Walter Rathenau was a successful German-Jewish industrialist who helped organize Imperial Germany’s industrial production during World War I. Rathenau was a German patriot and some would say his organizational skills were critical to Germany staying in the war for as long as they did. When the war started, he was reported to have said, “On the day that the Kaiser and his paladins on their white chargers ride through the Brandenburg Gate victorious, history will have lost all meaning.” Although a patriot, Rathenau was clear eyed. History does have meaning and Kaiser Wilhelm II was not victorious, abdicating his throne just before the German Empire’s defeat.
Rathenau recognized that history has its own inevitabilities, much like the laws of physics, or engineering. Some bridges are designed, and built, destined to collapse. Some dams are destined to fail, washing away those that live downstream. Today, we are living in a world where the free are feeding on the fruits of the unfree. This too is unsustainable and will fail, and the longer it continues the more its collapse will haunt future generations.
China is the factory to the world, but those workers are not free, in any meaningful sense of the word. But we all profit from the efficient extraction of their labor at so little cost to us, or benefit to them. We all live more comfortable, affluent lives, for now. Except for those workers. The world has made its deal with the Chinese Communist Party to extract these cheap labor inputs, and like those who came to an understanding with the slave-owners in the Antebellum South and their successors, the world will have to live with the consequences of our lack of foresight.
Engineers can’t usually predict when the bridge will collapse, or the dam will fail. But it always seems so obvious after the fact.