On Thu, January 29, 1998 at 16:10:12 (+0000) Max B. Sawicky writes: >> Ricardo Duchesne: >> >> >Oviously the >> >notion that European capitalism developed as a result of the >> >exploitation of the Third World has been so roundly refuted I need >> >not elaborate this here. Just a handy, if incomplete, stats: At >> >most 2% of Europe's GNP at the end of 18th century took the form of >> >profits derived from commerce with Americas, Asia, Africa! (I think >> >source is K.O'Brien). > >LP replied: > >> Isn't slavery exploitation? Isn't theft of gold and silver from the veins >> of Latin America exploitation? Are you using "exploitation" in the narrow >> sense of Marxist value theory? That would be very naughty of you, if not >> even perverse. > >Exploitation or theft have nothing to do with the >extent to which colonization fueled capitalist >development. What matters are returns in >excess of cost. Even thievery is not possible >without costs to the perpetrator. ... Sure, but if you only measure the GNP returns of trade, you are missing the big negative on the other side of the balance sheet. If you wipe out an entire continent and only increase your GNP in nominal terms by 2% measured by trade with exploited countries, you have not addressed what you may have done to their capacity to compete with you in the future. For example, I believe the Bengal region of India was highly productive both in agriculture and in textiles, before the British arrived. They wiped it out, and protected their textiles and agriculture thereby. This sort of thing doesn't show up in trade flow measurements with India, needless to say. Bill
