Trump's Growth Plan: Borrow Big and Hope

Ned K.

In the aftermath of the US Presidential election, "Trump's Growth Plan: Borrow Big and Hope" was the heading of a revealing article in the Business Section of the Australian on Friday 11 November 2016.

It predicted that Trump would try and administer the economy with a big spend, big debt approach, the way he launched his Trump economic 'empire' from the 1990's in particular.

Back then he was loaned $4 billion by banks to prevent him going bankrupt and his vast assets from crashing and causing a ripple effect through the economy. So now he thinks that increasing the federal government debt from $14 trillion to $19 trillion is business as usual in order to accelerate economic growth. The article says he plans to spend $600 billion on roads and rail systems and $500 billion on the US military. 

On this aspect alone, growth and government increased debt, no matter what the cost, there is nothing new in Trump's plans. Respected political economist David Harvey wrote a well-researched book demonstrating that imperialist economies needed to have compound growth of at least 3% per annum to sustain their systems of maximizing profits. US history, particularly before and during the Second World War has examples of governments trying to lift the US economy out of one crisis after another. 

One irony of the predictions of the article in the Australian is that Trump is likely to scrap any Trans-Pacific Partnership as part of his economic isolationism approach.

However to think that US imperialism will cease the export of capital and cease plunder of the developing world for mineral wealth in particular goes against the imperatives of an imperialist economic base which really is what Trump means by "Make America Great Again".

While he may succeed in rebuilding some manufacturing in the US and creating some blue collar jobs, what quality of jobs will they be? In the US over the last 15 years under both Republican and Democrat Presidents, manufacturing in the Southern States has in some areas increased with multinational corporations relocating to these States because they are "Right to Work" States which means there are very low wages and where union organisation is at its weakest.

So will part of "Make America Great Again" see more working poor and more "Right To Work" States or even similar low wage zones within non Right To Work States"?

One thing is for sure. Whatever Trump does, class struggle within in the US will intensify all be it unevenly across that vast country as the contradictions arising from Trump's policies unfold. 

Herein lie the seeds of a revolutionary uprising the like of which the developed imperialist centres of the world have never seen before.