Maquilapolis and Human Capital Exploitation

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Maquilapolis and Human Capital Exploitation
Maquilapolis is a Spanish film that takes the form of a documentary and highlights some of the most atrocious human suffering in the free trade zones along the Mexican north border ('Tissue Economies'). Workers in sweatshops are subjected to some of the most life threatening situations and making minimum pay, while the international corporations that are taking advantage of them are making billions of their suffering and intoxication with hazardous waste and chemicals at the factories. This is film that speaks of the ugly side of the workers indignation, with the conditions of their work and the complacency of the government agencies responsible and the factory owners, taking advantage of human capital to make money at the expense of generational health hazards (Grewal, 555). Most of the workers in areas downstream the disposal rivers and downwind the factory facilities have already started to experience skin deformations and birth defects from the toxins in the waste generated. This is just the tip of the ice berg considering that some of the toxins that the workers have ingested or inhaled into their bodies are heavy metals and they tend to stay within the body for quite some time. It is also common for this toxins to remain in the soils for long periods of time, thereby giving them the chance to get into the food web. This is to mean that, when the waste in the soil is absorbed into the plants, the humans around these areas are likely to ingest the chemicals back into the body (NGUYo;[otilde]N-V[Otilde], 275). At the same time the animals that feed off the lands which have the poisoned soils, will then pass the chemicals back into the food chain. When the humans, plants and animals die, the chemicals are once again released into the soil.
In a statement by Catherine Waldby, she talks of citizenship, labor, and biopolitics of the bioeconomy, in light of the fact that way that corporations and economies use humans to mobilize development in the bioeconomies. This is a very intriguing statement and one that cuts through the noise of capitalism in the developing nations where the environmental laws are not as strict. Most of the large corporations that are involved in the bioeconomies, tend to run businesses that are not only hazardous but also crippling to the human population ('Mutations In Citizenship'). In light of the fact that they run businesses that have hazardous chemicals and wastes, they tend to go around the world seeking countries that do not have strict environmental laws and where the governments are desperate to make money at the expense of the people. Maquilapolis is just one of the classic examples where the large corporations operating on the Mexican borders have managed to destroy families and the environment for decades to come. In examples such as the battery recycling plant called the Metales y Derivados, the owner of the factory moved the premises from the US and into San Diego, to take advantage of the lax environmental laws. This is a classic example of the way that these corporations operate ('Commodity Fetishism'). This was a firm that emitting poisonous gases and wastes into the rivers and therefore the environment aroun...