Las venas abiertas de América Latina

This book truly is the sister of “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” Reading one is a requirement after reading the other, as they susinctly match and compliment the themes and overarching tales of exploitation from, sometimes, the same corporations in both continents.

Slaves stolen from both Africa and Latin America worked on planting and harvesting mono-cultured cash crops on both continents to feed Europe and the US. The most powerful countries on earth will do anything to maintain their stranglehold on the world's resources. Invasion, genocide, crippling economic sanctions, whatever it takes.

“Like sugarcane, cacao means monoculture, the burning of forests, the dictatorship of international prices, and perpetual penury for the workers. The plantation owners, who live on the Rio de Janeiro beaches and are more businessmen than farmers, do not permit a single inch of land to be devoted to other crops. Their managers normally pay wages in kind—jerked beef, flour, beans; when paid in cash, the peasant receives the equivalent of a liter of beer for a whole day's work, and must work a day and a half to buy a can of powdered milk.”

When your country's entire economy is based on the export of a handful of crops or mined minerals, a national economic collapse is merely a matter of when, not if. The international corporations deliberately play these under-developed countries off eachother to drive down the prices of the raw materials. And when a bust comes, the rich move on and the poor get shafted. Just like everywhere else.

Anything they call “international aid” is simply more tools of controlling these underdeveloped nations. They don't give money to help. They give it because they've sucked up too much wealth and need to help balance things out so the exploited countries don't collapse. Because if that happens, the resources run dry.

This is a fantastic book that I encourage anyone interested in understanding South America, the history of global capitalism, and the history of US Imperialism. Also read “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” immediately before or after reading this book.