Afaik, no one's ever done an actual quantitative analysis, but if the US was barred from exploiting the global south tomorrow the standard of living for all US Americans (other than the rich) would plummet. It wouldn't even be a recession, more like all of capitalism just seizing up. iPhones now cost like $5k and no one could afford them anyway. I think it would be orders of magnitude worse than what the Russians had to deal with in the 90s with their "shock therapy". It's truly astounding how dependent we are on exploiting labor and resources in the global south. Like... damn near everything we own was made by people making shit wages and living in conditions that would make US Americans cry after living in them for a few hours.

It pisses me off so much that 99% of US Americans think their lifestyle of cheap, plentiful treats is the ultimate evidence that capitalism works. They say "look how much stuff we have" and compare it to what folks in AES states had. They never think about there are like 100+ countries out there that are every bit as capitalistic as the USA. And yet they are living in crushing poverty. Why is the US a symbol of the success of capitalism but poor countries don't reflect it's weaknesses?

The standard of living that most people in the US enjoy is more thanks to the exploitation of the workers and resources of the global south than it is to some inherent positive quality of capitalism. Take that away and US Americans would have a very different life from what they have come to expect. For the working class in the US, without all that exploitation I don't see how our lives would be materially different from workers in the global south.

And I haven't even gotten into how much of our lifestyle is driven by environmental exploitation! US Americans consume resources at something like 5X what is considered a sustainable rate. Force us to live sustainably and that would be another huge blow to treatflow and the "success" of capitalis.

  • Yanqui_UXO [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    with the giant debt, insane trade deficit, the devaluing dollar, and de-industrialized economy, consuming less or plundering more seem to be the only two options left. i don't think there will ever be a popular will to actually consume less, so the choice has always already been made. let's not forget that the "defense" industry is hugely profitable, unlike many others, so even if there's nothing to plunder somewhere a war is still a net gain on the balance books.

    • spectre [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I agree that there is much more popular support for war than reducing consumption, but if the US is able to successfully ignite a war somewhere, they probably aren't going to have EU support (maybe in Venezuela idk) and would most likely get its ass handed to it (while still ending and wrecking a couple million lives along the way) which will end that support really quick. If things go this direction Americans will definitely continue to live in denial and idk what the path forward will be at that point.