I’m really not sure how to phrase this, but I understand that the first world enjoys a high level of material abundance, comfort, convenience, and privilege (“treats”) off of the backs of third world, sweatshop, child labour. From children mining for minerals that go into computer chips in the congo, to bengali women labouring in designer clothing sweatshops for pennies. What I don’t really have are books about that go indepth about this phenomenon and how it developed (and by this phenomenon I mean imperialism in the modern day)
I’ve only taken a cursorary glance through it but I think “A brief history of neoliberalism” by David Harvey might fit what I’m looking for
Brief History of Neoliberalism is an essential read, imho. So I’d recommend that anyway. But “Digital Labour and Karl Marx” by Christian Fuchs covers the International Digital Division of Labor, or IDDL, which more or less touches on what you’re describing.
Okay, no joke the best thing I’ve read on modern imperialism and the flow of treats is a polisci textbook.
It’s Phillip McMichael’s Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective I think you can get the 6th edition for 15 bucks. It’s a great overview that’s clearly indebted to the anti-globalization movement and it’s the most comprehensive look at modern imperialism and austerity politics I’ve ever read. I’d recc it to any activist working on modern imperialism tbh
Oh, and for the psychological impact of the treat economy on workers in the Imperial Core, it’s gotta be Society of the Spectacle
“Treat economy”? No no, it’s consumer-based economy :so-true:
Lenin’s ‘Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism’ discusses the process in its early stages and identifies what you could call ‘treat theory’, i.e the buying off of the western working class with some of the spoils of colonialism. I’d also second the person who recommended ‘The Jakarta Method’ because it shows how the west helped to violently crushed the third worldist movement via an anticommunist extermination campaign that was pivotal in ensuring that the treats kept flowing after the era of formal decolonisation
