[PEN-L:10023] Re: Europe
My question was about overall harmonization of tax policy at the Europe-wide level. What's happening along those lines? What is preventing the advent of overall tax harmonization via Brussels? Sid > > > > > The autonomy of national governments is more of a > > hindrance > > > than not from at least one important standpoint: it makes more > > > difficult the harmonization of taxes, the alleviation of tax > > > competition, and a more effective taxation of capital. > > > > What about the wondrous phenomenon known as "harmonization"? > > I'm not sure what you're asking here, so if > you'll pardon the assumption that you don't know > whar tax harmonization is, I will define it. > term. > > Tax harmonization means that > political jurisdictions make more uniform their > tax rates and their definitions of tax bases, in > order to prevent competition for mobile taxable > transactions which makes it more difficult for > each to finance their public sectors. > > Right now the only object of tax harmonization > activity in the EU is the VAT, and even that has > a long way to go. In my view the benefits of > harmonizing the VATs are overstated, whereas > the importance of harmonizing capital taxes is > being neglected. The ascendance of > social-democracy notwithstanding, my > impression is that capital is taxed more > heavily in the U.S. than in Europe. I've doing > some work on EU tax policy, if anyone is > interested. > > MBS > > > == > Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute > [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 > 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW > 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 > > Opinions here do not necessarily represent the > views of anyone associated with the Economic > Policy Institute. > === >
[PEN-L:10022] Re: globalization
James Devine wrote: > However, in the late part of the 19th century, a period of DEglobalization > started. The US and Germany led the way toward nation-based > industrialization, backed by strong restrictions on trade. Yes and no. Both countries tried to build up their industrial structures through protectionisn, but at the same time, in the U.S. at least, there was a big thrust toward imperialism, movitated in part by a desire for export markets. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10021] The prison and ideology..........
The prison, as a feature of the democratic capitalist state, does not exist to help eliminate crime. Capitalism is not concerned with the elimination of crime despite its hypocritical outpourings to the contrary. Indeed crime is the pretext for maintaining the prison. Crime performs an important and perhaps even necessary role in capitalist society. The prison under contemporary democratic society plays an ideological, political and stabilizing role: The prison has a ideological or hegemonic function. Its ideological function is to create the illusion among the masses that crime does not pay and that convicted criminals are duelly punished for their crimes. The illusion is also created that prison as a penal institution assists in the so called fight against crime. In this way the illusion is promoted that capitalist democratic society is concerned to combat and even eliminate crime against the masses. This ideology both hides and perpetuates popular support fo the existence of the prison as a form of oppression. The prison is a political institution. The prison exists to incarcerate and crush the leaders and organizers of any mass popular rising against capitalism and its state. Under such conditions the prison will be largely emptied of its convicted criminals to make room for revolutionaries especially since the former gnererally only serve the ideological interests alluded to. It is this dimension of the prison that is never highlighted. The prison exists too in order to help prevent crime reaching a scale whereby it threatens the relatively smooth functioning of capital accumulation and of capitalist society itself. Karl Carlile
[PEN-L:10020] wave of autism
Over last weekend, I attended the convention of the Autism Society of California (because my son has a relatively mild case). One fact jumped out: autism is becoming more common. It's hard to separate the case of a neurological/psychological problem like this becoming more common vs. the case where researchers become more conscious of the problem, but research by Dr. Christopher Gilberg in Sweden (where researchers have more resources [*]) suggests strongly that it is becoming more common. (Perhaps similar illnesses like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder are also becoming more common?) Dr. Mary Coleman, a psychiatrist presented a talk that suggested why autism may be becoming more common. Autism is not really a disease as much as a collection of symptoms that has several causes. Several of these causes may explain why autism is becoming more prevalent: infections and toxic chemicals. Infections like Rubella may lead to autism, but another cause can be fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal cocaine syndrome. Pollution may be a cause: Dr. Michael Goldberg emphasized the role of immune system disfunction as a cause of the recent wave of autism. In that case, pollution can play an obvious cause, along with such things as over-use of anti-biotics and misuse of innoculations. Though this phenomenon can affect people in all walks of life, it is pretty obvious that the rise of autism will hit the poor hardest, just as AIDS is now hitting the poor hardest. After all, the concentration of toxins in poor neighborhoods is pretty evident. [*] BTW, the people at the conference were almost yelling "it's time to move there" when they heard about the benefits that parents of kids with disabilities get in Sweden. -- Jim Devine
[PEN-L:10019] globalization
Terry Mc Donough writes:>>Crudely summarizing the anti-global position...: Globalization is ... nothing new. Whatever is novel about the current period, it shouldn't be characterized as globalization. The first contention is undoubtedly true, and would have to be conceded by globalization proponents...<< Much as I agree with the rest of Terry's contentions in his missive, it should be stressed that when discussing such matters, one's _frame of reference_ (to use a phrase from physics) is crucial. Whether or not "globalization" is new depends on what time period one is comparing it to and what nation you're talking about. One might say that nothing is new, if one compares the capitalism that Marx and Engels wrote about with the current situation. It could easily be argued that the era of the 1990s represents simply an extrapolation of the globalization that was occuring from the 1830s or so until the 1890s. (In fact, there's at least one book which compares globalization then and globalization now and concludes that nothing much has changed.) However, in the late part of the 19th century, a period of DEglobalization started. The US and Germany led the way toward nation-based industrialization, backed by strong restrictions on trade. This trend widened until the 1930s, when even the UK joined the crowd, focussing on growth within the "sterling block," basically the empire (since they no longer could win in the "free trade" game and the world market had collapsed in the early 1930s). The world split between currency blocks, including the French-led gold block. (To a large extent, deglobalization is what Karl Polanyi is talking about when he discusses society's reaction to the overextension of markets in THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION.) The Nazis (among others) took the idea of national capitalism to the extreme, with autarchic policies (allowed to work partly via expansion of the geographical spread of their empire). Many third world countries (especially but not only in Latin America) pursued strategies of import-substituting industrialization, starting in the 1930s. In the 1940s, on the other hand, the deglobalization process was reversed. The US policy elite, among others, started pushing REglobalization. That has been a major policy focus for more than 50 years: Bretton Woods, including GATT, has always been about globalization. (There are some good reasons behind this effort, such as the avoidance of the 1930s-type trade wars. As Bukharin had pointed out, the political economy encouraged both trade wars and bloody wars like the two World ones.) Nonetheless, the because of its size (and the size of its internal market) US could follow a policy of national industrialization in the 1950s and 1960s. Other countries -- such as the UK -- attained globalization earlier. (I think that it is Kolko who provided evidence for how the US used the UK's poor situation after WW II to get the UK to immerse itself in the world market. This encouraged the stop-go pattern of the UK's growth process, among other things.) The limits of income-substituting industrialization efforts hit. With the "oil crisis" and especially the "debt crisis," the World Bank and the IMF have been able to use their leverage to knock down the "chinese walls" of third-world barriers to trade. Other countries, such as South Korea and Taiwan, were able to use luck and (to a lesser extent) pluck to use globalization (export-led growth) strategies to gain a piece of the global pie, encouraging others to imitate them (or to advocate such imitation). The reglobalization policies of the post-WW2 era bore fruit (though not for the vast majority of the world's population) in the 1980s and 1990s. They interacted with, and reinforced, the normal tendency for capitalism to globalize (which had been noted by Marx and Engels and had been repressed by the deglobalization effort). -- Jim Devine
[PEN-L:10018] Re: Europe
> From: D Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [PEN-L:10008] Re: Europe > > > The autonomy of national governments is more of a > hindrance > > than not from at least one important standpoint: it makes more > > difficult the harmonization of taxes, the alleviation of tax > > competition, and a more effective taxation of capital. > > What about the wondrous phenomenon known as "harmonization"? I'm not sure what you're asking here, so if you'll pardon the assumption that you don't know whar tax harmonization is, I will define it. term. Tax harmonization means that political jurisdictions make more uniform their tax rates and their definitions of tax bases, in order to prevent competition for mobile taxable transactions which makes it more difficult for each to finance their public sectors. Right now the only object of tax harmonization activity in the EU is the VAT, and even that has a long way to go. In my view the benefits of harmonizing the VATs are overstated, whereas the importance of harmonizing capital taxes is being neglected. The ascendance of social-democracy notwithstanding, my impression is that capital is taxed more heavily in the U.S. than in Europe. I've doing some work on EU tax policy, if anyone is interested. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:10017] RE: Globalization
What seems to me to be downplayed in the economists' discourse about globalization is what is emphasized by business school types like Michael Jensen and Robert Hughes at Harvard. Is it not quite significant that plants in the third world are now up to 85% productive as US plants (Jensen); isn't is it this which is new about globalization? This seems to me to be more significant that the changes brought on by decreases in telecommunications and transportation costs. About a year ago in *Challenge*, Hughes argued that the intensity required by new production systems is often not tolerated by American workers and that productivity is therefore sometimes higher now in the third world plants. It is true that wages will doubtless increase abroad but largely as a compensation for the destruction of human beings through the intensification of labor, an intensification which may be difficult to impose on American workers whose wages are thus bound to fall. Thus I do not think, as Krugman claims, there will be an equilibriating effect for American workers from the rise in the wages of third world workers. Rakesh
[PEN-L:10016] The floating vote..............
Comrades: There has been very recently a general election in the UK in which the British Labour Party won an enormous majority in the House of Commons and now forms the current government there. In the Irish R epublic an election will more than likely take place sometime in June of this year. Some reflection on the character of these elections is opportune: The general elections are a fight for the floating vote. The election is generally fought and won over a minority of the electorate: the floating electorate. This element within the electorate tends to be fickle. It tends to vote this way or that for the most fickle of reasons such as the facial features of candidates or some such superficial characteristic. It is this element within the elector ate to which the party political image industry has most impact. The image and showbiz characteristic of modern elections is, in a sense, a function of the need to win over this element within the el ectorate. Since it is among the least political element of the voting electorate the floating electorate makes or breaks governments on the basis of secondary and superficial matters. This tends to give elect ion campaigns a more superficial character. The elections are won or loss in the marginal constituencies. And these marginals are won or loss on the basis of the how the floating vote turns. In short a small minority of the electorate, in a se nse, dictate the kind of government and even society we are to have. It is to this minority that the official politicians direct most of their attention. This minority increasingly determines the cha racter of politics during the campaign and the character of media coverage during it. The floating vote appears to be increasing and is becoming a bigger element in elections for a number of reasons. The shift of the main parties to what is questionably called the centre is a factor i n this. If there exists little difference between the principal political actors on the electoral stage then clearly their success at the polls will tend to be a product of secondary superficial fact ors such as image, style and personality. Since the differences between the contestants are marginal the contest tends to be grounded increasingly on marketing, on creating the illusion of real diffe rence. As a result of this the election is fought and won on the basis of superficial issues. This means that election campaigns are increasingly trivialised so that debate turns around superficial a nd derivative matters while the fundamental issues tend to be increasingly submerged under a mountain of trivia such as Tony Blair's football skills in relation to Kevin Keegan (the logic being that if you are good a football you are politically good). Instead of the election contributing to the increased politicisation of the populace the opposite dynamic takes place. Consequently politics tend s to turn around superficial issues. People increasingly begin to think that superficial issues is the meaning of politics. As the fundamental issues retreat into the background superficial issues ar e, in a sense, transformed into their opposite, fundamental issues. On the other hand fundamental issues are turned into their opposite, superficial issues. This is why it almost considered Neanderth al and even kitsch to raise issues such as the need to eliminate market relations. Politics then turns into anti-politics. Politics looses becomes meaningless: the postmodernist's dream (buckets of w ee signifiers emancipated from signification!). What is called politics is no longer politics. Consequently the politicians elected into government are less and less politicians but theatrical figur es from puppitry. As this trend develops the real politics increasingly takes place behind the backs of the people. The invisible figures in upper echelons of the state and certain other capitalist i nstitutions makes the real politics. Consequently the difference between the political parties continuously diminishes since they are constrained by the politics as prescribed by the invisible cliques such as the invisible administrator s of the state and parastatal bodies such as the European Commission which are an expression of the objective necessities of world capitalism. The official politicians are the "frontmen" there to dis tract our attention while the significant activity takes place behind the world stage curtain. In short the election campaigns rather than contributing towards increased politicisation forms part of a depoliticisation process: a retreat form the Enlightenment tradition. The above are but tentative observations on general elections in Ireland, Gt. Britain and possibly elsewhere. Karl
[PEN-L:10015] RE: Globalization
I already apologized to Laurie offline for having gotten nasty; I'll repeat the apology now in public. Sorry; I should reserve the nastiness for the enemies of the people. Anyway, to respond to a specific point: Laurie Dougherty wrote: >Taking the recent telecoms figures >you posted as an example, I actually started to poke around in the BLS >data on telecommunications, but the 2 digit level SIC includes tv & >radio and there is more than one 3 digit code that might reasonably >be included. I gave up. The figures don't include manufacturing; they're "telephone communications," under the utility classification. The figures ex-TV & radio are substantially identical to the larger category. Doug
[PEN-L:10014] Poverty In Peru
Much has been made by the bourgeoisie about the "economic miracles" taking place in Latin America. The Fujimori government in Peru has been touted as an example of a leader taking the 'tough but necessary' economic choices. However, the anti-social offensive which has been unleashed against the Peruvian people by the Fujimori government, with the full support of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, etc., has been devastating. Official estimates put the number of Peruvians living in extreme poverty at almost 50 percent. In the Andes highlands, nearly 70 percent of the population are living in poverty, with 45.5 percent not getting enough to eat. There is no electricity or running water. Figures are similar for the vast Amazon jungle. Those who move to Lima generally end up in the barrios that surround the city. While unemployment officially is less than 10 per cent, the government estimates that less than half the work force is fully employed. Although President Fujimori claims to have done much in his few years in office to improve the standard of living for Peruvians, the main beneficiaries have been the richest 15 percent of the population, while the gap between the rich and the poor has widened. Shawgi Tell University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10013] 350,000 Quebec Families Live In Poverty
The devastating impact of the capitalist system in Quebec was evidenced in a study released May 6 by the Ministry of Security and Revenue showing that Quebec has the highest concentration of families living in poverty in Canada. Overall, 16.4% of Quebec families live in poverty, or 350,000, compared to 14.5% in the Atlantic provinces. The situation is especially terrible for single parent families _ 60%, or three in five single parent families live in poverty. And 97% of single parent families headed by a woman of 25 years or younger live in poverty. "The majority of young mothers are poor," the study states. The study also notes that a high percentage of seniors also live in poverty, roughly 34%. Shawgi Tell University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10012] Re: putting latest on Pen-L
Original message Some further notes on globalization issues (Ed Herman, May 7): Some of the left controversy on globalization is about the political effects of positions taken, some is about questions of fact and analysis regarding the extent and impact of globalization. My feeling is that attitudes toward the former are often important in shaping the selection of facts and associated analysis. Although I don't exclude myself from this implied criticism, I want to make a few further observations on both the politics and facts, hoping to learn from the exchanges as well as to clarify one perspective on the economic and political realities. On the politics of the focus on globalization, on one side are people who claim that such focus--and its stress on the weakening of state power--are demobilizing, and, as Wood expresses it, "serves as an excuse for the most complete defeatism and for the abandonment of any kind of anti-capitalist project." On the other side are those (including me) who contend that (1) if globalization is an important fact and does weaken state power we have to confront this straightforwardly; and (2) that it does not demobilize, because it can be attacked by the same kind of organizational and political activity necessary for effective action if globalization did not exist, and the force of nationalism can be used to confront globalization processes. It is true that the facts of globalization can be presented in a way that suggests inevitability and the futility of resistance, and can be used to justify down-sizing, but the same may be said of non-globalization related developments like restructuring and domestic capital's bargaining down of local governments and relocations supposedly dictated by technology and competition. The use of globalization in making such arguments is no reason to attack the use of the concept. I disagree with the view that a stress on globalization deflects attention from its causes, and that the "quest for higher profits and stock prices" is more germane than globalization itself. If one focuses on globalization, its elements and causes immediately enter the discussion--trade, FDI, financial flows, the organization of production, the drives and capabilities of TNCs, and their effects on policy and welfare must follow; and they are important forms taken in the "quest for higher profits and stock prices" in modern times. On the political implications of denial and acceptance, I stand by my point that denial of globalization's importance is part of the conservatives intellectual arsenal, because if globalization is making a substantial contribution to the death of social democracy--and numerous bankers and rightwingers speaking to their "comradely herds of piglets" crow about this effect--this is a crushing indictment of globalization and must be denied. If, on the other hand, globalization is modest in effects and "natura non facit saltum," and nothing is "out of the control" of democratic forces (a point I contested in my Globalization in Question), then- -not to worry. If globalization does work to destroy the state's ability to serve ordinary citizens, why can't we use this fact to mobilize opposition to detrimental structures and policies? Denying it weakens our power to mobilize such opposition. On the effects of globalization on the power of the state, there seem to be serious differences, but some appear grounded heavily on the fear of destruction of the "anti-capitalist project." The fact that the state can still act and that democratic forms persist, so that we can presumably vote capital out of office, strikes me as no basis for any conclusion whatever. In my Globalization piece I stress the asymmetry in the state's ability to act--it can do so without trouble if serving the TNCs, but is now consistently and easily stymied when serving a social-democratic purpose; so citing its ability to act for the TNCs hardly makes the case for continued unimpaired state power. And the formal democracy has become less substantive as globalization has advanced (although it is hardly the sole factor in this decline), making the "problem of transition" to social democracy itself more problematic. A number of those who deny the importance of globalization effects give a lot of attention to the huge growth of finance and the globalization of financial business. But they seem reluctant to acknowledge that this is part of the globalization process and has had significant effects on the power of states, compelling macro- policies serving financial (and TNC) interests and damaging ordinary citizens. We await Doug Henwood's book on Wall Street for enlightenment on this, but in his reply to Sid Shniad he is a bit vague on "malignant" effects, asking "how, precisely, is it malignant, though?," and noting the complexity of evaluation as evidenced by the fact that speculators did a service in 199
