Originally posted by
[email protected] 11, 2007 06:12 am
ok, now the proof....
The proof is in the fact that there are now 2 to 3 billion people living in poverty (depending on what measurement you use). The "proof" is the fact that there are now more poor people than there have ever been in world history (even feudalism and slavery were able to keep an average standard of living for the majority while having 'progress' as well). Of course there has never been this much poverty.
there were also about 150 more million people total. without relative percentages of the population and the absence of other economic indicators, these numbers don't really mean much.
The exponential population growth rate is a result of the fact that a majority of the world's population live in rural areas where, in contrast to their urban counterparts, illiteracy, lack of access to birth control, and poverty etc. are rampant. This is what causes the population bomb and capitalism and the United States has only expedited the process.
During the reign of terror that was the Reagan presidency, for example, the US systematically dismantled programs that provided birth control services to the poor, perhaps to help fund the contras. This was true both in the US, where he stopped Federal Programs, and internationally. Of all the things that Reagan did, this hurt the world more than anything else. People with money continued to have access to birth control but the poor could no longer control the size of their families. This causes not only over population, it also causes crime.
Every time we see a picture of starving children on the "Save the Children" network we should think of Ronald Reagan and the house Republicans. So not only did Reagan's illegal wars kill about 1-2 million directly and about 3 million indirectly in Latin America (crimes far worse than 9-11), it led to tens of millions of deaths in Africa as well.
More importantly, it's not that there is a small amount of resources or wealth in Latin America and this "population increase" is simply stretching their limited supplies even fruther -- resources in Latin America are aplenty. The problem is that the wealth in Latin America is being transferred into fewer and fewer hands, be it rich capitalists, the mob, drug lords, what have you, or it's being redirected back to the US. So the failure is not that there are too many people and not enough resources, the real culprit here, unfortunately, is your ideology.
international political interference happens regardless of economic systems.
What the hell does this mean? The Latin Americans had existed for tens of thousands of years and had periods of high growth rates. At the time the Spanish arrived, about 90 million people existed south of the Rio Grande and another 20 million or so in North America. They were nearly all wiped out by the Christians, but they had lived successfully for thousands of years off the land, keeping it pristine and healthy, and never had the kind of disproportions they have now.
anyways, the fact that people on that island are starving is kind of besides the point, if you don't have an eocnomic infrastructure you have to export something to gain capital, i hihgly doubt it has much to do with US coercion.
Of course it has to do with US imperialism -- duh! Do you know anything about Haiti, or Latin America itself? When Aristide was first elected, he rammed reforms (good reforms, not US style "let's hurt worker some more" reforms) that cut corruption, trimmed the state bureaucracy, cut back on the drug trade, and decreased the amount of refugees fleeing to the US. The first Bush administration instituted a coup against him that returned business as usual and when he was able to come back to power he obviously had his hands tied and knew his limits, this Bush administration instituted another coup d'état against him anyway.
And it isn't just Haiti either, it's nearly every single country in South America has been victimized by the US, "proving" that capitalism has been an utter failure. Here are just a few examples of the "magic" of US style free-markets:
Nicaragua was developing so rapidly even the World Bank said they were "impressed" with their development, then Reagan funded the contras composed of old Somozatists to overthrow Nicaragua's first democratic government, and now they're the second poorest region in the hemisphere. The Miskito Indians, whom Reagan was supposedly saving, have it far worse off than they ever had it under the Sandinistas the first time around; many of them are forced to do dangerous diving without safety equipment (it's cheaper to just bring in another Miskitio than actually have safe working conditions) and are in worse poverty than they've ever been.
Brazil was also growing rapidly in the 50s, but the governments the US has supported regimes since have kept it as a poverty ridden third world country.
Chile was on its path to democratic independence and freedom, but the Nixon administration instituted a coup that established "Pinochet" and 10 years into his dictatorship the poverty level had gone up to nearly 30%.
Mexico followed every single policy suggested by the IMF and the World Bank etc. in the 1990s and by 1994 I believe it was they went into the worst recession that Mexico has ever had, and on and on and on. Basically any country that tried to take the land and resources into their own hands without the "help" of the US found themselves.
etc.
Furthermore, the economic "trade" that is supposed to help them "gain capital" is actually _internal_ trade between US corporations. Something like 50% of the "trade" that goes on between US and Mexico is internal trade. So maybe ford or something has a plant in Mexico where they hire some Mexicans for starvation wages to help build parts, so the gains are actually going back to Ford, not the people of Mexico. All these trade policies have done is keep the people of Mexico in a perpetual state of poverty and has helped wreck their environment and so on, in contrast to the progressive land reforms that were trying to come into play pre-NAFTA.
It's really not a debatable point -- capitalist, corporate managed trade policies have clearly failed and there are now more refugees, more poor people, and much more poverty than ever before.
Again, Libertarian-ideology has been a disaster for the continent. They've tried these policies for 50 years and they aren't working and the people there clearly don't won't them -- it's time to give socialism a turn, or whatever ideology it is that they people themselves would institute.
you say that as though these smaller countries had much wealth at all to begin with and it was stolen. they never had much, the US has made the makority of its welath off domestic trade and trade with other economic developed countries. countries which don't have this developement don't benefit on not trading with us simply on moral grounds that we have much more money than them
Incorrect. The resources are obviously being stolen by Americans and american intervention.
The countries of South America were succeeding on their own and likely would have been better off without US interference. The US itself had its fastest growth rates in history when it was isolationist and protectionist, not when it engaged in "trade" with other developed nations.
What needs to be done in Latin America is a shift from these obviously failed capitalist policies to independent nationalism where they institute their own governments.
The US has only 5% of the world's population but consumes a great deal (about 40-50%) of the world's resources. This is not "benefitting" the people of the third world as shown by the statistics above, except maybe the top 1% elites who are connected to US interests. What they need to do is try and institute what's called "independent nationalism" again (what US PPS documents call taking their resources into their own hands). This is what the landless peasant movement in Brazil, the Zapatista movement, and the moderate socialism of Guatemala etc. were about.
what would you suggest be better way to utilize recources? give poor countries free recources?
Yes, actually. Perhaps if the US stopped funding right-wing death squads, militias, drug cartels, contras, dictatorships, and instead started funding programs that cut back poverty, illiteracy, etc. in both South America and Africa there would be an improvement. Studies reveal that there is a "link" between how much a country tortures their citizens and how much aid they get from the US. Those who keep the population in line for US exploitation receive the most aid. The US gives billions of dollars to that kind of nonsense, but often refuses to fund programs to fight diseases that can be cured for a couple of cents. That's actually the official position of the conservative Heritage Foundation, and many Libertarian-Economists. Millions of people in Africa die from easily curable diseases, but economists tell us not to fund the solutions because it interferes with the market and that Africans just need to implement a "good" system.
That's also why Libertarian-economists like Charles Murray, Lynn, etc. publish books like "The Bell Curve," "IQ and the Wealth of Nations," "Race and Intelligence," and Hans-Herman Hoppe, Rushton, and other libertarians and social scientists at the corporate funded "Pioneer Fund" write books like "IQ and Race" and host conferences with social scientists "proving" that blacks, Mexicans what have you have low IQs and that's the cause of their problems.
They say the reason that so many blacks and Latin Americans are in poverty is because they are kind of lazy, don't know how to survive in the modern world, and are not smart enough to stimulate their own economies and run a capitalist system etc.
See, that's all normal thinking if you're a libertarian or a conservative like those guys, but the issue is more complicated and involves colonialism, imperialism, civil wars and a lack of support from the outside world, and the failures of capitalism itself, etc.
I do agree though that if we are to offer mass assistance to Africa etc. we should be assured the money doesn't go into the hands of corrupt officials, landlords, powerbrokers,etc. who end up wasting it and/or strengthening inequality. What they need to do is implement a new economic system more suitable for their specific countries.
What probably could be done is this:
1. Force the US to pay reparations for its past crimes of imperialism etc. that were supposed to be awarded to Nicaragua etc. by the world court.
2. Close down US embassies and cut off ties to the US. Sanction the US for its past crimes of aggression.
3. Institute their own governments. Brazil is a country with a vast amount of natural resources. If they took control of the continent into their own hands 50 years ago, they'd probably be like a modern Europe by now.
etc.
"worse off"? in what ways?
the other ones are mainly just comparisons between the rich and the poor and are static measurements, and don't really say much about poveryt increasing or decreasing.
These are measurements of living standards and global poverty. The facts are in, capitalism has been a moral and economic failure for the Third World.