As the great tribal war in Europe, commonly called World War II, grinded to a halt, the American Government launched one of the most ambitious recovery plans ever devised to stabilise the global economy and help reboot European nations that had been devastated by the war — the Marshall Plan.

The billions spent on the Marshall Plan served to buy the allegiance of European countries to the American empire as well as guaranteed markets for America’s industrial output.

With the economies of the major players in international affairs in ruins, the Americans stood to make a fortune in trade and finance. America’s industrial plant was intact and Europe needed everything, from wine to iodine.

Built into the Marshall Plan was a vision for the creation of stable democratic countries that would cooperate and trade rather than try to kill each other at every opportunity. The US, therefore, committed itself to footing the bill for the Marshall Plan and providing the military support needed to safeguard global trade.

The global order created by the American empire was designed to act as a counterfoil to the hegemonic ambitions of the Soviet Union. African and Caribbean nations were either cajoled or coerced into joining team America or team Soviet Union. The proximity of the Caribbean to the US meant that many Caribbean governments were given Hobson’s choice, that is, taking what was offered or nothing at all, and any regional leaders who stepped out of line felt the American whip across their backs.

The globalist system championed by the American empire sought to negotiate the lowering of or removal of tariffs to facilitate greater global trade. Unfortunately, as pointed out by Joseph Stiglitz in his book Globalization and Its Discontent, while the Americans, western Europeans, and Japanese were advocating the removal of tariffs against their goods, they were also giving substantial subsidies to their farmers.

Subsidised products often meant that American, western European, and Japanese goods could sell cheaper than goods produced in Africa and the Caribbean. While this was a boon for the consumer, it unfortunately led to the destruction of many local industries in Africa and the Caribbean. The failure of many African and Caribbean governments to move beyond the historically assigned role of producers of raw materials retarded and killed the industrialisation process in these two regions of the world.

As the world advances rapidly towards the collapse of the existing global order, Africa and the Caribbean are precariously positioned in the centre of a perfect economic storm. We have managed to eke out some of the benefits of industrialisation without implementing the elements that makes industrialisation durable. We have been able to wing it as long as our commodities and services flowed out and the money flowed into our economies.

The novel coronavirus pandemic, the war in the Ukraine, and the new realignment of nations that is currently taking place jeopardises the infrastructure of global trade. The inability of Ukraine or Russia to move wheat out of the Black Sea region has dire consequences for nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, some of which are facing famine of a biblical proportion. The constriction of global trade and the disruption of the tourist industry by the pandemic have led to a bleeding of foreign reserves in Africa and the Caribbean. Many African and Caribbean states are therefore facing the prospects of outright national collapse.

If there ever was a time when African and Caribbean nations needed to put their heads, talents, and resources together it is now. The post-globalisation world will be extremely Hobbesian. Conditions will be short, nasty, and brutish. Lifeboat ethics will be the prevailing norm among those nations fortunate enough to withstand the economic storm that is brewing. African and Caribbean nations will soon appreciate the wisdom of some of our greatest thinkers who warned us that we will either learn how to swim together or we will all drown separately.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of The Rebirth of African Civilization: Making Africa and the Caribbean Great Again.