Just wanted to say that that this is most direct and concise explanation I’ve seen yet of Chumpsky’s peculiar, 19th-century Marxist, view of the world. It also, IMHO, gets things completely wrong, but, like, whatever. Carry on.
Interesting thought. Of course, I should have offered some caveats unrelated to that point, but they are minor. For example, if my competitor gobbles up market share, I’m not really benefitting–I do in that she is a better business person and/or has a better product or prices, to the benefit of society. But I’m still losing market share. However, if everyone outside of my market does well, then I do well because they can more easily consume my products. This is true in the international scene as well: if Mexicans can consume more American goods we benefit from the income, and if we can consume more of their goods we benefit from having Mexican goods. Another caveat, of course, is that naive free-marketism really isn’t that good for the world. We need a government to make sure the market is competitive as possible, in the economic sense of the word. Some will contest that statement.
A rhetorical note: the U.S. is more or less the stingiest of the industrialized nations. Foreign aid is a small portion of GDP, and much of that goes to support the ethnic cleansing of Palestine (or to support the beleagured zionists, depending on your view). Either way, against an informed opponent you’ll be setting yourself up for an argumentative bloody nose with that line of reasoning.
Isn’t that what Aristotle did when he concluded that heavy objects fall faster than light objects, that an object in circular motion will continue in circular motion even after being released from the constraint creating centripetal force, and that women have fewer teeth than men? For that matter, I’ve known a few creationists who maintained that merely looking out the window proves that the world was created in its present form less than ten-thousand years ago by their christian god. That is another piece of logic that is not obvious to me.
Cum hoc ergo propter hoc. Even if this were true, that would not imply that capitalism, per se, was the cause. I mentioned before the existence of factors such as realpolitik, neo-mercantilist ignorance, and the realities of the cold war. If the U.S. is supporting a bastard like Pinochet because they can use him to fight communist efforts in Chile, that’s not an action inherent in the system of economic organization known as capitalism, that’s a political issue. Whether one wishes to frame it as “fighting for freedom from communism,” or “imposing our corrupt way of life on the innocent Chileans,” the fact remains that it is not an economic phenomena. It is political.
Chumsky also provides a document regarding the internal planning of future politics, I guess. Regardless of the reference’s validity, which I am not questioning, it remains moot. From the fact that George Kennan was a neo-mercantilist doofus, it does not follow that capitalism is inherently corrupt. The two are completely unrelated. This mistake seems to be pandemic. Consider for example the quote offered by Mr. Svinlesha. It says, “The core regions benefited the most from the capitalist world economy. For the period under discussion (1450-1670), much of northwestern Europe (England, France, Holland) developed as the first core region.” The problem is that capitalism, as a system of economic orgainzation, simply didn’t exist at that point in time. The good Mr.Wallerstein is confusing mercantilism with capitalism. One of the central principles of mercantilism was that trade really is a zero-sum game. Hence, any benefit they (the Europeans) gain from a colony, is equally offset by the harm done to the colony in the process. That doesn’t explain why they chose to embrace it so fully–I would have used it as a guide for caution and moderation. Go figure.
Let’s take a moment to consider the proposion that alot of poverty has been created in the third world recently. I know that the ad hominem attacks are going to fly with this one, but I have asked a number of environmentally minded economists, and they all say that this reference is spot on. Indeed, the author’s handling of statistical information is quite impressive, and the only way to really contest the conclusions is to prove that the data are incorrect. So put your indignance away and check out The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. Specifically chapter six: Prosperity.
–Figure 31 shows GDP per capita rising for the West European core, the European periphery and Latin America since about 1820, with a steep increase circa 1950. Asia and Africa stayed flat from 1820 to 1950, and have increased since then.
–Figure 32 shows GDP per capita, taking into account purchasing power parity, growing steadily for both the developing and developed worlds since 1950.
–Figure 33 shows the relative poverty, as a percentage of the world population, falling steadily since 1950, from about 50% to about 25%. Lomborg notes, "Here it is evident that although the total number of poor has remained at about the same number (1.2 billion), the proportion of poor people has more than halved from about 50 percent in 1950. Thus, over the past 50 years, some 3.4 billion more people have become not-poor. (Emphasis mine.)
–Figure 34 shows the ratio of the richest 20% to the poorest 20%, and ditto for the 30% mark, measured in GDP per capita in terms of purchasing power parity. Both have remained approximately steady since 1960, with a slightly declining trend since 1980.
–Figure 35 shows the ratio of GDP per capita, in purchasing power parity, for the developed to the developing world. It rises from about 1800 to its peak in circa 1950, but then begins a sharp decline after that.
It goes on from there. The rich may be getting richer, but the poor aren’t getting poorer. That’s not to say that there isn’t alot of suffering, poverty, and repression. Quite the contrary. But things are getting better, not worse.
Getting back to this zero-sum idea. As I mentioned before, the mercantile world view was that trade is a zero-sum affair. Adam Smith, with his analysis of absolute advantage showed that was false for many circumstances. David Ricardo, with his analysis of comparative advantage, showed the zero-sum concept of trade to be dead in the water. That was quite some time ago, yet it still lingers for some reason. Steven Landsburg has a nice discussion of comparative advantage for individuals, if you’re interested. I don’t understand how this notion can continue to haunt us. If anybody can give me a good coherent, prima facie defense of the proposition that economic activity is a zero-sum game, I’d like to read it.
Mr. Svinlesha made explicit something I’ve been hinting at, for fear of imposing a belief on someone that he did not have, that Chumpsky is a communist. He says,
And goes on to note that “The subject isn’t too difficult, really…” Indeed. Not difficult at all. What is difficult is trying to understand why someone would continue to adhere to a dead economic postulate such as the labor theory of value. The simple fact is that the capitalist’s need to skim off the top is a fiction. In fact, it isn’t even a primitive in the communist model, it is an intermediate result from taking the labor theory of value as an axiom. It follows it quite naturally. But the axiom is not true, hence the conclusion is not true. I actually discussed it in this thread, back on page 1, but since I hate it when people make me hunt for a passage:
The class warfare alleged to be endemic to capitalism does not exist as an inherent product of capitalism. The class warfare is simply a logically valid product of a flawed axiom. But the axiom is still flawed, so the result does not follow.
I’ll search around for a good elementary discussion of the topic. If Hawthorne is reading this, he may have some ideas. You can find two really good discussions of the role the boss plays in these two articles: The first is titled “What Do Bosses Do?” by Stephen A. Marglin, published in The Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. VI, No. 2 (Summer, 1974). The second is titled “What Do Bosses Really Do?” by David S. Landes in The Journal of Economic History, Vol. XLVI, No. 3 (Sept., 1986). Both these articles are non-technical; the first is a Marxist treatment of the role of the boss in factory production, the second is the (neo-classical?) response. I advise you to read them in order, though the first may be difficult to find. They don’t discuss the labor theory per se, but Landes does a great job explaining exactly why the boss doesn’t need to skim to earn her money. I cannot recommend those articles strongly enough.
Actually, unfortunately this is entirely based off of my memory of 4th grade US History and a Politics 101 course(so please correct me), the creation of the US & the US Constitution was very much a capitalist issue. I am not in any way saying that it was a part of a fight against ‘the capitalists’ but “no taxation without representation” was THE rallying cry. The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is quite close to Locke’s rights to life liberty and property. The creation of the USA was politicizing capitalism, from the decision to unify in order to have a better market/trade situation to the decisions of what to enshrine in the constitution.
As for American neoimperialism – it exists. It isn’t the all consuming monster that it is made out to be, but there is a definite dominant role played by international, largely American, corporations on the international scene. These corporations can export the natural resources(mineral/labor/agricultural) of one area to their head offices, but this should be held as separate from the governments’ foreign policy. That movements is not a goal of American foreign policy, it is a goal of American corporations. As far as I can tell, the Presidents whose actions are pointed out as imperialist are largely those who would really like it if the rest of the world just stopped. They want to protect American interests, and believe the have the right to deal anywhere in the world(perhaps an imperialist idea), but really don’t want to commit themselves overseas in ways that would be actually imperialist. The goal isn’t governments the US controls, but governments they can forget about. Big distinction.
And the American people are choosing all of this by buying what they buy, voting for who they vote for and holding stock and enjoying the priveledges of being American. The rest of the world isn’t choosing it and that might be imperialist – or it just might be being the sole superpower.
Capitalism is an economic system that seems efficient. The US supports it abroad in the theory that the (at least semi)liberal (at least semi)capitalist (at least semi) democracies will be more friendly and peaceful. This is not some plot to control the world. It is Democratic Peace Theory. Kant is credited with some of the ideas, they really gained speed in the 1980’s, but it has been around for a long time in the “contain communism” ideals.
Next, wealth and poverty. Wealth does not guarentee poverty unless you speak entirely relatively, which is just silly. In a world where every possible resource was used and there was only enough for absolute equality of enough(above poverty, below wealth, where everyone has a minimally comfortable existence), wealth would equal poverty. But since we don’t exist in that world… or at least I don’t… people always seem to say I’m in my own world though…
js_africanus, you are simply awesome.
Thank you! You made me blush, if you can believe that. It means alot!
Hey is that the dragon of Cymru on your web page?! I went there Nov. of 2001. My first trip overseas–and to the beautuful land of Wales. Wonderful! The Welsh accent is a delight to hear.
Oh, and welcome, TheSquirrelfish!
There are several tacit assumptions in the preceeding which are not true. You are assuming that public policy is determined by what is best for the majority. It isn’t. If capitalism consisted merely of small businesses competing at a more or less equal footing, then this would be true. This, however, is not what I am talking about when I talk about capitalism. I am talking about the actual system that exists in the real world, namely the system that is dominated by enormous concentrations of capital and power, and that are protected by an enormously powerful state with world-wide reach.
In this system, the interests that are protected are those that represent these concentrated power centers. Now, every extra dollar that they have to pay a 9 year old girl in an Indonesian seatshop is one less dollar of profit for them. Every annoying environmental regulation is a drain on their profits. Every annoying workplace safety law is a drain on their profits. Any power the workers gain to organize and press for their interests is a threat to their profits.
This is the actual world that we live in.
In this world, capitalist imperialism searches around the globe to push down wages, eliminate environmental and workplace safety regulations, and generally to keep the world prostrate so that they will be willing to work for $0.19 an hour.
Nothing in the real world is proven. All we can do is look at what happens and what follows and try to draw conclusions based on what we would expect to see and what we actually do see.
It is part of capitalist theology, stated so often that it becomes simply an article of faith, that capitalism is good for everybody. You said, “when others do well, you do well…” This is clearly not the case. Indeed, you have declined to offer any evidence to back up this claim after being challenged on it. It is circumspect of you to try to avoid doing so, since it is so obviously false.
Most of the world is capitalist. Yet, most of the population of the world lives in poverty, and more than a billion live in extreme poverty, meaning that they are on the very edge of survival. There is no hard and fast rule, but the situation is more or less this: where capitalism is least free from regulation, the situation is worse. There are, of course, other factors to consider, such as natural resources, access to trade routes, and other given facts that are unaffected by the economic system. But, in general the rule holds true. The countries that are the most capitalist, such as Indonesia or Guatemala, the situation is a horror show.
The most intelligent people the state can produce are recruited to run the state and the corporations. The very cream of the crop is directing the capitalist system. They certainly know exactly what they are doing. And they certainly are no less ignorant than yourself.
U.S. policy has been amazingly consistent, remarkably consistent. The same policies have been carried out for at least 100 years with regard to the major policy decisions regarding the role of capital and foreign intervention. What does change are the pretexts. So, before the 1917 revolution, there were various pretexts that were used to justify U.S. intervention, such as aggressive Germans in Latin America, or the Spanish in Cuba, or civilizing the barbarous Filipinos, etc. The Cold War was a supremely useful fiction for a long time that allowed the U.S. to carry out its aggressive policies. After the Cold War various pretexts have been used to justify the exact same policies which continue to this day, without change. Again, amazingly consistent policies.
The U.S. was not fighting communists in Chile. Well, actually they were, as long as you use the technical term for “communist,” which is any agent that objects to the unregulated dominance of western capital. The fight against communism was a wonderful pretext for rounding up all of the leftsists in the soccer stadium and torturing them to death while consolidating the power of the U.S.'s favored fascist.
Kennan a doofus? Riiight. At any rate, it is somewhat moot because Kennan simply echoes a very consistent theme of U.S. foreign policy.
As for capitalism being corrupt, it depends on who you are. If you are one of the capitalists, then it is a wonderful system. For the other 99% it isn’t so great, though.
Kabooom! Well, there goes your credibility. Next time try to avoid referencing a well-known liar.
But why? It is clearly the case that in countries where there are fewer regulations on capital, there is more poverty, other things being equal. Compare Guatemala to Sweden, for instance.
You are claiming that capitalism is causing a decrease in poverty. But, if this were true, we would expect that Guatemala would have a very low level of poverty by now, since it has had capitalism forced upon it since 1953.
It is very simple. Every extra dollar I have to pay to one of my employees is one less dollar for me. Every extra dollar I have to pay in order to adhere to an environmental or safety regulation is one less dollar for me. Your problem is that you always pose the problem as one of trading between equals, a situation which has never existed and will never exist. Indeed, capitalism simply accentuates the gulf between rich and poor. In the hierarchical structure, it is in the interests of concentrated power to keep those at the bottom as powerless as possible so that they will be anxious to work from dawn-to-dusk creating wealth for those at the top.
How very Cold War of you. Of course, “communist” has long been used as a scare word to silence debate and discussion. Through eight decades of propaganda, the idea has been driven home time and time again that “communism = gulag.” I interpret this statement of yours as mere demogoguery. You hope that by labelling me as a communist the debate will be over, that the connection will be made that “Chumpsky = communism = gulag.” This tactic is quite insulting to the reader (not to mention myself.)
Actually, though, I have made no secret of my political leanings. I consider myself to be an anarchist. I am not a communist, although I agree with 99% of communist analysis of capitalism.
It is clearly in the best interests of the ruling class to pretend that there are no classes and that we are all just one big happy family working together for the national interest. However, why don’t we take a look at what the capitalists say? Take, for example, James Madison, the primary architect of the U.S. constitution. He wrote, in Federalist Paper Number 10:
"The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man … But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society."
Simply substitute “class” for “faction” and you have a perfect Marxist class analysis, the difference being that Madison thought it was a good thing. Madison’s class analysis seems pretty spot-on to me. Perhaps you would like to enlighten us as to why it is so absurd to think that there are classes in capitalist society.
And yet you do not address js_africanus’s cites on poverty and GDP.
And you produce none of your own. In fact, you provide no cites whatsoever.
What a surprise.
Ah, but that is not necessarily the case. Ford paid his workers above what was expected. By doing this, he increased the market for cars, because more people could afford them. In this case, we see that the extra dollar he paid his employees resulted in more dollars for the business. Hence, by helping to alleviate a bit of poverty, Ford increased his own business.
And your simplistic house of cards falls on its face with but one case to the contrary.
Ah, but Neurotik, the average third-world worker isn’t really in the market to buy the stuff that they produce. Tennis shoes, for instance, are mostly for sale in rich countries, and are made in poor countries.
Now, if only Bush and the EU would stop their idiotic protectionism, maybe third-world poverty could be alleviated, but no…
Bush is a dork in trade policy. There’s one thing I agree with Chumpsky on. I just happen to believe he’s not being capitalist enough.
No, no, no. This is not some mistaken policy carried out by one or two idiots in power. It is a deliberate policy formed with a great deal of thought. It is a consistent policy. Bush is not an idiot, and his trade policies are perfectly consistent with the Washington consensus.
These policies are not a mistake, and they are not a failure. In fact, they are spectacularly successful. That is the whole point! From the point of view of the ruling class, U.S. foreign policy has been a smashing success.
My critique has never been that these policies are a mistake or are stupid. Quite the contrary! They do exactly what they are intended to do, namely to keep most of the world poor.
Look, if you looked at just one country, like Argentina say, and you see what an incredible disaster the various IMF-World Bank-WTO (the real axis of evil) policies have been for the country, you might say, “well, yeah, it failed here, but that’s just because of some morons” or something else. OK, that might be true if it happened once, or twice, or even a dozen times. But it doesn’t. It happens all the time. These policies have contributed to the forced poverty of most of the world. They are perfectly consistent, and perfectly rational by the standards of the ruling class.
Likewise, if you look at U.S. interventionism in isolation you can make a mistake. For the longest time I could never figure out why the hell the U.S. went to war in Vietnam. I just said, “What a bunch of idiots. Look at all those people they killed, and for what!?” OK, if it was just Vietnam, you could maintain that. But, then you take a broader view, look at Guatemala, Iran, Chile, Indonesia, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, etc., and a consistent pattern emerges. This pattern explains why the U.S. went to war in Vietnam.
If you look at all of these cases you see that there is a common thread. In each of these cases the country was attempting an alternative form of economic development, one that took place outside of the system organized and dominated by the U.S. This is why these (and other) countries had to be destroyed. The U.S. didn’t go to war in Vietnam to “defend democracy” or any of that other crap they so often proclaim. The reasons they always give are obvious lies. No, the U.S. went to war in Vietnam because Vietnam was attempting to develop along an alternative path. For this, Vietnam had to be destroyed.
This also explains why the Vietnam War was a partial success. It wasn’t a total success, obviously, but it was a partial success. What the U.S. showed is that any country, no matter how backward, no matter how negligible a threat it posed to the U.S., will be destroyed if it dares to step outside of the U.S. dominated system. This is a perfectly rational policy for those who run the state. It also explains why a speck like Grenada, a country of 100,000 people, had to be invaded and destroyed, another example of U.S. interventionism that is difficult to understand in isolation.
We must not make the mistake of viewing U.S. policy as a mistake, or underestimating the intelligence that goes into public policy formation. We should look at the consistent patterns that emerge and try to understand policies in the broader context of perfectly rational, consistent policy.
Neither Vietnam nor Grenada were “destroyed”. If your ridiculous hyperbole were to be believed, what did the U.S. not deploy nuclear weapons and truly destroy both nations?
That’s the biggest problem with trying to demonize your opponents. If it’s done for shrieking propaganda purposes, you can get away with it, but trying to do so in a calm reasoned manner fails because if they were as bad as you describe, then anyone who points out any good that your opponents do or any evil that they didn’t do demolishes your position.
So, if the American ruling classes are ruthless and bloodthirsty and will stop at nothing, why haven’t they stopped at nothing, already? Why are we not now living in a global American empire? You’ve never sufficiently explained why the U.S. government didn’t go on a massive orgy of land-grabbing after the fall of their main 20th-century rivals, the USSR, if they were as ruthless as you claim.
Nixon contemplated using nuclear weapons in Vietnam, but decided against it because of the backlash it would caus at home. He feared a revolution. However, Vietnam was demolished: two million dead; bridges, damns and other infrastructure destroyed; forests coated in cancer causing chemicals; crops poisoned; livestock killed; the countryside littered with unexploded ordnance that still explodes to this day; and so on. After the war was over, the U.S. followed a policy of punishing Vietnam, doing their best to make sure that Vietnam could not develop.
True, they weren’t destroyed in the sense of their being a big hole where the country used to be. However, the civil society was demolished. Basically, the lesson was made very clear: step out of line and this will be your fate. The government of Grenada was simply ousted when the U.S. invaded.
They are. Just look at the savage attack on Iraq in 1991, followed by a decade of murderous sanctions. Look at the merciless attack on Yugoslavia to break it up into small, powerless right-wing republics. They do stop at nothing. They are planning at this very moment how best to destroy what remains of Iraqi society.
Because, as I explained on the first page of this thread, the imperialists are not interested in the territory. Rather, they are interested in the wealth that can be extracted.
You mean a president actually took the masses’ feelings into account? Wow. Imagine that. You’ve gone to great lengths to describe how presidents are evil and they are only interested in pleasing the power elite that support them. Then you say he was concerned about the masses? You’re arguing a contradiction.
“Demolished”, sure. “Destroyed”, no. Don’t use words incorrectly. It undermines your arguments. As for the post-war “punishment”, don’t your arguments suggest an embargo helps the people of Vietnam by keeping them from being victimized by heartless American corporations? After all, if American companies are prevented from dealing with Vietnam, how can they force a 12 year-old girl to make sneakers for $1.00 a day?
Ironically, North Vietnam’s victory actually teaches the exact opposite; that if a nation resists long enough and hard enough, the Americans will eventually pull out. If teaching a “lesson” was the only real motivation for American involvement, why not drop a nuke? How could a lesson be any clearer?
Government? It was a Marxist junta that had seized power less than a month before the Americans stepped in.
That attack was prompted by an attack of equal savagery by Iraq on the people of Kuwait. As for sanctions, there are all indications that acts of good faith on the part of the Iraqis after 1991 could have gradually lifted them.
I guess you believe it preferable that the Yugoslavs should have been allowed to continue mercilessly killing each other. Are you contending that life is worse now than it was when Milosovic was in power?
Are you under the impression that Iraqi society is some noble enclave of freedom? In truth, the “ruling elite” of America are the mildest amateurs compared to the ruling elite of Iraq, who casually use torture and murder and poison gas as instruments of policy.
And if they were so eager to get at Iraq’s oil resources, why are they not staging invasions of Venezuela, Canada, Mexico and other oil-rich states that are relatively accessable? If they stop at nothing, why haven’t they even started yet?
I posed this question in a similar thread, but I’ll just toss it out again: if the so-called “ruling elite” of America was to vanish tomorrow (all major industrialists, senior government officials and anyone with a net worth of $10 million or more), what’s your plan for implementing paradise?
Do you have any constructive ideas or just blind hatred?
s. bandit:
*I see.
Every time Chumpsky posts a line in this forum, half a dozen belligerents jump down his throat screaming ”Cite! Cite! Cite!” But apparently, these same belligerents reserve for themselves the right to post unsubstantiated claims, and to do so unchallenged. I guess when Chumpsky writes something, we are to expect that he be held to virtually unreasonable standards of evidential support, but when his opponents post counter-arguments, we are to accept their claims as true, a priori. That seems fair.
On a more serious note, this is after all Great Debates, and participants in these threads are reasonably expected to back up factual claims with some sort of evidence – even those who espouse ”politically correct” perspectives on world affairs. In other words – put up or shut up!
js:
First off, thanks for your kind words regarding my previous response!
In reference to this:
I agree with you that poverty has more than one causal determinant. But your argument here does not negate the possibility that the dynamics of capitalism are a significant contributing factor to endemic, third-world conditions of poverty, even if they aren’t the only factor. In fact, Chumpsky’s claims are not based solely on some sort of internal logical reasoning, but also have an empirical basis. In other words, at the risk of sounding Popperian, they are potentially falsifiable.
Chumpsky’s model of capitalism predicts that in a capitalist economy, all other things being equal, wealth will tend to accumulate upwards, concentrating in fewer and fewer hands; and that, without recourse to redistributive mechanisms, such a system will produce increasing disparities of income as time goes on. I argue that there exists very little empirical evidence that falsifies this fairly straightforward, common-sense conjecture. A glance at the income and wealth distribution curves of the US certainly seems to confirm the reasonableness of his claims. I’ve not had the opportunity to pursue the cites you’ve provided, but I know that at least some macroeconomic research suggests that the principle holds at the global level as well:
With respect to this:
*Well, that’s a claim you need to support with some sort of evidence, I think. As far as I recall, word on the street is that it’s no longer kosher to arbitrarily separate politics and economics from each other. The two fields are so inextricably intertwined that most serious analysts have returned to the old, classical concept of the ”political economy.”
I wonder as well where you ever got the idea that mercantilism and capitalism are completely unrelated economic systems.
To begin with, Wallerstein is one of the most influential and respected economic historians of the 20th century, so it would be absolutely stunning to discover that he had made such a bumbling, simple-minded mistake. And in fact, most of the economic historians with whom I am familiar date the advent of capitalism to somewhere around the early 1500s, in conjunction with the development of ”modern” financial institutions in Italy. In addition, most of them view mercantilism as an early form of capitalism. Consider, for example, this definition of the term in question:
One final note: mercantilism is a kind of economic praxis, and not a model of macroeconomic analysis, as some of what you’ve written seems to imply.
*I would say that this is a contested idea, but it is possible that the research you’ve cited points in that direction. As noted, other research seems to lead to the opposite conclusion. But the discussion gets quite complicated after that. Some apologists for a capitalist system claim that even if there are increasing disparities in income between rich and poor, the overall wealth of all income levels is enhanced, and that this fact therefore justifies capitalism. There are a lot of ins and outs to this argument, and I don’t have time to pursue it further here, other than to say that I’m not fully convinced by it. (Needless to say, if it turns out that capitalism actually leads to an overall increase in poverty levels, as is asserted in the article I quoted from above, then the counter-argument is moot.)
I failed to address that point earlier, in your last post, and for a simple reason: it’s a strawman. If you go back and look at my argument, you will find nary a word about the labor value of a commodity. In fact, I state quite clearly that the ”value” of the commodity is determined by the market, and that the excess wealth “skimmed off” by the capitalist is equal to market value of a product minus production costs. (In addition, in your version of the labor theory of value, you seem to argue for the same mechanism, strangely enough. In my understanding of the “labor theory of value,” the value of a commodity is determined by the sum total of its labor inputs [however one might calculate that], not by its value on the market. I agree with you that such an axiomatic proposition is misleading.)
My analysis, like that of virtually all neo-Marxist economists, is based on the simple premise that a portion of the market value of an item is pocketed by the owners of the means of production, even though they did not have a hand in the actual work of manufacturing the item in question. The idea that you sell items for more than they cost to produce is one of the fundamental principles of capitalism, is it not?
Finally:
It seems that the original topic of this thread – i.e., constructive criticism of Parenti’s essay Imperialism 101 – has been long forgotten. But I would like to second Chumpsky’s original request, and ask that those who are critical of this perspective to review the article and point out to us the flaws in Parenti’s analysis. I am genuinely curious, as I have read the article now and can’t find anything substantially wrong with Parenti’s basic arguments.
Marvelous post, Mr. Svinlesha.
I think this is an overly charitable view of Chumpsky’s analysis. Perhaps his view has a superficial empirical basis, but I simply do not see how you could strip away enough context to falsify it. Could you elaborate further here? Some attempt to apply empirical rigor might be interesting.
I don’t believe that this is entirely correct.
Using income as your sole measure of evidence is misleading. While it may be common sense that those most equipped to thrive in a capitalist society will earn more money, it is not clear that their increased earnings are entirely pulled from the pockets of the poor. It may be easy to produce examples in which this has happened, but I await an argument which demonstrates that this is inherent in the system. A free (or better yet, competitive) market creates wealth: though its distribution may be unequal, I don’t think it is a large stretch to demonstrate that it creates wealth for all participants, especially in the long term.
Furthermore, even if you believe that the total value of wealth in circulation is zero-sum, increases in productivity do produce increases in wealth due to the marginal propensity for people to boost consumption during periods of increase in productivity, even in the thirld world. Even though the rich inarguably get richer, there is empirical evidence to support that the conditions of the poor are improving as well.
Hence I believe that using income curves as the sole piece of evidence is inadequate. We must also examine real prices and spending habits over the long term to get a good picture of the conditions of the world’s poorest. Unfortunately, this is extremely difficult to do given the paucity of available data.
With respect to your cite on macroeconomic research, I find the idea that “virtually every experience” since 1980 has undermined the Washington Consensus. I think this requires some serious factual backup.
I do agree that at least in your case, arguments against the labor theory of value are straw men.
I’ll try to have a look at the Parenti article shortly.
I have to add, I read Parenti’s first paragraph. His second sentence:
…is so risible that I find it hard to believe that there is any truth to what follows. The very idea that for the past 40 years poststructuralist, postmodern, postcolonial academics have been ignoring imperialism practically brings a tear to my eye.
This ventures into the realm of parody.
By all means “just look” at the Gulf War - where the US drove Iraq out of Kuwait, back to their own territory - and then stopped.
If the US is so ruthlessly imperialistic, why didn’t we conquer Baghdad?
You simply dropped this into the thread, and moved on. Could you flesh it out a bit? Based on what you have posted to date, I am not willing simply to dismiss Lomborg because you tell us to.
Your posts, as usual, tend to be long on assertion, and quite short on evidence.
Quite short.
Regards,
Shodan
My pleasure. Although I really do hate reading the responses to my posts, is there anybody who doesn’t hate being proven wrong, if I’m going to post then honor says that I must. I have so far tended to disagree with you, but you have been respectful and rational. I owe you the same. If my style has fallen below that standard, please let me know so that I can apologize and correct myself.
I do hope that I haven’t behaved as a belligerant toward Chumpsky. I must admit that his rhetorical style seems to have its flaws, in my opinion, but he is playing a valuable role. He also has the courage to come back again and again to defend his beliefs–I consider that to be a honorable trait, no matter how much I disagree with them. In WWI the black American troops fought so well that the Germans gave them the honorable nick-name The Harlem Hellfighters. I can’t say that I’m a big believer in loving my enemy, but I feel I should respect him.
Since this is a strictly personal post, will you grant me an extra paragraph? I think that Chumpsky would be far more formidable if he’d refine his rhetorical style. That’s not a personal attack–it is intended to be strictly constructive, so please, don’t be offended by it. Sometimes such things need to be said, and this appears to be one of those cases. Chum. obviously cares about the plight of the poor and injustice and all those good things. It would be nice to see him become a better advocate of his position. Of course, I strongly disagree with his analysis of the world–but I think he’d be suprised at how much (and where) our common ground may lie.
Anyway, I have to go to my sister’s place. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how this thread develops.
Js Africanus, I don’t want to congratulate you but to damm you to hell :), you see I try to think that my english is good enough to understand complex issues. I just spent the better part of an hour reading your last couple of post. 15 minutes into it I realized you were speaking about Economy.
I think that you and Chumspy are speaking of two different worlds, he is talking about Earth in the 21 century and you are speaking of Smith-Ricardo land.
Something that it always surprised to me about this board is the almost total absence of debate about capitalism. That is why Chumpsky is always so much fun to read (eventhough he quotes Chomsky a bit too much).
I don’t have your expertise about economy africanus but it seems to me that all of your exposition refers to a “perfect economy system” (sorry trasnlation from the spanish) where:
- There are a lot of actors in the market
- No actor can establih by himself either the price of a good or aservice or the price of a labor, capital, or land (again I lack the technical vocabulary)
- All the actors in the system have all the information in order to act according to their best interests.
Sadly this is not the case. There isn’t such a thing as a perfect market, in fact there isn’t even a “free market”. Something is not working in this planet, I have examples but no solutions:
Let me introduce you to the once proud Argentina, a country capable to produce food (of top quality) to feed 300 millions human beings, it’s population? Barely 35 millions, 10% of it’s “feeding capacity”, and people are literally starving.
I know there is corruption in Argentina, but that cannot be the only answer. After all the same happens in say… U.S.A (Enron, to name the worst offender) and the situation is not quite the same.
All I know that ten years ago (before the washington consensus) unemployment was less than 8% and all our social and economic numbers were the envy of Latin Americaa. All I know is that in the eyes of Washington anf the I.M.F (they are the same thing) we were “the best pupils”. All I know is that in 2002 the unemployment is 25%, poverty is in the order of 53%… All I know is that something is quite wrong.