[PEN-L:12964] Re: talk on teachers
Michael, only one small point. Thanks in part to Nathan Newman #6 was killed. Michael Yates wrote: 6. The California State University system is preparing to "hand control of its inter-campus computer and telecommunications system to a private consortia managed by Microsoft and its hardware allies, GTE, Hughes, and Fujitsu." This privatization of public education is fueled by the same forces that have led to the privatization of all sorts of public services from garbage collection to prisons to college food services and campus police. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:12962] Re: The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday,19 Oct 1999 -- 3:85(#343)
Charles Brown's message on this thread illustrates one of the key issues we're up against. I think Brown's error inadvertent, for his conclusion "Ban the Klan" is much closer to English and Continental legal views. He wrote: "As a matter of fact, the vast majority of lawyers have the same position that Max and Jim have on this: that the First Amendment protects KKK rights to speech and assembly. Lawyers are indoctrinated with this position in Constitutional Law classes in law school. What you enunciate below is a typical lawyers's position. The ACLU has a typical lawyer's position on this issue. I can't think of one lawyer who agrees with me on banning the KKK. "The ACLU and liberals always advocate a counterdemonstration, but they never organize one." Corrections, I think, are as follows: 1) "right of free speech and assembly" This is a limited set of rights. "Free speech" does not hold when there is a "clear and present danger" doctrine. Calling for crimes nationally against minorities when rightwing forces are committing such crimes is one argument against *absolute* free speech; that fascist organizing for criminal activity occurs today under the clear/danger exception. A similar exception holds for "assembly." One may assemble in order to commit crimes; the right to assemble does not protect the criminal conspiracy. A classic case was the 1950s Mafia conference in upstate NY. In this sense we can argue that the Klan is a criminal conspiracy and that a Klan rally is another form of organizing for that conspiracy. In this case, neither issues of speech or assembly apply. 2) "I can't think of one lawyer who agrees with me" This reflects a chauvinistic position towards law. Too many people treat the U.S. Constitution as binding on the world and U.S. legal thinking as the only valid thought internationally. However, there are two other dominant systems: the English/Common and Napoleonic/Continental law. Let us not forget them when we argue broad issues of ethics and morality as opposed to narrow issues of U.S. law. And, yes, lots of lawyers would agree with C. Brown; e.g. the "Klan" *is* banned in Germany; Canada has strict laws of organizing to whip up hatred, etc. (Again, please note that I am not accusing Brown of "chauvinism;" his position on the Klan shows he is innocent; it is only his expression of arguments that reflect this.) 3) "The ACLU and liberals always advocate a counterdemonstration, but they never organize one." This is substantially correct, but I believe Norm Seigel of the NY Civil Liberties Union helped organize the noon Democratic Party demo against the Klan. The standard civil libertarian argument is "the answer to bad speech is not censorship but good speech and more of it." Historically, one finds a lot of people saying this to counter anti-fascist organizing but very few organizing the "good speech." I faced this when we smashed fascist organizing efforts to create their special white-power music group on Usenet. My standard response to these civil libertarians is "that answer to people who want to censor bad speech is to actually organize good speech and more of it instead of telling them that it is the answer." Reality is even worse, here, then Brown wrote. Unfortunately, many people maintain that when the Klan urges that Blacks be lynched this does not violate the rights of the victims but is instead "free speech." At the same time, they maintain that anti-lynching protests are improper and are not "free speech" for they violate that same "free speech" right for the Klan. This points to a failure in our organizing and a need for additional theoretical and agitational work. In closing, I share Brown's sentiment to "ban the Klan." But in arguing with people I think it more effective to attack the notion that the Klan is a criminal enterprise (like a corporation that uses slave labor) and can be prosecuted as such; thus "speech" and "assembly" are inapplicable terms. By way of example, one might recite the Ten Commandments while reciting a rape. Arresting the rapist would necessarily limit his ability to so recite. But few would argue that the arrest could not take place or that rape could not be criminalized because it violated "freedom of religion." -- tallpaul editor: The Internet Anti-Fascist
[PEN-L:12940] Re: Re: Re: Know Your Yids c.
Christianity however is widely corrupting across all sectors of the population and any blunting of its force would translate almost immediately into increased political possibility. Carrol Marx, _Capital, vol. 1: 'The religious world is but the reflex of the real world. And for a society based upon the production of commodities, in which the producers in general enter in social relations with one another by treating their products as commodities and values, whereby they reduce their individual private labour to the standard of homogeneous human labour - for such a society, Christianity with its *cultus* of abstract man, more especially in its bourgeois developments, Protestantism, deism, etc., is the most fitting form of religion. Michael Hoover
[PEN-L:12941] Re: Elections in Argentina (posted to theMarxism list)
I thought de la Rua, who was indeed victorious, signalled support for small and medium businesses. This alliance appears therefore to represent a united front of classes and strata that does not explicitly invite the multinationals to wipe their feet on the Argentinan economy. De la Rua has just been visited by the leader of the Chilean socialist party with signals of joint cooperation. Is this not a positive move that the centre left in South America may be finding ways to win elections and to resist the globalisation of the multi-nationals. Of course this is not the pure marxism that prefers to submit blank polling slips in the hope of starting a new movement that may be revolutionary, but then again, may just be pure. Not all views within marxism think political purity and the avoidance of compromise, are hallmarks of marxism. Chris Burford London
[PEN-L:12945] Re: Re: Elections in Argentina
I second Rod's alert. Rod Hay wrote: Another personal attack starting. Original Message Follows From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Burford is the spin doctor for all these compromised left and liberal formations. You are as much of a Marxist as Anthony Giddens. __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:12949] BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1999 Regional and state unemployment rates in the United States were stable in September, with all regions reporting little or no change from August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. The national unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.2 percent. Nonfarm employment rose in 28 states and the District of Columbia and declined in 22 states. Changes in nonfarm employment were small, however -- 34 states posted a monthly shift of 0.2 percentage point or less. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). More job opportunities have been created for women in the past 2 decades, but they still earn two-thirds of what men make, a United Nations report said late last week. The 1999 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development will provide fodder for next year's General Assembly review of progress since the 1995 U.N. women's conference. ... The report said the trend for companies to branch out globally has given more women employment opportunities. ... The survey, which is published every 5 years, showed that in the U.S., El Salvador, and Sri Lanka, wage gaps between men and women have narrowed. The reason: Increases in trade and international competition in the past 20 years eroded well-paying blue-collar wages in industries where men were once the well-entrenched insiders, the report said. But in countries such as Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and Myanmar, wage gaps between men and women have widened. The report said women suffered most in the Asian economic crisis. ... (Wall Street Journal, page B23A). For most Americans, college remains affordable, according to a graph in USA Today (page 1A). More than half of the students who were attending a 4-year institution during 1999 to 2000 paid less than $4,000 in tuition and fees. Almost three-quarters pay tuition of less than $8,000. The percentages given show 51 percent pay under $4,000; 21 percent, $4,000 to $7,999; 6 percent, $8,000 to $11,999; 8 percent, $12,000 to $15,999; and 7 percent, $20,000 and over in tuition and fees. Source of the data is The College Board. application/ms-tnef
[PEN-L:12956] rain Chiapas
does anyone know what the impact of recent disastrous rains in Mexico has been on Chiapas, the power of the Zapatistas, or the political situation in general? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
[PEN-L:12960] Re: Wood on Brenner on Market Dependence
Jim wrote: The key sentence above is "A tenant could, for instance, remain in possession of land, but his survival and his tenure could nonetheless be subject to market imperatives, whether he employed wage labor or was himself the direct producer." The problem with this statement is that _if the tenant has possession of the land_, what keeps him or her from using some of this land to grow the crops needed to produce subsistence, "the means of self-reproduction"? A lot of farmers -- especially small ones -- have followed the path of risk-avoiding survival-oriented self-subsistence. They may eventually decide that they don't like the kind of poverty life-style this implies in the long run (as farms that do specialize and accumulate become richer), but they do have the option of opting out in the short to medium run. So, maybe your disagreement with Wood is not so much about her basic narrative as whether you focus on the long or short run? What are necessary inputs for self-reproduction are historically created (both objectively and subjectively), right? So, as long as the market shapes our environment and expectations, aren't we "subject to market imperatives"? Yoshie
[PEN-L:12961] Re: Re: Re: BLS Daily Report
If someone said that "high school" is affordable to most Americans that would probably be found quite unacceptable. Why is it that the state's obligation to provide education to everyone who can benefit does not extend to post-secondary education?University should be free, as it is in Cuba. I don't know what the situation in Europe is but I expect in many countries tuition is less than in the US or paid for by the state. In the former USSR it seems to me I recall that students used to complain about their living expenses! Cheers, Ken Hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tuition might be affordable, but in my classes I would guess the typical student works 15 to 20 hours a week. This outside work has increased enormously in the past two decades and represents the chief cause in the decline in what we can teach in a typical semester. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:12959] Dogmatism (was Re: Know Your Yids (sic) c.)
Jim D. wrote: We should also note that any kind of dogmatism -- including Marxist dogmatism -- represents a "widely corrupting" force. The problem is that the definition of dogmatism is basically subjective, as most people use the term. When someone holds forth what we think of as a wrong or incorrect position, we say, "he's dogmatic." When someone's view agrees with ours (even if it is expressed with a sense of certitude even worded in a way that may be off-putting to others), we say, "right on, brother!" And noone notices his or her own 'dogmatism.' We only notice 'other people's dogmatism.' Yoshie
[PEN-L:12958] Re: Wood on Brenner on Market Dependence
Try the Poverty of Philosophy. Jim Devine asked: (Does anyone know _where_ Marx said that worker co-ops could end up exploiting themselves?) __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:12955] Wood on Brenner on Market Dependence
As usual, I'm way behind pen-l on this (though I think it was lbo-talk that discussed this article). I finally got to read Ellen Meiksins Wood's article "the Politics of Capitalism," from MONTHLY REVIEW, September 1999. Her article goes beyond the usual description of how markets constrain and shape individuals. Following Brenner (she says), we should treat market dependence as a force independent of proletarianization in encouraging capitalist-type behavior: " market-dependence, and the imperatives of competition that went with it, did not depend on the complete separation of the producers from the means of production. The essential condition was the separation from the means of subsistence, the means of self-reproduction [i.e., dependence on the market for consumption goods]. A tenant could, for instance, remain in possession of land, but his survival and his tenure could nonetheless be subject to market imperatives, whether he employed wage labor or was himself the direct producer. This kind of market-dependence was a cause of complete dispossession, a cause, not a result, of the expropriation of the English peasantry [Marx's primitive accumulation]. People in possession of land were driven off the land not just by direct coercion but also by the operation of economic [i.e., market] forces, the forces of an increasingly competitive market. So a mass proletariat was the result, not the cause, of those market imperatives." (p. 22) She goes further to point to the market as a "discipliner" and a "regulator" of the activity of countries and worker-controlled firms, encouraging her to reject all types of market socialism. She makes the valid point that workers under capitalism should expect economic crisis whether they struggle or not. Thus that they shouldn't hold back from the struggle in fear of stimulating a crisis (though unfortunately she says nothing about the tactics or strategy needed). I agree with most if not all of her political conclusions. It's interesting that MONTHLY REVIEW has shifted from excessive emphasis on monopoly (exemplified by Baran Sweezy's MONOPOLY CAPITAL in 1964) to excessive emphasis on competition (seen above). I wish Wood had paid attention to the various ways in which markets are less than perfect, so that market forces are not totally constraining. For example, Howard Botwinnick book argues that workers can capture the technological and monopoly rents that capitalists usually appropriate. But Wood portrays the market almost as a Weberian iron cage. But that's not what concerns me here. Rather, I just do not believe Wood's basic story. (If it is an accurate portrayal of Brenner's view, I am not the Brenner-clone that Louis P. and Jim B. seem to think I am.) The key sentence above is "A tenant could, for instance, remain in possession of land, but his survival and his tenure could nonetheless be subject to market imperatives, whether he employed wage labor or was himself the direct producer." The problem with this statement is that _if the tenant has possession of the land_, what keeps him or her from using some of this land to grow the crops needed to produce subsistence, "the means of self-reproduction"? A lot of farmers -- especially small ones -- have followed the path of risk-avoiding survival-oriented self-subsistence. They may eventually decide that they don't like the kind of poverty life-style this implies in the long run (as farms that do specialize and accumulate become richer), but they do have the option of opting out in the short to medium run. Thus, the market does not automatically impose a logic of accumulation that Wood suggests it does. Worker-controlled co-ops need not convert themselves into capitalist ones, despite market dependence. It does seem likely that they'll remain small. Worker-controlled firms may end up subordinated subcontractors to capital, perhaps "exploiting themselves" (as Wood says Marx said) in a way that profits capital. But market competition need not mean a conversion to full-scale capitalism, even though it limits the ability of worker-controlled co-ops to socialist ideals. BTW, the co-op form itself encourages less-that-full fulfillment of socialist ideals, because it spurs their membership to be exclusive, organized very much like a college fraternity. (The former Yugoslavia created an institutional framework to avoid this result, as I'm sure Paul Phillips will point out. But the point remains that such a framework was needed.) (Does anyone know _where_ Marx said that worker co-ops could end up exploiting themselves?) Similarly, Cuba's immersion in the world market doesn't mean that it automatically becomes fully capitalist (even with all the nastiness that the US has thrown that country's way). (As Michael P. notes, Cuba has pursued clearly non-capitalist techniques in agriculture. One can point to Cuban government authoritarianism, but that
[PEN-L:12954] From Henry Liu
Louis, Please post this on the Marxism list, LBO and Pen-l. It is an example of the struggle going on in influencing Chinese economic policy. Sorry I am too busy to be a subscriber. Hope to be able to return after a while. The full name of Jainyi is omitted because he used to be a Foreign Ministry official. Regards, Henry * Henry: I completely agree with you. In my article delivered to one of the members of the standing committee of the politbureau of CPC in last April, I explained with ample examples and history of state-owned enterprises both in China and West (including the US and western european countries), and with theories, too, that the success of an enterprise has nothing to do with the ownership structure but with the corporate governance and management of the enterprise. During my approxmiately three years' of research, I discussed this issue with over one hundred Chinese and foreign experts, scholars and managers, most of them agreed with me after discussion. I remember vividly my discussions with a senior vice president of a Fortune 500 company and he agreed with me. I feel that the Chinese leaders are just trying to hide their failure in managing the state-owned enterprises behind the so-called reform theories. Because they do not have the skill, knowledge and courage needed to govern, improve and manage the state-owned enterprises. The task we are facing now is how to make our views (which I think are correct) known to the Chinese people and leaders. We need to do something. Best regards. Jianyi -- From: Henry C.K. Liu ¹ù¤l¥ú[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, October 25, 1999 11:45 PM Subject: SOE Reform The Decision on Some Major Issues Concerning the Reform and Development of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) adopted by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 15th Central Committee of the Communist) Party of China (CPC) made several assumptions that may not necessarily be valid. 1) It assumes that private corporations are more efficient than state-own enterprises. This is not always true. Experience in the US has shown that efficiency of an enterprise is the result of good or bad management, rather than whether an enterprise is publicly or privately owned. Accountability for management must be present in any enterprise. It can be introduced regardless of the type of ownership. Privatization is not a panacea. Russia is full of examples where privatization has resulted in total paralysis of many critical sectors of the Russian economy. 2) It is a myth that market economy is more productive than centrally planned economy. That myth had been promoted by Reagan/Thatcher. That myth requires the exploitation of an underdeveloped third world to carry the advanced economies. As a developing economy, following market fundamentalism will only condamn China to the rank of the exploited in the US led globalization regime. 3) Private ownership is not socially benign. Once a nation permits the privatization of the means of production, the road to socialism becomes obscure. Privatization is not economically more efficient. It only appears so because private corporations are not required to assume social responsibilities. The Chinese state-owned enterprises need reform. But it is doubtful that privatization is the answer. An accountable mangement system in which managers are rewarded and punished according to performance is needed. But that does not require private ownership. There are many companies in the US that operates on mutual ownership, owned by the customers, like a cooperative. A well-known example is the Prudential Insurance Company of America, the 3rd largest insurance company in the US. Henry From the People's Daily Establishment of Modern Enterprise System-Orientation of SOE Reform This article is written by Chen Qingtai on what he has gained from studying the Decision of the Fourth Plenum of the 15th CPC Central Committee. The article runs in part as follows: The Decision on Some Major Issues Concerning the Reform and Development of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) adopted by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 15th Central Committee of the Communist) Party of China (CPC) once again stresses: "Establishment of a modern enterprise system is the inevitable requirement for the development of socialized mass production and a market economy, the effective way for integrating the system of public ownership with the market economy and the orientation of the reform of State-owned enterprises." Problems Needed to Be Resolved in the Establishment of a Modern Enterprise System 1. Realizing the separation of ownership from the property right of the enterprise's legal person, enabling the enterprise
[PEN-L:12953] de la Rúa: a low-key conservative
Comment / Lex (Financial Times) ARGENTINA: Victory for low-key conservative The victory of Fernando de la Rúa, a low-key conservative, in Argentina's presidential elections is good for democracy in a country that has long favoured flamboyant strongmen. Whether it will be enough to restore international investors' faith in Argentina's economic prospects is less clear. In the short term, things are improving. Mr de la Rúa's commitment to stability and the peso's one-to-one peg to the dollar are beyond question. His fiscal stance may be even tougher than his predecessor's - necessarily so, since Argentina's budget deficit will rise to about 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product if left untamed. The new government is expected rapidly to announce spending cuts and tax increases that should win warm praise (and possibly more money, if needed) from the International Monetary Fund. Happily, the economy appears to have bottomed out, though it will still shrink by 3-4 per cent this year. But the long-term outlook is less bright. Without an absolute majority in Congress and two-thirds of the provinces controlled by the defeated Peronists, Mr de la Rúa may have trouble pushing through necessary labour and tax reforms. A new revenue-sharing agreement with the spendthrift provinces is also needed. Yet without structural progress, Argentina will find it harder to persuade investors to stump up $17bn next year to cover its external financing needs. Meanwhile, with a tightening fiscal policy and no flexibility to cut interest rates due to the dollar link, recovery from recession is likely to be anaemic. Argentina's growth, at around 2 per cent next year, will be half that of Mexico or Brazil. There are more attractive markets in Latin America. Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:12952] Re: Re: BLS Daily Report
William S. Lear wrote: Is there information available as to the increases in tuition at various levels over, say, the past 20 years? See http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/Digest97/d97t312.html. Full listing of tables is at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/Digest97/listtables.html. Doug
[PEN-L:12951] Re: Re: BLS Daily Report
Tuition might be affordable, but in my classes I would guess the typical student works 15 to 20 hours a week. This outside work has increased enormously in the past two decades and represents the chief cause in the decline in what we can teach in a typical semester. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:12950] Re: BLS Daily Report
On Tuesday, October 26, 1999 at 12:11:05 (-0400) Richardson_D writes: ... For most Americans, college remains affordable, according to a graph in USA Today (page 1A). More than half of the students who were attending a 4-year institution during 1999 to 2000 paid less than $4,000 in tuition and fees. Almost three-quarters pay tuition of less than $8,000. The percentages given show 51 percent pay under $4,000; 21 percent, $4,000 to $7,999; 6 percent, $8,000 to $11,999; 8 percent, $12,000 to $15,999; and 7 percent, $20,000 and over in tuition and fees. Source of the data is The College Board. Is there information available as to the increases in tuition at various levels over, say, the past 20 years? Bill
[PEN-L:12948] Re: South African nukes
Yes indeed, SA's nukes were destroyed by FW de Klerk's regime, in 1992 I believe. It was probably out of fear that the ANC was too close to Libya and Cuba. But who knows what really went on... (SA exploded a nuke in 1979.) (The country's nuclear energy reactor, near Cape Town, which was a front for the nuke programme, remains...) (Shall we talk chemicals weapons, next?) (And Mandela? Anything to raise export revenues, including gun sales to Rwanda, DRC, Algeria, Columbia and Turkey: just go go go. Gotta pay back the NY bankers who lent money to PW Botha, after all...) On 24 Oct 99, at 18:20, michael perelman wrote: I thought that SA disabled the weapons before the ANC took over. Jim Devine wrote: Before the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, it was pretty much known that the R of SA had nuclear weapons. Was this knowledge accurate? what is Mandela's attitude toward these nukes, if they exist? what is the SA state's attitude? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Patrick Bond email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * phone: 2711-614-8088 home: 51 Somerset Road, Kensington 2094 South Africa work: University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management PO Box 601, Wits 2050, South Africa email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 2711-488-5917 * fax: 2711-484-2729
[PEN-L:12946] Re: RE: Re: Know Your Yids c.
Another good Israeli source on Zionism, Palestine, and related issues besides Shahak is Moshe Menuhin (father of the violinist Yehudi Menuhin). One of his books is called The Stifling and Smearing of a Dissenter (also published as Jewish Critics of Zionism), and another is The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time. Some good work has been done analyzing Israel/Palestine from a Marxian reserve army of unemployed framework, with "race"/"ethnicity"/religion/nationality/etc. mediating hierarchies among workers. A truly mind boggling story. I can dig up the references and my notes if anyone is interested. Unbelievably little on this in the "radical political economy" literature, at least in the U.S. Mat
[PEN-L:12944] Re: Elections in Argentina
Another personal attack starting. Original Message Follows From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Burford is the spin doctor for all these compromised left and liberal formations. You are as much of a Marxist as Anthony Giddens. __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:12943] Elections in Argentina (posted to the Marxism list)
Burford wrote: I thought de la Rua, who was indeed victorious, signalled support for small and medium businesses. This alliance appears therefore to represent a united front of classes and strata that does not explicitly invite the multinationals to wipe their feet on the Argentinan economy. De la Rua is a capitalist politician. Argentina is suffering from capitalism. Socialists are opposed to capitalism. Burford's training in Stalinism whets his appetite for any bourgeois politician who utters reformist formulas, from Blair to Clinton, to their Latin American counterparts. De la Rua has just been visited by the leader of the Chilean socialist party with signals of joint cooperation. Is this not a positive move that the centre left in South America may be finding ways to win elections and to resist the globalisation of the multi-nationals. The Chilean Socialist Party is not the party of Allended. It has virtually pledged to continue Pinochet's "revolution" in the same manner that Clinton has dedicated himself to continuing the Reagan "revolution". Burford is the spin doctor for all these compromised left and liberal formations. Of course this is not the pure marxism that prefers to submit blank polling slips in the hope of starting a new movement that may be revolutionary, but then again, may just be pure. Not all views within marxism think political purity and the avoidance of compromise, are hallmarks of marxism. You are as much of a Marxist as Anthony Giddens. Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:12930] Re: Northern progressive strategy
It may be helpful to give another brief example of the stance of the northern progressive organisations campaigning against neo-liberalism. This is from the website of War against Want: Certainly reformatory; not, I submit, reformist. Chris Burford London [Extract from pamphlet on globalisation:] Whose world is it anyway? In the last thirty years the world economy has been systematically liberalised and deregulated. World markets have become dangerously out of control. International bodies such as the WTO, IMF and UN have expanded their role in world governance but have so far failed to regulate globalisation. With transnationals more powerful than many nation-states and currency speculation outstripping the means of central banks and the IMF, answers must be found. Regulation is the key. People must reclaim a stake in how the world is run. Much depends on whether politicians are willing to mobilise and reform these global institutions to make them effective and increase their accountability. As long as they are instruments of the rich North they will continue to serve only a small percentage of the globe.
