[lbo-talk] Re: New Imperialism?

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

> It's getting a bit dated already, but what about
> Juliette Majot's statement in "Brave New World Bank" [
> Juliette Majot "Brave New World Bank," Global
> Exchanges, Winter, 1994] that during the 1980s and up
> until 1990 "debt service remittances ... from poor
> countries to rich countries totaled $1345 billion,
> while at the same time *total* resource flows from
> rich to poor countries totaled $927 billion." True,
> that only takes us up to 1990, but ....

$418 bn is a drop in a bucket for the US alone, not to mention developed
countries collectively.  It is one thing to say that many developing
countries get a raw deal from their more developed neighbors - but claiming
that developed countries are well-off because of the wealth transfer from
the developing countries is absurd on its face.   It may feed into
nationalist propaganda of some third world leaders (for which I have zero
sympathy), but it is patently false when you look at the numbers.

Wojtek