Explores the way writers address the formation and fate of the contemporary American working class in an age of neoliberal globalization. Specifically, the essay examines Russell Banks's 1985 novel Continental Drift, which interweaves the stories of two characters who pull up stakes and head to Florida in search of a better life: an oil furnace repair man from New Hampshire and a young, single mother from Haiti.
The current political and economic situation in Latin America is characterized by a marked difference between South American countries, on one side, and Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, on the other. In South America, capital still accumulates through the appropriation/recovery of a portion of its abundant ground rent. In Mexico and most of the Caribbean Basin, capital accumulates through the production, exploiting a relatively cheap and disciplined labor force, of industrial goods for the world market.
