RE: Arms production + Dept III

[Adam Rose <adam@xxxxxxxx>]

>
> Paul C
> ------
> What Adam has to explain is what it means for capital to
> be exported.
>

It's perfectly simple.

Profits made by exploiting labour in one country are not
reinvested in that country. Instead, the capital is exported
ie it is invested in another country.

> Over the last 120 years there can not have been more than
> a dozen in which Britain ran a trade surplus. The
> majority of those years were during the 1980s when oil
> exports changed the contry from its traditional position
> of being a net importer to being a net exporter.
>

First, we need to distinguish between "classical" imperialism
ie what, for instance Eric Hobsbawb means by "The Age of
Imperialism" , or the system which Lenin analysed, and
Imperialism today.

In "classical imperialism" most trade was conducted between
colonies and the imperialist countries in segmented markets;
today most trade is conducted between imperialist countries
in a world market. In "classical imperialism" capital was
exported to colonies; now capital ( in the form of interest
payments ) is if anything extracted from the "third world".


Through the age of Classical Imperialism, the "balance of
trade" of the Imperialist countries, especially Britain,
was massively negative ( and no one worried about it at all ).
All sorts of primary commodoties were imported from the
colonies. These were then worked on in the imperialist
country. Some of these finished goods were reexported,
but many were consumed domestically. So a negative balance
of trade was implicit in classical imperialism.

At the same time as this massively negative balance of trade,
capital was being exported : just look at all the British built
railways around the world.

And this is the point : by exporting a large proportion of their
profits rather than reinvesting them at home, imperialist
countries were able to prevent the rate of profit falling ( or
at least slow it up ). The consequence was of course that they
ended up with inefficient industry.

Adam.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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