Julien, In the past decade around one trillion bucks has left the fSU as
'capital exports', ie plunder. This plunder even included the entire Soviet
goild reserve: 2000 tonnes (!) of gold bullion worth at least $25bn which
disappeared without trace from the Soviet state treasury iun 1991 and has
never been recovered.
The rape of eastern Europe is a primary reason for current Anglo-American
smug self-satisfaction, which folks like Mr Henwood celebrate when they say
we ought to acknowledge a good thing when we see it (raised US living
standards and employment rates, reduced inner-city crime and poverty etc:
achievements of the great 'new economy' according to Mr Henwood, who covers
himself by announcing almost in the same breath that anyway there probably
*is* no new economy).
During the same period, ie since the collapse of the USSR (that economic
failure which could only manage miserable 5% pa growth rates) in 1991, while
the capitalist world benefited (ie, objectively became indebted) by the
plunder of the 70-year accumulation effort of the socialist bloc, Russia
itself became 'indebted' -- Mirabile dictu! -- to the tune of more than
$150bn; the eastern bloc as a whole now "owes" at least $500bn to its
western benefactors - the EBRD, World Bank, IMF, the US etc etc. This
doesn't include debts on the private capital account, municipal bonds etc.
This is the Alice-in-Wonderland magic of capitalism: at the same time as it
loots, rapes and plunders its way thru its new colonies, extracting treasure
and blood to the last ounce, it also manages to make these newly-abject
(previously thriving independent) states into *its* debtors!
The whole history of British 'capital exports' is actually the *prior*
history of British 'primitive accumulation' revisited with a vengeance. The
fabled 'Gold Standard' came about because the British were able to price
gold at a premium to the world market price level for bullion; this act of
sublime generosity was actually the unwitting gift of millions of slaves in
the plantations, mines and estates of a vast colonial empire. It caused a
huge influx of gold to Great Britain after 1780. Not one ounce of this gold
was unstained by the blood of native Americans who died in the ore mines or
were genocidally wiped out by the million from the very first day Columbus
set foot in the hemisphere. Every British sovereign in circulation was as
bloodstained as was the infamous Nazi bullion extracted from Jewish teeth;
but as they say, 'money doesn't need to wash its face'. No-one cares to
remember these crimes now (but check out Michael Perelman's book on
primitive accumulation, 'The Invention of Capitalism': most of it is
archived on the Crashlist website.) Fat, pompous bankers in Threadneedle
Street and gold traders in Rotterdam and Zurich in fact washed the blood
from this loot in the colossal laundry of international banking which they
created and which stil functions today, washing the proceeds of the world's
annual $500bn drugs and sex slave business.
This same huge stash of loot, the result of Britain's first colonial empire,
was later recycled by coupon-clipping British rentier capitalist who, as
Lenin said, themselves lived ultra-civilised, peaceful lives in the leafy
villages of Sussex and the Cotswolds (and still do). After 1857, a vast new
flood of wealth flowed out of India, then Africa (that's why we built their
railroads) and then Argentina, etc. Surprise, surprise, these same
newly-impoverished continents swiftly reappeared as *debtors*, and the UK,
the US, Holland, etc, strode the stage as wealthy benefactors and
loan-givers to the 'developing' world.
They even do it to themselves; it is arguable (has been cogently argued)
that Marshall Aid was no aid at all, since it was entirely financed by the
grateful Europeans themselves. There is a book by Robert Tressell called
Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists which used to be a clasic piece of
socialist education; it is a humorous novel which describes in a
down-to-earth way how workers and their families, dressed in rags, donate
huge wealth to a class of wealthy parasites, the 'landowners,', bankers,
'industrialists' etc. There used to be a Russian revolutionary poster which
showed all the great social estates as a kind of pyramid, one on the other;
at the top, the military aristicocracy ('I protect you'); then the clergy
('I pray for you'); the professions ('I serve you') etc etc, and at the
bottom, holding the whole thing up, a downtrodden peasant: 'I feed you all.'
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: "Julien Pierrehumbert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2000 6:18 PM
Subject: RE: [CrashList] economic consequences of the strong dollar and oil
prices (was: 2nd reply to Julien)
>Britain too was
>then a recipient of large net inflows on both capital and current
>accounts, ran a permanent balance of payments deficit, and was a net
>debtor: and this has to be so, for if the hegemonic power is not
>purchasing imported goods and services with its paper money, then how
>can other countries accumulate its currency in the first place? Only a
>hegemonic debtor can become a source of international reserves.
>Mark, I disagree completely.
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