On 2/7/07, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 2/7/07, Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> ... Ironically, the state most defiant of the American
> empire -- Venezuela -- is also among the most dependent on the
> American market.
what does it mean here, "among the most dependent"? If the US stopped
buying V's oil, couldn't V sell it to a lot of other places?
It's not like when the US cut off Cuban access to the US market in
1960 or so: Cuba had a quota which allowed them to sell sugar above
the world market price in the US. On the other hand, V gets no such
subsidy from the US, so there's no such stick to use on V. Oil is in
big demand all around the world -- and it's a world market.
More than half of Venezuela's export goes to the USA and nearly 30% of
its import comes from the USA. That's heavy-duty dependency, it seems
to me. How long would it take for Venezuela to replace the USA as
buyer and seller if it lost it?
(The US can sabotage V's oil
and the rest of V's economy, too -- if it's not doing so already.)
It tried to do so during the lockout from the end of 2002 to the
beginning of 2003. It took a couple of years for Venezuela to recover
from that sabotage:
<http://www.cepr.net/publications/venezuelan_poverty_rates_2006_05.pdf>
Issue Brief • May 2006
Poverty Rates in Venezuela:
Getting the Numbers Right
MARK WEISBROT, LUIS SANDOVAL, AND DAVID ROSNICK
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TABLE 1
Venezuela: Poverty Rates, 1997-2005
Year Time Households People
Period Below Below
Poverty Poverty
Line (%) Line (%)
1997 1st half 55.6 60.94
2nd half 48.1 54.48
1998 1st half 49.0 55.44
2nd half 43.9 50.40
1999 1st half 42.8 49.99
2nd half 42.0 48.69
2000 1st half 41.6 48.31
2nd half 40.4 46.34
2001 1st half 39.1 45.51
2nd half 39.0 45.38
2002 1st half 41.5 48.13
2nd half 48.6 55.36
2003 1st half 54.0 61.00
2nd half 55.1 62.09
2004 1st half 53.1 60.15
2nd half 47.0 53.90
2005 1st half 42.4 48.80
2nd half 37.9 43.70
BTW, traditional dependency theory -- about how the structure of the
capitalist world economy distorts and stunts the economic development
of countries that had been under colonialist and/or neocolonialist
thumbs but are now formally independent -- is more sophisticated than
simply saying that just because country A trades a lot with country B,
country A is highly dependent on B.
Sure, but, again, the conclusion would be the same. After all is said
and done, Venezuela is among the most economically dependent on the
USA.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
