Syrian refugee children, having escaped the horrors of
Apocalypse Syria, are being used in Turkish sweatshops to produce garments for,
among others, the UK store Marks & Spencer.
This is just part of the global Cannibal Economy.
I posted a blog a while ago on the Tat Economy (see blog
202.) We also have the Cannibal Economy. Simply put, in the absence of real
industry and healthy agriculture, the advantaged feed off the disadvantaged.
Slavery, child
pornography and people trafficking, elements of the Cannibal Economy, are in
the ascendancy. Social structures implode as short term gain is put before general economic well-being. Here in the UK 1930s style worker
exploitation is back in fashion (see blog 174. Zero Hours is not a contract).
Ironic, isn’t it, that the gutter press in Britain spent so
little time on the issue of abused refugee children in Turkish sweatshops. Meanwhile
they sneer about whether migrant children, belatedly brought here from
Calais, are the correct age!
Anyway…
The Cannibal Economy is the dreg end of that thing we grew
up with and worship via the TV, now via internet devices, via advertising and
which people unconsciously fuel through gambling, multiple cheap holidays
abroad that wreck the environment, cars that do the same etc. It is the monster of
rampant capitalism.
Out of control capitalism eventually eats itself. In the
race to exploit for profit all engines of human existence, all means of
production, all natural instincts, there comes a point where the only thing
left to devour – economically – is people. Economic Cannibalism.
We should not be surprised that for some, the Syrian Exodus
is just another opportunity for personal gain. Just as some people see a
vulnerable child and their first thought is their own sexual gratification.
Here in the UK, politicians, like many across the rest of
Europe - focus on short term populism because a headline means more to them
than the long-term prosperity of the country they are supposed to serve.
Like ‘Sir’ Philip Green (see blog 185. Does Sir Philip Green Kick Disabled Kittens in his spare time?)
many running the companies we know on our high-streets do not see age old
institutions that employ people. They don’t think of humans like themselves who
need to pay bills (or unlike the owners – pay taxes) feed and clothe their
families. No. These predators simply see human fodder. People they can feed
off. The fact that this may mean trashing the lives of thousands upon
thousands of other humans doesn’t enter their equation. They do not care.
As long as they get another yacht.
But African farmers growing flowers to be shipped across
the globe for western houses when those fields could be used to grow food is
also Economic Cannibalism. Ditto tobacco.
Women and children chained to tables in factories with bars
on the windows in India to make cheap throw-away items for the West is Economic
Cannibalism.
Here in the UK the government is serious about more airport capacity because money is more important than clean air.
Fracking has been given the green (excuse the pun) light
because profit is more important than the environment (see blog 194. Beside myself beside the sea)
Pharmaceutical companies making Viagra instead of
concentrating on a cure for Malaria is Economic Cannibalism. (see blog 97.)
Zero Hours contracts right here in the UK, allowing
employers to by-pass legislation set in place to protect workers’ rights, is
Economic Cannibalism.
And so on and so forth.
Counter-intuitively, this barbaric inequality allows the
likes of Trump and Farage to flourish. Because when things get desperate,
humans have a strange habit of blaming – not the people at the top but folk who
– like them – are being exploited. Other struggling families, migrants, black
people. Here in the UK many in the Polish community are having a hard time.
Anyone who looks or sounds different is a scapegoat.
But you don’t hear of bankers
being abused in the street or being the recipients of nasty comments as I was
in the days after the Referendum. And what are the banks doing right now? Decanting
out of the UK faster than warm shit off a shovel. Latest figures suggest upcoming 70,000
redundancies as banks exit and that is not counting the related
service industry jobs that will also go.
Let’s just remind ourselves – as it’s not such a hot topic
as migrants – that the UK treasury bailed out the banks after their criminal
activities to the tune of billions of pounds. We were told they were too
important to the UK economy to fail. Well now the good times are over they are
leaving.
The Cannibal Economy is eating us alive. Vulnerable Syrian
refugee children hijacked on their escape from hell, are just the latest
manifestation.
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