The extreme and appalling inequality that exists inside the United States must be multiplied many times over to be comparable to the poverty in underdeveloped countries. Despite the repeated “commitments” of the world’s capitalist powers to help “end global poverty,” these are just noble-sounding phrases. The reality is that the world economy remains sharply polarized, with billions in deep poverty. The power of the leading imperialist economies—such as the United States—is based on this arrangement, and they have every interest in maintaining it.
About half of humanity, more than 3 billion people, live on less than $2.50 a day. In sub-Saharan Africa, 47 percent of the people earn less than $1.25 a day. In Latin America and the Caribbean, poverty affects nearly 81 million children under the age of 18.
According to the World Bank, the soaring cost of food pushed 44 million people into poverty in 2010. In underdeveloped countries—those that the imperialist powers have historically exploited—it is common for families to spend 60 to 80 percent of their income on food alone.
These economic indicators correspond directly to low public health indicators, including shorter life expectancies and higher rates of infant mortality.
Not poor countries—exploited countries
Despite common perceptions, there is nothing inherent or inevitable about poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In fact, many of these countries are extremely rich in resources. Nor are these countries simply “lagging behind” the rich and developed countries, as if they are following the same path but at a slower pace and after an initial delay.
These countries’ lower levels of economic development derive from their place in a global capitalist division of labor.
The continent of Africa, for example, is extremely rich. It contains massive deposits of minerals, incredibly fertile soil and diverse natural resources. However, its people have historically been impoverished by slavery, colonialism and the exploitative policies of the capitalist powers. The Dutch, English, French, Portuguese and, most recently, the United States parasitically extracted raw materials, transformed them into finished commodities in domestic factories, and ultimately resold them to Africans at egregiously inflated prices.
Even after independence, the colonizing nations have utilized their dominant position in world finance, their monopoly hold on high-technology, and military strength to preserve this division of labor.
A small elite class in the world’s underdeveloped countries has benefited tremendously by facilitating these arrangements. In some cases, they set the terms and conditions of the deals with the imperialists. But their wealth has generally reinforced, not overcome, the historic underdevelopment and poverty of their own economies.
Capitalist ‘development’ intensifies poverty
The capitalists propose that increased private investment, micro-lending, and humanitarian aid will solve global poverty, but none of these address the international economic system that is the foundation for the perpetual inequality.
This was confirmed at the recent G8 meeting of the most powerful global capitalist powers at Camp David. The U.S. government announced $3 billion in private investment to address poverty and hunger in Africa. While taking the form of a relief initiative, in reality it will be a boon for giant agribusinesses, including Dupont, Cargill and Monsanto. These companies plan to introduce large-scale commercial agriculture, using patented seeds and technology as well as expensive chemical inputs. Their interest is not charity, but to restructure Africa’s food production so that it is entirely dependent on foreign for-profit corporations. It is a neo-colonial endeavor repackaged as humanitarianism.
This is in line with decades of Western-based Structural Adjustment Programs, in which poor countries have been told to destroy local agriculture, privatize government infrastructure and wipe out social programs so as to pave the way for foreign investment and lending. The impact has been permanent debt, grinding poverty and the subordination of sovereign interests to the imperialist monopolies.
It is no surprise then that China has become the trade partner and lender of choice for many African countries. While China is motivated principally by its own national interests, not international solidarity, its trade relations have come with vast infrastructure projects and do not come with the same colonial terms. China committed $8 billion to Nigeria, Angola and Mozambique in 2006, while the capitalist-based World Bank provided only $2.3 billion to all of sub-Saharan Africa during the same period.
A socialist world economy and the basis for unity
This shows that there is another way to tackle global poverty and underdevelopment: the creation of an economy based on mutual assistance, cooperation and solidarity. The website WorldHunger.org reports that “[t]he world produces enough food to feed everyone… 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase.” The problem of global hunger could be solved quickly; the problem is that food distribution and agriculture mainly operate on a for-profit basis.
A socialist United States, which would remove the profit motive and capitalist competition as the core principles of the economy, would make it a top priority to overcome the global divisions between developed and underdeveloped countries. The Program of the PSL explains that under a socialist government, policies would immediately “help overcome the ravages of U.S. imperialism that have exploited the people, resources and economies of other countries with an emphasis on sovereignty, solidarity, revolutionary assistance and reparations.”
For centuries, the United States and European countries have reaped enormous profits from the super-exploitation of Africa, Asia and Latin America. This in turn has allowed the imperialist ruling classes to offer a higher standard of living to workers in their own countries relative to those of the exploited countries. As a result, many workers identify more with their own rulers than with the 3 billion people worldwide living on less than $2.50 per day. All too often, this has taken the form of blind patriotism and overtly supporting imperialist policies. It can also lead to political apathy, as workers consider themselves relatively comfortable.
This status quo, however, is in the process of breaking down amid a global capitalist economic crisis, decades of stagnant wages and outsourcing. In the United States, poverty has skyrocketed in recent years. Those considered “low-income” number more than 98 million, nearly one-third of the population.
Out of a world based on huge divisions and inequality, the basis exists for poor and working people in the United States and Europe to throw in their lot with the world’s oppressed. The PSL exists to help show that we have a common enemy: the tiny class of capitalists and imperialists that has enriched itself for centuries and held back the emergence of a new world without hunger and poverty.
