The 'Protagonist'

To roll out structural adjustment programs across the Global South These are programs that are basically designed to forcibly liberalize markets And so, they privatize public assets, they cut social spending and healthcare and education, they cut tariffs and subsidies and protections, they cut protections on labor and the environment and so on This is really where the story of poverty and inequality in the modern period comes into its own Third worlds still bleed, "free markets" succeed Stripping foreign homes of all that they need Then we hand them a dire slave wage And a new band-aid for the arm we chopped off We've claimed, for this, the "protagonist" Who consolidates all wealth in one place Then misportray and manipulate Statistics that say their poverty's waned They beg for air, but we tell them straight back To pick their own selves up by their own bootstraps They work to the bone but they're going no where While we dig them a well so we can call it square ​You know we knew that when we loaned them debt They'd never, for once, be able to pay back On with the lies, capitalist guise Exploiting that which was nationalized To neoliberate their resource, their wage, their water, & trade Their decline, our gain From far away, we again have the say colonizing-this time with the bank I can see you & I hear you as if you're near me Although the distance is so far from me Despite all the lies we told, You will have the day you're owed And all that we needlessly consumed Will soon return to haunt us Return to haunt us Needlessly consume Return to haunt us We play the savior While we're holding them down Recommended Reading: The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets by Jason Hickel