Life and Debt

[bcholmes]

I watched Life and Debt, a documentary about how IMF and World Bank funding works, and how the goal of that funding is government policy change to allow first world countries to access the markets and resources of third world countries; economic sustainability just isn't their problem.

The same now seems to be true of aid. Canada has committed $520 million dollars in aid to Haiti (up to 2011). I want to believe that when we say "aid", we mean "charitable gifts to another country, because they're suffering and we can afford to help." That doesn't seem to be the goal of government aid; instead aid organizations, like CIDA, are deeply involved in getting governments to agree to free trade and globalization programmes.

I think we should stop calling it "aid"; we're simply paying good money to buy the government policies of other countries, with the expectation that we're going to get return on our investment. I mean, we don't call the stock market "aid"; we call it ownership.

Comments

[disastrid.livejournal.com]

love love love that documentary. the part about the 'kingston free zone' was really disturbing.

[professor-booty.livejournal.com]

The book 'Game As Old As Empire' also delves into this subject. And the game is rigged.

[lollo.livejournal.com]

The book 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" is about the same subject. It is a disturbing but informative read.

I will find and watch that documentary.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I remember once that I was at a lecture about water, and the lecturer talked about how to qualify for aid, countries had to do all kinds of things, one of which was to privatize their water system. So Bolivia, I think it was, at the time the poorest country in the world according to the lecturer (I didn't check), desperately needed aid and started going through the steps to qualify. They allowed a private water company to come in and take control of all their water systems, at which point the company immediately set prices for water that were so high that the majority of the citizens could not afford drinking water. The citizens responded by rising up in armed revolt against the water company, who withdrew. However, under the free trade auspices of the deals to qualify for the aid, the water company was then able to sue Bolivia, which had no money to speak of anyway, for billions of dollars in "projected future earnings" that they figured they weren't going to be able to make now that they'd been driven out.

I should look up the details so I can get that story exactly right, but it was pretty alarming.

[d269330400.livejournal.com]

Vanity Fair had a good article on the subject entitled, "The Rise of Big Water". I read the paper copy, but can't seem to find it online. Here are the sources for it though.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/05/greenlinks200705#mann