[PEN-L:187] Strong left criticism of foreign aid
Louis N Proyect said something about Nicaragua in a recent post, which prompt me to the following: Two friends of mine came back from Nicaragua a month ago, after working there for a year. She was there on a NORAD(Norwegian Foreign Aid Dept.)-financed project as a theatrical instructor. He was there in no official function. They have been there earlier in 1988, and in 1990 after the elction that the Sandinastis lost. Before proceeding I have to say something about her, whom I have known for 24 years. She is 45 years, daughter of a communist family, has been a revolutionary all her her life, and still considers herself such. They were quite depressed after this year, and she broke off before the scheduled end of the project she was involved in. They were not primarily depressed by the unemployment and general social deterioration and rampant capitalist anarchy. This they were prepared for, and knew about from earlier trips. No, the real depressive factor was the observation of the foreign-aid-based parasitical domestic class that has emerged especially after 1990, consisting to a significant degree of former functionaries from the Sandinista administration and movement. My friends say that immediately after the lost election of 1990, 500 different groups were established, with the primary objective to gain money from what my friends call the "Foreign aid market". My friends say (I have no other data on this) that 50% of Nicaragua's foreign income today is aid, and that the Dept. of culture is run wholly on aid money. In the theatre group that she was to work with, the living standards of the Nicaraguan members were 10 times those of ordinary people outside the aid system. They had cars and chauffeurs, their homes were way above the average, and with housemaids at that. They had a lot of other examples. one was the disillusioned swedish agricultural machinery technician , who in two years got to do nothing else than learn som nicaraguans to drive. the original intention of teaching repair and maintenance was not realized. Not due to the Swede, but to his nicaraguan project leaders who spent their time plotting new projects for the "aid market", when they didn't lead the high life. Very little comes out of a lot of these projects. And the embassies and aid workers from donor countries keep silent on this, because they have their reasions to do so: The embassies of course want to report succesful achievements back home. The aid functionaries live very well with housemaids, all facilities and modern japanese cars, in an exotic country - a welcome diversion from the daily routine in f.inst. Norway. Those who are less cynical use considerable mental energy to convince themselves that they are really helping the domestic population, and even if they don't manage that completely, it is a long step to voice open criticism. They won't risk losing the possibility for appointments in future aid projects. My friends told about how the new Nicaraguan foreign-aid-upper-class mingle socially with the old owner class in the poshest Night clubs of Managua, where drinks and beers costing a month's wages for the working nicaraguan are consumed, while one listen to sentimental revolutionary songs from the 80ies, and _everybody_ applauds afterwards. They say that the best-educated and talented young people make a career in the foreign-aid-upper-class, instead of doing what they ought to do, try to struggle politically alongside the poor, build their country and contribute to a better living for ordinary people. These people instead rack their brains and use their energy to "design" "projects" that they think will go home with the bureaucrats and politicians in scandinavia and other well-off countries of the world. They know that "woman-oriented", "indigenous culture" etc. are key buzzwords in project applications, and are very adept at this. When one "project" is unfolding, they spend time applying for new ones. This is a lifetime occupation, and by N. standards, an extremely lucrative one. My friends spoke with ordinary peasants and working people, and they were several times told that it would be better for the poor and many, if all aid was halted, even if the number of low-paid jobs as housemaids, guards, chauffeurs would fall as a result. They said that they wanted to get rid of the foreign-aid-parasite class, and that it would not make it any worse for themselves. The only community in Nicaragua where dignity, pride and self-suffiency still seem to be the rule, said my friends, is in Miskito native communities on the Atlantic coast. Concerning the rest, the country is permeated by a can-we-have-some-aid-too-we-have-an-excellent-project-proposal mentality. So my friends concluded: Stop all foreign aid to Nicaragua, because it cripples the country by mentally destroying maybe the most talented part of the country's population, and it makes for a beggar's mentality in nearly all strata of society. They add
[PEN-L:188] Re: Graduate Econ Programs
You should definitely consider The American University. Our PhD program is very strong in both traditional and political economy theory and our econometrics sequence is quite rigorous. I will let other penlers from other programs toot their own horns, but I think our PhD political economy curriculum is now the best in the country. You should contact our PhD advisor and radical post-Keynesian macro theorists, Robert Blecker at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or by snail mail at the Department of Economics, The American University, Washington DC 20016. Hasta la Victoria Siempre
[PEN-L:189] Request for Info
A friend not on the list is looking for data on public ownership of industry for a comparative systems course she is teaching. Please respond privately to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks Kevin Quinn
[PEN-L:190] Re: Strong left criticism of foreign aid
Louis: This sounds consistent with what I've been hearing out of Nicaragua in recent years. The selfish behavior of Sandinista cadre is depressing, but really part of the same pattern that exists everywhere on the planet earth today. The only thing I would question is the moral perspective your "Communist" friend views Nicaraguan events from. After all, it was Edward Shverednaze and Elliot Abrams who sat down together in Costa Rica to work out the terms of the sacrifice of Nicaragua to facilitate Soviet-US "improved relations". On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, Trond Andresen wrote: They were quite depressed after this year, and she broke off before the scheduled end of the project she was involved in. They were not primarily depressed by the unemployment and general social deterioration and rampant capitalist anarchy. This they were prepared for, and knew about from earlier trips. No, the real depressive factor was the observation of the foreign-aid-based parasitical domestic class that has emerged especially after 1990, consisting to a significant degree of former functionaries from the Sandinista administration and movement. My friends say that immediately after the lost election of 1990, 500 different groups were established, with the primary objective to gain money from what my friends call the "Foreign aid market". My friends say (I have no other data on this) that 50% of Nicaragua's foreign income today is aid, and that the Dept. of culture is run wholly on aid money.
[PEN-L:191] Q: Who are the independent voters?
Dear pen-llers, Today's Washington Post finds (not suprisingly) that support grows for the independent vote in '96. The Times MIrror found that 26 percent of the electorate would vote for an unnamed independent presidential candidate in 1996, while 32 percent would vote for Clinton and 35 percent would vote for an unnamed Republican. Of those disposed toward an independent candidate, a plurality of 45 percent say they are more supportive of an "activist government" than is Clinton. My questions are: Does anyone know where labor's vote is? What are the voter characteristics of the Dem, Rep, and Ind catagories? Heather
[PEN-L:192] Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
I just got the press pack from the Independent Women's Forum, the Washginton-based right-wing women's group headed by Barbara Ledeen, wife of the notorious covert operator Michael Ledeen. The IWF is funded in part by the Bradley Foundation, one of the major funders of the big-time right. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese has joined the advisory board for their journal, and she also appears in their guide of experts along with Sheila Burke, Bob Dole's chief of staff; Wendy Lee Gramm, free marketeer and spouse of Phil; and hip Gen X rightists Laura Ingraham and Lisa Schiffren; a number of Republican staffers at Congressional committees; and a biger number of think tanks at the usual places, from Heritage to the property rights theorists at PERC in Bozeman, Mont. E F-G modestly lists herself as an expert in: "Children Family, Family Leave Child Care, Education, Welfare, Ethics Religion, Feminist Ideology, Health: General, Health: Ethics, Health: Women's, Popular Culture, Public Policy, Race Ethnicity, Affirmative Acdtion Equal Opportunity, Glass Ceiling, Multiculturalism, Sexual Harassment, Civil Rights, Economic Policy/Budget, Legal Issues/The Law, Politics." I've not measured this scientifically but this list looks longer than any other entrant's. This comes upon news that E F-G's spouse, Eugene, in one evening in 1992 announced that he: 1) planned to vote for Bush, 2) loved the Gulf War, and 3) praised Pat Robertson as "a good anti-racist." Doug -- Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax
[PEN-L:194] Re: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
On Thu, 24 Aug 1995 "Harry M. Cleaver" [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Harry, Can you suggest critiques of Genovese's slavery stuff that show how his present and past politics are "embodied" in his Political Economy of Slavery, Roll, Jordan Roll, et al. Doug: Thanks for the update. Have they joined the Right Wing National Association of Scholars? Have they joined David Horowitz's "Second Thoughts" group of ex-new lefties turned neoconservative? Probably not the latter. After all Eugene was blasting the New Left years ago. His wife's association with the Right appears quite consistent with his history of reactionary politics. The question is how many readers of his "Marxist" work on slavery understood how those politics were embodied in that work? Those who didn`t understand it should go back and read it again. Harry On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, Doug Henwood wrote: I just got the press pack from the Independent Women's Forum, the Washginton-based right-wing women's group headed by Barbara Ledeen, wife of the notorious covert operator Michael Ledeen. The IWF is funded in part by the Bradley Foundation, one of the major funders of the big-time right. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese has joined the advisory board for their journal, and she also appears in their guide of experts along with Sheila Burke, Bob Dole's chief of staff; Wendy Lee Gramm, free marketeer and spouse of Phil; and hip Gen X rightists Laura Ingraham and Lisa Schiffren; a number of Republican staffers at Congressional committees; and a biger number of think tanks at the usual places, from Heritage to the property rights theorists at PERC in Bozeman, Mont. E F-G modestly lists herself as an expert in: "Children Family, Family Leave Child Care, Education, Welfare, Ethics Religion, Feminist Ideology, Health: General, Health: Ethics, Health: Women's, Popular Culture, Public Policy, Race Ethnicity, Affirmative Acdtion Equal Opportunity, Glass Ceiling, Multiculturalism, Sexual Harassment, Civil Rights, Economic Policy/Budget, Legal Issues/The Law, Politics." I've not measured this scientifically but this list looks longer than any other entrant's. This comes upon news that E F-G's spouse, Eugene, in one evening in 1992 announced that he: 1) planned to vote for Bush, 2) loved the Gulf War, and 3) praised Pat Robertson as "a good anti-racist." Doug -- Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax ... Harry Cleaver Department of Economics University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas 78712-1173 USA Phone Numbers: (hm) (512) 442-5036 (off) (512) 471-3211, ext. 181 Fax: (512) 471-3510 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://www.eco.utexas.edu:80/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/index.html ... -- John R. Ernst
[PEN-L:196] Re: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
Doug and Harry, Thanks for the enlightening information about Fox-Genovese couple. Who knows how many more renegates there are? Please keep digging in. Ciao, Fikret Ceyhun Dept. of Economics e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Univ. of North Dakota voice: (701)777-3348 office University Station, Box 8369(701)772-5135 home Grand Forks, ND 58202 fax:(701)777-5099
[PEN-L:193] Re: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
Doug: Thanks for the update. Have they joined the Right Wing National Association of Scholars? Have they joined David Horowitz's "Second Thoughts" group of ex-new lefties turned neoconservative? Probably not the latter. After all Eugene was blasting the New Left years ago. His wife's association with the Right appears quite consistent with his history of reactionary politics. The question is how many readers of his "Marxist" work on slavery understood how those politics were embodied in that work? Those who didn`t understand it should go back and read it again. Harry On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, Doug Henwood wrote: I just got the press pack from the Independent Women's Forum, the Washginton-based right-wing women's group headed by Barbara Ledeen, wife of the notorious covert operator Michael Ledeen. The IWF is funded in part by the Bradley Foundation, one of the major funders of the big-time right. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese has joined the advisory board for their journal, and she also appears in their guide of experts along with Sheila Burke, Bob Dole's chief of staff; Wendy Lee Gramm, free marketeer and spouse of Phil; and hip Gen X rightists Laura Ingraham and Lisa Schiffren; a number of Republican staffers at Congressional committees; and a biger number of think tanks at the usual places, from Heritage to the property rights theorists at PERC in Bozeman, Mont. E F-G modestly lists herself as an expert in: "Children Family, Family Leave Child Care, Education, Welfare, Ethics Religion, Feminist Ideology, Health: General, Health: Ethics, Health: Women's, Popular Culture, Public Policy, Race Ethnicity, Affirmative Acdtion Equal Opportunity, Glass Ceiling, Multiculturalism, Sexual Harassment, Civil Rights, Economic Policy/Budget, Legal Issues/The Law, Politics." I've not measured this scientifically but this list looks longer than any other entrant's. This comes upon news that E F-G's spouse, Eugene, in one evening in 1992 announced that he: 1) planned to vote for Bush, 2) loved the Gulf War, and 3) praised Pat Robertson as "a good anti-racist." Doug -- Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax Harry Cleaver Department of Economics University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas 78712-1173 USA Phone Numbers: (hm) (512) 442-5036 (off) (512) 471-3211, ext. 181 Fax: (512) 471-3510 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://www.eco.utexas.edu:80/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/index.html
[PEN-L:195] Re: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
Louis Proyect: By the way, Doug and I both went after the Genovese gang on the Marxism list some months ago. I discussed a review of his new book and an old comrade of mine (not the one who is mentioned just below) offered some thoughtful reflections on Genovese's views on slavery. Louis Proyect: An old friend from my Troskyist days alerted me to a review of Eugene Genovese's new book "Southern Discomfort" that appeared in the London Review of Books (June 8, 1995). To my surprise, this book seems to have eluded reviewers over here. Since it is appallingly reactionary, you'd expect it to garner glowing page-one reviews in the NY Times book review section, etc. Genovese offers up in this book a defense of the values and civilization of the ante-bellum South. The only thing he rejects is slavery, but all the rest of it--the agrarian life-style, the traditionalism, the paternalism, etc.--seems to appeal to him immensely. He identifies particularly with the Agrarian poets, a noxious offshoot of the new criticism that included John Crowe Ransom and Allen Tate among others. This crew hated the north, industrialization, democracy and liberalism and were strongly influenced by the creepy T.S. Eliot. Genovese, now 63, was once briefly a member of the CPUSA. He was a prominent opponent of the Vietnam war and left Rutgers University in 1966 when the anti-Communist fervor was still strong. But a year earlier Genovese showed signs of adapting to slavocracy. He was one of the few scholars of the civil war who came to the defense of William Styron's slimy "The Confessions of Nat Turner". Genovese, although a Yankee, began to discover his own affinity for the slave-owner's society in his book "The World the Slaveowners Made" (1969) and the forward to "American Negro Slavery" by U.B. Phillips. Phillips and his own book try to make the case that the slavocracy was "hegemonic" like no other ruling class in history. He decries the racism but is fascinated by the "stability" of the old south. In 1974, Genovese came out with "Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made". According to him, masters and slaves struggled together to create a "reasonably livable world of shared responsibilities and obligations: an interpretation that scarcely pleased the Left or the slaves' descendants", according to reviewer Bertram Wyatt-Brown (now is that a British name, or is it!) The political thrust of Genovese's latest book is that the old south championed "family values" and that this is something US society needs to recover. If we bracket out the nastiness of chattel slavery, he thinks there is a lot to be admired about the old south. Genovese has followed the same political trajectory as that of the recently deceased Christopher Lasch, who also in recent years had castigated the excesses of 1960's radicalism. Both of these old farts reached political maturity at a time when the left was a place where men were men, women were women, and everybody knew their place. Thank god for the woman's movement, the gay movement and the counterculture. While these movements stuck in the craws of these old geezers, this is one 50 year old who is nostalgic not for the stable and traditional south, but the wild and woolly 1960's when everything was coming apart at the seams. On Tue, 18 Jul 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In Roll Jorday Roll Genovese pointed out that the record of slave revolt in the American South was relatively minor. He then asked a question that deserved asking at the time. "Why, since slavery is such an evil and inhuman system, were there not more slave revolts?" A question that we can certainly ask profitably about wage slavery. He then went on to analyze the system of represssion and reward in the unique instance of slavery in the South. He pointed out that it was the only slave society in history where the slaves reproduced themselves. He pointed to the uncomfortable fact that the standard of living of Southern slaves was higher than that of factory workers in Europe and equal to that of factory workers in the North. In Roll he did not glorify paternalism, he explained it. I remember the experience of reading that book very clearly because I felt at the time that Genovese offered an insight, namely that social reality is complex and so are the people who make it up. An evil social system is not purely evil. It's filled with positive features that allow it to continue to exist. Slavery, bondage and wage slavery, offer freedom from choice, little risk as long as you stay within the prescribed bounds. With our short lives and perilous mortality, those are powerful incentives to accept whatever is given. --[Reply - Original Message]-- On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, Harry M. Cleaver wrote: Doug: Thanks for the update. Have they joined
[PEN-L:197] Re: Re: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, John R. Ernst wrote: Harry, Can you suggest critiques of Genovese's slavery stuff that show how his present and past politics are "embodied" in his Political Economy of Slavery, Roll, Jordan Roll, et al. John: If by "critiques" you mean written/published critiques, I cannot. I've never seen the kind of critique I have in mind. However, it is implicit in the work of what I would casually call "real" Marxist historians of slavery, such as C.L.R.James in his BLACK JACOBINS and George Rawick in his FROM SUNDOWN TO SUNUP. Whereas Genovese's preoccupations from early on were primarily concerned with understanding southern slavery in terms of a non-capitalist "mode of production" headed by a distinct planter ruling class --an approach which diverted our attention from the self-activity of the slaves and from class struggle-- those two authors approached slavery from the bottom-up, seeking an understanding of the dynamics of struggle from the point of view of the slaves themselves. Although I can't prove it, my guess is that it was this kind of infinately more interesting work --that constituted a political alternative to his own previous approach-- that prompted Genovese to do the work that led to ROLL, JORDON ROLL. When James reissued THE BLACK JAOBINS in 1962 he attached an essay "From Toussaint L'Overture to Fidel Castro" tying his 1938 work directly to Third World revolution in the 1960s. James was getting plenty of play from the New Left by the end of 1960s, e.g., RADICAL AMERICA's Special Issue in May 1970. Rawick, who had worked with and was inspired by James, and who had been assembling a massive collection of slave narratives, published his FROM SUNDOWN TO SUNUP in 1972. More generally, by the late 1960s "bottom-up" history focusing on the self-activity of the working class (e.g., Thompson, Hill, Hilton) was rapidly displacing top-down narratives both from the right (most mainstream history) and from the left (e.g., Dobb, Geneovese) in the attentions of young, progressive historians and activist readers of history. Genovese's ROLL,JORDON,ROLL appeared in 1974. Now the interrelationship of the historical work of all these authors with their theory and their politics is one of the most interesting things about them --and too often ignored by those who read their work as merely history. Just as we can only understand Genovese's approach to slavery within the context of his own politics, so is this also true for the others. THE BLACK JACOBINS certainly bears the mark of James' Trotskyism in that period, just as Thompson's MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS was shaped by his prior experience in the Communist Party. The ability of their students and followers to go beyond the limits of the work of such major figures in Marxist history, has in turn been closely related to their own experience with theory and politics. You can begin to get a sense of this by looking at the work of one of Thompson's students, Peter Linebaugh. On the one hand you can examine his historical work in ALBION'S FATAL TREE and his magistral THE LONDON HANGED; on the other you can look at his pamphleteering political uses of his historical research, e.g., his LIZARD TALK gift to the AIDS movement (now available on-line at gopher://mundo.eco.utexas.edu:70/1m/mailing/chiapas95.archive/Lizard%20Talk) or his recent article to THE NATION concerning Mumia and the death penalty. I wish I knew, and could give you, a citation to an article of the kind that needs to be written about Genovese's history, his theory and his politics, but I can't. Nor do I have time to write one, at this point. Sorry. Harry On Thu, 24 Aug 1995 "Harry M. Cleaver" [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Doug: Thanks for the update. Have they joined the Right Wing National Association of Scholars? Have they joined David Horowitz's "Second Thoughts" group of ex-new lefties turned neoconservative? Probably not the latter. After all Eugene was blasting the New Left years ago. His wife's association with the Right appears quite consistent with his history of reactionary politics. The question is how many readers of his "Marxist" work on slavery understood how those politics were embodied in that work? Those who didn`t understand it should go back and read it again. Harry On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, Doug Henwood wrote: I just got the press pack from the Independent Women's Forum, the Washginton-based right-wing women's group headed by Barbara Ledeen, wife of the notorious covert operator Michael Ledeen. The IWF is funded in part by the Bradley Foundation, one of the major funders of the big-time right. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese has joined the advisory board for their journal, and she also appears in their guide of experts along with Sheila Burke, Bob Dole's chief of staff; Wendy Lee Gramm, free marketeer and spouse of
[PEN-L:198] Re: Re: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, John R. Ernst wrote: Harry, Can you suggest critiques of Genovese's slavery stuff that show how his present and past politics are "embodied" in his Political Economy of Slavery, Roll, Jordan Roll, et al. John: You might also want to look at Herbert Gutman's works like Power and Culture and The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925. These books also contain citations of Gutman's articles in journals, etc. There was a long history of antagonism between the two and it created quite a few sparks. Incidentally, Gutman is also the author of Slavery and the Numbers Game, a critique of Fogel and Engerman's reactionary book on slavery entitled Time on the Cross. Chip Cariappa Graduate Student UT - Austin
[PEN-L:199] Urgent Reply Needed on Efficiency Wage Question
Does anyone have citations to articles that empirically prove the existence of efficiency wages? Thanks in advanceHeather Grob
[PEN-L:200] Re: Urgent Reply Needed on Efficiency Wage Question
I don't think you'll find an agreed upon method to sort out efficiency wages from compensating differentials. There are few direct, objective, general measures of effort, capital specificity, bargaining power, etc. The one article I know of, as evidence against efficiency wages, was by David Gordon, printed in AER 1990. It found that wages were positively correlated with the amount of supervision, rather than negatively, as the effort-wage hypothesis would predict. Good luck, Tavis On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, HEATHER GROB wrote: Does anyone have citations to articles that empirically prove the existence of efficiency wages? Thanks in advance Heather Grob
