Open Veins of Latin America

In: Monthly review: an independent socialist magazine, Band 25, Heft 4, S. 28-36

Abstract

Ever since the Renaissance in Europe, Latin America has been a region of open veins. Its human & natural resources have been systematically & continually transmuted into European, & later US, capital. Production methods & class structures have been determined by outside forces. Each sub-area has been assigned a function according to priorities decided in foreign business circles. The chain of dependency in Latin America also included the oppression of small countries by their larger neighbors, & within nations, the exploitation by the Ur centers of the internal sources of food & labor. Latin America's underdevelopment has been an integral part of the history of world capitalism's advanced development. The region's wealth has generated its own poverty by nourishing the prosperity of outsiders. The growing disparity between underdevelopment & development attests to the fact that imperialism's strength as a whole rests on the necessary inequality of its parts. Restricted industrialization which has come late & coexists with gross structural inequality, has merely spread unemployment & extended poverty while concentrating wealth. Imperialists blame the under-settled region's problems on an alleged population explosion, & propose to relieve hunger by eliminating Latin Americans. Since the superficial tranquility & security of the existing order is built on injustice & daily humiliation, perpetuation of the existing conditions means prolongation of a crime. The recovery of Latin America's resources that have historically been usurped will allow its people to regain command of their destiny. A. Karmen.