Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Global Environmental Change journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gloenvcha Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015 Jason Hickel a, b, c, *, Christian Dorninger d, e, Hanspeter Wieland f, Intan Suwandi g a Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Spain b International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics, United Kingdom c Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain d Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research Klosterneuburg, Austria e Institute of Social Ecology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria f Institute for Ecological Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria g Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Illinois State University, United States A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Keywords: Unequal exchange theory posits that economic growth in the “advanced economies” of the global North relies on Unequal exchange a large net appropriation of resources and labour from the global South, extracted through price differentials in Inequality international trade. Past attempts to estimate the scale and value of this drain have faced a number of conceptual Trade in value added and empirical limitations, and have been unable to capture the upstream resources and labour embodied in Input-output analysis traded goods. Here we use environmental input-output data and footprint analysis to quantify the physical scale Embodied resource flows International development of net appropriation from the South in terms of embodied resources and labour over the period 1990 to 2015. We then represent the value of appropriated resources in terms of prevailing market prices. Our results show that in 2015 the North net appropriated from the South 12 billion tons of embodied raw material equivalents, 822 million hectares of embodied land, 21 exajoules of embodied energy, and 188 million person-years of embodied labour, worth $10.8 trillion in Northern prices – enough to end extreme poverty 70 times over. Over the whole period, drain from the South totalled $242 trillion (constant 2010 USD). This drain represents a significant windfall for the global North, equivalent to a quarter of Northern GDP. For comparison, we also report drain in global average prices. Using this method, we find that the South’s losses due to unequal exchange outstrip their total aid receipts over the period by a factor of 30. Our analysis confirms that unequal exchange is a significant driver of global inequality, uneven development, and ecological breakdown. 1. Introduction colonies, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, which went on to develop similarly imperialist orientations to­ Historians have demonstrated that the rise of Western Europe ward the South (e.g., Naoroji, 1902; Pomeranz, 2000; Beckert, 2015; depended in large part on natural resources and labour forcibly appro­ Moore, 2015; Bhambra, 2017; Patnaik, 2018; Davis, 2002). priated from the global South during the colonial period, on a vast scale. According to the conventional public narrative, colonial patterns of Spain extracted gold and silver from the Andes, Portugal extracted sugar extraction ended with the withdrawal of colonial troops, flags and bu­ from Brazil, France extracted fossil fuels, minerals and agricultural reaucrats from the territories of the global South. Today, we are told, the products from West Africa, Belgium extracted rubber from the Congo; world economy functions as a meritocracy: countries that have strong and Britain extracted cotton, opium, grain, timber, tea and countless institutions, good markets, and a steadfast work ethic become rich and other commodities from its colonies around the world – all of which successful, while countries that lack these things, or which are hobbled entailed the exploitation of Southern labour on coercive terms, by corruption and bad governance, remain poor. This assumption un­ including through mass enslavement and indenture. This pattern of derpins dominant perspectives in the field of international development appropriation was central to Europe’s industrial growth, and to (Sachs, 2005; Collier, 2007; Rostow, 1990; Moyo, 2010; Calderisi, 2007; financing the expansion and industrialization of European settler Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012), and is reinforced by the rhetoric, * Corresponding author. E-mail address: j.e.hickel@lse.ac.uk (J. Hickel). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102467 Received 15 January 2021; Received in revised form 14 October 2021; Accepted 7 January 2022 Available online 14 February 2022 0959-3780/© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). J. Hickel et al. Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 common among neoclassical economists, that free-trade globalization conventional monetary data relates only to traded goods themselves and has created an “even playing field”. does not capture the upstream inputs that go into producing them, the This narrative of post-colonial innocence has long come under prices of which significantly affect trade prices and, in a context of critique. In the 1960s and 1970s, economists and historians associated globally dispersed commodity chains, may involve many different with dependency theory and world-system theory argued that the gen­ countries. For instance, if the USA exports an aircraft, it may embody eral structure of the colonial economy remains in place, with industrial parts imported from China and Bolivia, which existing methods can growth in the global North continuing to rely on appropriation from the account for using conventional trade data (e.g., Hickel et al., 2021), but South well into the post-colonial era (Rodney, 1972; Prebisch, 1950; it also embodies the materials and labour deployed in China and Bolivia Galeano, 1973; Wallerstein, 1974; Frank, 1967; Nkrumah, 1965). Rich to produce those parts, which existing methods cannot capture. countries and monopolistic corporations leverage their geopolitical and Here we take a novel approach that seeks to overcome the limitations commercial dominance in the world economy to depress or cheapen the of previous work. Following Dorninger et al. (2021), we use a “foot­ prices of resources and labour in the global South, both at the level of print” analysis of input–output data to quantify the physical scale of raw whole national economies as well as within global commodity chains materials, land, energy and labour embodied in trade between the North (section 5.2). As a result, for every unit of embodied resources and la­ and South, looking not only at traded goods themselves but also the bour that the South imports from the North they have to export many upstream resources and labour that go into producing and transporting more units to pay for it, enabling the North to achieve a net appropri­ those goods, including the machines, factories, infrastructure, etc. ation through trade. This dynamic was theorized by Emmanuel (1972) (Lenzen et al., 2013; Lenzen et al., 2012; Wiedmann et al., 2015). This and Amin (1978) as a process of “unequal exchange”. approach builds on scholarship in ecological economics and industrial Emmanuel and Amin argued that unequal exchange enables a “hid­ ecology. Using footprint metrics allows us to capture inputs even when den transfer of value” from the global South to the global North, or from they flow through complex global commodity chains: we can identify periphery to core, which takes place subtly and almost invisibly, without where the labour and resources are rendered and where the value is the overt coercion of the colonial apparatus and therefore without ultimately captured. This enables us to ground our analysis of unequal provoking moral outrage. Prices are naturalized on the grounds that exchange in real resources and a more robust assessment of prices and they represent “utility”, or “value”, or the outcome of “market mecha­ price inequalities in trade, while maximizing the comparability of flows nisms” such as supply and demand, obscuring the extent to which they between the North and South. are determined by power imbalances in the global political economy. Using environmental input–output data, we find that there has been Price differentials in international trade therefore function as an effec­ a significant net flow of embodied labour and natural resources from the tive method of maintaining the patterns of appropriation that once global South to the global North over the period 1990 to 2015 (section overtly defined the colonial economy, allowing blame for “underde­ 3). By comparing the physical scale of net resource flows to global price velopment” to be shifted onto the victims. differentials, we estimate the monetary dimension of the drain. This is This pattern remains entrenched despite the fact that, with the rise of calculated not with respect to some objectively “correct” price for labour neoliberal globalization in the 1980s, manufacturing has shifted over­ and resources (there is no such thing), but rather by representing the whelmingly to the global South, to the point where Southern countries drain in terms of prevailing Northern prices, as well as in terms of global contribute the vast majority of the world’s industrial labour and in­ average prices for comparison. For “prices” we use trade in value-added dustrial production (Smith, 2016). Northern appropriation from the (TiVA) per unit of resources embodied in traded goods, which is the South comprises resources and labour embodied not only in primary monetary counterpart of our footprint method. commodities but also in manufactured goods, including high-technology Grounding our analysis in the physical dimensions of unequal ex­ products such as smartphones, computer chips, cars, designer fashion, change is important for several reasons. First, these resources – raw etc., along with intermediate parts. Most of this appropriation occurs materials, land, labour and energy – embody the productive potential through global commodity chains, wherein Northern firms deploy mo­ that is required for meeting human needs (use-value) and for generating nopsony and monopoly power to depress Southern suppliers’ prices at economic growth (exchange-value). Physical drain is therefore ulti­ every node, from extraction to manufacture, while setting final prices as mately what drives global inequalities in terms of access to provisions, as high as possible (Suwandi, 2019; Clelland, 2014). well as in terms of GDP or income (see Hornborg, 2020). Second, this Several attempts have been made to estimate the monetary value of approach allows us to maintain sight of the ecological impacts of un­ appropriation or drain from the global South through unequal exchange, equal exchange. We know that excess energy and material consumption generally by correcting the South’s export revenues for North-South in high-income nations, facilitated by appropriation from the rest of the price distortions in order to arrive at some representation of “losses”. world, is causing ecological breakdown on a global scale. Tracing flows Amin (1978: 144) focused on international wage inequalities, although of resources embodied in trade allows us to determine the extent to doing so meant he was unable to account for other inputs that may affect which Northern appropriation is responsible for ecological impacts in overall price differentials. Köhler (1998) developed a more holistic the South; i.e., ecological debt (Roberts and Parks, 2009; Warlenius method, using the distortion factor between market exchange rates et al., 2015; Hornborg and Martinez-Alier, 2016). (MER) and purchasing power parity (PPP) as a proxy for overall price inequalities. Using a modified version of Köhler’s method, recent 2. Methodology research has found that in 2015 drain from the South through unequal exchange amounted to $2.1 trillion (constant 2011 dollars), represented To assess the scale of resource flows in trade and their monetary in Northern prices (Hickel et al., 2021). Köhler’s proxy approach is counterpart – the trade in value added (TiVA), we use input–output limited in several respects, however. It relies on PPP figures that do not methodology and an environmentally-extended multi-regional adequately account for the comparatively high prices of Northern ex­ input–output (MRIO) database. The present study is based on a data set ports; it relies on GDP figures that are affected by the low prices of which has been sourced from the MRIO analysis of Dorninger et al. imports from the South; and it compares Southern exports to prices (2021). For further details on the methodology, we refer readers to that across whole economies, rather than to those of only traded goods. All of paper. In what follows here, we provide a brief overview of the this leads to underestimating the scale of drain (see Hickel et al., 2021). input–output (IO) analysis and the MRIO database. Upper- and lower- Perhaps more importantly, existing methods are limited in that they case letters denote matrices and column-vectors respectively; prime rely on trade revenues and price differentials as proxies by which to indicates transposition; i is a column-vector of ones used for summation, estimate drain without any reference to actual goods, precisely because hence Zi sums the row elements (outputs) of the transaction matrix and goods remain hidden behind monetary trade data. Moreover, the i’Z the column elements (inputs). 2 J. Hickel et al. Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 IO tables describe the interdependencies between different economic because both indicators follow the same system boundaries, i.e., all entities by recording transactions among industries (Z), final demand (y) supply chains between production and final consumption of two coun­ and value added in production (v) which accounts for employee tries including all direct and indirect interlinkages. Moreover, in compensation, depreciation of fixed capital, profits plus taxes minus contrast to global bilateral monetary trade flows, TiVA is globally subsidies. The core principle of IO tables are monetary industry bal­ balanced, meaning that national exports and imports globally sum up to ances, where total output must be equal to total input. Total output (x) zero. This is an important feature of the TiVA indicator that facilitates equals all sales for intermediate production plus final demand, that is, more consistent and unambiguous assessments. x = Zi +y , whereas total input (x’ ) equals all inter-industry purchases Using a demand-driven IO model as described before, TiVA (B) is − 1 plus value added, x’ = i’Z +v . IO tables are central to the System of calculated by B = ̂ p L̂ y , where ̂ p=̂ v̂ x is a diagonalized vector National Accounts (European Commission et al., 2009). Various na­ showing the amount of value added (v) per unit of industries’ gross tional statistical institutions compile national IO databases on a regular output (x). The column sum of matrix B adds up to final demand (y) and basis. the row sum to value added (v), no double-counting involved. Because Using basic matrix algebra, the demand-driven IO model can be TiVA is globally balanced, global value added (v) must sum up to global − 1 estimated by x = (I − A)− 1 y, where A = Z ̂ x is the technology matrix of final demand (y). In 2015, this was approximately 75 trillion USD. In the direct input coefficients, whose element aij = zij /xj expresses direct in­ present work, TiVA is quantified in terms of constant international 2010 puts from industry i required per unit of gross output of sector j . I is the US-American dollars (USD). Element bij quantifies how much value identity matrix with ones on the diagonal. Hats (^) indicate diagonal­ added (v) is embodied in the upstream inputs from industry i required to ization of vectors, and ̂ − 1 x denotes matrix inversion. (I − A)− 1 is the so- satisfy the final demand for product j . We can interpret the element bij as called ‘Leontief inverse’ L . The element lij of L quantifies the total up­ an indicator showing how much of the expenditures for final product j is stream, i.e., direct and indirect, inputs from sector i that are required to directly and indirectly captured by the production activity i . In the produce a unit of industry output j for final demand (Miller and Blair, following we use TiVA to represent a country’s compensation for its 2009). exports. MRIO tables integrate national IO tables and bilateral trade accounts and contain data for a large number of countries (Tukker and Die­ 3. The physical scale of drain through unequal exchange tzenbacher, 2013). MRIO analysis is frequently applied for assessments of environmental pressures embodied in international trade (Wiedmann Our first step is to calculate the physical scale of the embodied re­ and Lenzen, 2018). A number of global MRIO databases have been sources that flow between the global North and the global South. As a developed over the last decade (Inomata and Owen, 2014). The present proxy for the “global North,” we use the IMF’s “advanced economies” study uses the MRIO database Eora (Lenzen et al., 2013; Lenzen et al., grouping (as of 2015), which includes the USA, Canada, Western and 2012; version v.199.82) which includes data for 189 countries in a time Northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Japan, plus South series from 1990 to 2015. Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, and a number of small island MRIO tables in monetary units are complemented by satellite ac­ territories (see Appendix 1 for country classification). All other countries counts (e), i.e., extension tables recording non-monetary flows associ­ (i.e., the IMF’s “emerging and developing economies”) are classified as ated with economic activities, such as raw material extraction the “global South”. Following Dorninger et al. (2021), we examine direct (measured in metric tons), land use (hectares), final energy consumption and indirect trade flows between these advanced economies and the rest (Joule), and labour requirements (working hours). Extension tables are of the world, tracking four categories: sometimes referred to as the territorial, i.e., production-based, account. Consumption-based accounts (F) take on a complementary perspective • materials, measured in ’raw material equivalents’ (RMEs): i.e., total and are often referred to as footprint indicators. MRIO-based footprint upstream (direct and indirect) raw material requirements related to − 1 the production of goods and services (measured in Gigatons [Gt]) indicators are calculated by F = ̂q L̂ y , where ̂q = ̂e ̂ x is a diagonalized (Wiedmann et al., 2015); intensity vector showing the direct use of non-monetary flows (e) per • land: i.e., total area of land use required for the production of goods unit of industries’ gross output (x). Element fij quantifies the amount of and services (measured in million hectares [mn ha]) (Bruckner et al., non-monetary flows (e) that are embodied in the total upstream inputs 2015); and from industry i required to satisfy the final demand for industry output j • energy: i.e., total primary energy required to produce economic (for further details about environmental IO analysis see chapter 9 in goods and services (measured in Exajoules [EJ]) (Chen et al., 2018). Miller and Blair, 2009). Consumption-based accounts (F), when calcu­ • labour: i.e., labour expended in the global commodity chain to pro­ lated in an MRIO framework, omit double counting and hence always duce a certain good and service (measured in million person-year add up to the total production-based account (e). equivalents [mn p-yeq]) (Alsamawi et al., 2014); Due to the growing fragmentation of international commodity chains, monetary databases on bilateral gross trade flows have been A national footprint represents the domestic extraction (materials), criticised for not accurately depicting the monetary interdependencies use (energy, land) or input (labour) of resources within a given nation between national economies (Johnson and Noguera, 2012), i.e., the plus the net trade (i.e., imports minus exports, including embodied amount of a countries’ value added that is induced by foreign final de­ flows). For example, the domestic labour input plus the embodied labour mand and international trade relations. Trade in Value Added (TiVA) of imports and minus the embodied labour of exports results in a indicators (Johnson and Noguera, 2012; Timmer et al., 2014) are country’s employment footprint (Alsamawi et al., 2014). Fig. 1 shows designed to take into account the complexity of the global economy. The the South’s embodied resource exports and imports to and from the TiVA concept is motivated by the fact that, in monetary terms, trade in North. It reveals that for every unit of embodied raw material equivalent intermediates accounts for approximately two-thirds of international that the South imports from the North, they have to export on average trade. Imports (of intermediates) are used to produce exports and hence five units to “pay” for it (a ratio of 5:1). For land the average ratio is also bilateral gross exports may include inputs (i.e., value added) from third 5:1, for energy it is 3:1, and for labour it is 13:1. This pattern results in party countries (Stehrer, 2012). TiVA reveals where (e.g., in which significant net flows of resources from South to North, which are rep­ country or industry) and how (e.g. by capital or labour) value is added or resented in absolute terms in Table 1, and as shares of Northern con­ captured in global commodity chains (Timmer et al., 2014). sumption in Table 2. On a global scale, net appropriation by the North is TiVA, which is sometimes referred to as the “value footprint”, is the equivalent to net drain from the South. The choice of terminology monetary counterpart of the MRIO-based environmental footprint 3 J. Hickel et al. Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 exchange of raw material equivalents exchange of embodied land (Southern perspective) (Southern perspective) 4 500 2 0 0 −2 −4 −500 [mn ha] [Gt] −6 −8 −1000 −10 −12 −1500 −14 −16 −2000 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Year Year exchange of embodied energy exchange of embodied labour (Southern perspective) (Southern perspective) 50 20 0 10 [mn person−year−equiv.] −50 0 −100 −10 [EJ] −150 −20 −200 −30 −40 −250 −50 −300 −60 −350 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Year Year imports exports Fig. 1. Resource drain from the South. Table 1 Resource drain from the South. Resource North → South flows 2015 South → North flows 2015 Drain from South in 2015 Cumulative drain from South 1990–2015 Raw material equivalents [Gt] 3.37 15.39 12.02 254.40 Embodied land [mn ha] 527.42 1,349.01 821.59 32,987.23 Embodied energy [EJ] 21.55 43.51 21.06 650.34 Embodied labour [mn py-eq] 31.11 219.22 188.12 5,956.62 Table 2 Drain as share of Northern consumption. Resource Northern consumption in Drain as % of Northern Northern consumption Drain as % of Northern consumption 2015 consumption in 2015 1990–2015 1990–2015 Raw material equivalents [Gt] 28.06 43% 676.77 38% Embodied land [mn ha] 3,878.80 21% 112,416.80 29% Embodied energy [EJ] 217.43 10% 6,137.42 11% Embodied labour [mn py-eq] 630.06 30% 17,365.49 34% 4 J. Hickel et al. Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 depends on which perspective we take on these transfers. In the figures There are several other impacts worth mentioning. Net appropria­ and tables presented here, we refer to it as a drain. tion of land means soil depletion, water depletion, and chemical runoff The results show that in the year 2015 the North’s net appropriation are offshored; net appropriation of energy means that the health impacts from the South totalled 12 billion tons of raw materials, 822 million of particulate pollution are offshored; net appropriation of labour means hectares of land, 21 exajoules of energy (equivalent to 3.4 billion barrels that the negative social impacts of exploitation are offshored, etc of oil), and 188 million person-years equivalents of labour (equivalent to (Wiedmann and Lenzen, 2018). In the case of non-renewable resources 392 billion hours of work). By net appropriation we mean that these there is also a problem of depletion: resources appropriated from the resources are not compensated in equivalent terms through trade; they South are no longer available for future generations to use (Costanza and are effectively transferred gratis. And this appropriation is not insignif­ Daly, 1992; World Bank, 2018), which is particularly problematic given icant in scale; on the contrary, it comprises a large share (on average that under conditions of net appropriation economic losses are not offset about a quarter) of the North’s total consumption. by investments in capital stock (cf. Hartwick, 1977). Finally, the This net appropriation, which is known as ecologically unequal ex­ extractivism that underpins resource appropriation generates social change (Hornborg, 1998; 2012), has significant consequences for the dislocations and conflicts at resource frontiers (Martinez-Alier, 2021). global South, in terms of lost use-value. This quantity of Southern raw In sum, our results indicate that high and unsustainable levels of materials, land, energy and labour could be used to provision for human resource consumption in the global North rely on patterns of net needs and develop sovereign industrial capacity in the South, but appropriation from the South. The benefits accrue to the former while instead it is mobilized around servicing consumption in the global the damage is borne by the latter, generating a significant ecological North. For instance, 21 exajoules of energy would be enough to cover debt. People in the South also disproportionately suffer the social im­ the annual energy requirements of building out necessary infrastructure pacts of Northern growth and consumption, and are deprived of re­ to ensure that all 6.5 billion people in the global South have access to sources necessary for development and provisioning for human needs. decent housing, public transport, healthcare, education, sanitation, communication, etc. (Kikstra et al., 2021a). Eight hundred and twenty- 4. Monetary representations of unequal exchange two million hectares of land, which is twice the size of India, would in theory be enough to provide nutritious food for up to 6 billion people, Once we have established the scale of physical drain from the South, depending on land productivity and diet composition (Poore and the question becomes how best to represent the value of this drain in Nemecek, 2018). monetary terms. This is a fraught terrain, because the value of resources Net resource appropriation also has significant ecological conse­ and labour cannot be quantified in dollars, and there is no such thing as a quences in the regions where the extraction takes place. For instance, “correct” price. Prices under capitalism do not reflect value or utility in material use is tightly linked to environmental pressures. It accounts for any objective way. Rather, they reflect, among other things, the (im) more than 90% of variation in environmental damage indicators balance of power between market agents (capital and labour, core and (Steinmann et al., 2017), and more than 90% of biodiversity loss and periphery, lead firms and their suppliers, etc); in other words, they are a water stress (International Resource Panel, 2019). Moreover, as Van der political artefact. In the process of production, the primary objective of Voet et al. (2004) demonstrate, while impacts vary by material, and vary capital is to depress the prices of inputs as much as possible, and, in the as technologies change, there is a coupling between aggregate mass flows absence of any countervailing political force, ideally toward zero. and ecological impact. Net flows of material resources from South to Indeed, this is the process that enables appropriation through global North mean that much of the impact of material consumption in the commodity chains and international trade. Quantifying value transfer North (43% of it, net of trade) is suffered in the South. The damage is therefore is not a matter of measuring the use-value (much less the offshored. ecological value) of appropriated resources and labour, or defining what Industrial ecologists hold that global extraction and use of materials the South could earn under fairer conditions, or determining how should not exceed 50 billion tons per year (Bringezu, 2015). In 2015, the existing income should be apportioned. Rather, it is a matter of repre­ global economy was using 87 billion tons per year, overshooting the senting the drain in terms of existing market prices within capitalism. boundary by 74% and driving ecological breakdown. This overshoot is While prices by definition do not reflect value, they do allow us to due almost entirely to excess resource consumption in global North compare the scale of drain to prevailing monetary representations of countries. The North consumed 26.71 tons of materials per capita in production and income in the world economy. 2015, which is roughly four times over the sustainable threshold (6.80 tons per capita in 2015). Our results indicate that most of the North’s 4.1. Primary method: drain represented in Northern prices excess consumption (58% of it) is sustained by net appropriation from the global South; without this appropriation, material use in Amin (1978) and Köhler (1998) argued that value transfer should be high-income nations would be much closer to the sustainable level. measured in terms of Northern prices. In other words, the value of the Something similar can be said about energy. The vast majority of physical quantity of labour and resources that the North appropriates embodied energy appropriated from the South is supplied by fossil fuels from the South should be represented in terms of how that quantity and therefore entails greenhouse gas emissions. In consumption-based would be priced in the North. This approach is valid insofar as Northern terms, the North is responsible for 92% of carbon dioxide emissions in prices are used as a reference point for “value” (which is the case, for excess of the planetary boundary (350 ppm atmospheric concentration instance, in calculations of purchasing power parity, and with the of CO2) (Hickel, 2020), while the consequences harm the South household consumption data that is central to development economics). disproportionately, inflicting dramatic social and economic costs (Kik­ In the past, scholars have used some version of this equation for quan­ stra et al., 2021b; Srinivasan et al., 2008). The South suffers 82–92% of tifying value transfer: the costs of climate change, and 98–99% of the deaths associated with climate change (DARA, 2012) (note these texts rely on slightly different T = d*X − X (1) country groupings to the ones we use here). The North’s net appropri­ where: ation of energy from the South (as in Fig. 1 and Table 1) means that the benefits accrue in the former while emissions-related damages fall T = transfers through unequal exchange mostly on the latter. The same is true of the North’s appropriation of X = Southern earnings on exports to the North embodied land, which is another major driver of emissions (IPCC, 2018). d = distortion factor: ratio of Northern prices to Southern prices 5 J. Hickel et al. Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 Drain from the South by resource Average drain from the South valued in Northern prices [trillion USD] valued in Northern prices [trillion USD] 30 14 [trillion, constant USD 2010] 25 12 [trillion, constant USD 2010] 20 10 15 8 10 6 5 4 0 2 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Year 0 materials energy land labour 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Year Fig. 2. Drain from the South, represented in Northern prices (constant 2010 USD). This approach was useful at a time when data was available only for terms of energy and $20.3 trillion when measured in terms of labour. trade revenues and price proxies, such as those mentioned in section 1. It One cannot definitively attribute TiVA to specific inputs, however. The allowed analysts to estimate drain through trade that was otherwise best we can say is that the value of the drain through unequal exchange “hidden” behind monetary trade figures. But because we can now in 2015 ranged between $3.6 trillion (if land represented 100% of TiVA) quantify the actual resources and labour that are appropriated from the and $20.3 trillion (if labour represented 100% of TiVA). If we assume South each year, the hidden transfer is no longer hidden, and we can use equal proportions for each factor in TiVA, the drain in that year a more direct approach to estimating its value. For instance, if we know amounted to $10.8 trillion in Norther prices. Drain from China alone that the North appropriated a net total of 12 billion tons [Gt] of amounted to $2.4 trillion, comprising 22% of net South-North flows (see embodied raw material equivalents from the South in 2015, then we can Appendix 2 for results on China’s physical trade with the North). determine the value of that quantity in Northern prices, by multiplying This drain represents a significant loss for the South. For perspective, net resource drain from the South by the Northern resource prices in that $10.8 trillion would have been enough to end extreme poverty 70 times year. Then we need to correct for any net monetary trade flows that over in 2015; i.e., with reference to the poverty gap at $1.90 per day in could be construed as partial payment for the resource trade deficit. We 2011 PPP, which is expressed in roughly the equivalent of Northern can represent this with the following equation: prices (World Bank 2021). It is worth noting that this result is larger than previous estimates of drain through unequal exchange (e.g., five times T = Rnet *PN − Mnet (2) larger than in Hickel et al., 2021). This is because the footprint data we where: use here captures not only traded goods but also the upstream resources and labour embodied in the production of traded goods, which results in T = value transfers through unequal exchange a larger North-South price differential (d). The difference can also be Rnet = net resource drain from South to North attributed to the fact that our method avoids the limitations of Köhler’s PN = Northern export price per resource unit price-proxy approach discussed in section 1, allowing for more precise Mnet = net monetary transfers from North to South and accurate results. The footprint method reveals that Northern accu­ mulation relies on more intensive appropriation, and of a much broader To determine Northern prices we use TiVA, as discussed above; share of total Southern production, than previous studies have specifically, the average TiVA that countries in the North receive per suggested. unit of resources and labour embodied in goods exported to other Over the period 1990–2015, the drain sums to $242 trillion (constant countries. Here we maximize comparability of resources by excluding 2010 USD). This represents a significant “windfall” for the North, similar goods and prices related to domestic final consumption (i.e., finished to the windfall that was derived from colonial forms of appropriation; goods) in order to focus only on prices for traded goods. Drain is i.e., goods that did not have to be produced on the domestic landmass or therefore represented in terms of the exchange-value of resources and with domestic labour, and did not have to be bought on the domestic labour from the perspective of Northern workers, producers and sellers market, or paid for with exports (see Pomeranz, 2000; Patnaik, 2018). involved at any stage in the production of traded goods. While previous studies have shown that the price distortion factor Fig. 2 shows that drain from the South in 2015 amounted to $14.1 increased dramatically during the structural adjustment period in the trillion when measured in terms of raw material equivalents, $5.1 tril­ 1980’s (Hickel et al., 2021), our data confirms that since the early- to lion when measured in terms of land, $3.6 trillion when measured in mid-1990’s it has tended to decline slightly. This means that the increase in drain during the period 1990–2007, prior to the global financial crisis, was driven primarily by an increase in the volume of international trade Table 3 rather than by an increase in price distortion. Drain from the South, in Northern prices (constant 2010 USD), 1990–2015. Because the North’s windfall is represented in Northern prices, it is Value of drain (trillions USD) % of North’s GDP suitable for comparison to Northern GDP. Table 3 shows that, over the 2015 $10.78 23% 1990–2015 period, resources appropriated from the South have been 1990–2015 $242.41 24% worth on average roughly a quarter of Northern GDP. 6 J. Hickel et al. Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 Drain from the South by resource Average drain from the South valued in global prices [trillion USD] valued in global prices [trillion USD] [trillion, constant USD 2010] 6 4.0 [trillion, constant USD 2010] 3.5 5 3.0 2.5 4 2.0 1.5 3 1.0 0.5 2 0.0 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1 Year 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Year Drain due to Northern price deviation materials energy land labour Drain due to Southern price deviation Fig. 3. Drain from the South, represented in global average prices (constant 2010 USD). 4.2. For comparison: Drain represented in global average prices moving prices in the other direction. Furthermore, it is impossible to predict how equitable conditions might affect the total volume and For comparison, we can also represent drain from the South in terms composition of trade. Global average prices therefore cannot be used as of global average prices. Cope (2019) developed a method for this, a proxy for equal-exchange conditions, but they can be used as a metric drawing on the notion that if labour was allowed to move freely across by which to represent the monetary value of drain at the global price borders, and if bargaining power between North and South was more level under existing conditions. We can represent this with the following balanced, then aggregate prices would converge. Cope proposes using simplified equation: global average prices as a proxy for prices in an equal-exchange sce­ T = Rnet *PG − Mnet (4) nario. By this logic, the difference between the South’s existing earnings on trade and what they would earn at global average prices represents where: the South’s losses compared to a fairer world. Cope sums the results of two formulas: one (T1) that calculates drain due to price deviations on T = value transfers through unequal exchange Southern exports, and another (T2) that calculates drain due to price Rnet = net resource drain from South to North deviations on Northern exports, compared to global average prices. The PG = Global average price equations are as follows: Mnet = net monetary transfers from North to South T1 = d1*X1 − X1 (3a) In the right-side panel of Fig. 3, the light grey represents the share of where: drain that is due to the deviation of Northern prices above the global average, while the dark grey represents the share that is due to the de­ X1 = Southern earnings on exports to the North viation of Southern prices below the global average. Representing the d1 = ratio of global average prices to Southern prices drain in terms of global average prices allows us to compare it to the South’s GDP in MER, as well as to other Southern financial stocks and T2 = X2 − d2*X2 (3b) flows that are measured in terms of market dollars, such as aid receipts where: (section 4.3). Table 4 shows that over the period from 1990 to 2015, drain from the South was equivalent to nearly a quarter of the South’s GDP. X2 = Northern earnings on exports to the South d2 = ratio of global average prices to Northern prices Drain as percent of Northern and Southern GDP The South’s total losses, T = T1 + T2 40% 35% In reality, however, it is impossible to predict what might happen to prices under equal-exchange conditions. We can assume that, all else 30% [percent of GDP] being equal, an improvement in the bargaining power of the South, and 25% of labour, would likely increase the global average prices of traded 20% goods well beyond the level of global average prices today. On the other 15% hand, in such a scenario labour movements might also push to decom­ 10% modify key sectors of the economy (healthcare, education, etc.), thus 5% 0% Table 4 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Drain from the South, in global average prices (constant 2010 USD), 1990–2015. Year Value of drain (trillions) % of South’s GDP Northern gains as % of Northern GDP Southern losses as % of Southern GDP 2015 $4.23 15% 1990–2015 $84.55 23% Fig. 4. Drain as percent of Northern GDP and Southern GDP. 7 J. Hickel et al. Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 Unequal exchange vs. ODA more equitable would be much more effective, in terms of development, than charity. 12 5. Discussion 10 UE at northern prices [constant 2010, trillion USD] These results demonstrate that the general pattern of appropriation 8 that characterized the colonial period has been maintained and indeed expanded into the postcolonial era through the mechanism of unequal 6 exchange, despite significant changes in the structure of the world UE at global prices economy. In an equitable world, the resource trade deficit that the North 4 sustains in relation to the South would be financed with a parallel monetary trade deficit. But in reality, the monetary trade deficit is very 2 small, equivalent to only about 1% of global trade revenues, and fluc­ ODA tuates between North and South. In effect, this means that the North 0 achieves its large net appropriation of resources and labour from the 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 years South gratis. Fig. 5. Unequal exchange compared to ODA (constant 2010 USD). 5.1. On price inequalities Fig. 4 compares drain in Northern prices as a share of Northern GDP, In the past, unequal exchange theorists confronted questions about and drain in global average prices as a share of Southern GDP. We see the comparability of goods traded between North and South. It is that the North’s reliance on appropriation from the South has generally commonly assumed that price inequalities are due to sectoral disparities, increased over the period (despite a significant drop after the global with Northern exports consisting predominantly of manufactured goods financial crisis), whereas the South’s losses as a share of total economic (which embody more upstream labour, energy and machine processing), activity have generally decreased, particularly since 2003, due to an while Southern exports comprise predominantly primary commodities. increase in South-South trading and higher domestic GDP creation or Emmanuel (1972) pointed out this was not strictly true, even in the capture within the South, both driven largely by China (Meng et al., 1970s, while noting moreover that Northern prices are higher than 2018).Fig. 5. Southern prices even when comparing like for like. He argued that, when it comes to prices, the main determining factor is bargaining 4.3. Drain compared to aid flows (official development assistance, ODA) power. The question of sectoral disparities has been moot since the 1980s, One of the main strategies of international development is to call for however, as industrial production has shifted overwhelmingly to the overseas development assistance, and to encourage the governments of South. The majority of Southern exports (70%) consist of manufactured the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to meet their commit­ goods (data from UNCTAD; see Smith, 2016). Of all the manufactured ment to spend 0.7% of GDP on aid. Aid flows create the powerful goods that the USA imports, 60% are produced in developing countries. impression that rich countries give benevolently to poorer countries. But For Japan it is 70%. We can see this pattern reflected also in the in­ the data on drain through unequal exchange raises significant questions dustrial workforce. As of 2010, at least 79% of the world’s industrial about this narrative. Here we compare aid flows from DAC countries to workers live in the South (data from the ILO; see Smith, 2016). This shift ODA (Official Development Assistance) recipients with the scale of net is due in large part to the rise of global commodity chains, which now transfers between these groups (see the Appendix 1 for the country constitute 70% of international trade. Between 1995 and 2013, there has classifications). We use Northern prices to compare DAC aid disburse­ been an increase of 157 million jobs related to global commodity chains, ments to DAC gains through unequal exchange, and we use global and an estimated 116 million of them are concentrated in the South, average prices to compare ODA recipients’ aid receipts to their losses predominantly in the export manufacturing sector (ILO, 2015). In other through unequal exchange. words, during the period we analyse in this paper (1990–2015), the Our results show that net appropriation by DAC countries through South has contributed the majority of the world’s industrial production, unequal exchange from 1990 to 2015 outstripped their aid disburse­ including high-technology production such as computers and cars. And ments over the same period by a factor of almost 80 (Table 5, fourth yet price inequalities remain entrenched. column). In other words, for every dollar of aid that donors give, they Are there significant qualitative differences between the labour appropriate resources worth 80 dollars through unequal exchange. From performed in the North versus the South, within global commodity the perspective of aid recipients, for every dollar they receive in aid they chains, that might explain wage inequalities? This seems unlikely. lose resources worth 30 dollars through drain (Table 5, final column). Southern production within global commodity chains involves labour The dominant narrative of international development holds that ranging from manual work to managerial, engineering, logistics, and IT poor countries are poor because of their own internal failings and are roles, with technology provided by international capital, while the end- therefore in need of assistance. But the empirical evidence on unequal of-chain steps performed in the global North (including design, adver­ exchange demonstrates that poor countries are poor in large part tising, retail and delivery) involve a similar range of labour. And yet because they are exploited within the global economy and are therefore wage disparities are nonetheless so extreme that highly skilled labour in need of justice. These results indicate that combating the deleterious performed in the South may even receive lower pay than “unskilled” effects of unequal exchange by making the global economy fairer and labour performed in the North. Table 5 Value transfer compared to aid flows (monetary values are given in constant 2010 USD) Years Official Development UE at Northern prices DAC gains as multiple of ODA UE at global average ODA recipients’ losses as multiple Assistance (trillions) (trillions) disbursements prices (trillions) of ODA receipts 2015 $0.13 $9.46 71.11 $4.00 29.84 1990–2015 $2.66 $211.33 79.46 $78.36 29.46 8 J. Hickel et al. Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 The dominant explanation for wage inequalities hinges on produc­ the level of subsistence. This allows Apple to obtain the iPhone for tivity differences: Northern exports have higher “value-added” because cheap, and then, leveraging its patent monopoly (a privilege granted and they embody higher labour productivity, the argument goes (e.g., Sub­ enforced not by the market but by the state), mark up the final price by asat, 2013). But this argument is tautological, and there is no evidence over 100% (see Smith, 2016). In some cases, patents involve forcing for the underlying claim. The conventional metric of productivity (GDP people in the South to pay for access to resources they might otherwise per unit of labour) is determined by prices, not by workers’ actual pro­ have obtained much more affordably, or even for free (Shiva, 2001; ductivity (Fischer, 2011; Fix, 2018). For instance, if Northern states or 2016). firms leverage monopoly power within global commodity chains to Unequal exchange is also enabled by geopolitical power imbalances depress the prices of imports and increase the prices of final products, in the world economy. For instance, high-income nations exercise mo­ their labour “productivity” appears to improve, and that of their coun­ nopoly power in the institutions of international economic governance terparts declines, even if the underlying production process remains (Chang, 2008). In the World Bank and the IMF, Northern states hold a unchanged. Indeed, empirical evidence indicates that real productivity majority of votes (and the US holds a veto), thus giving them control differences between workers are minimal, and cannot explain wage in­ over key economic policy decisions. In the World Trade Organization equalities (Hunter et al., 1990). (which controls tariffs, subsidies, and patents), bargaining power is The disjuncture between wages and productivity is revealed by data determined by market size, enabling high-income nations to set trade on unit labour costs. The gap between unit labour costs in Northern and rules in their own interests. Subsidized agricultural exports from the Southern economies demonstrates that the difference in wages is greater North undermine subsistence economies in the South and contribute to than the difference in productivity. In other words, wage inequalities dispossession and unemployment, placing downward pressure on exist not because Southern workers are less productive but because they wages. Militarized borders preclude easy migration from South to North, are more intensively exploited, and often subject to rigid systems of thus preventing wage convergence. Moreover, structural adjustment labour control and discipline designed to maximize extraction (Suwandi programs (SAPs) imposed by the World Bank and IMF since the 1980s et al., 2019). Indeed, this is a major reason why Northern firms offshore have cut public sector salaries and employment, rolled back labour production to the South in the first place: because labour is cheaper per rights, curtailed unions, and gutted environmental regulations (Khor, unit of physical output (Goldman, 2012). 1995; Petras and Veltmeyer, 2002). In other words, the terminology of “value-added” is a misnomer. In On top of this, there are several forces that work to prevent the South international trade, TiVA does not tell us who adds more value but from developing sovereign industrial capacity (i.e., outside of subordi­ rather who has more power to command prices. And in the case of global nate positions in global commodity chains). SAPs, bilateral free trade commodity chains, TiVA does not indicate where value is produced but agreements, and the World Trade Organization have forced global South rather where it is captured (Smith, 2016). The power of the governments to remove tariffs, subsidies and other protections for infant input–output-based footprint metric we have used here is that it maxi­ industries. This prevents governments from attempting import substi­ mizes the comparability of North-South exchanges by including up­ tution, which would improve their export prices and drive Northern stream inputs embodied in traded goods, and allows us to trace the prices down. Tax evasion and illicit financial flows out of the South ultimate sources of the inputs that are mobilized within global com­ (which total more than $1 trillion per year) drain resources that might modity chains. To the extent that these inputs contribute to value added, otherwise be reinvested domestically, or which governments might our analysis reveals that value in global commodity chains is dispro­ otherwise use to build national industries. This problem is compounded portionately produced by the South, but disproportionately captured by by external debt service obligations, which drain government revenue the North (as GDP). Value captured in this manner is misleadingly and require obeisance to economic policies dictated by creditors (Hickel, attributed to Northern economic activities (Suwandi et al., 2019:4-5). 2017). In addition, structural dependence on foreign investors and ac­ cess to Northern markets forces Southern governments and firms to 5.2. On power compete with one another by cutting wages and resource prices in a race to the bottom. In previous research, Dorninger et al. (2021) found that the main In other words, structural power imbalances in the world economy predictor of high export prices (and therefore the capacity for net ensure that labour and resources in the South remain cheap and acces­ appropriation) was economic power, as measured by GDP. In other sible to international capital, while Northern exports enjoy compara­ words, rich countries are able to maintain price inequalities simply by tively higher prices. These price differentials enable a significant drain virtue of being rich. This finding supports longstanding claims by po­ of labour and resources from the South. While during the colonial period litical economists that, all else being equal, price inequalities are an the prices of labour and resources in the colonies were determined by artefact of power. Just as in a national economy wage rates are an coercion, something similar can be said of the prices Southern exporters artefact of the relative bargaining power of labour vis-à-vis capital, so receive in contemporary international trade. Cheap labour and raw too in international trade prices are an artefact of the relative bargaining materials in the global South are not “naturally” cheap, as if their power of national economies and corporate actors vis-à-vis their trading cheapness was written in the stars. They are actively cheapened (see partners and suppliers. Countries that grew rich during the colonial Moore, 2015; Patel and Moore, 2017). period are now able to leverage their economic dominance to depress the costs of labour and resources extracted from the South. In other 5.3. Limitations words, the North “finances” net appropriation from the South not with money, but rather by maintaining the prices of Southern resources and This study faces several limitations that are worth noting. One labour below the global average level. problem is that focusing on aggregate flows between North and South There are a number of mechanisms that enable this pattern. In sec­ may obscure important regional differences, particularly within the tion 1 we mentioned that Northern firms leverage monopsony and South. We isolated China in our analysis for comparison (see Appendix), monopoly power to depress Southern suppliers’ prices while setting final but it may be useful in future research to explore a more extensive prices artificially high. Patents play a key role here: 97% of all patents regional breakdown. Another problem is that the North-South analysis are held by corporations in high-income countries (Chang, 2008:141). obscures patterns of sub-imperialism. For instance, China may suffer a We can see how this plays out in the case of major products like iPhones. net drain to the North but it may also benefit from exploiting econom­ The iPhone is produced almost entirely in the global South, by arms- ically weaker Southern countries, such as in Africa (Li, 2021). Further length suppliers. Apple, headquartered in the North, forces its sup­ research might be able to quantify this dynamic by looking at each pliers to compete to drive prices down to cost, with wages depressed to country’s trade position against all other countries. The difficulty with 9 J. Hickel et al. Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 these finer-grained approaches is that data uncertainty increases in the ecosystems, and shifting to a regenerative economic system. process of disaggregation, and the results are likely to be less robust. Our findings also have significant implications for international Another limitation of our method is that the analysis obscures class development theory and practice. It is clear that official development and geographic inequalities within countries and regions, which are assistance is not a meaningful solution to global poverty and inequality; significant when it comes to labour prices as well as resource con­ nor is the claim that global South countries need more economic liber­ sumption. The high levels of resource consumption that characterize alisation and export-oriented market integration. The core problem is Northern economies are driven disproportionately by rich individuals that low- and middle-income countries are integrated into the global and affluent areas, as well as by corporations that control supply chains, economy on fundamentally unequal terms. Rectifying this problem is and enabled by internal patterns of exploitation and unequal exchange critical to ensuring that global South countries have the financial, in addition to drain through trade (Harvey, 2005). For example, there physical and human resources they need to improve social outcomes. are marginalized regions of the United States that serve as an “internal There are a number of steps that could be taken toward this end. One periphery” (Wishart, 2014). It would also be useful to explore the gender would be to democratize the institutions of global economic governance, dynamics of unequal exchange within countries. These questions cannot such as the World Bank, IMF and WTO, so that global South countries be answered with our data, however. have more control over trade and finance policy. Another would be to Finally, our ability to accurately estimate the monetary value of end the North’s use of unfair subsidies for agricultural exports, and unequal exchange faces several limits. First, we have not assessed the remove structural adjustment conditions on international finance, relative contributions of raw materials, land, energy and labour to which would help mitigate downward pressure on wages and resource overall TiVA, which would allow us to estimate the prices of embodied prices in the South while at the same time enabling Southern countries resources more precisely. Future research might analyse drain on a more to build sovereign industrial capacity. Alternatively, and perhaps more detailed industry or supply chain level in order to decompose the role of directly, implementing a global living wage system, and a global system each factor. This would be possible by means of structural path analysis of environmental regulations, would effectively put a floor on labour (SPA) (Defourny and Thorbecke, 1984). However, applying SPA is a and resource prices. non-trivial task, which demands additional computational resources and Interventions along these lines would allow the South to capture a time. Deriving overall conclusions from such a detailed data set would fairer level of income from international trade. This would be more be challenging, and is beyond the scope of the present work. Second, we effective at improving development outcomes than the existing pre­ have not detailed the material composition of raw material equivalents scriptions based on aid, liberalisation, and market integration; and it (i.e., the relative share of biomass, metals and minerals in the footprints would enable the South to mobilize domestic resources and labour for of traded goods), which may compromise comparability to some extent. meeting domestic needs, rather than for servicing Northern consump­ However, it must be noted that performing MRIO analyses on a more tion. But it would also have significant implications in terms of ecology. detailed industry and material group level, as with disaggregating the Reducing North-South price differentials would in turn reduce the scale results into different regions and countries, could introduce additional of the North’s net resource appropriation from the South (in other uncertainties that may compromise the robustness of the results. words, it would reduce ecologically unequal exchange), thus reducing excess consumption in the North and the ecological impacts that it in­ 6. Conclusion flicts on the South. Such reforms are unlikely to be handed down from above, however, This research confirms that the “advanced economies” of the global as they would run against the interests of geopolitical factions that North rely on a large net appropriation of resources and labour from the benefit prodigiously from the present structure of the global economy. global South, extracted through induced price differentials in interna­ Structural transformation will only be achieved through political tional trade. By combining insights from the classical literature on un­ struggle from below, including by the anti-colonial and environmental equal exchange with contemporary insights about global commodity justice movements that continue to fight against imperialism today chains and new methods for quantifying the physical scale of embodied (WPCCC, 2010; Scheidel et al., 2020; Red Nation, 2021). It will also resource transfers, we are able to develop a novel approach to estimating require Southern states to use industrial and fiscal policy to pursue the scale and value of resource drain from the global South. Our results economic sovereignty, food and energy self-sufficiency, progressive show that, when measured in Northern prices, the drain amounted to import substitution, and regional solidarities (Amin, 1990; Kaboub, $10.8 trillion in 2015, and $242 trillion over the period from 1990 to 2008; Ajl, 2021). 2015 – a significant windfall for the North, equivalent to a quarter of Northern GDP. Meanwhile, the South’s losses through unequal exchange CRediT authorship contribution statement outstrip their total aid receipts over the period by a factor of 30. Our findings on net resource appropriation support contemporary Jason Hickel: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, demands for reparations for ecological debt, as articulated by environ­ Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Christian Dor­ mental justice movements and by the G77 (Roberts and Parks, 2009; ninger: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing. Warlenius et al., 2015; Hornborg and Martinez-Alier, 2016). At mini­ Hanspeter Wieland: Methodology. Intan Suwandi: Conceptualization, mum, the social, economic and ecological damages associated with Writing – review & editing. resource appropriation from the South – including damages from emissions – should be paid for by the appropriators, according to the Declaration of Competing Interest polluter pays principle that operates in the European Union, United Kingdom, United States and other OECD countries. Reparations could The authors declare that they have no known competing financial also be paid according to the monetary value of appropriated resources, interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence which could be used by the South to claim back resources from the North the work reported in this paper. equivalent to what was drained, thus meeting Southern needs while reducing excess Northern consumption. Ultimately, however, the scale Acknowledgement of ecological debt, like the value of resources themselves, cannot be quantified in monetary terms alone. Ecology is the basis of life itself and C.D. is grateful for funding from the Konrad Lorenz Institute Klos­ money cannot compensate for its loss. True repair requires permanently terneuburg and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and ending the unequal distribution of environmental goods and burdens innovation programme under grant agreement No 101016926. H.W.’s between the global North and global South, restoring damaged work was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the 10 J. Hickel et al. Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (FINEPRINT project, grant agreement No. 725525). Appendix 1 List and classification of countries. Country name ODA list IMF list Country ODA list IMF list Country ODA list IMF list Afghanistan recipient not-advanced Gabon recipient not-advanced Niger recipient not-advanced Albania recipient not-advanced Gambia recipient not-advanced Nigeria recipient not-advanced Algeria recipient not-advanced Gaza Strip recipient not-advanced North Korea recipient not-advanced Andorra donor advanced Georgia recipient not-advanced Norway donor advanced Angola recipient not-advanced Germany donor advanced Oman recipient not-advanced Antigua recipient not-advanced Ghana recipient not-advanced Pakistan recipient not-advanced Argentina recipient not-advanced Greece donor advanced Panama recipient not-advanced Armenia recipient not-advanced Greenland donor not-advanced Papua New Guinea recipient not-advanced Aruba recipient not-advanced Guatemala recipient not-advanced Paraguay recipient not-advanced Australia donor advanced Guinea recipient not-advanced Peru recipient not-advanced Austria donor advanced Guyana recipient not-advanced Philippines recipient not-advanced Azerbaijan recipient not-advanced Haiti recipient not-advanced Poland donor not-advanced Bahamas recipient not-advanced Honduras recipient not-advanced Portugal donor advanced Bahrain recipient not-advanced Hong Kong recipient advanced Qatar recipient not-advanced Bangladesh recipient not-advanced Hungary donor not-advanced Romania recipient not-advanced Barbados recipient not-advanced Iceland donor advanced Russia recipient not-advanced Belarus recipient not-advanced India recipient not-advanced Rwanda recipient not-advanced Belgium donor advanced Indonesia recipient not-advanced Samoa recipient not-advanced Belize recipient not-advanced Iran recipient not-advanced San Marino donor advanced Benin recipient not-advanced Iraq recipient not-advanced Sao Tome and Principe recipient not-advanced Bermuda recipient advanced Ireland donor advanced Saudi Arabia recipient not-advanced Bhutan recipient not-advanced Israel recipient advanced Senegal recipient not-advanced Bolivia recipient not-advanced Italy donor advanced Serbia recipient not-advanced Bosnia and Herzegovina recipient not-advanced Jamaica recipient not-advanced Seychelles recipient not-advanced Botswana recipient not-advanced Japan donor advanced Sierra Leone recipient not-advanced Brazil recipient not-advanced Jordan recipient not-advanced Singapore recipient advanced British Virgin Islands recipient not-advanced Kazakhstan recipient not-advanced Slovakia donor advanced Brunei recipient not-advanced Kenya recipient not-advanced Slovenia donor advanced Bulgaria recipient not-advanced Kuwait recipient not-advanced Somalia recipient not-advanced Burkina Faso recipient not-advanced Kyrgyzstan recipient not-advanced South Africa recipient not-advanced Burundi recipient not-advanced Laos recipient not-advanced South Korea donor advanced Cambodia recipient not-advanced Latvia recipient advanced South Sudan recipient not-advanced Cameroon recipient not-advanced Lebanon recipient not-advanced Spain donor advanced Canada donor advanced Lesotho recipient not-advanced Sri Lanka recipient not-advanced Cape Verde recipient not-advanced Liberia recipient not-advanced Sudan recipient not-advanced Cayman Islands recipient not-advanced Libya recipient not-advanced Suriname recipient not-advanced Central African Republic recipient not-advanced Liechtenstein donor advanced Swaziland recipient not-advanced Chad recipient not-advanced Lithuania recipient not-advanced Sweden donor advanced Chile recipient not-advanced Luxembourg donor advanced Switzerland donor advanced China recipient not-advanced Macao SAR recipient advanced Syria recipient not-advanced Colombia recipient not-advanced Madagascar recipient not-advanced Taiwan recipient advanced Congo recipient not-advanced Malawi recipient not-advanced Tajikistan recipient not-advanced Costa Rica recipient not-advanced Malaysia recipient not-advanced Tanzania recipient not-advanced Cote dIvoire recipient not-advanced Maldives recipient not-advanced TFYR Macedonia recipient not-advanced Croatia recipient not-advanced Mali recipient not-advanced Thailand recipient not-advanced Cuba recipient not-advanced Malta recipient advanced Togo recipient not-advanced Cyprus recipient advanced Mauritania recipient not-advanced Trinidad and Tobago recipient not-advanced Czech Republic donor advanced Mauritius recipient not-advanced Tunisia recipient not-advanced Denmark donor advanced Mexico recipient not-advanced Turkey recipient not-advanced Djibouti recipient not-advanced Moldova recipient not-advanced Turkmenistan recipient not-advanced Dominican Republic recipient not-advanced Monaco donor advanced UAE recipient not-advanced DR Congo recipient not-advanced Mongolia recipient not-advanced Uganda recipient not-advanced Ecuador recipient not-advanced Montenegro recipient not-advanced UK donor advanced Egypt recipient not-advanced Morocco recipient not-advanced Ukraine recipient not-advanced El Salvador recipient not-advanced Mozambique recipient not-advanced Uruguay recipient not-advanced Eritrea recipient not-advanced Myanmar recipient not-advanced USA donor advanced Estonia recipient advanced Namibia recipient not-advanced Uzbekistan recipient not-advanced Ethiopia recipient not-advanced Nepal recipient not-advanced Vanuatu recipient not-advanced Fiji recipient not-advanced Netherlands donor advanced Venezuela recipient not-advanced Finland donor advanced Netherlands Antilles recipient not-advanced Viet Nam recipient not-advanced Former USSR recipient not-advanced New Caledonia recipient not-advanced Yemen recipient not-advanced France donor advanced New Zealand donor advanced Zambia recipient not-advanced French Polynesia recipient not-advanced Nicaragua recipient not-advanced Zimbabwe recipient not-advanced 11 J. Hickel et al. Global Environmental Change 73 (2022) 102467 Appendix 2. Trade balance between China and the North. exchange of raw material equivalents exchange of embodied land (Chinese perspective) (Chinese perspective) 200 1 150 100 0 50 [mn ha] −1 0 [Gt] −50 −2 −100 −3 −150 −200 −4 −250 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Year Year exchange of embodied energy exchange of embodied labour (Chinese perspective) (Chinese perspective) 5 0 [mn person−year−equiv.] 0 −20 −40 −5 [EJ] −60 −10 −80 −100 −15 −120 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Year Year imports exports References Collier, P., 2007. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. Oxford University Press, New York. Cope, Z., 2019. The Wealth of (Some) Nations: Imperialism and the Mechanics of Value Acemoglu, D. and J. A. Robinson, 2012. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Transfer. Pluto Press, London. Prosperity, and Poverty. 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