citationsneededpodcast

Episode 186: Nativism in Media (Part III) - IMF, NAFTA and Global Inequality By Design

Added 2023-07-26 16:44:10 +0000 UTC

"The World Bank and its president have been doing an important, constructive job the past five years," announced The Southern Illinoisan in 1973. "IMF assistance [has] put Jamaica well on the road to recovery," reported The Winnipeg Sun in 1982. The Trans-Pacific Partnership “could be a legacy-making achievement” for Barack Obama, The New York Times suggested in 2015.

These are the dominant narratives surrounding so-called "development" initiatives, whether structural adjustment loans or "free trade" deals. Agreements like these, we're often told, have been and continue to be essential to the economic maturation and societal improvement of poor countries. Countries that shift from nationalized to privatized industry and land, so called liberalize trade policies, and institute a host of other free-market reforms are destined for greater efficiency, reduced poverty, and that much-coveted "Seat At The Table" in the global economy.

But, all too often, this isn't the effect of these initiatives. What we don’t tend to hear about is how economic development "agreements" engineered by wealthy countries like the US — e.g., IMF loans, NAFTA, or the TPP — don't promote, but rather reverse, the development of exploited countries. Media minimize not only these initiatives' destructive effects on economies, labor, and social programs in service of U.S. corporations, but also their relationship to the punitive U.S. immigration system, and their extensive role in mass global displacement.

This episode – the last installment of our three-part series on media narratives about immigration (listen to Part I here and Part II here!) – explores the displacing effects of "development" and "free trade" deals, as well as their connection to an increasingly militarized immigration "deterrence" machine, asking why capital is allowed to move freely, but people aren't.

Our guest is Dylan Sullivan.

Guest

Dylan Sullivan is an adjunct fellow and PhD student in the School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, where he teaches in politics, sociology, and anthropology. His research focuses on global inequality, colonial history, and the economics of socialist planning.

***

Show Notes

16 Million and Counting: The Collateral Damage Of Capital

Dylan Sullivan and Jason Hickel | December 22, 2022 | New Internationalist

Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015

Jason Hickel, Christian Dorninger, Hanspeter Wieland and Intan Suwandi | March 2022 | Global Environmental Change

The Existence of Human Beings Is Not a “Crisis”—Our Nativist Response Is

Adam Johnson | September 21, 2021 | The Column

Plunder in the Post-Colonial Era: Quantifying Drain from the Global South Through Unequal Exchange, 1960–2018

Jason Hickel, Dylan Sullivan and Huzaifa Zoomkawala | March 21, 2021 | New Political Economy

‘Border Crisis’ Means Migrants Coming—Not Migrants Dying

Julie Hollar | June 2, 2023 | FAIR

Globalization and health equity: The impact of structural adjustment programs on developing countries

Timon Forster, Alexander E. Kentikelenis, Thomas H. Stubbs and Lawrence P. King | December 2020 | Social Science & Medicine

US Interests Have Had Their Sights Set on the NHS from the Beginning

Ben Zdencanovic | December 20, 2019 | Jacobin

For 25 years, Operation Gatekeeper has made life worse for border communities

Pedro Rios | October 1, 2019 | The Washington Post

How Trade Deals and Immigration Laws Hurt Workers—Mexican Workers

Erik Loomis | March 14, 2018 | The New Republic

Death in the sands: the horror of the US-Mexico border

Reece Jones | October 4, 2016 | The Guardian

Comcast-Funded Website Plugs Comcast-Owned TV Show Promoting Comcast-Backed Trade Pact

Adam Johnson | June 11, 2016 | FAIR

Undocumented Youth Are Here Through No Fault of Their Own. But It’s Not Their Parents’ Fault, Either

David Bacon | November 5, 2015 | In These Times

Exposing the great ‘poverty reduction’ lie

Jason Hickel | August 21, 2014 | Al Jazeera

TPP—‘The Largest Corporate Power Grab You’ve Never Heard Of’

Steven Rendall | March 1, 2014 | FAIR

‘Free Trade’ and the death of democracy

Jason Hickel | December 13, 2013 | Al Jazeera

This transatlantic trade deal is a full-frontal assault on democracy

George Monbiot | November 4, 2013 | The Guardian

Land Privatization in the Context of NAFTA and Its Impact on Migration

Magdaleno Manzanárez | Fall 2003 | The American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences Journal

Capitalism, socialism, and the physical quality of life

S. Cereseto and H. Waitzkin | 1986 | International Journal of Health Services

****

Transcript

For a full transcript of this episode, go here. You can find transcripts of past episodes and News Briefs here.

*****

Citations Merch

Remember that the Citations Needed merch store is open! Please consider further supporting the show by picking up a t-shirt, tank top, sweatshirt, tote or coffee mug for yourself or your favorite Citations fan (or everyone you know!).

******