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The Third World agenda understood that the economic suffocation of the darker nations came not only from abstract economic principles but crucially because these principles had been set up through the political intervention of powerful actors. The rules of international trade, for instance, were not simply those of an a priori economic theory but were devised by the powerful to suit their interests. Because of this analysis, any reform had to be both about the politics of the economy (who writes the rules) and the economics of politics (who holds the economic muscle to allow themselves to write the rules) . The interrelationship between economics and politics defined the work of the Third World agenda.
[...] Drawing from the work of w. Arthur Lewis, a comrade and friend of Prebisch, the Jamaican government pursued the policy of "industrialization by invitation." A system of leases permitted the government to channel industrial investment into those areas of the economy that allowed for social development. Economic policy generally drew from the import-substitution theory, and the government relied on targeted direct foreign investment, notably in the bauxite sector. The latter provided Jamaica with most of its foreign exchange earnings. Discovered in the 1940s, the bauxite reserves fell prey to Canadian and U.S. firms starting in 1 952. These firms have since dominated the extraction of the mineral, with Jamaica becoming the largest exporter to North America in the 1960s. But as with sugar and tourism, the Jamaican people did not benefit from their natural resources. The only return to Jamaica came in the way of modest taxes to the government, meager wages to the working class, and a small tribute to the Jamaican managers at the mines and plantations - for this reason, what Jamaica exported despite its fabulous resources was cheap labor, and what it gained for that was a pittance toward its grandiose development aims.
By the early 1 970s, the government reactivated its efforts to break Jamaica out of its impoverished chrysalis at the nether end of global capitalism. Manley' s son Michael ran a ferocious and successful political campaign against the global economic system that stacked the decks against countries like Jamaica. Once in power, Michael Manley promoted the construction of democratic socialism for Jamaica, but his regime did not try to disassociate itself from the world capitalist system, or even the overwhelming dominance of financiers of the commercial or IMF variety. Keeping Jamaica hooked up to the infusion of foreign aid or investment meant that the government had to respond to the demands of the foreign money managers rather than the long-term developmental needs of the people of Jamaica. Short-term returns to the investors dominated the planning even of the democratic socialist state.
[...] World inflation, high oil prices, and a drop in commodity prices effected the reserves, as it did those of most of the darker nations. In 1960, the total debt of the 133 states that the world Bank counted as part of the "developing countries" held a total public and private debt just short of US $18 billion. In ten years, the debt had escalated to $75 billion, and when Jamaica went into fiscal crisis, it was $113 billion. By 1982, the debt had reached the astronomical figure of $612 billion. While many scholars and commentators blame the oil crisis of 1973-74 for the ballooning debt, this is a superficial argument. The rise in oil prices due to the action of the OPEC cartel only exacerbated tendencies that had already stymied the social development of the formerly colonized states. The distorted development agenda followed by most of the Third world, whether those that adopted or shunned socialism, and the imperialist pressure faced by these states produced a structurally impoverished international political economy. When the oil crisis hit, it provided the conjuncture for the Third World's structural rot.
hmmm a slightly different perspective. useful
[...] During the first six months of 1974, when the fiscal effects of the oil crisis became clear, the G-7 enjoyed a $6 billion surplus with the nonpetroleum exporting Third World states, but it suffered a $4 1 billion deficit with the oil exporting states. A year later, the nonpetroleum states owed $2 1 billion, whereas the G-7 owed the oil group $2 1 billion.21 The scale had been balanced. The rise in oil revenue for the G-7 had been offset by the surplus owed by the oil-less Third World. Furthermore, the oil states, as we saw earlier, held their profits largely in U.S . dollars, which meant that as the U.S. dollar abandoned the gold standard in 1971 , its own standing in the global economy remained high because petrodollars kept it in demand. The rise in petrodollars allowed the United States to abandon the very macroeconomic restrictions it demanded of the Third World, and therefore run a deficit to strengthen its domestic economy and expand its already-considerable military.
[...] The East Asian miracle, for Rajaratnam, was located in the city.
This was not the industrial town of the nineteenth century. These cities
represented the new mobile epoch of IMF-driven globalization. The idea
of the global city ignored production, emphasized consumption, and
made money through distribution. [...]
the focus on consumption > production is worth thinking about more
Debt hangs heavy for the bulk of the planet. In 1 970, when the Third World project was intact, the sixty states classified as "low-income" by the Eorld Bank owed commercial lenders and international agencies $25 billion. Three decades later, the debt of these states ballooned to $523 billion. An impoverished conversation on debt yields no agenda to combat this fundamental ailment for the former Third World. These are not "poor" countries. Over the course of these three decades, the sixty states paid $550 billion in principle and interest on loans worth $540 billion. Yet they still owe $523 billion. The alchemy of international usury binds the darker nations.
nice phrase
Antidepressants were prescribed for me by a very nice doctor named Dr. Kablumbus at a hospital to which I was sent ever so briefly following a really highly ridiculous incident involving electrical appliances in the bathtub about which I really don't wish to say a whole lot. [...]
[...] And yet whenever I'd look in the mirror. there it would be, and I could always feel the heat of the blood on my cheek, and when I'd feel with my hand my fingers would sink in there really deep into what felt like hot gelatin with bones and ropes and stuff in it. And it seemed like everyone was always looking at it. They'd seem to stare at me really funny, and I'd think "Oh God. I'm really making them sick, they see it. I've got to hide, get me out of here." But they were probably only staring because I looked all scared and in pain and kept my hand to my face and was staggering like I was drunk all over the place all the time. But at the time, it seemed so real. Weird. weird. weird. [...]
the weird, weird weird part kills me
[...] A very glib guy on the television said some people liken it to being underwater, under a body of water that has no surface, at least for you, so that no matter what direction you go, there will only be more water, no fresh air and freedom of movement, just restriction and suffocation, and no light. (I don't know how apt It is to say it's like being underwater, but maybe imagine the moment in which you realize, at which It hits you that there is no surface for you, that you're just going to drown in there no matter which way you swim; imagine how you'd feel at that exact moment, like Descartes at the start of his second thing, then imagine that feeling in all its really delightful choking intensity spread out over hours, days, months ... that would maybe be more apt.) [...]