>>> Max Sawicky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 10/13/99 03:18PM >>> Charles: Seems to me you leave out that capitalism has generated the biggest wars in recorded history and archeaology. . . . >>> Max: I left out that and a whole lot more, including whether or not capitalism is a great system. I was asking about something more specific, namely, are there summary, quantitative indicators that debunk the notion that capitalism afforded much of the non-industrialized world some expansion in aggregate income or output. What conclusions might be drawn from the answer are another matter. One is that it doesn't matter in the sense that there are enough other reasons to end or drastically transform capitalism, and enough crises and political dissatisfaction to make such results plausible. Another is the lack of such evidence supports the premise that capitalism is sustainable for the indefinite future, so coping gets some elevated relevance. But I was really asking something simpler and suggesting some economic inferences. Charles: No. In your post you did a lot more than ask for summary alternative, quantitative indicators that debunk the notion that capitalism afforded much of the non-industrialized world som expansion in aggregate income or input. For example, you said: "The premise that capitalism is fundamentally incapable of delivering the goods -- of managing to increase output and income more-or-less consistently and indefinitely -- seems to me the most compelling part of Marxism" And my answer is that that is not the most or only compelling part of Marxism. Marxism also criticizes capitalism for generating enormous wars too. You also said: Max: It boils down to this, if you're serious: Is it really the case that there is a lack of summary measures that indicate a widespread lack of development in the periphery over the past 50 years? I would have thought not. And please, spare me the sophmore rendition of the limitations of GDP. I've heard it and taught it myself. If you've got better indicators of development (abstracting from distribution) with real numbers in them, what are they? If you don't, then shouldn't you concede that the premise that exploitation of the periphery is the key prop for the world system in the present lacks empirical foundation? Charles: This too is not exactly the same as saying "are there summary, quantitative indicators that debunk the notion that capitalism afforded much of the non-industrialized world some expansion in aggregate income or output " . And the answer is no, one does not have to concede that the premise that exploitation of the periphery is the key prop for the world system in the present lacks empirical foundation. Because, even assuming the indicators you use are true ( i.e. not giving you alternative indicators) do not contradict that exploitation is of the colonies is a key prop of imperialism. And that is because the limited growth indicated by your indicators would not be proof that the even those countries with growth are not being exploited by imperialism. In other words, the claims of Marxism regarding imperialist exploitation of the colonies do not boil down to what you say they do in terms of empirical proof. The empirical proof of some growth lately that you offer does contradict those claims. >>Charles: . . . Given this record and clear and PRESENT danger, I am not at all willing to "give capitalism a chance". . . . >> Max: Except it's not up to you or me. Charles: Put it this way. Your conclusions concerning capitalism based on the indicators you adduce do not warrant the conclusions you draw from them in your post that Marxism's criticisms of imperialism today are empirically unfounded. In other words, your evidence of some growth in the periphery does not remove the threat of socialism or barbarism, because you ignore capitalism's barbaric war making and escalation. ((((((((((((( >>> . . . Charles: In this case, Brad's taking only some of the periphery (samples) as an example is the wrong approach. You have to take the WHOLE periphery , the whole world, the bad with the good , to get the total effect of capital today. You have to take ALL of Africa. If it pulls down the average, then your development in some of the periphery is not a good measure of imperialism's overall record today. . . . >> Max: Nobody has really questioned or contradicted Brad's capsule finding, except rhetorically. Charles: I just did and not just rhetorically. I questioned the logic of his only looking at samples and not the whole world. That is a questioning his findings as based on inadequate empirical evidence. ((((((((((((((( Max: Off the top of my head, I might concede that Africa has gone nowhere but down. But in respect of my admittedly simple version of an essential-exploitation thesis, namely that capitalism requires aggregate or average economic decline in the Third World for survival, then the isolation of Africa as a negative example means that world capitalism surivives by virtue of its exploitation of Africa alone. Which I doubt. Charles: You seem to have ignored my criticism of your socalled essential-exploitation thesis that capitalism require aggregate or average economic decline in the Third World or survival. That is wrong, so the rest of your inferences are wrong. Where do you get that your thesis is the Marxist thesis. In fact, capitalism's exploitation of the periphery is based on growth in the periphery. Recall that Lenin's thesis in imperialism is that export of capital to the colonies comes to predominate over export of goods ( as in the previous era) . Export of capital to the coloines means growth in the colonies. It is this growth that is the source of superexploitation. >>> . . . Charles: I don't quite follow. Are you saying there ARE summary measures that indicate a *widespread lack of development in the periphery over the last 50 years" ? In other words, there is proof of imperialism causing widespread lack of development around the world ? >>> Max: I was asking, not saying. And apparently there aren't any such measures. And this means that there is no evidence of a lack of development, something that renders problematic the existence of imperialism. Of course, you can have mass violence and genocide without imperialism; the former predates the latter. Charles: I don't think you have the Marxist thesis of imperialism accurately. See above. Lenin assumes development of the periphery as an essential feature of imperialism Speaking of quantitative measures , the mass violence and genocide since capitalism are GREATER than ever before. Do you have evidence of a four year war in which 50 million people were killed ? That is a rhetorical question, and you know the answer is no. In fact, it is capitalism's enormous productive forces that have their technological counsins in enormous destructive forces that kill more than before. And you know this is true. Everybody knows there hasn't been a war before as big as WWII. or WWI for that matter. The indicators are in the capitalist history books. They are the ones that declare it. (((((((((((((( >>>> . . . Charles: Well, what about Doug's idea that we just might not know ? Maybe your indicators are wrong, but our not having any better one's doesn't make yours right. We just don't know. >>>> Max: Exactly my point, tho the imperfect measures we have according to Brad suggest otherwise. Come up with measures that are no worse that go in the other direction, then you have an empirical case. Charles: You keep using your faulty framing of the question and the burdens of proof. There is already evidence of enormous misery and poverty in the world wrought by capitalism. So, the initial burden is on you to rebut this evidence. You come up with an index and say now the burden shifts to us. But if your index doesn't really show that the misery and poverty has been eradicated ,but only reduced a little for a few years only , then you haven't really shifted the burden to us, and in our state of no answer on has capitalism reached the point where it is going to eradicate all the misery and poverty it has wrought, then your argument fails , not ours. Plus, you are the one with no alternative indicator on the wars and genocide, which are part of the misery index. (((((((((( >> . . . Furthermore, I don't think you have the concept of superprofiteering correct. The superprofits don't have to be large relative to the total values produced. They just have to make a small elite superrich so that they can control through holding systems and pyramids. You know a large minoirity holding can control many times its size. >>> Max: I'd go further. You can have control with no profits at all, such as under really-existing communism. And if the material needs of the elite are so easily satisfied, you don't even need imperialism. Charles: Your going further is a dodge. What I just said was your theory of the Marxist version of the relationship between the center and periphery is inaccurate. But furthermore really existing communism didn't exploit its allied countries. Cuba lost out economically when the USSR fell. (((((((((((((( Max: But neither control nor the material requirements of the elites are in question. What is, is whether economic stagnation in the periphery is a necessary condition for the sustenance of the center. Charles: No that is not the question, if you are trying to pose the Marxist question. Marxism-Leninism does not assert that economic stagnation in the periphery is a necessary condition for sustenance of the center. Get it now ? In fact, as I explained to you above, Lenin's theory of export of capital from the center to the periphery suggest that some GROWTH in the periphery is a necessary condition for the superexploiting by the center. ((((((((((( Max: If it is not, then we could say the main thing wrong with capitalism is distribution, not growth, and this substantially narrows the case for socialism. There is still a lot left, I grant you, but much less then envisioned in some variants of marxism. Charles: See above. The level of growth that YOUR indicators show is in consonance, not contradiction with the Marxist-Leninist variant of the theory of imperialism. >Charles> . . . Also, they can be based on "developing" a small percentage of the whole number of countries in the world, and "developing" a small fraction of the population within those few countries. In other words, imperialist relations can work by "developing" a very small part of the total "periphery", and leaving the vast majority of the people poor and poorer. In fact , it depends on most of the other people being poor so they can't make a revolution and they serve as fearful example of what the "lucky" ones could fall into. \>>>> Max: This could be so, but nobody seems to have any numbers to support it, and Brad has some to debunk it. Charles: I don't see where Brad's figures address this at all. His showing growth in the periphery does not contradict this. Brad's figures didn't show the majority of the people in the world with growing out of poverty. He has GDP's which even sophmores know don't show that. >>>> Charles: Why do you assume said growth is permanent ? Couldn't it drop in the future ? >>> Max: Sure, I presume that the Laws of Motion could change. But my best indicator of the future is the past. Charles: That's pretty lame. Was it growing before the last fifty years ? That's in the past too. (((((((( >> . . . at about the growth in crime and other things that lower the quality of life that have accompanied it ? Isn't there a sort of diminishing returns to the " reality " of real growth ? Don't we have to scrutinize more critically these "summary measures of well-being" ? . . . Note that I am made clear my openness to a variety of indicators, not merely GDP. But the only ones proposed were RELATIVE measures, hence not on point. ((((((((((((((( Charles: You have the burdens of proof mixed up. Your indicator does not prove what you say it does. Not only that, you have an erroneous version of the Marxist theory of the relationship between the colony and the colonizer: You think it claims that there would be increased stagnation in the colonies,when in fact it posits export of capital to the colonies. The burden of proof falls back on you. CB
