4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST The same technique is used by G Meier, who affirms (citing the example of the same three countries) that "in many historical cases of successful development the importance of international trade is clearly confirmed—and not only from the countries that exported industrial products but also for primary product exporters55.4 That, in Meter's opinion, is why the wealthier countries have used their own comparative advantages in industry, leaving overseas countries to specialize in the production of primary commodities. Incidentally, both Viner and Meier as well as many others fail to mention that only the owners of big estates share in the profiits, while millions of farm workers and small farmers make a bare livelihood. In the United States, for instance, the agricultural proletariat is subject to greater exploitation than any other group of workers. Millions of farmhands migrate all over the country in search of work and every year hundreds of thousands of small farmers are ruined. A A Manukyan, the Soviet economist, had every reason to speak of the "Herodian Slaughter" of small farmers in the United States.5 One must further take into account that in Denmark and other countries mentioned above, the capitalist agricultural economy developed for a long time in conditions of relative freedom of trade and high demand for food in the foreign markets. Such a favourable situation does not exist any longer, so that the underdeveloped countries should not expect any considerable expansion of their traditional exports to the capitalist markets. False Analogy and Malthusiasm We are brought face to face here with a technique favoured by bourgeois writers of serving up distinctly different facts, or examples thrown together in a haphazard way in order to gloss over the differences between them. Viner, in the given case, wants to gloss over the difference between the developing countries on the one hand, and the developed countries and even the imperialist states, on the other. In Australia and New Zealand the production and sale of agricultural commodities is mostly in the hands of national monopolies. Moreover both countries possess a fairly high level of industrial development. It is equally absurd to refer, in the given context, to agriculture in the United States which is controlled by powerful monopolies. Indeed, the big American concerns that process and export farm produce make plenty of money on the business, which cannot be said of the mass of farmers as a whole. It is absurd to conclude therefore, that it is advantageous for the countries of Latin America to concentrate on the growing of bananas, coffee and fruits, which are often bought by the American monopolies at ridiculously low prices. Viner's reasoning would have us believe that in predominantly agricultural countries with a feebly developed manufacturing industry money incomes are relatively low simply because the peasants live in houses of their own and consume food and fuel produced by themselves.6