One of the biggest ongoing consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is the shortage of computer chips. However, the shortage is more about the fact that market capitalism is extremely money-efficient, but not at all resilient. Resilience is expensive so you cannot be both money-efficient and resilient. However, because computer chips are so important to the functioning of global capitalism, capitalists and their lackeys have decided that chips are “strategic” and that the expense of resilience is worth the money — particularly if it is being paid for by middle class taxpayers instead of capitalists.
Chips provide many important functions, and many of those functions serve the purpose of helping the powerful maintain power. You’ve heard the phrase “bread and circuses” and chips help with both. In terms of bread (meaning vital resources), 
chips help people make sure the right resources are getting to the right place to keep people warm, healthy, safe, and fed. In fact, the very functioning of society now depends on every worker being “chipped” in the form of a smart phone or other chip-based device. In terms of circuses (meaning pacifying entertainments), chips have become a key component in delivering all kinds of entertainment to people to keep them distracted, immobile, misinformed, and passive. Another function has to do with violence, allowing weapons systems to kill and disrupt enemies more effectively and protecting our own people from attacks (especially if those people are wealthy). Another function is preventing information from being free; complex math can be used to control who can see information and when they can see it. An interesting side-effect of this fourth function of chips is that it can be used to make information that would otherwise be easy to duplicate into a product you can sell (e.g., movies and music). Finally, chips also increase the amount of information available to everyone — but most importantly, to bean counters. Chips help make more beans and help count those beans; they have become an essential component of neoliberalism (the religion of bean counting).
Most of what I will be saying here is based on this article:
The U.S. and its allies are joining forces on chips. That could stop China reaching the next level by Arjun Kharpal (CNBC)
The big players in this unfolding drama are:
- USA: Thought outsourcing the actual capital to factories in China was a good
idea. Thought intellectual property was more important than material capital. Now re-learning that control of the means of production is important. The US often uses its massive military as a means of controlling capital that is physically in other countries, and of course the petrodollar continues to force other countries to obtain US dollars for the purpose of buying oil, but these strategies are inferior to direct control. - China: Has successfully seized control of a huge chunk of the means of production. Has become impatient about fulfilling its dreams of rebuilding empire and is freaking global capitalism out… especially nations that are near it.
- South Korea: More capitalist than the US (see Squid Game and Parasite for film commentary on how that is going for them; note 1) and has China as an extremely close neighbor, so wants to keep selling chips and chip-based products to China.
- Netherlands: The Dutch company ASML is the only one in the entire dang world that can manufacturer the machines needed to make advanced chips.
- Japan, India, Australia, and Taiwan: Other countries that have chip fabrication facilities… and are also concerned about China’s aspirations because of their physical proximity.
Part of Biden’s agenda appears to be strengthening US manufacturing (i.e., relocating capital back to the US); at first glance, this is less money-efficient (though more resource-efficient), but capital is willing to let this happen because they want to protect against future disruptions. Disruption currently appears to be more expensive than investing in resilience (in the long term). The second part of Biden’s agenda is protecting global and domestic capitalism from Chinese nationalism; therefore, the Biden administration’s international chip project is specifically designed to cut out China and, in the long term, diminish it.
There are no communists or socialists involved in this chip dispute. China may (or may not!) have a long-term goal of communism, but is clearly operating with state capitalism controlled by a single-party political system with a nationalistic bent. Among these countries, Netherlands is actually the furthest left, with a political system featuring a strong emphasis on striving for broad consensus on important issues (note 2); though Netherlands is not leftist, consensus decision making is a foundational goal of leftist organizing. In contrast, both Chinese and US culture emphasize the idea that there is some specific group that is best able to make decisions; for China, that group is the Communist Party, and for the US that group is either capitalists (especially bean counters) or fascists (especially rich, white, cis, Christian men).
Solidarity is the most important aspect of leftism, and consensus governance is how you put that into practice in a leftist society. Right wing governance may include “consensus building” but this means using propaganda techniques to convince people that the ruling group’s decision is good, rather than actually using input from everyone to determine a course of action, and is often used only as a distraction during the implementation phase or as a performance of democracy (they will say that they allowed people to voice their opinion, though it wasn’t really part of the decision-making process).
Related: University of Missouri System approves new paid time off model for staff starting in 2024 This decision had a performative consensus building stage that was used as a distraction and to create a false impression of democratic process.
Notes:
- “There’s nothing you can say about capitalism that it won’t subsume and sell back to you.” – Max Tempkin
- Civil service systems in Western Europe edited by A. J. G. M. Bekke, Frits M. Meer, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2000, Chapter 7 as quoted in Wikipedia entry Politics of the Netherlands