Re: reparations

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx> 02/11/00 04:27PM >>>
Louis Proyect wrote:

>Capitalism does have something to do with lower infant mortality and longer
>lifespans. It improved them in Belgium while degrading them in the Belgian
>Congo.

People in almost all regions of the world are living longer now than
they did 20, 50, or 100 years ago. To say that isn't to say
imperialism isn't horrible. But it is entirely within the Marxian
tradition to say that capitalism has brought with it certain social
benefits.
&&&&&&&&&&&&

CB: Except that capitalism started at least 350 years ago, with its primitive accumulation based on slavery and colonialism in the regions you are arguing about.  As Louis says , you have to have quantity and quality of life stats for all these non-European regions from 400 years ago. Measuring how capitalism impacted them in early slavey and colonialism before you can make the claim above. For capitalism may have been the cause of low quantity and quality of life 100 years ago, from which you measure a rise today.

You don't have a stat for net impact of capitalism on the other regions of the world.


If I come over to your house burn it down and kill and enslave a lot of your family, driving the quality and quantity of your life lower than it was before I got there; and then I do somethings that raise your condition back up some, the net impact of my "visit" to you may not be to have improved your circumstance.

CB