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.
It doesn't take much to see what an America without global south exploitation would look like. It's already here in Native reservations and redlined neighborhoods.
There's a reason why American racism, even through the lens of whiteness, is the easiest issue to radicalize someone on. The more one looks on the subject, the more they stop seeing glimmers of light through the gaps of their understanding.
I was going to point out that this isn't exactly correct since these are places that are "exploited" rather than simply "not benefiting from exploitation because there is no exploitative relationship", but of course that's exactly your point. Because of course, the US absolutely will start exploiting itself in the same or similar way.
I would like to think that there could be a society on the North American continent that has no exploitative relationship with other parts, but of course that will not happen as long as the USA exists.
I grew up in a redlined neighborhood. Anyone who thinks all Americans live on treats hasn’t experienced the systems of poverty and racism in this country.
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