But I think the idea is not to pay very much for them -- certainly less than they pay for what they get from you. And in capitalist empires there is also the issue of the Keynesian demand constraint.
The other question is interesting. Throws a new light on the GNP v GDP business...
Peter
Ellen Frank wrote:
This reminds me of a question I have long had to which one of you out there may have an answer. How did imperial Europe account for trade with colonies in the 1800s? Was Congolese rubber sent to Belgium counted as a Belgian import or was it treated as internal trade within Belgium?
I would think the whole point of an empire is to extract resources and labor from one's colonies, not the other way round.
Ellen
PEN-L list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
John Gray (not the author of "Men are from Mars") thinks that the really strange thing about the current situation is that the USA is the first empire to be running a structural current account deficit rather than a surplus. I rather think that I agree with him, although I have not checked his assertion that Britain, Spain, Rome etc all exported capital.
dd
