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Well, at least the discussion is touching on how we do
analysis, which is one of the most important issues to debate when discussing
world political economy.
A reply to some comments made by "The McDonald Family"::
1) Yes, the standard of living in most of Western Europe was higher than
the standard of living in most of Eastern Europe between 1945 and 2000.
But:
a) how much of that rise in standard of living was the result of
imperialist profits that the capitalist rulers of Western Europe was extracting
from the rest of the world during that time? Certainly Britain, France, West
Germany, Italy, and even Norway, Sweden, & Denmark were able to accumulate
significant amounts of wealth by extracting it often with the aid of military
dictatorships of one sort or another from workers and peasants in Asia, Africa,
and Latin America. And some of those profits did, for a time, dribble down to
some of the "ordinary people" in those developed (imperialist)
countries.
b) on the other hand, the Soviet
military machine exacted an enormous toll on the productive forces of the USSR,
especially from 1940 through 1990. Many of the Eastern European countries
similarly had important parts of their productive capacities diverted to provide
military resources for the Warsaw Pact/Eastern Bloc military
alliances.
c) There were clearly political
abuses in the USSR, but some of the numbers of executions, etc. (tens of
millions, etc.) are truly difficult to substantiate. The forced migration of the
Chechens may have been unjust and resulted in the deaths of some innocent
people, but there is no way that can be compared to the systematic slaughter of
the Jews and so-called "gypsies" by the Nazis.
4) Direct comparisons between
capitalism and socialism are also difficult because services provided by the
state are not always taken into account. Cheap housing, public transportation,
education, and basic medical care in some countries might more than compensate
for the lower wages workers in those countries receive, in contrast to workers
in other countries which might have higher wages but considerably higher
expenses. That's why, politics aside for another discussion, the economic
standard of living in Cuba (which in my opinion is not fully a socialist
country) is nevertheless better for "ordinary people" than it is for
ordinary people in other parts of Latin America.
5) The comment about Kerala in India makes the mistake of abstracting one
part of the data, selective sampling if you will. Parts of India might be doing
well. Well, some people in Haiti are making a lot of money also. And if you
statistically separate out the data for black people living in the U.S., the
richest country in the world, you would find in 1960 and 1990 many of them
living BELOW the "regular" standard of living of "ordinary
people" even in such places as Poland. So separating out uneven aspects of
different societies does not make for accurate social science.
One of the most valuable aspects of world systems theory is that, despite
the debates within it, there is an anti-imperialist focus that takes into
account how seemingly separate processes and places are connected. It's
something we should all keep in mind.
Alan Spector
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