Globalised

The holding queue to land at São Paulo’s Congonhas airport stretches out over the Baixada Santista. Littered as far as the eye can see are vast container ships waiting their turn to land in Santos, Latin America’s biggest port. From there, leviathan cranes unload the cargo onto specialised trains that snake their way through the Atlantic rain forest to inland dry docks where the goods are unloaded onto fleets of trucks. This enormous infrastructural network of commodity transportation  is the true and largely unseen motor of globalisation. Yes, capital can spin across the world with one swipe on a computer, yes, the internet and modern travel has shrunk our perception of time and space, and yes, there are Starbucks and Irish pubs in every major city on the planet. But it is the hard graft of commodity production and exchange that drives the capitalist system at the heart of which lies the economic rivalry between US and Chinese manufacturing. The domination of world markets by these two superpowers is a well-known story, but one that has some unexpected consequences beyond the fact that you can buy the same plastic duck and chocolate bar on four continents. In an isolated rural community in the state of Para I was idling away the afternoon in the shade of a run-down rum shack. Within minutes a middle aged woman on the table next to me began to tell me her life story. Brasilians think nothing of telling a complete stranger their innermost secrets. Her failed marriage, cancer scares, how a local politician had tried to buy her vote with rice and beans, and then her pride and joy, her twin daughters, Madinusa and Madinchina.  Somethings you really can’t make up.