Life and Debt

This film, though somewhat simplistic and emotional (for obvious reasons), does an excellent job of conveying to a broad audience some of the negative effects of globalization on a small, developing economy like that of Jamaica. One often hears critiques of international capitalism and the lending policies of the IMF and World Bank, but in most cases the criticism lacks pertinent examples of the direct impacts of globalization, or fails to make an effective case for why we should care. This film manages to do both, by providing relevant facts (increases in national debt over time, predatory interest rates tied to 'development' loans from the World Bank, critical industries undercut by international competition, etc.), and illustrating the ground-level effects on Jamaican citizens both visually and through numerous informative interviews. The film is interspersed with scenes of oblivious American tourists enjoying their vacations at expensive Jamaican resorts safely isolated from the surrounding poverty, to highlight the developed world's ignorance about the plight of Jamaica and similar underdeveloped countries.

As a precondition for aid, the IMF and World Bank usually require that developing countries drop any significant barriers to trade. When the doors are opened to international trade, lower-priced goods from abroad undercut local goods, and eliminate the market for any industry that cannot compete with the mass production that larger economies are capable of. While opening barrier-free worldwide markets for goods and services benefits the large economies already in a position to compete on such a scale, the sudden and forced introduction of 'free' trade to underdeveloped economies often disrupts domestic industries, which are given no opportunity to transition. While the consumer market is suddenly flooded with relatively cheaper goods (cheap enough to undercut the local competition, not to benefit consumers in any way), globalization fails to provide domestic producers with the inputs and capital (fertilizer, machinery, etc.) necessary to compete with producers abroad. As a result, the economy is robbed of its traditional sources of income and capacity for self-sufficiency, instead becoming reliant on weak foreign aid and tourism as national poverty continues to increase.

This is a really tragic and shattering film. I saw it a few days ago in New York at a lower East side cinema. It is a very honest and yet artistically distinguished portrait of the demise of a Caribbean nation - Jamaica. Interspersed with the cold, hard facts of how the international community has loaned the country money at predatory interest rates, and then dumped products on Jamaica's undeveloped markets, thus destroying native industries, are scenes of tourists enjoying Jamaica's bounties, oblivious to the nature of the natives' distress.

The woman who made this film narrates it herself, and she wrote a book on the subject before she made this film. So her credentials for knowledge about the subject are very strong. She employs a few cinematic flourishes, such as the blurred-edge-of-screen effect when she shows poor Jamaicans digging about in a garbage dump. The soundtrack is replete with great reggae songs, including the potent and topical title track.

Basically, this film is more important in its 90 minutes than about a hundred typically vapid Hollywood productions stacked back to back. This film teaches you something about the world - about the exploitation of the weak, about the myth of the "helping" nature of the IMF and the World Bank, and about the everyday lives of desperately poor third world people. All proponents of "globalization" should see this film, and then be required to defend their views to the people who have been victimized by globalization's cruel and relentless march. Similarly, everyone who works for the major media in the US should see this, and should be ashamed of themselves for defending the policies that have contributed to the downfall of a proud and beautiful people such as those of Jamaica. And silence is the major defense employed on behalf of such policies.

"Life and Debt" documents the extremely negative effects "globalization" has on the Jamaican economny and agriculture. Juxtaposing typical tourist views with searingly challenging economic conditions of Jamaican natives, the audience begins to see a side of this culture normally hidden away.

Hearing representatives from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank talk, one recognizes the familiar rhetoric--administrative jargon which obscures its callous action: look out for one's self first and foremost.

Well-known US companies are documented here as part of the problem. Their motivation is to make a profit, period, no matter at what cost or human price.

American stockholders tend here to look at and be primarily concerned with how many points their shares rise--"Life and Debt" shows the downside of that rise. There's a lot more to life than merely being concerned about one's self. This film cries out for us to hear the needy call of our planetary brother and sister.

Capitalism and competition tend to be cold animals--and one buys into those concepts because they're in place and operating . . . never stopping to think that there may be an exploitative side to these activities.

Stephanie Black captures that side in this documentary. The tourists are rightly there to have a good time, yet we cannot turn our backs on our neighbors. Imposing grossly high interest rates and stipulations that cause them to sink greater into debt each year is not aiding them. Unloosing our subsidized powered milk on their marketplace while their unsold whole milk must be poured down the drain is not being fair.

When rioters and demonstrators took to the streets there and in the US against globalization, I wondered what it was all about. "Life and Debt" helped provide a subsantive explanation. The film is not an entertainment: it is a serious, thought-provoking film to inform.

As I sat in a near-empty movie house, with some people leaving before the end of the film, I wondered where was the audience? I thought, are we not all involved in this scenario? When we buy items "assembled in" Jamaica, do we really realize what that means in terms of "free zone?"

When we delight in paying very low prices for items made in China, Japan, Mexico, and the like, how does that really impact upon those countries' workers? "Life and Debt" helps provide an answer.

I very much value this documentary, and look forward to obtaining the dvd when released, to further ponder world economic check and balances and rethink the entire concept of "globalization."

This documentary perfectly captures the largely-ignored downside to globalization and the subsequent domination of the world economy by the U.S. and Western Europe. Namely, that undeveloped and developing countries continue to get poorer at the expense of the rich. This documentary presents the human side for discussions about the impact of multinational corporations on human rights abuses, price fixing in order to drive local competition into failure, environmental destruction as the result of World Bank-mandated "structural adjustments," etc. This is a must see for anyone who thinks that globalization is the only way for developing countries to compete with the rest of the world, and for anyone wanting to know the reasons behind all of those protests.

As a development worker in Jamaica, I can say that there is a lot of painful accuracy in the movie. Yes, tourists do act that badly, almost unanimously if you only count the ones who spend their time here locked away in a guarded resort. And now over half of ever tax dollar goes to paying foreign debt...