Anthony wrote:
>On this I will have to agree with Brad. I think the (advanced
>capitalist country) left tends to dismiss growth. It is possible that
>growth is likely to lead to inequality initially (Kuznets curve) but it
>does not have to remain that way. If as we find in the Korean case,
>labor-intensive export-led growth did lead to better income distribution,
>then even countries like India that promoted such growth, doesn't even
>have to be export-driven, can better income distribution. Interestingly
>enough India's lowest 20% income earners do better than many such groups
>in other poorer countries. But the absolute level of poverty is quite
>unimaginable sitting in the US. It is also true that since the 1980s S
>Korea's income distribution has worsened, a period in which economic
>growth has been also high.
Anthony, I don't think any of the few paleo-Marxists on the list like
myself would argue that developing countries can enjoy spurts of remarkable
growth at a given time and in a given place. There is just too much
empirical evidence against such a view. What we do argue is that such
spurts tend to be of a transitory nature and can not lead to elevation of a
country like India or Argentina into G7 ranks. Ever since I have been
tracking these sorts of issues, I can remember how one country/region or
another was hyped as a candidate for first world status. In the early 1970s
Brazil was everybody's choice. This was around the time it was engaged in a
serious fight to develop a national EDP infrastructure. A few laters Saudi
Arabia was talked about as a serious candidate because of oil super-profits
that would supposedly finance native industry. Then it was Korea and the
other Asian tigers. And Turkey for a while. None of this had any kind of
permanence for the simple reason that except for Japan all of the seats at
the winner's table were occupied 2 centuries ago during the heyday of
colonialism. If Brazil invaded the USA and forced people in suburban New
Jersey to pick tomatoes on Brazilian owned plantations for 3 dollars a day,
then maybe the playing field would be leveled. I wouldn't hold my breath
however.
Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
