Calling It How I See It — In Politics, Economics, and Life

May 2023

Adapted from Final Op-Ed for Independent Study in Black Protest

The Writing's on the Wall for an American Genocide

Will we paint over it, or can we finally scrub it clean?

The discovery of the Fox News vs Dominion Voting Systems defamation trial brought to light some rather unsavory aspects of the media giant’s business practices and the political views of its employees. Buried in a court-redacted document later published by the New York Times was a text from former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson where he described watching a video of Trump supporters violently attacking “an Antifa kid.” He goes on to describe his reaction to the video, where he said, “I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid.”

This comes as many prominent conservative political figures and organizations increasingly use dehumanizing language against people they see as their opponents and as a threat to their power. Texas governor Greg Abbott used this language to describe five shooting victims as “illegal immigrants” who were killed after they asked their neighbor to stop firing guns in his front yard, making sure to distance gun violence from the toll it takes on Americans across the country and justify his expansion of gun ownership and use in Texas. Republican-held legislatures have expelled opponents of their agenda from their elected seats because of how they identify. And even the former president branded Black Lives Matter protestors as “thugs” when they protested outside the White House in the summer of 2020.

By making their opponents seen as less than human and outside the fray of “normal people,” dehumanizing language makes it easier to repress their opponents and further their political agenda. This is well documented in academic literature as public officials routinely oppress opponents whom they label as outside agitators or of a minority race because they are seen as justified in doing so by their supporters, since the protestors who are oppressed are seen as not like the supporters of those in power.

In labeling their opponents as an “other” and shifting blame for problems to them, the actions of the powerful — often the conservative powerful — erode the collectivism prevalent in their communities while simultaneously repressing their critics. This collectivism Americans have long espoused and used to fight the great evils in the world, be they Naziism and Fascism in World War II or Racism and Voting Suppression in the Civil Rights era, is steadily eroding thanks to the “othering” of social groups that pose a threat to those in power. Yet my grandfather’s era of playing stickball in the street — something so simple yet so powerful that led to broader collectivization movements and progressive social change — is pretty much gone in today’s America.

As Karl Marx put it, capitalists will subdivide workers by class, race, religion and a whole other host of demographics to prevent their collectivization, which would threaten the capitalists’ monopoly on cheap docile labor to make them gobs and gobs of money. This is a similar tactic used by conservative rulers to prevent progressive social change that would threaten their power: they subdivide and “other” their opponents to prevent a mass collectivization that could unseat them.

But how would this lead to genocide? It comes in the increasingly repressive strategies that dictators and autocrats use to advance their power and silence their critics, often permanently at the end of it all. The first step in a genocide is often the expansion of rhetoric that dehumanizes the leaders’ opponents. Adama Diang, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Prevention of Genocide, described the early stages of genocide in this manner. “The Holocaust did not start with the gas chambers and the Rwandan genocide did not start with the slayings. It started with the dehumanization of a specific group of persons.” So when leaders “other” their opponents and dehumanize them, and combine such tactics with the use of censure and violence.

At this point in time in the U.S., the writing is on the wall. Leaders are increasingly using dehumanizing language to criticize their opponents while simultaneously rallying their base, tactics that dictators across the world have used prior to starting genocides. We can sit idly by, and watch these atrocities happen, or we can step up and do something about it, changing the scary direction our country is heading. As former Secretary of State John Kerry said, “I believe very deeply [in] the ability for the American people to change direction very quickly,” and if that change can occur and the American people can collectivize against their oppression, we can scrub that writing off the wall and ensure progressive change occurs, to benefit all Americans.

Bibliography

Abbott, Greg. 2023. “I’ve Announced a $50K Reward for Info on the Criminal Who Killed 5 Illegal Immigrants Friday. Also Directed #OperationLoneStar to Be on the Lookout.I Continue Working with State & Local Officials to Ensure All Available Resources Are Deployed to Respond. Pic.twitter.com/spkugkqkge.” Twitter. https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1652783731290013696 (May 3, 2023).

Davenport, Christian. 2020. “I Really Don’t Approve of How Some of You Protest Your Subjugation: Of Movements, Counter-Movements and Meaning.” [Christian Davenport]. https://christiandavenportphd.weebly.com/analog-the-anti-blog/i-really-dont-approve-of-how-some-of-you-protest-your-subjugation-of-movements-counter-movements-and-meaning (May 3, 2023).

Davenport, Christian, Sarah A. Soule, and David A. Armstrong II. 2011. “Protesting While Black?: The Differential Policing of American Activism, 1960 to 1990.” American sociological review 76(1): 152–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0003122410395370.

Edwards, Pearce, and Daniel Arnon. 2021. “Violence on Many Sides: Framing Effects on Protest and Support for Repression.” British journal of political science 51(2): 488–506. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0007123419000413.

“Genocide Begins with ‘Dehumanization;’ No Single Country Is Immune from Risk, Warns UN Official.” 2014. UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2014/12/485822 (May 3, 2023).

Mark, Skip. “Unpacking Repressive Repertoires: The Outside Agitator Tactic.”

Parker, B. A. et al. 2023. “How Three Unlikely Groups Worked Together to Achieve Interracial Solidarity.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2023/01/23/1150867899/how-the-rainbow-coalition-was-formed-and-its-legacy (May 3, 2023).

Peters, Jeremy W., Michael S. Schmidt, and Jim Rutenberg. 2023. “Carlson’s Text That Alarmed Fox Leaders: ‘It’s Not How White Men Fight.’” The New York times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/02/business/media/tucker-carlson-text-message-white-men.html (May 3, 2023).

April 2023

Economic Impediments

Adapted from Take-Home Exam 2 for Comparative International Development

Economists have long debated the origin of impediments to economic development for developing countries. The debate rages with the two camps falling into external impediments like the legacies of colonialism and internal impediments like challenges from poor economic planning or corruption. As I argue, the main impediments to economic development are external despite over exaggerated claims of internal impediments, as it fits the narrative of the development discourses the powerful Global North wants to perpetuate. This narrative absolves them of responsibility for the legacies of the exploitative global economy — which they built for their own benefit — as this narrative “sanitizes the question of development, as it discursively distances development from processes of exploitation, dispossession, and accumulation” (Akbulut, Adaman, and Madra 2015).

Let us first begin with the weaknesses in the arguments blaming internal impediments for the lack of success in certain development initiatives. The main arguments brought up in this camp are corruption and poor economic planning. Corruption does pose a rather serious problem towards advancing development in developing nations, as elites and dictators will often loot from workers and the lower classes, both from government reserves and from workers wages, for their own benefit (Cooper and Kroeger 2017; Jayachandran and Kremer 2006). Corruption has been quite prevalent across the world, as costs about $3.6 trillion, but the costs of colonialism are far greater, as Britain alone looted $45 trillion from India during Britain’s occupation (Johnson 2018; Patnaik 2017). The British-Indian relationship only represents one colonial relationship among the hundreds of other extractive relationships perpetuated by the Global North, so the costs of colonialism can be assumed to be much greater.

Further, the proponents of the internal impediments argument point to instances of poor economic planning to bolster their argument, mainly evidenced by the African debt crisis in the late 1970s. Yet this argument overlooks the colonial roots of the debt crisis as the African economy as a whole is primarily based on volatile primary commodities in which Europe has a virtual monopoly. Because of these colonial legacies, “the root cause of the problem was the deterioration of the terms of trade. The policy problem that emanated from failing to predict commodity price collapse and manage demand was a secondary one” (Geda 2003).

Colonialism certainly had a much greater impact than tearing down the internal impediments argument, as its legacies are responsible for the numerous social, political, and economic challenges that many Global South economies face today. The legacies of colonialism are just one of the many external impediments to Global South economic development. Debt traps and the forced liberalization efforts of the Global North keep Global South countries from developing, as it serves the Global North to keep them at an economic disadvantage, so they can reap the rewards of the Global South’s production.

The Global North keeps the Global South in a vicious cycle of debt, from which they are unable to escape, as the economies of the Global South are mostly primary commodity exporters, which tend to be very volatile. The exported products were originally chosen by the colonizing power from the Global North to best benefit the trading interests of the mother country, without regard for the later success of the colony after independence. This priority of short term gains disarticulated the production abilities of colonial economies, leading industrialization efforts to fail given the incomplete development of industry and infrastructure under colonial rule. Governments would then have to take out loans from Global North financial institutions to keep their economy afloat as the patchwork industry and infrastructure could not maintain their industries following price drops (Geda 2003).

To illustrate this relationship, lets take an economic partnership between Ghana and Britain. Ghana has a suitable climate for growing tomatoes, and the British — for some godforsaken reason — like to eat grilled tomatoes in their traditional English breakfast (Perez et al. 2017; Bule 2023). Britain set up a tomato exporting industry in Ghana to produce the tomatoes for their breakfasts. Should the market change and the demand for Ghanian tomatoes fall — say it’s more fashionable to eat locally grown tomatoes — the diversified British economy can handle the change in stride, while the Ghanian economy is burdened with an excess of tomatoes that will either rot in place or have to be sold to other markets, likely at a discount due to the excess supply of tomatoes. This decreased demand and subsequent price drop in the mid-1970s led to the African debt crisis, as the governments had to take loans to keep their economies afloat (Geda 2003).

As a result of the loans, governments have to pay interest on top of the principal they borrow, which leads them further and further into debt. Because such large shares of economic growth are being paid as interest in debt service, governments cannot direct those funds towards domestic industry and infrastructure. If we apply this to the above example, Ghana would be prevented from investing in a canning plant that would keep the Ghanian tomatoes from rotting and extend their shelf life until other markets can be found. Given the longer term of the investment, private, neoliberal capital would be hesitant to take on this investment, as longer term investments are more suitable for developmental state capital to undertake (Wade 2018). 

Since Ghana cannot pay for this investment out of pocket, they would take out another loan to make this investment in hopes of escaping the debt cycle through this investment. But market forces like free trade, which will be discussed in greater detail later in this essay, decrease prices through competition of already established Global North competitors that can produce those same tomatoes for cheaper than Ghana can, necessitating another loan for a subsidy to bring Ghanian tomatoes tot he prices of their competitors. This cycle keeps going, leading Global South countries like Ghana to become highly indebted.

Because of this vicious cycle of debt, the IMF established the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative to reduce the debt burden Global South countries like Ghana have. But while this looks like a win towards the relief of debt for Global South countries, it’s nowhere close to the size of the debt problem Global South countries face. The HIPC has only relieved about $100 million of debt and relief is highly conditional on political and economic concessions like market liberalization (Ramnarain 2023). The total debt service of just V20 economies, which are Global South countries vulnerable to the economic fallout of climate change, amounts to $61.5 billion, and this is forecasted to only get worse in the coming years (Strohecker 2022). 

Loans connected to debt servicing are often contingent on meeting conditions of market liberalization or political concessions for the relief needed to service their debt. Politically, this was seen recently when Honduras, who is heavily indebted to both China and Taiwan, announced they did not recognize Taiwan as independent of China, a major blow to Taipei’s foreign policy seeking international independent recognition. This benefits Chinese foreign policy as they have claims to Taiwan and their One China Policy dictates Taiwan as Chinese territory (Woodford, Palencia, and Kinosian 2023).

Further, the IMF and its debt relief efforts have long been focused on Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which require market liberalization as a conditionality to receive a loan. These loans force open markets before domestic industries were ready to compete, leading domestic producers to be priced out of the market by foreign competitors. These conditionalities exaggerated fiscal deficits and emphasized privatization, leading profitable state enterprises to be sold of to private capital (Geda 2003). As a result of these externally-imposed neoliberal policies, the poorer classes’ human rights eroded because they were more susceptible to rights violations at the hands of their employers and government, since the government had a vested interest to keep their loan serviced and prevent further economic issues that may arise from not paying their loan back (Rodwan Abouharb, and Cingranelli 2009).

Bibliography

Akbulut, Bengi, Fikret Adaman, and Yahya M. Madra. 2015. “The Decimation and Displacement of Development Economics: Debate: The Decimation and Displacement of Development Economics.” Development and change 46(4): 733–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dech.12181.

Bule, Guise. 2023. “The Traditional Full English Breakfast.” English Breakfast Society. https://englishbreakfastsociety.com/full-english-breakfast.html (April 8, 2023).

Cooper, David, and Teresa Kroeger. 2017. “Employers Steal Billions from Workers’ Paychecks Each Year: Survey Data Show Millions of Workers Are Paid Less than the Minimum Wage, at Significant Cost to Taxpayers and State Economies.” Economic Policy Institute. https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year/ (April 8, 2023).

Geda, Alemayehu. 2003. “The Historical Origin of African Debt Crisis.” Eastern Africa social science research review 19(1): 59–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/eas.2002.0012.

Jayachandran, Seema, and Michael Kremer. 2006. “Odious Debt.” American Economic Review 96(1): 82–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/000282806776157696.

Johnson, Stephen. 2018. “Corruption Is Costing the Global Economy $3.6 Trillion Dollars Every Year.” World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/12/the-global-economy-loses-3-6-trillion-to-corruption-each-year-says-u-n (April 8, 2023).

Patnaik, Utsa. 2017. “‘Revisiting the “Drain”, or Transfer from India to Britain in the Context of Global Diffusion of Capitalism.’” In Agrarian and Other Histories - Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri, eds. Shubhra Chakrabarti and Utsa Patnaik. New Dehli: Tulika Books.

Perez, Kari et al. 2017. “Connecting Smallholder Tomato Producers to Improved Seed in West Africa.” Agriculture & food security 6(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40066-017-0118-4.

Rodwan Abouharb, M., and David Cingranelli. 2009. Human Rights and Structural Adjustment. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Ramnarain, Smita. 2023. “Debt.”

Strohecker, Karin. 2022. “Poorer Nations Face Rising Debt Servicing Costs in 2024, Report Says.” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/poorer-nations-face-rising-debt-servicing-costs-2024-report-2022-09-23/ (April 8, 2023).

Woodford, Isabel, Gustavo Palencia, and Sarah Kinosian. 2023. “Debts and Investment Spur Honduran Change of Allegiance to China.” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/honduras-decision-open-ties-with-china-about-pragmatism-not-ideology-minister-2023-03-15/ (April 8, 2023).