Author Talk: Journalist Dawn Paley’s “Drug War Capitalism”

Dawn Paley will talk about her new book, “Drug War Capitalism”, a provocative look at the drug war in Central America.

Her book argues that US-backed drug policy in this region is only a means of advancing corporate interests. Although pillage, profit, and plunder have been a mainstay of war since pre-colonial times, there is currently little awareness amongst Americans of the role of finance and economics in today’s “Drug Wars”, despite the fact that they boost American banks’ profits and fill prisons with poor people. The so-called “war on drugs” feeds money to political campaigns, increases the arms trade, and functions as a long-term fix to capitalism’s woes, providing new opportunities for privatization and foreign direct investment. Paley chronicles how terror is used against the people of the region, generating panic and facilitating policy changes that benefit the international private sector, particularly extractive industries like petroleum and mining.

Dawn Paley is a freelance journalist who has been reporting from South America, Central America, and Mexico for over ten years. Her writing has been published in the Nation, the Guardian, the Vancouver Sun, and Ms. magazine.