3. Rich capitalist countries are not dependent on super-exploiting the poor ones.
Doug replied:
They do to some degree, but how much? I just don't know the answer to that, and would love to hear what other people think.
**********
This is a non-trivial question. To what extent (if any) is the wealth of rich nations supported by the systemic and, in some complex and subtle manner, enforced poverty of poor ones?
Surely we can agree that, in the formative period, naked imperialism (which can also be called simply 'resource theft') and slave labor were considered critical. Technological and moral evolution - accelerated, in the moral category, by the dark example of Nazism in the mid 20th century - as well as the counter-imperialist movements of the post WW2 period, forced plutocrats to find alternative methods for extracting wealth at home and abroad.
So we know that the West's wealth was built to some (probably large) extent with the crushed bones and dashed hopes of domestic and foreign dispossesed.
But is this still true?
Perhaps the best way of answering this is by tracing the sources of wealth of the primary actors of the advanced capitalist drama: the multinational corporations.
A full accounting requires, I suspect, a gathering of seemingly isolated and disconnected data-points about the flows of capital and resources back and forth across the globe. Who benefits? Who determines the architecture?
...
Recently, I came across some information about a book released via Montly Review Press Books by Harry Magdoff named "Imperialism Without Borders". From my reading of the ad copy, it appears that it may address this very topic. I wonder if anyone on the list has read it?
URL -
http://www.monthlyreview.org/imperialism.htm
Here is the blurb:
In the decades after 1945, as colonial possessions
became independent states, it was widely-believed that
imperialism as a historical phenomenon was coming to
an end. The six essays collected in this volume
demonstrate that a new form of imperialism was, in
fact, taking shape—an imperialism defined not by
colonial rule but by the global capitalist market.
> From the outset, the dominant power in this
imperialism without colonies was the United States.
Magdoff’s essays explain how this imperialism works, why it generates ever greater inequality, repression, and militarism, and the essential role it plays in the development of U.S. capitalism.
His concluding essay presciently points out the limits of any attempted reform of the global economy which does not directly challenge the framework of capitalism.
Written in the 1960s and 70s, Magdoff’s essays constituted a major contribution to Marxist theory and provided a model of rigorous argument in which theory is constantly checked against the economic reality. They provide an indispensable guide to the basic forces at work in the global politics of the twenty-first century.
Table of Contents
Introduction by John Bellamy Foster Chapter One: The Achievement of Paul Baran Chapter Two: The New Imperialism Chapter Three: The American Empire and the U.S. Economy Chapter Four: Imperialism Without Colonies Chapter Five: Militarism and Imperialism Chapter Six: The Limits of International Economic Reform Index
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