Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>
> "Is India exploited by imperialism?" is a question that obscures
> class relations at the heart of the term exploitation in the Marxist
> sense. Shouldn't the question be something like, "Are Indian workers
> and peasants more exploited by capitalists and landlords in India and
> elsewhere because of imperialism?" or "Does imperialism help
> capitalists in India and elsewhere extract more surplus value out of
> Indian workers?"
>
This is important. Nations as such are not exploited; even whole peoples, as such, are never exploited. The myth of "exploited nations" (which corresponds to the myth of exploiting nations) is what led Jim Blaut astray in his analysis of imperialism.
The empire probably cost the "whole people" of England far more than it gained them. It was partly away not just of exploiting foreign workers or even of tribute but of in effect using the empire to pump surplus value out of british workers.
That is why, for example, the sheer economic effect of outsourcing labor to India or China is rather secondary to the political impact it has on u.s. workers.
Carrol