Book SummaryThe Divide, by Jason Hickel

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Divide

Today, many experts assert that life for humans has never been better. However, in The Divide, Jason Hickel argues that today’s Western-led world order causes systemic global inequality at a scale never before seen. While a small elite class grows wealthier, billions remain burdened by poverty and hunger.

According to Hickel, this divide arose through the centuries of violence, exploitation, and extraction that were the European colonial period. Beginning over 500 years ago and continuing into the end of the 20th century, European empires and later the United States used military, political, and economic strategies to dominate countries across the Global South. Today, large parts of Latin and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia remain beholden to these Western powers’ interests.

To hide this reality, Hickel argues, Western powers deploy a narrative of development and charitable aid that makes it seem as if the present world order is just. This narrative says that the West is on top because of better government and natural resource advantages, while the Global South suffers from bad policies, corruption, and a lack of capital. However, this framing conceals that the West became wealthy through centuries of plundering colonized countries. Similarly, the charitable aid that Western powers give to developing nations distracts public attention from the reality of ongoing neocolonial control.

Meanwhile, the specific kind of economy that now dominates the world has driven us to the brink of environmental disaster. As Hickel puts it, the basic logic of today’s global capitalism—that exponential economic growth means progress—directly conflicts with the sustainability of life on Earth. If we can’t change this system, it’ll consume the very planet upon which it relies for its growth, and us along with it.

Hickel contends that to have a chance of overcoming this crisis, we need to transform the global order. He advocates for structural reform of the economic practices that cause inequality so that Global South nations can pursue development on their own terms. He also holds that we must rethink what makes for genuine human progress so that we can create an economy that provides for our well-being without destroying our one and only home.

Hickel is an economic anthropologist, researcher, and author from Eswatini whose work focuses on global political economy, ecology, and inequality. He wrote The Divide to explain the structural injustices of the global economy, the politics that enable it, and how a new world might still be possible. The Divide is for anyone who’s concerned...

The Divide Summary The Narrative Versus the Reality

To start with, we’ll explain Hickel’s critique of the global development narrative. He argues that the aid efforts of NGOs, charities, and other institutions to solve poverty, hunger, and inequality have been broadly unsuccessful. Further, they’ve been used to spin a story that hides the deeper causes of these inequalities.

Charitable Aid Frames the West as Moral

Hickel argues that the US undertakes charitable aid to spin a narrative that casts the West as the good guys of world history. He explains that the idea of granting aid packages to developing nations first arose as a public relations tactic for US President Harry Truman. At the time, Truman wanted to assuage Americans’ growing concerns about the West’s morally gray past. He did so by declaring in his 1949 inaugural address that the US would begin giving aid to help poorer nations develop—an idea known as Point Four.

(Shortform note: Global development may not have even been a primary aim of Truman’s Point Four. Some experts consider it an effort to prevent the spread of communism....

The Divide Summary Western Imperialism Began with Colonialism

How exactly did we arrive at this state of global inequality? Hickel contends that the answers lie in the history of Western imperialism, which began with colonialism.

In this section, we’ll explore that history. We’ll explain how Western European powers colonized regions of the Global South in search of material and human resources, how those resources allowed Europe (and later the US) to develop, and how Western colonial control continued into the late 20th century. We’ll also discuss how colonialism gave rise to modern poverty.

Was Colonialism Inevitable?

Hickel portrays colonialism as a series of conscious decisions to exploit and dominate, implying that Western nations bear significant moral responsibility for the resulting global inequality. This view suggests that the current world order isn’t inevitable, but rather the result of specific policies and actions that could’ve been different.

In contrast, Jared Diamond's perspective in Guns, Germs, and Steel represents a more deterministic view. He argues that...

The Divide Summary Western Imperialism Continues with Neocolonialism

The colonial period ended gradually, according to Hickel, with countries across the world fighting for national sovereignty from the mid-1800s to the late 1900s. By then, Western powers had enriched themselves and impoverished much of the rest of the world.

With that history in mind, we’ll next discuss how after independence, the Global South enjoyed a few decades of unimpeded development. However, the West then regained control through neocolonialism: a newer system of control based on subtler uses of political, military, and economic power.

The Global South’s Developmentalist Period

As Hickel explains, Global South nations gained independence and began to develop from the 1950s to the 1970s. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, key leaders from Yugoslavia, India, Egypt, Ghana, and Indonesia founded the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to create solidarity for the Global South, protecting their interests without siding with the US or the USSR.

At the same time, these countries and others began to pursue developmentalism. This policy approach includes using high tariffs to protect infant industries, strong spending on social programs, nationalization of utilities...

The Divide Summary Imagining a New World

If, as Hickel argues, today’s world order is so broken—based on violence, immoral debt, and an economic system that will likely consume the planet—then where does that leave us?

In this section, we’ll explore Hickel’s recommendations for solving these deep problems. We’ll discuss his suggestions for reforms of global trade and policy administration, as well as how to respond to the climate crisis. All of Hickel’s suggestions stem from his assertion that since these are structural problems rooted in centuries past, any solution has to address things on a structural level.

Why Incremental Change Isn’t Enough

How come incremental or surface-level change often isn’t enough to solve difficult global issues, climate change or political instability? Global issues are systemic, or embedded throughout the whole structure they affect. Changing them requires comprehensive, thoroughgoing effort to address many different factors.

As an analogy, take the body: You can fracture a bone, causing a localized problem; or you might get osteoporosis, which is a generalized bone weakness. Fixing that...

Shortform Exercise: Where Do You Stand in the Global Economy?

Given Jason Hickel’s arguments about global economics and inequality, reflect on how these sweeping historical forces may influence your life, too.

First, consider where you’re from. In what ways might you be positively and/or negatively affected by the historical dominion of Western nations over the Global South?