-----Mensagem original----- De: lbo-talk-admin at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-admin at lbo-talk.org]Em nome de kjkhoo at pro.SoftHome.net Enviada em: quarta-feira, 24 de dezembro de 2003 21:46 Para: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Assunto: Re: [lbo-talk] Recent Growth & Bush's Economic Policy
At 11:27 AM -0500 23/12/03, Doug Henwood wrote:
>The traditional theory of imperialism needs a major overhaul.
Well, there was Bill Warren and Geoff Kay, e.g. :>
Anyway, was there one traditional theory of imperialism or several? Seems to me like there has been a debate, sometimes arcane, from the word 'go'.
>Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley
><http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/latest-digest.html#anchor0>
>says that 96% of global growth after 1995 was accounted for by the
>U.S. alone - directly. Indirectly, that U.S. demand for other
>countries' exports was their major source of growth.
A short while back there was a bit of bashing over 'countries' and over 'domestic' and 'foreign' capital. Ulhas himself pointed out that India didn't need to export, etc.
Now we have the suggestion that the rest of the world requires capital accumulation in the US for its own growth, and the US economy is a condition for growth elsewhere.
Well, quite obviously, if it is a condition, then it is far from sufficient, most of the rest of the world (in country, not population, terms) being evidence for that.
Big exception -- E and SE Asia. And it would seem that the period of greatest growth in the US in the 1990s corresponded with a falling back of the region ex-China.
I think we can bracket Japan, S Korea, Taiwan and HK off as special cases for the better part of the last fifty years, direct beneficiaries of the Cold War.
Re international comparisons, I think it better to use exchange rates rather than PPP. I think Arrighi is right on this -- the exchange rates measure relative command over global resources and output in a way that PPP doesn't. PPP would be fine if we all lived in closed national economies; we don't -- e.g., after 1997, my book purchasing power dropped by 50%.
kj khoo
-That´s a good point, I think, but don´t forget the exposure to international trade is highly variable between countries. PPP measures made more sense in India (where imports are around 10% of GDP) than in China (around 30%). However, when you are calculating global growth rates, I would say both methods are biased. My book import purchasing fell by 60% in 1999, but my overall living standards didn´t. And the Brazilian economy had modest growth, nothing like the collpase a nominal fal of 50% of GDP would suggest.
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