Violent trade (mapping tool)
from David Ruccio
You’ll never find it in mainstream textbooks but the history of international trade has long been based on violence.
The role of violence in international trade is clear, especially when they were in the same hands—either public (in Portugal and Spain) or private (in the Netherlands and England)—and particularly when we consider the various aspects of the so-called primary accumulation, based on slavery and plunder. As Kenneth Pomeranz and Steven Topik explain in The World That Trade Created, “violence has been one of the main levers of accumulating wealth in the global economy. . .bloody hands and the invisible hand often worked in concert: in fact, they were often attached to the same body.”
Google has made those bloody hands visible through its mapping of the global small arms trade. The mapping tool—available here—allows the user to search by country and view where imports come from and where exports go each year; it also shows how much each country spends and receives as a result of this trade. Civilian and military purchases are displayed as well.
Looking only at the United States, we can see that in 1992 the amount of small arms and ammo imported ($272 million) and exported ($455 million) pale in comparison to 2010′s figures ($955 million imported and $606 million exported).
Then as now, “capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.”
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