By Daniel Faber

Poverty, Injustice, and the Ecological Crisis

After WWII Central America was considered “underdeveloped” and was dependent on the markets of the “first world”

Regional exports were dominated by coffee and bananas

In the 1950’s America assumed a more active role in expanding dependent capitalist development in central America Alliance for Progress (1961): Aimed to promote

social and economic stability through the modernization, diversification, and the expansion of capitalist export industry.

The Capitalization of Nature

Gave oligarchs, bankers, and military officers power to take newly created wealthResulted in impoverishment that led to

revolutionary struggles in the 1970’s Promoted large-scale agriculture

Forests, wildlife habitat, and peasant communities were cleared away.

Alliance for Progress Results

Displaced peasants began working as wage laborers in cotton fields

Cattle ranching in Central America began to expand Ecologically disastrous

Forests destroyed to create pastureDeboned frozen beef became a major export

in the 1970’s

Export diversification (capitalist development) has intensified Central American dependency on the U.S. and international capital

Sectoral disarticulationIndustries that produce agricultural items (ex.

machines) and industries that produce items(ex. rope) from raw agricultural goods have not been developed in the processing of the primary commodities produced by the capitalist sector.

Disarticulated Development

Social Disarticulation The region possesses little consumption capacity

for commodities produced by the capitalist export sector.

Peasants and the working class are not sources of consumer demand

As a result the regions economy is very vulnerable to world market conditions

This condition is magnified by the smallness and openness of the region’s economy

Competition pushes firms to cut as many costs as possible. Usually pollution control is the first to go

Central American companies are fairly free of effective environmental and community health regulations. This allows industries to freely damage the environment

Costs become externalizedSome of the worst industries are coffee plants

and tanneries

Central America maintains its competitive place in the world market by minimizing the costs of labor

The health and safety of workers are neglected

Workers have no protective devices and are exposed to pesticides

Labor

Central America’s capitalist export sector reduces labor costs by maintaining the peasant subsistence sector. Part of the subsistence costs of hired labor are provided by unpaid family members who labor on subsistence plots. Therefore the capitalist sector offers wages lower than the cost of maintaining the worker.

Functional Dualism

The Creation of Migrant Workers

Involves the overdevelopment of the export sector and the underdevelopment of the subsistence sector that is revealed in the social and ecological impoverishment of peasantry

Peasants need for survival forces them to work as migratory laborers. The most important mechanism for the impoverishment of these peasants is land tenure

Functional Dualism

The harvest of export crops occurs in the dry season, when peasants are not cultivating their own crops. This means that peasant families can migrate and work while minimally affecting their own crops

This plays into functional dualism Typical wages of $1.25-$1.50 a dayHealth problems from functional dualism

includeMalnutritionEndemic parasite infestationInfectious diseases Work injuries Increased alcoholism, stress, and increased

STD’s

Relatively stable subsistence sectorThe development of a large, prosperous class

of family coffee farmersHigher incomes and better employment and

living standards for banana workers Small number of large-scale cotton growers

(less demand for labor)Fairly secure land titles and better services for

peasants More extensive agrarian reform programs Relatively low percent of agricultural

production is exported

Costa Rica and the Honduras

In functional dualism, peasants depend on adequate social and natural resources.

Central America’s peasants are denied access to state extension programs to promote sustainability (intercropping, organic fertilization, etc.) as well as to credit and social services.

Peasants respond to impoverishment by overexploiting natural resources

Peasant Resources

DeforestationDeclining fallow cyclesLand degradationSevere soil erosion Watershed destructionFish, wildlife, and wood shortagesDroughts and floods Studies have shown that farmers who own their

own land are more likely to practice conservation measures than those who rent or sharecrop

The Environment and Subsistence Production

In Guatemala the ecological and social crisis is being magnified by the army. The army has murdered citizens, eliminated villages, and destroyed forests and fields.

The marginalization of peasants is offset through migration.

In San Salvador, 75% of the population lives in illegal settlements.

Untreated sewage, protein shortages, low standard of living

Other Peasant Issues

After the revolution, women in the work force dramatically dropped

Woman are especially burdenedRaising animals, preparing food,

gathering wood and water, shopping for food, helping with farming.

The poorer families become, the larger they becomeChildren are needed for labor Insurance against infant mortalityCan protect parents who are

disabled, old, or unemployed

Gender Roles

Designed to maintain control over populations in order to meet labor requirements

To maintain the myth that poverty is created and reproduced by the oppressed themselves

Sponsored by the U.S. (tens of millions) Population control or controlling the

population? Some forced sterilization

Population Control

Changes to popular organizationsTrade unionsFarmer associationsWomen and student groups

Need toRespect human rightsGenuine democratization of the state in terms

of broad-based participationEconomic reform and a just distribution of land

and natural resourcesA foreign policy of nonalignmentAn end to U.S. military and economic

intervention

Proposed Solutions

Agrarian reform: redistribution of export estate land to bring farmers off marginal lands (eroded hillsides)

Environmental and social restorationReforestation, toxic cleanup, habitat

recuperation, watershed protection, Government promotion of appropriate

technology and land use Public investment is social programs

Proposed Solutions

International support for radical ecologyForeign help in reconstruction efforts Regulation of transnational corporations and

financial institutions Promotion of food self-reliancePrice supports for primary commodities Accountability of private and multilateral

lenders to environmental and social concernsOverall transformation of disarticulated

capitalist development

Proposed Solutions