Thanks Gernot
My thoughts are that there is is obviously a lot of idealism and even utopianism here, but it is not purely reactionary if it is taken up by progressive forces in the world.
At first sight the class composition of those who attend the United Nations is not favourable: almost by definition the privileged classes and strata from every country, used to the arts of compromise and sycophancy.
Nevertheless some of them will have had an education in their youth as part of the global intelligentsia, and may have worked in cafes or on the taxis to help pay for a university course in a rich country, or may have had a close friend from Africa who died of AIDS.
Much will depend on whether other people pick up these themes. But if they have surfaced on this list, it is possible that somewhere in the vast internet, they have surfaced on ten other mailing lists in the last year, and you may know of one of the links.
Glancing at the formulations I would say, the definition of property is crucial from a marxist or socialist point of view. Does it include the means of production as private property? Or can the law at least be amended to note social democratic or christian democratic assumptions that the means of production occur in a social context and entail a social responsibility and a responsibility to the environmen?. When I was in the Anti-Apartheid boycott movement for a number of years, it was interesting how Shell adapted its annual general meetings to include a section for Environmental Responsibility, which was supposed to distract from our heckling, but in a way was part of a wider social agenda. A small wedge but the point is that bourgeois law about property rights can be a terrain of battle, and it is possible for a reformist government to require every company to produce a social audit as well as a financial audit.
and article 23
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
a surprisingly socialist principle.
How could that start to be addressed on a world scale where the discepancy in wages has risen to 30 fold?
But it must be.
Of course one of the answers has to be management of the global economy in such a way as to counteract the centripetal tendencies of the law of uneven capitalist accumulation. Just as big capitalist states redistribute capital to the economic peripheries, either by development funds or pork-barrel politics, so in order to preserve a veil of decency over ruthless global capitalism the system needs people like Tony Blair to make a fuss about redistributing a fraction of global development to Africa.
- a couple of reactions.
But Gernot do you know of any energy or momentum behind any ideas like these?
Regards
Chris
----- Original Message ----- From: "g kohler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 3:43 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] economics and class struggle behind legal victory
As I had it handy, I am attaching an excerpt from the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights, namely the articles dealing with economic rights. As an example, it could be argued that anything and everything the Zapatistas have been doing to date has been within the scope of the economic human rights catalogued in this declaration. Gernot
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from the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights - Economic Rights (articles 17, 22 - 25)
Article 17. (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 22. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 23. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
in reply to: ------------------------------- To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: economics and class struggle behind legal victory. From: Chris Burford Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004
---> snip
