The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions

by Jason Hickel

One might think that Europe and the United States would be thrilled to watch this success unfold; after all, the new policies that global South countries were rolling out – tariffs, nationalisation, land reform, capital controls – were bringing about real development, and Western governments, in the spirit of Truman, claimed to be in favour of development. But they were not amused. Western states had become accustomed to having easy access to cheap labour, raw materials and consumer markets in global South countries, and the rise of developmentalism was beginning to restrict this access. Import substitution policies meant that Western exporters of consumer goods had to pay high tariffs to sell their products to global South markets.21 Sometimes they found that their products were blocked at customs altogether by nationalist governments intent on protecting local industries. In many cases, Western investors who wanted to operate in global South countries were denied entry. When they were allowed in, they often had to pay higher taxes on their incomes, and capital controls meant they had to pay higher fees if they wanted to repatriate their profits. A growing trade union movement and new constitutional rights meant they had to pay higher wages to the workers they hired. In some countries, they felt stymied by price controls that governments had imposed in order to keep basic goods affordable. In others – and this was their most serious concern – they feared that their land a...