[Marxism] "Making the World's Poor Pay"

[johnaimani]

Making the World's Poor Pay:
The Economic Crisis and the Global South
Adam Hanieh
The current global economic crisis has all the earmarks of an epoch-defining event. Mainstream economists - not usually known for their exaggerated language - now openly employ phrases like 'systemic meltdown' and 'peering into the abyss.' On October 29, for example, Martin Wolf, one of the top financial commentators of the Financial Times, warned that the crisis portends "mass bankruptcy," "soaring unemployment" and a "catastrophe" that threatens "the legitimacy of the open market economy itself... the danger remains huge and time is short."

There is little doubt that this crisis is already having a devastating impact on heavily-indebted American households. But one of the striking characteristics of analysis to date - by both the left and the mainstream media - is the almost exclusive focus on the wealthy countries of North America, Europe and East Asia. From foreclosures in California to the bankruptcy of Iceland, the impact of financial collapse is rarely examined beyond the advanced capitalist core.

The pattern of capitalist crisis over the last fifty years should alert us to the dangers of this approach. Throughout its history, capitalism has functioned through geographical displacement of crisis - attempting to offload the worst impacts onto those outside the core. This article presents a short survey of what this crisis might mean for the Global South.

Full at http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet155.html