>There are other ways that imperialism shows up, of course. IMF and WB
>policies would certainly be another. But it seems to me that "imperialism,"
>like "globalization," its media friendly double, doesn't do a whole lot
>analytically in this context, even if it works well as a shorthand
>description of the tendencies of global capital at this moment. I think it
>is important to have measures for that sort of thing.
>
>But the more important point is that you'd have to ask this kind of question
>alongside Doug's question, since "standard of living" obviously appeals to
>the level on which "class" appears in the US/EU/North to its benighted
>subjects (ie as lifestyle). If you wanted to mobilize an anti-imperialist
>politics, you'd have to come to terms with that measure--not as a fiction,
>but as the "lived reality" of imperialism for many "first-worlders."
Well, then, here goes the measure of capitalist "progress." According to Alan Thomas, et al., _Third World Atlas_, 2nd ed. (Bristol, PA: Taylor & Francis, 1994):
***** [Paul] Bairoch's study suggests that in the mid-eighteenth century the average standard of living in Europe was a little lower than that in the rest of the world. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the ratio of productivity (and wealth) between the richest and poorest regions of the world was about 1.5:1. The rise of capitalist industry in Western Europe transformed this rough parity into a large disparity (at least 7:1) by 1975. Between the poorest classes of one region and the richest of Western Europe, the disparity would be much greater....Differences between the countries and regions of the South are also increasing. Whereas in the 1960s and 1970s most developing economies generally improved, the 1980s have seen much bigger differences....In the mid-1960s and 1970s over three-quarters of the world's population lived in countries where GNP per capita was growing at between 1% and 5% per year. During the 1980s almost a third were in countries where GNP per capita grew at less than 1% per year or declined....[In terms of changes in real GDP relative to the OECD average] Latin America in general is stagnating and Africa is falling ever further behind.... (42, 72)
Cf. Bairoch, P. "The Main Trends in National Economic Disparities since the Industrial Revolution', in Bairoch, P. and Levy-Leboyer, M. (Eds) (1980) _Disparities in Economic Development since the Industrial Revolution_, Macmillan, London and Basingstoke. *****
The problem of capitalism and imperialism is not that poor nations do not make any economic progress in absolute terms (though the absolute decline may be the lot of the least developed region like Africa). The undeniable empirical fact is that *the longer capitalism goes on, the larger the disparity between rich and poor nations has and will become* (to say nothing of the ruling class of rich nations and the poorest poor of the poorest nations). In short, the capitalist terms of engagement between rich and poor nations is "for richer *and* poorer." If you are the worker outside the capitalist core, the richer you get in absolute terms, the astonishingly poorer you become in relative terms. And there is _no_ catching up -- ever. Not even in East Asia.
Yoshie
P.S. If I had a scanner, I could reproduce the stunning charts and graphs from _Third World Atlas_.