The other day, I was speaking to a friend about the current book I was reading in Philosophy class, Disposable People (spreading awareness, right?!). I was telling her about how these extreme forms of slavery exist around the world and how there is usually a never-ending cycle in each country that makes this slavery continue. In some countries, debt bonding causes slave families to work for a debt that will essentially never be paid off. This is an ongoing cycle that relies on factors to keep it going; such as slave owners cheating out the records to make sure that the slaves do not overcome their debt.
My friend mentioned something that she had learned in her International Studies class about conflicts between countries around the world: there exist all over the world core countries and periphery countries. The core countries are developed countries, often being rich, while periphery countries are developing countries, often being poor. This existence of the two types of countries allows a similar cycle as slavery does and creates a situation in which these countries are potentially never going to move out of their position. The concept of this phenomenon is that core countries keep the periphery countries poor and weak, while periphery countries keep core countries rich and strong. The periphery countries rely on the core countries for resources to stay alive, creating dependence on the core countries. This means that there is going to be an unofficial debt that the periphery countries will owe the core countries; this creates the cycle. Since the first concern of countries is security, the core countries exploit the periphery countries so that they can get cheap goods from them and so that they can keep the periphery country where it is, and no threat will be put upon the core country.
This core-periphery country idea is a cycle similar to slavery, but is it slavery? I think it is just as much slavery as is exemplified in Disposable People. At some point the periphery countries are put at a point that does not allow them to move up. They have only one option and it is being “controlled” by the core countries. Slavery in this sense is having no other option but slavery.
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6 comments:
This comparison between debt bondage slavery and the relations of developed nations to developing nations was interesting to me. I have never thought of sovereignty in terms of slavery before, but really the losses of sovereignty faced by less developed countries does enslave them in many ways. They lose their ability to have sole control over their own political and economic policies, and this loss of choice is comparable to slavery. Many former colonies, especially in Africa, were left after colonialism ended with economies based around one product, assuring that they could not be self sufficient. This makes them automatically reliant on imports and aid. For example, in Nigeria, the British colonial leaders centered the economy on production on palm oil, and stamped out much of the local farming for this purpose.
I disagree with the parallel of developing nations to modern debt bondage slavery. Yes the core countries are inducing a certain dependency on resources but they are not technically enslaving, causing the country to loose their freedom of choice or action by doing so. I agree with Virginia's comparable points but it seems that the problem is not slavery for these periphery countries. I would compare the dependency problems more on the idea that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Would it be possible though to unconsciously enslave an entire country just by implementing methods to secure safety in ones own country? I think your blog raises very interesting comparisons.
This is definitely an interesting way of looking at sovereignty in different countries. I think that some interesting parallels are made, but have to disagree that a country can be enslaved by another. Each one of the people in the periphery country will react differently to the circumstances that the core country produces on them. Although a country may be influenced to make decisions based on the core country's terms, it does not enslave that country. If they want out of the circumstance, then they should turn towards an alliance with another country. I'd be interested to learn of some examples of this to fully understand the concept of a country "enslaving" another. I think this might help to explain what it would entail, because I do not think that it would be similar to that of people being bond to work, being a prostitute, or debt bondage.
This cycle is unfortunate, but not surprising. There will always be a disparity in the wealth and power of different countries. Those with wealth will exercise power on those without. The problem lays in the design of the global political structure, primarily sovereign countries. As long as there is no regulating force, or at least an ineffective one (the U.N.) abuse will still riddle the system. The way to change this power structure is to introduce an outside force which can exert influence on the current power structure and change it. This could be accomplished by removing the sovereignty of nations and putting them in an empire, or by giving power to regulatory forces, the U.N., watch dog organizations ect.
I have to assert that this is not slavery, because by calling it slavery, it effectively numbs the effect that makes actual slavery so horrendous to human conception. It is rather unfortunate, but to equate it to slavery softens the impact of the constituent parts of the actual slave-master relationship. While they are being held down, they are not robbed of their sovereignty. I do like the empire idea that Paul suggests an even the proposition of watchdog organizations.
This is a very nice post, and I agree with everyone that it is a very interesting comparison. It reminds me of this new book that was recently on the best seller list called Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Basically, the author, John Perkins, worked for private international organizations that specialized in US-foreign relations. Every time a foreign president of an impoverished country would try to gain rights for his workers (which would cause increased salaries, benefits, and such, therefore increased cost of the US) the author would approach this president and go about trying to get him to stop through bribes and threats. The author lists cases where the presidents refused to back down and were assassinated listing Jaime Aguilera as an example. Aguilarea was the president of Ecuador in 1979 to 1981 during which he wished to increase the price of oil to get better wages for the workers in his country. Aguilera died in a plane crash shortly after a documented meeting with some US CIA agents which many called an assassination. It was a bit conspiratorial for me personally but it was very interesting in the context of everything else listed in the book. Basically, the author would go in order to prevent these countries from becoming self-sufficient, making me appreciate you comparison of poor-developed country relationships as slave-master relationships.
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