I was watching the Green party the other day and they referred to something called "the brutal oppression of western capitalism".

You know, if someone could demonstrate that this alleged oppression actually exists as oppression, I'd be moved. But when I do any real research into the circumstances surrounding such an allegation, what tends to turn up is an opportunity that is not accepted as such.

Case in point: my wife recently wrote a paper about how American business is impacting social and sexual roles in the developing world. A typical story: US factory opens in a developing country, women gladly accept work the men are too proud to touch (often garment work), women make money, gain a measure of independance, males become resentful that their domination over women is threatened, and suddenly America is the badguy and capitalism is the tool of the devil.

In such a case, who exactly is the brutal oppressor? Oftentimes, it seems, the workers are happy to receive a wage that, though a pittance to us, is real money to them. The oppression, the threats and the violence come not from Americans, but very often from a usually-male part of the indiginous population that resents the shift in the economic and social landscape. So who is the oppressor?