The Human Cost of Development in Cambodia
This video is not mine, it was presented in one of the panels I attended at the International Conference on Thai Studies in Chiang Mai. The presenter, Naly, very graciously shared the video with me when I asked if I could share it with my audience/networks. I think it’s a very powerful and stirring video that demonstrates some important points about global capitalism:
Firstly, anyone who thinks GDP or growth rates are remotely appropriate measures of human welfare or economic prosperity can think again. These measures say nothing of social or environmental externalities or of distribution of wealth.
Those who think that the global labor arbitrage actually helps people in poor nations need to take a hard look at how the free movement of capital but not labour creates a situation where some countries’ competitive advantage is the very fact that labour is forced to accept slave wages and they will not compel companies to pay to meet environmental standards (many workers here are employed in the garment industry for extremely low wages). Often the only way to make people swallow this is through brutal repression. Naly explained to the audience that labour organizations need to operate underground, and that the military has openly stated that it would “break the teeth of all protesters.” Again, police and state-sanctioned violence are primarily used to protect private property. The modern capitalist state’s priority is to prop up the market. It’s not as profitable to help people in need.
The links between neoliberalisation and authoritarianism were made very salient in this panel. I may make another video discussing these links, but it should give people pause about the trope that capitalism is an inherently “freeing” or “freer” system. Land grabs in particular are commonly understood as tools of primitive accumulation (Marx) or ‘accumulation by dispossession’ (Harvey), forcing people to accept proletarianization.
When Sargon says “Socialism creates real problems, capitalism creates first-world problems,” I have to wonder what world he’s living in.
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