“Despite a vast diversity of cultures, languages, ethnicity, and geography, the nations of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, with some exceptions, show striking similarities in the economic and political realities they endure. Lumped together under the designation of the “Third World,” they are characterized by concentrated ownership of land, labor, capital, natural resources, and technology in the hands of rich persons and giant multinational corporations; suppressive military forces financed, trained, equipped, and assisted by the United States—their function being not to protect the populace from foreign invasion but to protect the small wealthy owning class and foreign investors from the populace; the population, aside from a small middle class, endure impoverishment, high illiteracy rates, malnutrition, wretched housing, and nonexistent human services. Because of this widespread poverty, these nations have been mistakenly designated as “underdeveloped” and “poor” when in fact they are over-exploited and the source of great wealth, their resources and cheap labor serving to enrich investors. Only their people remain poor.” - Parenti.
My favorite paragraph from Inventing Reality
“Despite a vast diversity of cultures, languages, ethnicity, and geography, the nations of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, with some exceptions, show striking similarities in the economic and political realities they endure. Lumped together under the designation of the “Third World,” they are characterized by concentrated ownership of land, labor, capital, natural resources, and technology in the hands of rich persons and giant multinational corporations; suppressive military forces financed, trained, equipped, and assisted by the United States—their function being not to protect the populace from foreign invasion but to protect the small wealthy owning class and foreign investors from the populace; the population, aside from a small middle class, endure impoverishment, high illiteracy rates, malnutrition, wretched housing, and nonexistent human services. Because of this widespread poverty, these nations have been mistakenly designated as “underdeveloped” and “poor” when in fact they are over-exploited and the source of great wealth, their resources and cheap labor serving to enrich investors. Only their people remain poor.” - Parenti.