A F R I C A

[shakahislop]

I guess it depends on one's definition of colony or colonialism, but if a country's major industry and source of income and employer is a foreign firm, whose position also then enables it to move the political and social markets, then there's not much missing other than the political branding that would ironically make the relationship less likely to be exploitative by making it more obvious. There are Western companies whose exit from African countries would collapse those countries, and that gives them a lot of clout.

Where are you talking about. It's not obvious to me

 

[other_life]

probably someone has written a whole book about it

and that man's name was kwame nkrumah

 

[sufi]

Where are you talking about. It's not obvious to me

i'm surprised i thought you had a better underastanding of imperialism,
and also maybe a less conradian sense of teh "dark masses" etc

 

[other_life]

mixed_biscuits posting about neocolonialism makes me feel like im living in a cuckoo clock

 

[shakahislop]

i'm surprised i thought you had a better underastanding of imperialism,
and also maybe a less conradian sense of teh "dark masses" etc

Time for some self-reflection. Ten years ago I would have said that I understand basically what imperialism is and that more or less that's what's going on in the world. It seems a lot less obvious now and more complicated. The more time I spend outside the rich countries the more I get the sense that they're a more minor player. As compared to the people in whatever country you're talking about, and as compared to the governments of neighboring countries sometimes.

On the other hand the capitalist chains of exploitation, ie the ways in which western comfort depends on people in other places, gets more and more obvious

 

[vershy versh]

Isn't the contemporary neocolonialism a corporate one: who owns what and who employs whom.

If the aim of colonialism is to make lots of money then cuckoo-like corporate occupation may be more effective as it doesn't have to shell out as much on infrastructure and the host can make out that it's still in charge.

This is the kind of thing I mentioned Mike Davis writing about in the 'Debt' thread:

"Everywhere the IMF — acting as bailiff for the big banks and backed by the Reagan and Bush administrations — offered poor countries the same poisoned chalice of devaluation, privatization, removal of import controls and food subsidies, enforced cost-recovery in health and education, and ruthless downsizing of the public sector. (An infamous 1985 telegram from Treasury Secretary George Shultz to overseas USAID officials commanded: ‘in most cases, public sector firms should be privatized’.)"

https://jbburnett.com/resources/davismike_nlr26001.pdf

 

[other_life]

mike davis.. a gadol....

 

[sus]

wait @ghost you have to share those AI generated images of African kids building recycled bottle art, it's amazing

 

[luka]

mike davis.. a gadol....

craner hates him hes going to go balistic once he sees version hs posted that quote again.

 

[sufi]

Time for some self-reflection. Ten years ago I would have said that I understand basically what imperialism is and that more or less that's what's going on in the world. It seems a lot less obvious now and more complicated. The more time I spend outside the rich countries the more I get the sense that they're a more minor player. As compared to the people in whatever country you're talking about, and as compared to the governments of neighboring countries sometimes.

On the other hand the capitalist chains of exploitation, ie the ways in which western comfort depends on people in other places, gets more and more obvious

well i was not in Dakar or Addis since the 90s and i expect things might have changed a bit - i believe both cities have done a lot of "development" but there's been no escape from the economic trap that keeps most Africans poor

 

[luka]

craner says marxism 'is the most pernicious and unimaginative conspiracy theory ever concocted.'

 

[vershy versh]

craner says marxism 'is the most pernicious and unimaginative conspiracy theory ever concocted.'

That doesn't sound like him at all.

 

[shakahislop]

This is the kind of thing I mentioned Mike Davis writing about in the 'Debt' thread:

"Everywhere the IMF — acting as bailiff for the big banks and backed by the Reagan and Bush administrations — offered poor countries the same poisoned chalice of devaluation, privatization, removal of import controls and food subsidies, enforced cost-recovery in health and education, and ruthless downsizing of the public sector. (An infamous 1985 telegram from Treasury Secretary George Shultz to overseas USAID officials commanded: ‘in most cases, public sector firms should be privatized’.)"

https://jbburnett.com/resources/davismike_nlr26001.pdf

isn't this a thing of the 90s? I used to read about this all the time. when I was 16 I was all over stiglitz and george monbiot writing about these things. I've always wondered why it slipped off the left agenda. My assumption is that it was a temporary burst of ideological enthusiasm at IMF and World Bank and that they stopped doing anything like this in about 2004. what became of that whole formation of the left is fascinating to me, coz I was a kid I assumed it was permenant but so many of the concerns have faded away (sweatshop are another one, anti-road protests, GM, the WTO)

 

[vershy versh]

isn't this a thing of the 90s? I used to read about this all the time. when I was 16 I was all over stiglitz and george monbiot writing about these things. I've always wondered why it slipped off the left agenda. My assumption is that it was a temporary burst of ideological enthusiasm at IMF and World Bank and that they stopped doing anything like this in about 2004. what became of that whole formation of the left is fascinating to me, coz I was a kid I assumed it was permenant but so many of the concerns have faded away (sweatshop are another one, anti-road protests, GM)

Yeah, we talked about this the other day. The left ceding the anti-globalisation territory to the right. That 90s wave is very unfashionable atm, although Naomi Klein still seems to be a fixture. You see a lot of people on the left dunking on Hardt and Negri nowadays and nobody really talks about Seattle '99 and Genoa '01.

 

[luka]

Bandage on a Bullet Wound

The 131-page report, “Bandage on a Bullet Wound: IMF Social Spending Floors and the Covid-19 Pandemic,” analyzes loans approved from March 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, until March 2023 to 38 countries, with a total population of 1.1 billion, and finds that the vast majority are...

www.hrw.org

 

[vershy versh]

My assumption is that it was a temporary burst of ideological enthusiasm at IMF and World Bank and that they stopped doing anything like this in about 2004.

No, they're still doing it.

 

[luka]

shaka's a total naif lol just wandering round in a daze. quite sweet really.

 

[vershy versh]

Shaka, oblivious footsoldier of the IMF.

 

[luka]

filing his reports from the Starbucks inside the gated compound.

 

[luka]

the on-site generator whirring into action whenever there's a local powercut. keeping the spa-pool bubbling and the air-conidtioning on ice-blast.