The Divide

Regular "Guardian" contributor Jason Hickel analyses the timeline of first world exploitation of third, proposing that the problem is inherently political, obfuscated by current thinking on aid and development, and calls for political solutions.

Jason Hickel is an economic anthropologist. One of the world's leading thinkers on degrowth and eco-socialism, he is a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics. He is originally from Eswatini (Swaziland) and spent a number of years with migrant workers in South Africa, writing about exploitation and political resistance in the wake of apartheid. He has authored three books, including the internationally bestselling Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World. He writes regularly for the Guardian, Al Jazeera and Foreign Policy, serves as an advisor for the Green New Deal for Europe and sits on the Lancet Commission for Reparations and Redistributive Justice. He lives in London and Barcelona.