>> I recollect a conversation with the late excellent David Gordon, in
>> which he said that if you ran current (this was some twenty years
>> ago - but it would be even more true today) center-periphery trade
>> balances with the relative prices of 1900 for the primary trade
>> categories, the difference in favor of the periphery would account
>> for the entire growth in the center.
>
> But does that turn on the power relations of imperialism, or the
> declining importance of primary products in economic life?
Arghiri Emmanuel demonstrated (30 years ago, don't know if this has changed) that primary products produced exclusively in the center, one example i recall was wood pulp for newsprint, did *not* exhibit the same adverse change as the primary products of the periphery.
john