Life and Debt
Globalization -- The game is rigged. But how do we communicate that idea in concrete terms and with concrete examples? Along comes this documentary which chronicles the economic misfortunes of Jamaica from the time of its "independence" to the 21st century. Roger Ebert, in his Review of Life and Debt wrote, "If you're curious about why the demonstrators are so angry, this is why they're so angry." this documentary and the book from which it takes its narrative (A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid) shows how small countries that won their independence in the 50s and 60s had no alternative but join a loan program that did not serve their long term needs, but did serve their former colonial masters. (Jamaica became an independent country from Great Britain in 1962.) Restrictions on the uses of the funds prevent the kind of long-term economic development essential for true financial independence. And even those practices that attempt to compensate for the years of colonial rule come under attack by means of recent "free trade" agreements.
As only one example, I found myself stunned and appalled as the film traced in detail, with interviews of current and former government officials, how Dole and Chiquita pressed the Clinton administration to force The United Kingdom and Jamaica to end a long standing agreement for the British to import Jamaican bananas at slightly higher than market price. President Clinton complied, and the result ruined the Island's educational system. The price preference supported schools and a 90% literacy rate (compared to a 10% literacy rate in such banana growing countries as Honduras and Guatemala). The price difference for consumers: pennies a pound.
And this brings to light the principle revelation of this documentary. The difference to U.S. consumers does not constitute some ruinous burden. Well meaning people can make a huge difference by means of pennies a pound at the grocery store. But given the economies of scale in global trade, these same pennies a pound rack up huge profits for agribusiness. The second revelation does not prove new to most who read this: the Democratic party represents the interests of corporations as much as the Republican party does. Those who pin their hopes on the Democratic party for the kind of change that a price difference of pennies a pound could pay for will find themselves disappointed. We can not even rely on the democrats for something that simple and easy.
What about "free trade" and its promise of a better life for people everywhere? A Jamaican farmer in the film says that the U.S. trade officials tell him he must grow something else for export, something that will make more of a profit. "What?!" he asks incredulously. Besides the example of bananas every other product the island can grow faces competition from countries where the workers and farmers have few or no rights and must do without nearly everything that we in the developed world take for granted. The current form of globalization has people all over the world competing with each other to sell goods more cheaply than one another. I have never seen "the race for the bottom" laid out more clearly. (86 mins., color and B&W. No MPAA Rating).
