For decades we have been told a story about the divide between rich countries and poor countries. We have been told that development is working- that the global South is catching up to the North, that poverty has been cut in half over the past thirty years, and will be eradicated by 2030. It's a comforting tale, and one that is endorsed by the world's most powerful governments and corporations. But is it true? Since 1960, the income gap between the North and South has roughly tripled in size. Today 4.3 billion people, 60 per cent of the world's population, live on less than $5 per day. Some 1 billion live on less than $1 a day. The richest eight people now control the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world combined. What is causing this growing divide? We are told that poverty is a natural phenomenon that can be fixed with aid. But in reality it is a political problem- poverty doesn't just exist, it has been created.Poor countries are poor because they are integrated into the global economic system on unequal terms. Aid only works to hide the deep patterns of wealth extraction that cause poverty and inequality in the first place- rigged trade deals, tax evasion, land grabs and the costs associated with climate change. The Divide tracks the evolution of this system, from the expeditions of Christopher Columbus in the 1490s to the international debt regime, which has allowed a handful of rich countries to control economic policies in the rest of the world. Because poverty is a political problem, it requires political solutions. The Divide offers a range of revelatory answers, but also explains that something much more radical is needed - a revolution in our way of thinking. Drawing on pioneering research, detailed analysis and years of first-hand experience, The Divide is a provocative, urgent and ultimately uplifting account of how the world works, and how it can change.
Show moreFor decades we have been told a story about the divide between rich countries and poor countries. We have been told that development is working- that the global South is catching up to the North, that poverty has been cut in half over the past thirty years, and will be eradicated by 2030. It's a comforting tale, and one that is endorsed by the world's most powerful governments and corporations. But is it true? Since 1960, the income gap between the North and South has roughly tripled in size. Today 4.3 billion people, 60 per cent of the world's population, live on less than $5 per day. Some 1 billion live on less than $1 a day. The richest eight people now control the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world combined. What is causing this growing divide? We are told that poverty is a natural phenomenon that can be fixed with aid. But in reality it is a political problem- poverty doesn't just exist, it has been created.Poor countries are poor because they are integrated into the global economic system on unequal terms. Aid only works to hide the deep patterns of wealth extraction that cause poverty and inequality in the first place- rigged trade deals, tax evasion, land grabs and the costs associated with climate change. The Divide tracks the evolution of this system, from the expeditions of Christopher Columbus in the 1490s to the international debt regime, which has allowed a handful of rich countries to control economic policies in the rest of the world. Because poverty is a political problem, it requires political solutions. The Divide offers a range of revelatory answers, but also explains that something much more radical is needed - a revolution in our way of thinking. Drawing on pioneering research, detailed analysis and years of first-hand experience, The Divide is a provocative, urgent and ultimately uplifting account of how the world works, and how it can change.
Show moreA groundbreaking account of global poverty and its solutions, and one of the most important books of today
Jason Hickel is an anthropologist at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is originally from Swaziland and spent a number of years living with migrant workers in South Africa, studying patterns of exploitation and political resistance in the wake of apartheid. Alongside his ethnographic work, he writes about global inequality, post-development and ecological economics, contributing regularly to the Guardian, Al Jazeera and other outlets. He serves on the Labour Party task force on international development, works as Policy Director for /The Rules collective, and sits on the Executive Board of Academics Stand Against Poverty. His work has been funded by the Fulbright-Hays Program, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Charlotte Newcombe Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust. He lives in London.
There’s no understanding global inequality without understanding
its history. In The Divide, Jason Hickel brilliantly lays it out,
layer upon layer, until you are left reeling with the outrage of it
all.
*Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics*
In this iconoclastic book, Jason Hickel shakes up the prevailing
paradigm of "development" at its root. He not only exposes the
fatal flaws in the standard model of development but also shows how
the "development aid" given to the poor countries in order to
promote that erroneous model is vastly outweighed by the resource
transferred to the rich countries through an unfair global economic
system. Many of the proposals that Hickel makes for institutional
reform and intellectual re-framing may sound "mad", as he himself
acknowledges, but history has taught us that mad ideas have the
habit of becoming respectable over time. This book will radically
change the way in which you understand the workings of the global
economic system and the challenges faced by poor countries trying
to advance within it.
*Ha-Joon Chang, University of Cambridge, author of 23 Things They
Don't Tell You About Capitalism and Economics: The User's
Guide*
This is a book that if our world is to have any chance of meeting
the challenges of the 21st century, people need to read. It
challenges so much received wisdom via a well-argued, flowing prose
that guides you through economic history, international trade,
colonialism, politics and power, and the limits to growth debate.
In setting out the reality of global inequality and its tangled
roots, Hickel, matador-like, destroys the statistical pivots used
by official agencies and unpicks their portrayal of an optimistic
account of the state of global poverty and inequality.
*Open Democracy*
With passion and panache, Jason Hickel tells a very different story
of why poverty exists, what progress is, and who we are. The Divide
is myth busting at its best. The West has controlled the rest
through colonization, coups, trade and debt. Poor countries are
made poor by this; but a dramatic change is coming.
*Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and the 1%*
Hickel masterfully weaves together the most radical currents in
political and economic thought to plot the course of global
development… I appreciated his ability to translate such a
disorienting amount of complex information into a clear, compelling
narrative. Hickel is one of the few academics taking
responsibilities as a public intellectual seriously, willing to ask
difficult questions that challenge and inform our political
discourse.
*Bright Green*
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