Drowning Lessons: How the Global South Was Told to Swim While the North Sold the Lifeboats

It’s the early 1990s. The Berlin Wall has fallen. The Soviet Union is toast. Francis Fukuyama is writing bestsellers called The End of History. Liberal democracy and capitalism have, allegedly, won.

But while the Global North is popping champagne, the Global South is being handed a contract—wrapped in banker-speak and sealed with the smiling face of someone from the IMF or World Bank.

And that contract says:

“We’ll lend you money. But you’ll run your country like a corporation. Or else.”

Enter the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP)

It sounds boring. It’s not.
It’s colonialism with Excel.

Structural Adjustment Programs were sold as economic life rafts.
But in practice, they were economic straightjackets.

To get a loan, your country had to agree to:

  • Slash public spending (especially health and education)

  • Privatize everything (including water, electricity, pensions)

  • Open your markets to foreign investors

  • Crush unions and price controls

  • And keep the currency stable, no matter what burns

It was called austerity.
But really, it was enforced underdevelopment.

The North got to play “First World.” The South got to be credit risk.

SAPs in Action

In Zambia, SAPs led to massive cuts in health care—and a cholera outbreak followed.
In Bolivia, food subsidies were removed and riots broke out.
In Indonesia, currency collapses and unemployment led to mass unrest.
In Russia, the fire sale of public assets created oligarchs overnight.

And the worst part?
These programs weren’t negotiated. They were dictated—often by men who didn’t speak the language, had never lived in poverty, and had return flights booked for Tuesday.

This wasn’t development.
This was a discipline campaign.

The Double Standard

Let’s be clear: when the U.S. has a crisis, it prints money and spends billions on bailouts.
When Argentina has a crisis? It gets told to cut teachers’ salaries.

When Europe’s banks teeter, the EU throws a lifeline.
When Ghana’s economy stumbles? It gets loan sharks in suits.

Why? Because neoliberalism doesn’t treat all markets equally.
It claims universal rules—but enforces colonial hierarchies.

The Global North got to build its wealth with tariffs, public investment, and infrastructure.
Then it turned around and told the South, “Sorry, that’s cheating.”

The Human Cost

This isn’t just economics—it’s life and death.

Structural adjustment crushed local agriculture. It privatized medicine. It gutted job protections.
It also shattered democratic sovereignty, because decisions weren’t made in parliaments—they were made in boardrooms in Washington.

Freedom? You could vote.
But you couldn’t vote on the economy.

But Here's the Twist:

Despite the damage, the ideology stuck.
Because the North didn’t just export austerity.
It exported neoliberal common sense.

Soon, politicians across the South began repeating the mantras themselves:

  • “Investment climate.”

  • “Labor market flexibility.”

  • “Public-private partnerships.”

The conquered learned to speak the conqueror’s language.

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