While it is fantastic and refreshing news that American and European companies are initiating their own “sanctions” by severing business ties with Russia, there is a more unsettling and fundamental truth underlying these actions; capitalism has been in bed with authoritarian nations and dictators for too long. Unfortunately, there is a potent anti-nationalistic proclivity in the pursuit of expanding capitalism at the expense of democracy. American and European companies eager to do business in international markets all too often sacrifice domestic interests while knowingly enriching dictators and their regimes. Putin and Xi are two prime examples. What has American capitalism, in particular, wrought with its relationships in Russia and China? A militaristic Russia and a relentlessly rising China that is also bent on military expansion.
Moreover, American companies have been sacrificing American workers for decades as every company pursuing higher and higher profits exports manufacturing to China and outsourcing work to other, low-paying countries. Incredibly, American companies have consistently failed to weigh national interests in their cost-benefit analysis; it is purely a bottom-line calculus, which may finally be coming back to bite them but only by force. There is a reason why “Made in America” is a laughable cliche. There is profound hypocrisy in the way businesses — like traitor trump — proclaim the great American manufacturer, yet they send their manufacturing operations overseas. The traitor trump brand (e.g., suits and ties to name a few of many) is made in China. Adding insult to injury, his “see you next Tuesday” daughter miraculously procured dozens of Chinese patents in the first year of her work in the White House. For all those American business leaders who profess the need to bring business back to America but never do, I guess it takes a war for them to realize that having done business with dictators and authoritarian governments may not have been in the world’s best interest and — ultimately — their bottom line.