Hong Kong has entered a recession as a result of the protests.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests/hong-kong-enters-re...
My initial thoughts were that this makes the protest movement more likely to succeed. After all, governments tend not to grant people's demands for change unless those in charge believe that the costs caused by the protests (or strikes or whatever form of action is being taken) are higher than the costs of granting the demands. And causing economic losses to the point of recession is definitely a high cost.
We recognize that general strikes are such a powerful tool for winning political demands because they can grind an economy to a halt. So if a protest movement can have a similar economic impact, then it seems to me to be more likely to succeed.
I recently made this comment to other people and everyone seemed to think I was talking nonsense. Which may be true! I don't have a great understanding of these things.
The counter argument I heard was that this does not hurt China's economy so it doesn't matter. And also that companies are moving out of Hong Kong which weakens the leverage that Hong Kong has (in terms of being economically important). In my view the second point (Hong Kong is economically important to China) kind of contradicts the first (a Hong Kong recession doesn't hurt China), but maybe I'm missing something.
Anyways, what do you lovely and learned people of libcom think?
I don't think that article says the protests have *caused* the recession. In any case it's never as simplistic as this...