Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Colonialism Never Died: Puerto Rico's Economic Crisis Made in the USA

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Colonialism Never Died: Puerto Rico's Economic Crisis Made in the USA

Click here to access article by Danny Haiphong from Global Independent Analytics.

Following a brief history of the island and its resistance to US colonialism, Haiphong examines the impoverishment of the island as result of privatization and other capitalist policies.

...colonialism was never truly eradicated from the global picture. African revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah fathered the theory of neo-colonialism to explain this phenomenon. Nkrumah described neo-colonialism as a form of indirect, but no less exploitative, form of colonial domination where a native ruling class administers the plunder of a country on behalf of the former colonizer. One country, Puerto Rico, has remained a colony of the US imperial state.

Today, the people of Puerto Rico are facing a devastating economic crisis made in the USA. To understand the crisis in Puerto Rico, we must look into its root causes.