> Date sent: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 08:49:33 -0800
> Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> From: James Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: returns to colonialism
> Ricardo writes: >Just a handy, if incomplete, stats: At most 2% of Europe's
> GNP at the end of 18th century took the form of profits derived from
> commerce with Americas, Asia, Africa! (I think source is K.O'Brien).<
>
> incomplete? absolutely. This incompletely-referenced stat should be
> enshrined in the newest edition of HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS. First, we
> should calculate the percentage for not the whole of "Europe" (where did
> the alleged O'Brien draw the line? at the Urals?) but for England and
> perhaps the Netherlands and perhaps perhaps the city-states of Northern
> Italy, plus France and even Belgium. Those were the capitalist powers of
> the day, and it is the capitalist powers which are seen as benefitting from
> the looting of the colonies.
ricardo
He means Western Europe. O'Brien has published a number of papers on
this topic, challenging the claim that European industrialization was
largely the result of the exploitation of the periphery. My
notes on O'Brien are somewhat disorganized, but here's another
discomforting stats: He estimates that commodity
trade with the periphery in 1800 amounted to only 4 percent of the
aggregate gross national product of W.Europe.
Devine:
Most authors I've seen indicate that the
> semi-feudal Spain (in an earlier period) didn't benefit much because they
> got a lot of inflation from all that gold and ended up helping the
> Netherlands and England by buying weapons. Even if this point is disputed,
> we shouldn't be talking about _all_ of Europe.
ricardo:
Spain did not benefit shows that extraction of surplus per se does
not lead to industrialization.
If we're talking about 10%
> of Europe, then the 2% becomes 20%. This is a seat-of-the-pants
> calculation, but that's just about the only way these stats are calculated.
> The alleged O'Brien didn't have complete information, either, since the
> stats for that period are very shaky, often calculated based on
> theory-based interpolations.
>
> Second, we should look at not _all of GDP_ as the denominator but the
> income of the ruling classes who were the ones who made the decisions,
> benefited from them, and were able to accumulate the proceeds to gain
> differential advantage vis-a-vis the "wogs." So it should be "profits
> derived from commerce with the wogs"/"total profits." Well, if profits were
> 10% of the leading capitalist powers' GDPs, then the 20% of the last
> paragraph becomes 200%! I don't believe in this statistic much at all, but
> I see it just as valid as the 2% that is cited without any explanation of
> how it was calculated, the assumptions that went into it, etc.
>
> By the way, even a 2% advantage can be crucial in a strategic battle. And
> we shouldn't be thinking of the relationship between "Europe" and the
> colonies as "trade" but as a strategic battle, one in which Europe gained
> an upper hand and then used to increase its power.
ricardo:
A few more facts to clear your mind: to estimate the benefits
of colonial trade, O'Brien assumes that capitalists in
W.Europe acquired profits of 50% on trade turnover (which is
a very high estimate). He further assumes that they re-invested 50%
of their profits. Conclusion: the profits of trade directed to
investment would have been only 1% of gross national product!
ricardo
> Max writes: >I agree that returns to business firms' capital discount the
> social or environmental effects that you allude to, but the private returns
> are the only thing that could directly contribute to expansion in the
> colonizer nation. <
>
> but if the colonized nation's ability is destroyed (a net destruction that
> has no direct effect on the colonizer's profits), it increases the
> competitive advantage of the colonizer, which then can be accumulated.
>
> (Again, we shouldn't be talking about "Europe." After all, the French and
> the Brits wasted a lot of resources fighting each other (the 7 years war,
> the Napoleonic war). Not all of the differential advantage vis-a-vis the
> colonies was used against other European countries. But the experience of
> winning wars against France helped England perfect the art of colonial
> conquest.)
>
> Third, why should we privilege the "end of the 18th century"? That was a
> period _before_ the English complete conquest of India. It was before
> Africa became a relevant stomping ground for imperialist rivalries. It was
> a period _after_ the high point of the African slave trade, I believe.
> Instead of looking at simply the "end of the 18th century," it's important
> to look at the entire period after 1492 to calculate some kind of average.
>
> ------
>
> An idea for punishing Microsoft: force them to turn over info on Windows to
> IBM so that the latter can adapt OS/2 to run Windows 3.1 and Windows 95
> programs. Then we'd have (more) competition, which is the goal of
> anti-trust, no? And I've heard that OS/2, though very hard to install, is a
> highly superior operating system compared to Win95.
>
> in pen-l solidarity,
>
>
> Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
> http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
> "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let
> people talk.)
> -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
>
>
