[lbo-talk] Superprofits

[Brad DeLong]

>Michael Dawson -PSU wrote:
>
>>In order to say that there is no connection, you have to say that there is
>>room in the world capitalist economy for everybody who "gets it right" to
>>get rich
>
>That's a completely different analysis. I thought we'd initially 
>been discussing whether we're rich because they're poor, a case I 
>think it's hard to make. Now we're shifting the emphasis to whether 
>everyone can be rich, which is obviously not true. The U.S. plainly 
>doesn't want competitors. Washington will happily subsidize rich 
>cotton farmers, which fatally undermines the competitive position of 
>African cotton farmers. They're excluded by design. But they're not 
>toiling to make us rich - they're toiling in vain. Joan Robinson's 
>observation, that under capitalism the only thing worse than being 
>exploited is not being exploited at all, seems as true as ever.
>
>Doug

But... But... But... The rest of us Merkans would be richer if we 
weren't subsidizing cotton farmers but instead buying the stuff from 
Africa.

America is much richer today because western Europe and Japan are 
rich trading partners rather than what they we4re in 1945. It's 
possible that keeping other countries poor and barefoot is in our 
economic interest, but most history suggests  that it is better to 
have  richer countries to trade with than poor countries to exploit...

Brad DeLong