FW: Suharto calls for UN role to manage globalisation
-- From: Aidi A Rahim Reply To: Aidi A Rahim Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 1997 1:31 PM To: Aidi A Rahim Subject: Re: Suharto calls for UN role to "manage" globalisation In clari.world.asia.southeast, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (AFP / Roberto Coloma) wrote: KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 3 (AFP) - Indonesian President Suharto called Monday for an urgent effort by developing countries to stabilize financial markets and suggested that economic globalisation should be "managed" by the United Nations. "The sharp fluctuations of international financial flows and currency trading have crushed the economic and social achievements of developing countries," Suharto told a summit of the Group of 15 (G15) developing countries in the Malaysian capital. In his first major appearance since a massive bailout for Indonesia was launched by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Suharto said "the hard work, diligence and sacrifices over several decades were wiped out overnight." "Many of us in this hall have their own bitter experience with the harsh impact of currency turmoil," the elder statesman said in his strongest remarks so far on on the financial turmoil which has forced Indonesia to take bitter medicine to nurse its ailing economy. "This meeting has provided us with the opportunity to exchange views on these issues. We should cooperate effectively in stabilizing our money market. We must immediately fimd the most efficient means to dampen the adverse impact of sharp currency fluctuations on our development," he said. Economic globalization "should therefore be managed so as to soften its impact on vulnerable economies," Suharto added. "We firmly believe that the United Nations is the only international organization that has the universal mandate and democratic orientation to assume with credibility the task of ensuring justice and equity in the economic relations between and among nations." "Hence, current endeavors to reform the United Nations should be pursued without sacrificing or undermining the economic and political rights and interests of the developing countries," he added. As Suharto attended the G15 summit hosted by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who earlier reiterated a call to regulate currency trading, monetary authorities in Japan and Singapore announced that they, along with Indonesia, had intervened in the currency market to bolster the rupiah. The IMF-led bailout plan for Indonesia announced over the weekend involves 23 billion US dollars in a "first line" of support for Jakarta and another 14 billion dollars from donors including Japan and Singapore as well as the United States. Dealers in Singapore said the Bank of Japan and the Monetary Authority of Singapore had collectively poured in 100 million US dollars to support the rupiah. Singapore Finance Minister Richard Hu and his Japanese counterpart Hiroshi Mitsuzuka said in separate statements that the joint intervention was aimed at correcting excessive depreciation of the Indonesian currency. "Singapore's participation in this joint intervention reflects our confidence in the macroeconomic policies of the Indonesian government," Hu said. "Today's joint intervention is aimed at promoting a strengthening of the rupiah to levels more consistent with the fundamentals of the Indonesian economy," he added. The currency, which has fallen some 50 percent against the US dollar since the start of the year and 35 percent since July, traded in late afternoon at 3,292.50 against the greenback, slightly falling after strengthening midday to 3,280. Its Friday close stood at 3,580. -=-=- Want to tell us what you think about the ClariNews? Please feel free to email us your comments [EMAIL PROTECTED].
RE: [PEN-L] Re: income racecharset=iso-8859-1
Whereas African American males have born the brunt of the trend toward greater incarceration rates in the US, the correlation between rising incarceration and rising incomes among those "participating" in the labor market is becoming fantastically overblown. The concern about the high proportion of the A-A population having experience with the criminal justice system is important for many reasons. After all, convicted felons, however trivial (i.e., marihuana possession) the felony classification, are unable to vote. If memory serves me correctly, IF current felony conviction rates are extended into the future, a whoppingly big IF, we could end up with between 20 and 25 percent of A-A males who have had a felony conviction by the year 2010 or so. The trend may be subsiding. First, because of an aging population. Second, the cost of incarceration is become ever more unsustainable. The household income connection is overblown for a number of reasons. First, A-A males have always been incarcerated several times more, proportionally, than whites. So, any change in income must be explained examined in the context of the incremental growth in A-A incarceration rates. Second, imprisonment also impoverishes perpetrators' families (appr. 60 percent have jobs immediately prior to imprisonment). The gender bias in relative wages is also found in the African American community. Third, the average prison term, excluding life or more sentences, is 2.6 years. Although A-A males may serve longer terms on average, the difference is not great enough to significantly impact employment and earnings data. In addition, since A-A males have always been subject to some sentencing bias, we would have to analyze the effects of any incremental changes in average time served on earnings and employment. Incarceration may have some effects on earnings, but my guess that any positive impact (through reduced measured participation(?) is trivial and is likely dwarfed by the adverse effects of income losses during the incarceration period. Fourth, if segmented labor markets are more reflective of reality, convicted felons would likely be further relegated to any peripheral, outsider, secondary, informal, etc.,etc. , job categories than their nonfelon counterparts. I could probably come up with more, but lack the time. I would suggest that we look toward sectoral changes in employment and hiring that correspond to preexisting race/gender employment biases, social spending cuts that force proportionally more African Americans into the labor market (earnings go up but so do household expenses like child care), or something else. Why are high income A-A families' earnings rising too? It could be that this segment of the community is taking advantage of the current national trend toward greater income inequality. So, whereas, the highest earnings quintile of the A-A community is gaining in comparison to all workers, just like high income earners overall, the lower four quintiles are also gaining (at least in appearances) because of increasing hiring trends toward occupational categories that are proportionally more represented by African Americans. However, the gains in the lower quintiles are likely to be over-shadowed by greater costs associated with work-related expenditures. Regards, The opinions expressed may not be those of the CDC. -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [PEN-L] Re: income race Date: Monday, November 03, 1997 6:31PM But has it not gotten dramatically worse in the last ten years due to so called drug crimes? My last read on the situation was an incredible 1 out of 3 Afro American men are incarcerated, on parole or on probation. 33% is a significant chunk of any population. I don't claim that I've researched this, we are all just spitting in the wind here, but the sentencing has gone up during the same time frame of Doug's inquiry and no other intervening factor of such breadth came to my mind. Industrial work is leaving the country, the last hired first fired rule of senority would not increase employment in a shrinking sector for the bottom of the senority list. I can't for the life of me believe that industrial jobs could be accountable for such a shift. If as I suggest these are the gents most likely to be unemployed clearing them from you stats would indeed paint a rosier picture of those who are left in your pool of consideration. Yes, black males are imprisoned in much greater proportions than whites. But this has always been the case. So, while imprisonment rates have increased for both blacks and whites, and for blacks relative to whites, I don't think the portion of the increase in the black incarceration rate is large enough to make the labor scarcity argument work. In addition, the average time served over all crimes, excluding life or more sentences) is about 2.6 years. What is the date on that 2.6 year statistic? Mandatory sentencing is far longer than 2.6 for
Re: Lenin-Stalin
Date sent: Mon, 03 Nov 1997 11:16:38 -0500 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Re: Lenin-Stalin Proyect wrote: One of the things that continues to amaze me is how people can summarize such complex events in a paragraph. Not only does Duchesne make the problematic link between Lenin and Stalin, he also throws the word 'democracy' around without defining it. I have no idea what he thinks that democracy is. "Constitutional rights", as Ellen Meiksins Wood, points out in her recent study "Capitalism Against Democracy" is tied up with the evolution of a specific form of class rule. The Magna Carta, the American Constitution, etc. are best understood as mechanisms for limiting democracy. The purpose of representative democracy is to block genuine decision-making by the working class. Ricardo: First, let us get the history straight: Magna Carta cannot be "understood as a mechanism for limiting democracy" since this was strictly a FEUDAL document, as any serious scholar knows. This document was never intended to be a Bill of Rights, or a charter of liberties for the common people. It was written as a feudal contract in which the king as an OVERLORD promised to respect the traditional rights of VASSALS. The historical significance of this document is that it says a lot about the uniqueness of feudalism in EUROPE, namely, that the relation between vassal and lord was contractual in character, a relation between two warrior free men. Secondly, to say that "representative democracy is to block genuine decision-making by the working class" is not only too simplistic but betrays a complete lack of understanding of the origins of democratic institutions. As a recent work by Rueschemeyer and Stephens shows, the rise of mass suffrage (as well of other democratic institutions) was the result of WORKING CLASS STRUGGLES rather than of bourgeois struggles. Capitalists were never that interested in extending suffrage to the common people. This, of course, does not detract form the fact that there are many limitations to our present-day democratic institutions. It shows however that the working class makes history, that they are responsible for some of the best features of our political systems. Unlike you, I don't see them as mere victims completely manipulated by an artifical democracy. To argue that our political system is a just sham is child-play. Proyect: I have no intention of answering your distortion of what happened to the Constituent Assembly. This would require research into Isaac Deutscher and E.H. Carr and some thorough analysis. It would be wasted on somebody like you who prefers simplistic opinion-making stripped of historical context. I stumbled across your name in a back issue of Science and Society. Do you have more rigorous standards for your submissions to scholarly journals? Let's hope so. If you are interested in investigating my most recent position on historical materialism, see the Summer 1997 issue of SS. But now to the Constituent Assembly. To take up this issue today - exactly 80 years after the Bolshevik Revolution - requires that we make a contrast between what was happening at that time, and what happened since then, 80 years later. In the context of 1917, one could argue, as E.H.Carr does, that the Provincial Government could not have survived and resolved the huge problems Russia was facing at the time. Kerensky was an ineffectual leader and there was no other organization except the Bolshevik Party capable of assuming state control. The alternative would have been anarchy. Today, however, after the horrors of Stalinism, we cannot rest so content with Carr's argument. We must ask ourselves how Stalin came to power. And there is no question that Stalin utilized the highly centralized political structure created by Lenin for his own ends. Stalin would not have risen to power had there been more checks and balances within the Soviet government. Whereas Lenin could convince others to come to his side through the sheer thoroughness of his political analyses, Stalin could do so only by force. Proyect: You forgot to include "white" and "heterosexual." If you are going to throw around epithets like this, you might as well do it 100%. The proper retort is white, heterosexual and male if you want to throw doubt on the integrity of your ideological opponent. Although I'd have to say that with the way my social life has been going recently, "heterosexual" is sort of an abstraction. You are missing the whole point, which is that along with every extreme radical solution comes a political TEMPERAMENT. "Smashing" the machinery of the state; creating a "dictatorship of the proletariat" involve a "tough" stand, an "unwavering" stand, an "upright" stand - all of which have militaristic, male-centered
Re: Lenin-Stalin
Ricardo Duchesne: First, let us get the history straight: Magna Carta cannot be "understood as a mechanism for limiting democracy" since this was strictly a FEUDAL document, as any serious scholar knows. This document was never intended to be a Bill of Rights, or a charter of liberties for the common people. Louis Proyect: The Magna Carta, to the contrary, is more than a feudal document. It is the founding document of parliamentary democracy. As Ellen Meiksins Wood points out, the modern concept of democracy is rooted in it, as opposed to the model represented by Athenian democracy. The Magna Carta legitimizes the notion of representative democracy, while Athenian democracy was much more faithful to the notion of "rule by the people." (Demos = people; cracy = rule.) She groups the Magna Carta with the 1688 English revolution politically. "Magna Carta, in contrast, was a charter not of a masterless 'demos' but of masters themselves, asserting feudal privileges and the freedom of lordship against both Crown and popular multitude, just as the liberty of 1688 represented the privilege of propertied gentlemen, their freedom to dispose of their property and servants at will." The English parliament is the model for the American Congress, the French 'estates-general' and the Russian Constituent Assembly. It is the opposite of genuine democracy. Ricardo Duchesne: Secondly, to say that "representative democracy is to block genuine decision-making by the working class" is not only too simplistic but betrays a complete lack of understanding of the origins of democratic institutions. As a recent work by Rueschemeyer and Stephens shows, the rise of mass suffrage (as well of other democratic institutions) was the result of WORKING CLASS STRUGGLES rather than of bourgeois struggles. Louis Proyect: Our differences are not over the right to vote. Within bourgeois democracy, the struggle to extend the franchise is progressive. The Chartist struggles, the suffragist movement, the civil rights struggle of African-Americans were all progressive. However, bourgeois democracy is itself not progressive. The bourgeois-democratic Russian Constituent Assembly was anti-democratic and deserved to be overthrown and replaced by direct democracy in the form of the Soviets. This is what we have differences over. Ricardo Duchesne: If you are interested in investigating my most recent position on historical materialism, see the Summer 1997 issue of SS. Louis Proyect: Yes, I have just taken a look at it. It is a "review article" of John Haldon's "The State and the Tributory Mode of Production." Haldon's book, according to you, is a defense of historical materialism against neo-Weberians like Michael Mann. This would recommend Haldon to me, since I regard Mann as a total bozo. He wrote an article in NLR a couple of years ago that tried to prove that the working class supported Hitler. His definition of the working class is specious to say the least, but that is a topic for another post. What is harder to figure out is exactly what your "most recent position" amounts to. Your conclusion states: "A Marxist interpretation is one that assigns causal priority to the mode of production, even if one recognizes that every mode exists within the context of a whole set of secondary relations. But struggles over economic exploitation may not always be the most important type of struggle, or causal force. I suspect this is Haldon's predicament: he does not want to admit, in the way that Mann does, that much of the political conflict in these pre-industrial empires revolved around the relationship between the state and local (or external) elites. Although Haldon's own historical investigations suggest that the mode was not the center of pre-capitalist development, he cannot accept this theoretically. This discrepancy between theory and history remains unsolved. A rigorous analytical definition of the term 'mode of production' will not do." I do not regard this as a position. I regard it as evasion and fence-setting. Either the classical Marxist emphasis on the priority of the mode of production is correct, or neo-Weberian superstructural approaches like Michael Mann's are correct. I advocate a classical Marxist approach. My suspicion is that you are much more forthcoming on this mail-list, since your mention of E.H. Carr below smacks of hostility to historical materialism. Richard Duchesene: But now to the Constituent Assembly. To take up this issue today - exactly 80 years after the Bolshevik Revolution - requires that we make a contrast between what was happening at that time, and what happened since then, 80 years later. In the context of 1917, one could argue, as E.H.Carr does, that the Provincial Government could not have survived and resolved the huge problems Russia was facing at the time. Kerensky was an ineffectual leader and there was no other organization except the Bolshevik Party capable of assuming state control. The alternative
RE: the au pair case
Treacy: A paper a while back in Science that examined child abuse and killings within families showed that natural parents do it much less than adoptive or step parents. Those fairy tales of the wicked step mother have a basis in fact. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Monday, November 03, 1997 4:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:the au pair case Maggie C. writes: The statistics say that most abuse takes place between family members, not outsiders. That's why I've always envied orphans hermits. ;-) As singer-songwriter Peter Case notes, the reason he never goes home is because that's where accidents are most likely to happen. I've always thought that accidents are most likely to happen at home because that's where people are most likely to be. Is this true of family murders abuse, too? (that is, is a person more likely to be killed or tortured by a family member or close acquaintance because that person is most likely to be with family or acquaintances at any one time?) in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html "It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
please circulate widely (fwd)
The key for us in the current fight is found in the second last paragraph. Will Bill 160 kill public education? By Thomas Walkom Toronto Star National Affairs Writer WHAT IS SO confusing about the battle between Premier Mike Harris and the province's teachers is that - on the surface - it seems to have so little to do with education. Bill 160, the centre of the dispute, is called the Education Quality Improvement Act. Yet the 212-page document has almost nothing to say about the quality of education. It does nothing to address the immediate problems parents see every day. It does not alleviate the lack of basic classroom supplies. It does not speak to the requirements of the increasing number of special needs children with learning disabilities, attention disorders or other difficulties. The provincial government's ad blitz notwithstanding, Bill 160 does not even guarantee smaller class sizes. Rather, the controversial bill is about structures, power and collective bargaining: who can set taxes or determine class sizes; who will run the show. Yet it is this very structural aspect that is so important. Critics and supporters alike agree that the power shifts put into motion by Bill 160 could set the stage for a massive revolution in public education. Such a revolution would result in a radically different system based on competition and market forces, one that supporters say will usher in an era of parent choice and that detractors say will destroy public education. None of this is obvious from reading Bill 160. Indeed, the bill that has tied up the province's schools appears to be utterly divorced from the real concerns of most parents. It offers no solutions to the problems cited by the Conservatives themselves when they were in opposition: the failure of too many students to learn the most basic skills; the high drop-out rate; the increasing demands placed on teachers to act as surrogate parents; the lack of proper technological tools such as computers. Certainly, with its concomitant promise to slash up to another $700 million from the education budget, the government is doing nothing to deal with the real problems of underfunding and student user fees. In Toronto's Downtown Alternative Public School, for example, students are told they can have only one pencil for the year. In Pickering, students from Fairport Beach Public School are selling chocolate door-to-door to buy equipment. Toronto's venerable Oakwood Collegiate sells Loblaws food vouchers to raise money for some of its most basic programs. Joy Henderson, a downtown Toronto Grade 13 student, talks of being in a class at Riverdale Collegiate Institute (her former school) where there weren't even enough seats. ``Fortunately, enough students dropped out that eventually there was a place for me to sit. But for the first few weeks, it was pretty tough. I sat on a friend's desk.'' Another student, this one in elementary school, had his math textbook seized in a landlord-tenant dispute. He can't get a replacement (his school has no more) and must make do by cadging from his friends. At Oakwood, 14-year-old Lucas Gindin talks of the user fees students are expected to pay if they wish to participate in anything but the most basic activities: $35 to belong to a sports team or join a school club, $15 to enrol in art class, another $15 to take part in the music program, similar fees to take a computer course. Like their fellows around the province, Oakwood students are constantly fundraising: they sell grapefruit to support the music program, baking for other programs. The Oakwood drama course is unable to produce its plays unless it can sell enough tickets
Web site on evils of tobacco
There's a terrific new web site focusing on the evils of tobacco: The URL is http://www.tobaccofacts.org Especially useful for teachers and other moulders of minds. Sid Shniad
Re: The article you mentioned (fwd)
Does anybody know anything about the story described below by Mark Thompson? If so, can you point me toward it? Thanks. Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Can't help much, but I got the news over the 'net, maybe labournet. I would guess that it was about a year ago. The gist was that the [British] government, Major at that time, buried a study by some health group showing that nutritional levels had declined during the Thatcher era. Maybe send out an apb on labour net asking for references would do the trick. Mark Thompson Faculty of Commerce University of British Columbia (604)822-8375 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Web site on evils of tobacco
Evils of tobacco? What next, evils of sex? steve On Tue, 4 Nov 1997, Sid Shniad wrote: There's a terrific new web site focusing on the evils of tobacco: The URL is http://www.tobaccofacts.org Especially useful for teachers and other moulders of minds. Sid Shniad
Judge sides with teachers in Ontario
The Globe and Mail Tuesday, November 4, 1997 PROVINCE, SCHOOL BOARDS CLASH Government thwarted in bid for an injunction, but talks to end teachers strike continue By Richard Mackie and Jennifer Lewington TORONTO -- The Ontario government, thwarted yesterday in its bid to get a court to order an end to the eight-day-old walkout by teachers, tried to put the onus on school boards to take action to bring the province's 2.1- million students back to class. But school board officials made it clear late yesterday that they expect the government and the teachers unions to settle their differences over Bill 160, the government's sweeping legislation to overhaul the $14-billion school system. School board representatives indicated that any initiatives, such as a request to the Ontario Labour Relations Board, would be decided separately by each school board, which could be time-consuming. By itself, the ruling by Mr. Justice James MacPherson of the Ontario Court's General Division on the government's bid for a back-to-work injunction, and the government's reaction to it, threatened to extend the teachers walkout by at least several more days. The government had been counting on obtaining the injunction despite the vigorous defence waged by the unions. The government has watched support for its stand slide in opinion polls and focus groups. At Queen's Park, Progressive Conservative MPPs are privately complaining that they are being flooded with complaints about the government's admission that it plans to take up to $700-million out of the education system. After the ruling was announced yesterday, Education Minister Dave Johnson tried at a news conference to press the school boards to act, while officials for the government and the teachers unions resumed talks to seek a compromise. At the same time, the government and the unions tried to blame each other for their failure to reach a settlement at a day-long session on Sunday. Yesterday, each side called on the other to make proposals to end the dispute. Mr. Johnson indicated that the government had dug in for a prolonged fight as Bill 160 continues to roll through the legislative process. The deadline for submitting amendments to the proposed legislation is 5 p.m. tomorrow, and it could become law in less than three weeks. Eileen Lennon, president of the Ontario Teachers Federation, the umbrella organization for the province's 126,000 teachers, said at a news conference that the court ruling is a moral victory for teachers. She urged the government to listen to Judge MacPherson's cautions about the potential impact of the bill. "The decision today is bolstering to us," she said. "I hope it gives the government pause to reflect on their course of action to date." Privately, officials of the five teachers unions and the OTF are concerned about how long teachers, who are receiving no pay during the dispute, will stay united. Ms. Lennon also acknowledged "the disruption that the protest causes in the lives of students and parents." But, she maintained, "it is the government that has caused this, and it is up to the government to start to listen to the concerns of the citizens of this province and to make the changes that are necessary." Mr. Johnson said in response: "I'm just wondering how it can be considered to be a moral victory when children are losing out on their schooling." Meanwhile, school board officials showed little enthusiasm for jumping into the fray, not the least because that might take pressure off the two sides. "Our most important position is to encourage the two sides to come to some understanding," said Patrick Daly, president of the Ontario Separate School Trustees Association. He added that a negotiated settlement between the government and the teachers "is the only way this will be resolved in the long run." The executive members of his association are to hold a meeting today to consider their options in the wake of the court ruling. Lynn Peterson, president of the Ontario Public School Boards Association, said "it's a local decision" for boards to seek relief from the Ontario Labour Relations Board. As the employers of the province's teachers, it is up to each board to make a request, which board officials feel could take longer than negotiating a deal. Ms. Peterson said her association had not yet received a copy of the judge's ruling, but hoped to send out options for action by individual boards as early as today. She said part of the reluctance of boards to move against the teachers is that communities are split over the walkout, making it difficult for trustees to respond to local wishes. Only weeks ago, in arguing the case for overhauling the school system, Premier Mike Harris said
More on Marx and India
The discussion that began with my report on David Harvey's talk on the Communist Manifesto has sparked a fascinating thread on Marxism-International as well as PEN-L. What's interesting is that one of the main defenders of the 1853 articles by Marx on India is a writer named James Heartfield, who is connected with Living Marxism, an English mag that circulates the thoughts of the cult leader, one Frank Furedi. Basically, the group has an undialectical understanding of 20th century capitalism, which they believe is playing a progressive role in places like Brazil today. They side, believe it or not, with the lumpen-bourgeoisie that is cutting down the rain-forest and they attack human rights groups that defend the Yanomami indians. Extremely bizarre stuff. Does anybody know any good gossip about them that I can use in an unprincipled and underhanded fashion in a faction fight? Please send it to me offline. (For Colin Danby, this was a joke). One of the participants in the Marxism-International thread is Jim Blaut, author of "Colonizer's Model of the World", which attacks the Eurocentric, diffusionist version of Marxism found in Living Marxism. These are his comments just posted to m-i: Heartfield really does not know what was going on in India, in Ireland, in the peripheral countries in general in the 19th century. In the case of Ireland, he doesn't understand Marx's reasons for supporting independence: they were based on direct knowledge that the Irish working class was becoming proletarianized, partly through the forced emigration of Irish workers to England, and highly politicized. These workers showed revolutionary momentum, and the initial goal was to win independence; hence Marx and Engels gave them wholehearted support, even when this called for support of the slightly seedy fenians. So Marx and Engels said, in the case of the Irish, independence is a vital necessity in the struggle. In the Irish and Polish cases, they understood that national liberation was a vital part of the struggle for socialism. This was the nucleus of an anit-colonialist position. In the case of India, Marx believed, as Heartfield says, that " property forms contained no tendency to apply the surplus to developing social productivity. They were incapable of taking Indian society any further." But Marx was WRONG! This was the old, colonialist theory that non-European peoples had no concept of private property in land. Marx and Engels accepted this utterly false theory because the did not have access to thwe truth. They were also largely wrong in their vision of the Indian village as being somehow self-sufficient and hermetically sealed from progress. See Irfan Habib and Romila Thapar on this question. Also, see the famous article by Bipan Chandra, "Karl Marx, his theories of Asian societies, and colonial rule," in *Review* 5 (1981):13-94. These are questions about which the proper attitude of a Marxist is to acquire knowledge, not just mechanically defend everything that Marx and Engels said. It is not at all treasonous to say that Marx and Engels knew very little about colonialism and really had no theory of imperiaalism. En lucha Jim B
Irish topics
On Marx and colonialism. Marx's writings on Ireland balance those on India. In the Irish case he lays much more emphasis on the deleterious effects of British rule both politically and economically, and supports the movement for Irish independence. On Rebecca P's comments on the Irish presidential elections. (Since Rebecca's comments Fianna Fail candidate Mary McAleese has won the election.) I want to take issue with a few points. First I agree that there is no real class distinction in the character of the major parties, but I would go further. There are no policy differences between the parties even in the context of bourgeois hegemony. Unlike other capitalist states, policy differences are not played out in party programs and hence not fought out in the context of elections. Irish political parties compete to administer a policy consensus which is determined outside of party politics. So on most issues there is even less at stake in Irish elections than there is in other Western states. The one current exception to this relates to the Northern Irish issue. The leadership of Fine Gael is basically unionist in personal outlook and consequently unable to effectively intervene in the Northern Ireland peace talks. The mostly hypocritical nationalism of Fianna Fail is preferable in this regard, and McAleese's Northern nationalist origins provide much more backbone in this regard than standard FF fare. I also think a more nuanced analysis of McAleese's Catholicism is necessary. It is true that on reproductive rights issues McAleese's position is reactionary. Nevertheless, she has taken progressive stands on women's ordination, gay rights, and the Northern national question. Her overall religious position would be similar to Dan Berrigan's. Perhaps not overall progressive, but far from a "conservative Catholic." In addition the role of the Church is different North and South. In the South, the Church is primarily a bastion of reactionary social policies, though it can intervene constructively on poverty and social exclusion. In the North, it is this as well but it also serves as a focus of communal identity for an oppressed ethnic minority. Allegiance to the Church, even its hierarchy, must be seen differently in the two contexts. The previous Irish president, the much praised Mary Robinson, had a solid position on what is referred to here as "the liberal agenda", but was basically unionist on the Northern question. (Unionism is often confused with the avoidance of narrow nationalism among the left-leaning middle classes of the South.) As abortion and divorce were burning issues in Southern Ireland at the time of her election, it was probably appropriate to emphasize her social liberalism in a voting decision. In the current conjuncture, the national question dominates IMHO. Consequently, I view the McAleese victory as a positive, if distinctly mixed, development. Terry McDonough
saran wrap
Treacy wrote: Try the English movie, "The Full Monty" A tale of unemployed Sheffield steel workers adapting to the a brave new and certainly funnier world. Here in Yellow Springs the audience just laughed and laughed along. My sweetheart made some allusion to the fact that the guy that was wrapping himself in Saran wrap to hold in his paunch while eating a candy bar reminded her of me. COMMENT: Funny, my wife said the same thing. Aside to Tom W. I didn't find Paris is Burning very transgressive. The aesthetic of "realness" in these drag balls served to validate stereotyped heterosexual norms as aspirational models within a fantasy setting. None of the distancing of a more camp aesthetic was in evidence, though it must be remembered that distance in gender questions is something of a male privilege. Terry McDonough
Re: Marx's Marxism?
Howard Zimm quoted Marx in the context of his own McCarthy attack (on his tenure as a professor?). I don't know the original citation, but I dimly recall the reference can be found (in the forward?) of Zimm's "You can't be Neutral on a Moving Train". Something to the effect that when asked if he was a Marxist in a context where dismissal would be the reaction to an answer in the affirmative, Zimm replied, that he would like to quote the master himself Karl Marx, "I am not a Marxist." He then goes on to cite the story of the quote from Karl Marx. Apparently some useless piece of work mascarading as a revolutionary invited Marx to attend a meeting of his group; whose principles Marx found repugnant. The zealot in question then told Marx that he should attend the meeting of the Marxist group, since he was the founder of Marxism. To which Karl replied something to the effect, Do you honestly think that the idiocy you preach and practice is Marxism? When the zealous one said "Yes", Marx replied "Then I am not a Marxist." I wasn't there and it could have been said different, but I think that's the quote you're looking for. Has anyone got the reference context for K Marx's reported denial that he was a Marxist?
Re: evils of tobacco
James Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] sez:
We forget about the _benefits_ of tobacco: by killing people off, it
allows
the social security system to remain solvent longer. Also, by killing
off
those with weak wills, it could improve the quality of the gene pool.
(This
is a joke on my part, but there are actually people out there who make
such
an argument.)
interestingly, the brilliant comic Bill Hicks made similar on-stage
jokes---until he died of pancreatic cancer in February '94...
Daevid MacKenzie, UltimaJock!
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Those most concerned with making the world safe from Communism
usually turn up making the world safe for Fascism."---NORMAN CORWIN
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(il),-'' (li),' ((!.-'
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Re: the au pair case
In a message dated 97-11-04 13:24:20 EST, you write: A paper a while back in Science that examined child abuse and killings within families showed that natural parents do it much less than adoptive or step parents. Those fairy tales of the wicked step mother have a basis in fact. My most horrible experience with grand jury duty was listening to hours of medical testimony from a doctor about a child who had been: burned over a quarter of its body and went without medical attention for over a month. Further, the FOSTER parents (who could have returned the child at any time and who had been awarded custody because the natural mother was a drug addict) had broken both the child's legs, and pulled its arms so much that the growth centers in the joints of the arms had been destroyed -- in short, the child's arms would never grow. The child was about a year old. I went home crying on the A train on that Friday night, locked myself in my apartment for the weekend, and have refused to attend jury duty ever since. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
NewBook: Jacoby - Modern Manors; America: We're #1!
Return-Path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 16:34:00 EST Reply-To: H-Net Labor History Discussion List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: H-Net Labor History Discussion List [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Seth Wigderson, U Maine Augusta" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Book Announcement - Jacoby - Modern Manors NEW BOOK *** NEW BOOK Sanford M. Jacoby, MODERN MANORS: WELFARE CAPITALISM SINCE THE NEW DEAL (Princeton Univ. Press, 1997), Cloth, $35. Book Description: In light of recent trends of corporate downsizing and debates over corporate responsibility, Sanford Jacoby offers a timely, comprehensive history of twentieth-century welfare capitalism, that is, the history of nonunion corporations that looked after the economic security of employees. Building on three fascinating case studies of "modern manors" (Eastman Kodak, Sears, and TRW), Jacoby argues that welfare capitalism did not expire during the Depression, as traditionally thought. Rather it adapted to the challenges of the 1930s and became a powerful, though overlooked, factor in the history of the welfare state, the labor movement, and the corporation. "Fringe" benefits, new forms of employee participation, and sophisticated anti-union policies are just some of the outgrowths of welfare capitalism that provided a model for contemporary employers seeking to create productive nonunion workplaces. Although employer paternalism has faltered in recent years, many Americans still look to corporations, rather than to unions or government, to meet their needs. Jacoby explains why there remains widespread support for the notion that corporations should be the keystone of economic security in American society and offers a perspective on recent business trends. Based on extensive research, Modern Manors greatly advances the study of corporate and union power in the twentieth century. David Huang Princeton University Press (609) 258-2336 fax: (609) 258-6305 [EMAIL PROTECTED] == From: Steven Hill [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] America--We're Number One (from "We're Number One: Where America stands--and falls--in the New World Order" by Andrew L. Shapiro, Vintage N.Y., 1992) Among industrialized nations, America stands number one in: (in terms of rates per 100,000 or per capita): No. 1 in billionaires AND No. 1 in children living in poverty No. 1 in wealth AND income inequality No. 1 in percentage of the population without health care No. 1 in infant mortality, percentage of infants born at low birth weight, preschoolers NOT fully immunized and death of children under 5 yrs old. No. 1 in highest paid athletes AND lowest teacher salaries No. 1 in homelessness No. 1 in military spending and military aid to developing countries No. 1 in executive salaries AND in pay inequality between executives and average workers No. 1 in percentage of population who have been a victim of a crime, in murder rate, in murder of children, and in reported rapes Yeah, we're really #1! *** * Alex Chis Claudette Begin * * P.O. Box 2944 * * Fremont, CA 94536 * * 510-489-8554* * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * ***
Anti-China lobby-Remnants of Cold War Hyperbole
On Tue, 4 Nov 1997 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 97-11-04 00:21:15 EST,[ several people have self righteously said more or less the following]: I understand that most of the gap in the number of girls as opposed to boys in China is due to *under-reporting* of girls rather than female infanticide. If the first born is a girl, if she is not reported a second child may be the desired boy. China's one child rule is a reactionary measure, but one-sided reports are no better. 1. The Chinese government now admits that infanticide of girls is a problem and an unwanted side effect of the one child policy (this was in the last paragraph of the article and has been admitted officially by the Chinese for the last year or so). I don't see what is so self-righteous about Bill or my reply. We questioned data used to legitimate the hyperbole that the US and th emainstream human rights movement activists use to justify singling out China as worthy of condemnation. Myself, i wonder how it is that China's policies are worse than, say, Indonesia's, or more deserving of censure than Indonesia. We know that anti-Communism is America's favorite religion (to paraphrase Noam Chomsky) and that this religion allows the US to make just about any claim about its 'enemies' without being questioned, a luxury that opponents of its non-enemies cannot afford. On eexample suffices. In the 1980's allegations of horrible massacres of the Miskito Indians in nicaragua were made by th eReagan administration. which were later used to justify support of the terrorist organization known as "The Contras". At the time, it took quite a bit of courage not to jump on the bandwagon and condemn the Sandinistas as genocidal. Not because there were not violations of this indigenous groups' rights committed by the Sandinistas, but because there was also much more to the story, something I'm sure I don't have to go into detail to explain on *this* list. Forget the utter hyperbole the adminstration and much of the media engaged in, to th epoint where an uninformed observer would have to conclude that, by virtue of all the attention given to the Miskito Indian issue in Nicaragua, Nicaragua's mistaken policies vis a vis indigenous people's stood out compared to its neighbors'. Of course, anyone who knows the history of indigenous genocide in Guatemala knew that this was utterly untrue. Anti-communism skewed the issue that much! And I suspect it does in the case of China at present. Chian is not th eonly developing nation that engages in policies that are harmful to women. One just wonders, why is China the only country that we hear this about in the national media? There is probably something at work other than a councern for women here, just like there was something at play in the US when such profound concern was expressed by the US adminstration and the media about "genocide" of Miskito Indians in Nicaragua in the 80's. 2. This information came from census data collected and released by the Chinese government. sure, now we have to ask, is the way the anti-china lobby interprets such stats reasonable? Or do we just accept everything they tell us? Prison labor, gov't endorsed infanticide,...pedaphilia, satan abuse...tibet...Jesse Helms, harry Wu, and richard gere say it's true, must be true... 3. I fail to see why 'not admitting' that you've had a girl is any better than infanticide in the long run. Think about it for a minute, if you don't admit you have the child, she can't get medical care, can't go to school, can't be included in child benefits of any kind. But then perhaps the proponents of not admitting there are girls feel this is o.k., after all, do you also think uneducated baby makers in the kitchen are the best women? (sarcasm absolutely intended) Of course, just as sarcasm was used against those of us who questioned the veracity of the US's claims that the Sandinistas were engaged in a systematic campaign of genocide against the Miskito Indians...how could we not care about that awful awful depraved anti-indigenous governments' genocidal acts? We must have just felt that "the only good injun's a dead injun' right? how *could* we question the cold war consensus? indeed. 4. The 'non-reporting' does not hold water, especially since the ratio of boys as a majority over girls widens with age AND, there's just all those pesky little corpses. And exactly how does this differ from the problem of disappearing women in the rest of the developing world? Why should China be the only country that people notice this phenomenon in? Or do such questions not matter? 5. If the ratios were the other way around, I'd bet you guys would be out there screaming your heads off. What a few girls amongst all you self righteous revolutionaries, eh? Revolutionary schmevolutionary. Side issue. The real issue at hand is whether allegations made about the Chinese government as being most
Re: dead girls in China--comment
In a message dated 97-11-04 00:21:15 EST,[ several people have self righteously said more or less the following]: I understand that most of the gap in the number of girls as opposed to boys in China is due to *under-reporting* of girls rather than female infanticide. If the first born is a girl, if she is not reported a second child may be the desired boy. China's one child rule is a reactionary measure, but one-sided reports are no better. 1. The Chinese government now admits that infanticide of girls is a problem and an unwanted side effect of the one child policy (this was in the last paragraph of the article and has been admitted officially by the Chinese for the last year or so). 2. This information came from census data collected and released by the Chinese government. 3. I fail to see why 'not admitting' that you've had a girl is any better than infanticide in the long run. Think about it for a minute, if you don't admit you have the child, she can't get medical care, can't go to school, can't be included in child benefits of any kind. But then perhaps the proponents of not admitting there are girls feel this is o.k., after all, do you also think uneducated baby makers in the kitchen are the best women? (sarcasm absolutely intended) 4. The 'non-reporting' does not hold water, especially since the ratio of boys as a majority over girls widens with age AND, there's just all those pesky little corpses. 5. If the ratios were the other way around, I'd bet you guys would be out there screaming your heads off. What a few girls amongst all you self righteous revolutionaries, eh? This is what I love about this list, paraphrasing Lenin, 'scratch a revolutionary, and you'll find a man antagonistic to women'. In fact, if I have time sometime soon, I think I find the exact quote and engrave it on my ass -- just to remind myself that I'm a fucking idiot to stay subscribed to this list anyhow. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [PEN-L] Re: income race
Whereas African American males have born the brunt of the trend toward greater incarceration rates in the US, the correlation between rising incarceration and rising incomes among those "participating" in the labor market is becoming fantastically overblown. The concern about the high proportion of the A-A population having experience with the criminal justice system is important for many reasons. After all, convicted felons, however trivial (i.e., marihuana possession) the felony classification, are unable to vote. That's actually no longer true. After finishing parole a felon can vote. I was convicted of felonous tresspassing for the Diablo Canyon power plant occupation by those opposed to glowing in the dark and felonous misconduct on the picket line during the Greyhound strike and I can still vote in California and the Federal elections. Historically felons were required to register to vote only at the courthouse (making it more unlikely) but now we get to register just like everybody else. If memory serves me correctly, IF current felony conviction rates are extended into the future, a whoppingly big IF, we could end up with between 20 and 25 percent of A-A males who have had a felony conviction by the year 2010 or so. The trend may be subsiding. First, because of an aging population. Second, the cost of incarceration is become ever more unsustainable. From your lips to God's ear. The household income connection is overblown for a number of reasons. First, A-A males have always been incarcerated several times more, proportionally, than whites. Again it is higher now than ever. I may be wrong, I only suggest you research the data, not make it up. So, any change in income must be explained examined in the context of the incremental growth in A-A incarceration rates. Second, imprisonment also impoverishes perpetrators' families (appr. 60 percent have jobs immediately prior to imprisonment). The gender bias in relative wages is also found in the African American community. Third, the average prison term, excluding life or more sentences, is 2.6 years. Although A-A males may serve longer terms on average, the difference is not great enough to significantly impact employment and earnings data. In addition, since A-A males have always been subject to some sentencing bias, we would have to analyze the effects of any incremental changes in average time served on earnings and employment. Incarceration may have some effects on earnings, but my guess that any positive impact (through reduced measured participation(?) is trivial and is likely dwarfed by the adverse effects of income losses during the incarceration period. Fourth, if segmented labor markets are more reflective of reality, convicted felons would likely be further relegated to any peripheral, outsider, secondary, informal, etc.,etc. , job categories than their nonfelon counterparts. I could probably come up with more, but lack the time. I would suggest that we look toward sectoral changes in employment and hiring that correspond to preexisting race/gender employment biases, social spending cuts that force proportionally more African Americans into the labor market (earnings go up but so do household expenses like child care), or something else. Why are high income A-A families' earnings rising too? It could be that this segment of the community is taking advantage of the current national trend toward greater income inequality. So, whereas, the highest earnings quintile of the A-A community is gaining in comparison to all workers, just like high income earners overall, the lower four quintiles are also gaining (at least in appearances) because of increasing hiring trends toward occupational categories that are proportionally more represented by African Americans. However, the gains in the lower quintiles are likely to be over-shadowed by greater costs associated with work-related expenditures. Regards, The opinions expressed may not be those of the CDC. -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [PEN-L] Re: income race Date: Monday, November 03, 1997 6:31PM But has it not gotten dramatically worse in the last ten years due to so called drug crimes? My last read on the situation was an incredible 1 out of 3 Afro American men are incarcerated, on parole or on probation. 33% is a significant chunk of any population. I don't claim that I've researched this, we are all just spitting in the wind here, but the sentencing has gone up during the same time frame of Doug's inquiry and no other intervening factor of such breadth came to my mind. Industrial work is leaving the country, the last hired first fired rule of senority would not increase employment in a shrinking sector for the bottom of the senority list. I can't for the life of me believe that industrial jobs could be accountable for such a shift. If as I suggest these are the gents most likely to be unemployed clearing them from you stats would indeed
[PEN-L] Re: Marx's Marxism?
Colin Danby asked: Has anyone got the reference context for K Marx's reported denial that he was a Marxist? See Joseph O'Malley and Keith Algozin ed. _Rubel on Karl Marx: Five Essays_, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 19-22. Jerry
Re: saran wrap
Terry McDonough wrote, Aside to Tom W. I didn't find Paris is Burning very transgressive. The aesthetic of "realness" in these drag balls served to validate stereotyped heterosexual norms as aspirational models within a fantasy setting. None of the distancing of a more camp aesthetic was in evidence, though it must be remembered that distance in gender questions is something of a male privilege. I wish I'd said that. All questions of transgression/subversion/validation aside, the juxtaposition of Paris is Burning with saran wrap is fortuitous. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Marx's Marxism?
Has anyone got the reference context for K Marx's reported denial that he was a Marxist?
evils of tobacco
Shouldn't it be "http://www.tobaccoevils.org" rather than "http://www.tobaccofacts.org"? We forget about the _benefits_ of tobacco: by killing people off, it allows the social security system to remain solvent longer. Also, by killing off those with weak wills, it could improve the quality of the gene pool. (This is a joke on my part, but there are actually people out there who make such an argument.) in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html Economic theories "have become little more than vain attempts to revive exploded superstitions, or sophisms like those of Mr. Malthus, calculated to lull the oppressors of mankind into a security fo everlasting triumph." -- adapted from Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Re: Rent
Not being able to stomach opera (one of my many failings), I can't
appreciate "La Boheme." So a more contemporary "Hair"-like musical like
"Rent" is more acceptable to me, as it is to a vast number of people. (I
understand that there's a certain amount of Rentomania going on in the US,
with some people seeing "Rent" as the best thing since remote controls for
TVs.[*]) It's true, as Louis suggests, that "Rent" is designed to give the
middle-class a voyeur's delight with the travails and joys of the
dispossessed.
But it's not just that. I can imagine that a Christmas song (sung by actors
playing the homeless) centered on the line "there's no room at the Holiday
Inn" goes beyond voyeurism to stir the sleeping conscience of the
upper-middle class ("upper" because of the ticket price) and the rich. The
play also involves a struggle against an evil landlord who want to evict
everyone. As I said, the musical also goes against the usual US disdain for
"drag queens," heroin addicts, etc. I think that one message is that "the
travails and joys of the dispossessed" are similar to those of the middle
and upper classes, intensified by poverty. (I used the phrase "'bourgeois'
ideas about love" in my original posting, but this is what I meant.)
The middle class element is sucked in partly by the one character (played
by Neil Patrick Harris, when I saw "Rent"; he played "Doogie Howser, MD" on
TV). He's young and a bit naive, and more importantly lives in Alphabet
City mostly by choice, avoiding his parents and trying to preserve his
artistic purity (against sensationalistic "Hard Copy"-type television
"journalism"). He's also the only character without a love relationship.
He's an outsider, living in. (There are a couple of other characters who
seem to be in Bohemia partly as a matter of choice.) He and other
characters are quite critical of US culture as the millenium approaches.
The musical is in many ways a critique of the mainstream.
None of this is especially revolutionary, but it's interesting. A musical
with a relatively liberal line is better than "Cats."
[*] A friend of mine, Robert Adler, invented the remote and thus set the
stage for the currently ongoing collapse of Western Civilization. ;-)
in pen-l solidarity,
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
"It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
Re: Marx, Carey, and India First half of first part
Just so there isn't any confusion. I decoded Michael's article and sent it out as regular text today. It is a titanic work of scholarship. Michael, was it ever published? Louis Proyect Louis, thanks for the selfless job. Fikret. +Fikret Ceyhun voice: (701)777-3348 work + +Dept. of Economics (701)772-5135 home + +Univ. of North Dakota fax:(701)777-5099 + +University Station, Box 8369e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] + +Grand Forks, ND 58202/USA +
Students Arrested (fwd)
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 02:26:34 -0800 (PST) From: APEC Alert! [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: apec-L: Letters needed for jailed UBC students Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] LETTERS OF PROTEST NEEDED UBC (University of British Columbia, Canada) Students jailed for peaceful APEC protest Two UBC students, Victoria Scott and Jonathan Oppenheim, remain in jail three days after being arrested for a peaceful protest against APEC. As of November 2, the two have refused to sign their condition of release, which would prohibit them from protesting at the site of the APEC Leaders' Summit. On October 31, Victoria and Jon, along with other members of APEC ALERT, held a demonstration at the atrium of UBC President Martha Piper's publicly-funded residence--which is undergoing a $400,000 renovation in preparation for the Leaders' Summit. Members of the group used erasable chalk to write anti-APEC slogans on the windows of the atrium. Despite the fact that no damage was done, students were arrested, handcuffed, jailed and charged with criminal mischief. Neither Victoria nor Jon have previous criminal records. By arbitrarily arresting students, and holding them until they concede to absurd conditions, the RCMP, together with the UBC administration, is attempting to silence students' legitimate right to protest APEC. WHAT YOU CAN DO Please call or write UBC President Martha Piper and Prime Minister Jean Chretien expressing outrage at this blatant attempt at intimidation. Martha Piper President, UBC Old Administration Building, Room 101 Vancouver, Canada fax: (604) 822-5055 or (604) 822-3134 phone: (604) 822-2121 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jean Chretien Prime Minister House of Commons Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A6 (postage free) fax: (613) 941-6900 Please send a copy of all correspondence to APEC ALERT: 702 Union Street Vancouver, Salish Territory V6A 2C2 phone: (604) 251-9914 fax (604) 733-1852 (attention APEC ALERT) email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/fuller/apec_alert
Re: Medical miracles (fwd)
At the end of the Micro Surgeons' Conference in New York, all the leading surgeons were in a bar at the Hilton quite drunk and reminiscing over their greatest feats. The English surgeon said: "Well there was a fellow caught in machinery in the British Leyland plant last month. All that was left was a little finger. I reconstructed a new hand from the finger, built it on a new arm, engineered a new body and ultimately he was so efficient, he put 5 men out of work." "That's nothing," said the American surgeon. "We had a worker trapped in a nuclear reactor and all that remained of him was just one hair of his head. I had to construct a new skull, create a new torso and provide new limbs. He is now so efficient, that he's put 50 workers off the job." "I can top that," said the Kiwi surgeon. "I was walking down the street when I caught a fart, quickly wrapped an arsehole around it, built a body to match, named it Roger Douglas, and he put nearly the whole bloody country out of work!" - Apologies to overseas recipients. Substitute your own tyrant. Dr David SMALL Lecturer in Education University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800 Christchurch AOTEAROA / NEW ZEALAND Ph (64 3) 364-2268 Fax (64 3) 364-2418 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: BLS Daily Reportboundary=---- =_NextPart_000_01BCE911.A3E5BF30
This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. -- =_NextPart_000_01BCE911.A3E5BF30 charset="iso-8859-1" My inside sources agree with Max that Fast Track is failing -- the Monday head count was 190 No to 110 Yes. However, I was also told that a great many of the undecideds would vote Yes if they thought that it had a chance of passing. In this light the Wash Post's reports of heavy handed Clinton lobbying are really scary. Gore, who they have been trying to keep out of this, gave the Dem's Sat. radio talk on Fast Track. And then there is the photo (p. A4) of Rubin and Daschle with Rubin looking like the cat that ate the canary. Dave -- From: Hoyle_K Sent: Monday, November 03, 1997 5:34 PM To: DailyReport Subject:BLS Daily Report BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1997 The Wall Street Journal's consensus forecast (page A4) is for an increase of 215,000 in payroll employment and for an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent in October. There are still big differences in the jobs held by men and women. But a recent article by economist Barbara H. Wootton in the Monthly Labor Review indicates that the occupational gender gap in the U.S. has shrunk considerably - sometimes in surprising areas Wootton notes that women have generally moved most rapidly into those occupational groups in which employment has been expanding (Business Week, Nov. 3, page 30). Recently, the Labor Department reported that women's median weekly wages, which had risen from 62 percent of men's wages in 1979 to 77 percent in 1992, have since slipped back to 75 percent. Does this mean that progress in reducing the differential has finally run out of steam? Probably not. For one thing, another Labor Department earnings yardstick, annual wages of full-time, year-round female workers, actually jumped from 71.4 percent of male wages in 1995 to 73.8 percent in 1996. (The gender gap is wider for annual wages than weekly wages because it includes bonuses and overtime, which accrue more heavily to male workers.) (Business Week, Nov. 3, page 30). A new National Bureau of Economic Research study by David H. Autor, Lawrence F. Katz, and Alan B. Krueger offers new historical evidence of the large role technological change has played in the widening wage gap between college and high school grads From 1984 to 1993, the study reports, the share of workers operating keyboards on the job surged from 25 percent to 47 percent, and such workers tended to enjoy larger pay gains than others. With more than 70 percent of college-educated workers using computers by 1993, the researchers figure that as much as 30 to 50 percent of their relative wage gains in recent decades reflect the spread of computer technology (Business Week, Nov. 3, page 30). Before the record sell-off on Wall Street, economists were measuring the crisis in Southeast Asia primarily in terms of the negative impact it would have on U.S. exports and on the earnings of U.S. multinationals. But as the instability spread to Hong Kong, and in turn rocked stock markets in the West, analysts have been taking the view that the damage could be deeper and more protracted. Economists interviewed by BNA, however, said there is no reason to expect the U.S. economy will be thrown into recession (Daily Labor Report, page D-1)_Even if Asia's financial markets continue to go up in coming days, economists say, there is no escaping further trouble for the region's once-supercharged economies. Up and down the western edge of the Pacific, the Asian "miracle" is losing its gleam. After a quarter century of spectacular expansion of wealth, the region finds itself with an unwelcome supply of empty office towers, shaky banks, and people wondering what went wrong That's bad news for the United States, because East Asia is an important market for U.S. goods as diverse as Hollywood action films and electric power turbines. Some economists estimate that the Asian slowdown could knock about a quarter of a percentage point from U.S. growth next year (Washington Post, page A1). Economic growth advanced at a 3.5 percent annual rate during the third quarter, powered by the strongest bounce in consumer spending in 5-1/2 years, while inflation remained subdued, the Commerce Department reports. So far this year, GDP has risen at a 3.9 percent annual rate, well above the roughly 2-2.5 percent annual rate many economists believe can be sustained over time without generating price pressures. But an apparent jump in third quarter productivity - that is, output per hour - is likely to keep a lid on price pressures, despite the leap in consumer spending and overall growth, analysts say (Daily Labor Report, page D-3; Washington Post, Nov. 1, page D1; Wall Street Journal, page A2)_The American economy grew at a vigorous pace over the summer, and a key
RE: income and racecharset=iso-8859-1
After reading Rakesh's post, I may have sent a post that I hadn't intended to send (because it was incomplete and I needed time to edit it)? Thus, my post a few minutes ago must be somewhat repetitive. Rakesh made points that I agree with. There are race biases in the way crimes are determined, how people are charged, sentenced, and paroled, as well as the public perceptions of who criminals are. The list goes on. Further, I am not claiming any particular knowledge about sectoral employment or earnings and any race/gender bias in hiring. I only suggest that these areas are so much more likely to provide that sort of empirical bang for the theoretical buck than recent changes in incarceration rates. A further point that may be of interest. Insofar as crimes are predominantly white-white and black-black, i.e., whites tend to perpetrate crimes against other whites, and blacks predominantly perpetrate against other blacks, any earnings losses associated with crime-related injuries would likely express themselves in the household income data. This would be a trivial amount, but nonetheless a triviality in the wrong direction. The labor scarcity connection cannot be substantiated, and sounds too much like neoclassical labor market theory for my comfort. Jeff -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: income and race Date: Tuesday, November 04, 1997 12:46AM Jeffrey Fellows suggested: "the lower [black] quintiles may also be rising because of sectoral shifts toward industries and occupations that are more highly represented by blacks." While it seems to me absurd to attempt to infer structural changes in the economy based on comparative data on black/white income quintile groups (esp. since the black absolute and relative increases seem too insignificant to have justified this much theorising--to say nothing of the questionable value of any racialised data), I think JF's hypothesis is quite provocative--though I don't think the focus is usefully put on sectors defined by their overrepresentation of blacks as this says nothing about what it is about those sectors explains their relatively faster growth. One wonders whether the US is going through a similar process as Britain a century ago as there is slow growth, if not outright, decline, of the industries which once formed the basis of economic domination (steel, autos, shipbuilding, machine tools); perhaps too much capital remained tied up in antiquated fixed capital and too little surplus value was produced to keep up with continuously growing minimum amount of capital required for business in spheres with a high organic composition. Meanwhile the few newer high technology industries in which there is a high organic composition such as semiconductors and computer hardware employ too few of the workers released or unabsorbed by the once dominant traditional industry. There is then growth in industries which a much lower organic composition of capital. Not only may these firms may be labor intensive, they may be unskilled labor-intensive, which may create relative opportunity for African-American workers whose skills have remained underdeveloped in a racist country. Perhaps then the tight labor market is a better indicator than this comparative black/white data of this structural devolution from an economy of advanced industries in which there was a high organic composition of capital to one in which the most rapid growth--despite a few advanced high technology industries-- is in labor intensive, low skill sectors. I would also like to make a point I made earlier again: the overrepresentation of blacks among the incarcerated is indeed alarming, but this does not mean that race explains why the US has relatively higher incarcertation rates or how crime is defined or what punishments are meted out for which crimes. There may be an interesting class-based critique of the nature of the criminal justice system, which can easily be ignored if we are simply criticising the system because the sentences received by black working class or lumpen criminals are harsher than those received by their white counterparts. This would be a perfect example of how slaves jockeying for position in their servitude miss the big picture, but I haven't read David Garland's Punishment and Modern Society or Jeffrey Reiman's The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison. Rakesh Grad Student UC Berkeley
