I originally wrote what follows back in 2019.

Given what Trump and his gang are doing in the USA it seems topical and relevant to repeat it today; especially when some people (for example commentators on the BBC) are openly saying, ‘Is this the end of Globalisation: do we need to be more Internationalist?’

Well, members of Bexleyheath and Crayford CLP were many years ahead, having talked about this 6 years ago.

Here is what we said:

Last year I discovered that I could get PBS America in the UK via Freeview (channel 94). I recommend it as they have some good stuff on – some is from the BBC but there is a lot from elsewhere which we haven’t seen before in the UK.

A while back I watched ‘Left Behind America’ which I recommend you watch. https://www.pbsamerica.co.uk/series/left-behind-america/

Link here via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B51aTPE21kk in case it disappears from PBS America.

I am not going to try to summarise the programme here, but it tells the story of Dayton, Ohio, which used to be one of the workhorses of the USA where things were invented and made; providing well paid, secure, jobs; where families could filter up through the social system, but where now nearly 35% of the population lives in poverty.

Social mobility has now broken down and stopped; half of its population has moved away since the 1970s, and many of the new jobs are insecure and low paid. 

So many people have moved away that what industry is left is actually having trouble finding skilled workers. 

Public services have disappeared and there are ‘food deserts’ where it is impossible to buy fresh food (or any food for that matter).

This situation is repeated across the USA, as well as in parts of the UK and Europe and across many parts of the world.

Neo-liberal economics and globalisation has caused this. 

Neo-liberal economics and globalisation, and the abandonment of the world’s ‘rust belts’ has led us to Trump and Brexit.

If we don’t like, and don’t want, Trump and Brexit, we need to work to ensure that the rust belts and the left-behind are helped to recover and be providers of well paid, secure, work once again.

This cannot be done under neo-liberal economics and globalisation. 

We need to work together across the world in mutual support and cooperation, spreading the wealth and security around, and not allow it to concentrate in the 1% (and especially not the 0.1%). 

For a while this may need Dayton (and places like it) to get help and protection until it (and they) can stand on their own feet once again, and then Dayton will be able to help other places.

We need to see that Dayton, and places like it, need our help – we need to work in solidarity with places like Dayton and certainly not ignore them because Trump says he wants to help them and we don’t like Trump. 

In fact helping places like Dayton removes the perceived ‘need’ for Trump.

This requires us to distinguish between globalisation and internationalisation; and to dump globalisation and to switch to internationalisation (or internationalism).

Internationalisation is about solidarity with people across the world so that we are all better off rather than, as Digby Jones always says, ‘stealing someone’s dinner from in-front of them’.

As a postscript – one of the most shocking things in this programme is the opiate drug addiction epidemic which seems to have originated from doctors over-prescribing painkillers which were addictive. I can’t help wondering to what extent these were pushed by the pharma industry in the pursuit of profit.

Steven Boxall
Political Education Officer
Bexleyheath and Crayford CLP
April 2025