You took the words from my mouth (or keyboard, as it would be). What would be the value of essential natural resources that are obtained from the less developed world be if the price implied by a dynamic optimization model of resource use were applied? Add to this the environmental externalities currently imposed by unregulated exploitation, not to mention outright military destruction of human and natural resources, the "collateral damage" of keeping the keeping the development of underdevlopment intact. But I think the erascible LP makes the right point that the real issue (that is, the real crime) are the maintenance of structural barriers to development that are imposed on the periphery, it is the theft of a decent future in addition to the theft of current wealth. What countries are represented by the 3%? -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 10:59 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12029] RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Eurocentrism onceagain >There's no question that imperialism was essential to the rise of >European capitalism. But what about its contribution to First World >wealth in the present? No doubt greater than zero, but how much? >Does anyone have any good ideas? Doug It would seem to be bounded from above by the share of first-world consumption, investment, and government purchases that are made in countries with GDP per capita levels less than half that of the U.S. So less than 3%. Of course, this is not "dialectical"... Brad DeLong Seems to me this takes as given the prices of those purchases, whereas the raison d'etre of primitive accumulation is to enforce sub- optimal prices with violence. The question is the amount of economic rent, methinks. Even that would be a lower bound, insofar as rents implied by an 'efficient' price counter- factual took for granted an unreasonable efficiency norm predicated on existing income distribution. Plus it's not dialectical, whatever that is. mbs
