----- Original Message ----- From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Saturday, February 26, 2000 8:10 PM Subject: Re: Liberal Democracy (was Robert Mundell: Genius unbound)
> Doug:
>
> >>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
>
>