Heard an interview on NPR of a 'small mother-daughter hair accessories company, working from the dining room table at home...' thats business will be affected by the tariffs because 'we manufacture in China!'!!! And if one good thing comes of these horrible stupid tariffs I hope it stops all these American 'small business owners 🥺' from obfuscating their participation in imperial exploration. And I hope everyone finally processes that all the fanart acrylic keychains and plushies of niche microcelebrities ocs that are just 'supporting small artists!!' are manufactured in the same way everything else is thats consumed by this ugly country is.
I think people often fail to understand that all production within the core--of any kind and for any purpose--is only able to exist as it does because such endeavors are the beneficiaries of systems of exploitation and unequal exchange.
For example: I am an independent craftsman in the US. I have no employees and I make everything I sell by hand, 'by myself.' But without Mexican workers raising cattle and tanning their hides, I would have no leather to work with. Without Chinese workers manufacturing the hardware and without the miners who mined the iron, nickel, copper, zinc, etc, I would have no rivets or dee rings or square snaps. I do not steal the surplus value of those under my employ because I have no one under my employ, and yet without the exploitation of hundreds or thousands of people, I can produce nothing at all. And this is true whether I am producing for the purposes of making money or for the joy of creating or for any other reason.
Nothing can be produced here without plunder.
