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p The growing instability and contradictoriness of world economic development is graphically reflected in the changes in the structure of the trade in primary commodities. The fact that there arc serious differences between the most 282 important value characteristics of these long-term trends in both constant and current prices must be taken into consideration right at the start of study of them, although both the one and the other reflect one and the same process. The volume of exports of primary commodities (without fuels) rose, for instance, by 220 per cent (in constant prices) in 1978, compared with 1938, and 26-fold in current prices. The corresponding growth of exports of manufactures was 11-fold and more than 70-fold. The marked disproportionality of the changes in the relative weights in constant and current prices is due to serious disturbances in mechanism of supply and demand previously established on the world market in the separate commodity groups, disturbances largely caused by the unprecedented expansion of international monopolies’ operations on that market.

p The rapid rise of prices for raw materials and food during World War II and the first postwar years, which considerably exceeded the increase in cost of manufactures, led in particular to the proportion of primary commodities in international capitalist trade falling markedly at the end of the 40s in constant prices, compared with prewar, but rising rather in current prices. The long period of falling prices of primary commodities that followed, in contradistinction to the rise in prices of manufactures, fostered another trend, viz., for the proportion of the former to begin to fall faster in current prices than in constant ones. This tendency was interrupted in the early 70s by the steep rise of world prices for most types of primary commodity (which will be considered in more detail in the next chapter). One can hardly expect that this tendency will return, at least in the foreseeable future.

p All that makes it extremely difficult to clarify the postwar dynamics of the share of primary commodities on the world capitalist market. Still, we can calculate from the UN statistics that the export quota (ratio of export to production) of these commodities fin constant prices) was around a fifth before World War II. After a certain fall at the end of the 40s and the early 50s it again began to rise and was more than a quarter at the beginning of the 60s; 15 years later it was approaching two-fifths.  [282•1  Thus, if we take 283 it that the degree of development of the international division of labour can be characterised by the export quota of the production of any commodity, it follows from our figures that it was higher for the primary commodity sphere than for manufactures right up to the late 70s.

p The extreme aggravation of the problems of; the world capitalist market, especially by the impact of the economic slump in the mid-70s and early 80s, during which there was a considerable disruption both of the established structural connections and value and commodity proportions in the reciprocal trade of capitalist and developing countries, made it extremely difficult to investigate the long-term development trends of their foreign trade. As we have already remarked, some time is still needed in order to evaluate the role and effect of capitalism’s cyclic development in the 70s on these trends with sufficient reliability. But if we try to clarify the resultant lines of the longer-term changes in the two groups’ trade in primary commodities, we can draw conclusions about the shifts that occurred in recent decades in the structure of the primary commodity sphere of the international capitalist division of labour. Some features of the indicators of this type of shift are summarised in Table 35.

p The considerable enhancement of industrial countries’ role as exporters of raw materials (except fuels) immediately strikes the eye. Exports of primary products to developing countries, moreover, have expanded particularly rapidly, so that the dependence of the latter’s industry on imports of materials from the industrial centres has not only not weakened in postwar times but has markedly increased.

p At the same time, though on a smaller scale, the industrial centres’ need to get industrial raw materials from the former colonial periphery has also risen. The physical volume of their imports of primary commodities from developing countries increased by 40 per cent in the period covered by the table. The main growth in their imports, however, still, came from their own reciprocal trade, which expanded in volume by roughly 80 per cent. The growth rates of this trend of trade in minerals and agricultural commodities reached 8 per cent on an average in the 60s and 70s.

p Under the scientific and technical revolution developing now in the main capitalist countries, their economies’ need
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284 Table 35 Dynamics of the Physical Volume of Capitalist and Developing Countries’ Trade in Primary Commodities (1900 = 100; in export prices, f.o.b., of 1970) Imports Exports of all countries of developed capitalist countries of developing countries 1970 1979 1970 1979 1970 1979 I. All countries primary commodities (less fuel) 150 210 145 195 food 155 250 160 240 fuel 230 310 265 330 II. Developed capitalist countries primary commo 180 135 175 375 280 235 dities (less fuel) 155 230 150 food 170 290 180 fuel 145 200 230 210 295 315 210 150 110 470 290 190 III. Developing countries] primary commodities (less fuel) 140 170 135 food 130 180 135 155 160 150 115 160 285 190 205 fuel 245 325 280 355 Source: calculated from UN Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, 1981, 7: XLVI.
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for imports of natural primary commodities for industry is thus not simply not declining but has a distinct tendency to expand. In the last two decades imports of raw materials from abroad had to be increased by 8 or 9 per cent for every 10 per cent increment of manufacturing production. In developing countries the growth of manufacturing has gone hand in hand with a corresponding increase in the physical volume of primary commodities of more than 10 per cent.  [284•1  That gives grounds for assuming that, as industrial capability rises, the demand for the main types of minerals and 285 agricultural commodities will also increase further in both groups of countries. According to our estimates this demand may lead to an expansion of real international trade in primary commodities on the capitalist market of at least 50 per cent by the beginning of the 90s compared with the early 70s, given maintenance of the trend noted. Developing countries’ needs for such commodities will evidently expand faster than the world average.

p Quite important shifts have occurred in the structure of the international division of labour in the trade in food. Its physical volume increased by more than 150 per cent in the period reviewed. This process was also distinguished by a heightening of inequality in trade between capitalist and developing countries. Food exports from the former rose by 190 per cent, so that the overwhelming majority of developing countries, which used to be very important suppliers of food to the foreign market, have been converted, or are being turned, into net importers. Rising population growth rates and the retention in many of them of backward farming methods have markedly intensified their dependence on foreign sources. The physical volume of their food imports from capitalist countries rose by nearly 140 per cent, and their reciprocal trade in food by nearly 70 per cent. The most dynamic trend in the postwar international trade in foodstuffs, however, was the trade between industrial capitalist countries, which increased in volume by 160 per cent. The annual growth rates of this trade in the 60s and 70s were around 6.0 per cent.

These trends fostered a deepening of the already immense imbalance in the distribution of foodstuffs within the world capitalist economy, and an increasing concentration of food resources in its centres. The growth of this imbalance through the operation of this economy’s antagonistic development patterns inevitably led to the rise of a food crisis, which was aggravated to an extraordinary extent in the 70s. According to the FAO the developing countries will have to import 85 million tonnes of cereals in the mid-80s, i.e. three times as much as in 1969-72.  [285•1  In 1975-80 alone they imported cereals from developed capitalist countries valued at more than $ 41 billion.  [285•2 

286 F i g. 20 Main directions of the commodities trade between capitalist and developing countries (in billions of dollars at 1963 f.o.b. prices) ni^UL i tin.’ I MAW MATERIALS (WITHOUT FUELS) tXPORTS IMPOFiTS EXPORTS IMPORTS 69.8 59.5 83.0 C C D D FOODSTUFFS 2,2 1960 C - CAPITALIST COUNTRIES 1979 D - DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Source: UN Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, July 1981, p XCIV.

p An estimate of the long-term changes in the geography of the exchange of primary industrial commodities, food, and fuels between the main groups of the capitalist world is expressed in Fig. 20. It indicates first of all that there has been a significant expansion in the volume of the capitalist, world market’s primary commodity connections. The weight of the industrial countries in total exports of minerals and agricultural primary products rose in the years shown (in current prices) from approximately 50 to 70 per cent.

p The capitalist countries still dominate imports of these commodities. At the end of the 70s and at the beginning of 287 the 80s they imported more than four-fifths of all the industrial primary commodities entering world trade. There was a correspondingly very substantial decline in the share of developing countries in exports of th’ese commodities, especially to the leading industrial capitalist countries. The international trade in foodstuffs increased over the same period almost eightfold in current prices. The lion’s share went, as before, to capitalist countries. More than threequarters of the food exported by developing countries, in turn, also went to capitalist countries. The weight of these imports in the latter’s total imports, however, fell correspondingly from 49 to 34 per cent. On the whole capitalist countries’ per capita food imports were almost ten times as high as those of the whole group of developing countries at the end of the period. The role of the capitalist centres as suppliers of food to the developing countries markedly increased. At the end of the 70s around three-quarters of the latter’s food imports came from capitalist countries, primarily the USA. The bulk of it consisted of unprocessed commodities, with cereals occupying a bigger and bigger place. Major changes have occurred in the trade in fuels, which have affected the whole previously established system of capitalism’s world business relations. In literally a few years the international trade in fuels reached qualitatively new levels. In recent years it has exceeded the level of trade in minerals and agricultural primary products by roughly a factor of 3.5 (in value terms).

p The problem of the dependence of capitalist countries’ economies on supplies of energy resources, above all oil (which has become at the same time a very important primary commodity for the chemical industry) became especially acute at this time. Their imports of fuels increased 30-fold in the period covered by Fig. 21 (roughly 35-fold from developing countries). A considerable part of this trade is in oil products. In the early 50s the industrial centres absorbed around two-thirds of all the fuels coming onto the world capitalist market, and at the end of the 70s more than fourfifths. The geography of the import of fuels also altered substantially. There was a marked reduction of reciprocal trade in fuels between industrial countries. The developing countries consequently became their main sources of energy resources. At the end of the 70s the capitalist countries had begun to import fuels to a sum exceeding imports of all other 288 primary commodities and food from all developing countries. At the beginning of the 50s, it should be noted, fuels were less than a fourth of I ho total of such imports (see Fig. 21).

p The demand for fuels from the bulk of the developing countries that do not have energy resources of their own continued to expand steadily, as well, though not so fast. Their imports rose 20-fold in value terms in the period reviewed. In recent years their supplies have come mainly, moreover, from other developing countries rather than from developed capitalist countries as before.

These shifts in the international trade in fuels in a situation when the exporter developing countries have begun an active light to end the monopoly position of expatriate capital in their economies have aggravated modern capitalism’s energy problems in an unprecedented way. The energy crisis has been reflected extremely painfully in the balance of payments of the overwhelming majority of both developed and developing countries and in the whole system of their external economic relations. Confirmation of that will be found in Table 3(5, which shows the effect of rising oil prices on their balance of payments.

Table 36 The Balance of Payments on Current Account o£ Developing and Capitalist Countries 1970-1973 Group of countries (yearly 1974 1975 197G 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981* averages) 1. Capitalist countries 15 —13 16 —2 -5 31 -35 -77 —63 2. Developing countries: oil exporters 3 68 35 40 32 5 68 121 109 oil importers —12 -37 -46 -32 —28 -36 -37 -53 -61 * Estimated Sources: UNCTAD. Handbook ol Trade and Development Statistics 7979 ( United Nations, New York, 1979): UNCTAD IV. Recent Trends in International Trade and Development. World Economic Outlook, 1967- J977 (Nairobi, 1976), p G; The UECD Observer, 1981, 7.

Never before has a price rise in any commodity group in international trade caused such a substantial change in the aggregate indices of countries’ foreign trade in such a short 289 time. The outbreak of the energy crisis of the 70s quite clearly demonstrated the high degree of internationalisation of world production of energy resources. Any major disturbance in one of the links of this chain (world prices for the main energy resources included) is fraught with very grave consequences for both the current situation and the outlook for the development of world capitalism. It is therefore clearly not enough to reduce analysis of the energy problem, or the other primary commodity problems, simply to a study of the concrete measures taken by any one group of countries or international monopolies in the field of economic policy. Broad processes like this have to be examined together with all the mounting crisis phenomena in the sphere of price formation in world capitalist economy.