>>Can capitalism continue to exist if North America, Western Europe, and
>>Japan were to be totally delinked from the rest of the world? I doubt it.
>
>That's not the question - it's not an either/or thing, all or
>nothing. What exactly is the contribution? I'm tempted to believe
>that much of the world's population is essentially marginal to First
>World capitalism. But I'd like to hear/read some more rigorous
>analyses than that mere impression.
Well, I'm saying that, given your question ("Has anyone ever tried to quantify the contribution of imperialism to the First World standard of living?") & the kind of evidence you are prepared to accept, you already have an answer ("most profits are made in the rich nations, so the problem of the poor nations is not that they are exploited by empires -- it's that they are not even exploited!"). Now, this answer is close to what Bill Warren (_Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism_) & Anthony Brewer (_Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey_, 2nd ed.) gave, for instance, in their rejection of dependency theory & world-system analysis. While I think dependency theory & world-system analysis are incorrect, the nature of imperialism is even less illuminated by the question you ask. I agree that most profits are made in rich nations, but the point is that accepting empirically available evidence here doesn't lead to the political conclusion you are fishing for at all.
Yoshie