Teen Vogue drives push to stop private companies from helping destabilized regions recover
September 7, 2021
Teen Vogue gave its impressionable teenage audience something new to protest in a recent piece headlined, “What is disaster capitalism?”
The outlet explains that “private interests” are to blame for the ominous-sounding “disaster capitalism,” which rebuilds damaged countries better, perhaps, than their own governments or any other entity could.
As Teen Vogue writes, “Disaster capitalism … occurs when private interests descend on a particular region in the wake of major destabilizing events, such as war, government upheaval, and natural disaster. ‘It’s really an extension of the military industrial complex, but it isn’t just warfare; it’s responses to disasters,’ [a professor] explains. ‘It’s the reconstruction afterwards.’”
That’s the bad part: reconstruction, redevelopment and a country getting back on its feet. Disaster capitalism is a 21st-century continuation of “colonialism and imperialism” in places such as Haiti and Puerto Rico, according to Teen Vogue.
The piece urges “movements, organizations, activists, and policymakers invested in global climate justice … to develop bold policy visions and be willing to promote them” in place of this aid, to include the socialist Green New Deal.
A prime example of an organization in Haiti is the corrupt, ineffective Clinton Foundation. The Clintons used it to engage in quid pro quo deals in Haiti to enrich themselves.
But the country’s condition isn’t their fault, since climate change is racist. Teen Vogue claims it has a disparate impact on “certain countries” where “there was a colonial presence … [,] a history of economic dependency … [and] a history of severe social inequalities due to particular imperial wars or colonial conflicts.”
If Teen Vogue reaches enough of its tremendous audience, future voters may well push to prevent private interests from helping countries whose own governments cannot afford to help following disaster.
Teen Vogue is not the only outlet to capitalize on “disaster capitalism” as it trends in leftist media.
In an article about disaster capitalism in March 2020, Vice wrote that “[mixed messages early in the coronavirus response] are the perfect conditions for governments and the global elite to implement political agendas that would otherwise be met with great opposition if we weren’t all so disoriented.”