cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4453394
My leftist reading group at uni is reading Imperialism in the 21st Century by John Smith. Is my diagram that i quickly drew up a good supplement for it? Also I know in other spaces shit flinging occurs about value created through labor in the west being "more productive," so more value is created than "unproductive third world labor" vs the inverse of that position; the length of the values in the diagram is arbitrary and constrained for space reasons, not because i think one way or another; but feel free to argue ig. I mean, has anyone read the polemics of Harvey and Smith? They are sassy as fuck and hilarious. Disappointing though to see Harvey to take such a vague and stance on modern imperialism, as well as the dissavowment of China by Smith because of alleged "Stalinism" (lol). I'll link the first video and four polemics they directed at eachother: "Imperialism: Is it still a relevant concept?"-Harvey "A critique of David Harveys analysis of imperialism"-Smith "David Harvey denies imperialism"-Smith "Realities on the Ground: David Harvey replies to John Smith"-Harvey "Imperialist Realities vs. the Myths of David Harvey"- Smith
Also in the leftist reading club we're using these as additional sources:
https://monthlyreview.org/2019/03/01/global-commodity-chains-and-the-new-imperialism/ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49687-y https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200005X?via=ihub
Secondly, and more broadly, is the view of stock market bubbles forming due to speculation and the discontinuity between stock price and actual value an accurate assessment? Because of massive price gauging and speculation for textiles, garments, tech, housing, coffee, etc it seems to me like a large portion of many western economies or at least the US economy is sitting on a large bubble across almost all industries, and i've heard talks of an oncoming economic disaster from people of all flavors. Could mass tariffs and import restrictions on the global commodity chain bring about the popping of these bubbles?
