A grossly unequal distribution of wealth couples with the increasing consumption patterns of a rising global middle class (189) to amplify ecological destruction.

but it also embodies the materials and labour deployed in China and Bolivia to produce those parts, which existing methods cannot capture.

Using a modified version of Köhler’s method, recent research has found that in 2015 drain from the South through unequal exchange amounted to $2.1 trillion (constant 2011 dollars), represented in Northern prices (Hickel et al., 2021). Köhler’s proxy approach is limited in several respects, however. It relies on PPP figures that do not adequately account for the comparatively high prices of Northern exports; it relies on GDP figures that are affected by the low prices of imports from the South; and it compares Southern exports to prices across whole economies, rather than to those of only traded goods. All of this leads to underestimating the scale of drain (see Hickel et al., 2021).

Emmanuel and Amin argued that unequal exchange enables a “hidden transfer of value” from the global South to the global North, or from periphery to core, which takes place subtly and almost invisibly, without the overt coercion of the colonial apparatus and therefore without provoking moral outrage.

Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015

Recognize that all people are both located in systems and also uniquely individual