The only reason that Virginia has a relatively high GDP is because of DC suburbs in the North. The western part of Virginia, where I was born and raised, social conditions are as "Algerian" as in West Virginia.

Just to be clear: I don't think that this map is saying that people in West Virginia live in social conditions comparable to Algeria (they don't!) or that Virginians live like Austrians)....

It is saying that the size of the economy in the state of West Virginia (its GDP) is comparable to the <em>size</em> of Algeria's economy.

It is a comment on the productivity and economic output -- nt the standard of living.

interesting map. Why tag it as imperialism?

As a Canadian really don't like being compared to Texas, lol!

Some Union general who was overseeing the occupation of Texas after the civil war remarked that if he owned property in hell and Texas, he'd live in hell and rent out Texas.

The problem is that a map based on GDP means virtually nothing.

I think it would be useful to recreate this with only developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. For those with familiarity with the approximate populations of the respective countries and states, it would draw out the radical disparity in per capita income between the "sole superpower," and the oppressed nations and peoples.

David_d writes:

<blockquote>it would draw out the radical disparity in per capita income between the “sole superpower,” and the oppressed nations and peoples.</blockquote>

This map does not (in any way) deal with "per capita income" -- or the north south divide on standards of living.

It is illustrating something else: which is the lopsidedness of <em>production</em>. It is a separate issue that is worth exploring in its own right.

There are multiple reasons for the impoverishment of the Third World -- including the legacy of colonialism, the plunder of current imperialist relations, unevenness in the cohesion of internal economic relations, weakness of infrastructure, continuation of feudal relations and feudal remnants in the culture, <em>and</em> the continuing lopsidedness of distribution of capitalist production.

There is (among leftists) a sometimes cartoonish view of why the rich countries are rich, and the poor countries are poor (as if it is simply robbery, where one forces goes in with guns and hauls out the goods to take home.) It is model of world economics drawn from conditions that <em>were</em> a stark reality during the early days of colonialism (see Belgium in the Congo).

Just to put is sharply: Society is not just a matter of distribution relations. It is also a web of production relations. There is a global lopsideness of distribution of wealth. And there is also a global lopsidedness in the distribution of production (volume of production, which is loosely indicated by GDP).

At the same time, there is often an assumption that "No one makes anything in the U.S. anymore" -- as if no one in the U.S. does productive labor, as if there aren't really any workers left, as if manufacturing is "gone" (overseas, post industrial, etc.).

This current map is just a simple, one-shot illustration of a basic point: The U.S. remains a huge concentration of the world's productive forces. That lopsidedness is itself a product of imperialism and capitalist robbery. But it also reflects the high organic composition of capital in the U.S., and the high degree of infrastructural integration that <em>allows</em> a highly complex and productive economy within the U.S.

David-D suggests that what he <em>really</em> wants to see is a map that illustrates North-South disparities of income -- fine, that is a very important thing to illustrate. If you find a good illustration, let's post it here. But let's not imagine that a revolutionary understanding of the U.S. <em>only</em> requires understanding and repeating that the U.S. standard of living is radically higher than the poor in most of the world.

Nando makes excellent points in the above. I would add that the "cartoonish" view of imperialism held by many on the left is actually derived from Lenin and terms like "super-exploitation."

If we use Marx's definition of exploitation-- the difference between necessary labor and surplus labor-- then workers in the U.S. face the highest rates of exploitation in the world. In other words, the rate of exploitation increases as worker productivity rises, and U.S. workers are among the most productive because they work with the highest ratios of capital to labor. For much of the 20th century rising productivity also translated into rising wages.

The idea that U.S. workers "benefit" from "imperialism" is extremely one-sided. Bouts of primitive accumulation (theft of land, slave labor, etc) throughout U.S. history contributed to capital formation which contributed to productivity increases but U.S. workers do not receive any ill gotten gains in their wage packets, the value of their wages are created by the workers who receive them.

It could be argued that "imperialism" (I prefer Marx's term "primitive accumulation" to Lenin's poorly conceived term "imperialism," which is based on very confused ideas like "finance capital" and "monopoly capital") makes the high rates of exploitation faced by U.S. workers possible but that has yet to be shown.

African workers generally speaking are UNDER-exploited. They do not work with the same levels of technology so that their labor is less productive (they make less stuff in the same amount of time). Which makes their GDP lower and their societies in general poorer.

Understanding basic concepts like the rate of exploitation would radically improve our ability to organize workers in the U.S. who are often treated as the beneficiaries of global capitalism rather than its victims.

&gt; Understanding basic concepts like the rate of exploitation would radically improve our ability to organize workers in the U.S. who are often treated as the beneficiaries of global capitalism rather than its victims.

Akthough you made some good points, I think that here you're underestimating the extent to which US workers choose to judge things according to the criteria of standard of living, rather than exploitation. It's not as if all of those "first world" workers have been waiting to rebel but just frustrated because Leftists refuse to see them as exploited. Maybe things will change in the future as the long-term shape of the new economy becomes clearer. But so far, living standards have been and likely will continue to be the prime standard by which average people judge things.

uhm... where is Germany?