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Showing posts with the label "Paris Club"

Debt

The causes are the "ongoing plunder of poor countries by rich countries, banks, multinational corporations, and global elites in the North and South." Again, this approach ignores the class structure in the poor and middle income countries, the socio-economic policies of the ruling elites (only mentioned in passing) and the role of the dominant classes in perpetuating the plunder, the lack of the political will to embark on economic and technological development, etc. Such an approach treats relations between states as separate from the sociology of the countries in question. The author of the article has a PhD in sociology! One or two more paragraphs would enlarge the picture and provide a better expalnation.  "The Global South" must be freed of its debt servitude
"Repaying the debt is an essential obstacle to satisfying basic human needs, such as access to clean water, decent food, basic health care, primary education, decent accomodation, and satisfactory infrastructure. Without any doubt, the satisfcation of basic human needs must take priority over all other considerations, be they geopolitical ot financial. From a moral point of view, the rights of creditors, shareholders, or speculators are insignificant in comparison with the fundamental rights of five billion citizens. Debt is one of the main mechanisms through which a new form of economic colonization operates to the detriment of the developing countries. It is one more brick in the edifice of historic abuses, also carried out by the rich countries: slavery, pillage of raw materials and cultural goods, extermination of indigenous populations, and colonial servitude. The time is overdue to replace the logic of domination by the logic of redistribution of wealth in the name of jus