And, a recent tour of one of the Asian powerhouse’s vehicle plants has proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt, at least to Honda President and CEO Toshihiro Mibe.
“We have no chance against this,” Mibe said upon a visit to a Shanghai parts factory, commenting on its seamless automation across all levels of production. Logistics, procurement and all aspects of the process were so automated, in fact, that he did not spot a single human worker on the supplier’s floor.
Ford executives saying even three years ago that China was way ahead of the game
Toyota’s CEO has likewise said regarding not just his company, but the industry in general, “unless things change, we will not survive”
“We took zero action to compete and relied on protectionism and other forms of corruption to stay in business knowing that China was pulling ahead, we refused to plan for the future and harvested all the money for our owners instead and now we’re fucked unless you bail us out! Not the owners, of course, who could afford to bail us out, they will continue siphoning money even though they’re clearly incompetent, we need your taxes” … How about no?
Capitalists sound strange when they are faced with actual competition. That’s… kinda the whole point guys.
Yes, but there also is a legitimate issue related to staffing.
Everyone should be in unions, but unions ARE going to fight this level of automation to the bitter, as it will result in job cuts. In this particular instance, I think if you cut the CRO compensation to 0 they’d still be in trouble against some of these factories that automate almost the entire process.
This is the kind of “machines coming for your jobs” that’s realistic. AI may be a bunch of vaporware, but this stuff is different.
Maybe you should have kept up and innovated instead of just trying to stifle your competition and enshittify your products idiots.
But think of the short-term shareholder value! Have you no decency?
I do not.
well, username checks out
Compete or die
almost as if competition is what capitalism was always supposed to be about
No, thats what markets are about. Capitalism is about making money by stealing other people’s surplus labor value.
No, that’s what capitalism becomes when unregulated. Just as communism does the same when unregulated. The fact the US is on the literal same trajectory as Russia post USSR collapse is proof.
Open any Economics text book that defines what capitalism is, and by it’s literal definition, OP is correct. Capitalism, at its core, is about using capital + labor to make better products with better materials to compete in a market of others doing the same where consumers ultimately choose which company they buy from; in turn controlling which company thrives or dies. Competition is literally a key component of capitalism. It’s what most regulatory bodies were designed to protect (before they were captured). So without competition, we have something else that just looks like capitalism, but functions exactly like fascism.
I’m not defending capitalism by the way. I’m just pointing out what it is actually defined as versus what it has now become. I wouldn’t say Russia is Communist anymore by any means, so calling what the US and others practice now “Capitalism” is likewise mistaking what their system was in place of what it has become.
Wikipedia disagrees with you. Markets are just one component of capitalism.
The very first line is exactly my definition:
“Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit.“
Wikipedia fully agrees with me if you read the very next paragraph from your link you didn’t quote, emphasis mine:
This socioeconomic system has developed historically in several stages, and is defined by a number of constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth.
Yes I understand markets are one component of capitalism, I also understand that without them we don’t have capitalism as like you’ve said that’s a constituent component necessary for it to be defined as capitalism.
What market is there for Facebook? Google? X? Your ISP? Your government? Is it like 2 companies you have a choice between at most? Between Verizon or Quest? Between Facebook or MySpace? Between Democrat or Republican?
If there’s extremely limited choices in your markets, you don’t have markets. So you don’t have capitalism.
If you don’t have markets where things can compete for money based on their innovation, you get enshittification from the few companies who control everything. Which is very obviously where we are now.
In short, the enshittification of all things is because we no longer have competitive markets for consumers to use their money to buy what’s best. In its place, instead we have a CRAPitalist system that clearly doesn’t fit the definition of capitalism.
Which is my point. Which is why you cherry picked your answer from Wikipedia rather than reading more than the first paragraph.
So competitive markets are one part of a capitalist system, like I said… and capitalism is defined by using these markets to extract surplus labor value, like I said…
You’re missing the point completely my dude. There are no competative markets anymore. So there is no capitalism anymore. Do you understand?
Without a competative market, the system that’s extracting surplus value is NOT CAPITALISM.
Do you understand what the word “constituent” means?
It means, “a component that is part of a whole (noun) or something that’s necessary to form a part of a larger structure (adjective).”
Competative markets are constituent components to Capitalism. Thats what the wipedia page you linked says right after you stopped quoting it. So without competative markets there is no “whole” there is no capitalism.
If you sit down in a theater to watch a movie, and the projector doesn’t work, do you think you watched that movie? You bought a ticket for it. You sat down. But the constituent component of a projector broke, so all you saw was a black screen.
That is not a movie. Let alone watching one. But you would argue it is because you bought the ticket and sat down in the theater.
Capitalism’s competative markets are likewise broken, so what people are now experiencing is NOT capitalism.
This is not a hard concept to understand.
“We insisted on fossil fuels and now Chinese electric car companies are eating our lunch, boo hoo”
Cry more fat capitalists
“Beautiful, clean coal!”
Back in the 80s, American cars got really, really crappy, and that’s when Honda, and Toyota, and later Hyundai, Daiwoo, and Kia were able to get market share. American car companies got their shit together, and started making cars that could compete again. So here we are a few decades later, in the same spot.
These scummy Capitalists get a taste of luxury, and they start getting lazy, while the Asians continue to crank away like they’re in last place. In the past, the Capitalists finally wised up, and got back into the game, but the current crop are so breath-takingly ignorant, that I doubt they could even recognize that they’re in trouble. If someone were to try to explain it to them, they’d probably just attack back.
The Japanese and Koreans will get their shit together. America won’t.
“we’ve built a model based on charging an assload of money for features that barely work and China is making cheap cars that do the job better. Because, you know, the cheap bullshit we’ve been building. If you force us to compete again we’ll lose!”
Okay, but have you considered that the Chinese Communist Party is ontologically evil? And therefore any amount of business (direct retail sale to consumers that sidesteps US rent-seekers) is in support of a genocidal regime of highly corrupt madmen who want to destroy liberty and justice across the entire planet?
We need to STOP CHINA NOW before they take over the damned world and ruin everything sweet and honest and pure that our glorious nation has created.
You got me in the first half. Ngl.
They know they are in trouble but they think it’s because labor is lazy and needs more exploiting.
Part of getting Americas shit together is closing off immigration. The people doing this to us are mostly not American. It’s rich immigrants from various countries exploiting regular Americans. Thiel isn’t ours. Musk isn’t ours. Fucking murdoch… Why the fuck do they all move here? At some point it feels like an attack from other nations. From our own Allies. Who fucking needs enemies?
Immigration is the one of the primary economic engines in America, and it is a STUPID self-inflicted injury to close it off.
Those “immigrants” you mentioned aren’t a problem because they’re immigrants. They’re a problem because A)They are Sociopathic Oligarchs, and B) Our elected officials have allowed them to exploit our labor and resources for their own benefit, at the expense of our own citizens.
We shouldn’t cut off immigrants, who are coming here to contribute to America, we need to cut off Sociopathic Oligarchs who come here to abuse America. We need to make our government, and the wealthy, understand that we don’t exist to serve them, they exist to serve the Citizens, and this nation. They are allowed to keep their profits, after paying for the privilege through significant taxes, through the pleasure of the Citizens.
They can buy whatever they need out of their own pockets. We shouldn’t be giving their corporations tax breaks and loopholes, we shouldn’t be buying them stadiums, giving them enormous government grants, etc.They can afford to pay their own way. Not one [now illegal] penny should be spent on Sociopathic Oligarch toys.
Our tax money is for our citizens, and if Oligarchs can’t understand that, then they don’t understand their responsibilities to the country that has made them wealthy, and their fortunes will be confiscated, their corporations nationalized and operated for the enrichment of the American people, and they will be imprisoned. Their families will be left destitute, to start over.
That’s how you stop Sociopathic Oligarchs - by going after THEM, not some poor immigrant family that just wants to pick enough berries to buy food for the day.
Weren’t some auto companies bailed out before? Why wouldn’t they expect the same thing again? Just get bailed out by the government again if things get bad enough.
Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the shareholders‽
yes I do think of the shareholders… in a dream… also involving woodchippers and guillotines
Indeed, those are short term folks who basically destroy companies.
That’s capitalism.
¯\(ツ)/¯
Time for bailouts and layoffs!
That’s US capitalism.
Maybe even another war!! We could just try to take those factories. We deserve them, as a treat.
Well that’s capitalism. It’s what you wanted right? Competition to keep you on your toes?
Looks like the invisible hand of the market favors what the people want more than what bosses think we can take.
Please keep buying our shitty cars, we won’t survive otherwise.
To be fair to Honda or, here, Toyota…
Worth finding a clip if anyone isn’t familiar
TBH, Chinese cars are pretty shitty. Their EVs have thermal runaway at an incredibly higher rate. BYDs storage facility just went up because a car sitting there caught fire.
As far as price, yeah it’s not competitive when they pay their workers 10% what Western countries do and give them a coffin apartment to stay in. Then steal the IP from other countries so they have nothing in R&D.
Here’s their clone of a Taycan, which also finished dead last in reliability tests because people were burning alive in them and crashing because systems would go nuts causing crashes. You enjoy your Chinese EV you saved money on, just keep that shit a mile from my house or “crappy non Chinese car” https://autopostglobal.com/electric-future/article/51496/
This is not capitalism as China is net-lossing market acquisition.
This is called “dumping” and is not a feature of capitalism in any way. In fact, every single economic school that likes capitalism is against it. Generally net-loss market acquisition is very bad thing for our society as it privatizes gains and socializes losses. i.e. if EV market suddenly implodes many people would be holding the bag and if EV market succeeds then only a few people profit.
Marxists themselves classify net-loss acquisition as a failure of late-stage capitalism (which is fair) but when .ml’s favorite flavor of authoritarians do it then it’s ok lmao
Dumping is the natural end of overproduction or under consumption. It’s also a tool to secure new markets. Capitalists employ it to get new customers and minimize losses. That’s why Walmart exists in small towns and why previous season’s stock goes on sale.
What we see here is a state capitalist entity participating in a global capitalist market using the tools available to them to secure new markets. There’s more than one tool at play here too: the article talks of the advanced state of automaton as the differentiator with domestic producers. At the scale of automation described, even if not sold at a subsidized loss that’s still gonna produce a cheaper product.
Dumping is the natural end of overproduction or under consumption
This doesn’t make sense in this context of dumping. It’s intentional overproduction for market capture not some inbalance in the market.
It’s also a tool to secure new markets. Capitalists employ it to get new customers and minimize losses. That’s why Walmart exists in small towns and why previous season’s stock goes on sale.
This is fundamentally opposite of capitalism, in fact as I said in the original comment market capture is inheritly anti-capitalist. Walmart, China etc. use abuse of power for an unnatural capture of markets. This is closer to authoritaniasm than capitalism.
Most capitalism haters fundamentally misunderstand what they’re hating it for. It’s valid to hate capitalism for it’s insufficiencies (it can be gamed and needs intervention) but it’s silly to attribute everything to some magical all powerful capitalism in the sky - this just reeks of low brow scare tactics like the red-scare.
Market capture is one of the major goals of capitalism because it allows for continuing, unconstrained profits.
When you control the market people have no choice but to turn to you if they need what you sell–regardless of quality.
Securing markets through control of supply doesn’t stop being capitalism just cause it’s done (perceivably) unfairly.
Market capture is one of the major goals of capitalism because it allows for continuing, unconstrained profits.
I feel like you’re going a bit into the weeds here. That’s goal of any participant in game theory - capture and win as much as possible. So it doesn’t matter what economic framework you’re using every participant will try to claim the biggest piece of the pie. At least capitalism tries to address this with “checks and balances” of competition while other systems just blindly work on faith that human virtue will be stronger than game-theory which it absolutely might be, at some point?
To be fair, the kind of capitalism you’re talking about is/would be heavily regulated. In a free-market, which most people refer to when referring to capitalism due to messaging from Republicans, dumping is a perfectly fine tool. Is it ethical? No. But who cares? It’s a free-market.
To be fair, the kind of capitalism you’re talking about is/would be heavily regulated
Any system ought to be. There’s no system that you can just let loose and have it self correct for itself, that’s a fairy-level of a delusion. People are very smart and will always figure out how to game a system.
In other words, a non-intelligent system will always be conquered by an intelligent participant, always.
Where capitalism extremists do delude themselves here is that “capitalism can be a sufficiently intelligent system” (the invisible hand) if it defers intelligence to game-theory level competition: because we all check ourselves we end up low-key giving intelligence to the system. Unfortunately this is just impossible to stabilize without unified borg-like society where everyone plays under this unified system but it also doesn’t mean there isn’t value of introducing some intelligence to the markets under intelligent supervision.
I believe any intelligent system will be corrupted, or manipulated for greed. It’s why I believe in complete anarchy. A complete lack of state and authority. All beings equal, all provided what they need. And everyone works with their unique skills for a better future.
Adding intelligence doesn’t make it any better. It just makes the system more exclusive for the powerful. It’s a higher barrier to entry. But the entry is still there.
We both believe in utopias. And we both hope for systems in which human beings aren’t the most vile creatures on earth.
It was a pleasure conversing with you and many blessings to you.
Cheers! I’m a fan of anarchy as well :)
Thoughts on what I think is the standout from their comment?:
the advanced state of automaton
And yet here we are, in a capitalist society, and it’s the current reality.
Wild.
We are not in “capitalist society” that’s a bit of an immature take as we have many ideologies and systems at play. We should identify weaknesses of all systems and use a buffet style policy making not subscribe to religion of specific rule. There are many great things in capitalism, there are many great things in controlled markets, there are even some great things in authoritarianism (i.e. wartime readiness).
Personally I don’t believe system design is all that important — it’s human virtue that drives all of this. A sufficently virtuous society would thrive under any policy framework as it would be capable of identifying faults and self correcting towards a more balanced interpretation and enforcement of any rule.
Capitalism is destroying our planet. You can only spin that as positive if you don’t care about our species continued existence.
nope, shitty people and authoritaniasm is destroying our planet. Often quite literally too.
They’re the same picture.
Shitty people don’t get to run everything into the ground unless we let them. That’s a feature of capitalism.
Besides, authoritarianism and capitalism aren’t mutually exclusive.
We’ve been ruining the environment for a very long time, and that started with the industrial revolution precipitated by, you guessed it, our very own U.S.
You have been eating from the garbage can of pure ideology.
I’m glad the US doesn’t privatize gains and socialize loses.
That’s all true and China needs to be actively worked against to prevent their market manipulation but we can’t forget the reason American auto makers can’t compete is because America has manipulated the the markets so much they are uncompetitive also not capitalism, now they are trying to reverse course 180 before china is unstoppable by letting in a bunch of cheap labor, a lost cause if you ask me America will never be a manufacturing center again but you don’t need to beat China just create competition and they will fall eg stabilize and incentive Mexico to create manufacturing and hope the tech industrys in America remains a monopoly or we’re SOL.
market favors what the people want
not really
This is not about pure capitalism, though. The reason Chinese EVs are so successful is that the Chinese government heavily subsidizes those companies. I would not be surprised if they sell cars at a loss. So the issue is exactly the opposite of capitalism. It’s pure capitalism being crushed by big government
The government investing in infrastructure upgrades instead of forever bring lobbied by the fossil fuel industry is big government now?
Not saying CCP isn’t big government, but “crushed by big government” is very strong imagery
What do you think Walmart does when they go to a new market?
Or what amazon did for many years, or Uber, OpenAI, etc. Most startups really.
What you’re describing is capitalism, whether you like it or not
China will soon, or prolly has already, be the number 1 country. US oligarchs are just focussed on getting richer instead of trying to advance humanity technologically.
A nation can enrich it’s elites in the short term at the expense of its people, or it can invest in its people (education, commons, etc) at the expense of its elites.
The west, and especially my cesspool the US has made its choice.
China has been heavily building up its commons and infrastructure in the same 40 year span the US has let its commons and education fall into utter ruin in order to sell economically segregated education and gated communities for private profit.
The US is culturally indoctrinated to be hostile towards the very concept of society. Imagine resenting paying into universal healthcare because you don’t want to accidentally pay for your countrymen’s “bad decisions” like… Eating food.
I go on Rednote quite a bit. The US attitude towards China, just like non pure crony capitalism is “they are evil and from hell” for being a society. Their people, not their politicians, their people, are sweet, intelligent, and mostly treat Americans with an “are you guys OK? We’ve heard (true) horror stories.”
Thats humanity. Why would I want my schaudenfreude and greed ruled cesspool to “win?” It’s not about winning, it’s about the wellbeing of ALL your people. If the US dominates the world culturally, all that would mean is that humanity stands for “fuck you I got mine” at which point I have no comradery with my species whatsoever.
Actual human worth/value is measured in empathy for one another, which makes the US destitude in what matters.
Actual human worth/value is measured in empathy for one another, which makes the US destitude in what matters.
well said. i had the exact same thought yesterday.
China’s “investment in its people” comes with authoritarian control, surveillance, suppressed wages, restricted speech, and limited political rights. Framing it as simply generous is incomplete.
Good these are companies that fought the transition to EVs every step of the way. Toyota in particular. Which was ironic after releasing the Prius
Toyota is way too conservative. After nailing hybrid tech early on, it seems like they wasted the opportunity to put it on every vehicle they make which would have been such an amazing step forward, instead of treating it as a weird niche for so long.
Also that bz4x or whatever deserves a spot on the worst cars of all time list, just straight up ewaste.
Also that bz4x or whatever deserves a spot on the worst cars of all time list, just straight up ewaste.
What makes you say that? I don’t really know much about cars, why is that one particularly bad?
Compared to everything else on the market it had big problems with reliability, range, charging speed, and it was overpriced.
I think everyone expected that Toyota, with its hybrid experience and the benefits of seeing all other EVs on the market wouldn’t make such a poor attempt. It felt like they were poisoning the well, as if not wanting to compete in the EV space in the first place.
How will you know its electric if it doesn’t look like shit otherwise?
Yeah. Spot on. And the Busy Forks not only has an awful name, not only has awful styling, but it is an extraordinarily bad EV by any measure. E-waste indeed
Wait, I haven’t read up about it. What makes it so bad?
Well the wheels fall off, that’s not ideal. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM)
Other than that it has poor battery size for the cost, slow charging, and poor efficiency (burns more kW per mile/km).
There are more criticisms, but they’re the big ones. It is just not a good EV.
And the wheels really did fall off initially, they had to do a recall. Was a design error.
Now recalls happen very often to all companies but for straight up safety issues they’re rare. They tend to be a lot smaller issues.
The thing with the wheels though is just indicative of how little care they took with it, Toyota are renowned for quality, sure they’re boring designs but they’re built to last right ? Well this one seems to be been designed by the work experience kid and a punishment detail who clearly didnt want to be on a BEV.
Oh, shoot, yeah, I do now remember about the wheel recall! You’re right; Toyota has fallen in quality. I’m now recalling Genesis overtaking them in JD Powers’ reliability ratings… I’ve gotta review this stuff more. So sad, but we really should never have brand loyalty.
You can just buy a JD Power award btw. The auto manufacturers pay to play. Its a marketing company.
Oh? TIL…
I never owned one so I can’t say this is true, but from what I read over the years, those early hybrids weren’t great for performance/driving feel compared to other vehicles. They worked, they were efficient, but at the time turning all their cars into it probably wasn’t a winning path.
I do agree about the early hybrids, The OG prius was a dog. But I feel that they sorted it out quickly enough, engineered out the potential reliability issues of a more complex drive train, brought down the price of batteries and motor tech, etc.
They had a huge advantage in solving these problems before anyone else was touching hybrid tech, and then largely squandered the lead, and a chance to make everything they sell cleaner and more efficient.
Toyota is way too conservative.
Because unlike Tesla, they need to sell cars and make money.
OH NO! THE FREE MARKET IS WORKING BUT NOT IN OUR FAVOR!!!
Genuine question is this the free market?
Is the CCP subsidizing these super cheap cars?
Which isn’t to say the US isn’t doing the same. 2008 should’ve meant the death of much of the American auto industry
Oh they likely are, just like the us does for their own auto industry. The free market part is simply a cheaper car that appeals to more people, it coming from China is the only thing really holding it back. Well and maybe the spying, but I don’t know how bad these are on that front.
Well and maybe the spying
Don’t forget the headline that came out the other day about how new US cars post-2027 model year are required to have federal surveillance installed.
We’re already being spied on, and I’d much rather China be doing it than fucking Palantir.
We are not being spyed on as long as we are not american or don’t buy new cars.
Every state does internal espionage on its citizens, and external espionage on other states.
Just because you don’t live in USA or China doesn’t excuse this.
Yes, but that is no reason to invite more of it. And this is not even government spying (they get the data I am sure) but corpo. A bad thing happening does not make it OK or normal.
invite more of it
You’re not inviting more of it. You’re trading spying done by one nation/corp with spying done by another.
Unless you think European espionage is somehow better than Chinese espionage.
The CCP didn’t just subsidize cheap cars. They built out the manufacturing capacity to produce them at scale.
As China’s demographics shifted and long-term labor supply came into question, they leaned heavily into automation and industrial efficiency.
That’s the real reason these cars are so inexpensive. It’s not just lower prices, it’s a fundamentally different cost structure driven by scale, integration, and advanced manufacturing.
What’s unsettling competitors isn’t cheap cars themselves.
It’s the ability to consistently produce cars more cheaply than anyone else.
How many of those companies spent literal billions of dollars on stock buybacks to inflate share market price over the last decade instead of investing in the people and facilities and products to remain competitive. Even if there is dumping I doubt it’s anywhere near the combined spent on share price inflation buybacks & savings instead of investing in the workers and business, these companies enjoy unjustified tax breaks and subsidies from their governments as well.
This is a the economy being equated to wealth/investor class problem. Workers in and around cities want cheap affordable evs & charging infrastructure for renters, mechanics and parts producers want to build and work on affordable evs. People who own stocks expecting growth returns and executive compensation want to sell 10 cars a year for a trillion dollars each if they could.
Yeah, this is what bad leadership is. Lack of leadership really. China and the US both found themselves the manufacturers of the world.
China took the money and built an infrastructure. The US took the money and destroyed unions…
It all went up oil subsidies…
Maybe the workers at Toyota, Ford and Honda should take control of these plants. They would run it better without the capitalist leeches squeezing out every ounce of profits into their own pockets.
I dunno how the Japanese and Koreans will do, but I 100% guarantee that the American companies will do absolutely nothing, whine about it to their child rapist in chief and then get a massive government bailout paid for by ordinary Americans.
I dunno how the Japanese and Koreans will do
They’re equally freaked out, as they’ve been lashed to the same Wall Street piloted sinking ship as the rest of the US periphery. If you check out the politics in Japan and Korea over the last fifteen years, its been on a reactionary bent of increasing domestic militarization amid a continuous “Why aren’t our naturally superior native peoples making more babies?!” eugenics freak-out.
You can throw in The Philippines, Taiwan, India, and Australia while you’re at it. None of these countries seem to have a serious long term plan for their economic futures. Everything revolves around “containment” of the Chinese super-economy, even as individual plutocrats demand carve outs for their own supply lines and revenue streams.
In the US they’ll just keep banning Chinese cars, not sure how that’ll pan out elsewhere though since other countries have started or had existing import agreements.
Then stop being greedy fuckers
