>take on the ex-Axis powers is way too optimistic, but we have the OECD's
>latest estimates of market and PPP figures, as well as the IMF's latest,
>contradicting you. Has something happened in the last 6 months to turn this
>all upside down?
In terms of those figures does the Japanese GDP per capita income on the
basis of PPP remain almost 20% lower than the US? At any rate, it is a bit
obscene that the focus remains almost solely on such comparisons within the
imperial fraternity; after all what leads to relative stagnation in the
imperialist world (falling rate of profit) induces run away absolute
pauperization in the rest of the world. And that is what we now confront,
experienced in imperialist countries in the rather muted form of an
immigration crisis.
From the World Development Report of 1995, we find that of the 2.5 billion
men women and children who constitute the world's labor force at the
present time, 1.4 billion live in poor countries, defined as having an
average income per capita of less than US $695 (in 1993). More than a
billion individuals have to make do with one dollar or less a day. The
global army in search of work is going to grow in the next three decades by
another 1.2 billion, a massive increase that will be concentrated almost
exclusively outside the already developed world. It is well known that
while in 1870 the average income per capital of the richest countries was
11 times that of the poorest; that ratio rose to 38 in 1960 and to 52 in
1985.
This report also celebrated (rightly) the tripling of GDP per worker
between 1965 and 1993 in East Asia and its doubling in South Asia. Of
course there is good reason to believe that however much growth is restored
in Asia, incomes will even lag further behind productivity than before.
Rakesh
