The Human and Planetary Toll of 'Protecting Our Interests'

The reach of Western governments in undermining democratic socialism is far and wide.

Democratic socialism isn’t rare, but it is a threat to Western interests

Last week I published the final piece in a three-part series titled ‘Imagination and Possibility’. The series looked at the times that degrowth-aligned policies have been implemented around the world, proving that such policies are possible and very often beneficial for those involved. I finished the last piece with a primer about today’s article: that it would be disingenuous not to cover off the many times that a socialist government was democratically elected by a Global South nation, only to be undermined by Western governments.

In this piece I specifically look at interventions after the onset of the decolonial movement and the wave of independence of global South countries from the 1950’s onwards. I draw on the work of economic anthropologist, Jason Hickel, throughout this piece, specifically from his book The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions, which I highly recommend reading if you get the chance.

The world’s most sustainable country isn’t an anomaly, it’s an exception to imperialism

Costa Rica is ranked number one on the Sustainable Development Index. It achieves high levels of human wellbeing with very low resource usage. It does this because of its commitment to “universalism: the principle that everyone – regardless of income – should have equal access to generous, high-quality social services as a basic right”.

According to Jason Hickel, this wasn’t a strange, unprecedented move by Costa Rica. The move towards universalism was actually quite widespread, meaning we could have potentially had many more nations high on the sustainable development index:

Costa Rica wasn’t alone in this effort, of course. Progressive governments elsewhere in Latin America made similar moves, but in nearly every case the US violently intervened to stop them for fear that “communist” ideas might scupper American interests in the region. Costa Rica escaped this fate by outwardly claiming to be anti-communist and – horribly – allowing US-backed forces to use the country as a base in the contra war against Nicaragua. (Emphasis mine).

The dominant economic system we see in the world today isn’t ‘human nature’ and we don’t find ourselves here by ‘accident’ or due to ‘poor planning’. It is the work of a very small percentage of the world’s population who are looking to gain from the exploitation and domination of others.

From colonisation to imperialism

In the 1950s and 1960s many countries of the global South began to free themselves from the shackles of colonization and set forward on a path of self-determination - albeit mostly under a very Westernized model of development - and it was working. They were ‘catching-up’ with the global North. This represented a problem to ‘the centre’ of the global economy who feared they would lose access to the lands and other resources of these nations as well as the markets in which to sell their goods. What followed over many decades was a series of “Western-backed interventions” (coups) to ensure that these periphery nations remained friendly to western interests, including: 

Iran

The closest Iran has ever come to a democratically elected Prime Minister was Mohammad Mossadegh. He implemented progressive policies such unemployment compensation and benefits for sick and injured workers. He raised taxes on the wealthy to pay for rural development. As a result of a lack of cooperation with the Iranian government as Mossadegh sought to renegotiate ownership of their oil reserves, the Iranian Parliament unanimously voted to nationalise the assets of British owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP).

The British government, led by Winston Churchill, was not impressed and enlisted the help of the US. Operation Ajax was born. Rather than a direct military coup, which risked provoking war, the British and CIA had to work covertly. In August 1953 they paid politicians to whip up anti-government sentiment and hired crowds to protest against Mossadegh, making him look unpopular. They convinced the military to jail Mossadegh and the Western-friendly monarchy, Shah of Iran, was restored. The Shah governed Iran for the next 26 years while Mossadegh spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

Guatemala

After a popular revolution against a military dictator, Jorge Ubico, who handed over large tracts of fertile land to the US’s United Fruit Company (UFC), much of it stolen from indigenous Mayan people, Guatemalans democratically elected Juan José Arévalo into power in 1945. Arévalo implemented many pro-poor policies, including a minimum wage. He stood down in 1951 and his successor Jacobo Árbenz was voted into power. Árbenz continued the progressive policies of Arévalo, and sought to renationalise large tracts of unused private land, and redistribute it to poor people who had suffered under Ubico so they could provide for themselves using the land. The United Fruit Company owned 450,000 acres of land that was earmarked for redistribution and the UFC was not content with being fully compensated for this land. Instead, they lobbied the US government to overthrow Árbenz.

In 1954 the head of the CIA and his brother - who had both been on the payroll of the UFC for 38 years - implemented Operation PBSUCCESS, where they:

bombed the capital, toppled Árbenz and installed a military dictator Carlos Castillo Armas in his place, putting an end to ten hopeful years of democracy in Guatemala. The new government quickly deregulated foreign investment, reversed the policies of the Árbenz era, and proceeded to imprison thousands of the regime’s critics. Guatemala was ruled by a series of military dictatorships - all with US support - until 1996. During that time, the regime continued to force indigenous Mayans off their land, and Guatemala came to have one of the highest poverty rates in the Western hemisphere. When opposition arose, it was brutally suppressed: some 200,000 Mayans were killed for resisting the land grabs.

Source: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions, Jason Hickel p.118

Congo

With the outbreak of the Cold War, the US and its Western allies were concerned about African nations having control over their resources (including uranium) for fear they would end up in the hands of their enemies. In this regard, Patrice Lumumba, democratically elected to be Congo’s first post-independence leader, who wanted to nationalise the countries resources and use them to improve the wellbeing of Congo’s citizens, represented a threat to the West.

After just seven months in office, in January 1961, Lumumba was murdered, “brought down by a combination of Congolese politicians and Belgian ‘advisers’, with the tacit support of the United States and the malign neglect of the United Nations.” Lumumba’s murder has been described as the “most important assassination of the 20th century" because of the role Lumumba played in the African anti-imperialist movement, the impact that his murder had on the future of the Congolese people, and the global context in which it took place. The assassination was brutal and had long-lasting ramifications for Congolese people:

Lumumba was shot, chopped to pieces and burned to ashes in a barrel. In his place, Western governments installed the military officer Mobutu Sese Seko, one of the world’s most notorious dictators, who went on to command the country for nearly forty years with support of aid from the US, France and Belgium, most of which he siphoned into his own offshore accounts. During Mobutu’s long reign, per capita income in the Congo, which he renamed Zaire, declined at an average 2.2 per cent each year – an extraordinary collapse. The Congolese experienced poverty on a scale even worse than they had known under colonial rule.

Source: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions, Jason Hickel p.122

In 2022, the Belgium government gave back to the Democratic Republic of Congo the only thing that remained of Patrice Lumumba, a tooth.

Brazil

Democratically elected Brazilian president, João Goulart, implemented policies that would help the poor, including land reforms and nationalising the petroleum refining industry. He taxed multinational corporations, provided adult education to the poor and extended voting rights to illiterate people. US telecommunications giant, ITT Corporation feared a plan to nationalise the industry in Brazil would take hold across South America. In 1964, under Operation Brother Sam the US backed a military coup that disposed Goulart and supported a western-friendly military dictatorship for 21 years. Much of the gains in poverty reduction were reversed and any political dissidents were tortured and/or assassinated.

Indonesia

After gaining independence from Dutch rule, President Sukarno began to implement classic developmentalist policies, including protecting the economy from cheaper imports, redistribution of wealth to the poor and removal of foreign interference in domestic policy. He also looked to nationalise Indonesian assets, such as the oil and rubber industries, from American and European corporations.

In 1965, the head of the Indonesian military, General Suharto, lead a coup with the support of the CIA. What followed was “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century”, with 500,000 - one million people killed with the help of US intelligence and weapons. General Suharto took control of the country in 1967, after Sukarno’s base has been “eliminated or intimidated into submission”. Suharto and his western-friendly military regime ruled until 1998. As Jason Hickel describes in The Divide, this mass murder was reported rather differently in the US media:

Time magazine famously described the political transformation of the 1960s as ‘the West’s best news for years in Asia’.

Source: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions, Jason Hickel p.120

There’s more …

While I have gone into some depth in five instances of Western imperialism above, there’s many, many more examples I could have covered. In fact, there are “55 mostly democratically-elected governments that the US has helped topple since the second world war”. Fifty-five. From Chile to Uganda, Cuba to Cameroon, Ghana to the Dominican Republic and so many places in between, the imperialist reach of the West seemingly knows no bounds.

The coups ended, but the imperialism didn’t

By the 1980s the Global North, and the US in particular, changed strategy and realised they could continue to achieve their objectives while avoiding many of the violent coups (although not entirely). Instead, they stacked the IMF and World bank in their favour and to this day, through a process of economic imperialism, they pull the strings of the global financial system, promoting privatisation of essential industries, austerity to reduce social spending, deregulation and other pro-business policies. The lack of autonomy over domestic policy and the handcuffs of international debt continue to restrict Global South countries from being able to implement policies that help them meet the needs of their citizens with the lightest ecological footprint.

Only systemic change is enough

If we are to realise a degrowth - rather than a collapse - future, we need to be aware of the power dynamics that are at play and how they have shaped the world in which we see today. These forces can be ruthless in ‘protecting their interests’ stopping at nothing to ensure their continued access to resources, markets and ultimately profits and wealth. Becoming aware of just how harmful the current system is, and has long been, is a necessary step in the process of creating a new world.

The positives we can take from the above examples of Western imperialism are how many times a socialist government has been democratically elected. This is encouraging because eco-socialism is our path towards a planet that isn’t on the brink of ecological collapse. It is also helpful to remember, as we push towards systemic change, that this economic model is full of cracks, cracks that can be prized open, creating space for a new system to emerge. One with people and the planet at the heart of it, not profits and growth.

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An excellent article on a similar theme is this one, ‘History Does In Fact Exist’ by

Nate Bear

on his

¡Do Not Panic!

Substack.

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If you this piece resonates with you, you may like some of my other articles: