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Start with the fact that the heavy artillery of European trade was actually heavy artillery not cheap commodities and you begin to see what's wrong with that passage. Lancashire textiles did not displace Indian textiles because of the efficiencies of the European capitalist economy, rather it was the intervention of British mercenaries and soldiers and the following imposition of ruinous taxes on local production that made the difference. The British opened China to free trade (what we now call drug dealing) with gunboats. If you read Anti-During with that knowledge, you can see why Engels was so angry that Dühring said raw force not the laws of economics drove exploitation.
by rootless2 on Fri Apr 8th, 2011 at 10:00:53 AM EST
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