Zeitgeist
Addendum
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Zeitgeist: Addendum - Part Two - Page 5
This is the fifth page of part two in my series of articles on Zeitgeist: Addendum. Please refer to the introduction if you were lead to this page.
[Narration]
This process of manipulation by the corporatocracy through the use of debt, bribery
and political overthrow is called "globalization." Just as the Federal
Reserve keeps the American public in a position of indentured servitude through
perpetual debt, inflation and interest, the World Bank and IMF serve this role on a global scale.
Globalization is a word which covers a broad spectrum of life here on earth. It involves the further integration of economies, societies, cultures, networks, investments, trade, and so forth. The Internet is a form of globalization because it's further pushing Eurocentrism and Americanism down the throats of everyone around the world[50]. Exploitation does indeed happen through organizations such as the World Bank and IMF, however none of what the economic hit man stated had anything to do with the World Bank or IMF. There are much better examples, such as Bolivia, that could have been cited but weren't.
Further, once again, Zeitgeist essentially claims that America would somehow be a utopia without the Federal Reserve, but I have already shown otherwise. More countries have been exploited by military operations of their neighbors and the CIA than have ever been exploited by the World Bank and IMF, which is probably why Perkins only mentioned countries like that.
The basic scam is simple. Put a country in debt either by its own indiscretion or through corrupting the leader of that country, then impose conditionalities, or Structural Adjustment Policies, often consisting of the following:
This kind of exploitation typically happened in South America during the 1970s and 1980s but somewhat continues today.
1) Currency Devaluation. When the value of a currency drops, so does everything valued in it. This makes indigenous resources available to predator countries, at a fraction of their worth.
This primarily happened due to the instability in the economies and countries there in, but these instabilities were indeed exploited by American corporations.
2) Large funding cuts for Social Programs. These usually include education and health care, compromising the well-being and integrity of the society, leaving the public vulnerable to exploitation.
As I mentioned previously, a part of various stipulations with the World Bank and IMF is the requirement that the government be downsized and much of it privatized (see below). Interestingly enough, many supporters of Zeitgeist and conspiracy movements love individuals like Ron Paul and the Libertarian party who essentially want to do the same thing, nothing but privatized health care and education in the United States, but it's only exploitation when it's done some place else.
3) Privatization of state-owned enterprises. This means that socially important systems can be purchased and regulated by foreign corporations, for profit. For example, in 1999, the World Bank insisted that the Bolivian government sell the public water system of its third largest city to a subsidy of the US corporation, Bechtel. As soon as this occurred, water bills for the already impoverish local residents skyrocketed. It wasn't until after a full blown revolt by the people that the Bechtel contract was nullified.
I talked about Bolivia and Bechtel previously. However Bechtel wasn't the only company which signed a contract with Bolivia, it was also the British company Biwater that did as well[51].
4) Then there is trade liberalization, or the opening up of the economy through removing any restrictions on foreign trade. This allows for a number of abusive economic manifestations, such as transnational corporations bringing in their own mass produced products, undercutting the indigenous production and ruining local economies. An example is Jamaica, which, after accepting loans and conditionalities from the World Bank, lost its largest cash crop markets due to competition with western imports. Today, countless farmers are out of work, for they are unable to compete with the large corporations.
Removing all trade restrictions is another thing Ron Paul/Libertarians also support. Jamaica suffered loss via competition due to NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), not the World Bank[52][53].
Another variation is the creation of numerous, seemingly unnoticed, unregulated, inhumane sweatshop factories, which take advantage of the imposed economic hardship. Additionally, due to production deregulation, environmental destruction is perpetual, as a country's resources are often exploited by the indifferent corporations, while outputting large amounts of deliberate pollution.
These have been common in countries since the industrial revolution. Prior to the labor movement, they existed in the United States as well.