Jerry wrote (in reply to Alfredo): >One example of non-economic gain: the (former, hopefully) >testing of nuclear >devices in the Pacific by the US and French militaries. While >this didn't >result in economic gain necessarily, I think it could surely >be viewed as >international exploitation (using the term somewhat more >loosely that Marx >did in _Capital_ Volume 1: perhaps we need to have a discussion about >the distinction between exploitation and oppression?). With "exploitation" reserved for "economic", and "oppression" for everything else? Fair enough, but of course in "Capital" exploitation is reserved for the process of extracting surplus value from labour-power. Is it the case that everything in the nexus of economic wrongs which "imperialism" denotes is reducible to exploitation in this sense? And to the extent that it is, is it necessarily helpful to emphasise this aspect in every concrete case -- for example, commodity cartels (coffee, rather than oil, perhaps)? On the other hand, characterising all these non-labour exploitation issues simply as "oppression" seems to provide insufficient nuance. The fact that Honduras, say, suffers from its dependence on banana exports is not quite the same thing as having one's home seized for use as a military base (e.g. Diego Garcia). Hopefully (but not very much so) French (European?) nuclear tests in the Pacific are a thing of the past. But one should bear in mind the importance of France's *American* colony of Guiana to the European space programme -- necessary if the EU is to preserve independent capacity in telecommunications, as Will Hutton was pointing out in the Observer last Sunday. France's presence in Guiana is probably economically beneficial to the inhabitants, in the sense that their incomes are higher than otherwise (and they are also part of, indeed citizens of, the EU). Nonetheless, they are placed in a dependent relationship with their colonial patrons. One might call this oppression, but not if this word also has to bear some economic connotation. Julian
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