Thursday, May 18, 2017

Who’s Exploiting Whom?

This article provides a great context for the discussion of reparations as we see the rise of the proposition on the right that it is the victims -- immigrants from the exploited countries that "Owe" the western countries because they steal jobs and commit crimes.
Image result for Flickr Creative Commons / Charlton Clemens
"Not only does Trump claim that developing nations are taking advantage of the United States, but he has also asked for “reparations,” of various sorts. Largely phrasing his requests as repayments of historical debts, Trump has argued that Mexico should pay for a border wall and briefly claimed that South Korea (no longer a developing nation, to be sure) must pay for a new missile defense system the United States already promised to install.
But, surprisingly, many leading intellectuals from the very countries Trump has singled out wouldn’t necessarily disagree with him about how zero-sum interactions have shaped world history. Rather, they would contend that he is simply wrong about who’s exploiting whom. According to their logic, Western nations like the United States and the United Kingdom have historically enriched themselves on exploitative zero-sum transactions and thus now is not the time for them to retrench; it’s time for the West to repent—and, possibly, repay."
It's an audacious, big, bold and  brilliant lie and it looks like it's working.  This article from New America reviews  "Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India"  Another book of note in the article is "Sweet Talk: Paternalism and Collective Action in North-South Trade Relations" by J.P Singh.  These both seem very worth study.

Original article here -- Who’s Exploiting Whom?:



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