"Meet the new
boss/Same as the old boss" This line from that kick-ass Who
song "Won't Get Fooled Again" just keeps playing in my mind as I
watch coverage of the G8 summit. I also can't get out of my head the
definition of colonialism we all learned in grade school: "A system
designed to extract wealth from the colony and transfer it to the mother
country."
Three bottom line questions:
1. Aren't the major G8 powers
essentially the same countries which ran the world during the period of 19th
and 20th century colonialism?
2. Can we assume that there
has been no major evolution in human ethics since then which would now
inhibit the economically powerful from exploiting the weak?
3. Hasn't the income and
wealth inequality between the Western powers and the former colonies been
steadily increasing since the end of the formal colonial era?
I believe the answer to all
three questions is yes.
Despite all the talk at Genoa
about free trade and helping the poor, it is the extraction and transfer of
wealth which remains as both goal and result. Meet the new boss, same
as the old boss indeed.
