My sharp polemics with a member of the British Revolutionary Communist
Party, publishers of Living Marxism.
Louis P.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 14:38:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Third World economic decline
World Bank Statistics on the 47 poorest capitalist countries
(from WWW.WORLDBANK.ORG)
Pop. GNP Poverty Life Illiteracy
in Growth % Expct. rate
Mill. 85-95
1 Mozambique 16.2 3.6 n/a 47 60
2 Ethiopia 56.4 -0.3 33.8 49 65
3 Tanzania 29.6 1.0 16.4 51 32
4 Burundi 6.3 -1.3 n/a 49 65
5 Malawi 9.8 -0.7 n/a 43 44
6 Chad 6.4 0.6 n/a 48 52
7 Rwanda 6.4 -5.4 45.7 46 40
8 Sierra Leone 4.2 -3.6 n/a 40 n/a
9 Nepal 21.5 2.4 53.1 55 73
10 Niger 9.0 n/a 61.5 47 86
11 Burkina Faso 10.4 -0.2 n/a 49 81
12 Madagascar 13.7 -2.2 72.3 52 n/a
13 Bangladesh 119.8 2.1 n/a 58 62
14 Uganda 19.2 2.7 50.0 42 38
15 Guinea Bissau 1.1 2.0 87.0 38 45
16 Haiti 7.2 -5.2 n/a 57 55
17 Mali 9.8 0.8 n/a 50 69
18 Nigeria 111.3 1.2 28.9 53 43
19 Yemen 15.3 n/a n/a 53 n/a
20 Cambodia 10.0 n/a n/a 53 35
21 Kenya 26.7 0.1 50.2 58 22
22 Mongolia 2.5 -3.8 n/a 65 n/a
23 Togo 4.1 -2.7 n/a 56 48
24 Gambia 1.1 n/a n/a 46 61
25 Ctl.Afr.Rep. 3.3 -2.4 n/a 48 40
26 India 929.4 3.2 52.5 62 48
27 Laos 4.9 2.7 n/a 52 43
28 Benin 5.5 -0.3 n/a 50 63
29 Nicaragua 4.4 -5.4 43.8 68 34
30 Ghana 17.1 1.4 n/a 59 n/a
31 Zambia 9.0 -0.8 84.6 46 22
32 Angola 10.8 -6.1 n/a 47 n/a
33 Georgia 5.4 -17.0 n/a 73 n/a
34 Pakistan 129.9 1.2 11.6 60 62
35 Mauritania 2.3 0.5 31.4 51 n/a
36 Azerbaijan 7.5 -16.3 n/a 70 n/a
37 Zimbabwe 11.0 -0.6 41.0 57 15
38 Guinea 6.6 1.4 26.3 44 n/a
39 Honduras 5.9 0.1 46.5 67 27
40 Senegal 8.5 n/a 54.0 50 67
41 Cameroon 13.3 -6.6 n/a 57 37
42 Ctte d'Ivoire 14.0 n/a 17.7 55 60
43 Albania 3.3 n/a n/a 73 n/a
44 Congo 2.6 -3.2 n/a 51 25
45 Kyrgyz 4.5 -6.9 18.9 68 n/a
46 Sri Lanka 18.1 2.6 4.0 72 10
47 Armenia 3.8 -15.1 n/a 71 n/a
total population 1739.1
Comments:
--------
1) Poverty percentage is defined as percentage of people living on less
than $1 per day.
2) Of the 47 countries listed, 38 were able to provid figures on GNP
growth rate. 17 reported positive growth, while 21 reported negative
growth.
3) In the 16 high-income countries, only 3 reported negative growth rates
in the 85-95 period (Sweden, Finland and United Arab Emirates). Japan,
with 125.2 million people, had a growth rate of 2.9 and Italy one of 1.8.
Their life expectancies were 80 and 78 respectively. Illiteracy rates and
poverty rates were too low to compare to poorer countries.
4) James Heartfield's Revolutionary Communist Party is a peculiar
organization. It shares optimism about Third World economic growth and
social improvement with publications like the Wall Street Journal or the
Economist. This optimism is, of course, nonsense. The Third World, as the
figures above show, has been in steep economic decline over the past
decade. Furthermore, the causes of the economic decline are endemic.
These comrades, who tend to be middle-class professionals and
academicians, are allowing their privileged social position to cloud their
understanding of the real world. There is also a grave theoretical error
they have committed. They have applied a schematic understanding of the
Communist Manifesto to the Third World. Their Marxism has little use for
what Lenin called Imperialism, a curious oversight for people living in
the twentieth century.
The dynamism that Marx and Engels were talking about in the 19th century
was based on the existence of a revolutionary class --the bourgeoisie--
which was spearheading the elimination of feudal relations. The net
result of the bourgeois revolution was capital accumulation and rapid
technological and industrial transformation. This has nothing to do with
the situation of countries such as Madagascar and Cameroon, with negative
growth rates of -2.2 and -6.6. The net effect of economic stagnation is
human suffering. This is the reality for Third World peoples. It is
shocking that a "revolutionary communist" does not perceive it.
The Spoons Lists are a curious place. We are visited by snake-oil salesmen
on a weekly basis. One week it is somebody who claims that Cuba is not
socialist. The next it is somebody who argues that the Third World is not
sinking lower into economic depression. Should we require sanity clauses
for participation in the Spoons lists? I suppose not.
Louis Proyect
