A review by archytas
Drug War Capitalism by Dawn Paley
4.0
I picked this up on the recommendation of a friend to better understand the dynamics underpinning the horrific escalation in violence in Central America in the last two decades. Paley's analysis is a macro one: a depressing but believable tale of (state) violence begetting (paramilitary) violence and of private armies whose main mining company employers turn a blind eye to extortion and drug running on the side. Paley documents a blurring of state, corporation and gang, all underpinned by "War on Drugs" funding and arms designed and used more to protect the interests of multinationals than to limit drug running.
Paley takes both a historic and a geographic approach to this, tracking the investment of US Military funds into Mexico, Colombia and to a lesser extent Honduras and Guatemala, from the 1980s through to the early 2010s. She looks at the large scale changes in agriculture that occurred over this period - the heart of her argument for 'why' - including the shift from food-crops to cash-crops (of which illegal crops are the most lucrative) and the push away from crops altogether in resource-rich areas where mines, dams and other infrastructure is built and villages cleared out. In effect, she argues that this large scale transformation involves the destruction of the livelihoods and land ownership of millions of peasants, and is enforced through systemic, unfathomable violence.
Far from being enacted by strong state actors, she argues this violence is largely coming from a loose coalition of military, paramilitary and gangs - with individuals and arms moving between these organisations. What started as a contra movement, where training was exclusively provided by the USA Military, has grown and morphed into a much more self-sustaining system, which now includes forced land removals for the purposes of cartel military training camps, for example.
For evidence, Paley largely tracks the financial involvement of major capital in the drug trade - one of the more head-slapping examples is that of HSBC, which widened the teller windows of local banks to better accept the boxes of cash the bank laundered. She also points to detailed work by many academics showing that violence follows military deployment, rather than the other way around. Several cases are detailed in which mass killings, rapes and torture were ultimately revealed to be the work of the military directly, as well as examples of collusion between cartels and the military.
"Your blinders must be security fastened in order to miss the connection between the mass deployment of police and soldiers in order to fight against internal enemies and systematic murders among poor and marginalized populations ... Our estimates display a distinct, asymmetric pattern: when U.S. military aid increases, attacks by paramilitaries, who are known to work with the military, increase more in municipalities with bases."
The phenomenon described here, however, seems to have grown beyond the direct needs of capital. As the strength of the illegal groups grows - many towns have little law enforcement outside of the cartels - so does lucrative new income opportunities. Extortion and kidnapping are among these growth 'boom' industries, as is the domination now by cartels of the northward immigration routes.
One thing that caught my attention in all this is the increasing economic significance of undocumented migrants within the USA. The migrant kidnapping trade - in which migrants are held hostage until US-based relatives cough up a few thousand for a ransom - is entirely built on the relative economic privilege of US-based workers, and Paley mentions in passing that many Honduran villages - unable since NAFTA to sell food crops at a profit - are now entirely dependent on the income sent home from those based in the USA.
There is a lot to chew on here, most of which is still slightly fuzzy in my head. Reading in the midst of a resurgent Black Lives Matter movement, it is almost unescapable how much of this could be solved by defunding and de-escalating the conflict by cutting the arms supply. However, Paley's analysis is quite focused on Mexico and Colombia and also resides mainly at tracking money paths. I am keen to follow up with more journalistic accounts of how drug and state actors are entwined, to understand a slice of depth as well as the breadth that is presented here.
Paley takes both a historic and a geographic approach to this, tracking the investment of US Military funds into Mexico, Colombia and to a lesser extent Honduras and Guatemala, from the 1980s through to the early 2010s. She looks at the large scale changes in agriculture that occurred over this period - the heart of her argument for 'why' - including the shift from food-crops to cash-crops (of which illegal crops are the most lucrative) and the push away from crops altogether in resource-rich areas where mines, dams and other infrastructure is built and villages cleared out. In effect, she argues that this large scale transformation involves the destruction of the livelihoods and land ownership of millions of peasants, and is enforced through systemic, unfathomable violence.
Far from being enacted by strong state actors, she argues this violence is largely coming from a loose coalition of military, paramilitary and gangs - with individuals and arms moving between these organisations. What started as a contra movement, where training was exclusively provided by the USA Military, has grown and morphed into a much more self-sustaining system, which now includes forced land removals for the purposes of cartel military training camps, for example.
For evidence, Paley largely tracks the financial involvement of major capital in the drug trade - one of the more head-slapping examples is that of HSBC, which widened the teller windows of local banks to better accept the boxes of cash the bank laundered. She also points to detailed work by many academics showing that violence follows military deployment, rather than the other way around. Several cases are detailed in which mass killings, rapes and torture were ultimately revealed to be the work of the military directly, as well as examples of collusion between cartels and the military.
"Your blinders must be security fastened in order to miss the connection between the mass deployment of police and soldiers in order to fight against internal enemies and systematic murders among poor and marginalized populations ... Our estimates display a distinct, asymmetric pattern: when U.S. military aid increases, attacks by paramilitaries, who are known to work with the military, increase more in municipalities with bases."
The phenomenon described here, however, seems to have grown beyond the direct needs of capital. As the strength of the illegal groups grows - many towns have little law enforcement outside of the cartels - so does lucrative new income opportunities. Extortion and kidnapping are among these growth 'boom' industries, as is the domination now by cartels of the northward immigration routes.
One thing that caught my attention in all this is the increasing economic significance of undocumented migrants within the USA. The migrant kidnapping trade - in which migrants are held hostage until US-based relatives cough up a few thousand for a ransom - is entirely built on the relative economic privilege of US-based workers, and Paley mentions in passing that many Honduran villages - unable since NAFTA to sell food crops at a profit - are now entirely dependent on the income sent home from those based in the USA.
There is a lot to chew on here, most of which is still slightly fuzzy in my head. Reading in the midst of a resurgent Black Lives Matter movement, it is almost unescapable how much of this could be solved by defunding and de-escalating the conflict by cutting the arms supply. However, Paley's analysis is quite focused on Mexico and Colombia and also resides mainly at tracking money paths. I am keen to follow up with more journalistic accounts of how drug and state actors are entwined, to understand a slice of depth as well as the breadth that is presented here.