Modern industry had therefore itself to take in hand the machine, its characteristic instrument of production, and to construct machines by machines. It was not till it did this, that it built up for itself a fitting technical foundation, and stood on its own feet.
Marx, Capital Vol. 1, Chapter 15 Section 1
Yeah it’s pretty neat that you can just order a factory on Alibaba.
i remember hearing the line “china has all the factories but germany is the one that builds the machines for the factories”. guess that was true for a period of time but not anymore
That hasn’t been true for like… Idk, nearly 20 years?
Germany makes some nice stuff, but they’ll never get it to you on time.
China overtook Germany in machinery exports in 2020 by trade volume.
Oh, more recent than I thought!
it was probably a 20 year old episode of top gear i heard the line on, so the math checks out
Germany consciously decided to sabotage any of their own industries with potential: solar, EV, batteries. Just in solar alone, 50.000 jobs were lost in a short timeframe, and at a time we’re it felt like they could have been a technology leader. All to appease the fossil fuel industries.
The German industry keeps lobbying for the destruction of the future of German industry.
My big thing is that their lead times on things were horrendous before AI started fucking with everything. Like, year long lead times on things that China will make and ship to you in 3 months.
It’s even funnier because China said from the get-go “fuck your IP but do you want cheap labor?” and they still built the factories (with chinese labor)
Did you think tvey’d just forget?
Japan is the other big supplier of high-quality machine tools and industrial equipment. China is kinda following their playbook.
