Superexploitation of the Periphery and how States in the Core Benefit

Recently I've seen the topic of how imperialism benefits bourgeois states, not just capitalists, mentioned here in the context of arguments about social democracy. Stepping aside on the social democracy discussion, John Smith in his Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century did a great job on this subject in the first chapter (emphasis added):"In The China Price, Tony Norfield recounts the story of a T-shirt made in Bangladesh and sold in Germany for €4.95 by the Swedish retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M). H&M pays the Bangladeshi manufacturer €1.35 for each T-shirt, 28 percent of the final sale price, 40¢ of which covers the cost of 400g of cotton raw material imported from the United States; shipping to Hamburg adds another 6¢ per shirt. Thus €0.95 of the final sale price remains in Bangladesh, to be shared between the factory owner, the workers, the suppliers of inputs and services and the Bangladeshi government, expanding Bangladesh’s GDP by this amount. The remaining €3.54 counts toward the GDP of Germany, the country where the T-shirt is consumed, and is broken down as follows: €2.05 provides for the costs and profits of German transporters, wholesalers, retailers, advertisers, etc. (some of which will revert to the state through various taxes); H&M makes 60¢ profit per shirt; the German state captures 79¢ of the sale price through VAT at 19 percent; 16¢ covers sundry “other items.” Thus, in Norfield’s words, “a large chunk of the revenue from the selling price goes to the state in taxes and to a wide range of workers, executives, landlords, and businesses in Germany. The cheap T-shirts, and a wide range of other imported goods, are both affordable for consumers and an important source of income for the state and for all the people in the richer countries.The central point Norfield is making cannot be emphasized enough, because so many liberals and socialists in imperialist countries try very hard to put it out of their minds. H&M makes handsome profits, to be sure, but these are dwarfed by the state’s take, once taxes on wages and profits of H&M and suppliers of services to it are added to its VAT receipts. In 2013, the tariffs charged by the U.S. government on its apparel imports from Bangladesh alone exceeded the total wages received by the workers who made these goods. The state uses this money, as we know, to finance foreign wars, health care, and Social Security, and even returns a few pennies to the poor countries in the form of “foreign aid.” As Tony Norfield argues, low wages in Bangladesh help explain “why the richer countries can have lots of shop assistants, delivery drivers, managers and administrators, accountants, advertising executives, a wide range of welfare payments and much else besides.” His blunt conclusion: “Wage rates in Bangladesh are particularly low, but even the multiples of these seen in other poor countries point to the same conclusion: oppression of workers in the poorer countries is a direct economic benefit for the mass of people in the richer countries.”"This is a concrete example of how the benefits of superexploitation go beyond just capitalists. Obviously the money is not earmarked as "funds generated from extreme exploitation of Bangladeshis; for healthcare" but it is near indefensible for any Marxist to suggest that revenues of governments in the core are not buoyed by superexploitation of the periphery. Whether the benefits for workers in the core make them net exploiters or simply makes principled internationalism significantly more difficult and what we can do about this are among the serious questions this topic raises. via /r/communism https://ift.tt/2T7MxZG