Reparations in Global Economic Colonialism

We need a radically different way of thinking about economics (economic justice and the ways we can redress and repair systemic inequalities between and among nations and communities). Empires have fallen but their strategies have not been defeated; in fact the logic of domination has only become more sophisticated and powerful as territorial conquest has shifted to financial conquest. Poverty has deepened, increased and has become politically tolerable (what is meant by 'politically tolerable'?) despite enough resources the world over to eradicate it. Common and treatable conditions result in unnecessary death due to a glaring lack of primary health care for the majority of people outside of the world’s most economically powerful countries. From Reykjavík to Kingston to Tokyo, protestors gathered last year, in a display of solidarity in reaction to the murder of George Floyd and a wider questioning of what Borzou Daragahi terms ‘entire systems of power, racism and oppression’ .

Reparations approaches to economic colonialism in the present day begins by offering three important perspectives missed by most governments, charities, donors and policymakers. Firstly, today’s most powerful economies are built from the capital earned through enslaved and indentured labour and goods plundered through colonialism, and continue to flourish from the wealth and resource drain from the Global South to the North through sovereign debt bondage, tax evasion and avoidance and unequal exchange, for example. Secondly, if we take a global picture of disadvantage today, we see that race remains a driver of poverty evident through racialised wealth gaps, policies and ideologies in so many contexts. Thirdly, much of the global economic structure is colonial in origin, and increasingly becoming outdated. These dynamics mean that repairing the social and ecological imbalance of the planet needs more than an agenda of marginal policy reforms within current frameworks.