Wait til you learn that the reason you hate immigrants and immigration is that the wealthy conditioned you to hate them. Notice how capital can cross borders, but people can’t? This allows the wealthy to profit off of international arbitrage, while regular citizens can’t. A CEO can move a factory to a low cost country to save on labor, but you in a wealthy country can’t move there to save on cost of living. And the citizens in a poor country can’t move to a wealthy country to earn better wages. The corporations get to take advantage of international arbitrage, but you don’t.
Notice how capital can cross borders, but people can’t?
Well… some capital. Don’t try to order anything from Cuba or Venezuela or Russia and expect it on your doorstep any time soon.
Possibly Mexico, Canada, or China soon too, if the Trumpies get everything they’re asking for.
And the citizens in a poor country can’t move to a wealthy country to earn better wages.
Best example of this I’ve ever seen (other than Israel/Gaza, which is really more of an interior border) is Haiti/Dominican Republic. The fact that they’re all on the same island but one half looks like the fucking Korean Demilitarized Zone to keep the other half out is bleak af. Particularly nauseating when you’re seeing earthquake relief getting held up by some of the most evil bureaucratic fucks you’ve ever dealt with in your life.
Well… some capital. Don’t try to order anything from Cuba or Venezuela or Russia and expect it on your doorstep any time soon.
This is a pretty interesting exception. The reason why Cuban or Venezuelan or Russian capital isn’t very available internationally is because of embargoes. These embargoes and sanctions operate for the benefit of western imperialism, itself just another form of capitalism.
So the reason why national capital isn’t available to international capital is because international capital prevents it from being available. Compare this to many post-colonial African and south american nations. The ones that towed the line of western imperialism, who politically nurtured a national ruling class to benefit and oversee the exploitation of the vast majority of their population in order to provide cheap labor and commodities, have “open” economies. Countries that attempt to provide for the social welfare of the masses (Cuba, Venezuela) or countries who pursue their own internationalist, “imperialist” agendas counter to the western consensus (current Russia) face embargo and sanction.
This is not to deflect any and all criticism from Cuba, Venezuela or historic Soviet Russia. It is an interesting condition to think about.
Oh definitely. But I’ve noticed that America’s failure to impose post-Soviet neoliberal capitalism on big parts of the periphery has resulted in more and more countries getting flagged for embargo and sanction. This has resulted in neighboring countries forced into some hard choices - Germany losing access to cheap Russian natural gas, the Philippines and Australia alienating itself from economic superpower China, Mediterranean shipping coasts skyrocketing after the Gulf of Aden becomes a free-fire zone due to the Americans’ ongoing feud with Iran.
The Cuban embargo can only function if it is isolated from the rest of the Caribbean nations. But putting all of Latin America on the shit list just means they trade with each other while you effectively embargo yourself.
Yeah its been interesting to see the development of the BRICS coalition as a counter to US trade hegemony. It makes one optimistic, but there’s still so much uncertainty. Venezuela’s economy is imploding due to some amount of mismanagement by Maduro’s admin, and not diversifying their economy like 10-15 years ago. And some very recent and concerning chatter coming from international contacts who would be fairly in the know and historically over optimistic about the tenacity of the Cuban revolution, are signalling that the Cuban government is extremely close to collapse (although we’ve been hearing the same from bourgeois media for 60 years, so its kind of hard to swallow.) Columbia is more social democratic than it has been in decades, Argentina is more exploited, Brazil is doing a wild flip from one extreme right wing president to a moderately progressive labor president. And developments on the African continent such as trans-national coalitions are reclaiming the Sahel. The US lost much of its ideological lustre it enjoyed during the cold war, but it makes up for that with naked violence. Our flagging superpower is still like historically the most powerful force in history, even as the international ruling class strips every last stick of profit out of our deeply paralyzed and ineffective political system. And our brainworms are still our #1 cultural export.
Wait til you learn that the reason you hate immigrants and immigration is that the wealthy conditioned you to hate them. Notice how capital can cross borders, but people can’t? This allows the wealthy to profit off of international arbitrage, while regular citizens can’t. A CEO can move a factory to a low cost country to save on labor, but you in a wealthy country can’t move there to save on cost of living. And the citizens in a poor country can’t move to a wealthy country to earn better wages. The corporations get to take advantage of international arbitrage, but you don’t.
Corporations are people except when they’re conveniently not!
This is clearly a completely natural phenomenon, like the weather !
Well… some capital. Don’t try to order anything from Cuba or Venezuela or Russia and expect it on your doorstep any time soon.
Possibly Mexico, Canada, or China soon too, if the Trumpies get everything they’re asking for.
Best example of this I’ve ever seen (other than Israel/Gaza, which is really more of an interior border) is Haiti/Dominican Republic. The fact that they’re all on the same island but one half looks like the fucking Korean Demilitarized Zone to keep the other half out is bleak af. Particularly nauseating when you’re seeing earthquake relief getting held up by some of the most evil bureaucratic fucks you’ve ever dealt with in your life.
This is a pretty interesting exception. The reason why Cuban or Venezuelan or Russian capital isn’t very available internationally is because of embargoes. These embargoes and sanctions operate for the benefit of western imperialism, itself just another form of capitalism.
So the reason why national capital isn’t available to international capital is because international capital prevents it from being available. Compare this to many post-colonial African and south american nations. The ones that towed the line of western imperialism, who politically nurtured a national ruling class to benefit and oversee the exploitation of the vast majority of their population in order to provide cheap labor and commodities, have “open” economies. Countries that attempt to provide for the social welfare of the masses (Cuba, Venezuela) or countries who pursue their own internationalist, “imperialist” agendas counter to the western consensus (current Russia) face embargo and sanction.
This is not to deflect any and all criticism from Cuba, Venezuela or historic Soviet Russia. It is an interesting condition to think about.
Oh definitely. But I’ve noticed that America’s failure to impose post-Soviet neoliberal capitalism on big parts of the periphery has resulted in more and more countries getting flagged for embargo and sanction. This has resulted in neighboring countries forced into some hard choices - Germany losing access to cheap Russian natural gas, the Philippines and Australia alienating itself from economic superpower China, Mediterranean shipping coasts skyrocketing after the Gulf of Aden becomes a free-fire zone due to the Americans’ ongoing feud with Iran.
The Cuban embargo can only function if it is isolated from the rest of the Caribbean nations. But putting all of Latin America on the shit list just means they trade with each other while you effectively embargo yourself.
Yeah its been interesting to see the development of the BRICS coalition as a counter to US trade hegemony. It makes one optimistic, but there’s still so much uncertainty. Venezuela’s economy is imploding due to some amount of mismanagement by Maduro’s admin, and not diversifying their economy like 10-15 years ago. And some very recent and concerning chatter coming from international contacts who would be fairly in the know and historically over optimistic about the tenacity of the Cuban revolution, are signalling that the Cuban government is extremely close to collapse (although we’ve been hearing the same from bourgeois media for 60 years, so its kind of hard to swallow.) Columbia is more social democratic than it has been in decades, Argentina is more exploited, Brazil is doing a wild flip from one extreme right wing president to a moderately progressive labor president. And developments on the African continent such as trans-national coalitions are reclaiming the Sahel. The US lost much of its ideological lustre it enjoyed during the cold war, but it makes up for that with naked violence. Our flagging superpower is still like historically the most powerful force in history, even as the international ruling class strips every last stick of profit out of our deeply paralyzed and ineffective political system. And our brainworms are still our #1 cultural export.
Its gonna be a crazy ass decade
Or mostly anywhere really. The EU exists for all that to be easier within the EU.