By now, many of you have undoubtedly heard that a Florida court has ruled against Chiquita, ordering the company to pay $38 million to the families of people murdered by right-wing death squads that Chiquita funded in Colombia in the early 2000s.
This is of course a pittance, but still a positive step.
I haven’t dug into the details of the case but two things leap out at me:
First, the group that Chiquita funded—the AUC—was a US-designated terrorist group at the time. Chiquita was separately fined $25 million a few years ago for that, but it’s wild to imagine how different the reaction would be if the terrorists Chiquita funded were Muslims.
Second, my many thanks go to Chiquita for once again illustrating the impossibility of capitalism in the absence of state violence, contrary to the claims of ancaps. If powerful and wealthy firms lack state support, they’ll simply hire state-like violence on the market.