A brief explanation of some of the terms I use. Generally "West" and "East" are used in the way they were in the Cold War decades of the last century, with "the West" including Japan. "Third World" and "Global South" refer to the poorer parts of the world which were relatively unindustrialised for most of the 20th century, as do the phrases "developing" or "underdeveloped countries" used with some of the statistics. The "Communist countries" are those with systems similar to that of the USSR before 1991. "Productive capital" is that employed in industry or agriculture, as opposed to that in finance and commerce. Finally, capitalists are assumed to be male, since 99.99 percent of them were until only a couple of decades ago, while the workers they exploit have always been of both genders. I provide a glossary in an attempt to make the material more accessible both to those fortunate enough not to have studied mainstream economics and to those who are not yet familiar with Marxist writings.
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Introduction