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30 Mar, 4 tweets, 2 min read
I'm excited to announce the new update of the Sustainable Development Index. Costa Rica tops the list this time, with a life expectancy over 80 (!) and low levels of emissions and resource use. sustainabledevelopmentindex.org
A few notable developments since the 2015 data:

1. The number of countries reaching over 0.8 (“very high”) has increased from 8 to 12.

2. Bolivia is a standout performer, with a significant improvement in life expectancy (2.7 years) lifting it into the top 20.
3. Côte d'Ivoire achieved the biggest jump in SDI, driven by a significant improvement in life expectancy (4.7 years).

4. Cuba has moved from 1st to 9th place, as a change in the World Bank’s methodology for estimating Cuba’s PPP income led to a significant downward revision.
Here is the underlying paper: sciencedirect.com/science/articl… (and a free PDF is available here: jasonhickel.org/s/Hickel-The-S…)

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More from @jasonhickel

Jason Hickel Profile picture
1 Apr
For every $1 of aid the global South receives, they lose $14 through unequal exchange with the North. Poor countries are developing rich countries, not the other way around.
Here is the research: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… (and here is a free PDF: jasonhickel.org/s/Hickel-et-al…)
These results indicate that charity is not an effective mechanism for development or poverty reduction. What the South needs is fairer wages for their labour and fairer prices for their resources, on which the global economy depends.
Read 4 tweets
Jason Hickel Profile picture
31 Mar
This is a wildly incorrect take. To claim that post-growth research is somehow against development in the global South is false, as would be clear from even a cursory reading of the literature.
Degrowth critiques are specifically directed at high levels of energy and resource use in the global North, which are vastly in excess of human need and entail ecological damage that harms the South disproportionately.
Read 4 tweets
Jason Hickel Profile picture
31 Mar
I had the privilege of reading an advance copy of this book by Max Ajl, which is out in May. I highly recommend it. It's hands down the most compelling, most radical take yet on the Green New Deal. Pre-order the book here and follow @maxajl. plutobooks.com/9780745341750/…
"Courageous, bold, refreshing - Max Ajl pushes the horizons of progressive thought and envisions an ecosocialist transition that is rooted in principles of global justice. The struggle against climate breakdown is ultimately a struggle against the forces of colonization..."
"...If we are not attentive to this fact, then we have missed the point."
Read 5 tweets
Jason Hickel Profile picture
31 Mar
I'm thrilled about this new paper, which is our tribute to Samir Amin. We estimate drain from the global South through unequal exchange, and find that it totaled $62 trillion over the period 1960-2018, or $152 trillion accounting for lost growth. Thread: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
In 2018, the the global North (here we use the IMF's ‘advanced economies’ category) appropriated drain from the South worth $2.2 trillion — enough to end extreme poverty 15 times over.
Over the past few years, drain from the global South has outstripped the flow of aid by a factor of 14. In other words, for every $1 the South receives in aid it loses $14 through unequal exchange.
Read 7 tweets
Jason Hickel Profile picture
29 Mar
It is impossible to separate the history of capitalism from colonialism and the European slave trade. They are co-extensive. Colonialism was the mechanism by which most of the world was roped into the Europe-centered capitalist economy. We need to face up to this fact.
We like to think that capitalism is about "markets". But markets existed for thousands of years before capitalism. The history of capitalism is defined not by markets but by appropriation.
This can be difficult for people in the global North to grasp. But for most of the global South, for the better part of 500 years, the encounter with capitalism was experienced as invasion, genocide, enslavement and dispossession.
Read 5 tweets
Jason Hickel Profile picture
28 Mar
This graph has been used to claim that virtually all of humanity, for all of history, was destitute until the 19th century, when colonialism and capitalism came to the rescue. But, according to new research, the long-term trend is empirically baseless. jasonhickel.org/blog/2021/3/28…
In Annual Review of Economics, Allen argues that high extreme poverty rates in the 20th century are not a baseline state but a modern phenomenon, induced by colonialism. In late colonial Asia, extreme poverty was driven to levels higher than under 13th century serfdom.
The story of extreme poverty is not a one-way street. Extreme poverty likely increased during periods of enclosure and colonization, before finally declining with the rise of labour movements, democracy and decolonization.
Read 5 tweets

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