Another term that's thrown about is 'economic development' which is supposed to be a very good and essential thing for the poorer regions of the world. But what exactly does it mean? My hunch is it usually means that investors from some richer part of the world put money into mining or harvesting or refining some resource that the locals haven't had the wherewithal to mine or harvest or refine. Or maybe they didn't want to commodify it for various reasons such as potential pollution and environmental destruction, sacred areas, no sustainable way to exploit the resource.
The economic development very often does not benefit the locals directly. What benefits there are go to the country's leaders and elite, the rest to the West. This is why there is a greater flow of wealth from the poor world to the rich world than the reverse.
A very useful book for context on this is John Perkins, CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HITMAN.
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True words. Thank you for mentioning such a simple and widely read announcement or term, "economic development." In the USA we naturally assume this is a beneficial event or process. But return 10 years later and the development has taken its toll but not on the profiteers. Usually it is the local native inhabitants who have been "developed" out of their property or government.
Economic development has happened on a large scale in Mexico. Ford, GM, Whirlpool sought to develop factories in Mexico. Cheap labor and few environmental laws guided their choices. The result of this development has been a steady exodus of Mexicans to the USA. How could this be true? After a few years of operating assembly plants the American industrials realize they can hire Mexican women for less than men. Thus the Mexican man is out of work. Women will rarely complain, seek grievances or attempt to organize. Out of work Mexican men discover their families cannot live on the low wages paid to their women. There is little or no work for them in Mexico so they head North to mow our yards, roof homes, wait tables and cook.
This is the aftermath of development.
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