Economic Hit Man

Chapter 3 focused on understanding the development project, which is essentially the strategy employed to help grow and stabilize the international economy. In fact, after World War II the Marshall plan and Bretton Plan were created to meet this goal. The First (Western) World created the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in an effort to reconstruct this world economy. The World Bank and IMF loaned money to strategic, suffering countries so that they could better their economies and participate in international trade. However, these loans were not without limitations and rules, and ultimately helped the U.S. and First World countries most.

The common denominator of the five articles we read this week was the Indigenous activism against colonialism. In Winona Laduke’s article, “Idle No More: Native People Challenge,” the author tackles the environmental problems caused by most Canadian government. Activist and Indigenous chief of Attawapiskat Theresa Spence decided to go a hunger strike protesting. Spence and her movement of Idle No More drew attention to some sad conditions in Native reserves and communities (LaDuke, Par 1). The use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter have helped the movement to spread their message more efficiently because communities such as Attawapiskat and Kashachewan are remote communities that have received very little attention due to lack of information (LaDuke, Par 28).

Whilst raising money for African charities at school I developed an interest in global inequality and alternative policies that can help low-income nations escape the poverty trap. Reading ’23 Things’ by Ha-Joon Chang, I was intrigued by his view on blaming free-market policies like SAPs that exposed sub-Saharan Africa to international competition, slowing economic growth. Hence, this extended my research to the other side of the

Many times people will assume that third world countries aren’t prosperous because of lazy leadership, lack of education, and overpopulation, but this is not true. For the most part, it is not the country's fault that they are not prospering but usually the effects of neoliberalism and globalization. Neoliberalism and globalization have impoverished previously colonized countries all over the world and the effects are devastating and cruel. In the film Life and Debt, it displays how Jamaica’s economic and political policies have negatively impacted their way of life. The director, Stephanie Black, clearly believes that Globalization has almost completely destroyed Jamaica’s economy. Jamaica is no longer able to sustain itself economically, food, and other basic human needs due to the effects of globalization.

INM originated when four women — Nina Wilson, Sylvia Mcadam, Jessica Goredon and Sheelah Mclean — organized a work shop focused on how the conservative omnibus bill, Bill C-45, would affect first nations people. This bill proposed changes to various acts and regulations that would directly affect Aboriginal sovereignty. These include; the Indian Act, the Navigable waters protection act, the environmental assessment Act and the Fisheries Act (Graveline, 2013: 293). These proposed changes mobilized aboriginals and non-aboriginals across Canada to come together in solidarity and form the largest movement for indigenous rights in Canada since Oka in 2002. With an excellent campaign strategy involving social media such as Facebook and Twitter, the INM movement has been inspiring youth and women to come together collectively to demand change. Through rallies, protests, round dancing and road blocks, the INM movement has gained national coverage in the news media (not all of which has been sympathetic to the INM cause). In particular, the six week hunger strike of Chief Theresa Spence gained immense news coverage, and put pressure on the Prime Minister to quickly organize meetings with chiefs of first nation tribes (Graveline 2013: 293). While exposure in the news media, is necessary in order to win the

In this 1500 word essay I thought that I would talk about what has been one of the top talks in Canada for the last couple of months, Idle No More. Idle No More is an ongoing protest movement originating among the Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprising the First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples and their non-Aboriginal supporters in Canada, and to a lesser extent, internationally. It has consisted of a number of political actions worldwide, inspired in part by the liquid diet hunger strike of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence and further coordinated via social media. I want to make the people aware of what is happening. I want them to realize what the Aboriginal

David Roodman’s argument that a pragmatic approach to development is the most agreeable proposition has merit, but it is extremely cumbersome. Even if a leader is corrupt, the type of development that Easterly argues for originates with the people; it is essentially “bottom-up” change. A corrupt leader would have very little power to stop or curb such change, and efforts to do so would likely incite the public against him. For these reasons, among others, pragmatism should not be the default approach to developmental

According to William Easterly, the consensus on global development is an axiomatically wrong and ostentatious position. This is not new to Easterly, who spent a number of disenchanted years as a senior advisor at the World Bank. These tumultuous years would certainly help formulate Easterly’s austere perception of technocratic solutions to global poverty. Easterly’s contentious view of technocrats becomes a focused thesis in his book, The Tyranny of Experts. In this book, Easterly argues that poverty is not a “technical problem amenable to technical solutions” (Easterly 6). Instead, poverty is a manifestation of brutish leaders quashing the rights of individuals. While Easterly presents a cogent argument against top down development, the lack

The differences between standards of living in developed and developing nations have been made more evident by the rapid pace of technological innovation. Many world leaders consider the poor circumstances of developing nations to be tragedies that should be solved. Some altruistic organizations such as the World Bank have attempted to improve the conditions in developing nations through deliberate development, in which they would enable an all-encompassing plan aimed at efficiently reducing material suffering. However, in The Tyranny of Experts, Easterly argues that development approaches are flawed because they often emphasize material goods at the detriment of individual rights. Instead, he argues for giving developing nations the freedom to improve themselves by supporting democracy and personal rights. In explaining this idea, he comments on four aspects of the two differing methodologies: blank slate versus learning from history, nations versus individuals, conscious direction versus spontaneous solutions, and authoritarian rule versus free development.

The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier discusses why the poorest countries are failing and then offers some insights and solutions to the problem. He says the four major problems in developing nations are: conflict, natural resources, bad neighbors, and bad governments. The conflicts are usually civil wars which have huge costs and the situation just becomes worse the longer the conflicts drag on. Collier states that countries rich in natural resources are often worse off than countries that are not, he attributes this problem to several different factors. One of the factors is that the resources open the possibility for conflict over the resources. Another factor is that if a country strictly focuses it’s on a specific natural resource then the other resources and industries might get forgotten and lose value. Being landlocked with bad neighbors can also be a large problem because it makes it almost impossible to be a part of world trade, so these landlocked countries have to depend on their neighbors for most of the trade and materials. A bad government can also be very destructive to a country’s economy, if they create unreasonable and restrictive policies. The smaller countries are also at a disadvantage because it is hard for them to get any investors, because the investors would much rather invest in well-known countries like India or China. After Collier stated all the problems he also offered up some possible solutions. He believed that aid agencies should concentrate

From my analysis of the film Life and Debt and my readings, I have come to the opinion that economic globalization works in favor of powerful and wealthy countries while undermining the interests of poorer, less developed countries to cultivate their own economy and establish a substantial quality of life for their civilians. In the film Life and Debt, this situation is exemplified through Jamaica’s decades-long grapple with economic globalization in their involvement with the IMF, World Bank, and various trade agreements. The reality of loan and trade agreements sunk in when instead of contributing to economic development of the country, they restricted it. Gradually, Jamaica was plummeted into socio-economic deterioration. As Jamaica’s seemingly prospective negotiations with these institutions unravelled, economic globalization revealed itself as a force for rich and powerful nations to dominate poor and less developed nations.

Nicole Johnson 7 February 2015 Sociology 101 04 Dr. Banerjee Video Paper #1 The sociological issue depicted in the film was how globalization affects countries in an economical way. In the United States we thrive on trading with other countries, China also thrives on trading. In Africa that is a different story, Malawi is one of the poorest areas of Africa and is number 12 on the list of poor areas in Africa. They trade 80% of their products to get the money they need to live, an average person in Malawi Africa has two dollars to feed and clothe their families of 8+ people. I believe that the sociological issue is affecting people in a negative way.

In the book “The New Confessions of An Economic Hitman” by author John Perkins, he discusses in detail his experience as an economic hitman, and the role he played in underdeveloped and developing countries. He writes about his, various multinational corporations, political institutions, and the United States role in indebting countries to profit off them. Essentially, his book is about the United States way in expanding globalization and what can be done to stop the exploitation of other countries. John Perkins offers a new perspective on the study of international development and underdevelopment, and goes beyond numbers and graphs, to explain other factors that are a key contributor in the under development and development of some countries. In this essay, the strengths and weaknesses of this book will be discussed and compared to the perspectives of development covered in this course through the lectures and textbook. The opportunities that are presented around the world for this book to improve development outcomes, and threats around the world that may halt efforts to purse the changes that John Perkins wishes to see will also be discussed.

Even though institutional infrastructures are able to encourage development, the book also offers an opposing answer. The authors believe that even though it could promot development this may only happen in the short term. In the long run poverty could be a result. Another point that the authors make is known as “vicious circle”. A vicious circle is one that is usually seen at work in numerous underdeveloped countries. There has been one in existence for over the last four centuries. The vicious circle has a history where extractive institutions have been created and entrenched. They have been created by a higher colonial power. This colonial power became the rulers, but because this happened there was a result in a civil war where large groups

Several developing countries are sunk in debt and poverty because of the arrangements of global establishments, for example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Their projects have been vigorously reprimanded for a long time and have been constantly blamed for poverty. Moreover, developing countries have been in constant expanded reliance on the wealthier countries, despite the IMF and World Bank's claim that their main goal is to fight poverty (Shah, 2013). During recent decades, the poorest nations on the planet have needed to swing progressively to the World Bank and IMF for money related help, because their impoverishment has made it unthinkable for them to acquire somewhere else. The World Bank and IMF connect strict