Re: correction-Blaut-A.G.Frank
In general I see a tendency to let capitalism's moral crimes and despoilation of the environment obscure the advances it brought in terms of productive capacity. The latter doesn't justify the former, but the former does not negate the latter either. Cheers, MBS OK, yes. But why the fetishization of "productive capacity". Here, the means seem much more important than the ends. Means: capactity; ends: humans, qulaity of life, etc. (sorry for the lapse into moral philosophy). But, one must not assume (you weren't, I suppose) that: - in all places in the colonies/neocolonies such "advances" were actually occuring - or if they were occuring they were doing ANYTHING positive for anyone ouside of the enclaves, or even within the enclave in certain instances - even as they did occur, they weren't bringing with them horrendous externatilities for "the rest", that is those not "advanced" or benefitted; in the hinterlands of the enclaves. Example: when the hinterlands (containing ayllus, etc.) for colonial mines were reorganized to supply the mines, the people often saw a fall in food security. Negate the latter (advances) no; but what the latter were good for in the short or long run is open to question. Tom - Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ken Starr
Apologies to all you non-USers - and maybe a few USers too - who don't share the present obsession with Tailgate. Concerning Maggie's suggestion that this is all a Billary plot to discredit Ken Starr - it may be attributing a bit too much PR skill to them to think they planned it, but the poll numbers seem to be spinning their way. From another list... Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:28:47 -0600 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Current news reports on Public Opinion towards Clinton -Reply In response to your question about polling on Kenneth Starr, Gallup (with CNN and USA Today) has asked several questions about Starr and for the most part people are divided in their views of his operation. They seem to have become more negative in the past couple of days. His favorable and unfavorable ratings were about equal over the past weekend (an average of about 25% fav to 25% unfav), until last night's poll when they were 20% fav to 38% unfav. Last night's poll also showed more people believe Star is "using the political justice system to try to achieve political ends" (53%) than believe that he is "conducting a fair and impartial investigation into legitimate issues related to President Clinton" (28%). When the whole Lewinsky affair first came to light, a one-night poll (January 21) showed 45% who felt Starr's investigation was being conducted in a fair manner, while 31% said unfair. At that time, Starr's ratings were 17% favorable, 15% unfavorable. (In all cases where the figures to not total to 100%, the balance is the % who had no opinion.) Many of our results are posted on the web, and both CNN and USA Today have websites with latest poll results as well. For the Gallup website, click on http://www.gallup.com ). David David W. Moore The Gallup Organization 47 Hulfish Street Princeton, NJ 05842 (609) 924-9600 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Greenspan's commentat Jan 29, 98 05:29:44 pm
Sid Shniad wrote: I'm surprised he's that frank. ;-) Sid 10:32 GREENSPAN: SAYS MODEL OF US SL SITUATION APPLICABLE TO ASIA. I wonder if he's including events like his letter swearing that Charles Keating was an honest guy and a good banker, for which he was reportedly paid $20,000. That's not unlike the authorities' seal of approval given Indonesia and Thailand as the foreign capital was flowing in. Doug
Re: correction-Blaut-A.G.Frank
From: Thomas Kruse [EMAIL PROTECTED] In general I see a tendency to let capitalism's moral crimes and despoilation of the environment obscure the advances it brought in terms of productive capacity. The latter doesn't justify the former, but the former does not negate the latter either. MBS TK: OK, yes. But why the fetishization of "productive capacity". Here, the Well, obviously the distribution of economic well-being--the ends you refer to--is not capitalism's long suit. It's simply a matter of noting the limits but also the extent of accomplishment. means seem much more important than the ends. Means: capactity; ends: humans, qulaity of life, etc. (sorry for the lapse into moral philosophy). Sure. But, one must not assume (you weren't, I suppose) that: - in all places in the colonies/neocolonies such "advances" were actually occuring - or if they were occuring they were doing ANYTHING positive for anyone ouside of the enclaves, or even within the enclave in certain instances - even as they did occur, they weren't bringing with them horrendous externatilities for "the rest", that is those not "advanced" or benefitted; in the hinterlands of the enclaves. Example: when the hinterlands (containing ayllus, etc.) for colonial mines were reorganized to supply the mines, the people often saw a fall in food security. I don't disagree with any of this. Without claiming any expertise, I would venture the suggestion that the diversity of outcomes in all of the terms you raise cut against a theory that capitalism uniformly loots colonial areas to make possible its survival, as per baby Marxism/Leninism. Negate the latter (advances) no; but what the latter were good for in the short or long run is open to question. Nor with this, though I lean to the skeptical on the 'sustainability' critique. Incidentally, I enjoyed your travelogue a great deal. MBS === Max B. SawickyEconomic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200 202-775-0819 (fax)Washington, DC 20036 http://tap.epn.org/sawicky Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute other than this writer. ===
Re: Ecology and the American Indians
Date sent: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:00:27 -0500 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Ecology and the American Indians Ricardo Duchesne: To accuse agrarian civilizations of ecological malpractice is simply anachronistic. To say that they collapsed because of over-exploitation of resources is another issue... What is your problem, Duchesne? You said: "An excellent source on the Mayan collapse is Culbert, T.P. If I recall, he argues, it was environmental-overexploitation." What is the difference between ecological malpractice and environmental-overexploitation? Are we speaking the same language? Are we both on the planet earth? Concerns about the ecological practices of Indians is connected to but not the same as the Malthusian-Ricardian theory of diminishing returns. Finally, in response to my statement that "it is immoral to steal people's land and murder them in the process," you ask, "How do you know it is "immoral"? That's easy. I just do. Yea, just do it. This is an individualistic-anarchical approach to ethics which is contradictory and self- defeating, for what if I don't do it? ricardo (Is this the kind of drivel that we find in academia nowadays? How do we know theft and murder are immoral? I used to have discussions like this in 9th grade in High School. How do you really know that we exist? Maybe we are just dreaming? God, I'm glad I'm making a honest living as a computer programmer.) Louis Proyect
Re: Andre Gunder Frank, 1 of 3
Date sent: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:54:35 -0500 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Andre Gunder Frank, 1 of 3 The following passages are said to be excerpted from the introduction and conclusion of ReORIENT: GLOBAL ECONOMY IN THE ASIAN AGE, by Andre Gunder Frank Frank: Martin Bernal (1987) has shown how, as part and parcel of European colonialism in the nineteenth century, Europeans invented a historical myth about their allegedly purely European roots in "democratic" but also slave holding and sexist Greece, whose own roots in turn however are those of Black Athena. This Bernal thesis, apparently against the original intentions of its author, has been used in turn to support The Afrocentric Idea (Asante 1987). In fact, the roots of Athens were much more in Asia Minor, Persia, Central Asia and other parts of Asia than in Egypt and Nubia. To compromise and conciliate, we could say that they were and are primarily Afro-Asian. However, European "Roots" were of course by no means confined to Greece and Rome [nor to Egypt and Mesopotamia before them]. The roots of Europe extended into all of Afro-Eurasia since time immemorial. The contending point here is the word "roots". Every civilization has roots somewhere, and we should not be surprised if those Ancient Greece lie in the Middle East, given that the lands surrounding the Aegean Sea are located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, which meant that early Greek settlers were in constant touch with the earlier, more advanced, civilizations of the East. The question is whether the Greeks borrowed everything from the East, or made their own distinctive contribution? It is not simply they added to what others had said; their legacy was they were not satisfied with whatever truth they learned from tradition or was revealed by the gods, but insisted that men find out for themselves, by the use of their own reason, what truth is. And, despite the obvious interactions of civilizations, we can say "eastern" and "western" insofar as Greek ideas were preserved and adapted by the Romans and eventually spread across Europe in the Middles Ages. Frank: Yet as Blaut points out, in 1492 or 1500 Europe still had no advantages of any kind over Asia and Africa, nor did they have any distinctively different "modes of production." In 1500 and even later, there would have been no reason to anticipate the triumph of Europe or its "capitalism" three and more centuries later. The sixteenth and seventeenth century development of economic, scientific, rational "technicalism" that Hodgson regards as the basis of the subsequent major "transmutation" nonetheless also occurred, as he insists, on a world-wide basis and not exclusively or even especially in Europe. A complex question like this cannot be settled in pen-l. Just two points: 1) Just as China had abolished ocean exploration in the 15th century, little backward Portugal established an institute for the advanced study of navigation where astronomers, geographers, cartographers of ALL nationalities were brought in. Did China ever build four, or five-masted ships, with combinations of square and lateen sails, able to sail across the wind? 2) Did China or Japan experience a scientific revolution? S.K.Sanderson (1995), who otherwise tries to show that Japan made an independent transition to capitalism, acknowledges the development of science there "was considerably more limited than in Europe". Frank: However already by the mid-nineteenth century, European views of Asia and China in particular had drastically changed. Dawson (1967) documents and analyzes this change under the revealing title The Chinese Chameleon: An Analysis of European Conceptions of Chinese Civilization. Europeans changed from regarding China as "an example and model" to calling the Chinese "a people of eternal standstill." Why this rather abrupt change? The coming of the industrial revolution and the beginnings of European colonialism in Asia had intervened to re-shape European minds, if not to "invent" all history, then at least to invent a false universalism under European initiation and guidance. Why? Because post Sung China experienced little INTENSIVE growth, whereas Europe went on to industrialize; which they did, in the main, through their own internal efforts, as the statistical evidence shows. ricardo
returns to colonialism
Ricardo writes: Just a handy, if incomplete, stats: At most 2% of Europe's GNP at the end of 18th century took the form of profits derived from commerce with Americas, Asia, Africa! (I think source is K.O'Brien). incomplete? absolutely. This incompletely-referenced stat should be enshrined in the newest edition of HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS. First, we should calculate the percentage for not the whole of "Europe" (where did the alleged O'Brien draw the line? at the Urals?) but for England and perhaps the Netherlands and perhaps perhaps the city-states of Northern Italy, plus France and even Belgium. Those were the capitalist powers of the day, and it is the capitalist powers which are seen as benefitting from the looting of the colonies. Most authors I've seen indicate that the semi-feudal Spain (in an earlier period) didn't benefit much because they got a lot of inflation from all that gold and ended up helping the Netherlands and England by buying weapons. Even if this point is disputed, we shouldn't be talking about _all_ of Europe. If we're talking about 10% of Europe, then the 2% becomes 20%. This is a seat-of-the-pants calculation, but that's just about the only way these stats are calculated. The alleged O'Brien didn't have complete information, either, since the stats for that period are very shaky, often calculated based on theory-based interpolations. Second, we should look at not _all of GDP_ as the denominator but the income of the ruling classes who were the ones who made the decisions, benefited from them, and were able to accumulate the proceeds to gain differential advantage vis-a-vis the "wogs." So it should be "profits derived from commerce with the wogs"/"total profits." Well, if profits were 10% of the leading capitalist powers' GDPs, then the 20% of the last paragraph becomes 200%! I don't believe in this statistic much at all, but I see it just as valid as the 2% that is cited without any explanation of how it was calculated, the assumptions that went into it, etc. By the way, even a 2% advantage can be crucial in a strategic battle. And we shouldn't be thinking of the relationship between "Europe" and the colonies as "trade" but as a strategic battle, one in which Europe gained an upper hand and then used to increase its power. Max writes: I agree that returns to business firms' capital discount the social or environmental effects that you allude to, but the private returns are the only thing that could directly contribute to expansion in the colonizer nation. but if the colonized nation's ability is destroyed (a net destruction that has no direct effect on the colonizer's profits), it increases the competitive advantage of the colonizer, which then can be accumulated. (Again, we shouldn't be talking about "Europe." After all, the French and the Brits wasted a lot of resources fighting each other (the 7 years war, the Napoleonic war). Not all of the differential advantage vis-a-vis the colonies was used against other European countries. But the experience of winning wars against France helped England perfect the art of colonial conquest.) Third, why should we privilege the "end of the 18th century"? That was a period _before_ the English complete conquest of India. It was before Africa became a relevant stomping ground for imperialist rivalries. It was a period _after_ the high point of the African slave trade, I believe. Instead of looking at simply the "end of the 18th century," it's important to look at the entire period after 1492 to calculate some kind of average. -- An idea for punishing Microsoft: force them to turn over info on Windows to IBM so that the latter can adapt OS/2 to run Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 programs. Then we'd have (more) competition, which is the goal of anti-trust, no? And I've heard that OS/2, though very hard to install, is a highly superior operating system compared to Win95. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
Re: returns to colonialism
As Jim notes, comparing a profit flow to total European output sheds little light. Anyone interested in the question might want to look at Blackburn's 1997 _Making of New World Slavery_, which takes up in a late chapter the question of whether the Atlantic slave trade and slave cultivation were important to European growth. Blackburn explores the debates with some care and makes a good case in the affirmative, particularly for Britain. In particular he argues that slave-based commerce contributed strongly to leading sectors like textiles and metalworking. Clearly British textiles achieved scale economies as a direct result of slave production and other colonial policies, including the destruction of textile production in India. Assessing the role of colonial exploitation in European growth requires looking not just at "colonial" profits but at trade and efficiency gains that may have been very widely spread; it also requires a qualitative analysis of the dynamics of capitalist growth over a long period -- so there's a lot of room for debate. For example one might note that colonial profits were relatively concentrated among a group of merchants who financed new industries. In that sense the contribution of colonial production and commerce to the rise of industrial capitalism may have been vital. Clearly changes and innovations within Europe were also essential to its growth, as was the exploitation of European workers. But at least from the 18th century on, I don't see how you can, analytically, disentangle colonial plunder, profits, and trade from the economic development of Europe. I'm left, as I am often on Pen-L, trying to figure out exactly what's at stake or what the underlying dispute is. RD clearly has some notion of the importance of a Western European cultural and intellectual tradition, but I've already disputed that on this list and argued that the very notion of a western cultural unit is incoherent, so I really don't want to revisit that. I thought the original material that Louis posted was good. Maybe there is a specific point of Andre Gunder Frank's economic analysis that we could take up. Best, Colin PS: 2 related notes on very recent posts: -- RD: "Because Marx took a restrospective approach to the study of capitalism: one can only grasp capitalism when it has fully developed, as it had in Europe, and nowhere else, after the industrial revolution. So, there is nothing "eurocentric" about Marx, since knowledge of capitalism can be acquire only by looking back into the past, by comparing industrial Europe with less developed societies." This is tautology. RD assumes that European capitalism was essentially autochthonous, which then justifies studying it as such. -- BR: "I think that Frank insists on seeing holistic unity where there is none." Barkley's comments are welcome because they focus on specific claims, and the arguments for holistic unity do seem a lot weaker before the 1700s. But part of this is that G-F and others like him have always privileged commerce over production, no? Doesn't the holistic picture gather some force with the industrial revolution?
Workfare Tax Credits
We are preparing testimony for the New Mexico Legislature against a Bill to provide tax credits as an incentive to businesses hiring workers on Welfare. The bill follows the federal welfare tax credit law in saying that anyone who claims the federal welfare-to-work tax credit may also take a state tax credit equal to fifty percent of the federal credit. Our goal is to kill this bill. I have first-hand experience from Baltimore that employers have used "workfare" as a weapon against organizing drives by low-wage workers. Also, my reading of the empirical evidence on tax credits says that they are generally ineffective as a job creation strategy. Ironically, the deflationary pressures brought about by welfare reform and "workfare" will probably be disastrous for businesses in New Mexico counties with high unemployment. As it is written, the current bill has no stipulations at all about the terms of work under which people on welfare would be forced to work. And it contains no guidelines about what employers must do to be eligible for the tax credit. I believe that without such stipulations, people could exploit the tax credits without producing any jobs at all. I hope that someone can help us flesh-out some scenarios in which these tax credits (without the stipulations) would produce windfalls for business owners without producing meaningful jobs for people in workfare. Also, suggestions about analysis or publications on welfare-to-work tax credits and labor market effects of workfare would also be useful. (I believe EPI published an estimate that the bottom third of the labor market could expect a 10% decline in wages as a result of workfare?) We expect the bill to be heard in committee next Friday or Saturday. Thanks in advance for any help. --- Dana Wise Human Geography Program Santa Fe, NM Johns Hopkins Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ken Starr
In a message dated 98-01-30 10:17:09 EST, you write: f Starr indicts the young Ms. Lewinsky, it won't help him politically, and politics may be all that matters in light of the dicey state of facts bearing on legal proceedings. Sigh, I can't believe I mentally exchanged Lipinski for Lewinski -- brain damage -- too much pollution. Anyhow, Max, I agree, this may not have been as planned as a conspiracy, but it is certainly moving in Clinton's direction. The 'bad boy' who the right wing was supposed to be able to use to make their conservative contentions look good just is not cooperating. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: returns to colonialism
incomplete? absolutely. This incompletely-referenced stat should be enshrined in the newest edition of HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS. First, we should calculate the percentage for not the whole of "Europe" (where did the alleged O'Brien draw the line? at the Urals?) but for England and perhaps the Netherlands and perhaps perhaps the city-states of Northern Italy, plus France and even Belgium. Those were the capitalist powers of This procedure while unexceptionable would delimit both sides of the ratio. What's the right number? . . . Second, we should look at not _all of GDP_ as the denominator but the income of the ruling classes who were the ones who made the decisions, benefited from them, and were able to accumulate the proceeds to gain differential advantage vis-a-vis the "wogs." So it should be "profits derived from commerce with the wogs"/"total profits." Well, if profits were If we're talking about accumulation, shouldn't it be the effect of colonization on savings and capital formation? Not all of the two percent would be saved or invested. 10% of the leading capitalist powers' GDPs, then the 20% of the last paragraph becomes 200%! I don't believe in this statistic much at all, but I see it just as valid as the 2% that is cited without any explanation of how it was calculated, the assumptions that went into it, etc. I took it on faith because, like Tiny Tim, I believe in the fundamental goodness of all people. By the way, even a 2% advantage can be crucial in a strategic battle. And we shouldn't be thinking of the relationship between "Europe" and the colonies as "trade" but as a strategic battle, one in which Europe gained an upper hand and then used to increase its power. It's not clear how a little extra income, only some of which goes to capital formation, dramatically affects competition. Moreover, presumably some capital is exported and improves the competitiveness of some other country, whatever that means. Max writes: I agree that returns to business firms' capital discount the social or environmental effects that you allude to, but the private returns are the only thing that could directly contribute to expansion in the colonizer nation. but if the colonized nation's ability is destroyed (a net destruction that has no direct effect on the colonizer's profits), it increases the competitive advantage of the colonizer, which then can be accumulated. OK. I'll buy that. But then you need to imagine (because you would be unlikely to measure it) some counter-factual evolution of profit rates against actual historic levels, which themselves may not be known. (Again, we shouldn't be talking about "Europe." After all, the French and the Brits wasted a lot of resources fighting each other (the 7 years war, the Napoleonic war). Not all of the differential advantage vis-a-vis the colonies was used against other European countries. But the experience of winning wars against France helped England perfect the art of colonial conquest.) Third, why should we privilege the "end of the 18th century"? That was a period _before_ the English complete conquest of India. It was before Africa became a relevant stomping ground for imperialist rivalries. It was a period _after_ the high point of the African slave trade, I believe. Instead of looking at simply the "end of the 18th century," it's important to look at the entire period after 1492 to calculate some kind of average. Is it really possible to do this? If not, are these competing theories impossible to support empirically? The literal observation of wealth flowing from the colonies to the imperiums seems not to prove a necessary development but only an actual one. I'd say that some kind of economist vanity, ideology aside and present company excepted, allows people to delude themselves that they can discover the laws of motion for phenomena that don't repeat themselves, are invulnerable to experimentation, and have a duration of many decades. It's like some feudal character realizing he's living in the "Middle Ages." An idea for punishing Microsoft: force them to turn over info on Windows to IBM so that the latter can adapt OS/2 to run Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 programs. Then we'd have (more) competition, which is the goal of anti-trust, no? And I've heard that OS/2, though very hard to install, is a highly superior operating system compared to Win95. I used OS/2 for a while and was underwhelmed. It was quite unfriendly and crashed plenty. It did seem pretty good for telecommunications. MBS === Max B. SawickyEconomic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200 202-775-0819 (fax)Washington, DC 20036 http://tap.epn.org/sawicky Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute other than this writer.
Re: Workfare Tax Credits
In a message dated 98-01-30 14:32:00 EST, you write: As it is written, the current bill has no stipulations at all about the terms of work under which people on welfare would be forced to work. And it contains no guidelines about what employers must do to be eligible for the tax credit. Dana; In New York, a group of workfare people were put out to clean the streets. They were not given protective gear, nor were they allowed to use the bathroom, nor were they given breaks or lunch. One of the welfare rights groups hauled the city into court and the courts have mandated that the workfare workers are entitled to the same benefits as any group of workers: protective gear, sanitary conditions, lunch, etc. If this kind of information would help you, I could find out the details, who what when and where for you. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Report from Chile 6
6. Valparaíso 2: Re-membering Towards the end of our seven days in Valparaíso, a friend called, asking if we were busy for the afternoon. He wanted to show us a bit of his Valparaíso, walk around his old haunts. Of course, we said, after all, what kind of busy can you be while on vacation? We started up high on the hills rising to the south above the city. As we descended from where we were dropped off, the houses grew in size and luxury. Soon we were surrounded by homes much like the grand, eclectic Victorian homes overlooking the bay in San Francisco. Before one of them, with a crew of men inside ripping out walls, we stopped to talk with a dump truck driver, his load adobe and stucco. It turns out the house used to belong to my friend's mother, and was in the process of being converted into apartments. Our friend began to share anecdotes from his past: allies run through, corners hid behind, the friend's house down the block; the Sunday afternoons with aunts; where the Jesuits had their school; how the view used to be from here or there. Then the house where his parents had lived; another where he had been in hiding after the coup; the block of apartments across the way where people waved handkerchiefs and celebrated as Pinochet's troops rolled in to take over 11 September 1973. And how on the day of the coup, rather rashly and in a fit of rage, he argued with the neighbors, leading to his arrest and detention. From up there we could see the bay, a long concrete wharf hooking from the south up and around to the northeast; alongside its inner edge some eight Navy vessels were moored. Across the harbor a huge Club Med pleasure ship was docked. "At first after the coup a lot of us were taken and held there, on the Navy ships." In our boat tour of the bay the previous day we were warned repeatedly to not take pictures of those ships. Further down we walked, before us now an Army facility, cadets marching in single file, lunch tray under their arm, an officer in sports clothes presiding; another sign warning that no pictures were to be taken. Back and to the left we passed a tall structure belonging to the University. "Look up," our friend told us, "at the top you'll see bullet holes, traces of the confrontations the 11th through 14th of September." Sharpshooters in the tower were fired back upon; for reasons still unexplained, the holes haven't been patched. We passed an amazing old house; must have been glorious in it's day. The owner -- hair close cropped, in shorts -- was in the front yard. "Want to see it?" he asked. We immediately said yes. His pride of ownership marched us through all 22 rooms. It was built in the 1830s for a British family; a picture of the Queen hung in the entryway. Up and down stairs he took us, talking all the while, his speech was direct, clear but not learned. In one small side room a small portrait of The General hung next to a large poster of Sting. How, I wondered, had he come to own this mansion? I asked my friend. He said "retired Navy"; my wife agreed: she had sensed that military air about him too. Outside again we continued down. In the midst of a typical middle class residential neighborhood, we turn a corner and before us is the Naval War Academy: 6 stories of inoffensive institutional architecture, clearly well lit, a well tended garden in front, before which a guard stood armed with submachine gun. "I was in there for 4 months," my friend commented, pointing to the upper portion of the building. "Actually, they'd keep us down below, in the Navy yards, and just bring us up to torture us. The whole fourth floor was reconverted just for torturing." I glanced back over my shoulder: houses, stores, garages just 100 yards back. "Couldn't they hear the cries, so close?" I asked. He shrugged. We kept talking and walking, me asking about this or that detail, he responding forthrightly. Our path took us down a steep incline; below us to the left the Navy yards, in front of us, on the other hill, the Navy's museum. One of Valparaíso's famous elevators was taking tourists up and down from the museum. "They used that place to torture people too," my friend commented. A white chauffeured Mercedes whizzed past us, a high ranking Navy officer in the passenger seat. "They're still here," I commented. His answer: "yup." The weight of this realization being more than I bargained for, I stammered "But how do you ... I mean, here they are, still in power, the white Mercedes..." He helped me out: firm, calm, he said, "I hate the fuckers. I hate them." How many other buildings had I walked by, oblivious to what had transpired there? On how many corners had I stood, from which not long ago someone was forced into the back of a nondescript Ford Falcon with official plates? Walk, No Parking, Yield: But where are the road signs of history to mark the experiences of a people? In Chile, at the oddest moments and without apparent reason, I
Report from Chile Postscript: Colorín colorado ...
A closing comment on the Chile stuff. It may seem my notes strayed a bit
from the purpose of this discussion list. My justification is this:
I live in a country that, like Chile, underwent a point of historical
inflection recently; there is a universally understood "before" and "after"
(Chile: Sept 1973, Bolivia: August 1985) in the stories people tell of the
world, regardless of the normative spin they put on the periods and outcomes.
One can certainly explain the before and after in terms of economics, in
particular the process and results of implanting a neoliberal development
model (structural adjustment). To restrict the conversation to economics,
however, is to miss what, over time, has become for me one of the incredible
features of the period we live in: the establishment, maintenance, and
challenges to this new hegemony (in the fullest Gramscian sense of the word).
Economic discussions of late have left me unsatisfied in terms of what they
contribute to understanding this new hegemony, as it is lived and struggled
over in specific places today. To get a bit pomo: those peculiar narratives
of the world and who we are in it ("economics") leave out too much of the
experience of living under neolib regimes, and thus ignore opportunities for
resistance, moments of danger, and even the "texture of the times"
themselves. Central to this is exploring what R. Williams called the
"structures of feeling" of a time and place, a nice resolution of the
base/superstructure binary, a peculiar "Marxian" (open to debate) notion
that has led to all sorts of tiring talk and destructive political practices.
Before these silences in economics, I have sought and found satisfying
accounts of this part today's drama in the work of anthropologists.
Whatever else might be said about THAT peculiar way of explaining the world
(born as it was in cahoots with colonial administration, etc.), it does have
the extraordinary virtue of insisting that if you don't get and spend a lot
of time talking to folks and taking very seriously what they say on their
own terms, you've got little to say. This is important. Trying rigorously
to understand how people make sense of the world to themselves in these
times seems like an important task, and one for which economics plays a
(necessary) supporting role.
In a recent pulic speech, former president of Bolivia Gonzalo Sanchez de
Lozada adressed a group of busninesspeople and private univ. students on the
topic of 12 yeras of structural adjustment. Sanchez de Lozada -- Goni to us
here -- was the architect of strucrural adjustment in 1985-9 as minister of
planning, wokring very closely with Sachs and Co. He was then president
from 1993-7. His message that night was: "The economics part is easy. Let
me tell you what we had to achieve POLITICALLY to implant structural
adjustment." He then reageld us with almost two hours of anecdotes on how
to break labor, whip an indolent managerial class into shape, re-write
forestry, telecommunications and mining laws, redefine "citizenship" and
"democracy", etc., without provoking too much backlash. (Note: represion
was very mauch a part of the "policy mix".) Throughout, it was clear the
project also had a powerful cultural components: creating and sustaining a
new class of political entrepreneurs/operators with a new weltanschauung
values; redefining and getting people to accept a new kind of (limited)
citizenship; and, essential to the project, demobilizing labor and other
movements through channeling political energies into mundane local
administration.
At the center of all this is re-engineering peoples conceptions of their
place in the world along various social spectrums. This reality suggests an
important reconceptualization of the state, perhaps best developed in
Corrigan and Sayers' _The Great Arch_ (Basil Blackwell 1985) on the English
State. They see the state as ongoing cultural revolution, doing the work of
producing citizen-consumers that meet the exigencies of a rapidly changing
(ever more capitalist) world. State as "structural adjusters" of meanings,
daily practices, even memories. The Chilean process is a neoliberal
economic experiment, and one that required extraordinary -- and
extraordinarily violent -- political and cultural engineering to come to
fruition. My emphasis has been on the engineering.
I have modestly tried to pull some of this together in the notes. You of
course will judge whether my efforts panned out or not.
Roger Lancaster is one anthropologist whose has inspired me in this. His
book _Life is Hard: Machismo, Danger and the Intimacy of Power in Nicaragua_
(Univ. of CA Press, 1992) is an extraordinary example of practicing a social
science that is informed by both the best in Marxism and careful
ethnography, while being committed to justice. In his conclusion, he makes
the following theoretical/methodological observation:
"The analyses I offer pursue a different strategy [from the
Re: Workfare Tax Credits
I just came across a useful paper by Mimi Abramovitz on workfare in the Big Apple. It's on the web at www.wnylc.com/Announcements/worknasw.htm MBS As it is written, the current bill has no stipulations at all about the terms of work under which people on welfare would be forced to work. And it contains no guidelines about what employers must do to be eligible for the tax credit. Dana; In New York, a group of workfare people were put out to clean the streets. They were not given protective gear, nor were they allowed to use the bathroom, nor were they given breaks or lunch. One of the welfare rights groups hauled the city into court and the courts have mandated that the workfare workers are entitled to the same benefits as any group of workers: protective gear, sanitary conditions, lunch, etc. If this kind of information would help you, I could find out the details, who what when and where for you. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] === Max B. SawickyEconomic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200 202-775-0819 (fax)Washington, DC 20036 http://tap.epn.org/sawicky Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute other than this writer. ===
Re: Greenspan's comment
Hey, Doug -- "consulting" is an integral part of the workings of the free market, isn't it? If your clients are big enough, you needn't worry about being held accountable for the quality of your work. Sid Sid Shniad wrote: I'm surprised he's that frank. ;-) Sid 10:32 GREENSPAN: SAYS MODEL OF US SL SITUATION APPLICABLE TO ASIA. I wonder if he's including events like his letter swearing that Charles Keating was an honest guy and a good banker, for which he was reportedly paid $20,000. That's not unlike the authorities' seal of approval given Indonesia and Thailand as the foreign capital was flowing in. Doug
Re: Ken Starr
At 03:20 PM 1/30/98 EST, Maggie wrote: Sigh, I can't believe I mentally exchanged Lipinski for Lewinski -- brain damage -- too much pollution. Anyhow, Max, I agree, this may not have been as planned as a conspiracy, but it is certainly moving in Clinton's direction. The 'bad boy' who the right wing was supposed to be able to use to make their conservative contentions look good just is not cooperating. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] I think it's more useful to see this is as yet another example of how truth is so much more strange than fiction. If this last week was a movie, who would believe it? That the president would be more popular _after_ this broke (70+% according to the latest snap poll I saw)? And that the insanely cynical media pundits would be upset that the public was more interested in Clinton's policies than his pants? I mean, those rallies that Clinton attended in the Midwest, would any director have the chutzpah to put them in their movie? Even Rob Reiner would've balked. And what about characters like Monica "90210" Lewinski, Ms. Tripp, and her right-wing crazed book agent, who'd represented Mark Fuhrman? According to something I heard on the radio, at one point Tripp's agent even tried to get Fuhrman to write a book about the Foster suicide--although at this point, given how much "proof" most news reports are relying on, who knows if it's true (another example of something it'd be hard to believe in a satire). If a movie included Monica's mom as someone who'd written a book denying that she'd had an affair with a famous opera singer, would't a critic say, that's totally unbelievable and it's also a really ham-handed use of symbolism? For that matter, who would believe characters like Bill and Hillary? "Wag the Dog" is looking more tame every day Anders Schneiderman Progressive Communications P.S. It's too bad Hunter Thompson is past his prime; he couldn't ask for better material.
CIA Cleared, again, kinda
8. RENO DELAYS RELEASE OF CIA/CRACK COCAINE REPORT A report detailing the findings of an investigation by the Justice Department into the much-heralded CIA-Crack cocaine connection, will not be released as scheduled, but the department insists that it will be released eventually. Janet Reno's office, which made the decision to withhold the report, cited a never-before invoked law , which allows the withholding of the results of an internal investigation due to "law enforcement concerns." (You can find the text of this law, "The Inspector General Act of 1978" at http://www.doc.gov/oig/info/igact78.htm). A Justice Department spokesman told the San Jose Mercury News, "It's not that the report is invalid, or will have to be changed, or will never see the light of day. It's simply a decision to delay it until the law enforcement concerns abate." The first volume of a CIA report on its own internal investigation into the allegations was released this week. As expected, it finds that allegations of ties by CIA operatives and agents to drug dealing in California are without merit. The second volume of the report, to be released soon, is expected to say much the same thing. --- This is a good source source for drug war news: THE WEEK ONLINE with DRCNet (Drug Reform Coordination Network) January 30, 1997 - ISSUE #27 This bulletin can also be browsed on our web site at http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/1-30.html. Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
World Economic Forum Pontificates on Global Economy; NewCouncil on Foreign Rels. Book
We Need New Rules for the New Game International Herald Tribune Thu, Jan 29 1998 The Asia crisis raises the key question of how we are going to govern globalization. Does the Asia crisis vindicate the views of those who see in globalization the source of all evil? Certainly not. But it has highlighted a number of issues that need urgent attention. Globalization has heightened in an incredible way the pressure on govemments and financial institutions for rigor in the way economic decisions are made, in the way markets have to be supervised, and in the way regulatory frameworks have to ensure transparency. The margin of tolerance for any kind of economic or financial laxity has become nonexistent. Economic globalization creates a tremendous multiplier effect of a financial crisis as soon as it emerges in any sizable economy. Each crisis must be seen as having the potential for creating a devastating, fast-developing domino effect. In a global economy where fire walls exist no more, how will we deal with the next crisis? When the Mexico crisis erupted three years ago, everybody said it should not be allowed to happen again; mechanisms should be set up to provide advance warning of a crisis and establish ways to contain it at a very early stage. This proved to be wishful thinking. Quite simply, we do not yet master the way the global eco-nomy functions, and the chain of reactions in an environment marked by the exponential increase of capital flows. Another issue has to do with the volatility factor created by short-term capital flows. Of course, the first way to reduce volatility lies with sound economic governance and market transparency. But we have also seen countries with very sound economic fundamentals contaminated by the crisis. Different approaches are being proposed, from new controls on short-term capital to fiscal disincentives. It is clear that we are now at the very early stage of discussing this issue, which relates directly to the larger issue of global governance. What institutions and mechanisms are relevant and efficient in the new global environment? Do we need an international regulatory framework for financial markets? What role will the IMF have to play in the future as a lenderof last resort? Integration of China and the other emerging economies of Asia, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe into the world systems takes on even greater priority in the context of the Asia crisis. These emerging markets have been among the key beneficiaries of the process of globalization, at the same time that this process has increased their vulnerability to volatile financial flows. These emerging markets are now too important to the global economy to be considered peripheral. Most transnational corporations continue to integrate these markets into their strategies as the driving force for growth in the next decade. As the number of players continues to rise and the nature of the game changes, the rules have to be reassessed. We need an international debate on how to deal with the more stringent requirements that a global economy puts on national economic policies, on financial market supervision and transparency, and even on corporate and business ethics. Interdependence has ren-dered the notion of economic sovereignty almost obsolete. The need for a minimum consensus platform on the rules of the game is becoming more essential than ever. Klaus Schwab is founder and president of the World Economic Forum; Claude Smadja is its managing director. They contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune. (Copyright 1998) _via IntellX_ Copyright 1998, International Herald Tribune. == New Book Lays Out Blueprint for a Comprehensive U.S. Trade Strategy for The 21st Century PRNewswire Wed, Jan 28 1998 MONTEREY, Calif., Jan. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- The commercial implications of the East Asian financial crisis, the rising trade deficit and the lingering struggle over fast-track trade negotiating authority will preoccupy trade policy makers in the White House and the Congress in the months ahead. "Trade Strategies for a New Era: Ensuring U.S. Leadership in a Global Economy," a new Council on Foreign Relations book, published with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, released Thursday, January 29, 1998, at 10:30 am EST at the Foreign Press Center of the National Press Club, 529 Fourteenth Street, Room 898, Washington, DC. The book offers a strategy to build the necessary bipartisan support inside the United States for trade policy and to help U.S. companies gain access to foreign markets. Drawing on two years of research, the authors of this volume -- who include members of Congress, business leaders, and scholars -- focus on how to break down foreign trade barriers, provide educational and other assistance for those workers that are left behind by trade, and secure an international
Pannekoek
Essays by and about Pannekoek, as well as other council communists, can be accessed at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379; this is the collective action notes website, the description of which follows: Collective Action Notes is a quarterly publication from Baltimore which documents and discusses different struggles (strikes, occupations, etc.) world-wide. We are interested in understanding class struggle and the different forms it takes in the present period, forms ranging from overt and highly visible struggles such as the French public sector strike wave last winter to more 'hidden' forms of class struggle such as absenteeism. sabotage (broadly defined ), etc. In addition to the Struggle Roundup, which carries brief information about strikes and other struggles worldwide grouped by individual countries, CAN also carries more in-depth reports whenever possible on struggles and social conditions in different parts of the world which are sent in by various correspondents. Book, pamphlet and Web site reviews are also featured. Loosely, it could be said CAN is sympathetic to issues of worker's autonomy and self-activity. Although no formally agreed upon political perspective exists at the present point, probably most participants would define themselves in one way or another as being critical of the traditional left, and close to class struggle anarchist/council communist views, again without being obsessed by old ideologies or labels (such as the historical divide between anarchism and marxism), which in most cases have been superceded by capitalist development itself. CAN cooperates informally with the Echanges et Mouvement network in Paris. We also produce pamphlets and distribute literature and texts on computer disk by other non-U.S. based groups. Our most recent pamphlet is "From The Bottom Up", a collection of short articles by Anton Pannekoek. Write for a free sample issue. Collective Action Notes
The latest outrage from New Labour
The Daily Telegraph January 7, 1998 GOVERNMENT SEEKS FIRMS TO TAKE OVER POOR SCHOOLS By Liz Lightfoot, Education Correspondent Multi-national companies are being invited by the Government to run schools in areas where standards are low, with or without the co-operation of local education authorities. Furious local government leaders yesterday described the scheme as a "Tory-style privatisation", which would risk the future of education and usurp the role of elected education authorities. The plans for Education Action Zones containing around 20 schools were known, but it was stated for the first time yesterday that the Government expected one of the first five and several of the further 20 established by next year, to be led and run in its entirety by private business. The new zones, envisaged as partnerships between business, local authorities and community groups, are expected to raise standards and will be test beds for educational initiatives. Schools involved will be able to opt out of the national curriculum and pay scales for teachers. They will be able to pay higher salaries to recruit highly skilled staff. The Government is drawing on experience from the United States where Procter and Gamble took over a school district in Cincinnati, Ohio, halving the cost of bureaucracy and putting the money into classrooms. Fears that local authorities could be bypassed prompted the Local Government Association to demand an immediate meeting with David Blunkett, the Education Secretary, and its leaders are writing to Tony Blair accusing the Government of reneging on its commitment to consult them. "This is the beginning of the end of local government," said Graham Lane, chairman of the LGA's education committee. "These are not the education action zones we envisaged as partnerships between local authorities, business and the community. What is planned would be extremely dangerous for the future and stability of education. It could lead to the beginning of the privatisation of the education system, the break-up of education authorities and the destruction of local government." While he welcomed the input of business, the zones would not work "if they are going to be run by people used to making a profit". Don Foster, education spokesman for the Liberal-Democrats said he felt "uncomfortable" about private firms running schools. He will be putting down an amendment to the Bill to make it compulsory for the new zones to contain representatives from the relevant local education authority. "It is almost inconceivable that an Education Action Zone could be successful without a strong and valid representation from the local education authority." Invitations were sent yesterday to 2,000 businesses, schools and organisations expressing an interest. Prof Michael Barber, head of Mr Blunkett's Standards and Effectiveness Unit at the Education Department, said there had been interest from multi-national companies in the fields of commerce, banking, insurance and information technology. Talks were going on with three companies already involved in education. These are Nord Anglia, an educational consultancy which runs private schools and provides services to state schools, The Centre for British Teachers, contractors providing Ofsted inspection teams, and Capita Managed Services, which administered nursery vouchers. "We think there will be quite a lot of interest from companies outside the education field directly taking responsibility for the management of the zones or getting involved in the plans," he said, after addressing the North of England Education Conference in Bradford, West Yorkshire. "We are keen to encourage imagination, boldness and innovation." He said the zones would each receive a minimum annual grant of £250,000 from the Government which would be matched by business for between three and five years, on top of the funding already provided for schools. Prof Barber added that it was possible that the zones could make a profit, but unlikely. The zones, which would contain two or three secondaries and their feeder primaries, were "an exciting move forward which may well form a blueprint for education in the next millennium". Teachers reacted warily. Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said no teacher could feel secure about the plans to rewrite teachers' contracts. Nigel de Gruchy, General Secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers said that the American experience of giving private companies a free rein had been very mixed. "Some companies, out to make a quick buck, have failed to deliver on the promises made," he
Re: returns to colonialism
I am pretty sure that William Darity, among others, has convinced both O'Brien and Engerman to take much more seriously the Eric Williams' thesis of the importance of slavery in the emergence of industrial capitalism (one of Darity's essays is in a book which I can't find--The Atlantic Slave Trade, ed. (among others) Stanley Engerman, though the Darity book that may be the most important at this point in the emergence of the global economic crisis is the one he did with Bobbie Horn on The Loan Pushers, an investigation of the roots of the Latin American Debt Crisis). By the way, Williams' thesis was anticipated by Henryk Grossmann who in 1929 had already studied the plantation system as central to early capitalism; Grossmann argued that since accumulation was based then on constant technique, it could only proceed through the seizure of labor power; hence, the importance of the slave trade and the enclosures to early capitalism (this chapter The Population Problem in Early Capitalism was not included in the translation of Grossmann's magnum opus). Also in his Political Economy of Underdevelopment, Amiya Bagchi has surveyed the importance of the colonization of India to the take off of industrial capitalism. Rakesh
Re: returns to colonialism
Colin, Two points: 1) I would say that one might well be able to start talking about a holistic unity after 1500, like most observers have always said, and for the obvious reasons. 2) In terms of the role of the "returns to slavery" playing a role in the rise of industrial capitalism, the classic text remains, despite a few blemishes, _Capitalism and Slavery_ by Eric Williams, 1944, University of North Carolina Press. Yes, he says that it played a very significant role for the reasons you have given. Barkley Rosser On Fri, 30 Jan 1998 13:57:59 -0500 Colin Danby [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As Jim notes, comparing a profit flow to total European output sheds little light. Anyone interested in the question might want to look at Blackburn's 1997 _Making of New World Slavery_, which takes up in a late chapter the question of whether the Atlantic slave trade and slave cultivation were important to European growth. Blackburn explores the debates with some care and makes a good case in the affirmative, particularly for Britain. In particular he argues that slave-based commerce contributed strongly to leading sectors like textiles and metalworking. Clearly British textiles achieved scale economies as a direct result of slave production and other colonial policies, including the destruction of textile production in India. Assessing the role of colonial exploitation in European growth requires looking not just at "colonial" profits but at trade and efficiency gains that may have been very widely spread; it also requires a qualitative analysis of the dynamics of capitalist growth over a long period -- so there's a lot of room for debate. For example one might note that colonial profits were relatively concentrated among a group of merchants who financed new industries. In that sense the contribution of colonial production and commerce to the rise of industrial capitalism may have been vital. Clearly changes and innovations within Europe were also essential to its growth, as was the exploitation of European workers. But at least from the 18th century on, I don't see how you can, analytically, disentangle colonial plunder, profits, and trade from the economic development of Europe. I'm left, as I am often on Pen-L, trying to figure out exactly what's at stake or what the underlying dispute is. RD clearly has some notion of the importance of a Western European cultural and intellectual tradition, but I've already disputed that on this list and argued that the very notion of a western cultural unit is incoherent, so I really don't want to revisit that. I thought the original material that Louis posted was good. Maybe there is a specific point of Andre Gunder Frank's economic analysis that we could take up. Best, Colin PS: 2 related notes on very recent posts: -- RD: "Because Marx took a restrospective approach to the study of capitalism: one can only grasp capitalism when it has fully developed, as it had in Europe, and nowhere else, after the industrial revolution. So, there is nothing "eurocentric" about Marx, since knowledge of capitalism can be acquire only by looking back into the past, by comparing industrial Europe with less developed societies." This is tautology. RD assumes that European capitalism was essentially autochthonous, which then justifies studying it as such. -- BR: "I think that Frank insists on seeing holistic unity where there is none." Barkley's comments are welcome because they focus on specific claims, and the arguments for holistic unity do seem a lot weaker before the 1700s. But part of this is that G-F and others like him have always privileged commerce over production, no? Doesn't the holistic picture gather some force with the industrial revolution? -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: returns to colonialism
In a message dated 98-01-30 12:02:29 EST, you write: Third, why should we privilege the "end of the 18th century"? That was a period _before_ the English complete conquest of India. It was before Africa became a relevant stomping ground for imperialist rivalries. It was a period _after_ the high point of the African slave trade, I believe. Instead of looking at simply the "end of the 18th century," it's important to look at the entire period after 1492 to calculate some kind of average. -- don't forget China. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Andre Gunder Frank, 3 of 3
I am not sure to what extent Uncle Louie P. buys into Andre Gunder Frank's argument and to what extent he is merely presenting it to us for our edification. There is a lot in that post that I find questionable, but let me focus just on one major point. Frank argues that the widely accepted view that there was an important break around 1500 is incorrect and he argues that Braudel accepts that also. In the latter he is only partly right and very misleadingly so. Frank is right that Braudel (and others) have argued that the surge of growth in Europe began prior to 1500. Thus 1500 was not a technological or long-wave break point. But 1492 and 1498 certainly were important dates because they marked the expansion of European sea-going activity and thus (eventually in Afro-Asia, sooner in the Western Hemisphere) of European global domination, even if at this time parts of Asia were still more technically advanced in some areas than most of Europe. I have already suggested that the mid-1400s were a peak point in the Ming cycle for China, after which the Chinese began to withdraw inwards, without having made that discontinuity-creating trip around the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese did it coming the other way and during the 1500s Portuguese Jesuits were penetrating not only India (Goa was held until 1961) but China (Macau is only to revert to Chinese control next year) and even Japan, where there was nearly a takeover until Tokugawa Ieyasu threw them out around 1600 and largely sealed up the country for the next two and a half centuries except for the port of Nagasaki. Braudel fully accepts this argument. His greatest work, thought by many to be the single greatest work of history in this century, is his two volume _The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II_. Superficially that book is about the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, at the time by far the largest naval battle in world history. But it is actually about the end of the Mediterranean as the center of the European "world-economy" which had lasted since the Phoenicians. And the source of that end was indeed these ocean voyages that undid the cross-Eurasiatic land route known as the "Silk Route" as the central axis of the world economy, in Frank's sense. More broadly, and to repeat, I think that Frank insists on seeing holistic unity where there is none. He insists that there is a unified world economy when there are only the most minimal and marginal relationships across the Eurasiatic land mass, much less the rest of the world. Furthermore, although there is always more continuity in the world than many like to admit, his denial of discontinuity is way over done. But then I'm prejudiced, as the author of a book called, _From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities_. Oh well. [aside to Carrol Cox: I meant to say 200 years, not 20] Barkley Rosser -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Andre Gunder Frank, 2 of 3
Date sent: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:12:24 -0500 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Andre Gunder Frank, 2 of 3 The following citations from Frank are said to be excerpted from his book, ReOrient. Alas, "the importance of Marx's analysis of Asia is ... that it functioned as an integral part of the process through which he constructed his theory of capitalism" (Brook 1989:6). "The importance of Orientalism for the study of Marxism lies ... [in] the notion that, in contrast to Western society, Islamic [and other Oriental] civilization is static and locked within its sacred customs, its formal moral code, and its religious law" (Turner 1978:6). To that extent, Marx's entire "theory of capitalism" was vitiated both by the lack of support from the Eurocentric leg of its fables about a supposed Asian Mode of Production and by his equally Eurocentric supposition that Europe was different and that what happened there must have originated in Europe. Because Marx took a restrospective approach to the study of capitalism: one can only grasp capitalism when it has fully developed, as it had in Europe, and nowhere else, after the industrial revolution. So, there is nothing "eurocentric" about Marx, since knowledge of capitalism can be acquire only by looking back into the past, by comparing industrial Europe with less developed societies. The question Frank needs to ask is how does HE know westerners are "eurocentric"; how has He escape this "eurocentrism"? What are the values by which he has managed to escape the "centric" values of his own society? I would not be surprised if the roots of those values are European! Frank: In this regard however, Marx preferred to follow Montesquieu and the Philosophes like Roussseau and also James Mill, who had instead "discovered" "despotism" as the "natural" condition and "model of government" in Asia and of "The Orient." Marx also remarked on "the cruellest form of state, Oriental despotism, from India to Russia." He also attributed to them and to the Ottomans, Persia and China, indeed to the whole "Orient." In all of these, Marx alleged the existence of an age-old "Asiatic Mode of Production." He alleged that in all of Asia the forces of production remained stagnant and stationary until the incursion of "The West" and "capitalism" woke it of its otherwise eternal slumber. The concept of AMP still has value as a way of contrasting feudalism and the tributary modes of the East. Marx was right to take Montesquieu seriously, since the uniqueness of feudalism consisted in its decentralized political structure. Elsewhere I criticized John Haldon's claim that feudalism was not different from tributary modes. Indeed, in his excellent critique of Marxists like Perry Anderson and others, Teshale Tibebu (1990: 83-85 emphasis in original) argues persuasively that much of their analysis of "Feudalism, Absolutism and the Bourgeois Revolution" and "their obsession with the specificity ... [and] supposed superiority of Europe" is Western "civilizational arrogance," "ideology dressed up as history" and "Orientalism painted red," that is the "continuation of orientalism by other means." No bourgeois revolutions, no liberal freedoms. That such revolutions occurred only in Europe says alot about the "uniqueness" of its history. For Max Weber of course agreed with Marx about all these European origins and characteristics of "capitalism," and with Sombart too. Weber only wanted to go them one better. Sombart had already singled out European rationality, and its alleged roots in Judaism, as the sine qua non of "capitalism" and its "birth" in Europe. Weber accepted that too. He further embellished the argument about the irrigation based "Oriental despotism" to allege that Asia had an inherent inability to generate economic, not to mention "capitalist" development on its own. However, Weber actually went to a lot of trouble to study "the city," "religion" and other aspects of different civilizations in Asia. That additional acquaintance of Weber with Asian realities also complicated his argument and made it more sophisticated than the crude Marxian version. For instance, Weber recognized that Asia had big cities. So they had to be somehow "fundamentally different" from European ones, both in structure and in function. Weber's mistake in this regard emerges clearly from the Rowe's (1984, 1989) carefull examination of this argument in his study of the Chineese city Hankow. The great student of bureaucracies that Weber was also had to recognize that the Chinese also had and knew how to manage cities and the country at large. Moreover, he had more time than Marx to observe that and how Western money made its way to and around various parts of Asia. Weber
Andre Gunder Frank, 3 of 3
NO EUROPEAN EXCEPTIONALISM We must take exception to this alleged European "exceptionalism" on several related grounds: -- 1. As already noted above, the theses of AfroAsian "Orientalism" and European "exceptionalism" empirically and descriptively MIS-represent how Asian economies performed and societies were. Not only the alleged AMP and "Oriental" Despotism, but also the allegations about non-rational, anti- profit seeking, and other supposed pre-/non-/anti- commercial/productive/capitalist features of Asia are very much off the mark, as demonstrated by our review of Asia's participation in the world economy. In fact, AfroAsian economic and financial "development" and institutions were not only up to European "standards," but largely excelled them in 1400 and still in 1750 and even in 1800. -- 2. For over these three centuries as also earlier, there was nothing "exceptional" about Europe, unless it was Europe's exceptionally marginal far off peninsular position on the map and its correspondingly minor role in the world economy. That may have afforded it some "advantage of backwardness" (Gerschenkron 1962). None of the alleged European "exceptionalisms" of "superiority" is borne out by historical evidence, either from Europe itself or from elsewhere, as Hodgson (1993) warned long ago and Blaut (1993) unequivocally again demonstrated recently. Therefore, the really critical factors in Europe's economic participation and "development" have also been both empirically and theoretically misrepresented by almost all received historiography and social theory from Marx and Weber to Braudel and Wallerstein. No matter what its political color or intent, their historiography and social theory and that of Tawny or Toynbee, and Polanyi or Parsons and Rostow -- is devoid of the historical basis from which its authors claimed to derive it. Just as Asia was not stuck-in-the-mud, so did Europe not raise itself by its own bootstraps. -- 3. The comparative method itself suffers from inadequate holism and misplaced concreteness. At its worst, and alas Marx was among these, some "features" were rather arbitrarily declared to be essential [to what?] but wanting everywhere except in Europe. At best, western observers [and alas also some from Asia and elsewhere] "compare" "Western" civilizational, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, military, geographical, climatic, in a word racial "features" with "Oriental" ones and find the latter wanting on this or that [Eurocentric] criterion. Among the classical writers, Weber devoted the greatest study to the comparisons of these factors, and especially to embellishing the above cited Marxist notions about Oriental "sacred customs, moral code, and religious law." His many followers have further embellished this comparative approach with still more "peculiar" features. Even if these comparisons were empirically accurate, which we have observed that most were not, they had and still have two important shortcomings: One is how to account for the allegedly significant factors that are being compared; another is the choice to compare these features or factors in the first - and last - place. Yet the choice of what features or factors to compare is based on the prior explicit or implicit decision that European characteristics are significant, distinct and therefore worth comparing with others. Let us examine these decisions and implicit choices in turn. -- 4. The sometimes explicit supposition but mostly implicit assumption is that the institutional basis and mechanisms of production and accumulation, exchange and distribution, and their functional operation are determined by "traditional" historical inheritance and/or other or local, national, or regional developments. This kind of "analysis" does not even consider the possibility that the factors under consideration were local, national, or regional responses to participation in a single world-wide economic system and process. Yet as we have argued and demonstrated above, accumulation, production, and distribution and their institutional forms throughout Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas did adapt to and reflect their common interdependence. Certainly the institutional form and very lifeblood of all entrepots like Hormuz and Malacca, and most other ports and caravan crossroads was a function of their increasing and decreasing participation in the world economy. But so were their productive and commercial hinterlands. My study of Mexican agriculture 1520-1630 showed how successive institutional forms of labor recruitment and organization were local responses to world economic and cyclical exigencies (Frank 1979). In Chapters 2, 3 and 4 we observed analogous institutional adaptations and development on the Bengal frontier (Eaton 1993), South China (Marks 1995), South East Asia (Lieberman 1995), and the Ottoman Empire (Islamoglu-Inan 1987). Even related "civilizational" or "cultural" variables are
Re: Ken Starr
From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] . . . Concerning Maggie's suggestion that this is all a Billary plot to discredit Ken Starr - it may be attributing a bit too much PR skill to them to think they planned it, but the poll numbers seem to be spinning their way. From another list... Another leading indicator is Jay Leno's monologue, which took the usual liberties with Clinton's reputed escapades but trashed Starr's operation as a waste of everyone's time and money, in the sense that all he has done is reveal, albeit outside of legal channels, that Clinton is dishonest and philanderous, which everyone knew before they voted for him. This seems to dovetail with the popular reaction. I wonder if Leno's people study polls. They were similarly ahead of the curve on the UPS strike. If Starr indicts the young Ms. Lewinsky, it won't help him politically, and politics may be all that matters in light of the dicey state of facts bearing on legal proceedings. Although Clinton is a dubious object of defense for obvious reasons, I think there is a more general stake for the left in opposing the entire structure of anti-Clinton legal (sic) machinations by the Right, which began to set up shop before he was even inaugurated. Clearly any more progressive government would face similar threats. The public's view of Starr et al. could also influence this year's mid-term elections. MBS === Max B. SawickyEconomic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200 202-775-0819 (fax)Washington, DC 20036 http://tap.epn.org/sawicky Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute other than this writer. ===
BLS Daily Reportboundary=---- =_NextPart_000_01BD2D65.BDF70030
This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. -- =_NextPart_000_01BD2D65.BDF70030 charset="iso-8859-1" BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1998 New orders for manufactured durable goods fell 6.1 percent in December, in part due to a steep decline in orders for transportation equipment, the Census Bureau reports (Daily Labor Report, page D-1)_The December decline was the biggest in six years. A 74 percent plunge in aircraft orders and a decline in demand for metals accounted for the drop. For all of 1997, however, orders rose 7.1 percent, up from a 5.3 percent gain in 1996 (Washington Post, page E1; New York Times, page D5; Wall Street Journal, page A2). Slower growth and continued low inflation will keep the Federal Reserve from hiking interest rates this year, a leading group of bank economists concluded (Daily Labor Report, page A-6). Although the dramatic rise in the contingent workforce has brought many benefits to the U.S. economy, America's social welfare system has not shown the flexibility needed to help workers in a contingent work relationship, according to Richard S. Belous, vice president and chief economist of the National Policy Association. Speaking at a meeting of the Industrial Relation Research Association, Belous said the social welfare system - consisting of public and private sector programs designed to deal with numerous risks - has remained rigid in the face of a more than 35 percent expansion of the number of contingent workers between 1980 and 1996. Belous said a conservative estimate would put the number of contingent workers at 34 million workers The rapid growth of the contingent economy has increased management flexibility to respond to shifts in market conditions, has brought a significant reduction in labor costs, and has enhanced the freedom of millions of workers to be paid employees while remaining active in other areas such as family and education, Belous said. "The contingent workforce can take many different forms, including temporary and part-time employees, consultants, leased employees, hired business service workers, subcontractors, and life-of-project employees," Belous said "The common denominator for all contingent workers is that they have no long-term commitment to an employer" (Daily Labor Report, page A-7). African Americans moved to the South in record numbers over the 1990s, creating a substantial shift in population that researchers attribute to a vibrant regional economy and a more hospitable racial climate. An analysis of Census Bureau statistics indicates that nearly 370,000 blacks moved to the South between 1990 and 1995, more than double the number in the previous five-year period. That made the South the only region in the country where more blacks moved in than migrated out over the first half of the 1990s, said William Frey, a demographer at the University of Michigan who conducted the study Frey's study was published by the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington research group (Washington Post, page A3). DUE OUT TOMORROW: Union Members in 1997 -- =_NextPart_000_01BD2D65.BDF70030 b3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQWAAwAOzgcBAB4ACgADADcABQA9AQEggAMADgAAAM4HAQAe AAkAOwAUAAUAUQEBCYABACEyOUMwQkUwQTU4OTlEMTExODg4RTAwMjBBRjlDMDMwOAAJBwEE gAEAEQAAAEJMUyBEYWlseSBSZXBvcnQAkAUBDYAEAAICAAIAAQOQBgDsCgAAHQMALgAA AAABvS0GUCFerQcDmJIR0ageACCvnAIwACJeVmEAHgAxQAENUklDSEFSRFNPTl9E AAMAGkAAHgAwQAENUklDSEFSRFNPTl9EAAMAGUAAAgEJEAEeCAAA GggAABMNAABMWkZ1QfTYAv8ACgEPAhUCpAPkBesCgwBQEwNUAgBjaArAc2V07jIGAAbDAoMyA8YH EwKDxjMDxQIAcHJxEiAThf59CoAIzwnZAoAKgQ2xC2DgbmcxMDMUIAsKFCIzDAEUwG90BZAFQEJM QQXwREFJTFkH8EUAUE9SVCwgVEgoVVJTGnBZGzBKQZBOVUFSGrAyORsw8DE5OTgKhQqFB8IFsJ8E gQQgAhAFwAOBdWYA0GZ0CHAJgCBkCHABoGwwZSBnbwRwHmFlbEEDIDYuMSBwBJBj3wnwBUALgBpg BZBlBtAEkD8bMCGBCrEFQB+QH/B0b5AgYSBzGeBlcB+AvQWQbAuAH/AhgR4ZdB+wRQCAcBYBYXRp AiAgeGVxdQUgB4ACMBswdEpoH/BDCfBzdQQgQnEfQWF1IBZgJXIEIC5AXCc4NShEC3Bs2HkgTAGg BbFSJ/MbMAUKsGcf8EQtMSlfnSqSVCbRIbYjt3dhBCDxJsJiaWcqICNgIXIAkJh4IHknoBHgLiAT cNkuADc0IPcLUHUYECQj/wtwISAfsAGAHgYAcB9wI0D/I8kNsAOBH3AegxIAB0Awgb5jBaAvIBng MgQmwmQDYDpwLfFGBbEHQAMgb2YFHKI3GzBob3dldn8iEh4VA2AR8C5AINgbMHVHI6ADUiMxNS4z IPdnhwtxIXIcsTYgKFcsQNpoC4BnIxADoFA2gCnWqEUxOwezWQWwaxtAuwdyKeY1O1A50CCRUyUg awngBUBKCGFuB0Ap5UHoMikuHPxTFfA1kAXA/wnANYAmwDCTBaACMAuAClB/H3A/0SFxF+ElwwPw IJFr+yOCJsJGCYAEkAdAKXER8O5yNbA3tDoAazoRIXEZ4P8WYC0BH7AZ4CxSBAAtkxsw8yNAH+Bh ZETCQDE3kTTh7mIAcDvgBZFuA3AEACgxu0DhI+B1DbAfcChyLii/kSnHQS02Ps5BbCbAbQhgZ0CA M7RhAMAlwGN/J9AEACQjJsJA5CogIVF33zvBHoEhMDVgLEFiR1FM8J8FQAOBShAiACQQZmkoMWMj ESbCVS5TLfBIJHmNGzBBB4AFEGNhJwQg+HNvYwcxLCAggB8AFmD9I1B5I2FEcSxBSFAFQDnwxzWA TlQX4GV4aSywI/B+dEoQJBBDUR9wIxEm0Gz/I6BPYh5CL3JOrifRQfQ58b5wRoEy4QsgRMIjEVJN wHcRwR9wUjFCIIAIYDxBdu9NwB/wFMAHkGkNsCFRQKPfOgANwEgYNNImwk4ls0OR6zqAI/BjShBB
