[lbo-talk] Superprofits

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Nov 4 14:47:45 PST 2003


Like I've said before, the past contribution of imperialism seems completely uncontroversial to me. What I'd like to know is how imperialism contributes to Northern prosperity today, and this quote doesn't really answer that. And Indian growth rates have recently been pretty strong. Also, a lot of American IT workers might argue that FDI is contributing to Indian growth at the expense of U.S. growth.

China's path over the last 20 years has been mostly capitalist, and it has generated one of the most stunning growth performances in history. Violent, unequal, and ecologically destructive, but quite a success on its own terms. China has been able to do this in part because it's a very big country in a very strong bargaining position to set its own economic policy. On the face of it, India should be similarly situated. Why hasn't it performed similarly?

Doug

John Mage wrote:


> >> uvj at vsnl.com wrote:
>>>
>>> India's share in the world trade less than 1%.(It's probably 0.50%
>>> of the world trade) How does India contribute significantly to "the
>>> First world's" prosperity? How does "the First World" contributes
>>> significantly to India's poverty?
>>
>> Excellent questions. I'd really like to hear some good answers from
>> the partisans of the view that it does, but they've been scarce so
>> far.
>>
>> Doug
>
>As it happens, an Indian friend who is a professor of economics has been
>staying by me and is leaving for JFK to return to Delhi in the next few
>minutes. While waiting in my apartment for the car I mentioned this
>interchange to him. He laughed, and said "what part of India's poverty
>has NOT been 'significantly contributed' by imperialism ?" - and I asked
>him to set out the ABCs. What follows is his, but his condition is that
>this is a one-off and not an ongoing conversation since he has quite a
>bit to do on his return. The assumption of course, which I know at least
>that Doug shares, is that it is foolish to say that there was once
>history, but now there isn't any.
>
>john mage
>
>"While it is true that India's _merchandise_ exports to world
>_merchandise_ exports is around 0.7%, in order to search for an answer
>to the question posed, we suggest an approach that views the _present_
>as history. India's international political-economic relations can be
>characterised by at least 5 stages. The colonial period (1757-1947),
>comprising the mercantile period (1757-1810), the competitive industrial
>phase (1810-1870s), and the monopoly phase (1870s - 1913; 1919-1939 and
>the two war periods) and the post-independence period in two phases,
>1947-1991, and 1991 to the present. The mercantile period was of
>colonial plunder, the competitive industrial phase was of
>deindustrialisation, the monopoly phase was of imperialism, and the
>post-independence phase of neo-imperialism, together "contributing
>significantly" to the structures of underdevelopment and poverty in
>India today. The present (1991-2003) is a period wherein FDI [Foreign
>Direct Investment] and FPI [Foreign Portfolio Investment], especially
>the latter, have constrained macroeconomic policy including fiscal policy
>to weaken industrial growth rates since 1996-1997. For India the path of
>independent capitalist development that enabled Japan's ruling classes
>to end poverty in that country, let alone any more sophisticated version
>of the paths taken by the Soviet Union or China that reduced poverty in
>those countries, are effectively blocked today by "the First World".
>
>
>
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