Sean's first line: "A focus on GDP and national accounts gives a
misleading picture of US economic power."
Both Sean and Michael Roberts are superb at tracking profits. That's
only a rough proxy for surplus value extraction, of course. There are so
many ways - IP control, marketing, financing, etc - Apple takes vast
surpluses out of not only China but from the other lands where /raw
materials /are drawn from in which there is accumulation not by
exploitation (that's Foxconn's job) but by dispossession.
But Sean and Michael have not yet built into their framing the
'unequal ecological exchange' associated with depleted natural resource
wealth, greenhouse gas emissions and local pollution - none of which the
original framers of GDP (Kuznets et al) cared about (nor women's unpaid
labour in social reproduction).
Nor is the damage represented by child labour in the Chinese-run
Eastern DRC mines, supported by SA and other UN 'peacekeeping' soldiers
until they were overrun in Goma last month, counted in GDP.
Which in turn means that the /sub-imperialist /components of global
value chains are not being taken seriously enough: Chinese extraction,
South African protection, etc. The same occurs all over Africa. Most
reformers of mining - the 'resource nationalists' and African Mining
Vision proponents - make the same mistake by, in Samir Amin's words,
'passing an eraser' over resource depletion, emissions, pollution and
social reproduction.
More: https://www.cadtm.org/Pitfalls-of-resource-national-consciousness
On 2/24/2025 4:48 PM, Marv Gandall via groups.io wrote:
[Edited Message Follows]
[Reason: Editorial]
On Sun, Feb 23, 2025 at 06:50 PM, Charles wrote:
Roberts and Starrs bloviate about foreign companies in China and
their exports...China's exports are a decreasing portion of its
economy...When it comes to the position of China's state and
private capitalists in the world economy, Gandall, Starrs, and
Roberts are basically blowing smoke.
Starrs and Roberts both measure the economic strength of countries by
the *profit share* of their trans national corporations operating
abroad. By this measure, the US is by far the dominant economic power.
Starrs finds the profit share of US corporations leading in 19 of 25
global industries and well ahead in 13 of them, a measure which has
remained fairly steady over the past two decades.
Charlie's preferred measure of economic strength appears to be the
*export intensity *of countries which does not distinguish between the
dollar share of their domestic exporters and that of foreign
corporations operating on their territory. By this measure, Charlie
shows the US lagging far behind its rivals in Germany, China, and the EU.
It is also unclear what Charlie means when he accuses Starrs and
Roberts of "biovating" and "blowing smoke" about Chinese state-owned
and private enterprises. It is true that they are not as impressed
with the overseas performance of Chinese firms relative to US capital
as are Charlie and others who theorize about Chinese "imperialism" as
a major threat to US hegemony. Starrs' data shows Chinese TNC's as
the most profitable in only four global industries, well behind the US
multinationals. Within China, they account for only 30% of the
country's key exports, again well behind their US, Asian, and European
rivals who use China as an export platform.
So Sartesian is again correct in asking Charlie: "What is the context
behind your "snippets”? What exactly is your point? The US is/is not
being eclipsed by China? China is/is not emerging as a new hegemon?"
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