stagflation

[Devine, James]

Title: stagflation





[was RE: [PEN-L:32334] Re: Archetypes ]


Joanna:
Uh, is that the short way of saying "unemployment + inflation"?


that's right, but it's a bit more complicated. The word "stagflation" arose in the US during the 1970s and the very early 1980s because the dominant theory of the time fell apart. The "Philips Curve" told us that as unemployment rose, inflation would fall (or vice-versa). But three times in the 1970s, unemployment rose and the same time, inflation got worse. Thus, stagnation (slow growth of GDP, high unemployment) got married to inflation as a single concept, stagflation. An ugly word to describe an ugly phenomenon. 

Since the early 1980s, by and large the US has enjoyed the opposite, i.e., disinflation. Both unemployment and inflation seemed to trend downward. Of course, all was not well: this trend corresponds to increasing weakness of organized labor, widening gaps between the rich and poor (including between rich and poor workers), and also unemployment that seems to be more powerful at deterring wage increases than it used to be. 

Jim

Re: Cars and jobs?

[Michael Perelman]

why should the market be rational?

Eugene Coyle wrote:

> The stock market liked it last week when, although retail sales were
> sort of weak, when car sales were taken out of the figure,things looked
> pretty good.
>
> It occurs to me that cars are actually made in the USA (mostly), where
> as most everything else isn't.  So even if retail sales hold up for
> other stuff, if car sales sag, a real drop in jobs will take place.  So
> retail sales can stay up while the GDP goes down.
>
> Does this make sense?
>
> Gene

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re: RE: Re: economics on pen-l

[Michael Perelman]

Business Week recently had an article that seemed to agree with
Peter.  I did not save the ref, but it was from the last few
weeks.

Peter Dorman wrote:

> Devine, James wrote:
>
>> Peter D writes:>...
>>  I'm wondering whether foreign central banks are already
>> financing the
>> US current account deficit, in light of the weakness in US
>> financial
>> markets. <
>>
>> don't you think that it's foreign financiers that are doing
>> so, rather than central banks? they're buying up US assets,
>> allowing the US to run a current account deficit. If the CBs
>> are doing anything, it's accumulating dollars and
>> dollar-denominated short-term assets because they are useful
>> reserves (since the dollar acts as world money). Do you think
>> that the CBs play a big role?
>
> My suspicion is that the private inflow of investment has not
> kept up with the US need for half a trillion a year.  Certainly
> not in equities, and perhaps also not in debt assets, due to
> possible exchange rate risk.  The dollar is indeed the world's
> liquidity, but its days (OK, years) are certainly numbered, and
> sensible investors would want to avoid too much exposure.  As I
> recall, there was also a year during the early 80s when foreign
> CB's stepped in to cover for the reluctance of private
> wealth-holders.  I'm guessing that 2002 will also turn out to
> be such a year, but I could be wrong.
>
> As to why the CB's would do this, you could take your pick from
> (1) it's not in anyone's interest to have the dollar crash and
> bring down the global economy with it, (2) they are protecting
> the private positions in the dollar taken by their own
> nationals in particular, (3) they are supporting the US as a
> bastion of free-market rectitude, and (4) they are supporting
> an overvalued dollar to sustain their own export surpluses.
>
>> >...  If so, what implications, if any, does this have for
>> global
>> political economy?  How can we explain Bushite unitaleralism
>> and
>> in-your-face hegemony in light of the increasing fragility of
>> the US
>> external position?<
>>
>> the role of the dollar as world money is based on the power
>> of the US. Bushite hegemonism seems just one way to maintain
>> and extend that power, centering on the military side. The
>> Clintonoids put greater emphasis on the financial/economic
>> side of US power along with trying to encourage consent among
>> the governed, don't you think? But these are variations on a
>> theme.
>
> The strength of the dollar depends entirely on the willingness
> of the rest of the world to accumulate them at the rate of
> one-half trillion a year.  Private wealth-holders will do so
> based on expectations of risk (exchange rate and liquidity) and
> rate of return.  Public dollar repositories (CB's) will do so
> for either economic (including liquidity) or political
> reasons.  It seems to me that the Bushies cannot afford to
> alienate the interests that govern CB decision-making.  The
> current military power buildup may be seen as a basis for
> supporting the dollar (an implicit quid pro quo if you will),
> or it may be seen as reckless and overly unilateral.  How would
> you analyze the effect of US militarism on the willingness of
> CB's to accumulate dollars?
>
>
>> >Moreover, if we assume that serious money is now
>> international
>> (international portfolios and their mirror-image,
>> international
>> ownership of corporations, financial institutions and
>> tradeable funds),
>> how do we think about the constraints, if any, on US economic
>> policy?
>>  (It doesn't look like we have vehicles for domestic
>> constraints at the
>> moment.)  Or is US policy really reflective of a global
>> consensus among
>> the rich?<
>>
>> maybe a consensus, but one that reflects US power.
>>
>> It's quite possible that the value of the dollar is currently
>> too high given the level of US power. But we can't know for
>> sure.
>>
>> Jim
>
--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: RE: Re: economics on pen-l

[Peter Dorman]

Devine, James wrote:

  
  RE: [PEN-L:32288] Re: economics on pen-l
  Peter D writes:>...
   I'm wondering whether foreign central banks are already
financing the 
  US current account deficit, in light of the weakness in
US financial 
  markets. <
  don't you think that it's foreign financiers that are
doing so, rather than central banks? they're buying up US assets, allowing
the US to run a current account deficit. If the CBs are doing anything, it's
accumulating dollars and dollar-denominated short-term assets because they
are useful reserves (since the dollar acts as world money). Do you think
that the CBs play a big role?

My suspicion is that the private inflow of investment has not kept up with
the US need for half a trillion a year.  Certainly not in equities, and perhaps
also not in debt assets, due to possible exchange rate risk.  The dollar
is indeed the world's liquidity, but its days (OK, years) are certainly numbered,
and sensible investors would want to avoid too much exposure.  As I recall,
there was also a year during the early 80s when foreign CB's stepped in to
cover for the reluctance of private wealth-holders.  I'm guessing that 2002
will also turn out to be such a year, but I could be wrong.

As to why the CB's would do this, you could take your pick from (1) it's
not in anyone's interest to have the dollar crash and bring down the global
economy with it, (2) they are protecting the private positions in the dollar
taken by their own nationals in particular, (3) they are supporting the US
as a bastion of free-market rectitude, and (4) they are supporting an overvalued
dollar to sustain their own export surpluses.

   
  >...  If so, what implications, if any, does this
have for global 
  political economy?  How can we explain Bushite unitaleralism
and 
  in-your-face hegemony in light of the increasing fragility
of the US 
  external position?<
  the role of the dollar as world money is based on the
power of the US. Bushite hegemonism seems just one way to maintain and extend
that power, centering on the military side. The Clintonoids put greater emphasis
on the financial/economic side of US power along with trying to encourage
consent among the governed, don't you think? But these are variations on
a theme.

The strength of the dollar depends entirely on the willingness of the rest
of the world to accumulate them at the rate of one-half trillion a year.
 Private wealth-holders will do so based on expectations of risk (exchange
rate and liquidity) and rate of return.  Public dollar repositories (CB's)
will do so for either economic (including liquidity) or political reasons.
 It seems to me that the Bushies cannot afford to alienate the interests
that govern CB decision-making.  The current military power buildup may be
seen as a basis for supporting the dollar (an implicit quid pro quo if you
will), or it may be seen as reckless and overly unilateral.  How would you
analyze the effect of US militarism on the willingness of CB's to accumulate
dollars?


  >Moreover, if we assume that serious money is now
international 
  (international portfolios and their mirror-image, international
  
  ownership of corporations, financial institutions and tradeable
funds), 
  how do we think about the constraints, if any, on US economic
policy? 
   (It doesn't look like we have vehicles for domestic constraints
at the 
  moment.)  Or is US policy really reflective of a global
consensus among 
  the rich?<
  maybe a consensus, but one that reflects US power. 
  
  It's quite possible that the value of the dollar is currently
too high given the level of US power. But we can't know for sure. 
  Jim

Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Doug Henwood]

Charles Jannuzi wrote:


Then tell Henwood to stop making inane responses
just to bait people, or unsubscribe me. Like I
really care at this point. You deserve
discussions with Henwood. In other words, you
deserve inanity.


If anyone cares what I think about Empire, my review is at 
.

Doug

Re: Archetypes

[Charles Jannuzi]

--- joanna bujes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> At 05:14 PM 11/15/2002 -0800, you wrote:
> >The US is the puzzle. Is it deflation or
> >stagflation. Given what I intuitively feel
> about
> >the US economy's critical mass of true
> >unproductivity, I'm betting stagflation.
> 
> Uh, is that the short way of saying
> "unemployment + inflation"?
> 
> Joanna

I doubt if anyone in the establishment will
notice that much about unemployment. But low
measured growth and inflation. Certainly, if
inflation in prices exceeds economic growth, then
that is some form of stagflation. 
CJ

__
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Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Charles Jannuzi]

Then tell Henwood to stop making inane responses
just to bait people, or unsubscribe me. Like I
really care at this point. You deserve
discussions with Henwood. In other words, you
deserve inanity.
CJ

__
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site
http://webhosting.yahoo.com

Re: Archetypes

[joanna bujes]

At 05:14 PM 11/15/2002 -0800, you wrote:

The US is the puzzle. Is it deflation or
stagflation. Given what I intuitively feel about
the US economy's critical mass of true
unproductivity, I'm betting stagflation.


Uh, is that the short way of saying "unemployment + inflation"?

Joanna

Wed., Nov. 20: Rally & March against the War

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Wednesday, November 20, 11:00 AM
Not In Our Name National Day of Action
"We believe that as people living in the United States it is our 
responsibility to resist the injustices  done by our government, in 
our name."  In this spirit, the Not In Our Name Project is calling 
for a National Day of Youth & Student Action against the juggernaut 
of war and repression the US government has unleashed on the world. 
On Wed, November 20th, thousands of us will take history into our 
hands and do all we can to resist the unjust, immoral, and 
illegitimate war that the U.S. government is planning to unleash on 
the people of Iraq.  In Columbus, OH, there will be a rally on the 
oval of the Ohio State University from 11:00 AM.  At 11:30 AM, we 
will begin a march around campus calling on everyone to leave class 
and join us in the march.  Campus Map: 
.  Contact: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Thursday, November 21, 7:30 - 9:30 PM
Screening: _Project Censored_ (Dir. Steve Keller)
For the first time on video, stories ignored by the mainstream news 
media are reported and discussed by journalists and media scholars. 
For the past 20 years, Project Censored has compiled an annual list 
of the most significant news stories ignored or censored by the 
established media.  In this new video by Off the Couch Productions, 
five of those stories are presented by narrator Martin Sheen: "U.S. 
Arms Deals Flout the 'Arms Transfer Code of Conduct'"; "NASA Bets the 
World: Cassini's Deadly Payload"; "Personal Care and Cosmetic 
Products May Be Carcinogenic"; "Dark Alliance: The Contras, the CIA, 
and Crack Cocaine"; and "Milking the Public: The Bovine Growth 
Hormone Controversy."  Commentary is offered by journalism scholars 
Ben Bagdikian, Peter Phillips, Carl Jensen, and Erna Smith, as well 
as Bruce Brugmann, publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Cf. 
Location: 300 Journalism Building, Ohio State University, 242 West 
18th Ave., Columbus, OH
Campus Map: 
Sponsors: Student International Forum & Social Welfare Action Alliance
Contact: Yoshie Furuhashi, 614-668-6554 or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Download the flyer at 
.

Saturday, November 24
Strength In Unity!
Stop the Prison Industrial Complex
Event: Demonstration (download the flyer at 
)
Location: Madison Correctional Institution (London, Ohio)
Date and Time: November 24, 2002 / 11:00am to 2:00pm)
Join us in front of the prison November 24th to show our opposition 
to the growing Prison Industrial Complex.  We are protesting the 
injustices that are inherent in the prison system, such as:
Brutality against prisoners;
Corruption and dereliction of duty of guards and staff;
Exploitation of prison labor as slave labor;
Visiting conditions and policies;
Inadequate Medical Treatment and the Hepatitis C Epidemic;
Inadequate Grievance Procedure;
This demonstration gives us the opportunity to reach two prisons with 
one demonstration (the London Correctional Institution is directly 
across the road), and we will be getting our message out to a small 
rural town that has long benefited from the exploitation of 
prisoners.  Guest speakers will be announced and a sound system will 
be available for those who wish to speak.  Help us spread the word of 
this demonstration.  Bring your friends and families, and if you have 
a friend or loved one in either of these prisons, let them know that 
we will be out there on that date and time.  Bring your signs, banner 
and bullhorns.  Dress warm, it will be a cold and windy!  Coffee and 
Hot Cocoa will be provided.
Sponsors of this demonstration: Prisoners Advocacy Network-Ohio, 
CURE-Ohio, Community Organizing Center, Ohio Prison Reform Unity 
Project, and Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP)
Driving Directions: From Columbus - Take I-71 South to I-70 West to 
S.R. 56. Turn South (left) (turn right if you're coming from Dayton) 
and drive three to four miles. The institution is on left side of the 
road.
* For more information and transportation contact Dan or Ida at: 
(614) 224-3466 (CURE-Ohio office), [EMAIL PROTECTED], 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
* SSDP (Students for Sensible Drug Policy) is organizing a caravan 
for a Strength in Unity rally Saturday, Nov. 24th at  the Madison 
Prison in London, Ohio.  This event is being organized by the 
Prisoners advocacy Network and will occur monthly at prisons around 
the state.  Want to join the caravan to London?  Meet at 10 AM at the 
Ohio Union, 1739 North High St. (near the corner of 12th Ave. and 
High St.).

Sunday, November 25
The first Hempfest organizing meeting is next Sunday, Nov 25t, 6Pm in 
the 3rd Floor Lounge of the Ohio Union.
Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Sunday, December 1
"Crisis in Chiapas, Mexico: E

British war crimes in Kenya

[Chris Burford]

The BBC programme Sunday evening gave some more details

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/2416049.stm


It quoted a former British colonial administrator, John Nottingham, 
referring to

"Brutal savage torture by people who have to be condemned as war criminals. 
I feel ashamed coming from a Britain that did what they did to them."

Officially the Mau May resistance movement was said to have killed 100 
whites and 2000 loyalist Africans. They themselves suffered 11,000 deaths.

But Prof Caroline Elkins of Harvard, said this was a substantial 
underesitmate. The true figure is more like 50,000, all the more shocking 
since none of these people should have died.

The governor general is quoted as saying a "violent shock" was necessary 
when prisoners were first taken into capitivity.

The torturer responsible for "rehabilitation" is filmed unable to answer a 
question about whether he gave orders permitting stubborn prisoners to be 
knocked unconscious. These clips are viewable on the web-site.

The programme alleges that the British government persisted in forcing the 
Mau Mau to give up their oath even though it had decided to grant 
independence.  (Independence came in 1963)

11 detainees were known to have been beaten to death in the Hola camp in 1959.


But lawyers have got 6,000 depositions. and are claiming a total of 5 
million pounds in compensation. They are confident that Britain will 
immediately make an offer as soon as it sees the evidence for fear of 
greater publicity.


 A Google search for "Hola prison camp deaths" gives the following well 
referenced URL which describes the war by the Land Freedom Army ("Mau-Mau") 
against British colonialism.

http://bluegecko.crosswinds.net/kenya/tribes/kikuyu/maumau.htm




Chris Burford

London

the nouveau pauvre

[Devine, James]

Title: the nouveau pauvre





November 17, 2002/New York TIMES. 


From Middle Class to the Shelter Door
By LESLIE EATON


The tidy apartment in a house in Staten Island rents for just $650 a month, but Salvatore and Lorraine Nardulli can no longer afford it. They cannot pay the phone bill, or the electric bill, or the insurance on their 10-year-old Pontiac Grand Prix. There is an empty space next to the VCR where the cable box once stood; dunning letters are stacked up on the kitchen table.

Mr. Nardulli, 53, who worked for an airline for almost three decades, has been unemployed for 18 months and cannot find a full-time job. Mrs. Nardulli, who is several years younger, worked for years as a legal secretary but more recently has been a homemaker and student; she cannot find any work.

They have run through their $12,000 or so in savings. They have borrowed to the limit on their credit cards, another $12,000. And in June, Mr. Nardulli's extended unemployment insurance ran out. 

Turned down twice for public assistance, the Nardullis say they fear that they will end up in a homeless shelter. "If we have to leave this apartment - God forbid," Mrs. Nardulli said. "I feel like we are being punished because my husband lost his job."

No one knows for sure how many people are in the same boat as the Nardullis: people whose comfortable lives have abruptly unraveled because of the recession and the economic aftereffects of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Some economists say there may be hundreds of thousands of them across the country, based on trends in the labor market and in unemployment insurance, which has traditionally been a safety net of the middle class, as public assistance has been for the poor.

The percentage of people who have exhausted their regular unemployment benefits is at the highest level in two decades. In New York State, 156,000 people have also used up the additional three months of temporary unemployment benefits that Congress authorized in March; that program expires at the end of December.

While New York has by far the largest number of people who have run out of temporary benefits, nationally there are about 1.5 million, according to the federal Department of Labor. Wendell Primus, director of the income security division of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research institute in Washington, estimates that up to a million of them have not found jobs and are not eligible for more aid.

Of course, even among those who have not found work, not everyone is necessarily experiencing as much hardship as the Nardullis. Many may have had more savings, and about 40 percent are likely to have had working spouses, according to studies done in previous years for the Labor Department by Mathematica Policy Research. 




Jim Devine

Cars and jobs?

[Eugene Coyle]

The stock market liked it last week when, although retail sales were 
sort of weak, when car sales were taken out of the figure,things looked 
pretty good.

	It occurs to me that cars are actually made in the USA (mostly), where 
as most everything else isn't.  So even if retail sales hold up for 
other stuff, if car sales sag, a real drop in jobs will take place.  So 
retail sales can stay up while the GDP goes down.

Does this make sense?

Gene

New book -frightening.

[Eugene Coyle]

There is a new book out on climate and justice:  DEAD HEAT.  The authors 
make both a frightening case about the future and a powerful argument 
for justice.  One of the authors furnished the following precis:



"Dead Heat argues that the battle against global warming is key to the 
larger battle for global justice, and that the outcome of this battle 
may be as decisive politically as it will be ecologically. It argues, 
moreover, that there can be no workable climate-control regime without a 
historic compromise between the rich world and the poor, a compromise in 
which the two come rapidly to share the Earth’s limited atmospheric space.

The problem is time. Today, the global average surface warming is only 
.6 degrees Centigrade, and already the climate is changing fast. But the 
latest science shows that any future in which we hold the warming to a 
maximum of 2º C (and 2º C would likely mean massive suffering and 
destruction) would require decisive global action; something like a 
“global Marshall Plan” but tuned, particularly, to sustainable energy 
development.

It comes to this: the emissions trajectories and climate sensitivity 
indexes show, in mercilessly numeric terms, that even if we move quickly 
to cap global carbon emissions, the “impacts” of the warming will soon 
become quite severe, particularly for the poor and the vulnerable, and 
that in the more pessimistic case, the one  where  the fossil-fuel 
cartel remains in power, the impacts will verge on the catastrophic.

Dead Heat argues that justice -- not rhetoric and “aid” but real 
developmental justice for the people of the South -- is going to be 
necessary, and surprisingly soon. It argues, more particularly, that 
such a justice must involve a phased transition from the Kyoto Protocol 
to a future climate treaty based on equal rights to emit greenhouse 
pollutants.

Dead Heat makes the case for climate justice, but also insists that 
justice and equity, for their ethical and humanitarian attractions, must 
also be seen as the most “realistic” of virtues. In the end, our limited 
environmental space will itself show that it’s the dream of the 
"business as usual" future that is naive and utopian."


published by  Seven Stories Press.  In bookstores or call (800) 
596-7437.  For review copies fax request on letterhead to (212) 226-1411


Gene Coyle

self-ownership redux

[Ian Murray]

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,5506606%255E2902,0
0.html
Stone loses cool over double Bill
18nov02

FORMER Rolling Stone Bill Wyman has threatened a US journalist with legal
action because he shares the same name as the musician.

The star's lawyers have ordered the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter to
"cease and desist" writing under his birth name.
They said he could only use it if he added a disclaimer to everything he
wrote clearly indicating he is not the same Bill Wyman who was a member of
the Rolling Stones.

The legal threat came after the reporter penned an article about old Rolling
Stones albums for the newspaper as part of its coverage of the band's tour
date in Atlanta.

The journalist has suggested using the byline "Not That Bill Wyman". But he
claims to have more right to use the name than the band's former bassist,
who quit the band a decade ago.

The American Wyman was born in 1961, three years before the Rolling Stone
changed his name from William George Perks to Bill Wyman.

Left sweeps to victory in Vancouver

[Tom Walker]

>From the CBC:

Real-life Da Vinci leads sweep in Vancouver elections

Last Updated Sun, 17 Nov 2002 9:54:49

VANCOUVER - A former Mountie and coroner who inspired a CBC Television
series won a landslide election on Saturday to become the next mayor of
Vancouver.

Larry Campbell, the real-life inspiration for the title character in the
crime drama Da Vinci's Inquest led his party to a sweeping victory in
municipal elections.

Despite rain and heavy winds, voters headed to the polls in huge numbers.
Turnout was markedly higher than in the last elections three years ago, and
among the highest in decades.

Campbell's left-wing Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) had its most
impressive showing since the party entered Vancouver politics in the 1960s.
In that time, it had never elected a mayor or held a majority on council.

This time, every COPE candidate running won. They won seats on the parks
board, the school board, and city council.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/11/17/vcr_elxn021117

Tom Walker
604 255 4812

Jim Craven To Talk On Marxism And Indigenous Struggles In Sacramento

[Seth Sandronsky]

November 17, 2002 
News Release 
For more information: 
Call John Rowntree, (916) 446-1758
P.O. Box 160406 Sacramento, CA 95816
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

 
Jim Craven To Talk On Marxism And Indigenous Struggles In Sacramento
Jim Craven, a professor of economics, will give a talk titled "Marxism and Indigenous Struggles: A Case Study of the Blackfoot Nation" on Thursday, November 21 at 7 p.m. in the Green Room at the Sierra 2 Center, 2791 24th Street, Sacramento, CA. 
Craven will look at links between Marxist and Indigenous activists. He will also speak about the international law and genocide in relation to the Blackfoot Nation.
Craven is a veteran and anti-war activist whose forthcoming book is titled "Political Economy of Indian Country." The Marxist School of Sacramento is sponsoring his talk.
This is a free event open to the public. For more information call John Rowntree at (916) 446-1758.

 ###







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Robert Service damning Yeltsin

[Chris Burford]

Informative review by left wing British economist Robin Blackburn, of book 
by right wing historian Robert Conquest, which summarises many of the 
adverse developments in Russia. Service's right wing perspective makes 
these reports even more credible.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,840118,00.html

"Robert Service reaches a damning verdict at odds with his earlier support 
for Boris Yeltsin in his history of the catastrophe that engulfed Russia in 
the 1990s"



Robin Blackburn Saturday November 16, 2002 The Guardian

Russia: Experiment with a People by Robert Service 414pp, Macmillan, £20

Robert Service has written an informative and necessary book on the 
catastrophe that overtook Russia in the 1990s. It is a tribute to the 
author that he reaches conclusions at odds with his own earlier support for 
Boris Yeltsin, who ruled the country in these years.

The misery and loss of life endured by the long-suffering Russians in the 
past decade has led 67% of them to see it as the worst decade they can 
remember, according to a poll Service cites. The Brezhnev era was the only 
period to be seen favourably by a majority (51%).

The devastating impact of the free market and privatisation helps to 
explain this. Life expectancy for men dropped from 64 years in the 
mid-1980s to 57 in the mid-1990s, and is now believed to be about 60 years. 
Women live some 10 years longer but their life expectancy has also dropped 
by four years. The collapse of welfare and healthcare, the failure to pay 
wages and pensions for months at a time, spiralling gangsterism, 
drunkenness and hopelessness have all contributed to population loss of 
about 0.5% a year - even in a time of net immigration by refugees from 
other former Soviet republics.

Population loss during Stalin's rule is often used to gauge its severity. 
Between 1992 and 2000, Service tells us, "the Russian Federation underwent 
a net loss of some 2.8 million inhabitants", and today deaths outnumber 
births by "nearly one-and-a-half times". The wars in Chechnya have resulted 
in "tens of thousands" of fatalities on both sides. While a small minority 
grew wealthy, and a tiny number of "oligarchs" were allowed brazenly to 
loot the country's prodigious natural resources, the mass of the population 
was plunged into a poverty and distress not seen since the 1940s.

In the 1990s there was, of course, no Great Terror, no Great War, no mass 
famine. But there was a social and economic breakdown sufficient to halt 
natural population growth and send it into reverse. All this happened - 
together with state-assisted robbery of national assets and the reduction 
of Grozny to rubble - at the hands of a supposedly democratising regime, 
enjoying the support of western governments.

Service has not the slightest nostalgia for communism or the Soviet order 
but, as he tells the story, Mikhail Gorbachev - the last Soviet leader - 
emerges as a genuine champion of democratisation, while Yeltsin and 
Vladimir Putin have been the agents of a rapacious authoritarianism.

Before and during the attempted coup of August 1991, Yeltsin acted with 
courage and earned the gratitude of Russians. But he used the initiative he 
had seized to break up the Soviet Union in a way that diminished the new 
democratic space, and promoted a kleptocracy drawn from the nomenklatura, 
Mafiosi and capitalist "oligarchs".

Despite a worsening, though not yet catastrophic, economic situation, 
Gorbachev's reforms in the late 1980s released the genie of civic 
self-government throughout the union. A succession of strikes by miners had 
obliged the Communist party formally to renounce its political monopoly. 
Journalists and broadcasters were revelling in new-found freedoms. Millions 
were following the debates of the new elected bodies on TV.

In a key chapter, "The New Russian State", Service describes how Gorbachev 
proposed to Yeltsin in the aftermath of August 1991 that they should 
consolidate the defeat of the coup by calling for new elections throughout 
the union. Gorbachev said he would stand down and give Yeltsin a free run 
at the presidency.

Instead, and behind the backs of the Russian and other former Soviet 
peoples, Yeltsin made a deal with the existing leadership in Ukraine and 
Byelorussia, later ratified by the rulers of the other republics, to wind 
up the union at midnight on December 31 1991, together with its new 
representative institutions, and to commend the fate of the various 
republics to their existing power holders. Only in the Baltic republics was 
this to mean a real gain for democracy.

Although Service stresses the backdoor manner in which this deal was 
brokered between existing elites, he does not give much detail as to the 
precise options and motivations of the military. In August 1991, key 
commanders in the vicinity of Moscow sided with Yeltsin against the 
plotters. But why did they later approve of winding up the union? Yeltsin 
was more popular