We have created global systems of economic exchange and governance that allow an obscene amount of accumulation by a few. The status quo also provides a very comfortable lifestyle for the minority of the world’s population, which supports and helps sustain hierarchical socio-economic systems. On the other hand, however, the global majority is struggling to meet their basic needs amid the growing threat of ecological disasters caused by the broader process of unbridled accumulation.
Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel notes how imperialist appropriation extracts resources from poorer countries through unequal exchange systems, which undervalue the labor of the poor and those who control capital, or those who work for systems that help maintain this unfair system, overcompensate. In the wake of the global pandemic, Oxfam estimated that the richest one percent have captured almost two-thirds of all new wealth created since 2020. Moreover, the super-rich, hard-working and well-educated employees of multinational corporations also earn impressive salaries and living expenses. enviable lifestyles, but they do this by unfortunately serving the interests of the so-called ‘one percent’.
The exploitation of the Global South did not end with colonialism. Neocolonialism is more sophisticated than the blatant tactics used by colonizers in the way it shapes the economies and politics of poorer countries to serve its own interests. Neocolonialism does not need occupation to exploit labor and resources. The globalization of trade has created other mechanisms, such as outsourcing, through which capitalists in the global north can secure raw materials and labor from poorer countries at throwaway prices.
Outsourcing is not just limited to companies in the West that buy products from local suppliers in the Global South. Manufacturers supplying goods to international and even local buyers rely on several lower levels of the supply chain, many of which operate within the informal sector without labor or environmental oversight. For example, child labor is prevalent in the mining of crucial minerals such as cobalt in Congo, which is then used to power electric vehicles, computers and mobile phones sold by major brand names. Human slavery, in the form of debt bondage, has been found on fishing boats in Thailand, which then sell their catch through middlemen to produce seafood and even pet food that can be found on the shelves of major supermarket chains. Debt slavery is also common within the agricultural sector in Pakistan, India and many other countries that produce cash crops such as cotton for the global economy. Even value addition through textile production does not provide much more benefit to the factory workers who have to toil long hours for little pay to help fast fashion brands rake in exorbitant profits.
The staggering net transfer of wealth from the Global South to the Global North dwarfs any aid to poorer countries. In fact, aid has become a useful tool to not only entice the leaders of poorer countries to serve hegemonic geostrategic goals, but to continue to structurally adapt the economies of poorer countries to serve as necessary cogs in the global hierarchy .
The world is a messy place, and some totalitarian and repressive leaders defy the global socio-economic system, but these states are easily excluded and punished where possible, so that their influence to disrupt the world order remains minimal. Conversely, global elites are very good at co-opting potential challenges from progressives, feminists or environmentalists to form new concepts, such as corporate social responsibility, the need for greater gender representation in the workplace, or creating a market for the trade of carbon credits. Yet these concepts offer only moderate potential to address the glaring problems of deprivation, gender exploitation and growing climate threats, as they do not aim to challenge the underlying inequality that perpetuates the prevailing capitalist system of profit maximization at all costs.