Ok, Blair, what's your line on this then?!
Doug, do you have any of those debt ratios at the global scale? I recall
the Bank for International Settlements did several major papers on this
during the late 1980s, showing dramatically rising consumer, corporate
and government debt burdens. Same story here in South Africa.
By the way, global
Maybe this is stuff you've already covered... but anyhow,
The most vigorous debate on this, I recall, was Vicente Navarro versus
Barbara and John Ehrenreich (who argued your position), during the
1970s, and I know that Vicente continues to use the conceptual
problems involved to reflect upon the
Please circulate widely...
STATEMENT BY THE
Campaign Against Neoliberalism in South Africa
On the South African visit by
IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus
16 October 1996
As members of
Does anyone have anything good, including from a feminist standpoint?
Please reply privately...
Thanks comrades!
Patrick Bond
National Institute for Economic Policy, Johannesburg
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Walter Daum [EMAIL PROTECTED] 16/September/1996
12:23am
I should have made my intent clearer. I'm interested in finding out
whether superexploitation has been used to mean
1) paying wages below the level of subsistence, or
2) getting proportionately more surplus value out of workers in relation
Been there done that Doug. Jonathan Feldman's book on Universities in
the Business of Repression (South End Press 1989 I think).
If Berger in Norway is crude, in South Africa he's worse because he fits
neatly into the white elite's agenda of disguising their local culture of
privilege as international common-sense. When in Johannesburg he
hangs with the "Urban Foundation" crowd that Anglo American
Corporation (our
Thanks to comrades for good feedback on privatisation in South Africa.
The public debate will heat up again within a few weeks and I'll keep the
list posted. We may see another threat of a general strike (as proved
very successful last December), or continuing sectoral actions by unions
affected.
Ok Jim, here's one or two for you, from chilly Johannesburg.
Opened Business Day, our WSJ-equivalent, today and found a couple of
interesting items. One was a report (originally in the FT) that Haiti's
popular movement is keeping pressure on the turncoat successor to
Jean-Bertrand Aristide; as
14 Aug 1996
Announcing a new journal from South Africa...
DEBATE:
VOICES FROM THE SOUTH AFRICAN LEFT
*First issue now available - subscription info below
***Lead editorial reprinted at the bottom of this message***
Some South African social policy wonks are trying to think through this
approach, because it has a very real bearing on strategies and tactics in
the present period.
For example, Mzwanele Mayekiso's book Township Politics (Monthly
Review, 1996) concretises struggles for decommodified housing and
From Jo'burg it was good to see Sid's post on this issue.
Just spent yesterday in our new Constitutional Court trying to help write
out corporate fundamental rights from the Bill of Rights; Ralph Nader has
been exceptionally helpful in putting this onto the agenda here, pointing
out the many
Best lines on South Africa's political economy I've seen
recently are from Jeremy Cronin (SA Communist Party deputy
secretary general) in today's New Nation newspaper:
On the day of the announcement of the National Party pull-
out from government, FW de Klerk made an astonishing
comment.
n trainers are
available. Transport, lodging and board can be arranged on a
case-by-case basis.
If anyone has interest or knows anyone appropriate, please be in
touch with me ***before November 1*** at [EMAIL PROTECTED], or
phone 1-410-614-2279.
Ciao!
Patrick Bond
Johns Hopkins University
If anyone's interested I recently penned an article for African
Agenda, a progressive new magazine out of Accra/Jo'burg, on how US
Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are viewing the aid cuts. I
don't actually know Food First's latest position, but there are
certainly many good folk in outfits
How about this for a country cousin to Tom W.'s suggestion for
socializing the gains, not just the losses, caused by intervention of
- not the state in this case - the collective will.
The limited equity housing cooperative movement (also variously known
and tied to community land trusts, mutual
Sorry, that last line in the preceeding advert should have read
`social relations of consumption' not production. Though usually the
sweat equity component of the rehab work is also socialized (and is
gender and generationally sensitive too)...
On this matter of contradictory tendencies, there is a broad theory
of uneven development (see, eg, Neil Smith's 1984/1990 Blackwell book
of the same name) which incorporates the problem within Marxist
theory. There's a debate, I recall, about whether you locate this -
and disproportionality more
Interestingly, the Left within South Africa's trade unions tried to
push the "wealth tax" idea to fund reconstruction and development,
but were quickly shot down; instead an additional 5% income tax was
imposed as a once-off in 1994, with other minor adjustments this year
to what is becoming the
ances into alignment.
To close, I'll be cheekier yet: I know there're at least two PEN-L
comrades lurking at National Community Reinvestment Coalition and
National Low Income Housing Coalition who probably have some ideas on
intellectual strategy and tactics which I'm anxious to learn of...
Patrick Bond
conference, with a campaign to force default on the $20 bn
apartheid foreign debt...
Patrick Bond, Johns Hopkins
for capitalism
with `a human face' when the going gets interesting...
Born in Belfast and therefore instinctively an atheist,
Patrick Bond
economists explored these relationships in the US?
But if you do have cause and effect backwards, Trond, does that
matter for your broader argument about polarization? Probably not...
Patrick Bond
Johns Hopkins
Oh, also, on the debt forgiveness/default issue, I've just returned
from a two day Friends of the Earth seminar on the IMF, which
included a long discussion of how NGOs could engage in high-level
debates over managing the debt crisis in this mutual fund era.
There were some interesting papers
ross space and across time
(through credit), and to determine the stage at which the capacity to
displace crisis wanes.
(Final point: Christian Suter's 1992 _Debt Cycles in the World
Economy_, from Westview I think, is the kind of reference Trond may
be looking for...)
Ciao!
Patrick Bond, Johns Hopkins
Just phoned Leach's committee, and was informed that in addition to
the pro-bailout Administration witnesses, they rapidly put a critics
panel together, including Ralph Nader (with Arthur Laffer and Brent
Scowcroft).
One out of six ain't bad.
Comrades, I second Cindy on this. (Sorry, a re-intro: I'm a
social policy wonk just returned from South Africa, now based at
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.)
Interestingly, around 1990 the SA Left came up with the neat
slogan, "strong but slim state," in order to characterize a
desired
expectations and credulity... Patrick Bond
JOHANNESBURG Nov 22 Sapa
Answering audience questions following an address by President
Nelson Mandela at a business breakfast on Tuesday, ANC Trade and
Industry Minister Trevor Manuel said the government considered
both policies -- nationalisation
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