On Mon, 9 Dec 2002, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >For such a neo-colonial empire, you don't need Colonel Massus.
> >Local colonels do just fine.
>
> Not if the salaries of local colonels have to be paid for by the
> empire, rather than by taxes on the colonized natives.
That argument has even more force when turned against colonialism: if you are spending than you are taking in, it's not worth it. And since colonialism costs more, this is an argument for preferring WTO-style neocolonialism. (And for preferring stability to tumult.)
This is not to say you can't have an imperialism that's capitalistically irrational. But then by definition it isn't following capitalistic laws. It's following some other kind of logic.
Michael