Reparative JusticePart 10 of 11 · Myths, and the way out
Climate and inequality
The planet is not overcrowded. The rich use far more than everyone else, and aid does not change that.
Climate and the overpopulation myth
If populations around the world had the same level of emissions as the average north American or European, we would need 5 more earths. The average Briton will emit more carbon in the first two weeks of a year, than a citizen from seven African countries would in an entire year. Capitalism is irrecoverably destroying our world for the pursuit of profit and luxury for the few and hiding its destruction through propaganda through popular media, science and academia and politics and news.
The myth of over-population propaganda is an Euro-centric, racist, patriarchal and liberal ideological attack on the global south that silences:
- Other cultures, values and ethics, and non-capitalist ways of organising the economy that are hundreds of times less energy dependent and in harmony with planet’s finite resources.
- The inhumane domination over bodies and labour, and the plunder of natural resources in pursuit of profit for a minority.
Western European and its settler colonies, made rich from enslaving, colonising and capitalising the planet are responsible for climate change. All data on climate change emissions since 1850 confirms this as they were responsible for burning fossil fuels, industrialisation and deforestation on an unimaginable scale, far beyond historical cumulative emissions of Russian and China.
The racist, apolitcal and ahistorical myth of overpopulation is used deflect attention away from Capitalism’s ecological unsustainability and causes climate activists to pursue liberal, reformist and unsystemic solutions to ecocide
Global inequality
Despite global hunger, poverty and unrest, the world is far from poor. It is dripping in wealth, held to secure power by a fraction of the world's population.
According to the CS Wealth Report, 2.17% of the world’s adults are in Europe and North America and they on average $237,000 in wealth. The rest of world’s share of adults (83%) each own $36,000 on average. Levels of global inequality are growing wider each second and there can never be any levelling up under capitalism. Not only are there not enough natural resources for every person in the world to live the lifestyle of an average person in the US with extraordinary levels of capitalist consumption and environmental footprint, capitalism depends on a classed, racialised and gendered hierarchy in order to grow. The global majority should reject this.
There are also far greater levels of inequality within countries in the global south which is maintained by local elites who are allied to Europe and its settler colonies. Under capitalism, historical property, land and assets is what underpins global wealth inequality. The foundations of wealth were laid by Europe and settler colonists 500 years ago through enslavement and colonisation - imperialist land grabs, violent installation of governments and rules of law, private property, money, banking and finance etc.
There will never be a equality and the meeting of levels of wealth between the global north and south under capitalism - only greater concentrations of inequality and power. The ownership of global assets by Europe and its settler colonies that begun 500 years enables their capital accumulation and concentrations of power
Only the seizure of assets for democratic control and use, and the building of a democratic political economy will materially change global inequality. These assets are used as leverage in the trading of the $15 trillion a day financial and commodity markets, most of which is in Europe and its settler colony, the US, and the target for the Ubuntu Restoration Tax.
Exponentially rising inequality whether between rich and poor countries, or within countries between rich and poor people, can never be materially changed under a capitalist economy - because it can only function on subjugation, oppression and exploitation by class and race
The development sector
The international development sector who expend enormous energies fighting for “economic justice” or “tax justice” through reformist campaigns mislead civil society and by doing so, enable harm under capitalism to continue.
They do not publicly state capitalism’s inherent contradictions such as perpetual inequality, racist origins and inherently racist, sexist, classist (and more) methods of operation nor the Western imperialism that must be unleashed by their own governments for capitalism’s survival.
The international development sector, dominated by funding from Europe and settler colonies cannot be ideologically anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, they need to be reinvented if they are to adopt Revolutionary Reparations.