Post

Libertasnia wrote:

I follow Roberts' Wordpress blog quite often (though I have only skimmed some of his work with Carchedi), and have read some of his posts that approach critiquing concepts of super-exploitation, etc. One of his posts that has stuck with me is that he rejected the idea of superexploitation and used the Nordic social-democracies as examples of where workers in the core had "won" benefits and explicitly rejected the idea that they profited off of exploitation in the periphery; where do you think that fits in with their (Roberts + Carchedi) understanding of unequal exchange? Recognizing the existence of unequal exchange but then rejecting the idea that it has had positive aspects on the core's working-class seems (to me, at leas) to reduce their understand of unequal exchange to the bourgeoisie in the core profiting with little else affecting the core. Am I missing something?

Could you link the post talking about Nordic social democracies? Quickly rereading Roberts on superexploitation linked in the anti-imperialist.net post (https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/imperialism-and-super-exploitation/), his issue with Smith's work seems to be mainly around emphasis. Roberts acknowledges superexploitation in the periphery and even the core (which does happen still, particularly to oppressed nations in settler-colonial regimes) but doesn't think this is a determining factor of modern imperialism, appealing both to orthodoxy with Marx and the notion that superexploitation isn't sustainable. Roberts seems to avoid discussing benefits workers in the core get from imperialism but things he links to the functioning of modern imperialism like seigniorage have benefits to all Americans - the profits made from this arrangement aren't just earmarked for military spending or directly put into the accounts of capitalists here. Being able to run huge deficits obviously impacts how the US funds social programs as well as consumptive behaviors here - the latter is a point Cope makes near the end of part I of Divided World, Divided Class.