We are connected on a planetary scale. All our resources, our infrastructure, our food, energy, clothing, our electronic devices, almost everything human-made that we see around us, contains some component that someone from somewhere else has worked on. Our economy is global. It affects not only every human but also every animal, our climate and every aspect of our environment. Understanding it is absolutely essential if we want to end unnecessary human suffering and avoid environmental collapse.
Yet the workings of the global economy now seem more hidden and confusing than ever. We sometimes get smacked round the face with headlines about factory collapses in Bangladesh, child labour in cobalt mines, toxic waste dumping in west Africa, indigenous peoples being displaced from their land, or suicidal Foxconn working conditions in China, but the reporting rarely joins the dots between them in a meaningful way, and that usually leads to us wanting to crawl under the duvet and hide.
But it is the underlying structures of our world economy that connect all these things. Looking under the hood to see how the global economy really works, getting to grips with its systemic inequalities and its relations of power, might not be pretty but it is a precondition for designing a better one – one that delivers a good life for everyone while respecting our ecological limits.
