Bank estimate in 2007.62 The exchange rate figures considerably underestimate the level of resources available for consumption by China's population (since domestic prices of basic foodstuffs like rice and basic services like urban transport fares cost a quarter or less of those in the West). But, it is the exchange rate measurement that is important in determining the degree to which a country can import and so provide a locomotive to pull the rest of the world economy forwards. And it was a grave mistake to believe that China, accounting for 4 or 5 percent of global buying power, could somehow compensate for the effect of a major economic crisis in much of the rest of the world system.\n\nThe Chinese economy was not yet big enough for it to be an alternative motor for the world system as a whole. But it was big enough for its rapid growth to add to the instability of the global system, as was shown by the way it added to escalating global inflation in the years up to the summer of 2008.\n\n250\n\nThe New Age of Global Instability","previous_page":249,"next_page":251}