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This year, poor countries owe $25 billion in installments to creditors in rich countries in the midst of a pandemic. Demands for canceling Third World's debt are absolutely rational and just. A thread.
#CancelThirdWorldDebt #COVID__19
#CancelThirdWorldDebt #COVID__19
The creditor-debtor relation is a direct legacy of loot & plunder under colonial rule. For example, economist Utsa Patnaik estimates Britain stole $45 trillion from India. This explains why financial autonomy was a key demand in anti-colonial agitation. https://mronline.org/2019/01/15/britain-robbed-india-of-45-trillion-thence-1-8-billion-indians-died-from-deprivation/
After a brief period of anti-colonial politics, the debt crisis of the 1970s provided another opportunity to Western govts to control the labour and resources of the Third World. Termed the “Washington Consensus”, they pushed Structural Adjustment Programs on debtor states,
which included the imposition of free trade, privatization and opening up economies to foreign investment. The central mechanism through which debtor states could be disciplined was access to credit, makinng these states "New Debt Colonies". https://www.viewpointmag.com/2018/02/01/new-debt-colonies/
This dominance allowed global corporations to enter regions with weak environmental and labor laws and even weaker enforcement mechanisms, accruing exorbitant profits for themselves in the process. A report by the Center for Applied Research at the Norwegian School of Economics
showed how for every dollar that enters poor countries in “aid”, the West manages to appropriate 24 dollars in return, shattering the myth of Western generosity.
@jasonhickel has a fantastic article on this issue. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/14/aid-in-reverse-how-poor-countries-develop-rich-countries
@jasonhickel has a fantastic article on this issue. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/14/aid-in-reverse-how-poor-countries-develop-rich-countries
The result is a monstrous inequality. According to an Oxfam report published in 2017, 8 of the world’s wealthiest families own more wealth than the cumulative wealth of the bottom 50 percent, signaling the unjust nature of our debt-fuelled economic order. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jan/16/worlds-eight-richest-people-have-same-wealth-as-poorest-50
Neoliberal policies have reduced govt investment in healthcare. Moreover, they have exacerbated epidemics by augmenting poverty, precarious work & migrant labour. See another excellent article by @jasonhickel on Neoliberalism & AIDS in South Africa. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/201212685521152438.html
This brief history shows why abolishing debt is now a point of departure for any serious effort to ensure dignity and justice in the current context. Moreover, debt repayments continue to hinder necessary efforts to mitigate the climate crisis, undermining the basis of our
sustained existence. Political scientist Susan George has shown how the debt burden fuels ecological disaster by forcing countries to improve their balance of payments through increasing exports. Since many do not have large-scale industrial production, they are forced to open up
their natural resources, including forests, to foreign companies in order to pay back the impossible debts they have accumulated. The former Brazilian President, @LulaOficial , famously stated that “if the Amazon is the lungs of the world, then debt is its pneumonia”.
It is crucial to remember that effects of debt-burden cant be contained to poor countries alone. Instead, there will be a boomerang effect in the West in the form of recurrent pandemics, food & refugee crises, creating a world of pervasive chaos that fuels the Far-Right & demands
for militarized social control.
Only a joint struggle of social movements in the global North and South can allow us to exorcise ghosts of colonialism & imperialism. Current crisis teaches us that this necessary alliance must be forged soon, as humanity is running out of time.
Only a joint struggle of social movements in the global North and South can allow us to exorcise ghosts of colonialism & imperialism. Current crisis teaches us that this necessary alliance must be forged soon, as humanity is running out of time.
