Unequal exchange can only be fought at the country-level, not through individual buying patterns or actions.
The root problem is how to reverse the value being captured in global value chains by northern firms / states, and how poorer countries can escape the low wage trap enforced on them by northern monopsonies.
The only country that has found a way out of the trap, is China, by having a communist party have state control over production, and using a series of long-term strategies to integrate into the global economy, accept low wages for a time, in exchange for technological expertise (known as the bargain). Many other global south countries have been doing everything they can to better the situation for their workers and states, but haven’t been able to under the political framework and structures set up under bourgeios democracy.
The strategies employed by Deng Xiaoping and the other theorists of SWCC (socialism with chinese characteristics), are bringing an end to US imperialism, and unequal exchange, and we are finally seeing the fruits of their efforts.
The belt and road initiative is yet another strategy to end northern monopsonies, rebuild trade networks among the countries of the global south again.
I fully believe that the primary contradiction of our age is the inequality between rich and poor nations, kept that way by US imperialism. If the Chinese experiment succeeds, Deng Xiaoping should be added as the 6th head of Marxism for saving the world from the self-destructive course the Euro-amerikkkans set us on in the 20th century.
A great article explaining SWCC and it’s scope.
