Theo Patterson

“we prefer to erase the realities of slavery, expropriation, and colonialism from the history of capitalism, craving a nobler, cleaner capitalism.”
― Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History

“I stared at the faces of the dead students. “You know, Zacharie, just looking at them, I can’t tell you which ones were Tutsis, which Hutus.” “Exactly!” said Deo in a loud whisper. Evidently, one was supposed to whisper here. “And neither could the killers!” “The killers couldn’t see the difference, too,” whispered Zacharie. “So they ask. Because they can’t tell. We are the same people.”
― Tracy Kidder, Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness

“The empire of cotton has continued to facilitate a giant race to the bottom, limited only by the spatial constraints of the planet.”
― Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History

“If our starting point is a respect for nature and people, diversity is an inevitable consequence. If technology and the needs of the economy are our starting point, then we have what we are faced with today—a model of development that is dangerously distanced from the needs of particular peoples and places and rigidly imposed from the top down.”
― Helena Norberg-Hodge, Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh