Musings on development

[BobKKKindle$]

The current per/capita GDP of the United States is $46,000 (Source: The International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook) and the current per/capita GDP for the entire world as a single economic unit discounting all internal variations is $8,200 (Source: The World Bank, World Development Indicators). This is a ratio of around 5.6 to one. Therefore, from a global perspective, the workers of the United States (or any other country which forms part of the economic core, and so generates wealth through the exploitation of the developing world under conditions of unequal exchange and historical oppression) are privileged, because their income (and, consequently, standard of living) is far above that enjoyed by other workers.

An important task for any socialist revolution would be the elimination of inequality on a global scale to provide a secure basis for full human liberation. However, "equalization from above" (i.e. raising the living standards of the third world to meet the current level of the first-world, thereby avoiding the need to reduce the incomes of first-world workers) is a fundamentally unrealistic prospect. Why? Environmental constraints - the extension of first-world norms of distribution to the population of the entire world would result in the total exploitation of all remaining natural resources within a short period of time and environmental catastrophe on a global scale due to the uncontrolled emission of greenhouse gases and the destruction of vulnerable ecosystems, thereby resulting in the total collapse of the global environment. The only alternative method of resolving inequality is ending and possibly reversing (by means of reparations etc.) the exploitative economic relationships which have allowed for the constant movement of surplus towards the economic core and hence lowering the incomes of the first-world to provide re-distributive justice to the workers of the global south.

This second option has radical political implications. If ending inequality on a global scale can only take place to the detriment of first-world workers, it follows that the relationship between the workers of the first-world and the workers of the third-world is antagonistic such that first-world workers have an interest in preserving the status-quo and the system of exploitation which supports the privileges of the first-world at the expense of development in the global periphery.

Discuss.

[Dean]

This isn't completely true. Take, for example, the housing market. Today, most proletarians either don't own a house or have a huge interest to pay on it. It takes all of ones resources to purchase a house, sometimes generations. But under a socialist economy, I ought to have a right to a house at fairly low cost of labor and energies (see Edric O's post). In this sense, the proletarian greatly benefits, and not at the loss of any third-world workers.

[PigmerikanMao]

This isn't completely true. Take, for example, the housing market. Today, most proletarians either don't own a house or have a huge interest to pay on it. It takes all of ones resources to purchase a house, sometimes generations. But under a socialist economy, I ought to have a right to a house at fairly low cost of labor and energies (see Edric O's post). In this sense, the proletarian greatly benefits, and not at the loss of any third-world workers.
On the contrary- a house under first world standards requires a great amount of resources. If one pays such a low amount of money for a house, then the workers of varying oppressed nations are subsequently paid less for their labour in unearthing, manufacturing, and delivering these resources. The fact that many proletarians don't own their own land doesn't constitute as oppression so long as the payment made to the land owners is not overpriced. In the communist manifesto, Karl Marx pointed out in the case of the abolishing of private property, that a vast majority of workers (I forget the actual percent) had never or ever would own their own house- the contrast between that era and our epoch is that the first world "workers" have been greatly overpaid for compensation of these bourgeois systems.
~PMao ;)

[bretty]

The current per/capita GDP of the United States is $46,000 (Source: The International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook) and the current per/capita GDP for the entire world as a single economic unit discounting all internal variations is $8,200 (Source: The World Bank, World Development Indicators). This is a ratio of around 5.6 to one. Therefore, from a global perspective, the workers of the United States (or any other country which forms part of the economic core, and so generates wealth through the exploitation of the developing world under conditions of unequal exchange and historical oppression) are privileged, because their income (and, consequently, standard of living) is far above that enjoyed by other workers.

An important task for any socialist revolution would be the elimination of inequality on a global scale to provide a secure basis for full human liberation. However, "equalization from above" (i.e. raising the living standards of the third world to meet the current level of the first-world, thereby avoiding the need to reduce the incomes of first-world workers) is a fundamentally unrealistic prospect. Why? Environmental constraints - the extension of first-world norms of distribution to the population of the entire world would result in the total exploitation of all remaining natural resources within a short period of time and environmental catastrophe on a global scale due to the uncontrolled emission of greenhouse gases and the destruction of vulnerable ecosystems, thereby resulting in the total collapse of the global environment. The only alternative method of resolving inequality is ending and possibly reversing (by means of reparations etc.) the exploitative economic relationships which have allowed for the constant movement of surplus towards the economic core and hence lowering the incomes of the first-world to provide re-distributive justice to the workers of the global south.

This second option has radical political implications. If ending inequality on a global scale can only take place to the detriment of first-world workers, it follows that the relationship between the workers of the first-world and the workers of the third-world is antagonistic such that first-world workers have an interest in preserving the status-quo and the system of exploitation which supports the privileges of the first-world at the expense of development in the global periphery.

Discuss.

There is some truth to this I think. But you have to remember it can't all be reduced to an antagonistic relationship. Any environmentalist will tell you that the developed nations have gone beyond their means, by utilizing dirty development tactics to grow quickly. It's a fact, we use way too much.. and that has to be recognized. However those things constituting absolute poverty such as lack of: education, health care, food, and other basic needs are well within possibility of being distributed properly without much more stress on the environment, and our resources. The problem is in market based approaches to development that limit the scope of 'development' to a technical problem instead of a socio-political problem (distribution is important). 'Development' in the sense that the world bank, IMF, etc. uses it is a failed prospect for the future. It doesn't mean we are antagonistic forces, we're within a system of production that cannot possibly give us the tools one needs to start fixing the socio-political problem instead of treating it as a problem of 'needed technical improvement' i.e. green revolution.

So yes we use too much, and that is a fact. There's no way, inevitably, of getting around the non-renewable environment we live in. However 'development' and the system of production we live in are both bourgeois conceptions and we can't use the methodology of World Bank, IMF etc. to improve equality.. it is a failed practice.

We're seemingly antagonistic proletarian forces because capitalism forces us to be at odds.