>But I take your question to be, "Is the U.S. rich because it buys
>the products of Haiti,the Philippines, and Mexico for less than
>their labor values?" And I can't see any way to get that number up
>above 2% of the current U.S. standard of living at most...
Let me try a different tack. Does servicing foreign debt, by draining surplus that could be re-invested at home; or does the IMF, by enforcing the collection of that debt; or does the world intellectual property regime, by protecting patent monopolies contribute anything to maintaining the 5, 10, or 20 to 1 income gap between the U.S. and the "South"? After all, patent theft and debt default were crucial strategies for U.S. development in the 19th and early 20th centuries (as was protectionism, also now largely illegal). Does the repeated willingess of the U.S. to overthrow any regime that dares attempt a non-orthodox approach to property and international economic relations contribute anything either? Three million dead in Indochina is a rather potent example, no?
Doug