* From: raghu According to some schools of thought, capitalism creates absolute poverty in the "periphery" (Dependency Theory?). By international capitalist expansion, and historical xenophobia/racism the periphery got largely exported to the Third World, particularly Africa and that is how the colonies got impoverished. But capitalism has always created greater absolute poverty SOMEWHERE. Is this correct in terms of empirical historical facts?
I saw this review by Louis Proyect of Robert Biel's "The New Imperialism", apparently the most important recent work on dependency theory. Louis quotes Biel: "....it is not just that there is one group of countries in the world which happens to be poor. The two are organically linked; that is to say, one part is poor because the other is rich." http://clogic.eserver.org/2002/proyect.html How well is Biel's position supported by data? It seems to me to be the central question in economic theory. -raghu. ^^^^^^^ CB: It would be hard to believe the the U.S. has not increased poverty absolutely in Iraq over the last 25 years. Same with Korea over 55 years, espeically in the northern part. Viet Nam. German capitalism increased absolute poverty in the Soviet Union. Capitalist war would likely be a main way that absolute poverty is increased in capitalist colonies and semi-colonies, and in countries that seek to become independent of the capitalist system. The Indigenous Peoples of the Western Hemisphere had their absolute poverty increased by capitalist invasion for hundreds of years. Yea, it's gotta be that capitalism always increased absolute poverty somewhere.
