news

Thanks for the video link! Watching it now.

And here are some articles from John Smith (author of Capitalism in the 21st Century) where he critiques Harvey's claim that imperialism is no longer a useful term (an "old category" as he claims) and that China and the developing nations are actually exploiting the developed nations.

David Harvey Denies Imperialism

Imperialist Realities vs the Myths of David Harvey

I don't even agree fully with Smith's views on China, he's more critical than I am, but even Smith lambasts Harvey's views that imperialism has been reversed and now the poor Westerners suffer at the hands of China.

Harvey's States the following in his commentary on Prabhat and Utsa Patnaik’s A Theory of Imperialism:

Those of us who think the old categories of imperialism do not work too well in these times do not deny at all the complex flows of value that expand the accumulation of wealth and power in one part of the world at the expense of another. We simply think the flows are more complicated and constantly changing direction. The historical draining of wealth from East to West for more than two centuries, for example, has largely been reversed over the last thirty years

Without showing any data, Harvey throws up his hands, says that "its complicated" and then assures us that it's actually the developing world that is exploiting us!

And Harvey's 17 Contradictions and the End of Capitalism doesn't list imperialism as one of the contradictions. That alone may not be much of an argument against Harvey, thoigh you can be damned sure that I would have listed it as the principal contradiction, of our times. Harvey only mentions imperialism is eight times by name scattered about the text, but he makes his point known when he states

Disparities in the global distribution of wealth and income between countries have been much reduced with rising per capita incomes in many developing parts of the world. The net drain of wealth from East to West that had prevailed for over two centuries has been reversed as East Asia in particular has risen to prominence.

The data doesn't support Harvey's claim. Research by Hexbear's beloved Jason Hickle (no, not Jackson Hinkle) shows:

In 2021, the economies of the global North net-appropriated 826 billion hours of embodied labour from the global South, across all skill levels and sectors. 

 We find Southern wages are 87–95% lower than Northern wages for work of equal skill. While Southern workers contribute 90% of the labour that powers the world economy, they receive only 21% of global income

I've noticed an attempt by academics to reconceptualize imperialism as having roots in The State and not in Capitalism itself (as if the State can be separated from class in the first place)

In addition to Harvey's abysmal takes on Imperialism, shade has been thrown at him for claiming that Marx didn't actually have a theory of value. So just throw all that value nonsense out the window according to him.

A criticism by Michael Roberts

And one by Cockshott. Warning that this dude sucks. Big transphobe and thinks there is a CIA plot to push Big Gay. I list him, though, as his blog piece lists multiple sources for empirical evidence of the law of value.