Re: Social Imperialism [DMS]

[Nicholas Siemensma <nsiemensma@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul Cockshott wrote: 

> I think it is a copout.
> The quantification is a serious issue. I dont know
> the answer
> to the question he asks, but I think one should also
> look at
> the persistence of a trade deficit, which represents
> a net inflow
> of value in the us. Part of this derives from
> seigneurage, but
> it is a pretty massive subsidy of the US economy
> 

Yes, I was apologising in advance for a bit of
late-night laziness.  I meant that we couldn't yet
find an emblematic statistic for the "overall
importance of imperialism for the US economy", which I
think is what DMS was trying to do, without
investigating all its mechanisms and operations
outside the quite narrow conception of US corporate
profits.

Things aren't so clear-cut: even the combination of
trade deficits and dollar hegemony, which you quite
properly cited, creates a statistical wilderness of
mirrors.  Extensive imports can raise apparent
productivity (as in the late 90s "productivity
miracle") through currency valuation imbalance and
inflated distribution costs in the US, while the
manufacturing involvement in there consists mostly in
minor value-adding processes: final assemblage etc.

In fact, a similar statistical chicanery takes place
here in Australia, where the percentage of
manufactured exports as a proportion of total exports
is regularly cited as growing, but most of this is
simply transformed mineral, agricultural and forestry
products (ie simple value-adding to raw materials):
merchandise trade is still overwhelmingly made up of
"rocks and crops".

See the Inquiry into Increasing Value-Adding to
Australian Raw Materials, Standing Committee on
Industry, Sciences and Resources.  Submissions,
including that made by the department itself, are
available on the web, I think, at www.industry.gov.au

I was also going to add something today about the
absence of transparency in capital flows, eg. the
creation of hybrid instruments combining conventional
securities with high-risk, high-yield options or
futures so as to circumvent regulations and accounting
rules.  All these games are played which make our jobs
more difficult, and the statistics have different
layers and meanings when looked at from various
angles.  Hence I would excuse my listless reply late
last night, and suggest that we continue to
investigate these crucial issues.  But in any case the
thread seems to have dried up.  Too bad - I'm trying
to avoid work.

Nick 

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