Finland
Shane Mage wrote: Not to mention one "democratic" European country that was allied with the Nazis throughout virtually the entire war--Finland. Not for as long as the one "socialist" country was, that is true. Finland was attacked by the Soviet Union in December 1939. Despite the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact Stalin et al. suspected the true intentions of the Nazis and sought to cover their flanks by acquiring from Finland the Karelian isthmus and the coastline of the Barents Sea. Having refused Soviet demands troops crossed the border fully expecting to push the Finns aside and greet the Swedish border guards on completion of their task. Instead they got a rude awakening in guerrilla warfare, arguably giving them the necessary fright to prepare them for the blitzkrieg. Because of the costly lack of progress, the Soviet Union was forced to compromise -- not that the Finns would have guessed it, ceding a tenth of their territory. Thus, when Barbarossa was launched in 1941 Finland took the opportunity to take back its ceded land. This it did, and no more. Where it gets complicated is when the government, against the wishes of Mannerheim, accepted the offer of a German division, no doubt fearing that, on their own, the Finns were not in any position to hold out against any counterattack. By 1944, with the Soviet army repelling the Nazi invaders it was able to resume hostilities with the Finns, driving them back once again to the lines at which the 1940 truce was called. The Finns sued for peace, and, in addition to colossal "reparations" to be paid to the Soviet Union, including the ceding of Karelia (with prime farm land) and the Barents coastline, agreed to disarm the German division. The Germans promptly went on the rampage throughout Lapland, and it took several months for the Finnish army to subjugate it. Even today there are still bitter folk memories of the Germans in the north. Finland did not have the happy choice of neutrality during the war, nor did it have the option of "containing" either the Nazis or the Soviet Union, as did the British and French prior to September 1939. Michael K.
J. S. Mill (was Re: Thatcher and nationalism)
In addition, I think that people like Brad -- who are part of the hegemonic ideological bloc in the media and universities -- need to realize that there are other opinions in the world besides those which are acceptable in the Clinton White House or the Bush inner circle. Of course, those of us who have deviant political opinions have to tolerate your perspective all the time, since we have no choice. Or is appealing for a little tolerance of deviant political positions contrary to the current definition of "democratic" values? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine * There are many reasons, doubtless, why doctrines which are the badge of a sect retain more of their vitality than those common to all recognized sects, and why more pains are taken by teachers to keep their meaning alive; but one reason certainly is, that the peculiar doctrines are more questioned, and have to be oftener defended against open gainsayers. Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post, as soon as there is no enemy in the field. (J.S. Mill, "On Liberty") * Yoshie
Imperialist progressivism (was Re: Thatcher and nationalism)
Brad DeLong wrote: I'm not Senator Albert Beveridge. I don't agree with Senator Albert Beveridge. Why are you claiming that I do? I'm not saying that at all. I think your arguments would hold more water if some of your righteous indignation were directed at U.S. government officials who are as guilty of the brutalities you so frequently highlight as committed by other regimes. Acknowledging your own country's history, where peoples of other languages and cultures were routinely subjugated without prior thought to their humanity, all in the name of manifest destiny, where the aspirations of peoples throughout the world were routinely subjugated by the interests of behemoths like the United Fruit Company, for example, would render your criticisms of the Galtieris of this world more credible. Whether it is your intention or not, you often give the impression that inhumanity is the preserve of regimes that do not adhere to the U.S. model of governance. Michael K.
RE: URPE (stat request)
"NAFTA accelerated a trend that started in 1982, when a financial crisis forced Mexico to open up its economy to domination by U.S. finance and industry. Since then, living standards have fallen as the country has shifted from protecting independent industry to become an adjunct of the U.S. economy. Maquiladoras are now spreading from the border region to southern Mexico, where wages are even lower." - if available to support the above statements, i would like sources that show stats for yearly per capita income by quintile/decile for mexico and/or the maquiladora mexican states since the advent of NAFTA. thanks for your help. norm
Oz Updates
G'day all, From Canberra ... Australia's Foreign Affairs Department today released a package of secret documents concerning East Timor - from July 1974 to late 1976. It shows our secret service knew of a provisional invasion plan in July '74, that Oz PM Whitlam (the left's hero here) not only condoned but very possibly encouraged Soeharto to go in (the latter says in the papers that his plans and resolve 'crystallised' during his September '74 talks with Whitlam), and that the Department knew three days in advance of the Indonesian battle plan - including the rather important bit about how the town of Balibo was a focus for the assault - which is where we had our journalists ensconced, and which is where they duly died three days later. Meanwhile, in Melbourne ... Bill Gates got his turn at the WEF - assuring everyone that IT was closing the gap between the poor and the rich. He got into the casino thanks to a mounted police charge on the front door that injured several dozen protesters. The unions (well, the two best of 'em) duly joined in after the aggro was past. One interesting moment was when the crowd parted like the biblical sea when its Moses, Vandana Shiva, wanted to get in. She's been getting a lot of coverage, too - and her possie within the trenches and fortifications has lent much credence to the 'I-know!-Let's-have-some-democratic-content-in-globalisation!' case. For the rest of the suits (bar our ACTU boss, the only other woman, incidentally), it was all just a problem in public relations, and they smugly said so. The protesters didn't understand, and the message merely needed better 'selling'. David Hale was probably the most appallingly arrogant of an appallingly arrogant bunch of suits - but that's hardly news,I s'pose (he spoke for the less diplomatic half of the convocation, to the effect that all outside were thugs who 'just didn't like life'). Fortunately, he was so sumptuously reclined, exquisitely dressed and smugly smiled that the majority of viewers could not help but detest him on sight. Cheers, Rob.
Re: Re: The legacy of Juan Perón
As I said, a scissors crisis: in a mixed economy, the government should be used to redistribute income and the market used to allocate resources; to get things backward--as Peron did, using the government to allocate resources and regulating market prices to redistribute income--doesn't work. My complaint with Peron is not that he tried to introduce western-European-style social democracy to Argentina, but that he got the details *badly* wrong--and so produced long-run economic distaster. Brad DeLong You are partially correct. In a mixed economy, there is a clash between the needs of workers and the bourgeoisie. The workers need jobs, housing, health care, recreation and education. Their bosses have more ambitious needs. They need chauffeured limousines, 4 houses, servants and gold-plated faucets. To support these more ambitious needs, they need sufficient profits. If a state agency cuts into their profits, they might find it preferable to let land lie fallow. Somebody like Fidel Castro would have organized the agricultural work force to evict the bosses and declare the ranches and farms public property. Then, the wheat, cattle, etc. would have been exported and revenue would have continued to come in. That is what this is about: profits versus human needs. Unfortunately Peron was no Fidel Castro. Some of us do not believe that people can live without those gold-plated faucets. It is the desire for gold-plated faucets--you see--that motivates people to make better mouse traps. Or at least that was what I was taught in freshman economics in 1961. I no longer believe that. In any case, people who are on an ideological mission to persuade the human race that gold-plated faucets make the world go round should have the liberty to do so. What I object to is torturing trade unionists and leftwing activists in Latin America who have a different philosophy. Perhaps Nestor deserves to be castigated because he would have supported Argentina's neutrality during WWII. But what do we say about Operation Blowback, which brought over Nazi murderers to work for the CIA? And what about America's Operation Condor, which resulted in the murder of thousands of trade unionists and activists in Latin America during the Carter years? That the ends justify the means? That you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet? Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Thatcher and nationalism
But is it not equally our business what the US does to bomb, kill and maim civilians and children in Columbia, Yugoslavia, Iraq etc. Yep.
Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
Ken wrote: Interesting that you should say this in a post that includes the title Canada and Australia. I don't know about Australia but Canada joined the war very early, in 1939 I believe. Brad writes: Touche... All the dominions did... did the dominions -- and the colonies -- have any choice in this matter? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: The legacy of Juan Perón
You are partially correct. In a mixed economy, there is a clash between the needs of workers and the bourgeoisie. The workers need jobs, housing, health care, recreation and education. Their bosses have more ambitious needs. They need chauffeured limousines, 4 houses, servants and gold-plated faucets. To support these more ambitious needs, they need sufficient profits. If a state agency cuts into their profits, they might find it preferable to let land lie fallow. Somebody like Fidel Castro would have organized the agricultural work force to evict the bosses and declare the ranches and farms public property. Then, the wheat, cattle, etc. would have been exported and revenue would have continued to come in. No. Historical experience strongly suggests that the collectivization of agriculture is disastrous for agricultural productivity and agricultural exports. The claim that what Argentina's economy needed after World War II was to become more like the economy of the Soviet Union is unsupported by any historical evidence. Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Re: Re: The legacy of Juan Perón
Historical experience strongly suggests that the collectivization of agriculture is disastrous for agricultural productivity and agricultural exports. Brad DeLong Only if you pretend that Cuba does not exist. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: Re: Re: Rule Britannia
Chris said: A world government is in the process of creation, in a haphazard and hypocritical fashion. Paul said: Ugh. The UN as the creature of the US as in Kosovo. God help us! I thought the US did an end-run around the UN in Kosovo, since it couldn't get full support. The creation of a world government could be good or it could be a bad thing. Given the balance of power in favor of the neoliberal world revolution from above, it's likely the latter. But resistance could make the nascent world government more democratic... The struggle continues. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Finland
At 09:14 AM 9/12/00 +0300, you wrote: Finland did not have the happy choice of neutrality during the war, nor did it have the option of "containing" either the Nazis or the Soviet Union, as did the British and French prior to September 1939. Of course, until after the disaster of the Munich pact (Sept. 1938) or so, the "democratic" leaders of the West mostly had the attitude of "let's you and him fight" toward the Nazis and the USSR. Less charitably, they used a tacit alliance with Hitler to "contain" the USSR, a precursor of various US alliances with gorillas like Pinochet to contain popular rebellion and Soviet influence. Just as many upper-crust Brits favored the Nazis (so that the faction around Rudolf Hess thought that it was possible to create an Aryan alliance with the UK even in 1941), the Reagan administration linked up with the World Anti-Communist League, a collection of neo-Nazi cranks and the like. Brad mentions the "socialist" pact with the Nazis (the Hitler-Stalin pact). Though I'm no fan of Stalin, it should be stressed that this pact was clearly an effort to defend the USSR in an era when the West wanted the Nazis to attack. In some ways, it's like voting for the "lesser of two evils" writ large. (Not that Stalin was good at defense: he purged his military leadership about the same time.) The West's tacit alliance with Hitler was more profound and lasted longer than the Hitler-Stalin pact: they preferred the capitalist Hitler to the "socialist" alternative, which still had a superficial tinge of Bolshevism at the time (if only in the popular mind). Of course, it was the German big business deal with the devil that helped put the Nazis in power, while as Yoshie pointed out, the West's "neutrality" in the Spanish Civil War was tilted heavily in Franco's and Hitler's favor. Of course, at the time almost no-one knew how bad Hitler was. On top of that, the Nazis clearly got worse as World War II progressed, moving from autobahns to ovens. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Thatcher and nationalism
Brad, to begin with this sort of talk does not belong here because of the tone. Also, your position would have more credibility if you were more consistent in its application. The US has an appalling record of supporting dictators throughout the world. In addition, the human rights record here at home in the US leaves much to be desired. Brad De Long wrote: But the idea that it is no business of the rest of us what dictators do to their own people *is* positively, totally, utterly, completely nutso. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Thanks Brad,was The legacy of Juan Perón
I have never seen as concise description of social democracy. I like Alice Amsden's refutation of your perspective -- especially her praise of getting prices wrong. Brad De Long wrote: in a mixed economy, the government should be used to redistribute income and the market used to allocate resources; to get things backward--as Peron did, using the government to allocate resources and regulating market prices to redistribute income--doesn't work. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The legacy of Juan Perón
Louis wrote: If a state agency cuts into their profits, they might find it preferable to let land lie fallow. Somebody like Fidel Castro would have organized the agricultural work force to evict the bosses and declare the ranches and farms public property. Then, the wheat, cattle, etc. would have been exported and revenue would have continued to come in. Brad ripostes: No. Historical experience strongly suggests that the collectivization of agriculture is disastrous for agricultural productivity and agricultural exports. The claim that what Argentina's economy needed after World War II was to become more like the economy of the Soviet Union is unsupported by any historical evidence. I believe that Brad and Louis are talking about different kinds of "collectivization." Brad is talking about the kind of collectivization-from-above that Stalin and his boys engineered (along with elimination of the kulaks). Louis is talking about the agricultural work force being organized (rather than ordered to), in order to make the ranches and farms public property, collectivization-from-below with central support. Public property can mean democratic collectivization; it need not be bureaucratic collectivization. Strictly speaking, "public property" must be the former. If it's only collectivization by the state and the people don't control the state, it's hardly "public." Of course, this is very abstract... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The legacy of Juan
Lou is wrong here. Not only Cuba. Yields in most of E. Europe were quite good -- especially if you take the natural environment into consideration. One problem with the stats. People on collective farms often took crops and inputs from the collective and had part of the output attributed to the private plots. The often cited productivity of the private plots has to be taken in context. The plots used a great deal of labor per unit of land and they generally produced crops that were valuable. For example, in the US a very small strawberry farm will produce as much as a large wheat farm. Historical experience strongly suggests that the collectivization of agriculture is disastrous for agricultural productivity and agricultural exports. Brad DeLong Only if you pretend that Cuba does not exist. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Thatcher and nationalism
I appreciate Brad's response here, but I do not hear him calling Clinton a war criminal, for the deaths of say, .5 mill. Iraqi kids. But is it not equally our business what the US does to bomb, kill and maim civilians and children in Columbia, Yugoslavia, Iraq etc. Yep. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Thanks Brad,was The legacy of Juan Perón
Where can I find Alice Amsden's praise of getting prices wrong? At a shoot out before the Calif. PUC in San Diego a couple of weeks ago, the neo-classical panelists just wanted to get prices right, and let the sociologists take care of the rest. Professor Wolak from Stanford believes that getting prices correct is the best for society, and then take care of income distribution some other way. Low-income folks and the environment are somebody else's business, not the economist's, according to them. It is an easy way to look compassionate -- and maybe even believe you are compassionate -- never mind that the fiscal appropriations never turn up. There is a clear echo of this psuedo compassion in Brad's approved formulation -- "... the government should be used to redistribute income." And just when is that going to happen? I argued, on the other side, that the only "correct" price is the Just Price -- which takes into account income distribution as well as resource allocation. Despite a forest of wooden stakes through the heart of neo-classical price theory, the faith in it by its adherents is unshakeable. Gene Coyle Michael Perelman wrote: I have never seen as concise description of social democracy. I like Alice Amsden's refutation of your perspective -- especially her praise of getting prices wrong. Brad De Long wrote: in a mixed economy, the government should be used to redistribute income and the market used to allocate resources; to get things backward--as Peron did, using the government to allocate resources and regulating market prices to redistribute income--doesn't work. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
life imitates art
The Financial Post September 11, 2000 At the UN, life imitates art By Murray Dobbin The poor old UN. Just as it holds its Millennial Summit, a mass market action movie, The Art of War, mixes it up with that other international organization, the WTO. In a wildly zigzagging plot, the formerly august body is portrayed as so weak and ineffectual that it has to create a covert action branch (a.k.a. Wesley Snipes) to accomplish what it can't do through the strength of its leadership. The task at hand? Ensure that a UN-sponsored trade deal with China goes ahead despite the efforts of various stereotypical bad guys, snakeheads, triads, a Chinese sweat shop billionaire and right-wing American patriots. Those who miss the point in all the gratuitous blood and gore need only visit the film's Web site (www.artofwarmovie.com), where free-trade promotion is explicit. Click on "international affairs" and you can link to a glowing description of the U.S.-China trade deal that could only have been written by a trade bureaucrat. Warner Brothers liked the pro-free trade message so much it booked it into 2,600 theatres, unheard of for a low-budget movie. Donald Sutherland plays the (Canadian) Secretary General of the UN. The SG is ethically challenged, morally exhausted and incapable of giving strong direction on anything. According to script writer Simon Barry, he developed the theme because it had to be "believable as a movie." Apparently, believing that the UN is useless and corrupt is an easy sell to today's mass audience. Indeed, the United Nations, which its founders hoped would evolve into a form of democratic world governance, is now less and less likely to achieve that role. It has been deliberately weakened by the U.S. refusal to pay its dues, creating an atmosphere of permanent crisis and growing public skepticism. And just as starving medicare of funds opens the door to corporatized health care, the enemies of the UN have made things so bad that corporations can now claim to be riding to the rescue. As a result, the UN has embarked down a path where such corporate Goliaths will have virtually equal status with nation states. The UN's new Global Compact is a "partnership" with some 50 transnationals, including some of the world's most notorious corporate pariahs. The absurdity of the film portrayal of the UN actually pales in the face of current UN reality. In the movie, the UN has sanctioned a hired killer to dispense with whomever he thinks has to die. Not exactly a testimony to human rights, democracy and rule of law. But while supporters of the UN would cringe at its movie portrayal, permitting the likes of Rio Tinto to be called a "partner" of the UN is a staggering failure of moral leadership. Rio Tinto has been publicly accused of so many environmental, human rights and development offences that it has attracted its very own global network of unions, churches, indigenous peoples, communities and human rights activists to fight it. Compared with allowing Rio Tinto, Nike and Shell the right to use the UN logo, the moral outrages in The Art of War look tame. Nike has opposed with all its might the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), the only independent monitoring program endorsed by human rights groups. It uses its massive economic clout to punish any institution that raises concerns about its behaviour -- withdrawing millions of dollars in support from the University of Oregon, the University of Michigan and Brown University when they joined the WRC. The number of victims of military violence against the Ogoni people in Nigeria, in which Shell has been widely accused of complicity, puts Wesley Snipes' count to shame. At least the people Snipes killed had guns too, and could shoot back. These are just some of the corporations that get to wrap themselves in the flag of the UN, use its logo alongside their own and, for minor contributions to UN programs, signal to the world that they are associated with the lofty goals of the United Nations. All the while ruthlessly pursuing economic globalization that is impoverishing millions and utterly contradicts everything the UN stands for. It's not as if these corporate giants don't already have their own global institution. The World Trade Organization is evolving rapidly into a global corporate government, with a secretariat, a legislative branch and legally binding enforcement measures that can bring governments to their knees. It has powers exceeding anything the UN has ever dreamed of, effectively vetting the public policy of 140 nations to ensure they don't violate the rights of corporations. The Art of War takes its title from a text written in 500 B.C. by Chinese General Sun Tzu, who said: "All war is based on deception." In the movie, Donald Sutherland's character deceives the world by sanctioning covert action. In the real world, Kofi Annan's deceit is allowing the corporate propaganda war to subvert the UN. --
Re: Re: Re: Thanks Brad,was The legacy of Juan Perón
Eugene Coyle wrote: Where can I find Alice Amsden's praise of getting prices wrong? It's a major theme of her book on Korea, Asia's Next Giant. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Thanks Brad,was The legacy of JuanPerón
Amsden, Alice. 1989. Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization (NY: Oxford University Press). see for example: 141: She argues that late industrialization benefits from "getting prices wrong." Eugene Coyle wrote: Where can I find Alice Amsden's praise of getting prices wrong? At a shoot out before the Calif. PUC in San Diego a couple of weeks ago, the neo-classical panelists just wanted to get prices right, and let the sociologists take care of the rest. Professor Wolak from Stanford believes that getting prices correct is the best for society, and then take care of income distribution some other way. Low-income folks and the environment are somebody else's business, not the economist's, according to them. It is an easy way to look compassionate -- and maybe even believe you are compassionate -- never mind that the fiscal appropriations never turn up. There is a clear echo of this psuedo compassion in Brad's approved formulation -- "... the government should be used to redistribute income." And just when is that going to happen? I argued, on the other side, that the only "correct" price is the Just Price -- which takes into account income distribution as well as resource allocation. Despite a forest of wooden stakes through the heart of neo-classical price theory, the faith in it by its adherents is unshakeable. Gene Coyle Michael Perelman wrote: I have never seen as concise description of social democracy. I like Alice Amsden's refutation of your perspective -- especially her praise of getting prices wrong. Brad De Long wrote: in a mixed economy, the government should be used to redistribute income and the market used to allocate resources; to get things backward--as Peron did, using the government to allocate resources and regulating market prices to redistribute income--doesn't work. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Those questionableproductivity numbers
Eric's point is excellent. Measuring stuff like this is at least 50.089% subjective. I use a DOS outlining program to write. It is probably 20 years old, but I could not be nearly as productive without it. Eric Nilsson wrote: (I question this, though, for most of my uses 1989 WordPerfect worked better than 2000 Word and I _regularly_ have to reinstall Windows 98 on my home computer because the operating system starts doing strange stuff after just a few months - my God my lost productivity during that period of time! I could have, say, mowed the lawn. I never had to reinstall DOS. Are not most productivity measures for computer are based on raw computing power? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Thanks Brad,was The legacy of JuanPerón
Yes, I just gave one quote. You did a nice job of summarizing her book in an earlier LBO. Doug Henwood wrote: Eugene Coyle wrote: Where can I find Alice Amsden's praise of getting prices wrong? It's a major theme of her book on Korea, Asia's Next Giant. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Women Industrialization (was Re: capitalist patriarchy)
Doug wrote: Like I said yesterday, the relation between sex/gender oppression and capitalism is extremely complicated, with capitalism destabilizing received gender hierarchies as much as it thrives on them. The entry of women into waged labor profoundly transforms societies in the early phases of capitalist development. Recognizing this is one of the things that distinguishes a Marxist feminism from other kinds. Doug I agree and this is a step in the right direction but it is still of the "add gender and stir" kind of recognizing. Women were present during all the transformations that occurred throughout history. All of these processes must be analyzed from a more feminist perspective for deeper insights into the problems and solutions. Diane Feminist contributions to labor history tell us that the first wage laborers at the beginning of the "industrial revolution" in the most crucial industry were often predominantly female, not male, textile workers. (Even mining was not the all male or predominantly male industry either.) For instance, see E. Patricia Tsurumi, _Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan_, Princeton: New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1990: * Begun initially as largely government enterprises that received government support and encouragement after they were in private hands, the machine silk-reeling and cotton-spinning industries of Meiji were the first in Japan to develop extensive factory production. Their work forces, heavily female, formed a large proportion of the labor force during the first period of Japan's industrialization. This pattern would remain long after the Meiji era had ended. Although throughout the Meiji period some cotton-mill hands came from urban homes, the vast majority of the silk-reeling and cotton-spinning operatives were women and girls from a rural background. During the first decade of the new era, daughters of debt-free and even well-to-do farming families went to work in the new silk mills, but thereafter the female workers in both silk and cotton plants tended to be from poor peasant families. By the turn of the century these kojo [factory girls] came from some of the poorest tenant-farmer villages in the entire country. The women and girls who became textile factory workers, including those from independent cultivator or prosperous farming homes, were no strangers to hard work. They knew that many generations of country women had contributed to the well-being of their families by laboring both at home and away from home. Like their mothers and grandmothers before them in pre-Meiji times, they had routinely seen female as well as male offspring of peasant families "going out to work" (dekasegi) in a place beyond commuting distance During the Edo era (1600-1867), female offspring of peasant families were sent away to labor as dekasegi workers, usually in a local village or town. This immediately reduced the number of mouths that had to be fed, and the girls might gain valuable skills and experience, eventually bringing in some remuneration. The ones who remained at home were essential workers within the peasant family economy, producing and processing food and other items for the family subsistence, caring for the young and the incapacitated, and playing key roles in the production of marketable commodities, including silk and cotton thread. (9-10) * This knowledge challenges a commonly accepted notion that "the working class used to be predominantly male, and female workers were brought in to keep male workers' wages down." The working class became predominantly male only in the course of industrial development working-class struggles within it. What were short-term achievements for the survival of working-class families -- "family wages" for men, "protective" legislations for women, etc. -- in the long run undermined the formation of solidaristic, not gender-hierarchic, working-class culture movement. Why were early industrial workers so often more female than male? I speculate that's in part because more women than men were often excluded from inheriting family properties by the law of primogeniture (and other laws that govern inheritance in countries without primogeniture) customs. Here, the residual patriarchal practice (the feudal need to prevent excessive parcellization alienation of land -- recall Carrol's comment that in premodern societies place determines merit, not vice versa as under capitalism) determined the particular gender cast that wage labor took at the take-off moment of industrialization. Typical faces of industrial workers changed from female colored to male white to female colored. The prevalence of the nuclear family idealized by conservatives now -- male breadwinner, female housewife, biological children -- was merely a blip in history that coincided with the post-WW2 economic boom (say, from the Korean
Re: [PEN-L:1808] Re: Re: Re: Re: The legacy of Juan Perón
The Hutterite colonies on the prairies have been quite successful, so successful that there have been repeated attempts to limit their growth. Indeed I understand that it is "understood" that after they reach a certain size colonies will form new colonies in new areas. They also own some processing facilities. These colonies are far more collectivised than Soviet era farms. The more conservative colonies even wear the same type of clothing that is mass produced. I thought that Cuba was now encouraging small individual backyard type gardens etc. Hutterite colonies use modern equipment, fertilizers, pesiticides etc. They follow the industrial model of farming, the same as their neighbors, and not the organic or small scale farm model. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2000 10:17 AM Subject: [PEN-L:1808] Re: Re: Re: Re: The legacy of Juan Perón Historical experience strongly suggests that the collectivization of agriculture is disastrous for agricultural productivity and agricultural exports. Brad DeLong Only if you pretend that Cuba does not exist. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Women Industrialization (was Re: capitalist patriarchy)
Yoshie, I knew that a good many of the early workers in textiles were women, but mining, comes as a surprise. Were women miners common in Europe? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
The brutality of global capitalism
I am no fan of Monbiot but I can't complain about much in this concise and damning indictment of present-day capitalism. Cheers, Ken Hanly THE GUARDIAN (LONDON) June 29, 2000 This is a war of all worlds By George Monbiot Fuss about the human genome just hides the brutality of global capitalism Nearly everyone debating the mapping of the human genome now agrees on one thing: that the identification of our genes invokes an unprecedented danger, as it might assist a handful of companies to seize something which belongs to all of us. I wish this were true. Terrifying as the impending capture of the essence of humanity is, it is far from unprecedented. The attempt to grab the genome is just one of many symptoms of a far graver disease. We are entering an age of totalitarian capitalism, a political and economic system which, by seizing absolute control of fundamental resources, destitutes everyone it excludes. On Saturday I met a campaigner from Kerala, in southern India, who told me that, to the tribal people he works with, the ownership of land is as inconceivable as the ownership of air would be in the northern hemisphere. I told him the bad news. In several American cities, blocks of air, which (once legally transferred to a suitable site) allow their owners to build skyscrapers, change hands for tens of millions of dollars. There have been a number of legal disputes over the ownership of clouds, as firms battle for the right to make them drop their rain where they want it. Companies are now claiming they own asteroids and landing spaces on the moon. None of these presumptions is any more absurd than the claim to possess exclusive control over part of our own planet. But, as property rights proliferate, almost everything which once belonged to all of us is being seized. In Britain, for example, despite repeated pledges by the government, playing-fields and allotments are disappearing faster than ever before. Public squares are being turned into private shopping malls. Traditional stopping sites for travellers, some of which survived for five millennia, have nearly all disappeared during the past 15 years. Knowledge is rapidly becoming the exclusive preserve of those who can afford to buy it. Intellectual property companies are monopolising image banks and picture archives, while academic publishers, concentrated in ever fewer hands, are able to charge outrageous prices for access to the work they publish. Companies are asserting ownership in perpetuity of the material in their electronic databases. A firm called West Publishing has tried to insist that it owned the entire archive of US federal law. The biotech companies have been empowered to seize the human genome by the very people - Tony Blair and Bill Clinton - who are now begging them not to do so. Blair's government helped drive through the European directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions, which enables private companies to claim not only human genes, but also plant and animal varieties and even human body parts. Every asset, once secured by the new totalitarian regime, is surrounded by a Berlin wall equipped with border guards. There are ranches in the United States in which you would be shot on sight if you tried to take a walk. Disproportionate responses to the feeblest threats are assisted by the private prison and security industries now seizing control of another fundamental asset: human freedom. We cross the economic frontiers at our peril. The worst global inequality in history is a direct result of this totalitarian capitalism. Two hundred people now own as much wealth as half the world's population, for the simple reason that they have been empowered to steal it from the rest of us. This empowerment emerges from an unwholesome union of neoliberal economics and feudal law. Our legal framework, which pre-dates democracy, protects property above individuals and individuals above society. We can't expect our governments to address this inversion of democratic priorities. The three men who could begin to reform our legal system - the home secretary, the lord chancellor and the prime minister - are all lawyers, and all wedded (literally in the prime minister's case) to the profession which benefits from its iniquities. Property-based law favours the interests of the rich, which, in turn, favours the interests of its practitioners. The walls rising around us are beginning to look impregnable. But before we can decide how they might best be demolished, we must first recognise that the enclosure of the human genome is just a single cell in the privatised global prison the new regime has built.
Re: RE: URPE (stat request)
... i would like sources that show stats for yearly per capita income by quintile/decile for mexico and/or the maquiladora mexican states since the advent of NAFTA. INEGI's website will give you GDP and population by state for 93-98. http://www.inegi.gob.mx/ I'm not sure what's meant by "maquiladora states," as I think NAFTA ended that kind of distinction between zones where you could and couldn't set up duty-free plants. Data on income distribution are harder to come by, plus it's hard to find surveys that give you multiple snapshots over time using consistent methods. But there may be useful stuff in the 2000 census that could be compared to earlier censuses. It's also going to be difficult, if I interpret your request properly, to strip out the effects of starting NAFTA in January 1994 from the effects of the abrupt devaluation and financial crisis that started in December 1994. In any case most of the relevant trade openings had occurred well before NAFTA went into effect. From Mexico's point of view NAFTA was mainly an investment pact. You don't say what these quotes are from, but FWIW the broad argument that neoliberalism has not delivered the goods is sound, as you'll quickly see if you plot a series of GDP/capita since the 1970s. But the contention that Mexico submitted to U.S. "domination" starting in 1982 is a bit forced. The neoliberal reforms starting under de la Madrid were a Mexican elite project; involving a rather complex interplay between the PRI and segments of the Mexican private sector. Best, Colin
Re: Re: The New ANC
Perhaps Patrick Bond or others in South Africa might comment on this. Cheers, Ken Hanly Patrick is in NYC right now. He just gave a talk at the Brecht Forum on "Can Thabo Mbeki Change the World" which mentioned John Saul favorably. I will put Patrick's talk up on the web when he gets back to South Africa. Louis Proyect John's fabulous. Check out the coming NLR for his longer rap. Meanwhile, the short version of the Mbeki talk gives you a core argument... --- Forwarded Message Follows --- The Sowetan newspaper, South Africa 22 August 2000 Can Thabo Mbeki change the world? In this excerpt from the first Frantz Fanon Memorial Lecture, delivered August 17 at the University of Durban-Westville School of Governance, Patrick Bond debates Pretoria's global strategies, tactics and alliances. *** In a formidable speech on August 11, President Thabo Mbeki, quoting Shakespeare, publicly attacked not only a senior white politician for alleged racism and arrogance over the AIDS-treatment tragedy. He also castigated the section of the "native petit bourgeoisie, with the native intelligentsia in its midst, that, in pursuit of well-being that has no object beyond itself, commits itself to be the foot-lickers of those that will secure the personal well-being of its members." Cynics may be tempted to view Mbeki's own recent pronouncements on global governance in a similar vein: the uncritical embrace, during a May trip to the US, of president Bill Clinton's corporate-designed Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, of highly-conditional debt "alleviation"--not cancellation--by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and of renewed World Trade Organisation negotiations. In each case, the 1960s-era radical intellectuals whom Mbeki cited repeatedly in his speech--Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Walter Rodney, Malcolm X--would have called for revolution against, not reform of, the Washington-centred world economy. At the Havana meeting of the G-77 countries which Mbeki addressed in May, for example, Cuban president Fidel Castro proposed the IMF's closure, due to the brutal effect of its policies on the developing world. Yet soon thereafter, Mbeki chided African National Congress leaders gathered at the Port Elizabeth National General Council meeting: "There is nobody in the world who formed a secret committee to conspire to impose globalization on an unsuspecting humanity." But in the next breath, Mbeki denounced Fifa's decision to grant the 2006 soccer World Cup to Germany instead of an unsuspecting SA: "As the ANC, we therefore understand very well what is meant by what one writer has described as the globalization of apartheid." On the one hand, thus, Mbeki displaces Third World problems from the (untouchable) economic to the moral-political terrain, which in turn evokes calls for revision--not dismantling--of existing economic systems and institutions. But on the other hand, he maintains a relentless campaign to persuade his constituents that "There Is No Alternative" to globalization, and likewise to the failed Growth, Employment and Redistribution programme. Is there, however, a more nuanced reading of the global strategy? Mbeki, after all, was introspective in his talk last week: "Our own intelligentsia faces the challenge, perhaps to overcome the class limitations which Rodney speaks of, and ensure that it does not become an obstacle to the further development of our own revolution." There can be no doubt that the further development of South Africa's liberation, deep into the hostile socio-economic territory where class apartheid has been cemented since 1994, does and will require global social change. What is the programme, then? Will it work? Who are the friends and enemies? At least four strands of a strategy have emerged from Pretoria since Mbeki's rise to the presidency: * leading the launch of a new "developmental" World Trade Organisation round, in cooperation with four semi- peripheral allies (Egypt, Nigeria, Brazil and India), to contest Northern protectionism; * promoting more democracy in the IMF and World Bank (with less power in the hands of the US); * rejuvenating the United Nations, partly, it seems, through seeking a permanent seat on the Security Council; and * confronting, even if tentatively, transnational corporate prerogatives, at least when it comes to emergencies such as pharmaceutical drug pricing. In Port Elizabeth, Mbeki noted the ANC's role as "an agent of change to end the apartheid legacy in our own country. We also sought to examine the question of what contribution we could make to the struggle to end apartheid globally." The answer, he told the opening session of parliament this year, is that "we have an obligation ourselves to contribute to the construction of a better world for all humanity. From this, we cannot walk away." Mbeki may seek allies in other large developing
Re: Women Industrialization (was Re: capitalist patriarchy)
Great post. 2 booknotes. John D. French Daniel James eds. 1997. _The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers_ Duke University Press has wonderful articles by historians along these lines, several showing the extent to which governments were involved in creating and enforcing the male-breadwinner model. I've also learned a lot from Lee, C. K. 1998. _Gender and the South China Miracle._ University of California Press. Ong, Aihwa. 1987. _Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia._ SUNY Press. Lee is a student of Burawoy, Ong is an anthropologist. Both of them show you the ways that workplaces draw on gender ideology and what you might think of as cultural technology -- pregiven notions of authority and female identity. Ong also provides an impressive analysis of the political/cultural stresses that the presence of a large number of yound women workers produces in Malaysia, which resonates with the material on events in Latin Ameica decades earlier in the French/James volume. So indeed this is not a mere "women were there too" analysis but points to a much more interesting set of questions about how proletariats get formed and remade. Gender needs to be brought into the analysis on the ground floor. Best, Colin
Seattle, act two
Green Left Global Action - http://www.greenleft.org.au/globalaction/s11/ Protesters 'proud of what we've achieved' BY SEAN HEALY MELBOURNE -- Organisers of the S11 protests against the World Economic Forum have claimed that they are "extremely proud" of their achievements, after a second continuous day of blockading entrances to the Crown Towers conference site. http://www.greenleft.org.au/globalaction/s11/daily/000912_09_proud.shtml Call for ombudsman to intervene against police BY SEAN HEALY MELBOURNE -- The independent legal observers team at the S11 protests has called on the Victorian ombudsman to investigate the Victoria Police's treatment of blockaders, which it has called "brutal, highly dangerous and provocative". http://www.greenleft.org.au/globalaction/s11/daily/000912_08_ombuds.shtml Mass union march a heavy blow to WEF BY SEAN HEALY MELBOURNE -- Tens of thousands of Melbourne unionists have delivered a stunning blow to the legitimacy of the World Economic Forum and corporate globalisation, filling city streets with noise, colour and people. http://www.greenleft.org.au/globalaction/s11/daily/000912_07_union.shtml Schwab has 'difficult day' BY SUSAN PRICE MELBOURNE - Klaus Schwab, President of the WEF, used his address to the Asia Pacific summit at Crown Casino to launch a broadside against protesters blockading the site. http://www.greenleft.org.au/globalaction/s11/daily/000912_05_schwab.shtml Riot police attack protesters, hospitalise 12 BY SUSAN PRICE MELBOURNE - Two hundred and fifty baton-wielding riot police, including 50 on horseback, charged through a protest blockade at 7.00am this morning, injuring many and hospitalising 12 people. http://www.greenleft.org.au/globalaction/s11/daily/000912_04_police.shtml == NEW GLOBAL ACTION GALLERIES == http://www.greenleft.org.au/globalaction/s11/s11_galleries.shtml = Over ten photo galleries from the front lines Global Action @lert is hosted by Australia's only national alternative newspaper, Green Left Weekly, and the Democratic Socialist Party, Australia's largest socialist-activists' party. Details about the DSP can be found on the web at http://www.dsp.org.au. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Thatcher and nationalism
At 07:33 PM 09/11/2000 -0700, you wrote: But the idea that it is no business of the rest of us what dictators do to their own people *is* positively, totally, utterly, completely nutso. This kind of dogmatic style is a total turn-off, simply a way of shutting off any further discussion... In my experience, people who jump to the level of meta-discussion--urge that others be filtered, urge that others be excluded, talk about issues of discursive process, condemn others for style--do so primarily in an attempt to *avoid* a substantive discussion. Please don't remain at what I see as the sterile and pointless level of meta-discourse. Please return to the level of substantive discussion: Your claim that Argentina's internal arrangements are no business of any non-Argentine is truly remarkable and extraordinary. Defend your belief: tell us why you think dictators have a valid hunting license to turn their countries into free-fire zones for their amusement, with no one else having the right to say "boo." Brad DeLong
Prayin' for a warm Winter
[wonder if these folks have seen chapter 6 of Paul Ekins latest book? Full article at http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/WED/FPAGE/oil.2.html ] Paris, Wednesday, September 13, 2000 Wider Cost Of Oil Rise: Chaos for Economies By William Drozdiak Washington Post Service VIENNA - For much of the past decade, an extraordinary windfall in the form of cheap oil fueled unprecedented prosperity in the United States, subsidized Europe's costly social welfare programs and helped much of Asia recuperate quickly from a perilous financial meltdown. But as crude oil prices continue their dizzying ascent - at $35 a barrel, they have more than tripled in less than two years - there are harbingers that the good times may be lurching toward a demise that could profoundly reshape the nature and contours of the global economy. The failure by OPEC ministers to stabilize volatile oil markets with their latest decision in Vienna to raise output by 800,000 barrels a day has compounded fears of economists who believe that a serious energy crisis looms - and world leaders appear to have no clear ideas about how to cope with it. Unless oil prices drop suddenly and sharply - which analysts say seems unlikely with fuel inventories at rock bottom and the cold weather season approaching in the West - several negative factors appear to be converging toward an ominous reckoning point by January. Regardless of whether Al Gore or George W. Bush moves into the Oval Office, the next U.S. president may discover that energy will become his most urgent policy priority. Besides soaring crude prices that triggered sharp spikes in the cost of gasoline and heating oil, natural gas prices have surged to all-time highs. Those countries, such as the United States, that have shied away from nuclear and coal-fired power plants for environmental reasons will almost certainly face widespread electricity shortages by the end of the year, energy experts say. An inflationary jolt this winter delivered by an electricity price shock - on top of a possible heating fuel crunch - could compel the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks to drive up interest rates much more than expected. That, in turn, could provoke the precipitous fall in equity markets that many crash-minded Cassandras have been forecasting. ''Right now there is a lot of fear and a lot of uncertainty because few people expected oil prices would rise so high and so fast,'' said Leo Drollas, chief economist for the Center for Global Energy Studies, a British research group. ''I think the only thing we can do is pray for a very warm winter.'' In contrast to previous energy crises, many experts are baffled by the recent turmoil in oil markets. During the 1970s, huge leaps in crude prices could be attributed to supply interruptions caused by the Arab oil embargo at the time of the 1973 Middle East War or the revolution in Iran in 1979. This time, traders and analysts say, there seems to be plenty of oil available for those willing to pay steep prices. ''There are no real shortages for crude, only for certain refined products,'' said Mehdi Varzi, director of oil market studies for Dresdner Kleinwort Benson. ''The cost of oil production has fallen dramatically over the past two decades; and with new sources coming on line, it's hard to see how prices can be sustained at anywhere near their current levels over the long term.'' But other specialists say depleted reserves in many Western countries almost guarantee that prices will remain chaotic for the next 18 to 24 months. ''The only way to create a stable balance is through price movements large enough to bring demand in line with supply,'' said Steven Strongin, oil research director at Goldman Sachs. ''We continue to see the current situation holding until either a surge in new drilling produces significant new oil supplies or until some event triggers a global recession.'' While the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries insists that it wants to see oil prices drop about $10 - and hover at $22 to $28 dollars a barrel - its efforts to calibrate the market have been a fiasco. After announcing OPEC's third production increase for a total this year of more than 3 million extra barrels a day, the cartel's secretary-general, Rilwanu Lukman of Nigeria, said he still did not understand how much oil was needed to stabilize markets. ''More than enough? Less than enough? Who knows?'' he asked with evident exasperation. What does seems clear is that higher prices have already caused a startling shift in the economic fates of many countries over the past two years. When prices plunged below $10 a barrel in December 1998, the sharp fall in income threatened many oil states - from Saudi Arabia and Iran to non-OPEC producers like Russia and Mexico - with dire financial and political consequences. The Saudis, who during oil's heyday had one of the world's highest per capita incomes, were forced to borrow substantial sums of money and enact a
The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 12 Sep 2000 -- 4:74 (#467)
--- Support our Sponsor E-Term : Wouldn't you like to save hundreds of dollars per year. Why pay more for life insurance? Save up to 50% on Term Life Insurance! We offer Fast, Free, Secure quotes. http://click.topica.com/Btbz8SnrbAjwjxa/eterm __ The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 12 September 2000 Vol. 4, Number 74 (#467) __ Action Alert: Laure Akai, "Polish Anti-Fascist Needs Your Support" Announcements Dr. Wigand Lange [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Ludwig Renn: 1937 fund raising tour through US," 30 Aug 00 Gerald Blaney, Jr. [EMAIL PROTECTED], "The Civil Guard and the Second Republic," 7 Sep 00 What's Worth Checking: 10 stories - - - - - ACTION ALERT: Polish Anti-Fascist Needs Your Support On September 27, Tomasz Wilkoswewski's case will be heard in court here in Warsaw. He has already served more than 4 years out of a 15- year sentence for the murder of a nazi skinhead committed in self- defense during an attack. We are trying to help publicize his case and are asking for your solidarity. Please send information about Tomek to all the ABC groups you know and ask people to write with protests. We really would like to help out in some way and we think that if different groups could take a few minutes to write letters, it would help. If they could send copies of their protests to this address, we could also translate them into Polish. We really would appreciate any show of solidarity we can get. Poor Tomek has been totally victimized in this case and needs to get out of jail soon before long-term imprisonment takes its toll on his health and his spirits. -- Thank you. Laure Akai - - - - - Tomasz Wilkoszewski (Tomek), is from Radomsk, a medium-sized, working- class city with a skinhead problem. Tomasz was one of only a handful of anarchists in this city which has recently become more and more economically depressed as a result of the destruction of Polish industry. The local skinheads would constantly be on the prowl for these anarchists, often attacking them and in effect, terrorizing them. Tomasz could have fled the city, as so many people in similar situations are forced to do, but instead he decided he'd stay - but that he's have to carry a weapon to defend himself. In March of 1996, the worst happened. Tomasz was attacked again and fought back with his knife. Unfortunately, he cut an artery when he stabbed one of his attackers in the leg and the person died. Clearly, there was no intent on Tomasz's part to committ a murder; he was only trying to defend himself. It probably does not need to be said that local police did nothing to prevent the attacks that eventually lead up to the tragedy in the first place. Tomasz was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison. At the time, he had not even finished high school. The sentence is exceptionally harsh compared to others normally given in Poland; such sentences are reserved for premeditated murders and felonies committed by hardened criminals. Gazeta Wyborcza wrote about this case years ago and presented it as a tragedy - and as the failure of society, including the police, to control such street violence that may end in murder. It is that, but even more so, it is a case of the police looking the other way as skinheads terrorize the town and then blaming the victim who would not take it any more. Tomek's case is important not only to us as anarchists, his comrades, but also to anybody who wants to put a stop to police-endorsed violence against anarchists, leftists, immigrants, and anybody targetted by these ring-wing thugs. We think that some protest letters will help; we have a petition, but think that short notes by e-mail from abroad would be even better. I am sending a small sample text but think it would be even better if people added their own personal touches; it will show more than an international campaign - it will show that people are thinking about Tomek and people like him around the world. -- Thanks! Laure - - - - - To:Dr. Lech Gordacki, Supreme Court of Poland Pl. Krasinski 2/4/6 00-951 Warsaw 41 Fax: (48) 22 530-91-00 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] On September 27, the case of Tomasz Wilkosweski will be heard before your court. Tomasz Wilkoszeski was sentenced to 15 years in jail in connection with tragic events occurring in Radomsk in March of 1996. Tomasz was given a harsh murder sentence despite the fact that it is clear that the tragic events were a result of his attacking in self- defense after having been terrorized by local skinheads. We feel that the sentence was very harsh in light of these circumstances. Tomasz
World Bank Development Report out today
[from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/World/Americas/2000-09/worldbank130900.sht ml ] World Bank shamed by 2.8bn in poverty Campaigners and street protesters force rewriting of rules to ease the damaging effects of capitalism on Third World By Diane Coyle, Economics Editor 13 September 2000 Displaying remarkable, and hitherto unnoticed, empathy with the 2.8 billion people in the world living on less than $2 (£1.40) a day, the World Bank has undergone a radical conversion in its anti-povertypolicies and prescriptions. However, this shift is not radical enough for some, including the main author of the new report who resigned part way through its production. Ravi Kanbur, an expert in economic development from Cornell University, was unhappy when the World Bank's staff economists toned down the radicalism of an early draft. The influence of street protests starting with Seattle last year has shifted the bank's analysis, but it is unlikely to be enough to keep demonstrators off the streets of Prague at next week's International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting. In a foretaste of the antics expected in Prague, demonstrators disrupted the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit in Melbourne, Australia yesterday for the second day running. The market-driven orthodoxy of recent years in which the bank advocated structural reforms that left the poorest countries saddled with crippling debt and crumbling health and education systems has been banished in favour of "complementary" action at global and national level "to achieve maximum benefit for poor people throughout the world". The bank's annual World Development Report, published today, states that international targets for the reduction of poverty by 2015 are unlikely to be met without policy reforms. The report places a new emphasis on the need to improve economic security for people living in very poor countries, and to ensure that government policies tackle inequality. Where the markets reigned supreme in the past, this year the bank is calling for an "interaction of markets, state institutions, and civil society" to harness the forces of economic integration and serve the interests of poor people. In the past campaigners have criticised the World Bank, sister institution to the IMF, for ignoring the impact of its programmes on the very poorest and most vulnerable people. The change in tone in this year's report marks a response to the increasingly vocal demonstrations against globalisation and the experience of the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98. Michael Walton, the World Bank's director for poverty reduction, said: "The crisis did have an important impact." He described it as a watershed in the bank's approach. Mr Walton said the published version had merely changed the emphasis to place the importance of economic growth ahead of theradical new messages about equality and economic security. But the dispute has left activists disappointed. David Bryer, director of Oxfam, said: "I regret that some economists are still refusing to abandon the discredited ideas of the past." Duncan Green, of the relief agency Cafod, said the watering down of early drafts of the report was shocking. "The initial critique of conventional bank thinking has been replaced with an apologia for business as usual," he said. The report, "Attacking Poverty", puts market reforms to promote economic growth at the top of the agenda. Nicholas Stern, the World Bank's chief economist, said: "Expanding economic opportunities overall that is, promoting growth that directly benefits the poor remains central." However, it also presents a mass of depressing evidence showing that past growth has not been enough to make inroads into desperate poverty. At a time of unprecedented global wealth, almost half the world's population lives on less than $2 a day, and 1.2 billion people live on less than $1. In the poor countries one child in 20 dies before the age of five, and half of children under five are malnourished. The tally makes it unlikely that United Nation targets for poverty reduction and improvements in health and mortality rates in the next decade and a half can be met. The report therefore argues that growth must be supported by other reforms. These would include institutional changes to tackle corrupt bureaucracies and legal systems, reduce discrimination and ensure government policies aid the poor rather than the middle classes or élites. The report documents the vulnerability of the poor to inefficiency and corruption in many countries. Its recommendations include, for example, the modernisation of police forces, and the development of legal services organisations that can help people to gain access to legal redress. It also proposes financial safety nets and measures to tackle the effects of natural disasters, as financial andnatural crises are much bigger catastrophes for the poor. Examples include engineering projects such as a flood relief scheme in
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Re: Prayin' for a warm Winter
An oil shock would not be considered inflationary. Back in 73 the Fed wisely refrained from raising rates, but chose to accommodate the oil shock. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Thatcher and nationalism
I think that this post deserves further comment. Brad DeLong wrote: At 07:33 PM 09/11/2000 -0700, you wrote: But the idea that it is no business of the rest of us what dictators do to their own people *is* positively, totally, utterly, completely nutso. This kind of dogmatic style is a total turn-off, simply a way of shutting off any further discussion... Jim did not deny that we should try to understand and communicate about what happens in other places. He seemed to be responding to Brad's "dogmatic style." In my experience, people who jump to the level of meta-discussion--urge that others be filtered, urge that others be excluded, talk about issues of discursive process, condemn others for style--do so primarily in an attempt to *avoid* a substantive discussion. Jim's call to filter was wrong, but it was not because you wanted a substantive discussion. As Doug said, you have a lot to offer the list, but sometimes you get on your high horse and seem to behave rather dogmatically. Please don't remain at what I see as the sterile and pointless level of meta-discourse. Please return to the level of substantive discussion: Your claim that Argentina's internal arrangements are no business of any non-Argentine is truly remarkable and extraordinary. Jim did not say that, did he. Are you lumping Jim and Nestor together. Nestor is away and cannot respond right now. Defend your belief: tell us why you think dictators have a valid hunting license to turn their countries into free-fire zones for their amusement, with no one else having the right to say "boo." I don't think that anybody advocates dictatorship here, although the US may well be called a class dictatorship. How can you hope to have a real democracy where a small group controls the means of communication? Being rich, this US ruling class has the luxury of providing a better life for 70-80% of the population than most countries do, but what the US offers hardly seems like a democracy. Vote for BushGore! -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Thatcher and nationalism
You do not explain why it is "nutso" to consider that it is no business of the rest of us what dictators do to their own people. But isn't it common among certain types of pragmatist and "realists" to claim that foreign policy ought to be based upon advancing national interest? On this view, hardly nutso, what dictators do to their own people would be a nation's business only if it impacted significantly on national interests. On the whole this policy seems to have been adopted by the US, as well as many other countries, although not always. On this view of foreign policy democracy could be seen as negative if it were thought to impact negatively on national interest. For example, a democratic government in Chile was overthrown with the aid of the US and financial aid cut off whereas the following military dicatorship was supported with loans etc. A relatively progressive communist regime in Afghanistan was replaced by a reactionary, feudal, theocracy, that persecutes women. Of course often interventions are justified by rhetoric that claims we cannot stand by and let certain things happen such as the Serb expulsion of Kosovans from Kosova, but surely someone of your sophistication cannot accept this nonsense at face value.To a considerable extent the expulsions were a predictable result of NATO's own actions. The resulting actions themselves involved war crimes, killing of the innocent etc. and did little in the short term to stop the expulsions since NATO was unwilling to risk casualties. In some instances public outcry may cause nations to make at least some attempt to prevent atrocities by dictators but when no vital interests of great nations are involved the result is usually of little benefit to those at the receiving end. The case of Rwanda is a good example. The UN was not given the resources and did little to stop the atrocities it knew were about to occur. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Brad DeLong [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2000 10:02 AM Subject: [PEN-L:1835] Thatcher and nationalism At 07:33 PM 09/11/2000 -0700, you wrote: But the idea that it is no business of the rest of us what dictators do to their own people *is* positively, totally, utterly, completely nutso. This kind of dogmatic style is a total turn-off, simply a way of shutting off any further discussion... In my experience, people who jump to the level of meta-discussion--urge that others be filtered, urge that others be excluded, talk about issues of discursive process, condemn others for style--do so primarily in an attempt to *avoid* a substantive discussion. Please don't remain at what I see as the sterile and pointless level of meta-discourse. Please return to the level of substantive discussion: Your claim that Argentina's internal arrangements are no business of any non-Argentine is truly remarkable and extraordinary. Defend your belief: tell us why you think dictators have a valid hunting license to turn their countries into free-fire zones for their amusement, with no one else having the right to say "boo." Brad DeLong
dulce decorum
[was: Re: [PEN-L:1835] Thatcher and nationalism ] Brad wrote: But the idea that it is no business of the rest of us what dictators do to their own people *is* positively, totally, utterly, completely nutso. I wrote: This kind of dogmatic style is a total turn-off, simply a way of shutting off any further discussion... Brad ripostes: In my experience, people who jump to the level of meta-discussion--urge that others be filtered, urge that others be excluded, talk about issues of discursive process, condemn others for style--do so primarily in an attempt to *avoid* a substantive discussion. You should read more carefully. I wasn't saying that you should be filtered, since you usually are polite. And I was not avoiding substantive discussion, since that discussion was between you and Néstor (or between you and Louis). Since I am basically an ignoramus on the issues of Argentine history and economics, I only threw out some hypotheses at the beginning of the discussion. I only intervened because I didn't want to see a flame-war and it looked like Michael Perelman might be asleep at the switch. However, I see nothing wrong with discussing style of e-mail discussions. As you should know, impoliteness leads to conflict. Your assuming a know-it-all attitude toward Argentina and lording your alleged moral superiority over Néstor has a similar effect. BTW, the paragraph above by Brad is on the level of discussion (i.e., meta-discussion) which he decries. Please don't remain at what I see as the sterile and pointless level of meta-discourse. If you read my steady (and perhaps excessive) stream of e-missives on pen-l, you'd notice that I hardly ever venture into that level. Please return to the level of substantive discussion: I will return if I think that people are being reasonable in the form of the discussion. However, I do not value your advice on this matter. Your claim that Argentina's internal arrangements are no business of any non-Argentine is truly remarkable and extraordinary. I have NEVER made that claim. You are confusing me with Néstor. Though I find his contributions to very informative, I don't know enough to agree or disagree with him. He never made his political principles clear enough for me to agree or disagree with him. He did seem to know more about Argentina than you do, though. Your confusion of me with Néstor suggests that you have taken leave of your senses and have started to hallucinate. The highly technical term from psychiatry, i.e., "nutso," springs to mind More likely, you are assuming that Eldridge Cleaver was right that "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem," i.e., that if I don't agree with your self-evidently correct position, I must agree with the Néstor's "nutso" position. (Do you have a pair of Cleaver's famous slacks?) Defend your belief: tell us why you think dictators have a valid hunting license to turn their countries into free-fire zones for their amusement, with no one else having the right to say "boo." I have no brief for _any_ dictators. But this insult encourages me to make it clear what I do favor, to return to "substantive discussion." The first difference between you and me (as far as I can tell) is that you want to talk only about political incorrect dictators like the gorillas in Argentina (reminiscent of those who went (and still go) on and on about how horrible the Khmer Rouge was without mentioning the similar crimes of US-supported Indonesian army in East Timor that occurred at the same time). Secondly and more fundamentally, you seem to define "dictatorship" as only a political phenomenon, ignoring the socioeconomic kind of dictatorship that characterizes the rule of capital. Of course, such a socioeconomic dictatorship often involves political dictatorship (as in Argentina under Galtieri) or anemic democracy (of the sort that's under the thumb of international financiers, of the sort that prevails in most poor countries these days), unless there is a strong political organization of the working class and similar dominated forces to counteract the power of capital. (The limited Bore/Gush type of democracy we've got in the US is the luxury of a rich and internationally-dominant country.) Third, you seem to ignore the need for democracy in international relations. It's okay with you (as far as I can tell) that the US and its allies impose its "solutions" on other countries in undemocratic ways, with absolutely no respect for national self-determination (though of course, politically incorrect countries like the gorillas' Argentina or Saddam's Iraq aren't allowed to use similar means). I've never seen you criticize US capital's socioeconomic dictatorship over most of the rest of the world and its alliance with gorillas such as those in Argentina (and Chile and Vietnam and ) Now what do I think about the gorillas and other types of despots in Argentina?
Re: Prayin' for a warm Winter
Re: Prayin' for a warm Winter luckily, global warming will provide... ;-) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: dulce decorum
You should read more carefully. I wasn't saying that you should be filtered, You need to write more carefully. You were: Néstor wrote: (The internal structure of Argentina is not the business of interlopers from the imperialist world -- and interloping from alleged leftists is the worst of all). Brad writes: Positively, totally, utterly, completely nutso. Michael, isn't this the kind of abusive rhetoric which gets people expelled from pen-l. (NB: I'm not in favor of expelling anyone. If Brad doesn't clean up his act, I encourage everyone to put him on their filter lists.) It is *nutso*. I'm calling it like I see it. So filter away... Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Thatcher and nationalism
As Doug said, you have a lot to offer the list, but sometimes you get on your high horse and seem to behave rather dogmatically. Let's look at the record: "(The internal structure of Argentina is not the business of interlopers from the imperialist world -- and interloping from alleged leftists is the worst of all)." I think that it is worthwhile to call this *nutso*. You think that calling it nutso is "dogmatic." I want to strongly assert that we are all one another's business: humans are social beings, after all. You think that such assertions are... impolite. I think that this is really weird. Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Re: Thatcher and nationalism
Brad, you are welcome to disagree with Nestor; the problem was with your tone -- "nusto " As Doug said, you have a lot to offer the list, but sometimes you get on your high horse and seem to behave rather dogmatically. Let's look at the record: "(The internal structure of Argentina is not the business of interlopers from the imperialist world -- and interloping from alleged leftists is the worst of all)." I think that it is worthwhile to call this *nutso*. You think that calling it nutso is "dogmatic." I want to strongly assert that we are all one another's business: humans are social beings, after all. You think that such assertions are... impolite. I think that this is really weird. Brad DeLong -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Thatcher and nationalism
You do not explain why it is "nutso" to consider that it is no business of the rest of us what dictators do to their own people. But isn't it common among certain types of pragmatist and "realists" to claim that foreign policy ought to be based upon advancing national interest? On this view, hardly nutso, what dictators do to their own people would be a nation's business only if it impacted significantly on national interests... No man is an island, entire of itself; Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, As well as if a promontory were, As well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; i It tolls for thee
Re: Women Industrialization (was Re: capitalist patriarchy)
Michael Perelman wrote: Yoshie, I knew that a good many of the early workers in textiles were women, but mining, comes as a surprise. * ...For example, in Japan women's work in the coal mines was affected by recession after World War I, when more women became redundant than men. Protective legislation introduced after World War I left women working above ground. However, in 1939 these labour laws were set aside because of the intense demand for labour and women again worked underground. The prohibition of women's work in the mines was restored in 1947 but they continued to sift the coal until mechanization of this process in the 1960s. In this example the interplay of political, economic and cultural factors can be seen technology has an effect but within a specific social context (Mathias, 1993: pp. 101-105; Saso, 1990: pp. 25-26) Mathias, Regina (1993), 'Female Labour in the Japanese Coal-mining Industry', in Janet Hunter (ed.), Japanese Women Working, London and New York, Routledge. Saso, Mary (1990), Women in the Japanese Workplace, London, Hilary Shipman Ltd. http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu37we/uu37we09.htm * Some, though not all, Japanese socialists (as well as women miners, of course) fought against the exclusion of women from underground mining. Michael wrote: Were women miners common in Europe? And Mine Aysen Doyran wrote: It may be true for Japan as it may be for other late capitalist developers. I don't think that Tsurimi's analysis applies to advanced capitalist countries though. As a non-specialist in labor history, I have not been able to undertake an exhaustive study, but I believe women miners (and women industrial workers in general) were common in England France before the rise of "protective" legislations. * 3.3 The situation of miners and coal heavers at the end of the 18thcentury The working conditions of the colliers in the 18th century (All page numbers refer to Flinn/Stoker's "History of the British Coal Industry, Vol.2")... ... 3.3.2.2 Women in mines (p. 334/335) There is evidence that like the men women mostly worked underground. They were active as bearers transporting the coal their husbands had cut. Working as a bearer was very hard and unhealthy. Later, even the owners of mines tried to abolish women's underground labour. They argued that these working-conditions transformed soft women into "beasts of burthen". In 1842 they abolished women's work in mines. Women's work was harder than men'sCompared to the men, who worked ten hours daily, females had to work fifteen hours a day. They had to carry heavy baskets filled with coal and transport them to the surface on their backs. Therefore, they had to climb the stairs innumerable times (p. 88-92/115) http://www.ks.og.bw.schule.de/html/follett/miners.htm * * ...[T]he campaign to regulate female and child labour in the coal mines...resulted in the 1842 Coal Mines Act, banning women and boys under ten from working underground http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/corehistorians/social/text/kathc14.htm * * ...Zola [1840-1902] also described [in Germinal] the brutalising effects of women and children being employed underground, to haul away the coal as the men dug it out. He was moved by the plight of pit ponies who lived permanently in the dark tunnels down the mine ...The impact of the novel With 'Germinal', Zola succeeded in making the impact he had planned. He know that a dramatic novel would get polite society talking, where boring reports of distant strikes in newspapers were just ignored. Some critics were shocked at his brutish portrayal of the miners, and deplored their morals - they "deserved what they got". Others said it was an "old story" - things were no longer so bad. The novel was set in the 1860s. By the 1880s when it was written, socialism and strikes were a political force and had made some advances. Employing women down mines was forbidden in 1874, though children of 12 still worked a 12-hour day until the 1890s. Unions were legalised in 1884 http://www.theotherside.co.uk/tm-heritage/background/zola.htm * Beginning from 1919, the ILO advocated "protective" _ exclusionary_ policies such as "the prohibition of night work and certain industrial processes that could endanger women's health in respect of their role as mothers (work in salt or lead mines)" http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/papers/1996/dp87/. "The difficulty of denouncing antiquated conventions has, however, posed problems for a number of ILO member countries, including Sweden. It has denounced only a few, where the consequences of continued ratification have been considered to be extremely serious from a practical point of view or as a matter of principle. For instance, Sweden denounced the convention prohibiting all underground work by women in mines (No. 45) when it became a serious obstacle to
Can Thabo Mbeki change the world?
This is the title of a very interesting paper that Patrick Bond delivered to the Brecht Forum in NYC last wednesday night. I have put it up on the Marxmail website and urge you to take a look: http://www.marxmail.org/patrick_bond.htm Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
[fla-left] [education] Teachers' union to run 10 charter schools in Miami-Dade Co. (fwd)
Edison Schools (originally called Edison Project) was started in early 1990s by Chris Whittle who created Channel One television show in 1980s that packaged new stories for participating schools all over US. In exchange for agreement that 90% of children in a school had to watch 12 minute program, which couldn't be turned off by individuals teachers, Whittle "loaned" each school tv satellite dishes, video equipment, tv sets. Of course, several minutes of each program was devoted to Burger King, Levis, Snickers, Head and Shoulders, etc. ads. At one point, companies paid twice what going rate of prime-time network ads cost to reach about 8-10 million students. Whittle's "vision" for Edison schools included using volunteer instead of paid teachers when available, relying on computerized instruction whenever feasible, requiring students to do custodial work. He also predicted that there would be 1000 such schools by early 2000s. Michael Hoover Published Friday, September 8, 2000, in the Miami Herald Teachers' union to run 10 charter schools BY ANALISA NAZARENO [EMAIL PROTECTED] The United Teachers of Dade is entering into a partnership with the nation's largest private, for-profit school management company to operate 10 charter schools in Miami-Dade County, an arrangement that dramatically concludes the union's once-hostile stance toward charter schools. ``I imagine that the reaction from our union brethren will be anything from applause for our innovation to apprehension,'' said Pat Tornillo, the executive vice president for the UTD, which represents the district's 20,000 teachers. In years past, the union lobbied against charter school legislation, arguing that any money diverted from public schools would weaken the system. The union has since softened its stance and even encouraged two union members who are operating a charter Montessori school in Southwest Miami-Dade. ``There is no question that charter schools are a part of the educational landscape,'' Tornillo said. ``Both presidential candidates are talking about extending federal funds for the construction and maybe even the operation of charter schools. We want to be part of it.'' The union's New York-based partner, Edison Schools, operates 79 public schools nationwide. The Miami-Dade deal took state Senate education budget chairman, Sen. Donald Sullivan, a Republican from St. Petersburg, by surprise. ``I can't understand why they would do that,'' Sullivan said. ``After years of being opposed to this and opposed to any money going outside the educational system . . . it's just strange. ``I don't have any objections. I think this is probably the first place in the United States that's doing this.'' Though Edison and other private school-management companies have cooperated with local unions, this type of agreement, its size and scope, is most unusual, said academics studying the school choice movement. ``I would say that what the teachers union is doing is visionary,'' said Katherine K. Merseth, a lecturer with the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Director of the Harvard Project on Schooling and Children. ``They are acknowledging that there are some things that private entities can do and do better. They're deciding to stay in the game and not walk away. I think it's an extremely positive development.'' The historical significance was not lost on the Edison executives. ``We know that school reformers, public school leaders and others will be viewing us very carefully,'' said chairman Benno Schmidt Jr. Edison has had a contract to operate Henry Reeves Elementary School in Miami-Dade since 1996. It is the only school that Edison operates in Florida. The teachers there earn the same base salary as teachers in the public system. They also receive a stipend for working a longer school day and school year and they have options for Edison stock. After four years under the Edison company, Reeves Elementary's academic performance is no worse and no better than other schools in surrounding districts. It received a D grade from the state, based on student performance on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. How much teachers get paid at the charter schools, what curriculum will be used, and where the schools will be located are all details that are still being working out. Tornillo said that the union would likely use the Edison curriculum as a base and modify it as parents and teachers suggest. Edison uses a ``school-within-a-school'' model. According to Edison literature, they branch a school into ``academies'' with separate teachers and administrators in teams in an attempt to create a small-school feeling. The charter schools' curricula and test results must be scrutinized in the same way that public schools are, said Luis Huerta, a research policy associate with the University of California at Berkeley. ``I
