Elmar Altvatar is Germany's best known Marxist economist. In a recent
letter, he writes:
"The internationalization of the world economy today is more
driven by financial transfers than by the exchange of material
goods and immaterial services, except financial services (world
exports in 1992 being c. $3.7 trillion, while the daily turnover
of the international financial system is c. $1 trillion). It is
interesting to compare the stocks of foreign assets and liabilities
in the OECD area. In 1989 (last year for which figures are
available), the G-7 countries plus 8 other OECD countries had
foreign assets in the amount of $8,038 billion and foreign
liabilities of $8,324 billion. Adding the foreign debt of
Eastern Europe and the Third World, the $300 billion net
debt increases to c. $2,000 billion.
But who is the asset holder? I think that this is one of the
great enigmas of our modern/post modern world economy. I have
only the hypothesis that these debts are assets, i.e.,
monetary wealth of the international banking system."
Comments which I'll pass on to Elmar, welcome.
Jim O'Connor
