The Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming, David Wallace-Wells, 2023 edition adapted for young adults, 157 pages, ISBN 9780593483572, Dewey 304.28 WThe Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming, David Wallace-Wells, 2023 edition adapted for young adults, 157 pages, ISBN 9780593483572, Dewey 304.28 W155un new teen collection
mya = million years ago
Extinction events: 450 mya 86% of species dead 380 mya 75% of species dead 255 mya 96% of species dead 205 mya 80% of species dead 70 mya 75% of species dead
All but one of these involved greenhouse-gas-produced climate change. p. 3.
The worst, 255 mya, 96% of species dead, was caused by carbon dioxide raising global air temperature 5°C, leading to methane release. p. 3.
We are now adding carbon to the atmosphere at more than 10 times the rate of 255 mya. p. 4.
We're going to
bake, starve, drown, burn, parch, lose ocean life, choke, sicken, be impoverished, go to war, and worse.
Yet the author says he's optimistic because, "we remain in command."
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming, David Wallace-Wells, 2023 edition adapted for young adults, 157 pages, ISBN 9780593483572, Dewey 304.28 WThe Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming, David Wallace-Wells, 2023 edition adapted for young adults, 157 pages, ISBN 9780593483572, Dewey 304.28 W155un new teen collection
mya = million years ago
Extinction events: 450 mya 86% of species dead 380 mya 75% of species dead 255 mya 96% of species dead 205 mya 80% of species dead 70 mya 75% of species dead
All but one of these involved greenhouse-gas-produced climate change. p. 3.
The worst, 255 mya, 96% of species dead, was caused by carbon dioxide raising global air temperature 5°C, leading to methane release. p. 3.
We are now adding carbon to the atmosphere at more than 10 times the rate of 255 mya. p. 4.
We're going to
bake, starve, drown, burn, parch, lose ocean life, choke, sicken, be impoverished, go to war, and worse.
Yet the author says he's optimistic because, "we remain in command."
Best American Magazine Writing 2018, Sid Holt, ed., 2019, ISBN 9780231189996, Dewey 814.608
A celebrated sexual-harassment case. ["Sexual harassment" cBest American Magazine Writing 2018, Sid Holt, ed., 2019, ISBN 9780231189996, Dewey 814.608
A celebrated sexual-harassment case. ["Sexual harassment" could mean anything from a comment about her appearance, to rape. The authors do the reader the disservice of flogging this coy, meaningless phrase, refusing to say what they're talking about.] pp. 1-119.
900 mothers each year die in childbirth in the U.S., and 65,000 nearly die. There are 4 million births per year in the U.S. U.S. maternal deaths are 3 times the Canadian rate, 6 times the Scandinavian rate. pp. 120, 123, 144. The fragmented medical system makes it harder for new mothers, especially those without good insurance, to get the care they need. p. 124. Medicaid pays the medical costs of 45% of births in the U.S. The House of Representatives in 2018 passed a bill to gut Medicaid [the Senate did not]. p. 125. As recently as 2012, you could become an OB-GYN M.D. in the U.S. without learning to care for birthing mothers. p. 126. pp. 120-149.
Unintended victims of U.S. wars in the Mideast, 2003-2017. pp. 150-185.
2011.03 massacre of townspeople in Allende, Mexico, by the Zetas drug cartel, after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency told the Zetas' pet cops that someone snitched. pp. 186-219.
Russian revolutions, 1825- . Published in /Smithsonian/ magazine. [U.S.-Government-funded.] pp. 220-269.
The Uninhabitable Earth. David Wallace-Wells. The imminent climate catastrophe. pp. 270-292. In January 2018, the North Pole was 70° warmer than normal. p. 271. The last time the Earth was 4°C warmer, sea level was hundreds of feet higher. p. 274. --Peter Brannen, /The Ends of the World/. Four of the five previous mass extinctions were caused by climate change produced by greenhouse gas. 252 million years ago, 5°C of warming released the arctic methane and killed 97% of life on Earth. p. 287. We are now adding carbon to the atmosphere at 10 times the rate then. No plausible emissions reduction can avert disaster. pp. 274-275. Humans can't live in 105°F at 90% humidity. p. 276. The European 2003 heat wave killed 2,000 people a day. p. 277. A heat index of 163°F was seen in 2015 in the Mideast. Salvadoran sugar-cane workers have chronic kidney disease from heat. In June 2018, it's 121°F in Southern California. pp. 277-278. Food-growing regions are desertifying. p. 279. Unfrozen arctic animal remains release the diseases they died of into today's populations. p. 280. Tropical diseases spread as tropical heat expands. p. 281. Five billion people will be exposed to malaria by 2050. p. 281. One-third of deaths in China in 2013 were from smog. p. 283. [I'm sure he's right about all this, though it often seems he's overstating his case.]
"My President Was Black," Ta-Nehisi Coates. pp. 294-344. [Yes, but he was a servant of Wall Street.]
National Football League, 2017-2018 season. pp. 346-377.
Race and "culture" [the Oscars, television talk shows, pro sports]. pp. 378-407
The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam, Michael G. Vann (1967- ), author, and Liz Clarke (1982- ), illustThe Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam, Michael G. Vann (1967- ), author, and Liz Clarke (1982- ), illustrator, 2019, 263 pages, ISBN 9780190602697, Library-of-Congress DS559.93 .HV36 V38 2019 Memorial Library
This is a "microhistory." He uses the failed 1902 plague-carrying rat eradication to introduce imperialism, globalization, and pandemic disease. The first 122 pages are an engaging history of French imperial domination of Hanoi, in comic-book format. Then after a set of primary sources, mostly from the dawn of the 20th century, Vann gives us 33 pages of what he calls, "historical contexts." These introduce the world history leading to French control of Indochina. Accessible; suitable for kids.
The 1902 rat hunt itself is on pages 89-96. It was ineffective. The plague pandemic eventually subsided; cholera and other diseases became bigger problems.
Maps pp. ii, 21, 31-34, 37-40, 43, 49, 55, 66-67, 73, 75, 78-81, 93, 103, 108, 111, 121, 201, 220
Pages 1-122 history in comic-book format.
Pages 123-195 primary sources, 1887-1996. "Always ask yourself if you can trust these sources." p. 127.
Pages 197-231 historical contexts: The New Imperialism Western Industrial Capitalism The Third Republic (France, 1870-1940) Vietnamese Resistance: Nationalist, Communist, and Everyday The Third Bubonic Plague Pandemic, 1855-1959
Pages 233-243 "the making of this book."
Pages 247-250 discussion questions. If you were going to read this book as a student, you'd want to read these first, and write down their answers as you come to them in the book.
Pages 251-255 timeline of Vietnamese dynasties.
Pages 256-263 annotated bibliography.
541-767 First bubonic-plague pandemic: up to 50 million die. p. 73. 1096-1291 Crusades expose Europe to the riches of Asia. p. 32 1346-1835 Second bubonic-plague pandemic: up to 200 million die. p. 73. by 1820, Indian opium sold in China flows silver to Britain. p. 34. 1839-1842 First Opium War, begins China's century of humiliations. pp. 35, 253. 1855-1959 Third bubonic-plague pandemic: up to 15 million die. pp. xiv, 73, 227-231, 253. 1857-1860 Second Opium War: France enters Indochina. pp. 37, 253. 1869 Suez Canal open. p. 36. 1870-1940 French Third Republic. pp. 217-221. 1871 Germany takes Alsace and Lorraine from France; Germany unifies. p. 202. 1882 French seize Hanoi pp. 13, 39, 253 1901 Plague in Hanoi 1902.04.25-1902.07.10; 1903.04.03-1904.02.22 Bounty on rats in Hanoi. pp. 89-96, 104. 1929-1939 Great Depression disrupts colonial economy; mass unemployment. p. 110. 1930.10 Ho Chi Minh organizes Indochinese Communist Party. p. 110. 1940-1945 Japan captures Indochina and the Dutch East Indies. p. 111. 1941 Ho Chi Minh organizes Viet Minh to fight all foreign occupiers. p. 111. 1946-1954 First (French) Indochina War. p. 254. 1963-1973 Second (American) Indochina War. p. 254. 1995 Diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the U.S. established. p. 255. 1995 Vietnam joins ASEAN. p. 120. 1997, 2014 Michael G. Vann visits Hanoi. pp. 117-122.
Books:
Empires and Colonies in the Modern World: A Global Perspective, Heather E. Streets-Salter, Trevor R. Getz, 2015.
Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, William Cronon, 1991. Shows that no city is an island. Chicago exists because of the Midwest, sending agricultural products to the city, and getting manufactured goods from it. p. 199.
[In that regard, The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, 1961, shows that, when trade collapses, cities evaporate. Covers Europe, West Asia, and North Africa, 362 CE to 1478 CE. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ]
That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution, Lars Schoultz (1942- ), 2009, 745 pages, ISBN 9780807832608, Dewey 32That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution, Lars Schoultz (1942- ), 2009, 745 pages, ISBN 9780807832608, Dewey 327.73
A litany of U.S. neocolonialism and bullying. Very readable.
"The president … lacks a sense of conviction on what is right and wrong." --Chester Bowles. p. 199.
"The U.S. had dominated us too long. The Cuban Revolution was determined to end that domination." --Fidel Castro (1926-2016)
410 BCE: "Right is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." --Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, book 5, chapter 17. http://academics.wellesley.edu/Classi... p. 4.
Unless it would cost the strong too much. p. 6.
THOSE WHO OWN THE COUNTRY, GOVERN IT
1789-present: The secretary of state's job has always been to protect and promote U.S. interests abroad. No Cuban government could make any change without affecting U.S. interests. p. 98.
PIRACY
1822-1825: U.S. Navy and Marines invaded Cuba eight times to burn pirate stations and close a pirates' resale shop for plundered U.S.-shipping cargo. pp. 13, 572.
1868-1878: U.S. citizens aided an unsuccessful rebellion of Cubans against Spain. pp. 13-14.
RACISM
1869: "We have enough of inferior races in our midst without absorbing and not assimilating the Creoles and blacks of Cuba." --a U.S. congressman. p. 14.
BIG HELP
1895-1898: U.S. helped Cuba throw off Spanish control. U.S. would now control Cuba. pp. 14-33.
"Cuban heads of state are not representatives of a free Cuban people, but /administrators/ of American financial feudalism." --/The Nation/, 1933. p. 31.
1896: Cubans elected the wrong class of representatives to their U.S.-mandated constituent assembly. p. 24.
1897: U.S. investors were hungry for Cuban sugar and mining profits. p. 20.
RACISM
1897: "Cubans are no more capable of self government than the savages of Africa." --a U.S. Army general. p. 22.
1901: "No one wants more than I a good and stable government, of and by the people here [in Cuba], but we must see that the right class are in office." --Governor-General Leonard Wood. p. 8.
1903: U.S. investors in Cuban sugar were granted preferential access to the U.S. market. p. 28.
1947: Truman administration started a second Red Scare, screening federal employees for possible association with communist or other unfavored groups. By the time of Castro's 1959 ascension, the U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy had been cleansed of imagination and initiative. Elements of McCarthyism persist as of 2024. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCar... p. 90.
RACISM
1952: "Whether the new group under Batista will be any better is a question. Governments in Cuba are made up of Cubans." --a U.S. envoy. p. 49.
DICTATORS OK
[continuing through] 1952-present: Every U.S. administration supports right-wing dictators who support U.S. business interests. pp. 55-56, 58, 63, 247.
The U.S. arms, trains, and funds Latin American militaries so they can (1) keep a business-friendly tyrant in power, or, (2) overthrow their government if it becomes insufficiently friendly to U.S. business interests. pp. 60-61, 65, 67, 73.
Chile, 1973, Kissinger to Pinochet: "You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende. We want to help." p. 247.
SERFS
1953: More than half of rural dwellings had no toilet, inside or outside. Two percent of rural dwellings had running water. 80%-90% of rural children were infested with intestinal parasites. p. 53. More than half of Cuba's farmland was planted in sugar cane. More than 1/3 of Cuba's workforce was employed in sugar--most of them only for the 94-day harvest. p. 54.
CASTRO'S ACHIEVEMENTS
By 1975, Cubans were better fed, better housed, better clothed, better educated, and healthier than before the revolution and blockade. p. 268.
GUATEMALA
1954: The Eisenhower administration overthrew Guatemala's government[, beginning 40 years of terror. This taught Che Guevara that only armed force could bring justice]. p. 59.
CASTRO
1956-: Fidel Castro led a revolution against the Batista government. pp. 63-.
REWARDS
[continuing through] 1957-present: U.S. ambassadorships are rewards for financial contributions to the president's political party. p. 63.
CASTRO
1959: Fidel Castro's regime began. p. 83.
1959: Castro lowered rents and telephone rates. p. 94.
1959: Castro nationalized 3,750 square miles of cattle land, 3,000 square miles of sugarcane land, and 31 sugar mills. He offered investors tax value, which was 20% of market value, to be paid in 20-year bonds yielding 4.5% interest. He could not have paid cash, Batista having plundered Cuba's treasury. p. 95, 99. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=...
WHOSE CURTAIN?
1959: "We should not push Cuba behind an iron curtain raised by ourselves." --newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann. p. 100.
WITH US OR AGAINST US
1959: To Cold War Washington, a neutral Cuba would have the same effect on U.S. security as a communist Cuba. p. 106.
THREAT TO NEOCOLONIALISM
1959: "If Cuba gets by with actions against American property owners, our whole private enterprise approach abroad would be in serious danger." --Assistant Secretary of State R. Richard Rubottom Jr. p. 106.
CRIPPLE THEIR ECONOMY
1960: Cuba sold sugar to the USSR. The U.S. Government abandoned hope of friendly relations with Cuba. The CIA plotted overthrow. Cuba then appropriated U.S. investors' properties. The U.S. attacked Cuba's economy. The State Department told U.S. oil executives to refuse to refine Russian crude in their Cuban refineries. Cuba took over management of the refineries. The U.S. cut back sugar imports, Cuba's economic lifeblood. Cuba nationalized all U.S.-investor-owned commercial property. The U.S. closed Cuba's largest industrial plant, Nicaro nickel. Eisenhower curtailed exports to Cuba, canceled Cuba's sugar quota, and closed the U.S. embassy in Cuba. pp. 116-139.
Cuba's U.S. imports dropped 97%, 1953-1961. Cuban exports to the U.S. dropped from $490 million in 1958 to $35 million in 1961. p. 200. Eisenhower forbade U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba. p. 203. By 1963, Cuba's gross national product per capita had dropped 30%. p. 207. The Johnson administration pressured other countries not to trade with or recognize Cuba. 226-236 Nixon followed suit. (Many of Nixon's papers are still classified, as of 2009.) pp. 245-247, 254, 261.
TRADE
In the mid-1950s, the U.S. had sold Cubans 187,000 tons of rice per year. By 1975, U.S. producers wanted to sell again. p. 267-273.
HUBRIS
1961: The Bay of Pigs fiasco. No one warned President Kennedy before the invasion that denial of U.S. involvement would be impossible. Eisenhower and Kennedy both considered it politically impossible to do the 3 days of pre-invasion bombing of Castro's air force that would've been needed for the invasion to succeed. pp. 160-161. CIA Director Allen Dulles assumed that Kennedy would send U.S. combat forces rather than let the invasion fail. pp. 162-164. U.S. officials thought the Cuban people would welcome Castro's overthrow. That a small invasion force would be joined by spontaneous uprisings of Cubans against Castro. pp. 164-165. Castro's domestic popularity soared. p. 169. And he was enabled to suppress all internal opposition. p. 172.
/I/ KNOW WHAT LET'S DO!
1961: Having failed to overthrow the government of Cuba, Kennedy's team suggested he overthrow communism in Vietnam. p. 170.
THE DANGER OF A GOOD EXAMPLE
Still, Castro couldn't be tolerated: his was a positive example of a working communist revolution. p. 172. "If Cuba succeeds, we can expect most of Latin America to fall." p. 182.
WE CAN'T STAND IT
By 1962, the world's largest CIA station was in Miami: its only job was to overthrow the Cuban government. p. 186-189, 221, 239. The Pentagon proposed the chemical and bacterial contamination of Cuba's food supply. p. 189. [The CIA under Jimmy Carter would mass-murder Jamaicans by poisoning flour and rice, after their government taxed bauxite extraction. --Killing Hope, William Blum, 2014, pp. 263-267.]
USSR
1962: Cuban Missile Crisis. pp. 183-187.
SABOTAGE
/Un/authorized (but CIA-funded) sabotage by freelance Cuban exiles was stopped if possible, but not prosecuted. The unauthorized saboteurs were caught and released. pp. 190, 214-216, 220. Every president tolerated freelance attacks on Cuba until 1977. p. 221. From 1977 to 1980, Carter grew ever closer to the hard-line Cold War views of his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. p. 294.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
LBJ sent 20,000 marines to put down a rebellion against the Dominican government. p. 237.
HIJACKING
1961-1973: 159 U.S. aircraft were hijacked, 85 of them to Cuba. Some hijackers were Batistianos fleeing Cuba, beginning 1959. The U.S. and Cuba reached an agreement in 1973 to punish or return hijackers, after which hijacking mostly stopped. The "downside" of the agreement was increased calls from Americans for closer relations with Cuba. pp. 256-259.
Recommends:
/Race over Empire: Racism and U.S. Imperialism, 1865-1900/, Eric T.L. Love, 2004. p. 572.
/Cuba y los Estados Unidos, 1805-1898/, Emilio Roig de Leuchsenting, 1949. p. 572.
Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China, Julian Gewirtz, 2017, 389 pages, Library-of-Congress HC 427.Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China, Julian Gewirtz, 2017, 389 pages, Library-of-Congress HC 427.92 .G478 2017 Memorial Library, ISBN 9780674971134
Chinese leaders' and economists' 1978-1993 efforts to adopt policies that would improve China's economy. Focuses on meetings, not so much on results.
1644-1911 Qing Dynasty. p. 5.
1839 First Opium War began a "century of humiliation." p. 5.
1919 Moscow founded the Communist International; sent emissaries to China. p. 6.
1921 Chinese Communist Party founded. p. 6.
1949 People's Republic of China (PRC) founded. p. 2.
1949-1976 Tens of thousands of "rightist" intellectuals and officialswere put to death. p. 4.
1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. Thinkers were a threat, needed to be reeducated. p. 3.
1976 Mao died, age 82. China was poor and isolated. pp. 1-2, 15.
1978 China's GDP per person was $US 175. p. 2.
Deng Xiaoping aimed to make China modern, wealthy, and powerful. p. 2.
1993 Chinese constitution. p. 4.
2017 China is now the world's largest economy by purchasing power parity. p. 1.
2025 China's GDP is expected to surpass that of the United States. p. 1.
A Brief History of Equality, Thomas Piketty, 2021 in French, 2022 in English, 274 pages, Dewey 305.09, ISBN 9780674273559. Translated by Steven RandalA Brief History of Equality, Thomas Piketty, 2021 in French, 2022 in English, 274 pages, Dewey 305.09, ISBN 9780674273559. Translated by Steven Randall.
Abrogate the untaxed-free-movement-of-capital treaties. Tax the rich.
Big changes in law and society have been occurring regularly since 1780: it's worth saying what changes must happen, and how. p. 119. It is both desirable and possible to tax the rich and expand the welfare state. p. 45.
Chapter 7: Democracy, Socialism, and Progressive Taxation
Bankers, financiers, investors, and money managers planned and lobbied from the 1940s to 1980s, and succeeded in pushing through international treaties that give them a nearly-sacred right to enrich themselves at any country's expense, then whisk the capital away, tax-free, duty-free, regulation-free. pp. 170-174. This state of affairs must be undone to keep the world from being a colony owned and exploited by the super-rich.
Chapter 1: The Movement toward Equality
Progress exists. In 1820, world average life expectancy at birth was 26 years; in 2020 it's 72. Literacy among people age 15 or older rose from 12% to 85%. pp. 16-17.
A better indicator than GDP is "national income," which equals "gross domestic product" minus depreciation (such as depletion of natural resources), plus or minus net income or loss to the rest of the world. Selling off extracted minerals adds zero to national income. p. 23.
Chapter 2: The Slow Deconcentration of Power and Property
The top 0.001% of French fortunes (500, out of 50 million adults) totaled 6% of all that could be owned in 2020, up from 2% in 2010 (6,000 times average wealth, up from 2,000 times ten years ago). p. 44.
From 1910 to 2020, the wealthiest 1% of the French lost a 31% share of total wealth: 55% down to 24%. The 50th-to-90th percentiles gained a 25% share: 13% in 1910; 38% in 2020. All of this transfer was pre-1985: the middle class has been slowly losing, the dominant class quickly gaining share since then. pp. 31, 42, 44.
Chapter 3: The Heritage of Slavery and Colonialism
Forests covered 30-40% of Europe (UK to Denmark to Prussia, Spain to France to Italy) in 1500. By 1800, it was down to about 10% (16% France, 4% Denmark). p. 50.
China's and India's share in worldwide manufacturing, 53% in 1800, fell to 5% in 1900 due to protectionism by Europe. pp. 58-59.
The British East India Company and the Dutch East Indes Company were militarized robbers. p. 60.
Chapter 4: The Question of Reparations
Slaves (90% of Haitians) received 20% of the product of their labor (in food and clothing); the nonenslaved 10% appropriated 80%, in 1789. pp. 82-83.
Current wealth distribution among and within countries bears the deep mark of the slaveholding, colonial past. p. 93.
We must ensure egalitarian access to education, employment, and property. p. 93. Tax multinationals and billionaires: they got rich on the backs of the poor, who deserve and need a share. p. 94.
Chapter 5: Revolution, Status, and Class
Hundreds of French peasant and laborer rebellions, 1730-1789, led to the cancellation of nobles' privileges--but to strengthening the rights of property owners. pp. 5, 95-99.
In Sweden in 1871, there were dozens of districts where one wealthy man cast the majority of votes. Then in the 1920s, Social Democrats took control, adopted one-person-one-vote, progressive taxation, and greatly increased social services.
Everything is changeable. p. 107.
Chapter 6: The Great Redistribution 1914-1980
Two world wars and a great depression, 1914-1945, overturned the power relationships between labor and capital in the West. Very-progressive income and inheritance taxes reduced the wealth and power of the few, and brought opportunities and prosperity to the many. p. 121. The U.S. top federal income tax rate was over 90% from 1951-1963, and 70% until 1980. p. 131. The U.S. top marginal inheritance tax rate was 70% until 1980. p. 132. Taxing the rich, and repudiating and/or inflating away the public debt, freed the West from the yoke of indebtedness to the rich, until 1980. These were political fights that were won in midcentury, and must be refought and rewon to achieve a decent life for the many. p. 149. Total private wealth in Western Europe was six to eight years of national income from 1870-1914, two to three years from 1950 to 1980, now back up to five to six years in 2020. p. 141. Peter Lindert, Growing Public, 2004.
Chapter 8: Real Equality against Discrimination
Gendered, social, and ethno-racial discrimination is endemic nearly everywhere. p. 175. Governments spend more on rich kids' educations than on poor kids'. pp. 176-184. Ditto infrastructure and government services generally. p. 196. Women receive 38% of the payroll in France, men 62%, in 2020. (62/38=1.63; 38/62=.61) p. 185. The average income of blacks in the U.S. is 56% that of whites (1/.56=1.79), as of 2018. p. 192.
Chapter 9: Exiting Neocolonialism
National-government revenues were 13.7% of GDP in the poorest third of the world, including Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, in 2022-2019; 40% in the richest third, including North America and Europe. Nigeria, Chad, and Central African Republic government revenues were only 6-8% of GDP. Not enough for essential functions. pp. 209-210.
The largest financial portfolios worldwide are placed largely in tax havens. p. 211. Transnational billionaires are richer than states, much as in the French Revolution. p. 13.
Global-north investors continue to plunder the labor and resources of poorer regions. pp. 212-213.
Fortunes of over 10 million euros total half of global GDP. p. 215.
The impoverishment of the poor has been the source of enrichment of the rich. p. 216.
Chapter 10: Toward a Democratic, Ecological, and Multicultural Socialism
The Chinese government owns 30% of all that can be owned in China. Not housing, but most of industry. Western governments' net ownership is negative, thanks to a refusal to tax the rich, instead borrowing from them. pp. 231-235, 240.
The authoritarian, antidemocratic Chinese government expresses its official positions daily in /Global Times/: https://www.globaltimes.cn/ p. 233.
Piketty's other books:
Capital in the 21st Century (French 2013, English 2014) shows that, when the rate of return on capital exceeds the growth rate of the economy, inequality grows without bound. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Capital and Ideology (French 2019, English 2020) shows that, since 1789, supposed justifications for inequality have been successively revealed as false, and abandoned. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Darker Nations, Vijay Prashad, 2007, 364 pages, ISBN 9781565847859, Dewey 909.09724, Library-of-Congress D883 P74 2008 College Library Rm. 1191
A rThe Darker Nations, Vijay Prashad, 2007, 364 pages, ISBN 9781565847859, Dewey 909.09724, Library-of-Congress D883 P74 2008 College Library Rm. 1191
A readable history of the emergence and demise of Third World hopes of liberty and social justice. p. 77. The Third World continues to suffer under debt to northern banks, and repression by local elites. This book recounts the many conferences among Third World nations during the decades when they could entertain hope.
One million dollars. That's all it took in 1953 for the CIA to overthrow a nationalist government. The Shah returned until re-overthrown by a different kind of coup in 1979. p. 75.
In 1500, Europe's per-person income averaged 3 times that of Africa and Asia. In 1960, it was 10 times. Colonial rule plundered the darker nations. p. 66.
"We have seen the Argentines reduced to the status of a British colony by means of economic penetration," enabled by the Argentine oligarchy, the "sellers of their country." --Juan Bautista Justo, 1896. p. 28. Europe controlled 85% of Earth in 1914. p. 41. The U.S. would control after WWII.
GATT allowed the First World to have an advantage in trade, the IMF enabled First World banks to survive fiscal slumps in the debtor nations, and the World Bank engineered development that benefited monopoly corporations. p. 71.
Before and after new nations won independence from colonial rule, the same people were the elites in political and economic power. By the 1970s, the darker nations were suffering under austerity imposed by the IMF and World Bank. The Third World project is over. The rich won. pp. xvii-xviii, 14. Aid from outside (whether capitalist or socialist) purchased time for the dominant elites, who used that money to prevent necessary social transformation. p. 73.
The U.S. fought to destroy the political left everywhere. It succeeded. pp. 38-39. "Pax Americana is the internationalism of Standard Oil, Chase Manhattan, and the Pentagon." --journalist I.F. Stone. p. 39. U.S. "dumping" government-subsidized agricultural commodities, destroyed agriculture throughout the Third World. p. 39. Every pact with the U.S. brought insecurity to the Third World countries. --Jawaharlal Nehru, 1955. p. 40.
We condemn the monopoly of capital and the rule of private wealth and industry for profit alone. We welcome economic democracy as the only real democracy. --Fifth Pan-African Conference, 1945. p. 24.
The world must be taken through struggle. --Umm Kulthum, 1956. p. 52.
"Conflict comes not from variety of skins, nor from variety of religion, but from variety of desires. --Indonesian president Sukarno, 1955." pp. 33-34.
Recommends:
The Seven Sisters, Anthony Sampson, on OPEC. p. xi.
Global Rift, L.S. Stavrianos, on the Third World, 1492 to 1980s. p. xi.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1961. p. xv.
Discourse on Colonialism, Aimé Césaire, 1955, pp. 3-6, 81.
Documenting Belgian King Leopold's barbarity in the Congo, p. 18: Affairs of West Africa, E.D. Morel, 1902 Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 1902, King Leopold's Soliloquy, Mark Twain, 1904.
The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, Vijay Prashad, 2012, 292 pages.
A clear-eyed statement of where we're going, why we're in tThe Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, Vijay Prashad, 2012, 292 pages.
A clear-eyed statement of where we're going, why we're in this handbasket, who did it, why, and how.
Written at a moment when global protests and Latin American leftist electoral successes seemed to provide reason for hope.
Introduction:
The rich ate everybody's lunch. (I'm paraphrasing here.)
That's a social problem that needs a political solution. p. 11.
Gross Domestic Product was the only variable that mattered at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank by the 1980s. p. 6. The Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs changed the intellectual property regime so that reverse engineering or transfer of technology became illegal. https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/... The North and its businesses would be able to outsource the production of commodities to the South, but the bulk of the profits for their sale would be preserved as rent for intellectual property. (In the North, this gave us jobless growth, debt-fueled consumerism, a housing bust, and personal-credit crisis.) p. 7. Austerity, financialization, privatization, unemployment, high food and fuel prices, disparity and deprivation, neoliberalism's iron fist, concentration of wealth, theft of the commons, theft of human dignity and rights, undermining of democratic institutions. The global South is a world of protest. pp. 7-9. Since 2001, the U.S. has spent $7.6 trillion on its wars and national security apparatus, deeply cut social spending and cut taxes on the rich. (In 2011, under President Obama, the top 1% got an average tax cut greater than the average income of the other 99%.) Locomotives of the South pull the wagons of the North. p. 10.
Chapter 3 The Locomotives of the South
The boot of northern banks and business remains on the neck of the global south. Much of the public sector was sold to predators at fire-sale prices. Northern manufacturing relocated south. p. 173. The rich few gained at the expense of the poor. p. 175. Ninety percent of Indians now work in the "informal sector." p. 177. Rich governments subsidize agribusiness, to dump commodities on the world market, devastating farm livelihoods. p. 191. No crumbs fall from the North's plate. It eats everyone's lunch. p. 193. The International Monetary Fund destroyed Argentina's economy in 2001. p. 194.
China privatized state-owned enterprises, and ended welfare programs, in 1994. p. 202. Peasants suffered. p. 203.
The 2008 financial meltdown led to calls for austerity for the poor, bailouts and a free ride for the rich. p. 219
Chapter 4 A Dream History of the Global South:
Governments now are tools of the rich, crushing dissent. p. 234. The World Trade Organization began in 1995, under President Clinton. p. 237. In the United Nations, the Security Council has usurped policy making. p. 241. Dictatorship of financial markets, uncontrolled transnational firms. p. 243. States around the world are forced to act on behalf of capital and against the interests of the great mass of people. p. 251. Pain for the many, gain for the few. p. 259. In 1998-2011, South Americans elected leftist governments. p. 260. This after the cataclysm of 1980s dictatorships and 1990s neoliberalism. Half of Latin Americans lived in poverty by 2000, 25% in extreme poverty. p. 261. The new governments had little ability to help their people, against the powers of the U.S., international finance, international corporations, the local moneyed elite and their pet militaries. p. 262. Oil revenue enabled Venezuela to constitutionally mandate public-funded medical care for its people, and provided social security to housewives. pp. 262-263. Women are the poorest. p. 264. Venezuela and Bolivia import 70% of their food, largely from the U.S.; 5% of landowners hold 75% of the land. Agriculture is devastated. pp. 265-267. Poverty in Venezuela was cut from 48.6% to 27.6% of the people from 2002 to 2008, by government efforts. p. 269.
The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States was formed in 2010, without the United States or Canada. When the U.S. is present, democracy, peace, and social equity are not guaranteed. p. 270.
Large slumlands dominate the great cities of the third world. p. 271. State intrusion brings bulldozers, and policemen in search of a bribe. p. 273. Violent criminal gangs rule. p. 274 and see A History of Violence, Óscar Martínez, 2016. 44% of urban Iranians live in slums. p. 275. Elites are besieged by angry hordes, and rely on militaries to subdue people. U.S. and European cities have slums too. p. 276. See /Planet of Slums/, Mike Davis, 2007.
Thomas Ray
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