Re: youth crime enforcement bias (fwd)
Jim Devine: the author, Scott Shuger, was simply asking questions about these issues. I was hoping for answers to these questions rather than name-calling based on a partial reading. first, let me decompose the neo-liberal journalist Mr.Shuger's article and his critique of the report, within the scope of the literature on criminology and race. second, let me look at the report, which says that "Racial Disparities Are Pervasive in Justice System". For the time being, I will leave aside New York Times interpretation of the report. This is another issue. in the first place, everybody can see that the "funding" sources of the report prepared by the Justice Department are highly problematic. They are typical liberal type foundations such as Ford and Soros. As the NY Times article suggests "An unusual feature of the report is that its costs were underwritten by the Justice Department and several leading foundations: the Ford Foundation; the MacArthur Foundation; the Rockefeller Foundation; the Walter Johnson Foundation; the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which specializes in issues relating to young people; and the Center on Crime, Communities and Culture of George Soros's Open Society Institute". Basically, these foundations do not give a serious damn about racism in the criminal justice system just as they do not give a damn about human rights violations in any part of the world.. They fund such studies to look "politically correct. BUT, this is NOT Shuger's point. Shuger is not criticizing the report because there are capital interests behind it. Shuger is asking, based on the report's findings (ie., black people are more likely to be "arrested" than white people or minority people are severely treated in each step of the justice system) to criticize the notion that white unarrest is a prejudice and injustice. For him, it seems, white unarrest and black arrest is not a structural problem.When he implies that there are "law-abiding" whites so their unarrest is not a prejudice against blacks but a justice, in my view, he does an obscurantist nonsense. Whites are not arrested or less likely to be arrested because they are law-abiding, Mr Shuger!. They are NOT arrested because of the racist justice system in which black people find themselves racialized and criminalized vis a vie the whites. They are already stigmatized as not-law abiding. Because of this deeply structured prejudice,there are obvious racial disparities between whites and blacks interms of arrest, time of prisoning, incarceration, treatment by the criminal justice system, etc.. Some studies on racial disparities in crime rates offer similar results too. Turk's study (1971) suggests a link between the structural position of the "least powerful groups" in society, criminal labeling and unequal treatment. Diana Schully's (feminist, 1994?) study on rape presents even more devastating results such as differentail treatment between white and black women rape victims.Schully summarizes different case studies on how racism and sexism relate to one another (ie, if rapist is white, raped is black, or vice versa, or punishment of two rapists if one black and the other is white, etc..) Shuger, instead of asking the whys and hows of these problems, demystfies racism by raising obscure questions about the injustices of white arrest!! I forget the figures in Schully's book now. I recommend the book but i remember the turkish title only. from today's SLATE Magazine: The NYT off-lead, by the paper's national crime reporter, Fox Butterfield, a story nobody else fronts, is that a new comprehensive study purports to show that black and Hispanic teenagers are treated more severely than their white counterparts in the juvenile justice system. Findings include: "Among young people who have not been sent to a juvenile prison before, blacks are more than six times as likely as whites to be sentenced by juvenile courts to prison." And: "Similarly, white youths charged with violent offenses are incarcerated for an average of 193 days after trial, but blacks are incarcerated an average of 254 days and Hispanics are incarcerated an average of 305 days." And? isn't this a racism problem? (by just looking at the data)!! The story says that although in the past, when studies have found racial disparities in say, the number of inmates, critics have said the cause was simply that minorities commit a disproportionate that it finds disparities at each stage of the juvenile justice process. but civil rights activist Soler says a different thing according to the NY Times article.Soler comments on the weaknesses of *both* the previous studies and the report. In the past, when studies have found racial disparities in the number of adult black or Hispanic prison inmates, critics have asserted that the cause was simply that members of minorities committed a disproportionate number of crimes. That may be true, Mr. Soler said, but it does not account for the extreme
Re: Re: Re: Samir Amin: Not a Happy Ending
When it was launched the euro bought $1.16. Parity - where one euro bought one dollar - was deemed unthinkable. Today, however, one euro is worth just over 91 cents. . The problem for the euro is that throughout its life there has been a very attractive something else - the dollar. shouldn't the large US current account deficit signal a fall in the US$ and a rise in the Euro sometime in the near future? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: youth crime enforcement bias (fwd)
Jim Devine: the author, Scott Shuger, was simply asking questions about these issues. I was hoping for answers to these questions rather than name-calling based on a partial reading. first, let me decompose the neo-liberal journalist Mr.Shuger's Hey! Shuger is not a neo-liberal. I'm a neo-liberal. Shuger is a guy who believes that the reason African-American college students have fewer computers than white college students is that African-Americans prefer to spend their money on fast cars and loud music systems. What he is... is unprintable... Brad DeLong
Regulation theory
There's an article in the Braudel Center journal I referred to yesterday (in reference to Frank and his critics )dealing with Maori capitalism in New Zealand, which is apparently influenced by regulation theory. Wallerstein also refers to it in his article as one of among different contending interpretations of why capitalism arose in the west. (As opposed to Marxism, world systems theory and one or two others.) With all the brilliant people on PEN-L, can somebody provide a 2 or 3 paragraph explanation? I am just not motivated to read a whole book with everything else I am involved with right now. Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
Re: Re: Re: Re: Samir Amin: Not a Happy Ending
Not if people expect the NASDAQ to go up 50% this year. Rational expectations, you know ... Jim Devine wrote: shouldn't the large US current account deficit signal a fall in the US$ and a rise in the Euro sometime in the near future? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Does competition kill?
"Does Competition Kill? Hospital Quality and Competition" BY: GAUTAM GOWRISANKARAN University of Minnesota ROBERT J. TOWN University of California-Irvine Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection: http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=216508 Date: March 2000 Contact: ROBERT J. TOWN Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of California-Irvine Graduate School of Management Irvine, CA 92717 USA Phone: (949)824-1279 Co-Auth: GAUTAM GOWRISANKARAN Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Minnesota 1035 Management and Economics 271 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA ABSTRACT: We seek to estimate the effects of competition for both Medicare and HMO patients on the quality decisions of hospitals in Southern California. We find that increases in the degree of competition for HMO patients decrease risk-adjusted hospital mortality rates. Conversely, increases in competition for Medicare enrollees are associated with increases in risk-adjusted mortality rates for hospitals. In conjunction with previous research, our estimates indicate that increasing competition for HMO patients appears to reduce price and save lives and hence appears to be welfare improving. However, increases in competition for Medicare appears to reduce quality, and perhaps reduces welfare. The net effect of a given merger on hospital quality will depend on the geographic distribution of different payer groups. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: Re: Re: Samir Amin: Not a Happy Ending
Jim Devine wrote: shouldn't the large US current account deficit signal a fall in the US$ and a rise in the Euro sometime in the near future? Why? Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Samir Amin: Not a Happy Ending
I wrote: shouldn't the large US current account deficit signal a fall in the US$ and a rise in the Euro sometime in the near future? Mark Jones asks: Why? because the current account deficit is larger than ever before, with US net indebtedness contributing via the income account. The dollar's high value is partly a result of the its special attractiveness as a safe haven (i.e., not due to relative interest rates), which is due to the high and bubbly US stock markets and the stagnation of economies outside the US. Since the stock market boom cannot last forever, and has in fact entered the bearish phase, the dollar will not stay high forever. Similarly, a lot of the world outside of the US is doing better compared to a few years ago and seems likely to continue to do so as long as the US avoids recession. (If the US enters a recession, that would improve its current account balance, of course, assuming that other countries are not pulled down too.) (Since both Europe and the US are raising interest rates these days, there's somewhat of a cancelling-out on that front as far as exchange rates are concerned, even though that has a negative effect on world aggregate demand. Since real GDP growth rates are not extremely out of synch between Europe and the US at this point, there's also a cancelling-out as far as exchange rates are concerned. Both of these growth processes are currently helping world aggregate demand.) We should remember that the dollar was also high during the early 1980s, having a decimating effects on US net exports similar to what's happening now. A lot of that was due to soaring US interest rates, but some of it was the "safe haven" effect. Eventually (in 1985-7), the dollar fell (in inflation-adjusted terms, using the trade-weighted measure), due to the large trade deficits (which had not yet turned into current-account deficits) and due to a convergence of US interest rates with those of the rest of the world. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: youth crime enforcement bias (fwd)
Yes, Brad! and Shuger subscribes to "sub-cultural experience thesis"-- the thesis that relates racial inequalities to "cultural preferences" ie., I am an African American and I disbenefit from the system because I culturally "prefer" to do so, not because the system is racially biased. against me. This is a liberal position for it assumes people choose their preferences freely. The man is a hidden racist! Let's not save the man and leave the honor of the discussion to anti-racist struggle! Mine Doyran SUNY/Albany Shuger is a guy who believes that the reason African-American college students have fewer computers than white college students is that African-Americans prefer to spend their money on fast cars and loud music systems. What he is... is unprintable... Brad DeLong
RE: Regulation theory
Without claiming great expertise and relying on memory of readings from a number of years ago, Regulation theory refers largely to a framework of analysis echoing Gramsci's Fordist analysis arguing that late capitalism in the 1930s entered into a new form of social organization where regulated macroeconomic policy combined with labor market regulation through unions and other workplace laws to encourage a high wage/high consumption model of growth in developed nations. I am not sure how it relates directly to the origins of capitalism in the West other than possibly the focus on connecting consumption factors to workplace and macro econ policy. -- Nathan Newman -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Louis Proyect Sent: Friday, April 28, 2000 11:58 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:18408] Regulation theory There's an article in the Braudel Center journal I referred to yesterday (in reference to Frank and his critics )dealing with Maori capitalism in New Zealand, which is apparently influenced by regulation theory. Wallerstein also refers to it in his article as one of among different contending interpretations of why capitalism arose in the west. (As opposed to Marxism, world systems theory and one or two others.) With all the brilliant people on PEN-L, can somebody provide a 2 or 3 paragraph explanation? I am just not motivated to read a whole book with everything else I am involved with right now. Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
A Sit-In for Jobs with Justice at Ohio State University
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 28, 2000 For more information, contact Yoshie Furuhashi at 614-299-3313 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] or Mark D. Stansbery at 614-252-9255 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] A SIT-IN FOR JOBS WITH JUSTICE AT OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY In support of Local 4501, Communications Workers of America, students have organized a sit-in in front of the office of President William Kirwan (Bricker Hall, 190 N. Oval Mall) at the Ohio State University. The sit-in began after a support rally for the CWA workers on Wed. April 26. Today is the third day of the sit-in. Hundreds of students, unionists, faculty, and community supporters have already taken part in the sit-in; our number is growing, and we shall not move until the OSU will meet all the demands of the CWA workers and negotiate a fair contract that respects the needs of the lowest paid OSU employees that have been neglected for the last fifteen years! Current OSU pay rates are 10-25% below the market, and one fourth of the Local don't even make $8.00 per hour. One half earn less than $10.00. Many workers of this academic sweatshop have to work more than one job to make ends pay. The CWA is demanding modest pay increases (which affect less than 1% of the OSU budget) as well as opportunities for training, education, and promotion, but the management has been intransigent, forcing the workers to strike. While the OSU workers' wages have lagged behind their counterparts' at comparable institutions (adjusted for inflation, in fact, workers made more money ten years ago!), the top OSU administrators have recently given themselves gigantic raises. This is injustice! A flagship university in the state of Ohio has come to behave like the greediest corporation. We, students, demand that the OSU respect its workers and pay living wages, instead of exploiting them.
How Nike blackmails Vietnam
New York Times, April 28, 2000 Making Nike Shoes in Vietnam By MARK LANDLER BIEN HOA, Vietnam -- Nguyen Anh Ha has never heard of the trade talks between Vietnam and the United States. But Mr. Ha, a 26-year-old migrant from northern Vietnam, knows all too well the fragility of life as a factory worker in the developing world. "I have been worried ever since I came here," said Mr. Ha, as he rested after work in his bare one-room shelter, not far from the sprawling Nike plant near Ho Chi Minh City where he makes $120-a-pair athletic shoes. "We keep hearing rumors that they might reduce the number of workers." Nike executives insist that they have no plans to cut back their work force in Vietnam, which numbers more than 45,000 at five factories owned and operated by contractors from South Korea and Taiwan. Yet they acknowledge that the future here of Nike Inc. has grown cloudier because of the Hanoi government's reluctance to sign a breakthrough trade agreement with the United States. The deal, which was agreed to in principle in July, has stalled since Vietnamese negotiators began quibbling over various provisions. (clip) For Mr. Monteiro, who used to work in Nike's product development division, the delay in the trade deal has been a frustrating introduction to Vietnam. And it comes as Nike seems finally to have addressed another chronic problem in its operations here: labor conditions. Late in 1997, the company was stung by the release of a report that documented unsafe conditions at one of its biggest plants. The report, prepared for Nike by the accounting firm Ernst Young, said the factory, also situated near Ho Chi Minh City, exposed workers to unacceptably high levels of toxic chemicals. It said 77 percent of the workers suffered respiratory problems. Nike said it had been working to improve conditions in the factory before the report was publicized. And even the company's critics acknowledge that conditions have since improved. Dara O'Rourke. an environmental consultant who helped distribute the report to the news media, was allowed to conduct a follow-up inspection of the factory, known as Tae Kwang Vina, in March 1999. "They felt the heat, which has motivated them to do things," said Mr. O'Rourke, an assistant professor of environmental policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "They switched away from the most toxic compounds. But they continue to work with organic solvents and glues." Taking a visitor on a tour of Tae Kwang Vina recently, Nike officials pointed out improvements that had been made since Mr. O'Rourke's inspection. The factory, owned by a South Korean company, now uses water-based solvents, as opposed to chemicals, everywhere on its assembly line. It is introducing water solvents in the stitching area, where the leather parts of the shoes are pieced together. Above workers' heads, powerful fans circulated the air, fans that Nike officials said had been installed since Mr. O'Rourke's visit. In noisy parts of the factory, a vast majority of workers used rubber earplugs -- addressing another of his worries. Nike's contractors said they were prodded to improve conditions by the storm of criticism in the United States. "I had pride in my factory," said C. T. Park, president of Tae Kwang Vina, which has more than 10,000 workers. "And then suddenly it was the worst factory in the world." Nike has not been able to fix every problem in what are still monotonous, taxing jobs that can require handling hazardous material. Mr. Ha and two other workers in Nike's Chang Shin factory complained of runny noses, which they said began soon after they started on the job there. Their job is to press synthetic rubber into a heavy metal cast and heat it to create the contoured shape of a sole. "Right now, I have good health," Mr. Ha said. "But in five years, I won't be able to work at this job anymore. It is too hard. I'll have to look for lighter work at another factory." Mr. Ha works eight-hour shifts, six days a week, plus overtime, earning the equivalent of $50 a month. That is slightly below Nike's average monthly take-home pay of $55. But the company says this still compares well with Vietnam's per-capita income of $26 a month. Labor laws in Vietnam are stricter than in many Asian countries, and Nike says it complies, or does even better, in every category. For example, the minimum age in this country for factory workers is 15. In Nike's footwear factories, workers must be 18; in its garment factories, they can be 16. Employers cannot demand more than 48 hours a week from workers without paying overtime. But they can run their factories every day. Even so, Nike said it ordered its factories to close on Sundays. Mr. Ha, however, said he had worked in the Chang Shin factory on a few recent Sundays. After an investigation, Nike confirmed that the plant had asked workers to do cleaning and maintenance on those days. Looking perturbed, Mr. Monteiro said he
Political Economy of Protectionism (fwd)
I don't know if this helps to requested info on regulation theory.. Mine Although I have not read it, the paper abstracted below seems very interesting. I plan to obtain it soon. Some of you may also find it interesting. Cheers, McKeever "The Political Economy of Protectionism and Industrial Policy" BY: HADI SALEHI ESFAHANI University of Illinois MUNIR MAHMUD Pennsylvania State University Dept. of Economics Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection: http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=150730 Paper ID: Working Paper No. 98-0111 Date: June 1998 Contact: HADI SALEHI ESFAHANI Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Illinois 210DKH 1206 South Sixth Street Urbana, IL 61801 USA Phone: (217)333-2681 Fax: (217)333-1398 Co-Auth: MUNIR MAHMUD Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: Pennsylvania State University Dept. of Economics 609 Kern Building University Park, PA 16802-3306 USA Paper Requests: Contact Illinois Research and Reference Center, 128 Library, 1408 West Gregory Drive, Urbana IL 61801 USA. Fax:(217)244-0398; Phone:(217)333-1958. Basic fee is $10. http://www.library.uiuc.edu/library/irrc/default.htm ABSTRACT: This paper develops a model of trade and industrial policy where the politicians in charge of the government can direct the rents generated by their policies toward their political or economic objectives through different channels: lobbying, taxation, regulation, and tariff and quota allocation. Different mechanisms are distinguished by their point of rent extraction and differences in resource waste for each dollar of transfer. In conjunction with industrial policy, specific asset formation is also endogenized. We show that many characteristics of the model's equilibria transcend specific channels of rent extraction that prevail. The parameters that represent the effectiveness of rent transfer through various channels play a mediating role. The results show that the relationships between these parameters and policy outcomes may be different from those based on single-channel models. We show that under reasonable conditions, a variety of parameter changes induce a positive relationship between the restrictiveness of policies toward domestic and foreign competition. This helps explain a number of important empirical regularities such as the positive association of protection with import penetration and output-capital ratio. The model also offers a guide for empirical research on the role of lobbying and other rent extraction mechanisms in policy-making. JEL Classification: F13, L52 _
Re: Political Economy of Protectionism (fwd)
This is not about regulation theory. RT is about capitalist governance (thus far) and thus specifically about capitalist institutions, their evolution, their practicality, and their design for a better future. Industrial policy is only a small aspect of it. Naturally there are all sorts of people using RT, marxists and non-marxists, policy-makers and academics. Aside from the macroeconomic takes by RT, such as Aglietta, Boyer, and the like, there are others who are more micro oriented, especially examining the sectoral dynamics, such as the auto, engineering, health etc. Best, Pyke, Penrose, Hollingsworth, Streeck come to mind. Cheers, Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5612 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't know if this helps to requested info on regulation theory.. Mine Although I have not read it, the paper abstracted below seems very interesting. I plan to obtain it soon. Some of you may also find it interesting. Cheers, McKeever "The Political Economy of Protectionism and Industrial Policy" BY: HADI SALEHI ESFAHANI University of Illinois MUNIR MAHMUD Pennsylvania State University Dept. of Economics Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection: http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=150730 Paper ID: Working Paper No. 98-0111 Date: June 1998 Contact: HADI SALEHI ESFAHANI Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Illinois 210DKH 1206 South Sixth Street Urbana, IL 61801 USA Phone: (217)333-2681 Fax: (217)333-1398 Co-Auth: MUNIR MAHMUD Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: Pennsylvania State University Dept. of Economics 609 Kern Building University Park, PA 16802-3306 USA Paper Requests: Contact Illinois Research and Reference Center, 128 Library, 1408 West Gregory Drive, Urbana IL 61801 USA. Fax:(217)244-0398; Phone:(217)333-1958. Basic fee is $10. http://www.library.uiuc.edu/library/irrc/default.htm ABSTRACT: This paper develops a model of trade and industrial policy where the politicians in charge of the government can direct the rents generated by their policies toward their political or economic objectives through different channels: lobbying, taxation, regulation, and tariff and quota allocation. Different mechanisms are distinguished by their point of rent extraction and differences in resource waste for each dollar of transfer. In conjunction with industrial policy, specific asset formation is also endogenized. We show that many characteristics of the model's equilibria transcend specific channels of rent extraction that prevail. The parameters that represent the effectiveness of rent transfer through various channels play a mediating role. The results show that the relationships between these parameters and policy outcomes may be different from those based on single-channel models. We show that under reasonable conditions, a variety of parameter changes induce a positive relationship between the restrictiveness of policies toward domestic and foreign competition. This helps explain a number of important empirical regularities such as the positive association of protection with import penetration and output-capital ratio. The model also offers a guide for empirical research on the role of lobbying and other rent extraction mechanisms in policy-making. JEL Classification: F13, L52 _
Recent Research on Chinese economic history
Few days ago I came across a paper published in the last issue of
EHR (LIII, 2000) "A critical survey of recent research in Chinese
economic history" by Kent G. Deng. Paper evaluates one of the most
heated questions of world history: why premodern China did not
industrialize despite enjoying, at least until 1500, Euroasian
superiority in metallurgy, military power, navigational equipment,
manufacture of silk and of porcelain, paper making, block printing,
mechanical clocks, number and organization of professional merchants,
long-distance communication systems (roads and canals) throughout
the country, "a remarkable degree of social mobility", standardized
weights and measures, a non-agricultural population of about 20% of
China's total, a multi-layerd network of 45, 000 market towns
supported by a large number of "free, small-scale farmers, working
under a system of private land-ownership" - all this together with a
single national government ("active in maintaining food supply,
famine relief, and price control), a standardized written language, a
dominant Confucian code of ethics".
Although Deng questions the Hegelian/Marxist unilinear conception
which underlies "the use of the European experience as a gauge to
measure China", he recognizes that this has been a major
preoccupation of historians, particularly of western scholars, among
whom he detects nine schools of thought: those who emphasise,
respectively, ideological factors, the way the market functioned,
environmental/geographical differences, the balance of class forces,
population, technology, rent-seeking government, role of the state,
and the world-system. Having separated western scholarship into
these nine schools, Deng has an easy time pointing to the
(obvious) weaknesses of each. Landes's Wealth and Poverty, for example,
is brushed aside in just one short sentence: "When this bulky, narrative
book is stripped to the kernel, the subject is 'culture' and cultural
determinisn." More ink is spent on other works, but the discursive
strategy which Deng employs is still extremely misleading, for it
creates the illusion that every work on this question is pushing a
particular brand of determinisn, when the truth is that most scholars
today accept an overdetermined explanation, meaning not the mutual
causation of everything by everything (only Resnick and Wolf would
make this erroneous inference) but the overdetermination of one - or
of a tight constellation of primary factors - by many
secondary/conjuctural/accidental factors.
I agree that in the case of somelike like Jared Diamond we are
dealing - explicitly though not implicitly - with a strong
environmental determinism, but even in his case
one does not refute him by showing (obviously) that the environment
is not everything, or by pointing - as Deng does, to a quick
similarity between Europe's and China's geography. We have enough of
that in Blaut (or in the Monthly Review). Here's Deng: "what is often
overlooked is that there is an 'Asian Mediterranean' in the China
seas. In the past, different peoples met, migrated, and traded there.
Moonsoon winds favored shipping in the Asian Mediterranean and there
is no reason to view Asia as geographically inferior to the
Mediterranean on the other side of Euroasia. Therefore, geographic
difference no longer provides a safe haven for enviromental
determinisn in studying China."
Deng cites a paper by Diamond in *Nature*, not the book, but it is
important to understand that in the book Diamond says that
"geographic connectedness and only modest internal barriers gave
China an initial advantage." But he then adds that "China's connectedness
eventually became a disadvantage, because a decision by one despot
could and repeatedly did halt innovation. In contrast, E's
geographic balkanization resulted in dozens or hundreds of
independent, competing stateless and centers of innovation. If one
state did not pursue some particular innovation, another did, forcing
neighboring states to do likewise or else be conquered or left
economically behind."
This is a view long argued by neo-Weberians, but in their writings
the *political/military* dimension of this apparent
geographic determinism becomes transparent: in Europe we had an
international political organization known as the *interstate*
system. Every effort at creating a world empire had failed. Deng
could have recognized this political aspect right here in his
analysis of "geography, but he prefers to divide
and rule, so he approaches this political issue separetely, and
responds, this time against Mokyr, that "China always faced
competition from the Steppes and increasingly so after AD 1000: from
the Tartars, Mongols, and Manchus, to name just a few."
But this point still misses the net: European inter-state competition
was between relatively equal state powers, and it was more intense
and sustained
Re: RE: Regulation theory
My understanding of the regulation theorists, is that they attempt to provide a middle level analysis, somewhere between the level of the system, (capitalism) and the individual. They focus on the types of institutions that actually enforce capitalism. These they claim have a history that can be recognized and described. That the history of capitalism can be periodized according the changing types of insitutions that regulate it. Rod Nathan Newman wrote: Without claiming great expertise and relying on memory of readings from a number of years ago, Regulation theory refers largely to a framework of analysis echoing Gramsci's Fordist analysis arguing that late capitalism in the 1930s entered into a new form of social organization where regulated macroeconomic policy combined with labor market regulation through unions and other workplace laws to encourage a high wage/high consumption model of growth in developed nations. I am not sure how it relates directly to the origins of capitalism in the West other than possibly the focus on connecting consumption factors to workplace and macro econ policy. -- Nathan Newman -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Louis Proyect Sent: Friday, April 28, 2000 11:58 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:18408] Regulation theory There's an article in the Braudel Center journal I referred to yesterday (in reference to Frank and his critics )dealing with Maori capitalism in New Zealand, which is apparently influenced by regulation theory. Wallerstein also refers to it in his article as one of among different contending interpretations of why capitalism arose in the west. (As opposed to Marxism, world systems theory and one or two others.) With all the brilliant people on PEN-L, can somebody provide a 2 or 3 paragraph explanation? I am just not motivated to read a whole book with everything else I am involved with right now. Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org) -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Kissinger Speaks Honestly
This just came in from Sid Shniad. ...[W]hat is called globalisation is really another name for the dominant role of the United States. From the lecture Globalisation and World Order, delivered by Henry Kissinger, Nobel prizewinner and former United States Secretary of State, at the Independent Newspapers Annual Lecture at Trinity College, Dublin, 12 October 1999. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Kissinger Speaks Honestly
Michael Perelman wrote: This just came in from Sid Shniad. ...[W]hat is called globalisation is really another name for the dominant role of the United States. From the lecture Globalisation and World Order, delivered by Henry Kissinger, Nobel prizewinner and former United States Secretary of State, at the Independent Newspapers Annual Lecture at Trinity College, Dublin, 12 October 1999. Yeah, but did Henry really say this? I tried confirming it last October and came up empty. That's not to say that this definition is wrong - it's pretty accurate in my book. But I'd really like to know if the Evil One really said this. Doug
Re: Re: query on cashews
(Strictly speaking, it should be Robert Naiman who replies to Brad on these issues, since he (Robert) has studied Mozambique. But here goes.) Before getting into this, it should be mentioned that the World Bank folks are not simply fighting against _raising_ tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Rather, they are engaged in pushing tariffs down. The IMF/WB should pursue the rule of "first do no harm" (especially when dealing with a poor country like Mozambique) rather than trying to fit each country to the same Procrustean bed of free-market solutions (and big dams). But of course they won't follow my prescription. I have seen summaries of a Deloitte and Touche report supporting the Mozambique cashew-nut producers, described as saying: The new study was carried out by international consultants Deloitte Touche and the World Bank's previous policy "should be abandoned" [because]: 1) Indian subsidies to its industry "tilt the playing field" and make competition unfair. 2) Peasants did not gain anything from liberalised exports; extra profits were all earned by "traders" and those few farmers who were able to store nuts until the end of the processing season 3) "Improved management practices continue to contribute to factory efficiency" in the newly privatised Mozambican factories. 4) Mozambique can earn an extra $130 per tonne by processing its own cashew kernels--increasing total earnings from about $750 per tonne to $880 per tonne.. in response to point #1, Brad says: My first reaction is that something's wrong with the subsidy argument. If India *subsidizes* its cashew nut processing industry than Mozambique can capture part of that subsidy by letting Indian workers do the processing--the bigger the subsidy, the stronger the argument for exporting raw nuts. (Unless, of course, you think there is something special and important about the learning-by-doing generated in the cashew processing industry, which I don't). As a non-expert on cashew production, I can think of one important thing that's special about the cashew processing industry (in addition to the external benefits that any manufacturing industry has), I believe, which is that it is one of the few non-agricultural industries that Mozambique has. If M loses that industry, I doubt that the IMF/World Bank would allow them to create a similar new industry, since to do so the way Japan or South Korea created industries would violate the _laissez-faire_ principles that are supposed to reign (but never seem to apply to "intellectual property"). Given M's debts (arising from Renamo's attacks, etc.), the IMF/WB have the leverage to impose their _fiat_. (If the IMF/WB had been around, the US wouldn't have been able to protect its industry after 1860, so that the US would have ended up being an economic colony of England.) According to ENCARTA 96, M also exports sea food, which is similar to agriculture in terms of its long-term spin-offs. As far as manufacturing is concerned, Food processing [mostly cashews?], cotton ginning, and the manufacture of clothing and textiles are principal industries. I would guess that the IMF/World Bank folks would also push for the opening of M to international competition in these industries, too, so any potential benefits of infant industries would be lost. Rather, if experience is to be a guide, the IMF/WB will encourage foot-loose industry based on low wages, that will move as soon as M's workers start raising their labor standards. This contributes to the world-wide "race (or creep) to the bottom," lowering world labor standards toward the lowest common denominator, corrected for differences in labor productivity, infrastructure, environmental standards, tax subsidies, and the like. Unlike PKrugman, ENCARTA notes that: Civil war and a lack of foreign exchange crippled Mozambique's industrial output, which declined by an annual average of 7.1 percent during the period from 1980 to 1988, but expanded by 65 percent in the early 1990s. My second reaction is that, as Paul Krugman wrote, any claim out of Africa that "peasants did not gain anything from liberalized exports; extra profits were all held by the traders" should be viewed with great suspicion: it is a remnant of the old-fashioned belief-- criticized by Dumont a generation ago--that the countryside is a stagnant source of resources to be taxed and exploited to support urban development, that it is important to foreclose any options that rural producers and marketers have that would increase their bargaining power. There's also the possibility that the WB's efforts to free up the cashew trade impose all sorts of transition costs (as the cashew industry shuts down) of the sort that the WB usually ignores. In theory, the workers unemployed by the WB are supposed to be compensated, but somehow the lonely hour of this compensation never comes... Over the past generation such policies have been a disaster for
OSU Sit-In Continues! Music Dance in the Liberated Area!
Students Local 4501, CWA have liberated Bricker Hall, the administration building at Ohio State University! We now have a band playing jazz blues, and students, unionists, community activists are dancing, laughing, singing, and having a blast in front of the president's office! We'll continue the occupation until the end of the impending strike! Stay tuned. Yoshie
Re: Re: RE: Regulation theory
Howdee, Regulation theory has any number of origins--Alain Lipietz, one its exemplars, argued that the analyses of "regulation" were in part an attempt to push the limits of Althusser's notion of "reproduction" in such a way as to imagine how different kinds of externalities, path dependencies, etc. were indispensible to capital's expansion (ie. the Keynesian welfare state). The term regulation, Lipietz argued, didn't just refer to the kinds of formal or official "rules" that guided labor-capital relations and reproduction: it referred also to the informal rules of behavior, custom, belief that were also indispensible for a regime of capital accumulation to take hold and become "self-sustaining." In his book "Mirages and Miracles," he describes the term "mode of regulation" by using Bourdieu's term "habitus"as a rough approximation. For both he and Aglietta, what was important about "Fordism" wasn't just the application of "Taylorist" principles of managment to industrial production, but also the constitution and operation of the monetary system during the "golden age" (Ch. 4 of Aglietta's _A Theory of Capitalist Regulation_). Since, Lipietz argued (in 1988) that the primary problem globally would be the need for debt as an indispensible "regulatory" condition of "globalization." (Lipietz, "The Enchanted World: Money, Inflation, World Crisis"). Bob Jessop has a fairly easy to read and very good intro to regulation theory in Michael Storper and Allen Scott, "Pathways to Industrialization and Regional Development." I'd also reccommend Alice Amsden's (dead-on) rejoinder to Lipietz about ten years ago in New Left Review. All best Christian
[Fwd: Fw: Vieques------ Urgente]
Original Message Subject: Fw: Vieques-- Urgente Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 00:09:07 -0400 From: Jay Moore [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Undisclosed-Recipient:@ns.hcr.net; - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; IRSP [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; LirioJorge [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; JRV [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 28, 2000 10:59 PM Subject: Vieques-- Urgente Vieques Libre - http://www.viequeslibre.org ¡Alerta Urgente! Los medios de comunicación han confirmado que dos buques de guerra partieron ayer (Jueves) de Virginia hacia Carolina del Norte para recoger 1,000 Infantes de Marina y equipo militar. Se espera que en dos días llegarán a Vieques para participar, junto al FBI y Alguaciles Federales, en un operativo para desalojar por la fuerza a los que enarbolan los principios de Desobediencia Civil No-Violenta en los campamentos de resistencia. Favor de llamar DE INMEDIATO a Janet Reno (202-514-2001) para dejarle saber de que dicho operativo es repudiado por el Pueblo de Puerto Rico. Dejále saber que lo mejor para los Estados Unidos será suspender dicho plan, pues de lo contrario verán su imágen afectada internacionalmente y tendrán que lidiar con masivas demostraciones de protesta tanto en Puerto Rico como en Estados Unidos. Ahora más que nunca; ¡PAZ PARA VIEQUES! ¡Ni una bomba más! Alert! Media has confirmed that two Navy Warships just left Virginia, will stop in North Carolina to pick up 1000 Marines and equipment, and will participate, along the FBI and Federal Marshals, in a military operation to remove by force protesters from the resistance camps on Vieques. The navy says it takes 2-3 days to sail to Vieques. Now is the moment for all of us to take action and call IMMEDIATLY Janet Reno (202-514-2001) to let her know that the people of Puerto Rico reject any military raid on Vieques. Let her know that the best interest of the U.S. will be served by suspending said plan, since arrests will only bring shame to the U.S. in the eyes of the international community and that massive protests will take place both in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Now, more than ever; PEACE FOR VIEQUES! Not one more bomb! Navy Ships Head To Puerto Rico .c The Associated Press By ROBERT BURNS WASHINGTON (AP) - Two Navy warships steamed south today to pick up a contingent of about 1,000 Marines in anticipation of an FBI-led operation to remove Puerto Rican protesters from a bombing range on the island of Vieques, government officials said. No military forces are to be used in the removal operation, which is being planned by the Justice Department in collaboration with the Coast Guard. The Marines are expected to secure the perimeter of the bombing range after the protesters are removed, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Federal marshals and FBI agents are expected to launch the removal operation next week, possibly as early as Monday, the officials said. Puerto Rican police are to provide crowd control in the vicinity of the range, which is used by the Navy. While most of the several dozen protesters who are camped out on the bombing range say they won't resist arrest, they do say other demonstrators will replace them. Some promise to scatter into the hills. They've occupied the range since April 19, 1999, when errant bombs from a Marine Corps jet killed civilian guard David Sanes Rodriguez. The amphibious warships USS Bataan and the USS Nashville left their home port at Norfolk, Va., Thursday evening, the officials said. They planned to receive the 1,000 Marines en route to the Caribbean, with the Marines arriving by helicopter from Morehead City, N.C. The ships could be in the vicinity of Vieques by Monday. On Thursday, shortly before the two ships got under way, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said U.S. officials were consulting with Puerto Rican authorities on the Vieques issue but he would not comment further. The Vieques protesters are blocking a Jan. 31 agreement between President Clinton and Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Rossello to resume exercises for at least three years using ``dummy'' bombs in exchange for a referendum in Vieques on whether to close the range. The deal includes $40 million for economic development on Vieques and the return of one-third of the island used as a munitions dump. The Navy has said, however, that the $40 million will not be made available until the protesters have been removed.
Regulation theory
"Christian A. Gregory" wrote: Bob Jessop has a fairly easy to read and very good intro to regulation theory in Michael Storper and Allen Scott, "Pathways to Industrialization and Regional Development." I'd also reccommend Alice Amsden's (dead-on) rejoinder to Lipietz about ten years ago in New Left Review. Also Robert Brenner And MArk Glick's lengthy critique of regulation theory in NLR 8-10 years ago. There's the Social Structures of Accumulation theory too which is similiar to Aglietta, Boyer et.al., there's a good anthology edited by David Gordon and two others whose names I forget. Amsden in the article mentioned above argues that the experience of the Asian NIC's refutes both dependency theory and some theories of imperialism though I would argue (with Bello and Tabb) that the NIC's are more a confirmation of a dependency theory. sam
