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Maybe it does but if so you haven't conveyed it very well. Are you arguing that Latin America is not exploited for its resources under the global system of capi

Maybe it does but if so you haven't conveyed it very well. Are you arguing that Latin America is not exploited for its resources under the global system of capitalism? Because that's a pretty absurd position to take. You might even imagine how that exploitation could lead to revolutionary politics and the current state of affairs there. But even if we take that as a given, "it didn't work uniformly in all directions in the same way" is not an argument that the relationship doesn't exist. My assertion is that capitalism has always coexisted with systems that treat some people as sub-human, so can't be completely disentangled from them. You're going to have to work a lot harder to "disprove that argument," imo.

zozbot234 5y ago
The earlier comment in this thread was arguing that "the global system of capitalism" could explain why Britain and its colonies are uniquely suited to providing highly-developed financial services. Now you're saying that the same "global system of capitalism" explains extractive systems in Latin American colonies. These are polar opposites in terms of outcomes, how can they possibly be explained by the same factor? Why Nations Fail tackles the same stylized facts in a far more nuanced manner, examining local policy choices (often exploitive ones) as often more relevant than fuzzy global "systems".
- stormbrew 5y ago
  You aren't characterizing either of my posts in a way that I recognize as anything like what I'm asserting. I'll boil it down: - Britain is not "inherently suited" to providing financial services, it built that suitability through violence and extracting wealth through colonialism and racist systems like slavery (which, though abolished in britain itself, it still remained a central figure in financially supporting the trade long after). - Countries "suited to" resource extraction are so suited because of brutal campaigns by colonial systems. The character of how this campaign was undertaken is somewhat different in Africa, the Americas, and the middle and far easts, but the overall nature of it was roughly the same. - Capitalism emerged in the aftermath and continued exploitation of this relationship, through to today, for its entire existence. I do not say that "capitalism explains" anything. I say that "capitalism was born from these things, and they are inextricably intertwined". Not necessarily in a causal relationship (though in many complicated ways there's plenty of blame to be leveled), but simply because it has never existed without the existence of classes considered, in some way, to be sub-human (though the ways we degrade people to this state now are more nuanced than they were in the explicit chattel slavery days).
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > it has never existed without the existence of classes considered, in some way, to be sub-human (though the ways we degrade people to this state now are more nuanced than they were in the explicit chattel slavery days). You could easily apply that sentence to human history as a whole - the word "capitalism" is doing no work there. Even Russian kulaks, Chinese "counter-revolutionaries" and Cambodian intellectuals were considered sub-human; no human social system has ever fully escaped that pitfall.
    - stormbrew 5y ago
      Sure. And if you want to analyze those systems, I would hope you would also not try to pretend that that othering played no part in those systems either. I'm not the one trying to pull them apart like string cheese.

zozbot234 5y ago

The earlier comment in this thread was arguing that "the global system of capitalism" could explain why Britain and its colonies are uniquely suited to providing highly-developed financial services. Now you're saying that the same "global system of capitalism" explains extractive systems in Latin American colonies. These are polar opposites in terms of outcomes, how can they possibly be explained by the same factor? Why Nations Fail tackles the same stylized facts in a far more nuanced manner, examining local policy choices (often exploitive ones) as often more relevant than fuzzy global "systems".

stormbrew 5y ago
You aren't characterizing either of my posts in a way that I recognize as anything like what I'm asserting. I'll boil it down: - Britain is not "inherently suited" to providing financial services, it built that suitability through violence and extracting wealth through colonialism and racist systems like slavery (which, though abolished in britain itself, it still remained a central figure in financially supporting the trade long after). - Countries "suited to" resource extraction are so suited because of brutal campaigns by colonial systems. The character of how this campaign was undertaken is somewhat different in Africa, the Americas, and the middle and far easts, but the overall nature of it was roughly the same. - Capitalism emerged in the aftermath and continued exploitation of this relationship, through to today, for its entire existence. I do not say that "capitalism explains" anything. I say that "capitalism was born from these things, and they are inextricably intertwined". Not necessarily in a causal relationship (though in many complicated ways there's plenty of blame to be leveled), but simply because it has never existed without the existence of classes considered, in some way, to be sub-human (though the ways we degrade people to this state now are more nuanced than they were in the explicit chattel slavery days).
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > it has never existed without the existence of classes considered, in some way, to be sub-human (though the ways we degrade people to this state now are more nuanced than they were in the explicit chattel slavery days). You could easily apply that sentence to human history as a whole - the word "capitalism" is doing no work there. Even Russian kulaks, Chinese "counter-revolutionaries" and Cambodian intellectuals were considered sub-human; no human social system has ever fully escaped that pitfall.
  - stormbrew 5y ago
    Sure. And if you want to analyze those systems, I would hope you would also not try to pretend that that othering played no part in those systems either. I'm not the one trying to pull them apart like string cheese.