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Chapter Summary of The Divide Who is Jason Hickel?  An anthropologist at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts  From Swaziland  Writes about global inequality, post-development and ecological economics  Worked for World Vision – analyses why development projects in Swaziland were not living up to their promises  The National Review has called me "a left-wing anthropologist who sees capitalism as the bane of the world’s poor." o Provides a critique of the well-known poverty narrative – which has received a lot of positive credit PART 1 – THE DIVIDE   

60% of humanity – some 4.3 billion people – live in debilitating poverty according to Jason The standard development narrative suggests that alleviating poverty in poor countries is a matter of a getting the internal policies right, combined with aid from rich countries. Anthropologist Jason Hickel argues that this approach misses the broader political forces at play

Chapter 1 The Development Delusion – pages 12 and 13  Why do countries in the global south remain so poor despite all the work of NGOs? o Dying AID patients - pharmaceutical companies refused to allow Swaziland to import generic versions of patented life-saving machines, keeping prices out of reach. o Farmers unable to make a living off the land - related to the subsidised foods that were flooding from the US and EU, which undercut local agriculture o Government unable to provide basic social services because it is buried under a pile of foreign debt and had been forced by Western banks to cut social spending in order to prioritise repayment  This global system of patents, trade and debt are the inhibiting the success of NGOs The Myth Begins to Crumble – page 16  Basing poverty off those who live off $1 a day depicts a decreasing proportion of those in poverty  This figure is inhuman, it is unsustainable to be living off $1  Many scholars now claim that $4 is just adequate if you want to stand a decent shot living till your 5 th birthday  So what happens when you measure poverty as this more realistic level? o A total poverty headcount of 4.3 billion – more than 60% of humanity o So is poverty really decreasing? Or is it just growing? Why Poor Countries are Poor?  Structural adjustment was one of the greatest single causes of poverty in the global south, after colonialism. But it proved to be enormously beneficial to the economies of the north. o Global North take advantage of developing countries leaving them in a constant state of poverty Aid in Reverse  Jeffrey Sachs argued that if rich countries would just increase their foreign aid contributions to 0.7% of GDP, we would be able to eradicate global poverty in only 20 years.  US-based Global Financial Integrity and the Centre for Applied Research at the Norwegian School of Economics revealed data on aid funding o Developing countries received a little over $2 trillion, including all aid, investment and income from abroad. But more than twice the amount, some $5 trillion, flowed out of them in the same year.  What is causing these large outflows? o Payments on debts o The income that foreigners make on their investments in developing countries o Capital flight o Trade mis-invoicing

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o Abusive transfer pricing o Exploitation through trade o Unequal exchange For every dollar of aid that developing countries receive they lose $24 in net outflows World Bank profits from global South debt Gates Foundation profits from an intellectual-property regime that locks life-saving medicines and essential technologies behind outlandish patent paywalls (29) Therefore the narrative of aid distracts us from seeing this particular broader picture… it is too busy hiding the patterns the extraction… making it appear that the West is developing the global South, when in reality it is the opposite… poor countries are effectively developing rich countries (29) “Europe is the creation of the Third World” (Frantz Fanon) The aid paradigm pretends to fix issues of inequality whilst simultaneously causing deeper negative impacts… manipulation with this sense of moral high-ground as a means of getting away with it

Chapter 2 The End of Poverty has been Postponed  2000s Millennium Declaration – the Millennium Development Goals o Goal 1 was to cut poverty and hunger in half o There were claims that halving hunger was close to being achieved o Questionable as at the time, the world was situated in the worst economic crisis  This became known as the good-news narrative about poverty o “It is a comforting story; a welcome contrast to the depressing tales that often fill the daily news cycle” (35)  In this book, Hickel provides a new perspective – poverty isn’t decreasing in his eyes, he almost suggests that society have been misconceived with a positive façade of works of NGOs o “the real story about global poverty is not quite as rosy as we have been led to believe” (36) The Great Poverty Disappearing Act  World Food Summit o This was the first multilateral agreement to reduce global poverty - signed in 1996  Rome Declaration o Focused more on hunger rather than income as its key dimension  Millennium Declaration in New York 2000 o Explicitly focused on tackling income poverty o “halve the proportion of the world’s people whose income is less than $1 a day the proportion of people who suffer from hunger” o Explore this idea of a statistical theatre  The UN then rendered the Millennium Declaration into goals we are familiar with today o Declaration cut the number of poor by 669 million people o MDG-1 pledged to cut the number by only 490 million people o This reflects the constant manipulation of statistics / constant change of targets o Hickel argues that there is something questionable about the ethics behind MDG-1 considering that it rests on such a flexible understanding of moral acceptability o Promotes the good-news narrative due to constant shifting of desired goals o Redefining the goals allows the campaign to claim that poverty has been halved when it hasn’t  Poverty line o Poverty differs in different countries o Push to try and find some kind of common denominator o This would make it possible to measure poverty globally o Martin Ravallion – suggests the “dollar-a-day line as the first-ever international line” (ILP) (40)  From Wolfensohn’s speech to statistics from the World Bank – there is no fixed number of how much poverty has been reduced by (200 million or 400 million?) o The story is constantly just getting better suggesting it is all a façade to keep people aware

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The international poverty line changed from $1.02 a day to $1.08 explaining why the number of those in living in poverty has fallen (this happened in 2000) o This doesn’t mean that poverty has been reduced, they have simply changed statistics to make out that fewer people are in poverty. o Shifted due to new purchasing power parity (PPP) calculations (41) o Nothing has changed in the world… poverty didn’t’ dramatically fall overnight In 2008 the international poverty line was changed again to $1.25 o Figures of poverty changed yet again These shifting poverty lines create an illusion that poverty is radically being reduced overnight when this is not the case! o “World Bank’s attempts to doctor the figures.” (43) Hickel suggests that poverty increased when structural adjustment was imposed on the South by the World Bank. China and East Asia were not exposed to free-market capitalism therefore they were able to strive on their own. Consequently, the good news narrative holds true in China and East Asia.

What happened to hunger?  Hunger was a big goal of the Millennium Declaration  2009 – hunger was 21% worse than it was in 1990  Establishment of the FAO – Food and Agricultural Organisation o Contradicted the previous statement and began claiming the exact opposite that hunger is reducing o Using a rosy tale – they turned a story of crisis into a story of progress o How? Improved methodology o The media ran these good news narratives without scrutinizing this new methodology  The first issue at debate is the definition of hunger o Some are based on calorie intake o Differences in definitions lead to differences in statistics and figures o E.g. FAO state 1.5-2.5 billion people are hungry which is 2-3 times higher than Millennium Campaign o Therefore the narrative of the Millennium Campaign underestimates the scale of hunger A more honest view of poverty?  Hickel asks whether numbers are manipulated for the sake of a political image? (48)  Argues that the World Bank dramatically understate what is actually occurring – room for critique here as all of what they are doing cannot be a failure / problematic  World Bank claims that there has been a reduction of poverty whilst hunger has been on the rise  Need to raise the ILP – the US gov. calculated that in 2005 the average person needs at least $4.58 a day to meet the minimum requirements (49)  Hickel believes that if we are serious about reducing poverty, we need to set an appropriate and ethical poverty line.  ActionAid want to use $10 a day o If so 5.1 billion people live in poverty today – that is nearly 80% of the world population  There are so many different perspectives to how low or high the ILP should be Inequality: measuring the divide  Gini index o 0 represents total equality o Branko Milanovic – 63 in 1960 and 47 in 2013  Hickel questions whether the US model of free-market globalisation is causing or reducing inequality o China has taken a dramatic leap towards industrialisation o Take China out of the picture and the good news narrative melts away – global inequality has been increasing not decreasing by removing China o Why? China has relied on state-led development policies and has successfully and gradually liberalised its economy on its own terms.  This perspective suggests that the global inequality gap hasn’t diminished at all

Chapter Summary of The Divide A model made to fail  David Woodward (World Economic Review) states that poverty eradication cannot happen – it is physically impossible  Right now the main strategy for eliminating poverty is to increase global GDP growth  The poorest 60% of humanity receive only 5% of all new income generated by global growth  If we wanted to eradicate poverty, we need to extract/produce and consume more commodities than we do now which will have detrimental impacts the planet’s ecosystems  Inequality is baked into the economic system (58) Into the future  2015 the SDGs emerged… human and ecological focus  The MDGs failed due to statistical manipulation  World Bank announced a new poverty line of $1.90 a day o They do not want to make it too high though so that the SDGs are not successful  Arguably the 1960s and 70s were better days for developing countries – before the World Bank and IMF intervened o Therefore how beneficial have these organisations been? PART 2 – CONCERNING VIOLENCE Chapter 3 Where did poverty come from? A creation story  Previous academia has lacked a historical perspective however Hickel’s approach reflects the importance of a historical approach  Aztec, Inca and Mayan civilisations were not much better off than Europeans… however what changed? o Industrial revolution, James Watt’s steam engine, Britain’s coal field o Britain became situated at the centre  World system was divided into two zones o The core of Western Europe and the young US o The peripheral regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America The making of the world system  1942 Christopher Columbus – travelled around the Caribbean o Forced local inhabitants to bring him a certain amount of gold every 3 months o Killed inhabitants who failed to do so and enforced slave labour on plantations  This started the beginning of European conquistadors o Immense network of resources being exploited from the global south o Draining resources from Latin America and pumping them into the European economy o This built up military capacities, political advantages, trading networks  Ecological windfall (72) o Transfusion of resources that allowed Europe to grow its economy beyond its natural limits at the time, to the point of catching up with and surpassing China and India around 1800.  Another example is the slave trade o Slavery reparations – worth $97 trillion today o Sugar and cotton o Without the ecological windfall from slave colonies, Europe would not have been able to shift its economic capacity towards industrialisation.  This prevented developing nations at the time like Latin American from developing their own domestic industries. They were too wrapped up with providing a steady demand for Europe’s industrial exports.  This vicious cycle whereby developing countries today had to export resources and labour whilst importing manufactured products from Europe rather than developing their own – slowing down their economic progress.

Chapter Summary of The Divide The Great Dispossession  Adam Smith and ‘previous accumulation’ (76) o The initial process of amassing capital that is necessary for capitalism to get going  Karl Marx called it primitive accumulation o Associated with barbaric nature o The rich have made the poor people poor  Colonial extraction – driver of accumulation – accumulation drove capitalism o However this needed labour and workers – without this it wouldn’t have been a success o So where would this have come from if it wasn’t through the slave trade?  Another example is agrarian capitalism and the enclosure movement o Linked to the English peasant system o Imperatives to intensify productivity and maximise profit o Displacement of peasants – linking back to the importance of labour – selling their labour for wages o The impoverished refugees provided the labour to fuel the industrial revolution o Long working days -> low wages -> maximise profits -> transformed England’s economy  Three forces: enclosure, mass displacement of peasants, creations of a consumer market  This became the basic mechanism of profit… redistributing wealth upwards  We tend to assume that capitalism was inevitable however Hickel uses historical evidence to suggest a different story - capitalism required violence and mass impoverishment leaving people dispossessed or enslaved (English peasants and African slaves) o A critique to counteract this? Was capitalism inevitable?  Why is this historical aspect USEFUL? (82) o Process of enclosure marks the origin of mass poverty as a historical phenomenon o Illustrates the basic logic of the process that would produce poverty across the rest of the world Imperialism’s New Logic – CONFUSING CHAPTER  Capitalism influence imperialism o Established around the coercive appropriation of wealth o Goal to secure and access trade routes  East India Company  India hugely dependent on trade... El Nino led to a drought therefore 10 million Indians died of starvation o Find out more about Indian famines? o The British claim that they were the predictable consequence of imposing a foreign market logic that saw fit to eliminate basic human food security and sacrifice tens of millions of people in the service of profit.  The so-called ‘free market system’ that the British imposed - bought in by force involved rigged trading rules o Limited positive influence on developing nations How Britain underdeveloped Asia  India had relatively strong industries to start with e.g. textiles  Competition for Britain and the West – established one-way tariffs which protected Britain’s markets from India’s exports while ensuring easy access for Britain’s good into India  This shrunk India’s share of the company form 27% to 3%  1793 Britain aimed to trade with the Chinese empire… only accepted silver (which they had from Latin America despite it running dry) o They needed access to Chinese markets – Britain were desperate to finance their growing trade deficit o Started trading opium on China’s black market – led to the Opium Wars 1839-1842 o China lost control of its markets – led to famines that China suffered during the same droughts that hit India  In the middle of the 18th century, the average standard of living in Europe was a bit lower than in Asia o Better diets, higher literacy rates, lower unemployment rates  Europeans increased their own share from 20-60% during the colonial period o Europe didn’t develop the colonies

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The colonies developed Europe

Africa: Europe’s pressure valve  There was a financial crisis in the 19th century – Europe desperately needed new profitable outlets where they could invest their surplus capital  Africa became the primary focus of this next wave of imperialism  1884 Berlin Conference – the scramble for Africa drew new borders across the continent  1914 – Europeans had 90% of the continent  Ethical issues with the way countries went about this… sheer violence in Congo and manipulation of cheap, exploitative labour in South Africa… their ultimate goal was to use these countries as a source of raw materials  Colonial rule destroyed local economies and dislocated indigenous communities – led to dispossession, starvation and diseases  The process of systematically pushing Africans off their land in a process that mimicked the enclosure movement in England Fallout in the sacrifice zone  Western Europe grew at 1.3% and the US at 1.8% o Both 3-4 times the rate of the colonised world  This differential in income growth rates was a major driver of global inequality  Monroe Doctrine 1823  Banana Wars – designed to guarantee abundant land and cheap labour for American fruit companies  US occupied Cuba on and off from 1906 to 1934 – mostly to secure the interests of the American sugar companies  All contributes to this idea of ‘unequal exchange’ between the core and periphery (101)  A historical perspective breaks down this standard theory that claims prices and wages are set automatically by the market depending on each country’s factors of production  Why do poor countries have a comparative abundance of labour? Colonial rule – economies were destroyed and people displaced – people forced into the labour market – driving unemployment up and wages down  These countries were left with no choice but to sacrifice their resources and then further consume Western exports.  Orthodox economic theory – the colonial economy was built of the European market (Eduardo Galeano) Chapter 4 From Colonialism to the Coup  In 1910, the richest 1% in the US claimed 45% of the nation’s wealth, while in Europe they claimed nearly 65% of total wealth  WW1 – slowing economic growth and eroding the wealth of the richest  Roaring 20s – renewed wealth and glamour  After Wall Street Crash in 1929 – Great Depression – new ideas emerged o Living standards improved and the gap between rich and poor countries began to narrow for the first time since 1492 A new deal in the west  When capitalism is left to its own devices, goods quickly lose their value  Keynesian principles – designed to prevent another world war A miracle in the south  Keynesian ideology – concerns fairness and wealth  Anticolonial thinkers – idea of independence and democratic revolutions o Britain withdrew from India in 1947 o France withdrew from colonies in West Africa in 1960  Era of developmentalism o UN Economic Commission for Latin America based in Chile founded in 1948

Chapter Summary of The Divide Heavily invested in infrastructure – positive outcomes for example, in Latin America the gap shrank by 22% - impressive impact on human welfare o The South was steadily closing the divide – building their own national economies, reaching out to one another for support, economic cooperation, resisting all forms of colonialism and neocolonialism by Western powers Formation of the G77 – advance interests and visions of the UN – UN Conference on Trade and Development Western states had become accustomed to having easy access to cheap labour, raw materials and consumer markets in global South countries, and the rise of developmentalism was beginning to restrict this access. ...