Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Jim Devine wrote:
>
> >H
> There's no question that imperialism was essential to the rise of
> European capitalism. But what about its contribution to First World
> wealth in the present? No doubt greater than zero, but how much? Does
> anyone have any good ideas?
>
I don't know. But I think it erroneous to hold that the dependence of
capitalism on imperialism (which is something like saying the dependence
of a human on his/her skin) depends on the wealth "contributed" by
imperialism. Imperialism would be no less a necessity for capitalism (no
less the mode of exitence of modern capitalism) if its net "material"
(physical) contribution to capitalist wealth were negative.
India was the indispensable foundation of British capitalism in the 19th
century not because of the wealth pumped directly out of India (the cost
of that operation to the English people may have been greater than the
returns) but because without India it (a) would not have been possible
to generate the civil service and professional military so essential to
British capitalism and (b) it would not have been possible to realize
the surplus value pumped out of the English working class.
The British people as a whole bore the cost of maintaining the Empire;
but only the Bristish capitalist class (perhaps only a fraction of that
class) _profited_ from the empire, the "nation" probably did not.
Carrol
Carrol
