what the past 30 or so years has been about

is the shift from old school colonial economic methods of exploitation

(wherein colonial powers extract resources from iaopoc regions and manufacture goods to sell back)

to the dawning realisation that manufacturing creates a great deal of polution and that paying ppl living wages means a reduced profit margin

and so the colonial powers keep extracting resources from iaopoc regions (now complicated ‘cause many of these places are settler states)

but instead of manufacturing stuff in their respective areas, they shift the resources elsewhere to exploit the labour of ppl they impovershed and to poison their land

this time to sell the goods to their own ppl

lather, rinse, repeaat