How the Global South Suffers

Bharat Dogra

In the years following World War 2, in the changed circumstances there was a decline of leading colonial powers of Europe. As a result of this and the growing strength of various freedom movements, many former colonies started emerging as free countries one after another. However, obstinately refusing to see the writing on the wall, some colonial powers persisted in fighting very bloody wars to delay their departure, resulting in the avoidable cruel killing of several hundred thousand more people, while others presided over creating artificial boundaries and divisions at the time of their departure, killing many more people and leaving behind a legacy of future hostilities and wars.

Subsequently other efforts were made by the former colonial powers to perpetuate their grip on unfair distribution of economic power, maintain unfair trade practices and retain or even expand the powerful grip of their multinational companies. In countries like Iran, Congo and Chile the old colonial powers and the USA even went to the extent of killing or ousting democratically elected popular leaders and overthrowing the regimes led by them, just to safeguard their economic interests, often represented by their powerful corporate entities eager to retain or expand their control over lucrative natural resources.

Nevertheless, despite the continuation of a highly unjust system in the form of neo-colonialism, there was at least a place in the discourse on development and trade (and subsequently in later years on climate change) for the acceptance of the historical injustice caused to global south and hence at least a hesitant acceptance of the need for some actions and steps for at least partially undoing some of the injustices and disadvantages. Some of the United Nations agencies and leading scholars also contributed in significant ways to the recognition of this reality.

Thus one finds that the injustice caused to the people of the global south remained an important part of the discourse for several years. The richest countries never gave up their pursuit of self-interest of course, but none among the representatives of the richest countries was so aggressive or crude or unreasonable as to say or suggest that the global south was responsible for the problems faced by the richest countries.

It is only in times of Trump that people hear the richest and most powerful country telling increasing numbers of poorer countries that it is they who are responsible for the problems faced by the richest country by keeping their tariffs high or refusing some favours to the richest country.

The entire discourse based on acceptance of the historic as well as recent injustices suffered by the global south has been rudely pushed aside and instead it is the rich who are blaming the poor. The idea behind changing the entire discourse so rudely is to discourage any preferential treatment for the global south, or even any talk of this, while rudely imposing higher tariffs and other injustices and hazards on the countries and people of the global south. This is a reflection of the changing discourse in several other development areas also.

In the context of this fast changing situation, it is useful and interesting to recall some of the earlier discourse on international trade, particularly the aspects relating to the recognition that this should be fair to countries of the global south most of whom had earlier suffered so heavily during colonial times (and also later) and certainly need fairer trade terms to emerge from the long period of heavy disadvantages and exploitation suffered by them. As this writer too was earlier a participant in some of the campaigns for fair and justice-based trade, he can assert from his experience that there was fairly widespread support for this, even in some western countries and campaigns widely used the literature produced by Oxfam and UN agencies which was supportive of justice for global South in the context of trade.

The UNDP Human Development Report (HDR) had brought out a special issue on international trade. This HDR particularly indicted those unfair trade policies that undermine the livelihood of small farmers of global south. A big problem relates to huge agricultural and related subsidies in most rich countries. This report said, “Rich countries spend over $1 billion A YEAR as aid to developing country agriculture and just under $1 billion A DAY supporting their own agricultural systems.”

These heavy subsidies, this report pointed out, hurt rural communities in developing countries. “Subsidised exports undercut them in global and local markets, driving down the proceeds received by farmers and the wages received by agricultural labourers. Meanwhile producers seeking access to industrial country markets have to scale some of the highest tariff peaks in the world.” Within rich countries the benefits go mostly to big businesses and bigger farmers. HDR concluded, “It would be hard to design a more regressive–or less efficient–system of financial transfers than currently provided through agricultural subsidies…Industrial countries are locked into a system that wastes money at home and destroys livelihoods.”

Further this report said, “When it comes to world agricultural trade, market success is determined not by comparative advantage but by comparative access to subsidies–an area in which producers in poor countries are unable to compete.”

At that time, as this report pointed out, cotton farmers in the USA received subsidy equal to the market value of the crop, enabling US big farmers and companies to dominate world market, while as a result of this, poverty in a country like Benin increased from 37% to 59%.Around the same time, rice grown in the USA at a cost of $415 a tonne was exported at $274 a tonne, with the result that in countries like Ghana and Haiti rice farmers were pushed out of their national markets. In the European Union, farmers and processors were paid four times the world market price for sugar, generating a 4 million tonne surplus, which was marketed with the help of huge subsidies given mainly to big processors, in turn resulting in ruin of farmers and small processors in some developing countries.

A study report by Oxfam titled ‘Rigged Rules and Double Standards’ revealed that in many cases the USA and the European Union were exporting at prices more than one-third lower than the costs of production, devastating small farmers in several developing countries.

The reason for quoting from these reports is to establish that till just a short while ago there was widespread and well-established recognition that the existing international trade was functioning unjustly towards the people of the global south, and one main concern, perhaps the most basic concern, was to remedy this injustice. Such a discourse has been changed drastically recently with the Trump- driven discourse shouting only about the injustice suffered by the USA under the existing systems. What is more, instead of such a claim being rigorously examined in terms of any evidence that can support this, the new situation is that anything shouted at the top of the voice by the more powerful persons must be accepted. Hence a situation is arising in which the most important concerns, evidence, facts are going to be neglected leading to highly unjust situations emerging. In such a situation it becomes very important to focus attention on the reality, on real concerns and facts, and this should get the priority attention of more scholars and organisations. The UN should play an important role in presenting the real situation in the present context.

[The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Earth without Borders, Man over Machine and A Day in 2071]

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Frontier
Vol 58, No. 10, Aug 31 - Sep 6, 2025