King Leopold's Ghost; We Charge Genocide

Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us
Thu Sep 10 07:27:34 PDT 1998


I saw the book review. It mentioned that Belgian capitalist colonialism basically murdered approximately 10 million Congolese in a short time. This book seems to demonstrate some of how European capitalism underdeveloped Africa. The current economic performance or lack of performance of the Congo must be included in any evaluation of the economic performance of the capitalist system, as occurs from time to time on the list, especially in comparison with socialist economies. This and other colonial and neo- colonial economic disasters are just as much a part of capitalism's economic record as the Asian "tigers" or the U.S. , for that matter. Including these miserable failures would bring down considerably the average "GDP" or whatever measure of growth and production of the capitalist system. The Congo is also an example of how the current wealth of the richest capitalist countries is built in part on the long history of colonial and imperliaist exploitation.

Charles Brown

Detroit

Workers of the West, it's our turn.


>>> "William S. Lear" <rael at zopyra.com> 09/09 11:01 PM >>>
Today I heard Adam Hochschild tell Terry Gross about King Leopold's ghastly crimes and U.S. culpability, documented in his new book King Leopold's Ghost. The book sounded superb --- has anyone here read it who would like to share views on it? Michiko Kakutani reviewed it in the Sept. 1 NY Times and managed to forget to mention the U.S. role in recognizing Leopold's personal slave pit.

Bill



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