RE: [OPE] Britain--parasitic and decaying capitalism: A comment

The problem goes back to the 19th century. Study the trade acounts of the UK from 1870, no trade surplus, thus no export of surplus value. How real then is the idea of capital export as underlying even late 19th century imperialism.

________________________________________
From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu [ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of D. Göçmen [dogangoecmen@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2009 6:59 PM
To: ope@lists.csuchico.edu
Subject: Re: [OPE] Britain--parasitic and decaying capitalism: A comment

Paul,
the point you are making here is not relevant for a general definition of imperialism. It is relevant only as it indicates to an aspect of the theory of imperialism. The classical (Lenin's) definition of imperialism can be used to explain this phenomenon. As David points out in his article this fact has to do with the competition among imperialist countries to re-divide the world. In addition, if you read David's article carefully this issue is already dealt with and possible political consequences are described accurately as I think.

However, I would not see China among imperialist countries at all. Rather I would see it as country in the transition to socialism. But this is another story.

D.Göçmen
http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/
http://www.dogangocmen.blogspot.com/

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Cockshott <wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk>
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
Sent: Tue, Dec 29, 2009 8:03 pm
Subject: RE: [OPE] Britain--parasitic and decaying capitalism: A comment

At the beginning there one passage where he is a bit too strict when he says:

"The export of capital -that is global investment - as opposed to export of

commodities becomes the distinguishing feature of imperialism." While I share

this idea I would have not said "as opposed to" but as different from, because

though the determining feature of imperialism is export of capital it has been

accompanied always by the export of commodities.

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The problem with this is that the USA and UK have not be net exporters of

capital for a long time, the main exporters of capital are Japan and China.

The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401

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Received on Tue Dec 29 15:12:40 2009