![[Global Excess]](p6.gif)
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The unequal distribution of the worlds resources is created, maintained and increased in many ways. This is a brief outline of what is a complex subject in it's own right.
CASH CROPS
Although the impoverished nations
seldom lack agricultural resources, these
resources are rarely
used for their own
benefit, or even basic
needs. Much of the
fertile land in Third
World countries is
used to grow export
or 'cash' crops, the
profits from which
do not go to those
who toil to produce
them. Coffee.
cotton tea, animal feed, tobacco sugar,
vegetables, fruit, heroin, rape seed, soya.
cocoa. . the list is endless, and closely
linked to the long legacy of colonialism.
The farmers and labourers who produce
these crops have little or no control over
what is grown, or who it is sold to. They
are usually paid poverty or even starvation
wages, and so they remain poor.
UNFAIR TRADE
The prices for global trade are controlled
by the rich nations, through the
commodity markets, the stock
exchanges, international trade
agreements, tariffs and quotas...
Impoverished countries, let alone
individuals, do not have the economic
leverage to influence these systems to
their benefit. Simply opting out is not a
practicality - whole social systems are
reliant on the import
of Western
technology, which
poor countries lack
the industrial
infrastructure to
manufacture for
themselves, because
they have been kept
poor by unfair trade
Turning their backs
on the West has
almost always been followed by boycotts
and vast international pressure How then
do you reorganise a society to produce
for local need unless it can be done
overnight? And if it can't be done
overnight, how do you escape from this
vicious circle?
DEBT
Almost all Third World nations owe
money to the rich nations, who
enthusiastically and irresponsibly
encouraged them to borrow during the
1970s. Interest rates rose dramatically,
and as a result, those countries have
been left paying interest bills that in
many cases have now exceeded the value
of the original loan.
Little of this money reached the poor,
(except perhaps in the form of bullets
from a dictator's internal security forces)
but it is they who are now having to pay.
Countries unable to meet their debts
have had Economic Structural
Adjustment Programmes forced upon
them by the
International
Monetary Fund and
the World Bank, both
of which are
controlled by, and
have their headquarters in, the USA.
(ESAP is a euphemistic acronym
translated by African campaigners as
'Eat Shit And Perish'...) ESAP's require
the debtor nations to 'tighten their belts',
and cut back on social and welfare
programmes, education, health care and
food subsidies, with disastrous
consequences for the poor. Emphasis is
then placed on earning foreign exchange
for debt repayments by- you guessed it-
yet more cash crop production, and the
dropping of trade protection barriers.
The net effect of all this is that economic power flows from the poor to the rich. . . and we end up in a situation where the richest fifth of the worlds population is able to monopolise 83% of its wealth, while the poorest fifth is left to subsist on only 1.5%. The gap continues to rise, and the consequences of this appalling situation regularly appear on our TV screens in the form of famine reports, wedged in the middle of adverts telling us that nothing is ever enough.