Re: Canada, NAFTA and energy
An excellent article. I am always amazed the National Post, a staunch right-wing rag owned by left-hater Conrad Black, permits columns such as this by a hard-hitting popular left wing writer. Albertans are also asking themselves these days why they are required to pay about 800,000 to defend their erstwhile treasurer Stockwell Day, now leader of federal right=wing Alliance party in a law-suit resulting from his inability to keep his foot out of his mouth. Action is being taken to have the payments declared illegal and to attempt to have Day reimburse the province. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Lisa Ian Murray [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 10:08 AM Subject: [PEN-L:7522] Canada, NAFTA and energy [from an FTAA list] http://www.nationalpost.com/ It's the NAFTA, stupid Linda McQuaig National Post
Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
Asks Jim, did the dominions -- and the colonies -- have any choice in this matter? Yep, we did. The one thing about which I agree with Brad is that it was no bad thing we went the way we did. But we've actually had the sovereignty since 1901 to decide for ourselves whether we'd enter wars, shoot our own chaps, allow nuclear tests on Australian soil, and so on. Generally we are very weak at such decisive moments, and, when we're ultimately - almost inevitably - exploited, soiled or embarrassed, we inevitably wholly blame the superior. It could easily be argued it was our fault our lads' guts ended up all over Gallipolli and the Somme, that they shot Breaker Morant and his like, that they wafted great clouds of radioactive filth all over central Australia etc etc. But I've never heard anyone put that argument. It was all those bloody poms, y'see. And now it's all those bloody yanks ... Cheers, Rob.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
I asked: did the dominions -- and the colonies -- have any choice in this matter? Rob said: Yep, we did. The one thing about which I agree with Brad is that it was no bad thing we went the way we did. yeah, I think it was good to fight Hitler, too. Too bad so many -- including the US gov't -- gave up on the fight against fascism so quickly when the war ended and started to embrace fascists as allies ... But we've actually had the sovereignty since 1901 to decide for ourselves whether we'd enter wars, shoot our own chaps, allow nuclear tests on Australian soil, and so on. but isn't there a lot of evidence that the Governor General of Australia (a British appointee at the time?) cooperated with the US to oust an inconvenient PM? (was that Gough Whitlam who was ousted?) If so, official sovereignty works different in practice. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
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: Canada, Australia, Argentina
After I read what follows, and which deserves no answer at all, I am beginning to believe that I am not debating with Brad DeLong, but with Spruille Braden DeLong. From now onwards, I will put things in clear by addressing Mr. Braden DeLong... En relación a [PEN-L:1685] Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina, el 10 Sep 00, a las 22:25, Brad DeLong dijo: En relación a [PEN-L:1549] Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argen, el 10 Sep 00, a las 3:37, Rob Schaap dijo: Australia, too, consciously nourished its (relative) independence, largely through mutually constitutive ties between Australia's government and bourgeoisie - ensuring that the latter would not serve as a compradorial local elite for foreign interests. This is EXACTLY what Peronism attempted to do here, and failed. Funny to see again how different are things in an imperialist country and in a colony. In more senses than one, Peronism, which is widely known outside Argentina (and particularly in the United States) as a Fascist South American overgrowth that remained alive for a decade after Nazism was swept away from Europe was in fact a domestic version of a Labour government in Australia... Any Labor government--hell, *any* democratic government or *any* left-of-center non-democratic government--would have been eager to join the war against Hitler. Peron was not--hence the classification of his regime as "fascist South American overgrowth" seems not unfair... My dear Mr. Braden DeLong: Argentina wasn't, by any means, the only country that remained neutral during World War II. Most peoples weren't even allowed the possibility to have a saying, because they were under occupation: there were imperialist troops deployed all over Africa, over a good deal of Asia, even over Latin America -you the democratic Americans had put in prison our cherished and beloved Albizu Campos, who died in prison in Atlanta, because of the sin of fighting for the independence of Puerto Rico against your democratic will; India's leader Ghandi, out of calculation, decided to side with Britain, but not before a long debate took place and not before he intentionally had visited Mr. Mussolini against the advice of every "democratic" imperialist in Europe. Hadn't the colonial empires existed, be sure that most people in the world would have been indifferent to Mr. Hitler's actions. "What's new with that, would many have said, he's just doing to white people what all of them have been doing to us for decades and centuries?" Not that I agree with that position. I, personally and as an isolated individual, are for war against all imperialists. That is the position I would have raised in Argentina, 1939. But our neutrality was an absolutely justifiable one. And, as I explained, it even was of help for the war effort of Great Britain. Let me show now that countries who profited from the war, and who in many ways gave help to the Nazi regime, are considered "democratic" by Brad, whereas this treatment is denied to Argentina. Among others which I could mention, I prefer to center on two: Switzerland. Sweden. Switzerland proved a "neutral" hideaway for Nazi money and riches stolen from many, particularly from the Jews, as it has recently been shown. Sweden was still worse: the Socialist government there allowed the Nazi troops to traverse its Northern territories in order to occupy Norway (by the way, in order to protect their own citizens, the Swedish government put the militant union leaders of the North in prison while the Wehrmacht merrily toured the Kiruna steel mines on way to the Atlantic). Why do you slander the Argentinians, who were victims of Anglo- American expoliation and thus had at least a reasonable motivation to remain neutral, while you do not slander the Swiss or the Swedes? I will tell you again, Mr. Braden: that is because you are an imperialist under "Leftist" robes. As for Peron's social and economic policies, I have always been fascinated with the extraordinary economic success of post-WWII western Europe relative to Argentina. Ah, that's reasonable. Your country made a strong investment effort in an Europe that was ruined but still had strong assets to rebuild itself. Argentina had to clumsily manage by herself, against the pressure of the American Department of State and the cold hostility of other imperialist regimes. The Europeans had a full bearded bourgeoisie, while the first minister of Economy of Peronism was the chubby owner of a small manufacturer of tins for a minor peach packer. Miguel Miranda, a man with no Universities, proved however that it was possible to boost popular consumption, rise wages, and have an economic boom all at the same time. He could not prove (and this was his doom) that all this was sustainable without socialist measures, but at least he gave millions of people four
Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
G'day Nestor and Brad, Why do you slander the Argentinians, who were victims of Anglo- American expoliation and thus had at least a reasonable motivation to remain neutral, while you do not slander the Swiss or the Swedes? Or the Americans? Whose own popular president (if you don't count the views of the big cappos, anyway) couldn't manage to bring that mighty democracy into the war against tyranny until it got one of its colonies bombed by it (and Germany, rather ambitiously, declared war). How long would Unca Sam have sat and watched, selling its hardware to the combatants all the while, if events hadn't forced his mighty hand? C'mon Brad. Be fair. Cheers, Rob.
Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
After I read what follows, and which deserves no answer at all, I am beginning to believe that I am not debating with Brad DeLong, but with Spruille Braden DeLong. From now onwards, I will put things in clear by addressing Mr. Braden DeLong... En relación a [PEN-L:1685] Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina, el 10 Sep 00, a las 22:25, Brad DeLong dijo: En relación a [PEN-L:1549] Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argen, el 10 Sep 00, a las 3:37, Rob Schaap dijo: Australia, too, consciously nourished its (relative) independence, largely through mutually constitutive ties between Australia's government and bourgeoisie - ensuring that the latter would not serve as a compradorial local elite for foreign interests. This is EXACTLY what Peronism attempted to do here, and failed. Funny to see again how different are things in an imperialist country and in a colony. In more senses than one, Peronism, which is widely known outside Argentina (and particularly in the United States) as a My dear Mr. Braden DeLong: Argentina wasn't, by any means, the only country that remained neutral during World War II... Hmmm. My count was Sweden (which profited immensely from shipping iron ore to Germany, and letting Wehrmacht trains run across its territory), Switzerland (which profited immensely for other reasons), Franco's Spain, and Argentina. Anybody else who remained neutral to the end? Any other countries that received Nazi refugees with open arms after the war? I'm not aware of any. Hadn't the colonial empires existed, be sure that most people in the world would have been indifferent to Mr. Hitler's actions. "What's new with that, would many have said, he's just doing to white people what all of them have been doing to us for decades and centuries?" No. Very few people in the world believe in such doctrines of racial collective responsibility. Those guilty of crimes are those who commit them--not others who happen to look like them. None of the east european Jews herded into Auschwitz had ever taken hostages from a Burmese village. None of the Gypsies herded into Dachau had ever served as a vector of disease transmission to Mexico. None of the Russians summarily shot as the Wehrmacht entered a village had ever placed any Chinese migrant worker into debt peonage. And very few of the people in the world thought the victims of genocide were just "getting what they deserved". Only Nazis thought so, and people who think like Nazis. Although your post suggests otherwise, relatively few people in the world have ever thought like Nazis. Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
But Díaz Alejandro is... the ultimate sepoy, and it is not a matter of chance that, in the economic circles of the United States of America, the Braden DeLongs consider his 600 page long bunch of half-muttered hardly digerible stupidities a "standard book" on Argentina. To argue that the Peronist economic strategy looked like a very reasonable one to adopt as of the end of World War II, but proved ultimately disastrous because it had unintended catastrophic consequences for the rate of capital accumulation--that's the core of Diaz Alejandro's argument. It's not a bunch of half-muttered hardly derigible stupidities. And whence comes "sepoy" as a term of abuse? "Sepoy" is an English misspelling of "sipahi", the Turkic term for the elite cavalry of the Turkish empires, which after the Islamization of the Turks fought from Hyderabad to Moscow, from Urumchi to Vienna. Under Turkish rule commerce flourished and long distance trade grew: Turkic kingdoms played a key role in transferring technology and thus encouraging economic growth from one end of Eurasia to the other for a thousand years. Skilled, loyal, bold, clever--the British East India Company wanted to recruit sipahis from the declining Moghul Empire for their armies because of their virtues. Perón sought to generate rapid growth and to twist terms of trade against rural agriculture and redistribute wealth to urban workers who did not receive their fair share. False. Perón sought to fuel industrial growth with the remains of the differential rent on the world market that had bestowed such a gift on Argentinian landed oligarchy for decaedes. He redistributed wealth the country over. "Urban workers" were already the large mass of Argentinians, but also "rural workers" were benefitted. Everything I've seen suggests not. Lower prices for agricultural commodities blew back into lower standards of living for rural workers under Peron... The redistribution to urban workers and to firms that had to pay their newly increased wages required a redistribution away from exporters, agricultural oligarchs, foreigners, and entrepreneurs. Yes, quite fair, but not "entrepreneurs" nor "foreigners": the first is an obviously senseless category, Marx did not think so... Landowner and exporter elites had always appropriated the lion's share of the benefits of free trade. They had in the 1930's shown a willingness to sacrifice political democracy in order to stunt the growth of the domestic welfare state. Another idiocy. "Landowner and exporter elites" were in no way interested in stunting the growth of a domestic welfare state because this state did simply NOT exist. And why didn't it exist? Because during the Great Depression--when FDR built the welfare state in the United States--Argentina's landlord and exporter elites used the army to make sure that no FDR-like figure held power in Argentina. The Peronist program seemed prima facie reasonable given the memory of the Great Depression, and it produced almost half a decade of very rapid growth toward the end of the 1940s. Quite true. Only that "rapid growth" is not precisely what one would say of a programme that at the same time reconstructed the country and gave more than half its population a new sense of personal dignity. But we are among economists here, who cares for these stupid issues? Then exports fell sharply as a result of the international business cycle. And exports fell further as the consequences of the enforced reduction in real prices of rural exportables made themselves felt. What do you mean, "enforced reduction"? On the contrary, the state monopoly on foreign trade (the IAPI, a bourgeois forerunner of a socialist self-defence mechanism, in fact) obtained better prices for farmers than the prices they had ever obtained from the trade monopolies of foreign capital. What is true is that a share of those better prices was redistributed, via the State, to industries and not to luxurious consumption. Better prices for the state when it sells overseas, worse prices for farmers (and farmworkiers) when they sell to the monopsonistic state. Domestic consumption rose. The rural sector found itself short of fertilizer and tractors. Squeezed between declining production and rising domestic consumption, Argentinian exports fell. Argentinian main export commodity was by those times meat. Meat needs no tractors in the pastorile conditions of those times. Meat needs a *lot* of grain for the final fattening-up process On the other side, Perón arrived at agreements for local design and construction of agrarian machinery and tractors At five times the resource cost of John Deere: expensive tractors are a very bad thing for temperate agricultural development. The enemy was already in combat outfit by 1950. Korea was to be the first demonstration. Oh God! Not another idiot fan of Kim Il Sung! Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
At 10:25 PM 9/10/00 -0700, you wrote: Any Labor government--hell, *any* democratic government or *any* left-of-center non-democratic government--would have been eager to join the war against Hitler. Peron was not--hence the classification of his regime as "fascist South American overgrowth" seems not unfair... so you believe that Eldridge Cleaver's old dictum that "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem"? So the fact that the US was "neutral" against the Spanish fascists during the Civil War there indicates that the US was semi-fascist? This fits with the consistent trend of US foreign policy since then, i.e., the willingness to ally with fascists and to impose fascist governments (as in Chile) when democracy didn't serve US interests. That said, I don't think that the over-used word "fascist" really fits the US government. Rather, the US gov't is pro-crypto-fascist (as Gore called Bill). [That's Vidal and Buckley, not Al and Clinton.] Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
so you believe that Eldridge Cleaver's old dictum that "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem"? So the fact that the US was "neutral" against the Spanish fascists during the Civil War there indicates that the US was semi-fascist? Lots of people refused to aid or tried to harm the Loyalist cause during the Spanish Civil War (including, IMO, the Soviet Union--much more interested in smashing Trotskyism than in defeating Franco). IIRC, only four governments--Switzerland, Sweden, Franco's Spain, and Peron's Argentina--had failed to join the United Nations by the end of the war against Hitler. Brad DeLong
Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
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. Cheers, Ken Hanly In fact, all countries except for two either (i) waited for Hitler to bring the war to them, or (ii) joined in the war against Hitler only in the last stages, after his defeat was assured. Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
Lots of people refused to aid or tried to harm the Loyalist cause during the Spanish Civil War (including, IMO, the Soviet Union--much more interested in smashing Trotskyism than in defeating Franco). IIRC, only four governments--Switzerland, Sweden, Franco's Spain, and Peron's Argentina--had failed to join the United Nations by the end of the war against Hitler. Brad DeLong You leave one not unimportant country out of your list of neutrals-- Ireland (Eire). Not to mention one "democratic" European country that was allied with the Nazis throughout virtually the entire war--Finland. Shane Mage "Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
Shane Mage quotes Brad DeLong: Lots of people refused to aid or tried to harm the Loyalist cause during the Spanish Civil War (including, IMO, the Soviet Union--much more interested in smashing Trotskyism than in defeating Franco). IIRC, only four governments--Switzerland, Sweden, Franco's Spain, and Peron's Argentina--had failed to join the United Nations by the end of the war against Hitler. Brad DeLong You leave one not unimportant country out of your list of neutrals-- Ireland (Eire). Not to mention one "democratic" European country that was allied with the Nazis throughout virtually the entire war--Finland. Shane Mage "Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64 Brad, is the correct inference that you would have supported the Loyalist cause? And where do you put the USA on the spectrum of "refused to aid or tried to harm"? After all, winking at oil companies who sold oil to Franco in spite of an embargo must go in that spectrum somewhere. And wasn't UK and USA "neutrality" designed to harm the Loyalist cause? Gene Coyle
Premature Anti-Fascists (was Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina)
Jim D. wrote: At 10:25 PM 9/10/00 -0700, you wrote: Any Labor government--hell, *any* democratic government or *any* left-of-center non-democratic government--would have been eager to join the war against Hitler. Peron was not--hence the classification of his regime as "fascist South American overgrowth" seems not unfair... so you believe that Eldridge Cleaver's old dictum that "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem"? So the fact that the US was "neutral" against the Spanish fascists during the Civil War there indicates that the US was semi-fascist? Not quite neutral -- for instance, those who went to fight for the Loyalist cause got "blacklisted labeled 'premature anti-fascists'": * ...In July, 1936, Italian bombers appeared in Spanish skies, as part of a military coup against the Republic of Spain. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and the Axis powers met with impassioned resistance by many Spaniards and their supporters, which included German and Italian volunteers dubbed "Guten Cameraden." Citing a policy of "non-involvement", the United States and other nations refused to come to Spain's aid. Astonishingly, an estimated 40,000 men and women - from 52 countries - crossed the oceans and the Pyrenees Mountains to join the fight to save Spain's first democratically-elected government. They became known as the International Brigades - volunteers, trained and untrained soldiers, nurses and comrades. The foot soldiers, the medical staff, and the officers were of all nations and of all ancestries. Women were accepted into the effort and prominently served in the medical brigades throughout the Civil War. In the spirit of solidarity, Spanish Loyalist women stood shoulder to shoulder with their men on the front lines during the first few months of the conflict. By the time the war ended in 1939, about half of the Brigadists had perished. Of the 2,800 Americans collectively known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, about 1,000 were killed. Those who survived and returned home were blacklisted and labeled "premature anti-fascists" by the U.S. Government agencies and others. Nearly 60 years later, the Spanish Parliament voted to make all Brigadists honorary citizens. Ceremonies held throughout Spain in November, 1996, commemorated their sacrifices http://www.enteract.com/~juditht/hochberg/home.html * Yoshie
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
Shane Mage quotes Brad DeLong: Lots of people refused to aid or tried to harm the Loyalist cause during the Spanish Civil War (including, IMO, the Soviet Union--much more interested in smashing Trotskyism than in defeating Franco). IIRC, only four governments--Switzerland, Sweden, Franco's Spain, and Peron's Argentina--had failed to join the United Nations by the end of the war against Hitler. Brad DeLong You leave one not unimportant country out of your list of neutrals-- Ireland (Eire). Not to mention one "democratic" European country that was allied with the Nazis throughout virtually the entire war--Finland. Shane Mage "Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64 Brad, is the correct inference that you would have supported the Loyalist cause? Of course. Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
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. Cheers, Ken Hanly Touche... All the dominions did... Brad DeLong -- J. Bradford DeLong Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley 601 Evans Hall, #3880 Berkeley, CA 94720-3880 (510) 643-4027 voice (510) 642-6615 fax http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
I think most of the larger British Commonwealth countries declared war around September 1939, at least Australia and Canada did. Casualties:(approximate) India 25,000 New Zealand 10,000 Canada 37,000 South Africa 7,000 Australia 23,000 Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Brad DeLong [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, September 11, 2000 9:53 PM Subject: [PEN-L:1791] Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina 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. Cheers, Ken Hanly Touche... All the dominions did... Brad DeLong -- J. Bradford DeLong Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley 601 Evans Hall, #3880 Berkeley, CA 94720-3880 (510) 643-4027 voice (510) 642-6615 fax http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
Hi again, Nestor, This is EXACTLY what Peronism attempted to do here, and failed. Funny to see again how different are things in an imperialist country and in a colony. In more senses than one, Peronism, which is widely known outside Argentina (and particularly in the United States) as a Fascist South American overgrowth that remained alive for a decade after Nazism was swept away from Europe was in fact a domestic version of a Labour government in Australia. In fact, one of the parties on which Perón built his initial electoral victory in 1946 was the Argentinian Labour party, a party based on the workers of the La Plata city foreign owned meat packing and slaughterhouse industries. I'm not disagreeing with anything you say, comrade, but am left wondering if a significant difference between Australia and Argentina might not be precisely that we did follow our masters to war. It certainly occasioned a massive and belated shift from the almost entirely agricultural economy we'd been. This at once reduced an aspect of dependence, diversified our stock market, and made us less reliant on a low-value staple (we were more the price taker than the price maker in our agricultural exports). The Pacific War (beginning with the pathetic Singapore disaster in '42) significantly contributed to a resentful suspicion of the UK (already in place, given the equally pathetic Gallipolli disaster and the continued and expensive mediocrity of British general staff on the Western Front), itself occasioning a popular desire for less dependence on 'em - indeed a distance from them (funnily enough, many on the left were persuading everybody we should make for Unca Sam's open arms with expedition). And it made Australia's Labor Party, and a large slab of the public, look away from the old Commonwealth in its strategic (we immediately signed some treaties with NZ) and trade policies (even Asia copped some overtures, but that stopped when the Tories got in). So both the sectoral structure (higher value production and the creation of a new and integrated national bourgeoisie) and the political culture (self-reliance and nation-building) of the country were very much positively affected in the context of the times. Not lastingly and not completely, but perhaps decisively at and for the time. Perhaps the ALP did not face the problems Peron faced because of the war, then? What say you? Cheers, Rob.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
Bill Rosenberg wrote: New Zealand was probably more successful than Australia until the UK joined the EU (and both countries began to lose their privileged access to the UK market), and less successful since then, showing the weakness and essentially dependent nature of its bourgeoisie. speaking of dependency: from the point of view of the US, one crucial aspect of "globalization" has been the slow (but sometimes rapid) conversion of the US from an autocentric economy toward being a dependent, outward-oriented one. For example, in his book THE WORK OF NATIONS, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, one of the few well-known pro-labor liberals (of the US sort) around, puts forth the line that the way that US workers can do well is by offering high-skilled labor and well-built infrastructure. Though his emphasis is on trade issues rather than capital mobility, this policy is one of "if you build it, they will come," an effort to woo the affections of transnational capital. Autocentric policies are out. Of course, the US-based capitalist class isn't dependent but is instead merging into the global capitalist class (as the dominant partner). However I'll relate a little anecdote which to me illustrates an important point: that nationalism is a danger in the imperial countries, such as the US and UK, but a necessity in the dependent (and would-be independent) ones, as long as it is not allowed to become chauvinist. That's still a problem, despite the changes limned above. A national economy that's declining can spawn all sorts of reactionary ideologies. It's the financial and macroeconomic bubble (a.k.a. the Clinton boom) that has prevented the US fascist movements that were burgeoning 8 years or so ago from continuing their growth. That's one reason that even though I expect a bad recession to hit sometime in the next year or so, I don't welcome it: the "worse" often doesn't produce the "better" but instead a bunch of Brown-Shirts. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
En relación a [PEN-L:1549] Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argen, el 10 Sep 00, a las 3:37, Rob Schaap dijo: Australia, too, consciously nourished its (relative) independence, largely through mutually constitutive ties between Australia's government and bourgeoisie - ensuring that the latter would not serve as a compradorial local elite for foreign interests. This is EXACTLY what Peronism attempted to do here, and failed. Funny to see again how different are things in an imperialist country and in a colony. In more senses than one, Peronism, which is widely known outside Argentina (and particularly in the United States) as a Fascist South American overgrowth that remained alive for a decade after Nazism was swept away from Europe was in fact a domestic version of a Labour government in Australia... Any Labor government--hell, *any* democratic government or *any* left-of-center non-democratic government--would have been eager to join the war against Hitler. Peron was not--hence the classification of his regime as "fascist South American overgrowth" seems not unfair... As for Peron's social and economic policies, I have always been fascinated with the extraordinary economic success of post-WWII western Europe relative to Argentina. At the end of the Second World War, both regions were predisposed toward some strict regime of economic planning. Everyone remembered the disastrous outcome of the laissez-faire policies that had been in effect at the start of the 1930s. Politicians were predisposed toward intervention and regulation: no matter how damaging "government failure" might be to the economy, it had to be better than the "market failure" of the Depression. Had European political economy taken a different turn, post-World War II European recovery might have been stagnant, as in Argentina. Governments might have been slow to dismantle wartime allocation controls, and so have severely constrained the market mechanism. In fact the Marshall Plan era saw a rapid dismantling of controls over product and factor markets in Western Europe, and the restoration of price and exchange rate stability. An alternative scenario would have seen the maintenance and expansion of wartime controls in order to guard against substantial shifts in income distribution. The late 1940's and early 1950's might have seen the creation in Western Europe of allocative bureaucracies to ration scarce foreign exchange, and the imposition of price controls on exportables in order to protect the living standards of urban working classes. The consequences of such policies can be seen by looking in the Argentine mirror, for they were broadly the policies adopted by semi-fascist dictator Juan Peron. In response to the social and economic upheavals of the Depression, Argentina adopted demand stimulation and income redistribution. These policies were coupled with a distrust of foreign trade and capital, and an attraction to the use of controls instead of prices as allocative mechanisms. In the post-World War II era Argentina's growth performance under these policies was very poor. Carlos Díaz Alejandro's (1970) _Essays on the Economic History of the Argentine Republic_ provides what has become the standard analysis of Argentina's post-World War II relative economic stagnation. According to his interpretation the collapse of world trade in the Great Depression was a disaster of the first magnitude for an Argentina tightly integrated into the world division of labor. While Argentina continued to service its foreign debt, its trade partners took unilateral steps to shut it out of markets. The experience of the Depression justifiably undermined the nation's commitment to international economic integration. In this environment Juan Perón gained enthusiastic mass political support. Taxes were increased, agricultural marketing boards created, unions supported, urban real wages boosted, international trade regulated. Perón sought to generate rapid growth and to twist terms of trade against rural agriculture and redistribute wealth to urban workers who did not receive their fair share. The redistribution to urban workers and to firms that had to pay their newly increased wages required a redistribution away from exporters, agricultural oligarchs, foreigners, and entrepreneurs. Moreover, conservative dictatorships in Argentina during the Great Depression had sharpened lines of political cleavage. Landowner and exporter elites had always appropriated the lion's share of the benefits of free trade. They had in the 1930's shown a willingness to sacrifice political democracy in order to stunt the growth of the domestic welfare state. The Perónist program seemed prima facie reasonable given the memory of the Great Depression, and it produced almost half a decade of very rapid growth toward the end of the 1940s. Then exports fell sharply as a result of the
Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
En relación a [PEN-L:1490] Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina, el 8 Sep 00, a las 10:22, Bill Burgess dijo: However, by the mid 1980s the US-controlled share of all non-financial industres in Canada declined to levels below the post-WW2 buildup (the US share has risen slightly since then, as has foreign control in all countries). I consider this 'repatriation' partial evidence that Canadian capital never lost _overal_ control of the domestic economy, which they originally gained, as I think Paul agrees, by around WW1. Just as a 'national bourgeoisie' was able to develop while formally still a British colony, it was able to survive and even gain relative strength despite extensive US ownership and control in _some_ industrial sectors. I don't think the Argentine bourgeoisie ever developed this kind of hegemony over the economy and state. The Argentine bourgeoisie doesn't even have a consciousness of its own existence as such bourgeoisie. What we have here is an oligarchy, a capitalist BUT NOT BOURGEOIS ruling class, which thrives under imperialist control of the country and in alliance with imperialism. This class is ORGANICALLY against any transformation of our economic structure that puts in danger the chain of dependency. And the constitution of a self-centered bourgeoisie such as happened in Canada was for decades the greatest threat to its domain. Thus trapped between a huge working class and the imperialist-oligarchic "rosca" our domestic bourgeoisie is a caricature of a bourgeoisie. During the same 1980s that saw the Canadian bourgeoisie regain some degree of control of their own economy, the Argentinian bourgeoisie was either physiclly destroyed (Gelbard and Broner, two of the mainstays of Perón's national-bourgeois government after 1973 -both were of Marxist intelectual origin, by the way, and Gelbard, Peron's Minister of Economy, a secret affiliate to the Communist Party-, were deprived of Arg. citizenship and had to take the road of exile; others, like arts patron and editorial owner Vogelius, were kidnapped, tortured, and killed due to alleged connections with terrorist cells, and so on), socially degraded (it is easy to find taxi drivers in Buenos Aires today who have been, for example, owners of a small industry), transformed into managers of foreign concerns or turned rentiers after they closed plants or sold them (and thus coopted into the oligarchy), etc. [...] Where we differ is that Paul interprets this as Canadian and Australian dependence a la Frank. This would be appropriate for Argentina, but Canada and Australia are in the qualitatively different position of secondary imperialist countries. They get bullied by the US as do other secondary imperialist countries (e.g. in Europe, by the US and Japan, Germany, UK, etc.) but the politics of this relationship are very different than the politics of Frankian-like dependency. Sorry to harp on this issue but I think the failure to distinguish between the two kinds of relations with bigger-power imperialism has long been a key failing of socialism in Canada (and I think the same applies to Australia and New Zealand). I am afraid that on this issue I would agree with Bill. Whoever wants to discover the difference between a minor imperialist power (that is, a cub of shark) and a wealthy semicolony (that is, a fat tuna), should compare Argentina with Australia or Canada, say, by the 40s or 50s. A hug to all, Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
Bill, Paul and Nestor are very much on to something, I think. Australia, too, consciously nourished its (relative) independence, largely through mutually constitutive ties between Australia's government and bourgeoisie - ensuring that the latter would not serve as a compradorial local elite for foreign interests. Straight after the war, we nationalised Cable and Wireless's international communications monopoly (funny that, they now control our erstwhile public telco's main competitor), nationalised QANTAS, opposed US aspirations over sovereignty over the SW Pacific islands they had garrisoned (the Manus group near PNG), and arrived at a cozy balance throughout many sectors (eg aviation, broadcasting, banking, education, insurance, health) whereby private operators got to seek profit, but standards were regulated and ensured by public sector competition. They poured money and people into publicly funded universities and technical colleges, funded mammoth immigration schemes. The war had also provided the impetus we needed to get a decent manufacturing sector going, and publicly subsidised enterprise was promoted in a new, urban Australia (proving, I guess, that Australia's rural 'squatocracy' had lost much of the political clout they'd had). In the bush, the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric project, a public undertaking, was to ensure reliable and sufficient power for the manufacturing turn and irrigation for New South Wales and Victoria. And nearly all funded from public debt acquired within the country. (the domestic share of public debt went from 50 to 77% between '39 and '50). Taken together, all these developments served to strengthen the infrastructural and social capital available to domestic capital, and it had become inextricably linked with Canberra and the State Governments. Tariffs, quotas and subsidies were poured into the coffers of the new manufacturer capitalists, whose fortunes and investments depended on the government rather than Wall and Threadneedle Streets. Then the Tories came in on a tide of 'red under the bed' scaremongering in 1949. The corporate state Labor had put in place throughout and immediately after the war was not instantly to be undone though, as domestic capital knew where its interests lay by then and Menzies conservatices (called Liberals here) had very little interest in policy anyway, and were happy to allow their phalanx of nation-building civil servants (all brought up during the wise-making years of the depression) to have their way. Yep, it took decades to ruin all that ... Apologies for the nationalist-Keynesian tone - but it does all sound rather better than the particular mode of 'globalisation' currently afoot, no? Cheers, Rob. I consider this 'repatriation' partial evidence that Canadian capital never lost _overal_ control of the domestic economy, which they originally gained, as I think Paul agrees, by around WW1. Just as a 'national bourgeoisie' was able to develop while formally still a British colony, it was able to survive and even gain relative strength despite extensive US ownership and control in _some_ industrial sectors. I don't think the Argentine bourgeoisie ever developed this kind of hegemony over the economy and state. The Argentine bourgeoisie doesn't even have a consciousness of its own existence as such bourgeoisie. What we have here is an oligarchy, a capitalist BUT NOT BOURGEOIS ruling class, which thrives under imperialist control of the country and in alliance with imperialism. This class is ORGANICALLY against any transformation of our economic structure that puts in danger the chain of dependency. And the constitution of a self-centered bourgeoisie such as happened in Canada was for decades the greatest threat to its domain. Thus trapped between a huge working class and the imperialist-oligarchic "rosca" our domestic bourgeoisie is a caricature of a bourgeoisie. During the same 1980s that saw the Canadian bourgeoisie regain some degree of control of their own economy, the Argentinian bourgeoisie was either physiclly destroyed (Gelbard and Broner, two of the mainstays of Perón's national-bourgeois government after 1973 -both were of Marxist intelectual origin, by the way, and Gelbard, Peron's Minister of Economy, a secret affiliate to the Communist Party-, were deprived of Arg. citizenship and had to take the road of exile; others, like arts patron and editorial owner Vogelius, were kidnapped, tortured, and killed due to alleged connections with terrorist cells, and so on), socially degraded (it is easy to find taxi drivers in Buenos Aires today who have been, for example, owners of a small industry), transformed into managers of foreign concerns or turned rentiers after they closed plants or sold them (and thus coopted into the oligarchy), etc. [...] Where we differ is that Paul interprets this as Canadian and Australian dependence a la Frank. This would be appropriate for
Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
Nestor and Bill,
Let me reiterate my main point which I take you both would either
agree with or at least accept as a reasonable argument. The first
world war consolidated industrial capitalism in Canada and the
governing elite was firmly under control of industrial capital which
no longer had a dependence on British finance which it previously
had. The interwar period did not increase dependence on foreign
capital in part because three quarters of it was marked by
depression. The main investment was in railways in the late
twenties over half of which was publicly owned.
The reliance (dependence) on foreign capital, now from the US,
came after the 2nd WW in the form of resource based investment
and branch plant. Because of the alarming increase in foreign
control of the economy and the negative economic results of this
increase, (Watkins report, Grey report, etc.) Canada introduced the
Foreign investment Review Agency which restricted foreign
investment where there were no direct benefit demonstrated. Along
with the national energy program, this had the effect of decreasing
the proportion of foreign investment. With the conservatives in
power in the 80s, these national interest restrictions were lifted and
eventually abolished with C-USFTA and NAFTA and almost
immediately, the proportion of foreign ownership began again to
rise. However, Canadian foreign ownership also expanded
representing the fact that Canada is, in its own way, a junior in the
economic imperialism game though most of the non-resource
investment has been in the United States and frequently in sectors
that were originally in Canada state protected and organized
industries (e.g. CPR and CNR railway investments).
On the issue of dependency, my definition of dependency is quite
different than yours and is not in the early Frank model. I define
dependency in terms of two or three major parametres -- the
direction of causation, the balance of economic power and the
expropriation of surplus. To illustrate, the early Canadian fur trade.
Fur was important to Canada but was miniscule to the British
economy such that changes in fashion in hats in Europe had little
major impact on the European economies but they could boom or
bust the Canadian commerical economy of the day. Changes in
Canadian supply, however, had little or no effect on the British
economy. Canadian policy, such as it was, was determined by the
London council of the HBC and the British crown which granted the
monopoly charter. Finally, the profits accrued to the headquarters
of the HBC in Britain, almost none of which was reinvested in
Canada. This was a classic case of staple dependency which
characterized the early economic 'development' of Canada.
Does that same dependence exist today? Yes, though to a lesser
extent. Investment in Canada is largely determined by US demand
whereas Investment in the US is minimally affected by Canadian
demand. Trade in Canada is a macroeconomic issue, in the US
more of a microeconomic issue. Research and Development,
technological change, etc. is in most advanced industries,
determined by foreign companies and is generally poorly developed
(except in the state sector). Canada's economic laws are dictated
by the US or its international client agencies, the WTO, IMF, WB,
NAFTA etc. e.g. the pharmaceutical patent legislation that was
introduced to conform to US demands which has led to an
enormous increase in drug costs in Canada which threatens to
collapse the medicare system. Canada has a huge, and growing,
net deficit in services and in payments of interest, dividends and
profits. Almost all of the increase in foreign ownership in Canada is
financed either from retained profits of existing investment or from
borrowings of Canadian savings from Canadian banks.
It is for this reason or in this context that I say the Canadian
economy is dependent. And I agree that this is a very different
form of dependency that Frank argues for Latin and South America
which is, following Baran, based on an alliance between imperial
capital and a local landed ('feudal") and military elite who retain
control over the domestic political spoils and block the emergence
of a truly national-bourgeois political state.
Nas vidinje,
Paul
Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba
From: "Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date sent: Sat, 9 Sep 2000 11:46:48 -0300
Subject:[PEN-L:1545] Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
Priority: normal
Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
En relación a [PEN-L:1490] Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina,
el 8 Sep 00, a las 10:22, Bill Burgess dijo:
However, by the mid 1980s the US-controlled share of all non-financial
industres in Canada declined to levels below the post-WW2 buildup (the
US share has
Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
En relación a [PEN-L:1553] Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argen, el 9 Sep 00, a las 12:17, [EMAIL PROTECTED] dijo: Nestor and Bill, Let me reiterate my main point which I take you both would either agree with or at least accept as a reasonable argument. Dear Phillip, I do not consider myself at all in a position to contest anything anyone says on Canada, particularly if the such is a Canadian. What I tried to muse over was on the qualitative difference that obviously (for me, at least) exists between the Canadian dependency towards the United States and that of Argentina or, for that matter, Mexico. Probably a comparative investigation of issues at both borderlands of the United States would prove extraordinarily fruitful in this sense. But, again, I am nobody to speak of Canadian issues, at least while they do not have a relation with Argentinian issues. I try to be careful in this sense. A hug, Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
En relación a [PEN-L:1553] Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argen,
el 9 Sep 00, a las 12:17, [EMAIL PROTECTED] dijo:
It is for this reason or in this context that I say the Canadian
economy is dependent. And I agree that this is a very different form
of dependency that Frank argues for Latin and South America which is,
following Baran, based on an alliance between imperial capital and a
local landed ('feudal") and military elite who retain control over the
domestic political spoils and block the emergence of a truly
national-bourgeois political state.
Within some weeks, I intend to post on this list a criticism of
Frank's ideas that, if I am not wrong, will make the oceans swell and
mountains tremble.
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
En relación a [PEN-L:1549] Re: Re: Re: Canada, Australia, Argen, el 10 Sep 00, a las 3:37, Rob Schaap dijo: Australia, too, consciously nourished its (relative) independence, largely through mutually constitutive ties between Australia's government and bourgeoisie - ensuring that the latter would not serve as a compradorial local elite for foreign interests. This is EXACTLY what Peronism attempted to do here, and failed. Funny to see again how different are things in an imperialist country and in a colony. In more senses than one, Peronism, which is widely known outside Argentina (and particularly in the United States) as a Fascist South American overgrowth that remained alive for a decade after Nazism was swept away from Europe was in fact a domestic version of a Labour government in Australia. In fact, one of the parties on which Perón built his initial electoral victory in 1946 was the Argentinian Labour party, a party based on the workers of the La Plata city foreign owned meat packing and slaughterhouse industries. Failure, however, must not put us in a sobering mood as to the achievements of Peronism (re. Jim Devine's ideas that both Peronists and antiPeronists were bad for Argentina). Peronists achieved great things, for example (and missing lots): *an impressive redistribution of wealth that, from the point of view of the bourgeoisie, sought to create a domestic market; from that of the workers, however it gave the Argentinian worker a level of living that was the envy of their Latin American counterparts (thus boosting by the way a wave of Latin American migration into Argentina that partly mitigated the alienating consequences of the European inflow of previous decades), and opened up the road to higher education to the children of the working class *a huge wave of nationalizations cut short the multiple sources of capital outflow through the financial, commercial and industrial foreign control of pre-Peronist Argentina. It is interesting in this sense to note that the Spanish word "extranjerización", or "extranjería", has no English equivalent. A whole set of political and economical experiences is condensed in this assimetry. *the State took it as a task of its own to develop industrial concerns not only in a simple "import substitution" schema, as it had been the case after the 1930 crisis, but also as a conscioulsy directed policy of independent and self-centered economic growth; the plants of this new and vast system were, on the other hands, located outside Buenos Aires, thus injecting new life to the up to then decaying cities of the Inland country And lots more (nationalization of insurance, banking, generation of the conditions for domestic technological advance, social democratization of access to University, creation of a trading fleet in a country that depended basically on foreign trade, management of the nationalized railroads to boost entire regions, massive housing plans, and so on). But Peronism was limited by its attempt to develop Argentina _as just another capitalist country_, an attempt tragically put to light by Perón in his later government (1973-74) when he said that he sought to turn Argentina into a "World Power, an Argentina Potencia". The bourgeois programme proved fatal, in the end, because our ruling oligarchy wasn't a feudal class, but a dependent _capitalist_ ruling class. So that Peronism never attacked its ECONOMIC positions (you begin by expropriation of large estates, where do you end?). But this harshly abstract comment -on which antiPeronist Leftists build their whole nutty edifice that sets workers abstractly apart from national revolution, a building that unfortunately for these Leftists has never been inhabited by the Argentinian working class- must be made more concrete, because the actual going of history is - in a semicolony- full of unexpected events. It was history, not an economic predestination which made that the movement be in a sense doomed, because in fact it could have generated its own, massive and powerful, Left wing, and at the first moments Perón himself tried to do it.. In fact, the ultimate reason for this attempt to have failed is, again, partly because of the stupidity of local bourgeoisie, partly because of the constraints of a national-bourgeois programme with overwhelming proletarian support under the increasing pressure of imperialism in Latin America, and partly because of the tragic limitations of our anti-Peronist (abstractly "anti capitalist" thus, when the moment of trial came objectivelly -and sometimes subjectivelly- proimperialist) domestic "Left". In 1945, and not because he actually needed them, but in order to generate a front as broad as possible to oppose the antinational bloc that had gathered around the unbelievable American Ambassador Spruille Braden, Perón offered the
Re: Canada, Australia, Argentina
I agree with Paul and Nestor's point about the difference in class structure, and Paul's work on Canada's WW1 financing is an excellent illustration of the consolidation of an indigenous bourgeoisie. Nestor, I think, has put his finger on the critical difference -- neither Canada nor Australia had a landed elite such that the role of Canada and Australia vs GB was one of subsidiary (dependent?) capital vs imperial capital. In Argentina, there was an intervening class, the landed aristocracy. (See, for instance, Baran on this) I have not done comparable work for Australia and Argentina, but for Canada the turning point, in my opinion, was the 1st World War. In Canada's case, Britain ceased to be a creditor to Canada because of war created debts. Canada financed the war from borrowing from capitalists made rich by war profiteering on government contracts to supply GB. After the war, the state helped smash labour and tax the working and middle class to pay off capital debt incurred during the war, a classic case of (marxist) primitive accumulation. (By the way -- more shameless promotion -- I have written a paper on this.) The railways went bankrupt and reneged on their obligations to British bond holders. Though borrowing shifted after the war from GB to the US, it was not until the "American boom in Canada" after the 2nd WW that American (direct) investment in Canada came to dominate the resourse and manufacturing industries. However, by the mid 1980s the US-controlled share of all non-financial industres in Canada declined to levels below the post-WW2 buildup (the US share has risen slightly since then, as has foreign control in all countries). I consider this 'repatriation' partial evidence that Canadian capital never lost _overal_ control of the domestic economy, which they originally gained, as I think Paul agrees, by around WW1. Just as a 'national bourgeoisie' was able to develop while formally still a British colony, it was able to survive and even gain relative strength despite extensive US ownership and control in _some_ industrial sectors. I don't think the Argentine bourgeoisie ever developed this kind of hegemony over the economy and state. As a well known member of Bill Burgess's detested left-nationalist cabal, I have also argued a form of Canadian dependency. I winced here until I remembered how Paul has written far more and better than I have against some forms of Canadian dependency. All one has to do is look at the Cdn and Australian $s and see how they dropped in parallel as "commodity currencies" (also NZ) to realize the dependency of the Cdn/Oz/NZ economies on the imperial centre dominated by the US but, in Oz/NZ also the Japanese economies. Canada has recovered somewhat better than Ozzieland in large part because the US economy has done much better than Japan. Since I don't know where Argentina's markets are dominated by, I can't comment. However, one common denominator is grain -- more particularly wheat. We are all part of the Cairns group trying to get the US and the UE to stop subsidizing agriculture so we can sell our grain at a decent price. Right now our agriculture is in the tank. This demonstrates, I would think, a certain dependence over which neither Canada, Australia, nor Argentina have little control. Where we differ is that Paul interprets this as Canadian and Australian dependence a la Frank. This would be appropriate for Argentina, but Canada and Australia are in the qualitatively different position of secondary imperialist countries. They get bullied by the US as do other secondary imperialist countries (e.g. in Europe, by the US and Japan, Germany, UK, etc.) but the politics of this relationship are very different than the politics of Frankian-like dependency. Sorry to harp on this issue but I think the failure to distinguish between the two kinds of relations with bigger-power imperialism has long been a key failing of socialism in Canada (and I think the same applies to Australia and New Zealand). Bill Burgess
[PEN-L:3462] Re: Canada (Ken)
Ken wrote, I don't claim that. I don't speak of the revolutonary demands of the working class. Perhaps u could quote where I say that...All these demands are reformist. If they had been revolutionary the ruling class couldn't have conceded them. The way you put it, Ken, was ambiguous enough for me to interprete it as actual revolutionary demands of the workers but for you to have meant it only as some future potential demands: Ken: "While the welfare state may have saved capital from even more radical demands and staved off revolutionary demands, the welfare state was more or less forced upon the ruling class. [snip] The welfare state was a great victory for the working class." One can "stave off" either actual or only potential demands. In the sense that the struggle achieved these concessions it was a victory... The argument is not (or shouldn't be) about whether something that occured in the past was a "victory", it is about the current status of the institutions established by that "victory". Even genuine victories have a nasty habit of turning into idols -- this is what I call small "s" stalinism. Some of my best friends are paid employees of "progressive organizations" and if I let them they will whine to me incessently about how hard it is to get those institutions to do anything actually politically progressive. They also have a tendency to award themselves medals for continuing to fight the good fight within their bureaucratized organizations. Those imaginary awards for valour are above and beyond their salaries. Just try to get support from one of those organizations to do what is at any rate a resolution approved annually at their convention and you'll see what the anarchists mean by the formula, talk - action = 0 Meanwhile, there always seems to be enough cash in the kitty to hold yet another of their sparsely-attended stale donut bake sales. Is that an executive summary of your game plan I hope.. Yup. regards, Tom Walker
[PEN-L:3457] Re: Re: Canada (Ken)
Ill try to be brief butTom brings up a host of issues not easily addressed in summary form .. Tom Walker wrote: If Ken will pardon my unsympathetic executive summary, I find the following main points in his argument (which Paul Phillips "heartfully endorses"): 1. The Canadian welfare state was shoved down the throats of the ruling class by the revolutionary demands of the Canadian working class. I am merely claiming I don't claim that. I don't speak of the revolutonary demands of the working class. Perhaps u could quote where I say that...All these demands are reformist. If they had been revolutionary the ruling class couldn't have conceded them. They just didnt come aboutwithout struggle to force concessions from capital. In the sense that the struggle achieved these concessions it was a victory... 2. Government monopolies, credit unions, union control of pension funds, worker-owned businesses and retail and producer co-ops are a threat to capital. and 3. You don't get a socialist garden by cultivating the prettiest capitalist weeds. This doesn't even lead you along the path to a socialist garden. 1. Perhaps it would interest Ken to look at some of the parliamentary discussions and policy papers that preceded adoption of such "working class victories" as the Canadian Pension Plan and Unemployment Insurance. Those programs are the ones I am most intimately familiar with and I have no reservation in pointing out that "linkage" between contributions and benefits was and is held to be of utmost importance in keeping those programs essentially "market-based" and intra-class in their income redistributive effects. The image of a recalitrant Canadian ruling class capitulating to the revolutionary fervor of the workers sounds like something out of a 1970s maoist pipe dream of the future. But Ken is saying that is what actually happened in Canadian history. Show me the documents, Ken. Again you speak of the revolutionary fervor of the workers. If only that were the case..and I didnt mention it.. it must be a function of your excitement. I readily admit that the CPP has all sorts of warts and no doubt was designed as you claim. But what leftist would ever claim that reformist victories result in programmes untainted by capitalist interests? I would mention too that you cite just one pension plan, the CPP, which is contribution based, but thereis also the OAS plan which is not and would cover people who are not wage laborers. There is also a supplement for low income people. I have a good water supply but a limited supply of documents just at hand. Perhaps Paul or Bill Burgess have some... 2. and 3. Government monopolies, credit unions, worker-owned businesses and retail and producer coops do business with private capital every hour of every day. Unions are in the business of COLLECTIVE BARGAINING with capitalist employers. I will simply point out that Ken's positions on 2 and 3 are contradictory. How could the institutions Ken lauds be "a threat to capital" if they DON'T have any criteria for distinguishing between the ugliest and prettiest "capitalist weeds"? Of course they do. How could they do otherwise I would like to know. And how does itfollow that they are not a threat to capital? If they arent a threat why would capital dearly like to get rid of publicly owned unions, weaken unions, etc. Why were credit unions for so long limited in what they could.do..Wasnt it so they could not compete with the banks? 4. "The game plan. I grant you the proper game plan for a revolution doesnt seem clear." I will be presenting an executive summary of the game plan on Friday. I'll let you know what kind of reception it gets. regards, Tom Walker Is that an executive summary of your game plan I hope.. Cheers, Ken Hanly
[PEN-L:3448] Re: Canada (Ken)
If Ken will pardon my unsympathetic executive summary, I find the following main points in his argument (which Paul Phillips "heartfully endorses"): 1. The Canadian welfare state was shoved down the throats of the ruling class by the revolutionary demands of the Canadian working class. 2. Government monopolies, credit unions, union control of pension funds, worker-owned businesses and retail and producer co-ops are a threat to capital. and 3. You don't get a socialist garden by cultivating the prettiest capitalist weeds. This doesn't even lead you along the path to a socialist garden. 1. Perhaps it would interest Ken to look at some of the parliamentary discussions and policy papers that preceded adoption of such "working class victories" as the Canadian Pension Plan and Unemployment Insurance. Those programs are the ones I am most intimately familiar with and I have no reservation in pointing out that "linkage" between contributions and benefits was and is held to be of utmost importance in keeping those programs essentially "market-based" and intra-class in their income redistributive effects. The image of a recalitrant Canadian ruling class capitulating to the revolutionary fervor of the workers sounds like something out of a 1970s maoist pipe dream of the future. But Ken is saying that is what actually happened in Canadian history. Show me the documents, Ken. 2. and 3. Government monopolies, credit unions, worker-owned businesses and retail and producer coops do business with private capital every hour of every day. Unions are in the business of COLLECTIVE BARGAINING with capitalist employers. I will simply point out that Ken's positions on 2 and 3 are contradictory. How could the institutions Ken lauds be "a threat to capital" if they DON'T have any criteria for distinguishing between the ugliest and prettiest "capitalist weeds"? 4. "The game plan. I grant you the proper game plan for a revolution doesnt seem clear." I will be presenting an executive summary of the game plan on Friday. I'll let you know what kind of reception it gets. regards, Tom Walker
[PEN-L:3374] Re: Canada
At 06:20 PM 13/02/99 -0800, Tom W. wrote: There's one point that I would differ with Bill on. I agree that left nationalists have offered a lot of tactical advice. But I think "fighting" the bourgeoisie is too pugilistic and indiscriminate a term for what the left should be doing. The left should be "cultivating" the bourgeoisie. By this term, I mean the left should figuring out how to weed out the parasitic varieties; and how best to select, tend, prune, train and harvest the fruitful ones. OK, "fighting" is a crude term. But how can the 'left' "select, prune, train" and especially "harvest" without political power? Or do you have in mind some kind of tactical alliance with the most promising capitalist plants against the bourgeois weeds and deadwood? The NBER study suggests the latter are the family-controlled corporate pyramids, so I guess this alliance is exactly opposite to the one you said the left has beein pursuing in the last couple of decades with 'rentier' capitalism. Boy, that really is swimming against the stream! On a related point, I appreciate not wanting to identify "indigneous" capitalists with the interest of the nation, but isn't the real point that they identify with the Canadian state because it defends their interests at home and abroad? Canadian nationalists often suggest the government has been captured by foreign or 'continental' or 'global' capital, but what is the evidence for this? Bill
[PEN-L:3390] Re: Canada
I confess that I think that the NBER paper that Doug brought to our attention might be on to something. I remember a time almost 20 years ago that I visited Toronto for the first time. I did not see much poverty. The city seemed very well run. Maybe I was naive, but it seemed a stark contrast from the US. I recall reading some papers around that time about the kind of concentrated ownership that Canada had. It seemed that the Canadian capitalists were far more enlightened that the U.S. capitalists. Canada seemed to evoke the Business Week version of capitalism rather than the more Hobbesian Wall Street Journal version. Since then, Canada has fallen under the sway of a more U.S. verion of capital and is paying the price -- at least some are. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:3398] Re: Canada (Bill)
Bill Burgess wrote, OK, "fighting" is a crude term. But how can the 'left' "select, prune, train" and especially "harvest" without political power? Or do you have in mind some kind of tactical alliance with the most promising capitalist plants against the bourgeois weeds and deadwood? The NBER study suggests the latter are the family-controlled corporate pyramids, so I guess this alliance is exactly opposite to the one you said the left has beein pursuing in the last couple of decades with 'rentier' capitalism. Boy, that really is swimming against the stream! I wouldn't suggest for a moment that a different strategy would be easier. But to continue your metaphor, if the left wants to spawn, it's going to have to _learn_ to swim against the stream. regards, Tom Walker
[PEN-L:3399] Re: Canada (Doug)
Doug Henwood wrote, Here's an idea - social democracy is more compatible with "monopolized" ownership structures than most social democrats would like to admit, and is undermined by U.S.-style financial and corporate governance arrangements. It's probably very difficult for U.S. social dems to admit to this, given this country's love of small business and populist, anti-centralizing political traditions. Doug's idea is right on the (Bis)mark. regards, Tom Walker
[PEN-L:3403] Re: RE: Re: Re: Canada
Well yes, but not exactly. Example: the Lander banks in Germany. These are publicly owned at the state level and make loans to local small businesses. They play an important role in the social market model--and the EU (or some elements therein) wants to abolish them. By the way, this is a very important topic. Peter Dorman Max Sawicky wrote: Here's an idea - social democracy is more compatible with "monopolized" ownership structures than most social democrats would like to admit, and is undermined by U.S.-style financial and corporate governance arrangements. It's probably very difficult for U.S. social dems to admit to this, given this country's love of small business and populist, anti-centralizing political traditions. Financial and corporate governance arrangements can be quite different in this context. In the latter case, monopoly mitigates the imperative of profit maximization per se. In this realm, I think you are right that social democracy has an interest in seeking collaborationist arrangements with corporations, which I would say can be either good or bad for workers. Liberalizing financial arrangements are a whole different matter and would seem to be the real challenge to social democracy. We see that under neo-liberalism, social democracy either caves in and transforms to Clintonism (e.g., U.S., perhaps Australia/New Zealand, UK), or is forced into a more antagonistic posture. The indifference to localism, populism, and anti- centralism is generic not only to social-democracy, but to much of the left as well. My impression is that these traditions have much less currency in Europe so there is nothing to neglect. mbs
[PEN-L:3418] Re: Re: Re: Canada (Doug)
Damn it, Ken Hanly. Stop popping my bubbles. I used to be very impressed with what I saw in Canada. Why then did it lack the mean streak that I see on this side of the border? Did I miss something? Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:3427] Re: Re: Re: Canada (Ken)
Date sent: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:28:24 -0600 From: Ken Hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:3424] Re: Re: Canada (Ken) Now here is something I can agree with and heartfully endorse. Traditionally the social democrats have relied on regulation of capital as their method of control. This is why foreign ownership was so difficult -- it put capital beyond their regulatory grasp -- but also made foreign ownership an important issue (as it still is). Ken, however, has laid out the issue succinctly. I don't think that it is altogether true that social welfare programs were brought in to serve contingent ruling class interests. If that were so why did the ruling class consistently oppose progressive measures every step of the way? Minimum wages, UI and improvements to it, pensions, closed shop legislation, pay equity, you name it. While the welfare state may have saved capital from even more radical demands and staved off revolutionary demands, the welfare state was more or less forced upon the ruling class. Surely Capital railed against the welfare state, and enlisted all its legions of flacks and PR people to try to defeat those promoting the welfare state every step of the way. The welfare state was a great victory for the working class. The ruling class didnt suddenly decide they didnt need the welfare state any more--although the disintegration of actually existing socialism may have been a factor in precipating the assault against the welfare state. In my view the welfare state was a feature of the Social Structures of Accumulation of what has been called the Golden Age of Capitalism... Burgeoning debt, problems in maintaining adequate levels of capital accumulation, plus many other factors such as increased global competition among capitals, the growth of the Asian tigers, etc. led to Capital's forceful attack on the welfare state. You are right the constellation of class forces has changed in that global capital has the upper hand at them moment. However, not all struggles against cutbacks and attacks by capital have failed. If anything the greatest failure has been with social democratic parties who have sacrificed any pretense of being the leaders in the counter-atttack against global capital and are bending over backwards to show that they are "responsible" i.e. they will kiss corporate ass just as well as any old-line party or as in the UK and NZ and I guess OZ too actually leading the way for global capitalism. The welfare state is not gone. Its reduced. If there had been no struggle the situation would be much worse than it. The left may think that all is lost but the right knows damn well that the welfare state is still popular. There are plenty of aging conservative voters in Manitoba. Prior to an election here the Conservatives are pumping money back into our health care system--after savage cuts of course. They know, and the polls show them this, that people want the health care system and want it improved. While the social democrats in power in the province next door refuse to pay nurses a decent wage and do away entirely with the provincial pharamacare plan, the Conservative govt. in Manitoba is pumping more money into the system and contented itself with raising the kick-in limits in the pharamacare plan. The game plan. I grant you the proper game plan for a revolution doesnt seem clear. At least in advanced capitalist societies, revolution doesnt seem to be on the agenda for the moment. This doesn't mean that capital cannot be opposed though. I will concentrate upon issues not specifically directed to gay and lesbian rights, aboriginal or race issues, or the quesion of separatism. Oppose privatisation of all kinds. Some opposition to privatisation has been successful and any widespread opposition will make governments provincial or otherwise to think twice about trying it. Although provincial govt. here privatised the provincial phone company there was a great deal of opposition and the govt. lost a lot of support. They have not moved to privatise Manitoba Hydro or the auto insurance monopoly. Privatisation of hte phone company gave a perfect opportunity for the NDP to have as a plank that they would take the phone company back into the public sector. If they have such a plank, they certainly have been mighty quiet about it. The NDP should be pressing for privatised firms to be taken back into the public sector. Again no bloody leadership, rather the NDP goes with the flow doing some privatisation itself as in Saskatchewan where the public road construction sector was privatised. In Saskatchewan though there is still a publicly owned bus company providing service throughout the province. SaskPower still co
[PEN-L:3424] Re: Re: Canada (Ken)
I don't think that it is altogether true that social welfare programs were brought in to serve contingent ruling class interests. If that were so why did the ruling class consistently oppose progressive measures every step of the way? Minimum wages, UI and improvements to it, pensions, closed shop legislation, pay equity, you name it. While the welfare state may have saved capital from even more radical demands and staved off revolutionary demands, the welfare state was more or less forced upon the ruling class. Surely Capital railed against the welfare state, and enlisted all its legions of flacks and PR people to try to defeat those promoting the welfare state every step of the way. The welfare state was a great victory for the working class. The ruling class didnt suddenly decide they didnt need the welfare state any more--although the disintegration of actually existing socialism may have been a factor in precipating the assault against the welfare state. In my view the welfare state was a feature of the Social Structures of Accumulation of what has been called the Golden Age of Capitalism... Burgeoning debt, problems in maintaining adequate levels of capital accumulation, plus many other factors such as increased global competition among capitals, the growth of the Asian tigers, etc. led to Capital's forceful attack on the welfare state. You are right the constellation of class forces has changed in that global capital has the upper hand at them moment. However, not all struggles against cutbacks and attacks by capital have failed. If anything the greatest failure has been with social democratic parties who have sacrificed any pretense of being the leaders in the counter-atttack against global capital and are bending over backwards to show that they are "responsible" i.e. they will kiss corporate ass just as well as any old-line party or as in the UK and NZ and I guess OZ too actually leading the way for global capitalism. The welfare state is not gone. Its reduced. If there had been no struggle the situation would be much worse than it. The left may think that all is lost but the right knows damn well that the welfare state is still popular. There are plenty of aging conservative voters in Manitoba. Prior to an election here the Conservatives are pumping money back into our health care system--after savage cuts of course. They know, and the polls show them this, that people want the health care system and want it improved. While the social democrats in power in the province next door refuse to pay nurses a decent wage and do away entirely with the provincial pharamacare plan, the Conservative govt. in Manitoba is pumping more money into the system and contented itself with raising the kick-in limits in the pharamacare plan. The game plan. I grant you the proper game plan for a revolution doesnt seem clear. At least in advanced capitalist societies, revolution doesnt seem to be on the agenda for the moment. This doesn't mean that capital cannot be opposed though. I will concentrate upon issues not specifically directed to gay and lesbian rights, aboriginal or race issues, or the quesion of separatism. Oppose privatisation of all kinds. Some opposition to privatisation has been successful and any widespread opposition will make governments provincial or otherwise to think twice about trying it. Although provincial govt. here privatised the provincial phone company there was a great deal of opposition and the govt. lost a lot of support. They have not moved to privatise Manitoba Hydro or the auto insurance monopoly. Privatisation of hte phone company gave a perfect opportunity for the NDP to have as a plank that they would take the phone company back into the public sector. If they have such a plank, they certainly have been mighty quiet about it. The NDP should be pressing for privatised firms to be taken back into the public sector. Again no bloody leadership, rather the NDP goes with the flow doing some privatisation itself as in Saskatchewan where the public road construction sector was privatised. In Saskatchewan though there is still a publicly owned bus company providing service throughout the province. SaskPower still controls gas and electricity. The auto insurance industry is still public. Retail and producer co-ops should be supported as well as Credit Unions. Neo-liberalism hasnt destroyed these. They are thriving at least in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Indeed, Credit Unions can capitalise upon banks' attempts to downsize and add on various fees for services. I havent used a bank for years. The left in Canada had a well-organised and successful campaign to block a major bank merger. A waste of time. Let them merge and cut back branches and get credit unions to fill the gap. At a conference I was at there was paper given by two guys who made a living showing businesses how to profit when competitors restructure and downsize. They
[PEN-L:3420] Re: Canada (Ken)
I understand there were Social Democrats in late 19th century Germany, too. I do not mean to push the comparison, other than in the sense that not all welfare state programs are manna from heaven. They are brought in to serve contigent ruling class interests (in response to popular pressure, of course) but it is rather feeble to defend the welfare state in retrospect as a great workers' victory once the ruling class has decided it doesn't need them anymore. The bourgies are telling us, by their deeds not their words, that the constellation of class forces has changed. Our bleak experience in opposing the social program cuts confirms what the bourgies are telling us. So what's the game plan? regards, Tom Walker
[PEN-L:3419] Re: Canada (Michael)
Michael Perelman wrote, Damn it, Ken Hanly. Stop popping my bubbles. I used to be very impressed with what I saw in Canada. Why then did it lack the mean streak that I see on this side of the border? Did I miss something? Yeah. Maybe you should have visited some place like Davis Inlet or Mount Currie or Alkali Lake. regards, Tom Walker
[PEN-L:3415] Re: Re: Canada (Doug)
There has never been a social democratic government in power in Canada at the Federal Level. Except for the Rae govt. in Ontario. most provincial social democratic govts have not been in the area of Canada where the wealthy inheritor firms are...Ontario, and the Maritimes Irvine and McCains, but in the west. Heir controlled firms are noted for their anti-labor stance and support for conservative and protectionist policies. It is true that both capital and the general public are (or were) much less worried about big government than US citizens. Social democratic governments in the provinces embrace not monopoly ownership per se but government monopoly as in the medicare first promoted in Saskatchewan and eventually adopted federally, or in the auto insurance programmes, govt. monopolies in Saskatchewan first, and now in BC. and Manitoba. all put in place by social democratic regimes. The hydro companies in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, govt. monopolies, WHeat Board monopoly trading in selected grains.. but this has nothing to do with old heir capital. Those old farts are aghast at all these things.. Both people and old heir capital look to govt. to advance their interests and protect them from international capital and the vagaries of the market. So we have or had, all sorts of different boards meant to control production chicken boards, milk board, etc. all meant to ensure producers a reasonable return and of course quite counter to free markets. These policies were not implemented by some fatherly Bismarck. THey were implemented because popular movements lobbied for these things, and social democrats had them as planks in their platform. They would not have been elected and re-elected if they had not followed these policies. Some of these policies were adopted by Liberal and Conservative Federal Regimes because they were scared skinny that the social democrats might win power federally..Nothing like the autocratic social programmes of Bismarck. I seem to recall looking at statistics that show that Canadian voters participate less in local elections more in Provincial elections and more still in Federal Elections--this may not hold for Quebec. The opposite is the case in the US. In municipal elections here unless they really do something stupid or a big issue comes up councillors often remain unopposed or win hands down. By the way the Bronfman trust case mentioned by someone earlier is not settled yet. A taxpayer got a Manitoba lawyer Arne Pelz to file suit in court to force the Bronfman trust to pay taxes on the several billion dollars transferred to the US to avoid taxation. Every 20 years these trusts are assessed for taxation as if they had been sold and the capital gain is taxed. The Bronfman's tried to move the fund to the US to avoid this. IN order to do this they attempted to have the transaction exempted under a provision that is meant to apply to US funds coming into Canada!! The exemption was at first denied. Then later this was overruled. Someones head should roll. The court case will claim that Revenue Canada did not follow its own rules. Should be very interesting.. This is your typical heir capital. Other great heir capitalists live in the Bahamas((or maybe Bermuda)) because Canada is such a high tax socialist country. We owe nothing to these people but our chains. Cheers, Ken Hanly Tom Walker wrote: Doug Henwood wrote, Here's an idea - social democracy is more compatible with "monopolized" ownership structures than most social democrats would like to admit, and is undermined by U.S.-style financial and corporate governance arrangements. It's probably very difficult for U.S. social dems to admit to this, given this country's love of small business and populist, anti-centralizing political traditions. Doug's idea is right on the (Bis)mark. regards, Tom Walker
[PEN-L:3396] Re: Re: Re: Canada
Doug writes: Here's an idea - social democracy is more compatible with "monopolized" ownership structures than most social democrats would like to admit, and is undermined by U.S.-style financial and corporate governance arrangements. It's probably very difficult for U.S. social dems to admit to this, given this country's love of small business and populist, anti-centralizing political traditions. I agree: if firms have more monopoly power (including more insulation from international trade competition), they are more able to make concessions to labor and the like. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
[PEN-L:3394] RE: Re: Re: Canada
Here's an idea - social democracy is more compatible with "monopolized" ownership structures than most social democrats would like to admit, and is undermined by U.S.-style financial and corporate governance arrangements. It's probably very difficult for U.S. social dems to admit to this, given this country's love of small business and populist, anti-centralizing political traditions. Financial and corporate governance arrangements can be quite different in this context. In the latter case, monopoly mitigates the imperative of profit maximization per se. In this realm, I think you are right that social democracy has an interest in seeking collaborationist arrangements with corporations, which I would say can be either good or bad for workers. Liberalizing financial arrangements are a whole different matter and would seem to be the real challenge to social democracy. We see that under neo-liberalism, social democracy either caves in and transforms to Clintonism (e.g., U.S., perhaps Australia/New Zealand, UK), or is forced into a more antagonistic posture. The indifference to localism, populism, and anti- centralism is generic not only to social-democracy, but to much of the left as well. My impression is that these traditions have much less currency in Europe so there is nothing to neglect. mbs
[PEN-L:3393] Re: Re: Re: Canada
I absolutely agree with what Doug said below, which is what I was hinting at. Here's an idea - social democracy is more compatible with "monopolized" ownership structures than most social democrats would like to admit, and is undermined by U.S.-style financial and corporate governance arrangements. It's probably very difficult for U.S. social dems to admit to this, given this country's love of small business and populist, anti-centralizing political traditions. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:3392] Re: Re: Canada
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I confess that I think that the NBER paper that Doug brought to our attention might be on to something. I remember a time almost 20 years ago that I visited Toronto for the first time. I did not see much poverty. The city seemed very well run. Maybe I was naive, but it seemed a stark contrast from the US. I recall reading some papers around that time about the kind of concentrated ownership that Canada had. It seemed that the Canadian capitalists were far more enlightened that the U.S. capitalists. Canada seemed to evoke the Business Week version of capitalism rather than the more Hobbesian Wall Street Journal version. Here's an idea - social democracy is more compatible with "monopolized" ownership structures than most social democrats would like to admit, and is undermined by U.S.-style financial and corporate governance arrangements. It's probably very difficult for U.S. social dems to admit to this, given this country's love of small business and populist, anti-centralizing political traditions. Doug
[PEN-L:3338] Re: Canada
Paul Phillips wrote about one claim of the NBER paper on Canada: This strikes me as odd because Canada has a higher proportion of foreign investment than any other industrial country I believe. Yes, inward FDI is high in Canada. But it is even *higher* in the U.K., Netherlands, and Australia, if measured by FDI stock over GDP in 1994, according to OECD data. It is past time the left dropped the nationalist fixation on foreign ownership in Canada. Ken Hanley provided a great parody of the preposterous regression method in the NBER study, but the study does make some points we should pay more attention to. For example, Ken wrote: The relative weakness of R D may be partly explained by the fact that a great deal of our industry is branch plants of US and other foreign investors. The R and D takes place mainly in the home base country often the US, not in the branch plants. In fact, the NBER paper offers evidence that it is Canadian heir-controlled firms that do relatively little R and D. I don't know how much a "great deal of our industry" is, but US control of corporate assets in all non-financial industries in Canada was only 15.9% in 1995, and 11.4% of corporate assets in all industries, according to Statistics Canada. In 1993, total foreign control of assets of the largest 25 enterprises in Canada was only 3.6%. I know Ken said the weakness of R and D is only "partly" explained by US branch plants, but I think the NBER paper shows we need to spend more time talking about Canadian finance capital and less about the foreign boogyman. I've quoted these figures before on Pen-l, and I am admittedly dense, but I don't think my claim that US control in Canada is usually exaggerated has been refuted. Ken asked what the NBER study meant by rent-seeking behavior. I only skimmed the paper, but it seems to be the usual argument - family-contolled firms use their power to rip off other shareholders and close connections to government to gain preferential regulation. On the latter they cite the example of how the Bronfman family were allowed to transfer $2 billion in family wealth to the U.S. in 1991 without paying tax on capital gains, something even the Auditor General questioned publicly. One of their main points is the widespread 'pyramiding' of corporate ownership in Canada. They point out that unlike in the U.S., companies in Canada do not pay tax on dividends received from other firms they own. They argue that corporate pyramids promote transfer pricing, preferential financing, barriers to entry, etc. It actually reminded me of the good old left-wing rhetoric about how Canada is run by "50 big shots". Until the 1960s when nationalism took hold, we generally understood (IMHO correctly) that the real problem is these home-grown capitalists, not foreigners. (Ken also wondered if the NBER paper was referring to "toothless review mechanisms for foreign investment" when they associated less openness to foreign investment with large heir wealth. The study used someone else's evaluation of Canada's relative openess to foreign investment, and I didn't see any description of the latter's criteria, but one would expect it would include the full range of issues. The study's comparison was for 1988, before the FTA, but well after the toothless Trudeau-era Foreign Investment Review Agency was morphed into Investment Canada, whose mandate is to actually "promote" foreign investment.) Tom Walker argues that the problem with left perspectives is the failure to recongize the predominantly rentier nature of "indigenous" Canadian capitalism. "Rentier" here sounds like it could be super-centralized, super-rich family-dominated organization of capitalism the NBER paper not innappropriately calls the "Canadian disease". If so, I agree with both, but I prefer the old fashioned 'finance capital', and I don't see why Tom is shy about calling it indigenous. Unfortunately, there is also some truth in Tom Walker's suggestion that The Canadian left has now reduced itself to whining incessently for a return to an implicit bargain with the big brother rentiers. I don't think there ever was a real 'bargain' with big brother rentiers, and Ken is right that the left a-la-social democracy is now outdoing itself to prove it is fiscally responsible. But left-nationalists have spent a lot of time over the past couple of decades offering tactical tactical advice on how to be a better bourgeoisie - invest more in R and D, become more competitive in world markets, etc., instead of figuring how to fight the bourgeoisie. Maude Barlow and the Council of Canadians is more of the same pie in the sky. Bill Burgess
[PEN-L:3316] Re: Canada
Doug Henwood asked, Any experts on Canada want to comment? "Inherited Wealth, Corporate Control and Economic Growth: The Canadian Disease" I don't know if this makes me an "expert on Canada", but I was on the radio this morning debating the four-day week with the vice president of the B.C. Business Council, so at least somebody *in* Canada thinks I'm an expert on something. My debating point with Jock Finlayson is relevant to the question of the Canadian Disease and the implicit prescription of Capital market openness. Get ready for this one Pen-lers, because it's a curve ball that you might not see sneak across the plate. My argument for the four-day week is/was and will be based on grounds of efficiency and competitiveness, not kindness and compassion. Orthodox Marxism-Taylorism-Fordism-Keynesianism-Nylandism. Here's how it plays: long hours of work and high unemployment impose a tax on efficient, well managed firms and their employees and provide a subsidy to inefficient, poorly managed firms and their employees. The result is aggregate levels of output, productivity and employment lower than would be the case with shorter hours of work. That's Canada. The payroll tax structure in Canada couldn't have been better designed to subsidize poor management and penalize good management. It is the most regressive in the OECD. Large, chronic labour market surpluses create a moral hazard for firms to buy labour power at less than its cost of production, use it inefficiently and pass on the costs of doing so to society. In Canada, this moral hazard is enshrined as a cardinal virtue. And don't get me going on the Canadian labour movement and Canadian left's response to what Morck and colleagues call the Canadian disease: with friends like that, who needs enemies. Without addressing the absence of intra-firm labour market competition in Canada -- that is to say without a full-employment policy -- capital market openness is only about rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. The smart money might well flee, but there's still nothing in it to discipline the stupid money. "Inherited Wealth, Corporate Control and Economic Growth: The Canadian Disease" BY: RANDALL MORCK University of Alberta DAVID A. STANGELAND University of Manitoba Department of Accounting Finance BERNARD YIN YEUNG University of Michigan Paper ID: National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 6814 Date: November 1998 Contact: RANDALL MORCK Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Alberta Edmonton T6G 2R6, Alberta CANADA Phone: (780)492-5683 Fax: (780)492-3325 Co-Auth: DAVID A. STANGELAND Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Manitoba Department of Accounting Finance Faculty of Management Winnipeg, MB CANADA, R3T 5V4 Co-Auth: BERNARD YIN YEUNG Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Michigan 701 Tappan Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234 USA Paper Requests: Full-Text Availability at http://www.nber.org/wwp.html Papers can be downloaded online for $5. Hard copies are $10 plus $10.00/order outside the USA. Prepayment required. NBER orders: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Checks, Mastercard, Visa and American Express to 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138. Phone:(617)868-3900. Fax:(617)349-3955. For NBER Subscriptions Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or write to "Subscriptions" at address above. ABSTRACT: Countries in which billionaire heirs' wealth is large relative to G.D.P. grow more slowly, show signs of more political rent-seeking, and spend less on innovation than do other countries at similar levels of development. In contrast, countries in which self-made entrepreneur billionaire wealth is large relative to G.D.P. grow more rapidly and show fewer signs of rent seeking. We argue that this is consistent with wealthy entrenched families having objectives other than creating public shareholder value. Also, the control pyramids through which they are entrenched give wealthy families preferential access to capital and enhanced lobbying power. Entrenched families also have a vested interest in preserving the value of existing capital. To investigate these arguments, we use firm-level Canadian data and cross country data. Heir-controlled Canadian firms show lower industry-adjusted financial performance, labor capital ratios, and RD than other firms of the same ages and sizes. Cross country data show that countries with more billionaire heirs' wealth are less open to inward foreign direct investment and have lower private-sector RD spending. We argue that concentrated, inherited corporate control impedes growth, and dub this "the Canadian disease." Further research is needed to determine the international incidence of this condition. Finally,
[PEN-L:3313] Re: Re: Canada
Just to add to Paul's suggestions: As Paul notes there is a large proportion of foreign investment in Canada. Perhaps they are referring to the relalitively toothless review mechanisms for foreign investment. The relative weakness of R D may be partly explained by the fact that a great deal of our industry is branch plants of US and other foreign investors. The R and D takes place mainly in the home base country often the US, not in the branch plants. The whole exercise though is a piece of sophisticated crap,... Lets do the same thing and find the correlation between the two and levels of unionization, degree of health care coverage...strength of social safety net. Couldn't we come up with an American disease I suppose if there is anything positive in this, it is that we should introduce hefty estate taxes to be spent to enhance public programmes since obviously left in the hands of heirs, capital doesn't function very well. Is that what the study concludes :) Cheers, Ken Hanly P.S What rent seeking behavior are the authors talking about? Paul Phillips wrote: Doug, I wonder if they standardized for industry. Many of the heir controlled firms that I can think of are in old 'traditional' industries. (They have to be relatively old to be heir-controlled.) If they didn't, this could explain a lot of what they found. But: Cross country data show that countries with more billionaire heirs' wealth are less open to inward foreign direct investment and have lower private-sector RD spending. This strikes me as odd because Canada has a higher proportion of foreign investment than any other industrial country I believe. Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, Universityof Manitoba Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 10:22:37 -0500 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:3298] Canada Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Any experts on Canada want to comment? "Inherited Wealth, Corporate Control and Economic Growth: The Canadian Disease" BY: RANDALL MORCK University of Alberta DAVID A. STANGELAND University of Manitoba Department of Accounting Finance BERNARD YIN YEUNG University of Michigan Paper ID: National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 6814 Date: November 1998 Contact: RANDALL MORCK Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Alberta Edmonton T6G 2R6, Alberta CANADA Phone: (780)492-5683 Fax: (780)492-3325 Co-Auth: DAVID A. STANGELAND Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Manitoba Department of Accounting Finance Faculty of Management Winnipeg, MB CANADA, R3T 5V4 Co-Auth: BERNARD YIN YEUNG Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Michigan 701 Tappan Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234 USA Paper Requests: Full-Text Availability at http://www.nber.org/wwp.html Papers can be downloaded online for $5. Hard copies are $10 plus $10.00/order outside the USA. Prepayment required. NBER orders: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Checks, Mastercard, Visa and American Express to 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138. Phone:(617)868-3900. Fax:(617)349-3955. For NBER Subscriptions Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or write to "Subscriptions" at address above. ABSTRACT: Countries in which billionaire heirs' wealth is large relative to G.D.P. grow more slowly, show signs of more political rent-seeking, and spend less on innovation than do other countries at similar levels of development. In contrast, countries in which self-made entrepreneur billionaire wealth is large relative to G.D.P. grow more rapidly and show fewer signs of rent seeking. We argue that this is consistent with wealthy entrenched families having objectives other than creating public shareholder value. Also, the control pyramids through which they are entrenched give wealthy families preferential access to capital and enhanced lobbying power. Entrenched families also have a vested interest in preserving the value of existing capital. To investigate these arguments, we use firm-level Canadian data and cross country data. Heir-controlled Canadian firms show lower industry-adjusted financial performance, labor capital ratios, and RD than other firms of the same ages and sizes. Cross country data show that countries with more billionaire heirs' wealth are less open to inward foreign direct investment and have lower private-sector RD spending. We argue that concentrated, inherited corporate control impedes growth, and dub this "the Canadian disease." Further research is needed to determine the international incidence of this
[PEN-L:3302] Re: Canada
Doug, I wonder if they standardized for industry. Many of the heir controlled firms that I can think of are in old 'traditional' industries. (They have to be relatively old to be heir-controlled.) If they didn't, this could explain a lot of what they found. But: Cross country data show that countries with more billionaire heirs' wealth are less open to inward foreign direct investment and have lower private-sector RD spending. This strikes me as odd because Canada has a higher proportion of foreign investment than any other industrial country I believe. Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, Universityof Manitoba Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 10:22:37 -0500 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:3298] Canada Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Any experts on Canada want to comment? "Inherited Wealth, Corporate Control and Economic Growth: The Canadian Disease" BY: RANDALL MORCK University of Alberta DAVID A. STANGELAND University of Manitoba Department of Accounting Finance BERNARD YIN YEUNG University of Michigan Paper ID: National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 6814 Date: November 1998 Contact: RANDALL MORCK Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Alberta Edmonton T6G 2R6, Alberta CANADA Phone: (780)492-5683 Fax: (780)492-3325 Co-Auth: DAVID A. STANGELAND Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Manitoba Department of Accounting Finance Faculty of Management Winnipeg, MB CANADA, R3T 5V4 Co-Auth: BERNARD YIN YEUNG Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Michigan 701 Tappan Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234 USA Paper Requests: Full-Text Availability at http://www.nber.org/wwp.html Papers can be downloaded online for $5. Hard copies are $10 plus $10.00/order outside the USA. Prepayment required. NBER orders: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Checks, Mastercard, Visa and American Express to 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138. Phone:(617)868-3900. Fax:(617)349-3955. For NBER Subscriptions Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or write to "Subscriptions" at address above. ABSTRACT: Countries in which billionaire heirs' wealth is large relative to G.D.P. grow more slowly, show signs of more political rent-seeking, and spend less on innovation than do other countries at similar levels of development. In contrast, countries in which self-made entrepreneur billionaire wealth is large relative to G.D.P. grow more rapidly and show fewer signs of rent seeking. We argue that this is consistent with wealthy entrenched families having objectives other than creating public shareholder value. Also, the control pyramids through which they are entrenched give wealthy families preferential access to capital and enhanced lobbying power. Entrenched families also have a vested interest in preserving the value of existing capital. To investigate these arguments, we use firm-level Canadian data and cross country data. Heir-controlled Canadian firms show lower industry-adjusted financial performance, labor capital ratios, and RD than other firms of the same ages and sizes. Cross country data show that countries with more billionaire heirs' wealth are less open to inward foreign direct investment and have lower private-sector RD spending. We argue that concentrated, inherited corporate control impedes growth, and dub this "the Canadian disease." Further research is needed to determine the international incidence of this condition. Finally, heir-controlled Canadian firms' share prices fell relative to those of comparable firms on the news that the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement would be ratified. A key provision of that treaty is capital market openness. Under the treaty, heir-controlled Canadian firms' labor capital ratios rose, while the incidence of heir-control fell. We suggest that openness, especially of capital markets, may mitigate the ill effects of concentrated inherited control. If so, capital market openness matters for reasons not captured by standard international trade and finance models.
Re: Canada
Doug Henwood wrote: I hear this from a lot of Canadians - the implication being that Canada didn't have a debt problem. With a structural budget deficit of over 5% of GDP in 1991, net government interest payments also over 5% of GDP, and the second-highest net government debt position in the G-7 (after Italy), I'd say those are numbers too big to ignore. With a net international investment position of -41% of GDP in 1996, I'd say that Canada still has a debt problem. When you've got a big debt, your creditors call the shots, no? Or am I missing something here? I think the OECD numbers include government enterprises, and in Canada this means the provinically owned Hydros, who are very large borrowers, and so skew the comparison a bit if comparable utilities are not government owned. However there is no doubt that Canadian capitalism is a big borrower. It is also true that there was a tendency in the campaign against free trade to promote a near-conspiracy theory that the Bank of Canada interest rate hikes were part of a secret side deal to the FTA itself. In other words, the job losses were blamed on 'free' trade rather than reflecting something more fundamental about Canadian capitalism. Still, the articles at the time (including in the WSJ, that Tom Walker referred to) which compared Canada to Mexico and some other 'third' world countries are absurd. Linda McQuaig's book provides a great description of how this was a deliberate campaign to 'convince' us of the need for austerity. Canada may be a big borrower but it is also itself a major lender. Total outward FDI is only 5% less than inward FDI. And while total foreign liabilities are 1.7 times those of total foreign assets, this ratio has not increased *dramatically* compared to previous decades. Net foreign liabilities were 42% of GDP in 1996, but they also hit 42% in 1961. I don't have the figures at hand, but I'd be surprised if Canada's net foreign liabilities as a share of GDP have increased much more than that of the OECD average. Bill Burgess
Re: Canada
Doug Henwood wrote, I hear this from a lot of Canadians - the implication being that Canada didn't have a debt problem. With a structural budget deficit of over 5% of GDP in 1991, net government interest payments also over 5% of GDP, and the second-highest net government debt position in the G-7 (after Italy), I'd say those are numbers too big to ignore. With a net international investment position of -41% of GDP in 1996, I'd say that Canada still has a debt problem. When you've got a big debt, your creditors call the shots, no? Or am I missing something here? No, the implication isn't that Canada didn't/doesn't have a debt problem. The implication is that the source of the debt/deficit problem has been misrepresented and the dimensions of the problem have been used as a pretext to fry other fish. About 10% of federal government debt in Canada represents program spending in excess of revenues, the rest is interest on debt. That's about $540 billion interest on $60 billion of spending. Canada's debt is the product, not of profligate spending on social programs but of a decade and a half of right-wing fiscal and monetary policies -- high interest rates and tax give aways to corporations and high income individuals. One might speculate that social spending was maintained as long as it was in order to 1. smooth over the impact of the tax and monetary policies and 2. wait as political support for the social programs eroded (partly in response to changes in those programs). For several years, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has put out an alternative federal budget that would have reduced the deficit _faster_ than the announced schedule of the (finance minister) Martin deficit reduction but without the immense inequities. Obviously, this overlooks the political pressures that support those inequities. Maybe a fair tax system and a full employment policy in Canada would be sufficient grounds for a U.S. blockade. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ Know Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: Canada II
Valis wrote, In our Tom we have a raconteur smack in the tradition of Khrushchev, I always wanted to be a raconteur but I never felt quite avuncular enough. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ Know Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: Canada
Tom Walker wrote: The WSJ is only too modest. A key part of the massive propaganda campaign to help sell the austerity program was a Wall Street Journal article claiming that Canada was about to "hit the debt wall". That, coupled with a "leaked" IMF memo was trumpeted through the Canadian media as proof positive the sky was falling. They went along and they went along and they went along until they met a Wall Street fox . . . "We're going to tell the king the sky is falling," said Chicken Little, Ducky Daddles, Turkey Lurkey and Canada Goosey Loosey. I hear this from a lot of Canadians - the implication being that Canada didn't have a debt problem. With a structural budget deficit of over 5% of GDP in 1991, net government interest payments also over 5% of GDP, and the second-highest net government debt position in the G-7 (after Italy), I'd say those are numbers too big to ignore. With a net international investment position of -41% of GDP in 1996, I'd say that Canada still has a debt problem. When you've got a big debt, your creditors call the shots, no? Or am I missing something here? Doug
Re: Canada II
On Sat, 27 Dec 1997 Tom Walker recounted, in conclusion: They went along and they went along and they went along until they met a Wall Street fox . . . "We're going to tell the king the sky is falling," said Chicken Little, Ducky Daddles, Turkey Lurkey and Canada Goosey Loosey. "Follow me", said the Wall Street fox, "I know a short-cut to the king's palace." And I'll bet that short-cut runs right through www.butcherblock.com. In our Tom we have a raconteur smack in the tradition of Khrushchev, who populated his political parables with barnyard creatures and wildlife. However, I'm not sure this is a good example of continuity. valis
Re: Canada
From the Wall Street Journal article on Canada, Last-minute bad news helped Mr. Martin sell his controversial program. As the finance minister was about to stand to address a cabinet meeting where he expected opposition to the proposals, he was handed a note saying the Bank of Canada had boosted short-term interest rates a full percentage point in response to the peso crisis. The WSJ is only too modest. A key part of the massive propaganda campaign to help sell the austerity program was a Wall Street Journal article claiming that Canada was about to "hit the debt wall". That, coupled with a "leaked" IMF memo was trumpeted through the Canadian media as proof positive the sky was falling. They went along and they went along and they went along until they met a Wall Street fox . . . "We're going to tell the king the sky is falling," said Chicken Little, Ducky Daddles, Turkey Lurkey and Canada Goosey Loosey. "Follow me", said the Wall Street fox, "I know a short-cut to the king's palace." Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ Know Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: Canada
Doug, this is a classic case in which the operation was a success, but the patient died. It would be amusing if it weren't so tragic to see the maintstream media commentators doing back-to-back stories praising the government for its neoliberal economic policies, only to switch to heartfelt observations about how mean things are getting on Canada's streets, how the number of homeless is burgeoning, how Vancouver has the highest incidence of drug-related HIV infection in the developed world, etc. Happy Neoliberal Holidays to All, and to All a Good Night Sid Hey all you Canadians. You're always complaining about how bad things are up there in the Great White North. Today's Wall Street Journal sets the record straight - Canada is the envy of the G-7, a true austerity success story! Doug The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition - December 26, 1997 Canada Endured Tough Choices To End a Damaging Recession By LARRY M. GREENBERG, ROGER RICKLEFS and MARK HEINZL Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL TORONTO -- Fluke Transportation Group Ltd., a trucking company once owned by three brothers named Fluke, could always get a lift from its pithy slogan: "If it's on time, it's a Fluke." No slogan, however, could protect the Hamilton, Ontario, concern from Canada's devastating recession and austerity program of the early and mid-1990s. "I was really worried," says Ron Foxcroft, president and chief executive. "Employees came in every week saying a different neighbor got laid off. We had to cut costs to the bone." Spurred by its trials, the company refocused its operations and took advantage of free trade with the U.S. to push export business. Today, Mr. Foxcroft says, "we are just booming." The company, which had all of three trucks 15 years ago, now has 200 trucks and 500 trailers. Like Mr. Foxcroft and his company, Canada is back. The nation's recession was nearly twice as severe as its U.S. counterpart, but by some measures, its recovery has been even more successful. Though the recession technically ended in early 1991, its effects hindered Canada for years. Corporate restructuring was so severe that the unemployment rate rose for two years after the recession was over and reached 11.5% in 1993. Then the country had to endure a brutal program of government spending cuts to curb soaring budget deficits. The economy had a negative quarter as recently as 1995. Yet Canada today is growing more rapidly than any Group of Seven country and has an even lower inflation rate than the U.S. Economists expect Canada to achieve a balanced budget in the current fiscal year, ending March 31 -- well ahead of the U.S. "We have the strongest economy in the G7 this year, and I think there is a good chance we'll have the strongest next year," says Sherry S. Cooper, chief economist of Nesbitt Burns Inc., Toronto, the Bank of Montreal's securities arm. Some economists fear that Canada won't maintain the momentum, predicting the economy will slow next year because of Asia's financial problems, which have reduced the prices Canada gets for its huge exports of mining and forest products. Even Dr. Cooper has lowered her forecast for economic growth next year to 3.6% from 4%, and other economists are predicting growth of as low as 2.8%. Still, for now, signs abound that the Canadian economy is improving. The nation's central bank, the Bank of Canada, predicted in November that the economy would grow 4% this year. Job growth remains strong, as do retail sales. Meanwhile, the consumer price index has risen just 0.9% in a year. Sidelined for Years To get to their current state, Canadians had to struggle through a recession followed by an austerity program far tougher than anything Americans have suffered in the postwar era. People thrown out of work were often sidelined for years. Steelworker Shane Thomson lost his job at Dofasco Inc. in 1992 when the Hamilton steel producer laid off 2,000 employees. He didn't find steady work again until 1994. Even then, his new employer laid him off and rehired him twice in two years as its orders ebbed and flowed. "There were no luxuries, that's for sure," the father of three says of those lean years. Businesses also took a beating. According to industry figures, about 25% of Canada's manufacturers and about a third of its retailers closed their doors between 1989 and 1992. A decade ago, 22 companies made carpeting in Canada. But between the recession and increased competition from the U.S., only five are left, says W. Leslie Single, chairman and chief executive of Crossley Carpet Mills Ltd., in Truro, Nova Scotia. 'You Lose Sleep' "In 1993, there was some question whether or not our company would survive," Mr. Single recalls. The company was losing money, its employment had plunged
Decline and fall (was Re: Canada)
Dennis R Redmond concluded: It's like watching the Roman provinces going belly-up, one by one, only starring Japan and Central Europe as the heathen MicroGoths who are just beginning to grasp that the masters are now the servants. Let's just hope they show us more mercy than we've shown to Latin America. Money is not the whole story. Never was. Indeed, why should the home of Beavis and Butthead expect any leniency? That would be just another symptom of its cultural inferiority. One night in the early Sixties I lay on an upper bunk in a Dutch youth hostel listening to utter contempt being heaped upon "the Jeezuzz country" through a whole evening in at least four languages. Both vilifiers and targets were numerical fringe elements then; now each is fleshed out. We have fallen beneath a certain critical threshold here and are now producing more brute animals than people. There are moments when I feel that the highest expression of patriotism due America is the wish for its quick and merciful death, since it would resist revolution with all the manic strength of its ignorance and guilt. valis
Re: Canada
On Fri, 26 Dec 1997, Doug Henwood cross-posted from a WSJ story: Canada Endured Tough Choices To End a Damaging Recession By LARRY M. GREENBERG, ROGER RICKLEFS and MARK HEINZL Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL The country's growth rate declined to 2.3% in 1995 from 4.1% in 1994 and slid to 1.5% in 1996. One small note: Canada's much-trumpeted growth rates are pretty sickly when you consider the demographic factor -- Canada has one of the highest rates of population growth of any industrialized nation (around 1.3% or so, I assume due to plentiful immigration). Put another way, real Canadian wealth per capita went nowhere in 1996, and has crawled along at 1.5-2% rates in the 1990s -- not counting currency fluctuations. Meanwhile, the decline of the Canadian dollar to 70 U.S. cents from a recent peak of about 89 cents in 1991 has given Canadian exporters a big advantage. (The U.S. takes about 83% of Canada's exports.) Counting currency fluctuations, approximately 19% of the Canadian economy vanished into the nether gulfs of the foreign exchange markets, to be reborn elsewhere as more highly valued yen and euros. So that 2% annual increase in per capita GDP growth was really a 3% annual decrease. This is how neocolonies of former Empires fall to pieces: piece by piece. Moreover, household debt has soared to 97% of disposable personal income from 65% in 1991, Mr. Myers notes. The personal savings rate has plunged to less than 1% from 8.5% two years ago. [text cut] In addition, the unemployment rate has remained at 9% nationally despite the economic boom. While the boom creates jobs, restructuring eliminates them. And total government debt still equals about 100% of GDP, compared with 64% in the U.S., the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports. So all that austerity didn't work, after all; instead, a wild rentier credit boom, massive American trade deficits, a shame-faced, backdoor Keynesianism and of course an expansive American Federal Reserve policy were necessary to prevent our other protectorate (the first one being Puerto Rico) from completely imploding. It's like watching the Roman provinces going belly-up, one by one, only starring Japan and Central Europe as the heathen MicroGoths who are just beginning to grasp that the masters are now the servants. Let's just hope they show us more mercy than we've shown to Latin America. -- Dennis
[PEN-L:8963] Re: Canada and Cuba
Bill, Congratulations on completing your comprehensives! Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8956] Re: Canada and Cuba
Paul Phillips argues that I share Jesse Helm's criticism of Canada on
Cuba and that it hurts Cuba and Canada to suggest the latter's policy is
motivated by imperialist greed.
Well, I think Helms is right that Canada is putting it's own commercial
interests first. I think it is also worth putting the Helms-Burton
initiative in the context of growing trade tensions between the US and
its competitors including Canada but especially Europe.
The main disagreement Paul and I have is that he argues that
Canada's position ("our position") has been to support Cuba's right to
self-determination. I wish this was true (and have long worked for it to
be so), but it is not.
Like other imperialist powers the Canadian government opposes the
extraterritoriality of Washington's Cuba policy and shares the opinion of
most that the US embargo is not an effective tactic against Castro.
However, it shares Washington's basic aims in Cuba and has said so many
times, including while voting for the annual UN resolution against the US
embargo (where, incidently, it always focuses its criticism on the
extraterritoriality issue; I have never seen a clear statement opposing
the embargo in principle). Canada's ambassador to the US recently said
Canada agreed with the US on the need to establish "democracy, a free
market and human rights" in Cuba. I think we should recognize that these
words really mean "a return to capitalist exploitation".
When Foreign Affairs Minister Axworthy visited Cuba recently he played up
the human rights angle. This shows that Canada has come into line with the
December EU resolution on Helms-Burton that stated that a "democratic
system of government must be installed in Cuba as a matter of priority"
and that expanded aid and trade to Cuba would "depend on improvements in
human rights and freedom". This is not defence of self-determination, it
is using slanders on human rights to attack the Cuban revolution.
I'm sure Paul would agree how genuine the Canadian government's concern
for human and political rights is in s. Korea or Somalia, for example. Why
give them so much credit on Cuba? He points to the aid to Cuba financed
by the Canadian government, but it is an old story that where aid flows,
investments follow more easily. There is a widespread myth that Canada is
some kind of semi-colony that can identify with fellow victims of
imperialism. The truth is that Canadian investments abroad are even larger
than those of the US in relative terms.
I'm all in favour of Cuba taking every advantage of the split between the
US and Canada, and milking every diplomatic statement for all its worth.
However, it is our job here in Canada to be more frank about the
situation. I'm sure we agree
we should do everything we can to pressure the government for policies
favouring more trade and aid. But I don't think we can be very effective
here if we believe the government shares our support for the Cuban
people.
Finally, Steve Zahnister suggests the US policy is idiotic even from a
capitalist viewpoint, and is the result of internal US politics. I think
this approach is a serious mistake too. I think it minimizes how
consistant and deep the (bipartisan) hostility to Cuba has been since
1959, and so how important they feel it is to defeat the example of the
Cuban revolution. The problem is that Steve's approach tends to also
minimize the importance of solidarity with the Cuban revolution for us in
the US and Canada.
Bill Burgess
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
home (604) 255-5957
fax c/o (604) 822-6150
[PEN-L:3307] Re: Canada Warns (fwd)
A [The Boston Globe] Canada warns it will fight US anti-Castro measure Way to go Canada!! But tell me how much of this is principled stand and how much of it is simply money? Cheers, ajit sinha
Re: [PEN-L:3307] Re: Canada Warns (fwd)
On Mon, 11 Mar 1996, Ajit Sinha wrote: [The Boston Globe] Canada warns it will fight US anti-Castro measure Way to go Canada!! But tell me how much of this is principled stand and how much of it is simply money? I'll take this one. To answer the question directly, 0.0001% of the former and 99.% for the latter. The Canadian government clearly sees trade opportunities at stake, and has probably long been snickering that the more American companies are locked out by the embargo the more Canadian interests can exploit the Cuban market and resources. There's little real sympathy for Castro or the Cuban people, and a procession of humanitarian aid organizations and others attempting to establish friendlier relations with Cuba has had little official help over the years. Axworthy (external affairs minister) implied last week that it was simply a choice of the carrot over the stick and that freer trade and an opening up of Cuban markets would eventually erode Castro's base of support and bring him down. Hurrah for Canada, eh! Cheers, Chris Johnston (in St. Catharines, Ontario)
[PEN-L:2609] Re: Canada-Chile joint TU Statement
At 8:49 PM 1/24/96, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Who will give me what odds that either government will pay the slightest regards to human rights or international conventions? Paul: I'll give you any odds you want that the Canadian government will pay the slightest regards to human rights or international conventions. They'll look at it; they might mention it, and then they'll move on as if they hadn't seen it. Is that a bet? Blair ;-)
Re: Canada, via Barron's
On Sat, 10 Dec 1994, Doug Henwood wrote: .. 2) by the Calgary-based business writer George Koch, called "Canada's Newt: How Alberta's premier aims to cut government spending." It celebrates the budget cutting led by Ralph Klein, who is prortrayed in an accompanying cartoon as holding an ax. Government spending is being cut by 20% in nominal terms, and the aim is to cut the provincial government's spending from 18.3% of provincial product to 14.3% by 1997. According to Koch, Klein is quite popular, with an approval rating of 61%. Any comments? I am not at all sure why Ralph Klein gets so much approval. I know people in Alberta who complain bitterly about what he has done to social programs and I know the federal government is not happy with the fact that he has opened clinics for health care which actually charge some fees. Yet, from what I can gather, the polls are accurate - he has engendered the most hatred and the most loved response form different groups of people. Alberta has th elowest tax rates in all of Canada and has the most resources of any province in Canada, yet the people there seem relieved to get rid of debt - they were also the last province to go into debt (BC was about the same time). Maybe it is a mind set but I can assure you that the ROC (Rest of Canada) does not think along the same lines. If there is to be separation in Canada's future, I see it as being more feasible for Alberta to go than for Quebec (having lived in Alberta three years.
Re: Canada, via Barron's
And something else you should be aware of - Alberta's premier has taken Roger Douglas of New Zealand, the progenitor of the eponymous Rogernomics - as his model. Douglas' book was way up on the best seller lists in Canada for a long time. Douglas goes about billing himself as a socialist who is willing to make hard choices and face hard realities. One migh add that he is hardly a socialist, but Madison AVenue is all. Ellen J. Dannin California Western School of Law 225 Cedar Street San Diego, CA 92101 Phone: 619-525-1449 Fax:619-696-
