

What’s the source of that last image? I’m really hoping that’s one of the examples from the 80s and not a recent one…
Yeah, that’s an 80’s one. Here it is in the Tory Party’s online archive.
I’m hoping this is just me dooming but having grown up in the dying days of section 28, I’m genuinely scared for this next generation of queer people.
Everything being made in China is a bit of a hyperbole but…
stream of consciousness rant ahead
The rise of neoliberalism involved the deindustrialisation of the imperial core, partly as a way to cheapen costs by relying on a pool of labour with lower minimum wages and worse safety regulations, partly to kneecap labour unions that were forming an effective political bloc against neoliberal social policies, partly to obfuscate the environmental impact of consumerism by shunting all the environmentally hazardous part of the process of producing consumer goods abroad, and partly to complete the transition of imperial core economies entirely into extraction and finance.
At the time China which was liberalising under Dengist reforms and also cosying up to the west, was a perfect target as one of the places to offload industry.
As for why none of this industrial capacity is being moved out of China despite deteriorating relations between them a the imperial core…
Industrialising a country takes a lot of planning and is expensive, (especially in countries like the UK where most of the factories and former supply line infrastructure has been torn up and the land sold off, and what remains is too dilapidated to support a renewed heavy industry), so it’s unappealing to a capitalist hegemon that’s in favour of austerity and low government spending.