Re: Re: Why Decry the Wealth Gap?
Hey, I didn't write that, it's from the NY Times article I sent to the list...Steve On Mon, 24 Jan 2000, William S. Lear wrote: On Monday, January 24, 2000 at 13:26:56 (-1000) Stephen E Philion writes: And what of the poorest Americans' loss of ground compared to the richest, as reported by the Fed? The apostles of equality consider the rising inequality kindling for social unrest. But while that would be true if most workers on the bottom rungs were trapped there for generations, America isn't a caste society, and studies that track individuals' incomes over time show that Americans have a remarkable ability to propel themselves upward. A 17-year study of lifetime earnings by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that only 5 percent of people in the economy's lowest 20 percent failed to move to a higher income group. In a similar study by the Treasury Department covering 1979 to 1988, 86 percent of Americans in the bottom fifth of income earners improved their status. Inequality is not inequity. Artificial efforts to try to curb wealth gaps invariably do more harm than good. Heavier taxation might narrow the division between rich and poor, but it would be a hollow triumph if it stifled the economy. What Americans ought to care most about is maintaining our growth, not the red herring of gaps in income and wealth. W. Michael Cox, chief economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Richard Alm are co-authors of "Myths of Rich and Poor." Hmm, the 1960s were an era of unmatched growth and relative equality, if I'm not mistaken. And, what exactly are "artificial efforts to try to curb wealth gaps", and how do they differ from the artificial efforts to impose the cost of operating our system for the benefit of the few on the weakest in our society? I think they need to take a look at Horwitz's *Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860*, among other things. Didn't someone on the sane side of the fence recently put out a report that debunked this sort of nonsense? I'd like to see a point-by-point rebuttal to this, sent certified mail, to the authors. Let's draft it here and let Max send it off on his finest letterhead. Bill
Michael Pereleman, please: was re The Danger of GDP
Michael Pereleman, Please.Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822 On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, chang wrote: Too bad the U.S. never had Red Guards. Juchang He - Original Message - From: Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2000 11:27 PM Subject: [PEN-L:17107] RE: The Danger of GDP Where are the Red Guards when you need them? mbs Subject: [PEN-L:17103] The Danger of GDP This message is dedicated to people all over the world. . . . by Juchang He
Re: Re: Re: Marx and Kapital
On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, Doug Henwood wrote: Charles Brown wrote: GDP is used to hoodwink the people. Did Chang move to Detroit? Doug They sure need him there these days them why they need not fear unemployment. Steve
Re: Re: Re: Marx and Kapital
yes, chang thinks we all, whether Chinese, American, African,...should not fear unemployment and ditching state investment in industry... Steve On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, Charles Brown wrote: Chang is an internationalist. We are all Chang. CB Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/21/00 05:53PM Charles Brown wrote: GDP is used to hoodwink the people. Did Chang move to Detroit? Doug
Many Companies Are Forced to Dip Deeper Into Labor Pool (fwd)
NY Times: March 26, 2000 Many Companies Are Forced to Dip Deeper Into Labor Pool By LOUIS UCHITELLE K ANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Unable to find enough workers in the booming economy, American corporations are trying to expand the labor pool. Until recently, employers had met their labor needs by hiring people who were already employed or at least wanted to work. But as this pool shrinks, they are increasingly recruiting from among the 36 million working-age people in the United States who had not sought a job, or even thought about taking one. The gender gap, the difference between a candidate's votes from men and his votes from women, in presidential elections since 1980. [jobs-labor.1.GIF] The New York Times Percentages may not add up to 100 because of other candidates. Based on exit polls conducted by Voter News Service in 1996, Voter Research and Surveys in 1992 and The New York Times and CBS News in 1980, 1984 and 1988. _ Conrad Bell is one of these new workers. Mr. Bell, a college junior, did not need a job. Living at home, he had enough pocket money, and the first payments on his school loans were still in the future. But when a notice went up on a school bulletin board that H R Block was hiring students skilled in computers to trouble-shoot problems called in from Block offices around the country, Mr. Bell applied and got one of the jobs. "Most of my friends now work," he explained. The company has gone out of its way to accommodate the 23-year-old student, juggling schedules so that he can carry four courses at the DeVry Institute of Technology and still work 25 hours a week. Between semesters, he worked on Tuesdays, then switched to Mondays to attend Tuesday classes. Nearly 200 other students hired for the tax season get similar flexible treatment at Block's new technical center here. In addition to students like Mr. Bell, companies are stepping up recruiting of the urban poor, retirees, housewives, men and women mustering out of military service, the handicapped, women coming off welfare and illegal immigrants not already counted in the labor force. People with jobs are being recruited to moonlight in second jobs, and part-timers are adding hours more easily than in the past. To get workers, some companies even relocate to pockets of relatively high unemployment. The recruiting poster and the promise of flexible hours were what landed Mr. Bell despite his mother's resistance. "She does not want me to work while I'm in school," he said. Aside from flexible hours, companies are offering subsidized transportation, child care, store discounts, free meals, family outings, tuition subsidies, and, in one case here, an $80,000 softball field -- everything, in sum, but significantly higher pay. "We really are in uncharted territory," said Lawrence Katz, a Harvard University labor economist. "The last time we had such tight labor markets, in the 1960's, the baby boomers were beginning to take jobs, and they fed the labor pool. We don't have them today, and we really don't know how many people we can draw." The economy may ride, or fall, on the the answer. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, argues that the pool of people still available to take jobs has dwindled to the point that employers will have to pay more in wages to compete for workers and then will push up prices to cover the higher labor costs. Citing this inflationary danger as one reason for their actions, the Fed's policy makers have moved interest rates up a quarter percentage point five times since last June to slow the economy, with the latest increase coming last Tuesday. But Mr. Greenspan's estimate of the number of people still available for jobs relies on the Labor Department's monthly employment surveys, which do not count as available the people who say they are not interested in working. Many of these people are now being recruited, including Mr. Bell, who was busy being a student until he saw the H R Block poster and popped into the labor force. In addition, the Fed chairman's concerns about inflationary labor shortages
The Price of Oil (fwd)
NYT: March 26, 2000
The Price of Oil
Letters Index
_
To the Editor:
As a former oil trader, I think there are several issues to consider
about the currently high price of oil ("Clinton Calls for New Pool of
Heating Oil for Northeast," news article, March 19).
The tightness in the oil market is directly attributable to our
country's lackluster research and development in alternative fuels and
the improvement of vehicular fuel mileage, as well as lack of
investment in our railroads. It is also a result of an aggressive
foreign policy that has left important oil-producing countries like
the former Soviet Union and Iraq in shambles.
Storing large quantities of heating oil can create its own problems:
it becomes very expensive in oil markets that are (like now) declining
in future value by more than $1 per barrel per month. And there are
chemical and stability issues that usually mandate a product
changeover every few years.
ERIC BRILL
Bedford Hills, N.Y., March 19, 2000
_
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draft position on amnesty (fwd)
DRAFT POSITION DRAFT POSITION DRAFT POSITION DRAFT POSITION The following is a draft document, written as a basis for discussion. It is not a final document. The Labor Immigrant Organizers Network (LION) invites the comment, not only of members of the LION network, but of people throughout the labor and immigrant rights movements. At the conclusion of our discussions, LION intends to put forward an analysis of immigration policy and proposals for a new policy, especially in relation to a new immigration amnesty. Please forward your comments to Jacob Ely ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and David Bacon ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). Una traduccion en español sigue despues de la version en ingles. Draft LION position statement on amnesty Introduction This year the AFL-CIO took a big step towards embracing the immigrants whose energy and radicalism have contributed to its best traditions. Labor acknowledged a world-wide reality - that according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees over 80 million people today live and work outside their countries of origin. The U.S. is home to only a small percentage of that total. This migration is overwhelmingly due to increasing economic inequality on a global scale, between rich countries and poor countries. When people cannot survive and feed their families in their countries of birth, they will leave and seek that survival elsewhere, come what may. Economic survival has been made more difficult because of structural adjustment and trade policies imposed by wealthy countries and international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. It is shortsighted, if not hypocritical, for the U.S. to promote these policies on the one hand, and then ignore their consequences on the other - the migration of people. Immigration, trade policy, and support for anti-worker economic reforms are all linked to each other. The migration of people will not stop until the underlying economic causes forcing people from their homes are eliminated. Meanwhile, NAFTA and free trade have freed the movement of capital and goods, while the people they've displaced are deemed illegal and hunted. Workers have a right to the same freedom of movement. Whether immigrant or native-born, workers and their families must be free to work and move about as they please, to join unions and to exercise their labor rights. All people who live in this country must be guaranteed basic human and labor rights. We need to create a human community in this country where people do not live in fear, or find themselves subject to discrimination. The use of our country's immigration laws to make millions of people illegal and vulnerable undermines respect for the law and its integrity. Our laws should start with the intention of protecting the human rights of migrants, not undermining them. The undocumented will not simply disappear, nor should they. They are productive members of our communities, they enrich our culture, and they are part of our hope for the future. Building walls and militarizing the border cannot halt the flow of people. Nor will passing draconian anti-immigrant legislation, whether California's Proposition 187 or the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. An immigration policy based on preventing this flow of humanity is bound to fail, and in the process undermines the rights of working people, both native-born and immigrant. Immigrants are not responsible for the relative decline in income and living standards for U.S. workers, going on since the 1970s. The real, structural causes for declining wages include plant closures and industrial restructuring (costing the jobs of millions of unskilled workers), the growth of service-sector, minimum-wage jobs (including contract and temporary employment), and the steep obstacles facing workers who try to organize unions. While certain industries hire immigrant workers in an effort to keep wages down, it is an illusion to imagine that employers will voluntarily raise salaries if immigrant workers are somehow replaced with the native-born. Workers have to struggle to increase living standards, just as they have always done. Unity and cooperation among workers in that struggle is an important advantage, which the AFL-CIO is right to try to protect. The amnesty of 1986 legalized over 3 million people. But after its cutoff date of January 1, 1982, immigrants continued to come to the U.S. They faced the same denial of legal status that amnesty "fixed" for those who came before. This experience should not be repeated endlessly. Some nationalities entering the U.S. have virtual unlimited amnesty already. Cubans receive permanent resident status immediately on entering the country, even with no visas or other documents. Other nationalities, however, are denied access to this process. That discrimination must be
Left Approach to China Trade: A Critical View
After the current anti-China strategy fails, hopefully when the labor movement is thinking about which way to go next, it will consider views such as this more seriously. I think Doug reported recently that there is considerable tension within the AFL-CIO about the 'yellow peril' strategy, so there is hope. Hopefully that will be kept in mind before all out attacks on the AFL-CIO membership as falling in line with this policy also. This month's Monthly Review has an article by Bill Tabb that makes solid arguments for why this strategy is likely to fail, as has David Bacon recently. Steve Subject: Left Approach to China Trade: A Critical View INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY IS THE ONLY ROAD By Barry Sheppard, San Francisco Bay Area The demonstrations in Seattle against the World Trade Organization have rightly inspired activists in the labor movement. Many have commented on the coming together of youth and students concerned about the destruction of the environment and U.S. corporations imposing sweatshop conditions in their factories in what used to be called the Third World, with tens of thousands of trade unionists concerned with the loss of better paying jobs, the reduction of real wages, and increasing economic insecurity. The consciousness of most of these forces at this stage could be summed up as "anti-corporatism." The big corporations and banks are seen as dominating the world for their own greedy self-interests at the expense of the majority of humanity and the world in which we live. But which way forward for this movement, if indeed it becomes a movement as we all hope it will, has become a burning question in practice. Key will be the struggle between two opposite political strategies. One is the road of American Firstism and U.S. protectionism, advocated by the AFL-CIO top bureaucracy, and by some ultra-right politicians such as Pat Buchanan. The counterposed strategy is international working class solidarity, which must include solidarity with the world¹s peasant masses and with the nations that are exploited by the imperialist countries. At first sight, the answer would appear to be obvious for labor activists on the left: we are internationalists, opposed to U.S. nationalism. But it is not so simple. Disagreements have arisen over just what internationalism means in the context of this movement. The sharpest expression of these differences has been whether or not to join what has become the axis of the AFL-CIO¹s protectionist campaign, the drive to keep China out of the WTO and to prevent Washington from granting China normal trade status with the U.S. Some left labor activists say "yes" to this campaign. Others, like myself, say an emphatic "No." Before discussing the particular case of China, let¹s recall some basic facts about the world. Fact number one is that the nations of the world are not equal. There are a handful of advanced capitalist countries, with a minority of the world¹s population, which not only exploit their own workers and small farmers, but suck super-profits out of the so-called "developing" countries as well. Since the early 20th century this system of national oppression and exploitation has been referred to as modern "imperialism," and the advanced capitalist countries as "imperialist." The "Third World" doesn¹t consist of "developing" or "underdeveloped" countries, terms which imply that they will catch up with the imperialist countries sooner or later. A better term would be "super-exploited" countries, for the truth is that the gap between these countries and the imperialist ones is growing, not diminishing, as I am sure we all know from many sources. Within all countries, imperialist as well as super-exploited, the gap between the rich and the workers and peasants is growing. The neoliberal policies being promulgated domestically and internationally have exacerbated the situation. After over a century of imperialism, the world has now 800 million hungry people, one billion illiterates, four billion in poverty, 250 million children who work regularly and 130 million people who have no access to education. There are 100 million homeless and 11 million children under five years of age dying every year of malnutrition, poverty and preventable or curable diseases. Even Clinton admitted in a speech he made in September of last year that while the rich countries have been long burdened with overcapacity, including in the production of food, 40 million people die every year from hunger. The WTO, the IMF, the World Bank and the governments of the imperialist countries are imposing ever worse conditions on the super-exploited countries. Due to imperialist policies, the Third World debt to the banks of the First World has ballooned to over two trillion dollars, from $567 billion in 1980 and $1.4 trillion in 1992. The spiraling debt has become a perpetual motion machine of money flooding away from the super-exploited countries, as
Re: RE: Left Approach to China Trade: A Critical View
Max, Noone is calling anyone racist. But relying on Harry Wu to justify an attack on China? Tibetan nuns? What does this have to do with the issue of labor rights in China? Maybe in ads against China trade they can also include pictures of Wen Ho Lee, my sense is the strategy is 'whatever it takes'. I don't think you're a racist for supporting the AFL-CIO strategy, I am certain your reasons for supporting it are the same as mine for opposing it. You think it will accomplish the stated purpose, namely the advancement of workers rights in China and the US. Obviously I don't support a Fortune 500 stance on free trade. But I am convinced by people like David Bacon and Bill Tabb that this strategy will not only not work, but will make it even more difficult to accomplish the intended goal. BTW, my position on this particular issue is, admittledly, similar to HCKL's, but I am far much more convinced by the logic of David Bacon and Bill Tabb in their recent articles on this issue than I am of HCKL. That said, I think it is to the advantage of the labor movement to not embrace nativist/isolationist/racist elements involved in the anti-China entry to WTO activism, since those elements have no sincere interest in workers' rights in CHina or the US. Steve On Tue, 28 Mar 2000, Max B. Sawicky wrote: After the current anti-China strategy fails, hopefully when the labor movement is thinking about which way to go next, it will consider views such as this more seriously. I think Doug reported recently that there is considerable tension within the AFL-CIO about the 'yellow peril' strategy, so there is hope. . . . The only fair response to the 'yellow peril' characterization would be that the other side, our partisans of free trade, you apparently, are pursuing the puerile imperialist stooge strategy, or PISS for short. Can't you criticize a policy w/o imputing racism/nativism/ isolationism to its advocates? mbs
Re: Left Approach to China Trade: A Critical View
I agree with this text, of course. Note that the source is the same kind of source that Henry has so passionately attacked Doug for using when making criticisms of the labor regime in China. It's nice to see that it is alright to quote from the beast after all when discussing China Steve On Wed, 29 Mar 2000, Louis Proyect wrote: The Houston Chronicle, February 4, 1996 "Harry Wu is a major player, and we took his words seriously,'' said World bank spokesman Graham Barrett. "We abhor forced labor, and we wouldn't want our money supporting it. But there is no evidence to substantiate Mr. Wu's claims.'' Wu, 59, drew headlines worldwide during a 66-day detention in China last summer. Immediately after returning to the United States, he resumed criticizing agencies and companies that he says support forced-labor camps in China. Targets of Wu's verbal assault have ranged from the World Bank to a wholesale tool shop in Houston. Imprisoned for 19 years in forced-labor camps, Wu has built a career trying to dismantle the laogai - a network of Chinese prison camps modeled after the Soviet gulag that tries to "reform'' minds of criminals and political undesirables through forced labor under dangerous conditions. Some prisoners languish for decades. Wu insists his accusations are well-researched, based on records and photos retrieved by him and a chain of Chinese informants. He says the World Bank could not have investigated thoroughly in only six weeks and is covering up. Wu - who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize during last summer's house arrest - speaks brashly about his legal troubles in China. He was convicted of stealing state secrets and impersonating a police officer stemming from undercover trips to China to document human rights abuses. During a stop at the University of St. Thomas last fall, he told his audience that owners of a southwest Houston shop knowingly import hammers, wrenches and other tools from forced-labor camps. U.S. law bans importing forced-labor goods. But U.S.Customs officials - who have issued import bans on 26 Chinese products since 1991 and credit Wu as one of their resources - say they found no proof of wrongdoing during several investigations of Houston companies with purported ties to Chinese prison labor. Employees at the tool shop declined comment when contacted by the Chronicle, but appeared surprised when told of Wu's accusation. Wu said he never spoke to the store's owner, basing his claim on records from a Chinese informant. "Like many other zealots, he is so convinced of the rightness of his own position,'' said James Feinerman, a Georgetown University professor of Chinese law who has testified at congressional hearings with Wu. "But things aren't always black and white. '' Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
Re: Re: Left Approach to China Trade: A Critical View
Jim Devine wrote: I'm not going to comment on any of the details of this thread (especially the unnecessary rudeness), Steve writes: Thanks for your comments. I'd like to respond to this above comment however. I've tried to not be rude toward Max, I respect his work at EPI and him even when I disagree with him strongly on issues. And we do disagree quite a bit on this issue. If you believe I have said anything rude to him, I'd be glad to be have it pointed out where and retract such statements. Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822 On Wed, 29 Mar 2000, Jim Devine wrote: At 10:39 PM 3/28/00 -1000, you wrote: I'm convinced it'll fail because of the well laid out arguments of people like Bacon and Tabb (see March issue of Monthly Review). The strategy is short sighted and will not jive with the American populace, who don't blame China or trade with China for their problems. I'm not going to comment on any of the details of this thread (especially the unnecessary rudeness), but it seems to me that there's a false dichotomy hovering right below the surface of the discussion: it seems to be assumed that _either_ one wants to target China as part of a campaign of vilification _or_ one is tailing the neo-liberal free trade uber alles campaign. Supposing that one is critical of the neo-liberal juggernaut, that doesn't mean that one has to target China _per se_. One could argue in more general terms about the downside of "free trade." Perhaps this could be illustrated with examples from China, but I can't see any principled reason to single out China: after all, the US of A uses prison labor too. An argument against the juggernaut in terms of the "race to the bottom" and the like -- general principles rather than lambasting China -- helps us make the needed link between trade issues and the capitalist system. Suppose one is in favor of "free trade." This is a venerable leftist and internationalist position, against economistic unions whose leaders and/or members think they can prosper by allying with employers to lobby for legislation that works only at the expense of foreign or foreign-born workers. (The worst of this did not concern trade issues but migration into the US, as with union support for Chinese exclusion laws.) But that doesn't mean that one can't look at the downside of "free trade" and such issues as the free flow of capital (both financial and real), which has been historically linked to the expansion of free trade. To me, no matter what one's position of "free trade," the key thing is to increase solidarity and organization amongst workers, both within and between countries. (That's the only way to fight and counteract the power of capital, which seems to have a tendency toward a "natural" unity, not as some kind of elite conspiracy but as part of the "laws of motion" of the system.) So both those who favor, and those who oppose, "free trade" have to restate their arguments in this light. Bill Tabb's argument is pretty good, by the way. I haven't read David Bacon's yet. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Left Approach to China Trade: A Critical View
I agree with Henry about Harry Wu. I think his attacks on Doug are based on much less valid reasoning. Henry might not like Doug's critical comments on aspects of China's labor regime, but Henry can't even bring himself to acknowledge that Doug also is critical of the AFL-CIO's positin on China...Fact is someone like Doug will listen to David Bacon or Bill Tabb's arguments on China trade policy, but not think much of Henry's arguments. Something about Bacon and Tabb's arguments are much more persuasive, which counts for something when trying to convince people about importan issues such as US-China trade policy... Steve On Wed, 29 Mar 2000, Louis Proyect wrote: Steve Philion: I agree with this text, of course. Note that the source is the same kind of source that Henry has so passionately attacked Doug for using when making criticisms of the labor regime in China. It's nice to see that it is alright to quote from the beast after all when discussing China But Henry is correct. There is an enormous propaganda offensive that is attempting to demonize the Chinese government. Although it comes from rightwing sources, it is used as a club by the liberal wing of the ruling class to extract concessions. Nobody in the west, from Clinton to Jesse Helms, gives a shit about human rights. We are much worse on prison labor than China. When Harry Wu goes around spreading lies, it allows Clinton to put pressure on China to accept trading terms less favorable than other countries who have much worse blemishes. You might think that the criticisms of Wu that I posted here and on the SR mailing list were easy to come by. They were not. I had to spend my entire lunch hour the other day finding material against him on Lexis-Nexis. (I had forgotten about the PEN-L post.) I kept doing searches on "Wu" and "exaggerations" or "Wu" and "inaccurate" until I found the 3 items that have found their way into email discussions. Keep in mind, however, that if you do a plain search on "Harry Wu", you will get back 904 hits. This means that for every 1 article telling the truth about this rightwing provocateur, you get 300 describing him as some kind of saint. No wonder there is so much Sinophobia going around on and off the Internet. Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
Re: RE: Re: RE: Left Approach to China Trade: A CriticalView
I'm convinced it'll fail because of the well laid out arguments of people like Bacon and Tabb (see March issue of Monthly Review). The strategy is short sighted and will not jive with the American populace, who don't blame China or trade with China for their problems. I say it will fail for same reason anti-Japan or anti-Mexico campaigns have failed. They don't resonate with the experiences of Americans who know just enough about these countries such that campaigns based on exxageration (I mean just listen to some of the whacky things Harry Wu says about China based on the ill-informed presupposition that Americans will buy anything about China). Recall how quickly the anti-Japanese sentiment in the 80's declined when the media started focusing on real reasons for American failures in the Japanese market (the famous steering wheel on the wrong side of the car comes to mind).. .If the whole of the American ruling class or even a substantial portion of it were behind this anti-China campaigning, well then it might be quite easy to mobilize US opinion (this is what Wu demonstrates utterly no understanding of by the way in his dopey generalizatins about "Americans")...But that's not the case and therefore propaganda campaigns that are vulnerable to attacks for being falsely based or based on hyperbole are very vulnerable (Nota bene the Teamsters being called to task for lobbying for UPS's entry into Chinese markets!!). The US labor movement had to find new strategies after nationalist appeals failed to win the anti-NAFTA battle. Doug Henwood a while back cited a poll showing that Americans are not nearly as anti-free trade as is commonly thought (i.e. they don't blame Japan, or China, or Mexico,...for their problems). That doesn't mean they accept the Chamber of Commerce's view on the issue, but it does tell us that they probably aren't so gullible as to think that China is what Harry Wu claims it is either. That means the message labor is trying to sell about China right now is not gonna fly with the public, as recent polls indicate. And, of course, as the Chinese have already pointed out, even if the Congress doesn't approve it, there are ways to circumvent that. So, even if the 'strategy' succeeds, it fails... Steve Finally, I don't know why you're so sure the strategy (really a tactic in a strategy) will fail. As things stand the odds are against Congressional approval of china in the WTO. How the labor movement exploits this reflection of its influence has yet to unfold. mbs
Tabb on China policy
From Monthly Review: Volume 51, Number 10
March 2000
After Seattle:
Understanding the Politics of Globalization
by William K. Tabb
{Cut, about the first 2/3rds of the article, go to www.monthlyreview.org
for full article)
Similarly, an analysis is needed concerning the politics inherent in
progressive forces gearing up to stop China from being admitted to the
WTO. This can be criticized as contributing to displacement of class
rage#151;rightly directed at transnational capital#151;onto the
repressive Chinese ruling class. Without at all absolving Chinese
market-Dengist cadre ("to get rich by exploiting the people is glorious")
and their opportunist progeny, it is the unregulated power of western
capital, the anti-working-class policies of the American government most
particularly, which should be the focus of our efforts. China had little
to do with the fact that real wages have been stagnant for U.S. workers
for the last two decades or that, while the stock market has increased
wealth by trillions of dollars for the richest 10 percent of the
population who own 85 percent of the stock, most Americans own no stock
at all but fuel these gains through downsizing and givebacks.
On the other hand, Chinese policies and the impact of their huge trade
surplus with the United States brings some issues into better focus as it
obscures others. It clarifies the way national leaders;in collusion
with transnational capital;organize the super-exploitation of their
own citizens and calls attention to the uneven development such export
competitiveness at all costs brings in its wake. It also highlights the
race toward the bottom that occurs as other competitors gain greater
incentive to copy these policies. It focuses on the need to support other
workers who are imprisoned for union organizing or attempting to speak
freely to their comrades. It is a demand for a basic level of democratic
rights for everyone and, in these demands, one witnesses an emergent
internationalist solidarity. At the same time, the fact that China is
hardly the main enemy of U.S. working people needs to be part of any such
discussion.
For reasons which have everything to do with U.S. domestic
politics;specifically the need not to offend the labor movement,
which has endorsed Vice President Gore's run to succeed his
boss;President Clinton, in a comment to a newspaper in Seattle,
suggested he wanted to go beyond the usual empty rhetoric and mandate
enforceable labor standards. The reaction was immediate from third-world
delegates. A trade minister from Pakistan was quoted the next day as
saying, "We will block consensus on every issue if the United States
proposal goes ahead." The ruling elites of Pakistan and other third-world
authoritarian (and even formally democratic) governments have never had
an interest in labor standards which could reduce their ability to
exploit the workers of their countries. This does not mean that they are
wrong in suggesting that the United States would use labor standards as a
pretext to impose sanctions when if might suit U.S. political interests.
The United States, abusing its great power, has always used sanctions
selectively and to advance other agendas, and there is little reason to
think labor standards would be used differently.
The use of trade sanctions to enforce labor standards is also opposed by
most third-world unionists, who see job loss resulting without necessary
impact on their wages and working conditions. What they need is help
organizing. International solidarity, exposure of local abuses, financial
assistance to strikers, and pressure on governments who use police-state
tactics against workers would be welcome. But the fact is that, in the
past, the United States has supported the most repressive third-world
regimes. People are rightly skeptical about Clinton's motives. The
solidarity which needs to be extended is to the workers, oppressed and
exploited not simply by transnationals, but by their own capitalists.
Rather than counting on the kindness of passing imperialists, a class
struggle perspective is in order. The same is true in making common cause
with reactionary Republicans who wish to weaken China for their own
reasons.
Similarly, we need to think more about China as related to a host of
issues which arise from the reality that 95 percent of the world's
population growth is taking place in what is euphemistically called the
developing world (from which westerners fear immigration, job loss, the
spread of epidemics, terrorism, and crime). There is a desire to build
defenses, whether new versions of Star War missile defenses or economic
protectionism. The cost of the left's inability to offer a coherent
counter-interpretation of globalization's dangers and damage, and their
sources and solutions, is great.
Re: NYU Conference Schedule (April 7-8) (fwd)
Mine, Have you heard of liberation theology to begin with? Steve On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: labor-religion coalition? interfaith commitee? people of faith net work? what are these to be exact? what have they got to with labor rights, sweatshops and social justice issues? Mine Hoover wrote: Organized by the NYU Program in American Studies Co-sponsors: United Students against Sweatshops and the Workers Rights Consortium, the National Labor Committee, UNITE, UAW and the NYU Graduate Student Organizing Committee, People of Faith Network, United Steelworkers of America, Scholars, Artists and Writers for Social Justice, Local 3882-AFT, Global Exchange, the Harvard Trade Union Program, Campaign for Labor Rights, New York State Labor-Religion Coalition, Massachusetts Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, Direct Action Network at NYU,
Re: RE: RE: Left Approach to China Trade: A CriticalView
steve wrote orginally: I'm convinced it'll fail because of the well laid out arguments of people like Bacon and Tabb (see March issue of Monthly Review). The strategy is short sighted and will not jive with the American populace, who don't blame China or trade with China for their problems. then max responded: Oh really? On what is the last sentence based? There are analyses of polling data that say the contrary. What have you got? Steve: see article posted today by doug for starters. Steve had written: I say it will fail for same reason anti-Japan or anti-Mexico campaigns have failed. They don't resonate with the experiences of Americans who know just enough about these countries such that campaigns based on exxageration (I mean just listen to some of the whacky things Harry Wu says about China based on the ill-informed presupposition that Americans will buy anything about China). Recall how quickly the anti-Japanese sentiment in the 80's declined when the media started focusing on real reasons for American failures in the Japanese market (the famous steering wheel on the wrong side of the car comes to mind).. Max responded: What anti-Mexico campaign? Are you talking about the agitation against NAFTA, which was joined by the Mexican left, not to mention the Zapatistas? Or is the mexican left anti-mexican? I'd say the NAFTA campaign launched the present movement, which is looking better every day, so while NAFTA passed in political terms it was a plus because it has been a factor in reviving the labor movement. There is no comparison between the inchoate Japan bashing in the early 1980's and the present movement. Trade deficits eliminate jobs. There are no two ways about it. In the U.S. we've had manufacturing jobs replaced by lower paying service jobs. Our employment is high at the moment, while wage growth has been mediocre for most of the present recovery (the most recent years a bit better). Steve responds: According to a post that Doug relayed from an AFL-CIO insider, not only is that the case, but there is considerable discontent among staff about this approach. Steve had originally written: .If the whole of the American ruling class or even a substantial portion of it were behind this anti-China campaigning, well then it might be quite easy to mobilize US opinion (this is what Wu demonstrates utterly no understanding of by the way in his dopey generalizatins about "Americans")...But that's not the case and therefore propaganda campaigns that are vulnerable to attacks for being falsely based or based on hyperbole are very vulnerable (Nota bene the Teamsters being called to task for lobbying for UPS's entry into Chinese markets!!). Max responded: This makes no sense. You can't be criticizing the anti-globalization movement because it isn't backed by the ruling class. Even if Wu has been wrong periodically, there is plenty to criticize the PRC for. . . Steve responds: I'm not making that argument. I argued that Wu's strategy of convincing Americans that China is an evil empire because of XXX aint' gonna fly with the American public. *If* the ruling class were behind such a notion and pumping it 24/7 via the media, well then it could be convinced of any anti-communist propoganda. But there are divisions in the ruling class, thus space for other perspectives and refutations of myths by Wu and his ilk will be supplied to Americans...They won't buy into "OOOH, we can't invest in China because of prison labor or such 'arguments'. Actually Imight be more sympathetic with the AFL-CIO strategy if it were based on infomation instead of transparently and easily refuted anti-communist hysteria. Why not focus on the problem of labor in China, if that is the case it is making? I think their PR consultants are as mistaken as Wu in their estimation of the American public. Steve had orginally written: . And, of course, as the Chinese have already pointed out, even if the Congress doesn't approve it, there are ways to circumvent that. So, even if the 'strategy' succeeds, it fails... Steve Max responded: Sounds like defeatism. Also illogic. If circumvention were costless nobody would care about getting China into the WTO. But apparently quite a few people care quite a bit. What do you know that they don't? Steve writes: I think they know that this is still a fight that needs to be fought. But that doesn't mean it is as important as it looks. Steve mbs Finally, I don't know why you're so sure the strategy (really a tactic in a strategy) will fail. As things stand the odds are against Congressional approval of china in the WTO. How the labor movement exploits this reflection of its influence has yet to unfold. mbs
Re: Keeping Tabb
Max wrote: Tabb and others are troubled by the anti-communist overtones of the China/WTO campaign and find it unpleasant to look at the real state of labor and human rights in China. We seem stuck in the old trap of apologizing for transgressions of really-existing communism in the belief or hope that there is some suitable recompense in improved living standards for the peasants and working class. Max, I'm glad to hear that we agree that the Tabb article adds something valuable to the debate on China trade policy, even if we don't agree on what that policy should be. I would respond to your argument above with the following note. People like myself, David Bacon, Doug, Carrol, Tabb and others, have not been short on criticism of Chinese labor policy. This frustrates the hell out of those who think the only way to talk about China is to repeat official Party dogma. Surely you've seen Doug and me criticized on this list (and other lists) for insisting that talking accurately about the state of labor in China. I have even summarized in the past the valuable work of Raymond Lau, an HK Marxist whose articles on labor have been quite far from official CCP positions. By relying on Helmsian ideologues like Harry Wu, it is the AFL-CIO that has chosen to not address reality as it presents itself to workers in China today. Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
Re: Further excuses of religion: RE: NYU ConferenceSchedule (April 7-8) (fwd)
Mine wrote: It is sad that the US left, whatever it means, still subscribes to the notion of compatibility of religion and socialism. If Mr. jesus can save us from capitalism, let him save us! Steve writes: The stuff of sectarianism. Who cares about someone's religious beliefs, I care more about their politics. Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
All the work units have collapsed. . . . It's a dangerous situation.(fwd)
My apologies for sending on this information from a bourgeois source. But for those offended, rest assured this kind of story you can find in Chinese magazines, newspapers,...Steve Subject: "All the work units have collapsed. . . . It's a dangerous situation." Washington Post WTO Membership Imperils China's Industrial Dinosaurs By Clay Chandler Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday , March 30, 2000 ; A01 SHENYANG, China With a broad smile and a flourish of his pen, the mayor of this snow-swept industrial city ceded authority to sell off hundreds of floundering city-run factories 12 days ago to 35-year-old Timothy Rucquoi-Berger. As flashbulbs popped at the signing ceremony in a stately guest house, Mayor Mu Suixin toasted Rucquoi-Berger, a fast-talking, Michigan-born investment banker, for helping Shenyang reverse the decay that has infected its old-line industries. The endorsement was a personal triumph for Rucquoi-Berger, a fluent Mandarin speaker who has spent years cultivating allies in China's gritty northeastern provinces. But it was also a sign of how desperately officials in crowded, soot-covered factory towns like this one 400 miles northeast of Beijing are soliciting foreign investors prior to China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). To gain admission to the Geneva-based global trade body, Beijing has promised to dismantle high tariffs that have shielded China's industrial dinosaurs for decades. In China's sprawling inland factory towns--places like Wuhan, Xian, Chongqing, Chengdu, Harbin and Shenyang--increased competition resulting from the WTO deal is sure to darken an already bleak picture of joblessness and despair that has led some officials to fear urban unrest. Entry into the WTO, with its emphasis on lowered duties overseas, fewer restrictions at home and new access to foreign technology, will mean more opportunity for China as a whole, particularly the nimble, low-cost manufacturers that have flourished in southern ports like Shanghai, Shenzhen and Fuzhou. But already, Beijing's attempts to rein in bloated state-owned enterprises have ravaged the economies of out-of-date manufacturing hubs like this one. At least a third of Shenyang's labor force is unemployed. Thousands gather in public parks in hope of getting temporary work. Workers forced into early retirement regularly take to the streets to protest meager pensions. The local media reports a jump in murders of prostitutes, who can earn 20 times the average factory worker's pay. Taxi drivers laud the recent execution of a band of robbers who have murdered 21 cabbies over the past two years. And there have been hundreds of demonstrations by laid-off workers. When Beijing promised last year to hand out a small sum for city dwellers to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Communist revolution, it fell to Shenyang's city hall to say the money was not there, sparking a demonstration that filled several downtown avenues. So far, such outbursts have been more of an embarrassment than a genuine threat. With Mu's prodding, the state-owned enterprises' share of the city's annual output has dropped precipitously, to 30 percent last year from 80 percent in 1996. That torrid pace drew criticism in Beijing last year, where some leaders criticized Mu for moving too fast. But in a speech to party colleagues in Beijing two months ago, Mu issued an extraordinary warning that conditions in his city could be spinning out of control. "Our ability to govern is being seriously affected" by rising joblessness, he acknowledged. "All the work units have collapsed. . . . It's a dangerous situation." That apprehension grips leaders in dozens of other troubled industrial centers. Experts say that out of an urban labor pool of about 350 million, at least 80 million Chinese are unemployed, with the majority concentrated in about 20 cities whose economies are dominated by dying, state-owned concerns. Moreover, Beijing has ordered state-owned enterprises to shed another 10 million employees this year, in addition to the 30 million already axed since 1998. "These numbers inspire fear and awe," economist William H. Overholt concluded in a recent essay surveying unemployment in China. "What is going on here is so far removed from . . . the previous experience of the human race that it is difficult to put into perspective." Mu has been among the most aggressive of China's local leaders in scrambling for outside cash. He has been to Europe twice to tout investment opportunities in his city, proffering generous tax breaks for foreign investors. He has auctioned off a slew of Shenyang companies to investors for just one yuan--about 12 cents--inviting criticism that the city is dumping public assets. This month's signing ceremony with Rucquoi-Berger bolstered the restructuring powers of Shenyang Corporate Advisory (SCA), a joint venture between the city government and the
Re: Re: Further excuses of religion: RE: NYU ConferenceSchedule (April 7-8) (fwd)
Yes, Mine, I could see you in Kansas trying to fight for your child's right to not be subjected to creationist dogma. Daniel Berrigan walks up to you and offers cooperation, your response?, "Sorry Dan, gotta give up your religion before we work together to fight creationists" Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822 On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve writes: The stuff of sectarianism. Who cares about someone's religious beliefs, I care more about their politics. then go and register to a biology course in Kansas! Mine
Boston Globe Online
Boston Globe ] Temp agencies find labor pool evaporating By Michael Crowley, Globe Staff, 3/30/2000 [H.gif] ow tight is the labor market in Boston? Consider the latest tactic of Franklin Pierce Temporaries, one of the city's biggest temporary employment agencies. For the past several weeks, six Franklin Pierce recruiters have been methodically plowing through the Boston Area White Pages, cold-calling everyone in the city with a listed phone number. Their question: Are you or anyone you know looking for work? ''You've got to be creative nowadays, and try everything,'' said Dave La Fauci, Franklin Pierce's vice president and general manager. ''Creativity is the key.'' With the state's unemployment rate hovering around 3 percent for the past few months, employers throughout the city and across the state have been strapped to fill new jobs created by the economic boom. Temporary agencies say their once-reliable pools of people seeking short-term work are drying up, and the response to traditional newspaper and magazine advertisements has dropped significantly. Increasingly, they say, they must resort to financial incentives and innovative recruiting techniques to recruit the people they need. ''In the past, for any job you would advertise, you would get seven or eight responses,'' said Stephen Flynn, owner of the COMFORCE temp agency in Boston. ''Now if you get one or two, you feel very fortunate. So you have to increase what you do to entice people.'' ComForce has begun putting fliers on parked cars, Flynn said, and is devoting new energies to job fairs as well as the Internet. But Flynn added that strong recruiting isn't enough. Referral bonuses at ComForce that once peaked at $100 now run as high as $500. And the company is offering benefits, paid vacations, and holidays to some of its longer-term employees. Wages for temps are up too, by as much as 15 to 20 percent over the past few years, according to temp agency executives. La Fauci said basic receptionist jobs that until recently paid between $9 and $10 per hour now pay $11 to $12 an hour. ''That's just phones,'' he said. Flynn added that data-entry jobs that paid as little as $7 an hour in the late 1990s now offer up to $10 per hour. ''There is definitely a shortage,'' said Jeanne Fiol, principal and president of the temporary staffing division at KNFT Staffing Resources in Boston, which employs about 600 temp workers every week. Fiol said staffing problems are especially acute in positions that require employees with more than the most basic skills. ''There just aren't enough qualified computer-literate candidates to go around,'' Fiol said. KNFT has yet to crack open the phone book, however. Fiol said she has preferred to boost advertising budgets and spend more time surfing job-seeker Web sites such as monster.com, a resume repository that has become a temp-agency favorite. ''There's a great deal of Internet recruiting going on,'' Fiol said. In fact, Fiol was skeptical of some competitors' tactics. Relying on the phone book, she said, is unlikely to yield the kind of skilled employees that are most needed. But La Fauci said he's happy with the results of the White Pages experiment, dreamed up six months ago by Franklin Pierce employee Kathleen Dorsey. Every week, each of Franklin Pierce's six recruiters works through a phone book page - each of which averages about 440 names, La Fauci said. The procedure has been averaging a mere two to three callbacks per page, a response rate of less than 1 percent. But La Fauci said that is enough to make it worthwhile. ''It's a numbers game,'' he said. ''You've got to go more in-depth on your recruiting efforts, and leave no stone unturned.'' Plus, La Fauci added, he needs to do everything he can to stay a step ahead of his rivals. ''There's high competition among my competitors,'' he said. ''Everyone in the world has this problem right now.'' This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 3/30/2000. © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company. [ Send this story to a friend | Easy-print version | Add to Daily User ] Click here for advertiser information © Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company Boston Globe Extranet Extending our newspaper services to the web Return to the home page
Re: Re: All the work units have collapsed. . . . It's a dangerous situation. (fwd)
My apologies for sending on this information from a bourgeois source. But
for those offended, rest assured this kind of story you can find in
Chinese magazines, newspapers,...Steve
Subject: "All the work units have collapsed. . . . It's a dangerous
situation."
Washington Post
WTO Membership Imperils China's Industrial Dinosaurs
By Clay Chandler
Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday , March 30, 2000 ; A01
Chris wrote:
Bourgeois sources are usually right at the level of gossip. What they will
leave out is any coherence to what the Chinese Communist Party may claim to
be trying to do.
{snip}
My impression is that ithe CPC is increasingly retreating to a position
where the coordination of China's finances in the context of the world
economy is the most important features of a social control of the means of
production. That, coupled with the large town and village cooperative
sector, might be not so different from Market Socialism.
Chris Burford
Now from an official Chinese source, translated by your's truly...on the
socialist content of TVE's:
From Workers' Daily, 11/26/98
In the Hunan Province village of Yiyang as long as Getihu entrepreneurs
put out under a hundred Yuan, they can buy TVE "hongmaozi'
status. That's the 'latest trend' that interviews with villagers revealed
to this reporter. According to butcher Chen Guiting from Anhua county,
he and 17 other butchers got together and spent 55 Yuan to become a "TVE."
Sources close to or in the government note that throughout China, numerous
getihu are following suit..The widespread sight of getihu that have the
cover of TVE gives one cause to reflect.
The gap between official stats and what one really sees begs an
explanation. No matter if it's a shop selling tofu or meat sellers in
country markets, all are "TVE's"..If you're not careful, you might even
find yourself inside a "barber-shop" TVE..According to Yiyang City
Ministry of Industry and Commerce statistics, Yiyang city has a total of
5,414 getihu's that are registered as TVE's including barbershops, watch
repairshops, restaurants, small grocery shops, cigarette and alcohol
sellers..run by farmers from the countryside. These shops all have the
simultaneous status of getihhu and TVE.
In the town of Lanxi, which borders Yiyang city, some shop owners/traders
said that officials they approached for the TVE registration asked for 65
Yuan, and with that they received oneTVE registration certificate, one TVE
legal regulations booklet, and one TVE tax payment record card. Not a few
getithu proprietors revealed that once they made their registration
payment they were told by TVE Affairs Office that now that they were
TVE's, they were not required to pay taxes to the City Ministry of
Industry and Commerce. Numerous getihu proprietors now believing
themselves to be 'TVE' proprietors have since refused to pay their fees to
the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. As a result a conflict has arisen
between the two powerful Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the TVE
Ministry, in which much less powerfulgetihu's see themselves as caught in
the middle of and ending up as the biggest as the biggest victims.
According to sources Hunan Provincial Prosecutor's Office, Financial
Court, Commodity Prices Bureau..officials decided at a meeting , on July
3rd of this year, enjoined the TVE Ministry to rectify the problem of
misappropriation of fees and to deliver a report on progress by August,
1998.
However, in November of this year, this reporter in the counties of
Heshan, Taojiang, and Anhua found thru many interviews that most getihu's
had not had their TVE status revoked and were still operating under the
cover of TVE registration...
Re: Re: Re: NYU Conference Schedule (April 7-8) (fwd)
On Thu, 30 Mar 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: are your catholic folks progressive enough when it comes to gender issues? just crucious to know... Mine Steve: The answer to that is, obviously, yes. Many Catholic lefties are pro-choice,...all one has to do is read their literature. They might not like abortion, be against it in their own personal situation, but they won't support anti-choice legislation. And they will also show up at pro-choice activities, which is probably more than you would do. This thread is looking more and more like a spam thread. Steve
Spam
Spam., steve On Thu, 30 Mar 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What is this debate about? Michael, the debate is as follows... Still, religion has inspired great generosity and positive heroism in others. thanks god for his generosity! then go and register to a biology course in Kansas! Mine evolution was dropped from the cirriculum of public schools by the State Board of Education in Kansas. i think it was last august or so... Mine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
L.A.LaborNews - The China Syndrome - meltdown in the movement (fwd)
This is a useful contribution, not simply because I agree with the text, but because it doesn't resort to simplistic characterizations of the AFL-CIO as a monolothic entity, with all troops goosestepping to the same tune. Note the discussion of the Asian desk if you are wondering what I mean. Any "analysis" of policies/strategies pursued by the AFL-CIO are useless if they talk about "The AFL-CIO this, the AFL-CIO that". Steve Subject: L.A.LaborNews - The China Syndrome - meltdown in the movement THE CHINA SYNDROME - OR, HOW TO HIJACK A MOVEMENT by Jim Smith April 2 - When tens of thousands converged on Seattle last November to protest the unrestrained corporate power reflected in the World Trade Organization, they had little idea that forces were at work to hijack their new movement. We were in Seattle to protest transnational corporations, including Nike, The Gap, McDonalds and Starbucks and all the others, and the oppressive economic order they have set up which is becoming commonly known as neoliberal globalism. To borrow an analogy from the war on drugs, in this economic arrangement, the corporations are the pushers and the third world workers and their governments are the users, greedy for an income they can wrest from the wealthy and the powerful. In Seattle, we went after the pushers. Yet only four months after Seattle, a powerful effort is underway to shift the focus away from corporate power to a chauvinistic attack on the Peoples Republic of China. Instead of a democratic discussion and debate within the new movement, a few officials of the AFL-CIO and some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) decided on their own to subvert the growing internationalist movement with a China-bashing litany of accusations of human rights violations and sweatshop conditions that just as easily could have been laid against many of the 131 countries in the WTO. Not even the United States has clean hands. It has the largest prison population in the world, the most state-sponsored executions of prisoners, by far the largest military in the world, seemingly constant murders and frame-ups of African-Americans and Latinos by police officers, hundreds of thousands of homeless, millions without health care and one of the worst income distributions in the world. Critics of China would do well to look to their own backyard. Why is the AFL-CIO attacking China? The motivation of the AFL-CIO leaders to attack China is two-fold. Many union leaders have pandered to protectionist sentiments of their members instead of educating them on the need for international solidarity against corporate rule. With a few notable exceptions, most union and federation leaders do not base their policies and actions on furthering class solidarity but instead follow the path of least resistance with short-term goals that qualify them for dubious distinction as "special interests." This failure of leadership not only makes blaming China palatable but is opening the door to demagogues like Patrick Buchanan and his "fortress American" siren song with its anti-immigrant hysteria. Their second motivation for moving the fight against China to the top of the agenda is ideological. In 1995, John Sweeney and his "New Voices" slate replaced Lane Kirkland, Tom Donahue and a dynasty that could trace its roots back 100 years to Sam Gompers. Sweeney vowed to shake up the federation's international department which for years had worked hand-in-glove with the U.S. State Department and the CIA in fighting the cold war. In fact, Sweeney did eliminate most of the cold warriors and changed the name of the international operation to the Solidarity Center. But there was one exception - the Asia desk. It is from here, under the direction of Kirkland holdover, Mark Hankin, that the barrage of anti-China propaganda emanates. The unreconstructed cold warriors of the Asia desk enthusiastically promote China dissidents in cooperation with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Hoover Institute, the CIA or a combination of all of them. Strange Bedfellows The fight against granting China permanent most favored nation status and entry into the WTO has created strange bedfellows. When Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Chinese were driven out of mainland China in 1949 by the Peoples Liberation Army, the cry "Who lost China?" went up in right-wing circles in the U.S. A rabidly anti-union wing of the Republican Party led by Senators Robert Taft and Joe McCarthy led the hue and cry which didn't abate until after two bloody wars on China's borders - Korea and Vietnam. Meanwhile, they passed the Taft-Hartley Act which still hobbles labor 50 years later. Notwithstanding this new labor-far right alliance against China, liberal opponents of the Chinese would argue that its bad human-rights record speaks for itself. However, this argument breaks down when China is compared to other developing countries, such as, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Pakistan,
Bolivia declares emergency over protests - April 8, 2000
You have to scroll down a bit to get to the story, but it's worth reading. Steve Subject: CNN.com - Bolivia declares emergency over protests - April 8, 2000 http://cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/04/08/bolivia.emergency.reut/index.html Title: CNN.com - Bolivia declares emergency over protests - April 8, 2000 Click HereClick Here Miami jury awards nearly $13 million in tobacco lawsuit Play video Watch more CNN VIDEO world > americas CNN Sites CNN CNNfn CNNSI myCNN AllPolitics Languages myCNN|Video|Audio|Headline News Brief|Free E-mail|Feedback CNN Sites CNN CNNfn CNNSI myCNN AllPolitics Languages Search CNN.com CNNSI.com CNNfn.com The Web WORLDTOP STORIES Voters in Bosnia lead off a weekend of elections around the globe Starvation stalks East Africa as drought drags on Bolivia declares emergency over protests White House announces Clinton-Barak summit Russian tanker detained on suspicion of smuggling Iraqi oil Spy papers at center of Kohl scandal divide Germans (MORE) TOP STORIES Voters in Bosnia lead off a weekend of elections around the globe Bolivia declares emergency over protests White House announces Clinton-Barak summit After 85 years, prom fever hits Oklahoma high school (MORE) BUSINESS Nasdaq posts record gainIdeas for your moneyCNNfn revamps mutual fund section (MORE) MARKETS 4:30pm ET, 4/7DJIA2.801.40 NAS178.894446.45 S15.011516.35 SPORTS Sampras loses Davis Cup match; Agassi wins Ailing ONeal might miss Saturdays Lakers game Kevin Brown out 3-4 weeks with broken finger (MORE) All Scoreboards WEATHER Enter your U.S. Zip:Click here for U.S. States or world cities U.S.Reno expects to move next week to return Elian Gonzalez to his father POLITICSSenate passes $1.83 trillion budget blueprint TECHNOLOGYMicrosoft offers a peek at new operating systems ENTERTAINMENTReview: An unengaging 'Rules' HEALTHStudy links brain damage in Gulf War vets to nerve gas exposure TRAVELSpring/summer travel planner: Soak in Old World ambiance, new technology FOODDiabetic-friendly diner serves up sugarless, low-carb meals ARTS & STYLEToeless pantyhose step into the scene BOOKSPublishing turns new page with instant books (MORE HEADLINES) MAINPAGE WORLD africa americas asia pacific europe middle east U.S. LOCAL POLITICS WEATHER BUSINESS SPORTS TECHNOLOGY SPACE HEALTH ENTERTAINMENT BOOKS TRAVEL FOOD ARTS STYLE NATURE IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS myCNN Headline News brief news quiz daily almanac MULTIMEDIA: video video archive audio multimedia showcase more services E-MAIL: Subscribe to one of our news e-mail lists. Enter your address: DISCUSSION: message boards chat feedback CNN WEB SITES: AsiaNow Spanish Portuguese Italian Swedish Norwegian Danish Japanese FASTER ACCESS: europe TIME INC. SITES: Go To ... Time.com People Money Fortune EW CNN NETWORKS: more networks transcripts Turner distribution SITE INFO: help contents search ad info jobs WEB SERVICES: Keyword Title Author Bolivia declares emergency over protests Protesters protect their faces from tear gas fired by national police who dispersed thousands of demonstrators in Cochabamba, Bolivia, during protests against the raise in water rates April 8, 2000 Web posted at: 6:53 p.m. EDT (2253 GMT) LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) -- Bolivia's government put the landlocked Andean nation of 8 million people under a state of emergency Saturday, after it was rocked for a week by protests over pending waterworks projects and legislation. "We see it as our obligation, in the common best interest, to decree a state of emergency to protect law and order," President Hugo Banzer said in a message delivered by Information Minister Ronald MacLean at the government palace. The state of emergency giving Banzer special powers to deploy police and the military will be in place for 90 days. It was announced Friday night to avoid damaging "the efforts for social dialogue" and assure "that the great effort towards economic reactivation is not set back further," MacLean read. The move has to be ratified by Congress, in which the ruling party controls the majority. Bolivia has been hit by protests in the central city of Cochabamba over a $200 million waterworks project that promises to hike
Of Steve Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: genome news (fwd)
For the record, the Steve referred to below is Steve Rosenthal, not me... Steve (The "PEN Steve") Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822 On Sat, 8 Apr 2000, Mine Aysen Doyran wrote: Steve wrote: Because of these sharp critiques, Wilson reinvented himself as an environmentalist concerned about bio-diversity. Brad replied: If it is an excellent piece of Marxian sociology, why does it make false claims about Wilson's intellectual development? Either Steve does not know enough about E.O. Wilson to know that he was always *both* a sociobiologist and an environmentalist--in which I have better things to spend my time reading, things written by people who have done their homework--or Steve knows that he is lying when he claims that Wilson's environmentalism is an intellectual re-make--in which case I have better things to spend my time reading, things written by people who don't lie to me. Brad, please know what you are saying. Nobody is a lier about Wilson's intellectual development here. Steve is DOCUMENTING passages from Wilson's book. Accordingly, he CITES Wilson who says that human nature "is the_hereditary regularities of mental development that bias cultural evolution in one direction_and thus connect the genes to culture" (p. 164). well, how do you interpret this? just a naive bio-diversity or an objective scientific statement?If you agree with what Wilson says, there is no point in continuing this debate because my reading of him is that he is obviously racist. This is because Wilson is reducing cultural and other social differences to genes, and then reconstructing and universalizing an hypothetical theory of human nature, which is completely false and ideological. Human beings are *not* determined by their genes. They are shaped by the social, cultural, ideological and political-economic environment they live in. As cross-cultural anthropological studies further proves that many societies such as tribal bands, small communities, ancient groupings did not have the same perceptions of masculinity and feminity that we have today. these are socio-historical constructions, sex roles, broadly defined, not genetic givens. the socio-biological claim that people differ because they differ genetically is called RACISM, which is what Wilson does eventually. thus, i don't understand why you support the man! -- Mine Aysen Doyran PhD Student Department of Political Science SUNY at Albany Nelson A. Rockefeller College 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102 Albany, NY 1
Economist on China's economy
The Economist April 8-14, 2000 SURVEY CHINA Now comes the hard part China looks set to change as much in the next five years as in the past extraordinary 20, says Dominic Ziegler IF YOU think, says a high administration official in Washington,D C, what will be required for economic success in the globalisation that is exploding around ustechnically dynamic, information-rich, highly entrepreneurialthen the winners in that environment will be those able to provide at least the following... He counts on his fingers. Free access to global information and markets. Protection of physical and intellectual property. People able to speak and associate freely. A government that has sufficient legitimacy to feel comfortable joining the global economy. An educated population. And a rules-based polity...This is a set of qualities that does not conform to a highly authoritarian system. That, put simply, is the case for political change in China. In the past few years, two uncertainties about China have cleared themselves up. The first is that Chinas central government has committed itself wholeheartedly, irrevocably and (to all but the dimmest apparatchiks) unambiguously to creating a market economy at home, tied to the world at large. This is not because Chinas septuagenarian leaders, all former central planners, have become born-again liberals (although a surprising number of liberals are moving up through the ranks). Rather, the remnant Maoists have long been banished to the wings, from where they shout ineffectually from time to time. Meanwhile, the remaining dominant factionswhether their leaders are gung-ho reformers, cautious conservatives or nationalists who see economic success as the basis of future power projectionall agree on one thing: the Communist Party is history unless it can deliver growth. And for each of the past seven years now, Chinas stellar economic growth has been slowing, risking unmanageable dissatisfaction amongst the people. So Zhu Rongji, the prime minister, by temperament and training an engineer, not a free-marketeer, and popular neither with his peers in the Politburo nor with minions, has had his reforming way all the same. New sources of growth, he insists, have to be found by drastically (and painfully) shrinking the state. The 15th Communist Party Congress in the autumn of 1997 was a watershed. It marked the start of this new phase with the suggestion that tens of thousands of small and medium-sized state enterprises would be cast loose upon private waters, to float or sink. In the spring of 1999, guarantees that acknowledged the private sector for the first time were written into the state constitution. Growth from heaven The first two decades of reform have in essence been catch-up growth, gains that came from disbanding the agricultural communes and from allowing capital and particularly labour to be poured into low-end manufacturing and processing, a lot of it for export. The government did not really have to do anything to foster such growth, other than to keep out of the way. Double-digit growth rates were the norm, and fast growth created new jobs for workers made redundant by inefficient state-owned enterprises, migrants from the countryside to urban areas, and young people looking for their first job. Now those high growth rates are gone, possibly for good. Growth is not only lower these days, but its labour intensity, according to Yukon Huang, head of the World Banks mission in China, has also slowed. What growth China is achieving is creating fewer jobs. We have run out of easy things to reform, explains a senior Chinese official. Laying the foundations for the next phase of growth will be very much harder. The productivity of the landand remember that two-thirds of Chinas 1.3 billion people still live in the countrysidehas almost reached its natural limits, given Chinas severe shortage of water. Higher productivity in agriculture will come at the price of even more people leaving the land for urban areasperhaps 8m-10m a year, for whom jobs will need to be found. Another 6m jobs need to be created in the cities just to allow for the modest natural increase in the urban population each year. Then there are the 4m-7m a year being thrown out of work by shrinking state-owned enterprises. That is a minimum of 18m urban jobs that the economy must create every year for the next few years. But from where? The woes of Chinas industrial sector are well known, and the service sector has been so stunted by the countrys socialist legacy that it is only half the size expected for a country at that stage of development. The possibility is there for a prolonged industrial slump and a restive population. For Chinas leaders, that prospect tilts the balance of risk and reward in favour of serious structural change and market reformsshort-term pain that should, touch wood, lay the
Re: Re: what's happening?
On Fri, 14 Apr 2000, Louis Proyect wrote: The reason that the government has been so spineless with respect to the kidnappers is that it is ambivalent about their role in American society. I would agree about this in part. This view is amendable at any moment. It needs the Miami gusanos as much as US capitalism needed (and needs) the KKK. Yes, but it also needed Noriega and Saddam Hussein. My sense is that in negotiations with the Cuban exiles the INS is ambivalent, but also trying to get the Cubans to recognise that they are expendable, just like Noriega, Marcos...The amount of talk on TV and in the press in th last week about normalization of US-Cuba relations as a final result of this whole 'drama' has increased noticeably. On the other hand, that ambivalence you note is also holding the INS back from taking any decisive action against the defeated Batista leftovers in Miami. BTW, the more I watch this 'drama' on TV, OJ car stuck in freeway traffic jam shots and all, I am reminded of Trotsky's *History of the Russian Revolution*, the discussion of the often seemingly illogical actions of the Csar's obliviousness to the reality that his corrupt dynasty was falling anyday. Sometimes the Miami Cubans are acting like this, unaware of the shifts that have occurred in the ground rules of US-Cuba relations and the implications that has on their real loss of needed support to take back power. They are a defeated class and the Elian affair demonstrates this all too clearly. Steve Instruments of terror such as these can be used to intimidate liberation movements overseas or within our borders. It is interesting to compare FBI collusion with the Klan murderers and CIA support for the criminals who have set off bombs on Cuban civilian airliners, among other things. The criminals are never apprehended for some odd reason. Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
Labor Disputes in China on the Rise
Chinese Workers Are Showing Disenchantment Official Statistics Show Number of Labor Disputes Has Soared as Workers Complain of Late or No Pay, Layoffs, Corruption By John Pomfret Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, April 23, 2000; Page A23 BEIJINGThe number of labor disputes in China has skyrocketed--to more than 120,000 in 1999--as workers in unprecedented numbers get laid off, are paid late or not at all and feel cheated by corrupt officials who sell state property for a pittance to friends, relatives and colleagues. Official Labor Ministry statistics passed to a Western diplomat and a recent article in the journal Legal Research showed 14 times more labor disputes--from simple contractual disagreements to work stoppages and strikes--last year than in 1992. The article and labor officials' willingness to speak about the issue marked a departure for the Communist Party, which has struggled to maintain stability in Chinese cities in the wrenching transformation from a planned economy to something akin to a market economy. The strains were highlighted in late February when tens of thousands of workers erupted in a violent protest at China's biggest nonferrous metal mine near the Bohai Sea in the northeast. Workers there burned cars, broke windows and kept police and the army at bay for several days as they protested what they said was an unfair and corrupt handling of the mine's bankruptcy. Chinese labor conditions have been the subject of increased international scrutiny in advance of a vote in the U.S. Congress on granting China permanent normal trade relations, a major stepping stone to its accession to the World Trade Organization. U.S. labor unions, led by the AFL-CIO, have argued that entry into the WTO would result in a deterioration of China's already limited labor rights. Chinese law does not provide for the right to strike and bans independent unions. The statistics show a jump from 8,150 labor disputes in 1992 to more than 120,000 last year, answering a question posed often by China scholars: Is the urban labor situation getting tenser, or is it simply that China's increasing openness allows for more information about a fixed number of disputes? "This is significant. It shows things are getting more difficult," said Anita Chan, an expert on China's labor relations at Australian National University in Canberra. At the same time, the statistics also helped explain why the increased unrest has yet to translate into a movement challenging the Communist Party's monopoly on power or seeking to establish independent labor unions. While collective labor disputes, in which workers seek to bargain in a unit, are increasing rapidly, they still make up a minority of the overall disputes--7 percent in 1998, the last year available. And no evidence exists of workers uniting to strike at several businesses at the same time. Besides unrest over wages, labor disputes typically involve unpaid pensions to laid-off employees, poor working conditions and the sell-off of state enterprises that workers believe involved fraud by management. Andrew Walder, an expert on Chinese urban workers at Stanford University, said a key reason the unrest hasn't translated into a broader movement is that strikes remain scattered and workers are unwilling or unable to unite to pursue broader goals. "There have been periodic press reports for most of the last 10 to 15 years or so that labor disputes are on the rise in China," he said. "It makes a great deal of sense that they would be: Wage issues came to the forefront in the 1980s and increasing job insecurity and layoffs [became] a big issue in the 1990s. Should we get worked up about such reports? Probably not. Scattered strikes are politically meaningless. If and when a national or regional trade union is organized and survives openly for a while--which is very unlikely--we should then begin to read political significance into all this." Some researchers suggested that the 1999 figure for labor disputes, which represented a 29 percent increase over 1998, was limited by massive government subsidies. Last year during the 50th anniversary of China's Communist revolution, party officials were told to stress stability at all costs. "Labor relations in 2000 will deteriorate as special subsidies fade out, the economic and labor 'reforms' intensify and more and more workers are laid off," said Tak Chuen, an expert on China's labor issues at Hong Kong Baptist University. Chuen said Chinese workers face a difficult situation because accession to the WTO will do nothing to improve their livelihood, at least in the short run, but failure to do so will not help either. The Legal Research article, written by retired scholar Shi Tanjing and published in November, called on the government to end its ban on strikes. The right to strike was removed from China's constitution in 1982. Shi said labor disputes in China are
CHINA REPORTS BIG SURGE IN LABOR UNREST DURING 1999 - SF Chronicle
The San Francisco Chronicle Monday, April 24, 2000 CHINA REPORTS BIG SURGE IN LABOR UNREST DURING 1999 Disputes over unpaid pensions, wages, fraud By John Pomfret, Washington Post Beijing -- The number of labor disputes in China has skyrocketed -- to more than 120,000 in 1999 -- as workers in unprecedented numbers get laid off, are paid late or not at all and feel cheated by corrupt officials who sell state property for a pittance to friends, relatives and colleagues. Official Labor Ministry statistics passed to a Western diplomat and a recent article in the journal Legal Research showed 14 times more labor disputes -- from simple contractual disagreements to work stoppages and strikes -- last year than in 1992. The article and labor officials' willingness to speak about the issue marked a departure for the Communist Party, which has struggled to maintain stability in Chinese cities in the wrenching transformation from a planned economy to something akin to a market economy. The strains were highlighted in late February when tens of thousands of workers erupted in a violent protest at China's biggest nonferrous metal mine near the Bohai Sea in the northeast. Workers there burned cars, broke windows and kept police and the army at bay for several days as they protested what they said was an unfair and corrupt handling of the mine's bankruptcy. Chinese labor conditions have been the subject of increased international scrutiny in advance of a vote in the U.S. Congress on granting China permanent normal trade relations, a major stepping stone to its accession to the World Trade Organization. U.S. labor unions, led by the AFL-CIO, have argued that China's entry into the WTO would result in a deterioration of its already-limited labor rights. Chinese law does not provide for the right to strike and bans independent unions. The statistics show a jump from 8,150 labor disputes in 1992 to more than 120,000 last year, answering a question posed often by China scholars: Is the urban labor situation getting tenser, or is it simply that China's increasing openness allows for more information about a fixed number of disputes? This is significant. It shows things are getting more difficult, said Anita Chan, an expert on China's labor relations at Australian National University in Canberra. At the same time, the statistics also helped explain why the increased unrest has yet to translate into a movement challenging the Communist Party's monopoly on power or seeking to establish independent labor unions. While collective labor disputes, in which workers seek to bargain in a unit, are increasing rapidly, they still make up a minority of the overall disputes -- 7 percent in 1998, the last year available. And no evidence exists of workers uniting to strike at several businesses at the same time. Besides unrest over wages, labor disputes typically involve unpaid pensions to laid-off employees, poor working conditions and the sell-off of state enterprises that workers believe involved fraud by management. Andrew Walder, an expert on Chinese urban workers at Stanford University, said a key reason the unrest hasn't translated into a broader movement is that strikes remain scattered and workers are unwilling or unable to unite to pursue broader goals. There have been periodic press reports for most of the last 10 to 15 years or so that labor disputes are on the rise in China, he said. It makes a great deal of sense that they would be: Wage issues came to the forefront in the 1980s and increasing job insecurity and layoffs (became) a big issue in the 1990s. Should we get worked up about such reports? Probably not. Scattered strikes are politically meaningless. If and when a national or regional trade union is organized and survives openly for a while -- which is very unlikely -- we should then begin to read political significance into all this. Some researchers suggested that the 1999 figure for labor disputes, which represented a 29 percent increase over 1998, was limited by massive government subsidies. Last year during the 50th anniversary of China's Communist revolution, party officials were told to stress stability at all costs. Labor relations in 2000 will deteriorate as special subsidies fade out, the economic and labor reforms' intensify and more and more workers are laid off, said Tak Chuen, an expert on China's labor issues at Hong Kong Baptist University. Chuen said Chinese workers face a difficult situation because accession to the WTO will do nothing to improve their livelihood, at least in the short run, but failure to do so will not help either. The Legal Research article, written by retired scholar Shi Tanjing and published in November, called on the government to end its ban on strikes. The right to strike was removed from China's constitution in 1982.
Little interest among Chinese students one year after NATO bombing(fwd)
Friday, May 5 10:28 AM SGT Little interest among Chinese students one year after NATO bombing BEIJING, May 5 (AFP) - For many students who took part in the violent anti-US protests after the NATO bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade anger has given way to study, job hunting and the dream of living abroad. The atmosphere on the campus of Beijing's People's University during this week's MayDay holiday week was relaxed and students expressed little interest and almost no anger over the May 7, 1999 bombing. "As far as I know there are no activities on our campus planned to commemorate the anniversary of the bombing," student He Beifang told AFP. Students studying international affairs or foreign languages might have special discussion sessions, but few students were thinking about the bombing despite the tremendous anger they unleashed last year, he said. "Of course we were very angry about it last year, but the US paid compensation to China and to the families of the victims, so right now I don't think many students are angry about it," said Wei, an English major. "We still don't believe the US explanation that the bombing was a mistake, so it is still up to the US to give China a satisfactory explanation," she said. In the aftermath of the bombing which killed three Chinese journalists, Chinese students erupted into four days of angry protests throughout China -- smashing windows at the US Embassy in Beijing and torching the US Consulate in Chengdu, Sichuan province. Police largely declined to intervene as students rained stones, bottles and paint bombs on the US missions and chanted anti-American slogans. Wei and He said they attended the huge demonstrations, but denied the protests only occured because the government allowed them to. "Yes, the government and university leaders encouraged us to go down to protest at the US Embassy, but everyone was really angry so you can't say that it was only the government who organized the protests," Wei said. The protests were the biggest in China since the six-week-long 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests which were crushed by the Chinese military. Other students said the granting of permanent normal trade relationsto China by the US Congress in a vote later this month, would go a long way towards showing that the United States was not trying to contain China, but was willing to work with China. "PNTR will show that the US wants to work with China and stop using power politics to interfere in China's internal affairs," said a law student from Hebei University who was visiting the People's University. "A lot of students were happy to see the statements by Vice President (Al) Gore that supported PNTR and improved relations between China and the US," he said. In a foreign policy speech on Monday, Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee in this year's elections, called China a "vital partner" and pledged to build stronger relations. His statements were widely reported in the Chinese press, as were statements made Tuesday by President Bill Clinton which said failure to pass PNTR would be "very unwise and precarious" from a national security point of view. With China's probable entry into the World Trade Organisation, most students looked forward to better ties with the West and many shied away from discussing politics. "Students here are only concerned about finding good jobs after college, so we concentrate on our studies and pay little attention to politics," one student said. "I would think that every college student in China studies English and many are hoping to go abroad to study," he said. "Study in the US is still the first choice." The US Central Intelligence Agency took the blame for the NATO strike by saying out-dated maps resulted in laser guided bombs hitting the Chinese embassy instead of a nearby Yugoslav military depot. China still insists the attack was deliberate.
AP on current attitudes toward the bombing
May 5, 2000 China Shepherds US Ties After Bomb By The Associated Press BEIJING (AP) -- China and the United States are wrangling anew over Taiwan, trade and a host of human rights complaints. A year after U.S. bombs shattered China's embassy in Yugoslavia, bitterly strained relations have retained the edginess that has marked ties for more than a decade. Still, the bombing has shifted Chinese views of the United States. Gone are the communist leadership's rosy prospects for a partnership with Washington. Supporters of closer U.S. ties are on the defensive, and groups long wary of American intentions have grown more leery -- and vocal. ``I never had good feelings about the United States, so the bombing incident just confirmed my suspicions,'' said Bao Limin, a 22-year-old master's candidate at Tsinghua University, one of China's elite schools. Bao and her classmates have no plans to protest on the anniversary of the May 7, 1999, bombing -- which falls on Sunday Belgrade time and Monday in Beijing. Academics said universities were ordered to keep campuses quiet. Chinese leaders don't want trouble in the weeks before the U.S. Congress votes on China's permanent access to the American market. Even as they have moved to shore up U.S. ties to keep needed foreign investment flowing, Chinese leaders have had to accommodate anti-American sentiment among communist conservatives, the military and the public. ``The Chinese people will carry this incident in their hearts for a long time, so this has naturally influenced China-U.S. relations,'' said Liu Jinghua, an international affairs scholar with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. ``Of course it brought nationalism into play.'' The tensions are evident in the tightly controlled state media. Newspapers herald China's expected entry to the World Trade Organization, and acknowledge U.S. help in that goal. Shrill TV documentaries catalogue American racism and police brutality -- a counter to U.S. human rights criticisms. Leaders loudly accuse Washington of impeding China's cherished unification with Taiwan. President Jiang Zemin has spoken out against creeping Westernization, accusing foreign forces of trying to change China's socialist government. To vie with the West, he launched a campaign to spur technological development, citing China's homemade nuclear weapons program for inspiration. China was stridently opposed to NATO's war with Yugoslavia over Kosovo when five satellite-guided bombs slammed into the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. The attack killed three Chinese journalists in the embassy and ignited furious protests in 20 cities across China. Protesters, inflamed by state media, saw the bombing as a deliberate attack on China's sovereignty. They set the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu alight and hurled stones, garbage and even feces at the embassy in Beijing, trapping the U.S. ambassador inside for more than four days. ``In one instance, the United States' so-called democracy and freedom had no market among ordinary Chinese,'' Wei Ming, pen name for an unidentified scholar, said in an essay posted on a Web site that favors conservative, nationalistic views. Many Chinese still feel anger toward the U.S. government over the bombing, refusing to accept Washington's explanation that the attack was an accident, due to faulty targeting. ``It's just like our parents always told us: the U.S. rules by force,'' said Wang Xiaoxia, a Tsinghua student. China is much better off and better informed about the United States than during the democracy demonstrations in 1989, when students erected a Statue of Liberty-like figure on Tiananmen Square. Television has made American celebrities familiar to Chinese, and trade has brought them U.S. goods. Many Chinese have visited the United States. One recent book, selling well at highbrow Beijing book stores, tells of a Chinese lawyer who clerked for a U.S. federal court judge and renders a sensitive portrait of the American legal system. The free-flowing exchange has inspired mixed feelings. ``Most ordinary Chinese hate the United States for the bombing,'' said Zheng Zhenqi, a truck driver in Beijing. But Zheng praises U.S. democracy, pointing to President Clinton's impeachment trial over his relationship with a White House intern -- something he says could never happen in China. Bao and her classmates like American movies and music. They carry pagers, have access to computers and know how to access foreign Web sites government censors have blocked, although they admit their access to information is limited. For them, the bombing was just another in a series of acts they maintain the West has used to keep China down: from Britain's Opium War to China's losing bid to play host to the 2000 Olympics to constant U.S. hectoring over human rights, Tibet and Taiwan. ``I always felt these things were none of your business,'' said Chen Hong, one of Bao's classmates.
Jiang walks tightrope between left and right (fwd)
Saturday, May 6, 2000 Jiang walks tightrope between left and right WILLY WO-LAP LAM Communist Party ideologues have temporarily wound down their campaign against rightists, or "bourgeois-liberal" intellectuals who advocate faster political reform. The main reason is that the hard left has exploited the anti-rightist crusade to revive slogans running counter to Beijing's economic reforms. In the past month, the head of the leftist faction, Deng Liqun, has spoken out against exploitation of workers and farmers by a "new capitalist class". Addressing several internal seminars organised by leftist think-tanks, Mr Deng urged cadres and citizens to be "prepared for a new class struggle". Mr Deng claimed that in many factories and places of work run by private and foreign entrepreneurs, relationships between workers and the new bosses were "nothing more than that between exploiters and exploited". A party source in Beijing said the leadership of President Jiang Zemin had always tried to strike a balance between left and right. Mr Jiang had criticised liberal intellectuals who urged political reforms such as multiparty politics and general elections, he said. But the source said the President was also unhappy with leftist agendas such as the suppression of private and foreign capital. This was because the party leadership had given the non-state sector a bigger role. Mr Jiang also feared a rise in the leftists' influence would drive away foreign businessmen at a time when the country was about to accede to the World Trade Organisation. "Usually, leftists redouble their efforts when they see that their enemies, the rightists, are under siege," said the source. "The authorities, however, have countered the Maoists' offensive by asking official media not to report their activities." Meanwhile, the party Central Committee's publicity department and other ideological units are promoting patriotism and the "Three Emphases" campaign on toeing the Jiang Zemin line. For example, on the anniversary of the May Fourth movement, leaders, including Vice-President Hu Jintao, stressed the need to instil patriotic values in the young and to develop national strength. However, with a view to getting China's permanent Normal Trading Relations status passed in the US congress, officials have been at pains to draw the line between patriotic education and anti-American feelings. The official media has largely refrained from playing up emotions in connection with the anniversary of the Nato bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Meanwhile, the Three Emphases campaign, "study the Marxist canon, be righteous, and be politically correct", is being conducted at county level while a variant push is being waged in rich coastal provinces such as Jiangsu and Guangdong. Its theme is "remember your origin after becoming rich; and seek further progress in the midst of prosperity". These campaigns underscore the imperative of toeing the "line of the centre" and remaining in unison with the Jiang leadership. Beijing has banned books about the Zhong Gong, a quasi-religious, qi gong group similar to the Falun Gong. The Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said yesterday mainland bookstores had been ordered to destroy copies of nine books published by Zhong Gong.
China's recession adds pressure for workers' rights
The Telegraph (UK) Sunday May 7, 2000 China's recession adds pressure for workers' rights By Damien Mcelroy in Beijing CHINA returns to work today after an unprecedented week-long national holiday ordered by a Communist leadership alarmed at escalating violent protests and strikes among a discontented workforce. The decision to extend the "Labour Day" holiday to a week for 300 million urban workers seems to have been taken shortly before May 1st and had a whiff of panic about it. Analysts see it as a barely disguised attempt to defuse an increasingly explosive atmosphere among a workforce facing Western-style job insecurities combined with falling wages. Fed up with not being paid by their bankrupt employers and fearful of being laid off, many workers are taking to the streets to challenge the leadership for a better deal. Above all, Beijing is terrified of a workers' rights movement emerging from the spread of isolated protests, and of China spawning the kind of Polish-style free trade union that helped topple communism in eastern Europe in the Eighties. Unrest has been particularly prevalent in the provinces north-east of Beijing which have been hardest hit by the decline of old industries amid economic restructuring. Once in the vanguard of Mao Tse-dung dash for development, the region is now a basket case of outdated factories and exhausted mines. In cities such as Shenyang, tens of thousands of laid-off factory workers wander the streets for want of something to do. They are easily prompted into reciting a litany of grievances. A recent flare-up involving redundant miners in Yangjiazhanzi, 250 miles north-east of Beijing, was typical of the type of incident now taking place regularly in China. Cars were smashed, shops looted and fuel stores set alight as the town was embroiled in a three-day battle between 20,000 miners and soldiers following the announcement that the largest local employer, a molybdenum mine, was to close. Workers were further enraged at the management's decision to offer only a few hundred pounds in severance pay for a lifetime's work. One man and his wife, who had worked a combined 70 years at the mine, were given £350 to compensate them for lost earnings, pension and health care. At one stage, demonstrators raided the mine's explosives store to hold the troops at bay. The growing mood of unrest has come about despite the tight lid kept on labour disputes by the Communist Party. Independent trade unions are banned, and any sign of a co-ordination of protests in different areas prompts a harsh response. Labour activists are frequently detained in laogai labour camps to undergo "re-education". However, worker discontent has been escalating across China, according to new figures. The number of officially recorded strikes soared to more than 120,000 in 1999 - a 14-fold increase in five years. The new statistics are all the more remarkable as they will have been "massaged" by officials in an attempt to gloss over rising tensions. They illustrate the frustrations among a workforce that was nurtured on promises of jobs for life but is now confronted with the collapse of uneconomic and outdated heavy industry. Many employers are failing to pay salaries and entitlements to their workers on a regular basis - causing great hardship. Those laid off are often forced to sell household items from makeshift street stalls to earn the money they need to live. One old soldier, who was demobbed from the People's Liberation Army in the late Fifties to work in a factory, said hardship was rising, even for those who were still being paid. He said: "Pensions and salaries aren't going up, but rents and electricity prices are," he said. "If you paid for enough electricity to heat your home, you couldn't eat. So people have to steal the electricity." There is an almost uniform bitterness among ordinary Chinese against officials and company managers who have been able to enrich themselves from their positions. Yet despite rising resentment, corruption is still on the increase. One Hong Kong academic estimates that the party-appointed management of state-run factories skim more than £8 billion into their own bank accounts - usually overseas - every year. In a move eerily reminiscent of the dying days of the Soviet bloc a decade ago, the Chinese Communist Party is now trying to distract people's attention from the inequalities that are feeding their deep-seated grievances. Last week the propaganda machine was busy issuing reports of crowded airports and bustling streets in an attempt to obscure the real reason for the extended break. Newspapers reported a stampede to the shops, claiming growing consumer confidence that the economy was improving. But a quick visit to one of Beijing's biggest department stores revealed that, while people were out in force, few were spending with the abandon that the government had hoped for. Official
Chinese workers desert state sector
BBC Saturday, 6 May, 2000, 09:30 GMT 10:30 Chinese workers desert state sector By Duncan Hewitt in Beijing An official survey in China has given further evidence of the dramatic changes in the country's economy. The nationwide survey found that in the last two decades, the proportion of urban workers employed in state enterprises has almost halved to just over 40%. The private sector on the other hand has snowballed, according to China's official news agency. The survey by China's state statistical bureau showed that at the end of 1998, only some 44% of the country's 200 million urban workers were employed in state enterprises, down from 78% two decades before. Around 23% worked for individual or family run businesses, with a similar proportion in what are known as collective or other forms of enterprises. In practice these too are often effectively privately-run. The figures give a further indication that the private sector is now the most dynamic part of China's economy. This is despite continuing official ambivalence: China last year amended its constitution to give greater protection to private business, but it still emphasises that the state sector is the core of the economy. The survey also highlights a growing wealth gap: the average monthly urban income is around $80, but people with college degrees earn at least twice as much as those with little education. In practice the divide is often far wider: in 6% of urban families, the survey showed, per capita income was a mere $12 a month. It said poor families were a serious problem, particularly in cities which were once bastions of state run industry where redundancies have been highest. It also suggests that people in their 40s are among those hardest hit by the economic changes. Having missed much of their education because of the Cultural Revolution, they now earn less on average than people under 30. It is these older workers who often face redundancy from the state sector. And with at least another seven million job losses expected this year the government is urgently seeking to create a nationwide social welfare system to defuse what is seen as a potential threat to social stability.
Re: Re: Chinese workers desert state sector
Hi Michael, Sorry to respond so late. Private businesses tend to pay quite a bit more than state companies, especially skilled positions. The desertion is a combination of boot and attraction. Of course, it depends on what kind of skills you possess and the state of the SOE you're located in. But, private businesses are the envy of SOE workers in one key sense, they get paid wages on a monthly basis! I mean, *every* month they get paid. That alone is a huge attraction these days in China. Steve On Mon, 8 May 2000, Michael Perelman wrote: I understood that the private businesses pay less and have inferior working conditions. Why the desertion? It sounds like the boot. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unrest Grows in China's Old State Plants
NYT May 17, 2000 Unrest Grows in China's Old State Plants By ERIK ECKHOLM B EIJING, May 16 -- Up to 2,000 unpaid workers and retirees have besieged their factory and government offices in a northeastern city over the last two days, the latest example of growing labor unrest as China's once-dominant state industries collapse. On Monday, nearly 1,000 employees of the Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory gathered at the plant gate and blocked the adjacent highway as they demanded wages and pensions that some have not received for as long as 20 months, demonstrators said today by telephone. The factory is in Liaoyang, a city of 1.8 million in the Rust Belt province of Liaoning, where similar protests have been frequent. After midnight, hundreds of police officers broke up the crowd, beating people and detaining three retirees who had helped organize the demonstration, according to relatives of those in custody. One detainee, Lu Ran, 66, had a heart attack overnight and was moved to a hospital. This morning, as news of the detentions spread, close to 2,000 furious current and former workers of the factory gathered around the offices of the city government, seeking the release of the three organizers, as well as their back pay. Eventually, workers' 12 representatives met a deputy mayor, and at day's end, after having secured a promise that current and past wages, pensions and living stipends for laid-off workers would soon be paid, the protesters went home. The detainees' fate remained unclear, a protester said, and there was talk of possible further demonstrations in the days ahead. Many workers remained skeptical about the promised pay, the protester added, because similar promises have been broken in the past. Around China, workers' protests, strikes and other labor disputes have rapidly increased over the last few years, according to official records and Western diplomats. The backdrop is the wrenching transition from state-owned enterprises, many of which are not competitive. But protests often also reflect worker resentment against corruption or unfair treatment. The Communist Party leadership is plainly worried. But most political experts say they believe that the thousands of confrontations reported each year do not seriously threaten party rule. As was promised today, the government has generally sought to help companies pay off protesting workers. At the same time, any independent leaders who try to organize across companies or provincial lines are jailed. One of the largest and most bitter disputes known to outsiders in recent years took place in February in the mining town of Yangjiazhangzi, also in Liaoning Province. Angered by corruption and the closing of the town's main employer, a state-run molybdenum mine, residents rioted for three days, burning cars and smashing windows before the army moved in. The workers at the metals factory today carried signs saying, "Being Owed Wages Is Not a Crime," and, "Release the Workers' Representatives," reported the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Hong Kong. The factory in Liaoyang, a former Communist flagship that has operated for more than 40 years, is responsible for 8,000 workers, an employee said, including 1,300 retirees and more than 1,000 who have been laid off as business falters. "The workers are very angry," said Pang Li, whose father, Pang Qingxiang, was detained. "Some haven't been paid for more than a year, and they've tried to get answers from the government many times." A group petitioned City Hall for help in February, said Liu Xizhen, the wife of Mr. Lu, who had the heart attack. "The mayor promised to look into it," Ms. Liu, 64, said. "But we didn't hear anything after that, and nobody received any pay. 'People don't have their pensions. They don't have any money to see the doctor. They don't have any money to buy food." Her family has been especially hard hit, Ms. Liu said, because her husband, their two sons and their wives all worked at the metals factory. Her husband is entitled to a pension of $48 a month, which he has not received for four months, she added, while the other four have been laid off and have never received the $18 monthly stipends that they are due. Ask questions about International News and tell other readers what you know in Abuzz, a new knowledge network from The New York Times. [abuzz_logo90.gif] [druginteractions.gif] _ Home | Site Index | Site
Re: Re: Genderization
If Charles is channelling Chang, he's doing a bad job of it. He forgot to add that we have nothing to fear from unemployment... Steve On Wed, 17 May 2000, Doug Henwood wrote: Charles Brown wrote: CB: Wasn't GDP socio-politically constructed in order to hoodwink the people ? You channeling Chang? No it wasn't constructed to hoodwink the people. It was constructed to get a picture of the macroeconomy. Planning for WW II accelerated the process in the U.S., but national income accounting in general has a long history that has little to do with hoodwinking the people. Doug
ILWU On China
Recalling my appeal to would be maligners of the labor movement as a monolithic arm of US foreign policy. Steve Subject: ILWU Position on China Trade International Longshore and Warehouse Union Thirty-first International Convention Portland, Oregon May 1 - 5, 2000 Resolution # R-39 The ILWU, China and Human Rights WHEREAS:The labor movement has made defeat of the normal trade relations with China a major priority this year. The ILWU agrees with the goals of eradicating human rights abuses in China and the rest of the world and we urge all countries to adopt the core labor standards embodied in the International Labor Organization. The fight over trade with China should not overshadow or sidetrack the momentum built by the Seattle protest over globalization and the corporate-led exploitation of workers worldwide; and WHEREAS:The press reports of the Chinese government curtailing personal freedoms of speech, expression and association are deeply troubling; we do find that anti-China rhetoric is not helpful to the goal of promoting human rights. Racially-tinged pronouncements like "you've sold your last pair of chopsticks in any mall in America," spoken at a labor rally are indefensible and cause distress among all people of Chinese descent; and WHEREAS:Historically, the ILWU has always made its own assessments of the human rights conditions around the world, worked with individual workers, labor organizations, and human rights activists to make the world more just and peaceful. In the case of China, we need more independent knowledge to conclude that denying normal trade relations with that country is the best way to improve the conditions of workers in China and to enhance worker-to-worker relations between our two nations; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the ILWU will continue its tradition of assisting workers throughout the world and reserving our right to take positions independent of the AFL-CIO on issues relating to foreign policy and trade; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the ILWU believes the struggle for human rights worldwide requires a long-term commitment ; and BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED: That the ILWU will prioritize and prepare for a delegation of rank and file members to travel to China to make contact with trade unionists from China including government sanctioned unions as well as opposition leaders and report to the ILWU on recommendations for enhancing worker conditions and human rights in our two nations. __ You can subscribe to Solidarity4Ever by sending a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and unsubscribe by sending an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is a read-only list, but if you have an item you want posted, send it to the list moderator at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, who will determine whether it is appropriate for redistribution. You can temporarily suspend delivery by sending a request to the same address. Notify the moderator at the time you want delivery resumed. You can also manage this function yourself by going to the list at ___ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
[PEN-L:9598] Re: M-I: civil society
Doug, By far the best article I've read on this is by Ellen Wood (the evil social democrat, you remember?), called "The Uses and abuses of civil society". It's a chapter of here book, *Democracy versus Capitalism* (or against capitalism-don't remember). Later, Steve On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Doug Henwood wrote: Could anyone enlighten me on the evolution of the term civil society? As I understand it, Hegel used it to signify the world of market relations. But it has come to signify a "third sector," the world of philanthropies, community orgnizations, volunteerism, meant as a balance to state and market. Since so much of the "third sector" is ruled by big-money foundations, it seems to me that present usage is unconsciously acknowledging the term's origins, while still professing to offer balance to the "market." Isn't Vaclav Havel somehow responsible for this? Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: Re: Re: Genderization (fwd)
Mine, there are many many people on this list who believe that women should have children and that it is their only purpose in life. So, the argument you make is bound to be very controversial. I understand that Sam is also for keeping women bound barefoot in the kitchen...for shame! Steve On Thu, 18 May 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: second, the sole purpose of sexual activity is reduced to getting women pregnant and injecting male sperm into women's bodies. as i said before, there is no reason to assume biological motherhood. We are not living hunting gathering societies where reproduction was somewhat necessary for small bands to maintain their species.Time has changed; sexual roles have changed. We are not living in stone ages. I reject to see the sole purpose of sex as reproduction. Many women prefer not to have children, and I don't see the reason why they should!!! Mine Sam Pawlett wrote:Well, it is necessary that the male penetrate the female or the species will fail to reproduce itself. ...except for the occasional turkey-baster. Why not say "it is necessary for the female to engulf the male sperm . . ."? How do you determine whether A penetrates B or B engulfs A? Carrol
Re: Re: EPI Paper on U.S. FDI in China
I think that what Martin argues below is similar to the arguments that Bill Tabb made a few months ago in MR, right on the money. Steve Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: And what political implications should we draw from the fact that US capital is highly mobile, using China, among other places, as either off shore production locations or as a threat. Max notes that this mobility or threat of mobility has real consequences. I agree. So, should our movement attack China and mobilize to keep it out of the WTO or focus our attention on US capital and the logic of international capitalism. I think that the choice leads to very different kinds of campaigns and educational work. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:12319] Re: the beautiful poor
Maggie, Perhaps it's not necessary to cringe. If the women had more savvy she wouldn't be so explicit and it would be impossible to ever make her (or her predecessor's) politics a subject of debate, let alone scrutiny. We should always be grateful when the right's heroes open their mouths and say things in the least thoughtful manner and allow the media to broadcast such sentiments widely. Steve On Sat, 13 Sep 1997 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am not sure how to say this without sounding like a cultural chauvanist, buuut, one of the most frightening things about someone like Sister Nirmala is that her strong positions on things like abortion and poverty simply reinforce some of the most negative gender stereotypes for women and children in India and around the world. Poor women are poor by the 'grace of god', and 'must accept' their physiological reproductive role as the primary guidance for all their actions while on this earth. The subordination of women in 'natural' and 'god'given'. Now, if someone wants to become a nun and accept this, that's fine with me, but I cringe when they shout such suppression out for the rest of the world to emulate. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a message dated 97-09-13 16:31:13 EDT, Doug writes: Mother Teresa's successor, a Brahmin-born Nepali now known as Sister Nirmala, seems more frankly appalling than her predecessor. From the NYT story by Barbara Crossette - web version (the print version ran something had the Brahmin ID right after one of her remarks on the beauty of poverty): quote At a news conference Friday, Sister Nirmala reaffirmed a few of her predecessor's more controversial tenets. She said that abortion was unthinkable even in cases of rape. And she said that she, like Mother Teresa, was not interested in what caused poverty, which she described as "beautiful," or in changing the social environment in which it thrives. "Poverty will always exist," Sister Nirmala said. "We want the poor to see poverty in the right way - to accept it and believe that the Lord will provide." endquote Doug
[PEN-L:12389] Re: Affluenza
On Tue, 16 Sep 1997, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: At 07:34 AM 9/16/97 -0700, Louis Proyect wrote, inter alia: The show tip-toed around the all important question of the capitalist system. It made the need to reverse environmental degradation, consumerism, etc. a personal choice rather than a *political* question. The show evoked themes found in UTNE reader and in Deep Ecology organizations. They are poor responses to the challenge we face. The problem with Affluenza is that it depicts an escape from the consumer treadmill *within* capitalism. Wojtek writes: How exactly are the *political* solutions going to work without changing individual behaviour? And, for goddess' sake, how can you empirically distinguish between *political* solutions from personal choices, if both have the same outcome -- a change in individual behaviour? Where does Louis say that individual choices have *nothing* to do with the matter? He is saying that way more emphasis is put on personal choice at the expense of issues related to political power. He is also saying that this is not a positive thing. I am inclined to agree with Louis. If a business has to choose a location for an incinerator that is known to increase toxin contact, cancer rates, childhood diseases, asthma,decreased immunity funcioning...it is going to choose the Bronx over the upper west side of Manhattan? The Bronx. Why? Because people in the Bronx are not as environmentally conscious as folks on the upper west side? Or because they don't possess as much political power to do anything about it? My suspicion is it's more a problem of the latter. Saying this does not rule out other factors, but it does keep our focus on the more critical one(s). I don't see Louis saying anthing more contoversial than this. If the *political* solution involves a mere administrative fiat declaring that undesirable phenomenon does not exist anymore -- we are essentially reverting to the ancient Soviet practices of voodoo government that both resolved the problems inherited from the bourgeois society (like crime, patriarchy, or inequality) and institutued a new social order by mere pronouncements and manipulation of public images. This is carricature of Louis's argument to put it kindly, but if environmental laws were enforced more seriously, or vigorously, as other types of laws...well yes perhaps 'administrative fiat' wouldn't be such a bad thing...Well actually it wouldn't be a fiat of any sort, it'd merely be the enforcement of the law. Speaking of attitudes, imagine if tomorrow, for some crazy inexplicable reason, Clinton ordered the NLRB to enforce labor law swiftly and according to the letter of the lawPerhaps many workers' attitudes toward trying to organize a union would changeand perhaps with stronger unions more progressive politicians might get elected...and perhaps they might legislate more comprehehsive environmental legislation...Of course this doesn't happen...and we might wonder why. Focusing on personal choice won't help us figure out the problem at hand... If, on the other hand, environmental pollution. But that is not the reason to discount individual choice altogether. Again, a caricature of Louis's argument as far as I can tell. regards, wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 POLITICS IS THE SHADOW CAST ON SOCIETY BY BIG BUSINESS. AND AS LONG AS THIS IS SO, THE ATTENUATI0N OF THE SHADOW WILL NOT CHANGE THE SUBSTANCE. - John Dewey
[PEN-L:5130] Louis's Blacklisting Post
Just wanted to send on a note of appreciation to Louis for taking the time to record this event. For those of us who would give anything to be in the Big Apple for such an event as this, but are at the moment some twenty hours away by air, such posts are invaluable. not to mention wonderful ly rich in content.. Steve
[PEN-L:6846] The limits of Chinese anti-imperialism (fwd)
Recall what I said last week about the often confused discourse of anti-imperialism and neo-liberal ideology taking plaace in China at the moment... Steve HK Standard May 15, 1999 Backlash against US goods could boomerang STORY: SHANGHAI: Chinese citizens would damage their country's interests if they heed calls by student protesters to boycott US goods, the official Youth Daily quoted commentators as saying. Scholars, analysts and students alike criticised the boycott proposals in a ``forum'' article, saying they would rob people of jobs and slow the country's efforts to develop into an economic power. Students protesting on Shanghai's streets and on the Internet against Saturday's deadly Nato bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade have urged people not to wear Nike shoes, ride in Cadillacs or eat at McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken. At one university a large crowd even criticised two female students after they were seen drinking Coca-Cola, it said. ``I can feel (the student protesters) have patriotic feelings but in other ways their thinking is not well-developed,'' said Ni Jiatai, chairman of the Shanghai economic committee under the US-Europe Overseas Students' Association. The economic world was increasingly interconnected so if relations were cut with a major foreign country ``it will affect China's economic development'', he said. ``For example, if now we don't buy General Motors (GM) Buicks or stop co-operation with GM, an economic pillar of Shanghai will feel the effects,'' he said. Shanghai GM's newly built plant, the biggest US investment in the mainland at US$1.5 billion (HK$11.7 billion), is expected to employ 3,000 local workers. Lu Deming, the director of the Chinese Economic Research Centre at Fudan University, said: ``When foreign investment enters China, the foreign side profits but the Chinese side also profits.'' ``It expands our employment capability and adds to local tax revenues,'' he said. - AFP
[PEN-L:6875] Fwd: FYI: Chengdu Students' Apology (fwd)
Early this morning, students in ChengDu, a Southwest city of China, send an apology letter to President Clinton and the American people for the accident of burning down the US consulate in that city days ago: We, the students in ChengDu, hereby sincerely express our deep sorrow to the US goverment. We were participating a rubbish-cleaning campaign in the last few days, and wanted to burn some trash. But because of an outdated intellegence, we burned your consulate by mistake. The city map of Chendu of 1972 shows that your consulate location was a trash dump. This accident was caused by inaccurate information and false operation. Please trust us, it was not our intention to burn your consulate. We will look forward for a good relationship between us in the future. However, we still have to carry on our rubbish-cleaning campaign in a deeper order. we will try our best to avoid such accidents happen again, and we appologize for this terrible mistake, we are deeply sorry. This is abolutely a tragic mistake. Sincerely, Student representive html font size=3Chinese students have some humors. --xpbr br gt;Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 14:41:43 -0700br gt;From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Fabian Fang)br gt;Subject: FYI: Chengdu Students' Apologybr gt;To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]br gt;Organization: CSU Bakersfieldbr gt;X-Gateway: NASTA Gate 2.0 beta 3 for FirstClass(R)br gt;br gt;Early this morning, students in ChengDu, a Southwest city of China,br gt;send anbr gt;apology letter to President Clinton and the American people for thebr gt;accidentbr gt;of burning down the US consulate in that city days ago:br gt;br gt;We, the students in ChengDu, hereby sincerely express our deep sorrow tobr gt;the US goverment.nbsp; We were participating a rubbish-cleaning campaign inbr gt;thebr gt;last few days, and wanted to burn some trash.nbsp; But because of anbr gt;outdatedbr gt;intellegence, we burned your consulate by mistake.nbsp; The city map ofbr gt;Chendubr gt;of 1972 shows that your consulate location was a trash dump.nbsp; Thisbr gt;accidentbr gt;was caused by inaccurate information and false operation. Please trustbr gt;us, it was not our intention to burn your consulate.nbsp; We will lookbr gt;forwardbr gt;for a good relationship between us in the future.br gt;br gt;However, we still have to carry on our rubbish-cleaning campaign in abr gt;deeper order. we will try our best to avoid such accidents happen again,br gt;and we appologize for this terrible mistake, we are deeply sorry.nbsp; Thisbr gt;isbr gt;abolutely a tragic mistake.br gt;br gt;Sincerely,br gt;Student representivebr gt; /fontbr /html
Re: [PEN-L] Re: My one and only reply to Levy
On Sun, 2 Nov 1997, Gerald Levy wrote: LNP didn't (and doesn't) like Bob Malecki. Well, OK ... he's not exactly my favorite person either. But, Proyect decided that since he didn't like Malecki (a personal grudge), he would [try to] chase him off of cyberspace by maliciously claiming that he was an FBI agent! There is *absolutely no* proof for this charge yet LNP has made it over and over and over again on several lists. This is the problem Jerry. You say you are critical of Malecki, yet you have never spent any energy criticizing this guy, who as Lou points out, has been kicked off almost every list he has ever been on. Now, it is odd that you spend much more energy attacking Doug or Lou, both of whom have considerable respect for their contributions to this list (recall Gil's statement), yet have never spent that kind of energy attacking someone almost every sane person disdains, namely Malecki. Lou's sin was simple and he apologized for it, publicly, I don't know what more he could do to atone for his sin of calling Malecki an agent without direct proof. Lou restated his claim that Malecki is a loonytune who takes delight in creating disruption on left lists. That is very obvious and not something that anyone disagrees with who has the capacity to discern, at least not on this list. But clearly Doug's contributions make you angrier than Malecki's. That is telling... Steve
China Sends U.S. Jobs; Business/Labor Make Final Trade Push; CA FirmsEye Chi
Amid explosive trade debate, China sends the United States jobs JOE McDONALD, Associated Press WriterSunday, May 21, 2000 Breaking News Sections - (05-21) 09:18 PDT QINGDAO, China (AP) -- Haier Group is sending the United States a new Chinese export: jobs. China's biggest appliance maker just opened its first U.S. factory, hiring 180 people in Camden, S.C., to make refrigerators under its own brand name. Last year, Haier started a design studio in Los Angeles to get closer to American consumer tastes. Haier's $30 million venture in South Carolina comes as China is nearing its goal of joining the World Trade Organization and perhaps seeing Congress give it permanent low-tariff access to U.S. markets. Haier is leading a new wave of ambitious Chinese companies that hope to create international brand names, following an Asian trail blazed by Japan in the 1960s and South Korea in the 1980s. The Chinese want the fatter profits that come with selling their own technology and a marketable household name. ``You can't be an international company if you only make things at home and export them,'' said Haier's president, Zhang Ruimin, whose success at home has made him one of China's most celebrated business leaders. Other Chinese companies eager to make the leap to the global big leagues include computer maker Legend and television maker Konka. China's only established brand name is Tsingtao beer, whose main brewery is a short distance from Haier headquarters in Qingdao on China's northeastern coast. American labor unions oppose permanent normal trade relations for China, which would end annual reviews of U.S.-Chinese trade relations. They say that would eliminate a tool to improve human rights and warn that a flood of Chinese imports could cost American jobs. The U.S. House is scheduled to begin a heated debate on the question Monday and is expected to vote on it later in the week. An immediate increase in Chinese imports appears unlikely. China already gets the same tariff treatment given most U.S. trading partners. American consumers devour a steady flow of goods made in China, often by U.S. companies -- Nike shoes, Fisher-Price toys, Kathie Lee handbags and Ralph Lauren clothing. The picture will be complicated by the ambitions of Chinese companies to shed their role as cheap, anonymous exporters and expand to the world stage. They have a long way to go: China's foreign investments totaled just $6.5 billion at the end of 1999, the government says. Haier's new South Carolina factory puts a Chinese company in the unusual position of creating American manufacturing jobs at a time when U.S. companies are adding to their own country's trade deficit by shifting production to China and other low-wage countries. But with plenty of cheap labor at home, Chinese companies are unlikely to hire enough Americans to make up for manufacturing jobs lost to China and other cheaper producers. Membership in the WTO could help aggressive firms like Haier, though more inefficient farms and state factories will suffer. Lower Chinese import barriers will make foreign technology easier to obtain, while WTO rules promise stability for China's exporters by mandating equal access to foreign markets. Expanding abroad is a natural step for Chinese companies that have reached the stage where they dominate the home market and are desperate for more affluent customers, said Andy Xie, chief economist for Morgan Stanley Asia. He said China's TV and appliance makers are the strongest contenders because they are close to matching Japanese and Korean competitors in quality -- at lower prices. ``That's how Japan beat American companies,'' Xie said by telephone from Hong Kong. ``Who will eventually become China's Sony or Samsung? That race has just begun.'' Haier is still far behind industry leaders Electrolux of Sweden and Whirlpool of the United States. Haier had $3.2 billion in sales last year, compared with $10.5 billion for Whirlpool. But Haier already claims to have 25 percent of the U.S. market for compact refrigerators. Moving some production to the United States could ease political strains by reining in the growth of China's surplus in its trade with the Americans. But Haier's president said the reasons behind it are purely commercial. ``Americans know their market much better than we could. And they are skilled workers,'' Zhang said in an interview at the 130-acre campus that houses Haier's 12-story headquarters and main factory. Ultimately, he said, Haier plans to have a third of its production based overseas. Legend and Konka have set up foreign sales networks. Haier has gone a step further, opening a string of factories, mostly in developing countries, and design and service centers in Europe and the United States. Haier, with 20,600 employees,
Re: four walls, three too many
Sounds very orange to me Steve On Mon, 22 May 2000, Doug Henwood wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Use them and shoot them philosophy! Bracingly clarifying. I'm very grateful you're nowhere near state power. Doug
Media strategies, was: Worldwide Protests Over Chiapas Massacre
Just a thought. In such situations, perhaps it would be a good idea to make some 5-10,000 leaflets (these #s are picked out of nowhere) and distribute them in front of the 'newspapers of record.' The leaflets could compare the 'official story,' with the union's side of the story. Demos outside the offices are sometimes effective, with the right strategies... Steve On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, maxsaw wrote: From: James Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Funny thing. Yesterday, the traffic people on the radio said that a big . . . This seems further evidence of the LAT's rapid rightward run, as business considerations dominate editorial policy to a much greater extent under the new regime (which recently endorsed "privatization" of Social Security and hired a Clarence Thomas Affirmative Action political cartoonist, a rightwinger with a conveniently hispanic surname). When Justice for Janitors blocked some key bridges here in D.C. during rush hour, the Washington Post went ballistic. My suspicion is that this had less to do with politics than with direct inconvenience to the staff. They wanted to be sure not to encourage such actions by covering them, so the actions were reported in minimalist terms with absolutely no clue as to what the reason for them was. The moral of the story is that bombings and assassination are o.k. with the Post, but for God's sake don't screw up commuting during rush hour. Meanwhile, yours truly did a "public access" TV stint on globalization messing up labor (with Harry Joanne Bernstein plus David Johnson of the United Electrical workers union; Harry's the retired labor columnist at the LAT). It's not available unless you get Century Cable and I don't know when it will be broadcast. Good for you. We'll make a pundit out of you yet. Next stop, Politically Incorrect. Cheers, MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Full translation of Castro speech
On Thu, 22 Jan 1998, Louis Proyect wrote: [If the blockade is lifted] socialism will be strengthened. That's a fact. Louis Proyect Louis, My impression is the opposite. I certainly don't oppose Cuba's efforts to lift the embargo, but I'm very doubtful that lifting the embargo will strengthen socialism. The experience of China comes to mind right away. How do you see Cuba going a different route? I'm not saying it's impossible, but I am much more skeptical than you. Steve
Re: Political Constraints,was Re: :Re:Re:MarxandMalleability (fwd)
How about electing your own union reps? Officials? Is that something we can get rid of after the rev. also? Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822 On Mon, 22 May 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: elections? I am not quite sure about the meaning. Which elections can you show that can really allow me to participate in the selection of people who run the society".I do not elect bankers!.I do not elect corporations!.I do not elect multinationals!.They are there illegitimately (even judged from the standpoint of one sided bourgeois democracy) Mine Doyran SUNY/Albany "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." wrote The election of December saw a victory by the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Lenin had no good excuse on Marxist grounds for denying them power.
Safety in Chinese SOEs, Mining Sector
Subject: Beijing exploits appalling safety record to shut mines World Socialist Web Site Beijing exploits appalling safety record to shut mines By Terry Cook 31 January 2000 On January 11, a mine collapse in China's eastern Jiangsu province killed seven workers instantly. The next day 23 miners were pulled out alive from the debris but 33 remained trapped in a cavern 320 metres below ground. The cave-in at the Xuzhou Coal Mine Group-operated mine was caused by a sudden in-rush of water. According to the last information to come out of China on January 16, rescuers had been working furiously for five days to reach the men, but were forced to abandon their attempt when the ceiling of the rescue tunnel caved in. A mining official said he was sure that some of the trapped men remained alive because rescue teams still detected noises underground but hope of rescuing them was dimming. Although rescuers had been able to cut a narrow shaft through the fallen debris to push oxygen, milk and clean water through to the trapped men, it was not certain that the supplies reached them. Media reports have described the working and safety conditions at the 42-year-old Xuzhou operation as utterly miserable. But the truth is that similar conditions prevail throughout China's coal mining industry, not only in small enterprises but also in the large state-owned and regulated mines. Mining deaths are so commonplace that in the past they barely rated a mention in the country's official press. Just one day before the Xuzhou incident five coal miners died in a gas explosion in the northeastern province of Helongjiang and a similar accident in the southern province of Guizhou left five dead. One week earlier, 21 miners were killed in two separate explosions in the northeastern province of Liaoning and in the eastern province of Shandong, bringing the total number of mining deaths since the beginning of the new year to 40, not counting those lost in the Xuzhou cave-in. This is by no means an exceptional year. In the first nine months of 1999, a total of 3,464 coal miners perished and in 1998, 2,028 miners were killed in underground explosions and mine collapses. In the past, the Chinese authorities, central and local, have worked to play down the extent of the carnage in the industry usually attributing deaths and accidents to the operation of unlicensed mines or illegal operators. But the recent deaths, and the collapse at Xuzhou, were well reported in the government's China Coal Industry News. So too was a government announcement earlier this month that it was setting up a special bureauthe State Bureau for Supervising Coalmine Safetyto crack down on unsafe mining operations. Hundreds of mines, small and large, could be refused licenses and forced to close down. The establishment of the bureau does not connote a new-found official concern over the shocking conditions facing coal miners. The change is directly bound-up with the interests of the Chinese bureaucracy and its agenda of capitalist economic restructuring. Reports have emerged that the government is desperate to slash coal production to end a glut, which has lost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years. In 1999 the government set a target to cut the country's annual coal output by 200 million tons and it aims to lower output by a further 870 million tons this year. China mined 1.03 billion tons in 1999, one-third of the world's output. Another reason for the drive to close mines is the government's decision to shut thousands of small steel smelters and mills across the country this year and slash steel production by 10 percent. More than 2,500 mills with annual capacities below 100,000 tons will be shut down. A government spokesman said authorities would cap steel output for this year below 110 million tons to ease oversupply. He said the measures aimed to cope with the glut in consumer and industrial goods that have driven down prices and profits and afflicted China's economy. Central authorities will strictly enforce the closures by denying raw materials and electric power to targeted mills. The closed plants will be dismantled and the machinery smashed to prevent them reopening elsewhere. The developments in China's coal and the steel industry are intrinsically bound up with the bureaucracy's drive to close down most of the country's state-owned industries and move to large-scale privately owned enterprises in which leading members of the country's ruling Communist Party will own substantial shares. China's Minister for Labor and Security announced on January 10 that up to 12 million jobs will be destroyed in state-owned enterprises this year as the government presses ahead with its program of economic reform. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jan2000/chin-j31.shtml
China: State-owned firms left behind as dependence on US grows
Hopefully we can convince the good cadres to stop the bad cadres and then this problem can be solved.Steve South China Morning Post Friday, February 4 6:44 AM SGT State-owned firms left behind as dependence on US grows The imports and exports of foreign-invested joint ventures in the mainland exceeded those of state companies last year for the first time, while the country's dependence on the United States as an export market increased. Figures released yesterday showed imports and exports of joint ventures reached US$174.5 billion, an increase of 10.7 per cent over 1998 and accounting for 48.4 per cent of the national total, up from 39 per cent in 1995. Exports were $88.63 billion, up 9.5 per cent from 1998 and accounting for 45.5 per cent of the national total. The net increase of $7.69 billion during the year accounted for 70 per cent of the growth for exports as a whole. Their imports were $85.88 billion, an increase of 11.9 per cent. The figures indicate the increasing importance of joint ventures to the mainland's export drive. They also show that foreign-invested firms are better able to compete in the global market than state-owned companies. Many joint ventures were set up to produce exports, with companies relocating plants from Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and other countries to take advantage of the mainland's cheap land and labour. Last year was a good trade year for the mainland. It posted its third-biggest surplus on record, with growth in major markets, despite the effects of the Asian financial crisis and the fact that it did not devalue its currency, like many of its Asian competitors. It recorded a trade surplus of $29.2 billion, on exports of $194.93 billion, up 6.1 per cent on 1998, and imports of $165.71 billion, up 18.2 per cent. The mainland's reliance on the US as an export market continued to grow. Exports last year were $41.94 billion, an increase of 10.5 per cent, and accounting for 21.5 per cent of total exports, up from 18.5 per cent in 1993. Its trade surplus with the US was $22.4 billion, with imports rising 15.7 per cent to $19.53 billion. US figures show a substantially higher surplus because they include mainland goods shipped through other places, principally Hong Kong. The US was the mainland's second-biggest trading partner, after Japan and ahead of the European Union. Trade with Japan was $66.16 billion, an increase of 14.2 per cent over 1998, with the US at $61.42 billion, up 12 per cent, and with the EU $55.7 billion, up 13.9 per cent.
Re: Re: Theu US and Miami exiles: was The Bill of Gates fallacy
On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Jim Devine wrote: At 12:52 PM 2/11/00 -1000, you wrote: On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Jim Devine wrote: Of course, the US (and especially the anti-Castro Cubans of Miami) wants to bring back the "good old days" of the 1950s, with the anti-Castro Cubans replacing Batista and the mafia. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine This I think is a tad off the mark in this year of our Lord 2000. The anti-Castro Miami mafia is on its way to becoming the next Noriegaized group if it is not careful. The reaction from the mainstream press to their hope to order US policy makers re: how to deal with the Elian problem would indicate to me that the US is not at all convinced that this group has the stuff to be a desirable option to Castro. They don't seem to appreciate their dispensability, a key idea elites in developing nation-states are expected to accept before receiving US and (critically) international financial organizations' 'aid'... yeah, but Elian is still in the US. Due to their missionary zeal, the anti-Castro Miami Cuban "community" is wasting their political capital, but they still have a lot left. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine Yes, there remains a struggle, ongoing, but one whose terms seem to be changing in accordance with the increasing dispensability of that group. This is one of the most confounding things about the Post-SU order of things...US state appears to be on the side of right at very unexpected momentsThe left is often left utterly at a loss as to how to deal with that *appearance* Steve
world labor needs independence and solidarity
This is an outstanding article, one which takes the labor movement where it is and, given that, where it might be able to go. Steve WORLD LABOR NEEDS INDEPENDENCE AND SOLIDARITY By David Bacon March 4, 2000 Within weeks of the Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization, thousands of workers at India's state power company struck to prevent the privatization of electricity generation and distribution in Uttar Pradesh. Despite the jailing of hundreds of their leaders, they succeeded in halting it, at least for a time. Meanwhile, in ports along the subcontinent's coast, thousands more longshore workers also stopped work over the same issue - privatization. Both battles are part of a class war against pro-capitalist economic reforms. Not just in India, but around the world, workers have been fighting for over two decades to keep the social gains they won in the years following World War Two. These struggles dramatize the new problems workers face in the global economy, as well as their refusal to passively accept its new (or not-so-new) priorities. Turning national enterprises over to private owners is a key component of these reforms - the hallmark of the neoliberal transformation of national economies. Privatization is imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (and now the World Trade Organization) on governments around the globe, through loan conditions, structural adjustment programs, and trade sanctions. Privatization opens up important sections of the economies of countries like India to transnational corporate investment. Even more important, it reduces the ability of states to control their national economies, and use that control to promote social goals other than profit-making, whether promoting strategic industries, subsidizing prices for farmers and workers, or maintaining social benefits, high wages and unionization. Privatization, however, has consequences which give unions and workers a big stake in opposing it. Almost invariably, workers at privatized enterprises face huge layoffs and wage cuts, as new private owners seek to cut labor costs. The transformation of national economies around the world, in which privatization plays a key role, has forced world labor to debate the meaning of international working-class solidarity. Part of that argument surfaced in Seattle, over the issue of international labor standards and their enforcement. This debate will grow even more heated, as workers discuss not only ways of fighting growing corporate power, but revisit even more basic questions. Should encouraging profit-making and productivity be the overriding criteria in making economic decisions? Do countries have a right to control their own economic development? And should labor challenge private ownership itself, or merely argue over the conditions under which workers sell their labor power to corporate employers? The cost to workers of privatization and structural adjustment In 1997, the sale of just one railroad in Mexico, the 6,521-kilometer Pacific North line, to Jorge Larrea's Grupo Mexico, resulted in the reduction of its 13,000 person workforce by more than half. The plan was met by months of wildcat strikes which paralyzed operations for a time, but which were ultimately unable to stop the cuts. As privatization has moved from industry to industry in Mexico, its once-powerful official unions have been gutted. Three-quarters of the country's workforce belonged to unions three decades ago. That percentage is now less than 30. In the state-owned oil company, PEMEX, union membership still hovers at 72%. But when the collateral petrochemical industry was privatized over the last decade-and-a-half, the unionization rate fell to 7%. New private owners like Larrea reduced the membership of the railway workers union from 90,000 to 36,000 in the same period. When governments pursue policies favoring private investment, the standard of living for workers drops and their social benefits disappear. During the last two decades of neoliberal economic reforms, the income of Mexican workers lost 76% of its purchasing power. A recent government survey of family income discloses that the average 5-member family has an income equivalent to four times the minimum wage, or about 5-6000 pesos a month. That income is based on three of the five family members working full time. "This means that families aren't making enough to live on," explains Alejandro Alvarez Bejar an economist at the National Autonomous University. "It's normal now that young people, when they get married, still live with their parents since they can't earn enough to live independently. " The government estimates that 40 million people live in poverty, and 25 million of them in extreme poverty, almost all in the countryside. Since 1994, the wealth of the top 10 percent of the population
EU Squeezes China On Foreign Ownership
Newsbytes Thursday, February 24 9:49 PM SGT EU Squeezes China On Foreign Ownership BEIJING, CHINA, 2000 FEB 24 (NB) - By Martin Stone, Newsbytes. European Union (EU) negotiators are reportedly seeking the right to 51 percent foreign ownership of Chinese telecom firms as part of talks centered on China's bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). A Reuters report today said the demand exceeds the 49 percent ownership rights negotiated last year by the US on mobile and fixed-line networks, and 50 percent for value-added services, including the Internet. The EU's demand is reported as a sticking point in the negotiations over China's potential WTO membership. European telecoms are seeking management control which would give them greater leverage in what is being called the world's fastest growing telecommunications market, Reuters reported. The report noted that the number of mobile phone users in China nearly doubled to 43 million last year, while Internet users are doubling in number every six months, now totaling about 10 million. Presently, overseas investment in Chinese telecom operators is forbidden by Chinese law, but Washington wrested a six-year timetable from Beijing that pries open the market, Reuters said. In value-added telecom services, China agreed to permit foreign participation of up to 50 percent within two years of China's accession to the WTO, while ownership in mobile networks would be phased in gradually, starting at 25 percent after one year in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and rising to 49 percent after five years, according to the report, which added that fixed-line and international long-distance networks would permit 49 percent foreign ownership in six years. The EU negotiators are attempting to raise the barriers to 51 percent across the board, but might accept 50 percent, with a faster phase-in period, Reuters said. The report also noted strong resistance within the Chinese government and telecom industry to foreign ownership, prompting analysts to express doubt the EU would succeed. The EU is also attempting to win more favorable treatment for foreign investors forced to withdraw from joint telecom ventures, Reuters said, adding that Beijing cracked down in 1998 and ordered the ventures to disband. EU negotiators are seeking to recover millions of dollars in back payments owed since China Unicom ceased sharing revenues last October.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Capital is wrong
On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Jim Devine wrote: At 07:37 PM 3/9/00 -0500, you wrote: You have missed nothing, Mat. A commodity is something that is for sale. Industrial capital is for sale everyday. The recent round of mergers and takeovers demonstrate that without doubt. George is in fact claiming that we do not live in a capitalist society. The first sentence of Capital, is one of the most brilliant encapsulations of the essential nature of modern society. Everything of worth is for sale, even human time and effort. And is some regions of the world even body parts are for sale. Why George thinks that industrial capital would escape that fate is a mystery. maybe he's suggesting that industrial capital as a social relationship isn't a commodity. It involves a non-market (non-commodity) relationship of domination of workers within production. (Of course, that authoritarianism is within the framework of a commodity-producing society that treats labor-power like a commodity. But the relationship within the company during a contract period is typically not a commodity relationship of buying and selling.) Hang on here, are producers during a contract period ever forced to stay on a job? Not free to leave a job? If not, Idon't see how they don't qualify as involved in a relationship that involves buying and selling of labor power. Steve Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
China's Controls on Rural Workers Stir Some Rarely Seen HeatedOpposition
NY Times March 10, 2000 China's Controls on Rural Workers Stir Some Rarely Seen Heated Opposition By ERIK ECKHOLM B EIJING, March 9 -- China's long-entrenched controls over where people may live and work have become a subject of unusual public debate here, with critics attacking the stringent efforts by cities to curb the entrance of rural migrants and bar them from choice jobs. The restrictions hold down economic growth, the critics say, worsen the country's growing disparities in wealth and violate the basic rights of the rural majority of China's population. After simmering in academic circles, the debate recently spilled into popular newspapers, a rarely permitted occurrence for a topic so politically charged, perhaps indicating that some high officials also harbor doubts about the controls. "In a market economy, the right to seek employment is fundamental," Mao Yushi, a leading economist here and one of the most outspoken critics, said in an interview. "If that opportunity is blocked, how can people earn their bread?" "This issue goes beyond economics," said Mr. Mao, the 71-year-old chairman of the Unirule Institute for Economics, a private group. "It's an issue of human rights." For decades, China has rigidly registered the residence of every person, and for most Chinese it remains hard to legally move, especially from countryside to city. As the urban need for low-skilled workers has soared, cities have given out temporary certificates to migrants working in construction, for example. More villagers have streamed in without papers to fill bottom-rung jobs -- like garbage sorting, vending and moving goods by cycle -- where they can earn far more than on overcrowded farms back home. By some estimates, more than 50 million rural people are working in the cities at any one time, where they often face discrimination and police harassment. Originally, the registration system was part of Communist social planning and helped China avoid the growth of huge urban slums. But many economists now see the controls as costly interference in the labor market -- punishing more than half the population while propping up urban wages. That protection of urban workers is, of course, one strong reason the government clings to its policy, especially at a time of growing urban unemployment and fears of worker unrest. The debate surfaced this winter after Beijing said it planned to reduce the number of migrants in the city by several hundred thousand, from more than two and a half million believed to live here along with 10 million official residents. It gained energy in December, when the Beijing government published a list of 103 job categories from which migrants are legally barred including service jobs in hotels, tourist guiding, accounting and corporate sales or planning. Then in February the central government issued an emergency call for cities to limit the number of migrants moving in. Mr. Mao and a few other economists attacked the restrictions in print, while several newspapers have asked probing questions in editorials and featured personal pleas from migrants. On Feb. 22, in a typical example, The China Business Times asked in an editorial whether the limits on rural workers would slow economic growth. "It is understandable that urban administrators, facing employment pressures from laid-off workers, will want to play up local protectionism," the newspaper said. But shouldn't more senior officials, it asked, consider the national picture? Days later, The China Youth Daily carried a commentary by a reader who had returned from years in Japan, saying: "I can't believe what I'm seeing and hearing. A country that is enthusiastically demanding to join the World Trade Organization is treating its precious labor resources as a burden and inhibiting the economic interests, the very livelihoods, of tens of millions of rural laborers." After the Chinese New Year holiday in early February, when many migrants returned home to see their families, The China Economic Times noted that residents of Beijing and Shanghai had suddenly faced inconveniences: Nannies were scarce, milk deliveries were halted because of the lack of delivery men and coal bricks were hard to find. "Put baldly," the paper said, city officials "don't want migrants stealing local residents' rice bowls." But in fact, it said, many vacancies in the Beijing labor market had gone unfilled because "Beijing locals turned up their noses at them." But without careful administration of
Re: World labor needs independence and solidarity
On Sat, 4 Mar 2000, Louis Proyect wrote: Conclusion to a longer piece by David Bacon posted to PEN-L by Stephen Philion: The AFL-CIO left Seattle making opposition to China's membership in the WTO, and new administration trade agreements with China, the centerpiece of its trade policy. This may be a declaration of political independence, but it's one which lines up with the old China lobby, instead of with those calling for a fundamental reordering of the international economic system. COSATU's Vavi questions its hypocrisy. He notes that the Chinese government and labor movement supported the liberation struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He asks why China's record on human or labor rights is any worse than many other countries, whose WTO membership and trade agreements the AFL-CIO has not opposed. "We are disturbed by the obstacles to workers seeking to organize independent unions, and limits on the ability to demonstrate freely, and we intend to talk to Chinese unions about these problems," he says. AFL-CIO did not oppose Vietnam's WTO membership, or Cuba's. Opposing it for China is not going to force Chinese unions to oppose government economic policy. And saying that solidarity with Chinese labor is impossible because the All China Federation of Trade Unions is not a legitimate union body smacks of old coldwar, China-lobby prohibitions. Like the old government-affiliated unions in Mexico, the Chinese labor movement has been tied to the government and its political party since 1949. As the government has become committed to economic reforms, those unions clearly face a choice - between old political relationships and fighting for the needs of workers under the guns of privatization and the explosion of sweatshops in the new economic zones. U.S. unions would obviously like to see the Chinese rely less on transnational corporations as a source of capital for economic development. If they have cooperative relationships based on mutual respect and self-interest, they will have a more receptive audience that they will if they treat people with whom they disagree as though they had no right to exist. The AFL-CIO's campaign on China's WTO membership won't move workers in either country an inch closer to a common front against transnational corporations. Instead, U.S. workers need to better understand Chinese unions and develop relations with them. Over and over, U.S. workers and unions need to ask ourselves how we can achieve closer relations with workers in other countries, even if we don't agree with all the policies of their labor movements. The first step is opposing the WTO system on principle. The global trade structure is controlled by developed countries, and used to impose an unjust international economic order on developing ones. It is a cruel illusion to expect that same structure to ensure economic justice. === My Comment: Stephen, you prefaced Bacon's article with the following words: "This is an outstanding article, one which takes the labor movement where it is and, given that, where it might be able to go." Doesn't Bacon's call for the need to relate to official Chinese trade unions as they *are* make Henry Liu's remonstrations more understandable? Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ Certainly, yet what have I written that would diverge from such a position ? I would argue that Bacon has made the argument in a fashion that speaks to those who might not be very knowledgeable about China, which is far preferable to trashing fellow comrades as dupes of the AFL-CIO every time they say anything critical about the workers' situation in China. Nota bene, for all the trashing of people like Doug Henwood by Henry, I would note that many of Doug's positions on the direction the US labor movment should take have dovetailed rather neatly with what Bacon writes above. It is also a position that many trade union activists in 'developing' countries would be supportive of I believe. On the one hand if western union activists put forth such a position in China, it would be welcomed. At the same time, there's a considerable portion of cadres who would not be happy with such a position. It puts aside the myth that there are only two positions, a "chinese" one and an "american" one...That is not necesarily welcome by those who wish to brush aside the need for serious class analysis of Chinese political economy. Ultimately, we need to turn to people like Raymond Lau for such work... Steve
Re: Catching Up
Chelsea's no longer a virgin? Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
[PEN-L:3007] Re: Re: Bounced from Anwar Shaikh
Yes Jery you are right, Doug Henwod is an evil exploiter of cheap, young laborers and Lou Proyet is a nefarious racist pig...Neither makes an even remotely valuable contribution to this list indeed. Steve On Sat, 6 Feb 1999, Gerald Levy wrote: An intelligent discussion would begin by reading the references that Anwar Shaikh (NB: _not_ "Sheik") gives rather than spinning one's wheels in ignorance. Or is it too much to ask that one become familiar with a person's work before passing judgment on it? Jerry PS1: As this same person has on *several occasions* referred to "Anwar Sheik", one has to believe that this is not an accidental error in spelling. One could argue instead that this "humor" has racist overtones. PS2 (to Michael and PEN, in reference to PS1): am I not allowed to object to racist statements on PEN-L?
[PEN-L:3112] Re: Re: We are waiting
I agree. I certainly find the BLS report more intersting than Jery's posts. Steve On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Mathew Forstater wrote: I appreciate the BLS report and if it is discontinued from PEN-L, would like to arrange to receive it some other way. But it seems it should be easy enough to delete for anyone not interested. Also, it is usually not terribly long. Mat
Re: Re: Re: Re: The Upheavals of June, 2000
Lately I'm convinced the definition of Marxist on this list for some has become, 'I like xx, therefore they are Marxist.' Steve On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Mine Aysen Doyran wrote: No. IW does *not* endorse the Smithian view implied above. He is a marxist. Mine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Upheavals of June, 2000
Brenner, if I recall, in his latest work actually includes quite a bit of discussion of the impact of global integration and intensified global competition in the international political economy... On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Mine Aysen Doyran wrote: I have heard Wallerstein speak very recently too, but I don't remember him implying that "Marxists had a simplistic way of looking at the world". As a Marxist, of course, he is critical of *certain* brands of marxist theory-- the orthodox developmental model-- which dominates the sociology of development literature with varying degrees, and takes the *nation state* as the unit of analysis instead of the *world system*. Accordingly, part of IW's criticism is related to whether societies have their independent logic of capitalist development or relate to one another within a world system. Brenner is most certainly a Marxist, Barrington Moore utilizes quite a bit of Marxist analysis in his work, especially 'democracy, dictatorship...', but is more tied to a Weberian approach theoretically. He would probably eschew the lable Marxist that you assign him. He is a brilliant writer of course, as is the Marxist Brenner. Barrington Moore and Brenner type Marxists are included in the former category, although Marx, from a world systemic perspective, had the world system, not the nation state, in mind when he was analyzing British capitalism. There is a fine line between world system marxists and marxists. The former subcribes to the core-periphery model. I find this a very powerful analysis of contemporary imperialism and capitalism, as far as the *sociology* of modern capitalism goes. You may disagree with it as an economist, but one needs to debate the *premises of* the world system theory first to be able to criticize it. If you disagree, fine; but you can state the rationality grounds of why you disagree; theory wise. I thougth Michael was addressing himself to the generalizing comment he heard Wallerstein make, not necessarily to the theory itself. Steve
Simmer down now! Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:The Upheavals of June, 2000
Mine, I'm hardly getting all bent out of shape about this question, why should I relax? Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Upheavals of June, 2000
Mine wrote: fourth, I will appreciate if you do *not* contact me privately now or in the future. enough!! Mine, What are you talking about, contacting you privately? That post is plainly addressed to PEN, cc'd to youwhy would I want to contact you privately if I address the post to PEN? Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
Re: Re: Re:The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems Analysis
This is exactly on the mark imho Steve On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Jim Devine wrote: I don't think Wallerstein ever claimed to be a Marxist, though he clearly learned from Marx Marxists and Marxist can learn some from his research. (In this, he is very similar to Barrington Moore.) Originally, I'd say that Analytical Marxism was a kind of Marxism, one responding to dissatisfaction with both the "orthodox" Marxism of the 2nd 3rd Internationals and Althusserian structuralist Marxism. But combining Marxist propositions with the narrow-minded method of orthodox mainstream social science was like mixing oil and water, so the two parted. I guess the exception would be people like Bob Brenner, who as an historian is always focused on the empirical world and so didn't get lost in mainstream social science. (Of course, I can't say I agree with everything he says). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
FTR, Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:The Upheavals of June,
FTR, I didn't write to her personally. Because my unix system confuses me when I respond to messages from mass lists, sometimes I end up pressing the wrong respond to selection and only get the individual the post was sent from. So, I just add pen to the list. I frequently get inadvertently cc'd from others responding to my original posts sent to mass lists. All part of internet life...kind of like frequent grammatical/spelling errors we see in posts that we would never put up with in other forms of media... Trees also grow leaves more frequently than cats do Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822 On Wed, 12 Jul 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve said he did not write to you. Maybe he did. I don't care. If you have a gripe like that, write to him personally. I don't keep people butting up. I just don't want some people to "cc" me. that is all I want. one can post his ideas on pen-l. he does not need to cc me, unless he asks my approval. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re:The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems Analysis
Mine wrote: World System Marxism overcomes two limitations of Analytical Marxism in 5 *weak* areas 1) methodolological individualism Steve writes: I've never heard world system theorists addressing themselves to the AM question actually...and of course Marxists like Brenner, Petras,..have criticized WS for its ahisoricism... Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
More n' More Cap's in CCP
Friday, July 14, 2000 SCMP Capitalists infiltrating party, article warns JASPER BECKER Too many private businessmen are joining the Communist Party, an article in the party's monthly ideological magazine, Zhongliu, has warned. In some coastal areas, half of the new members in small towns and rural districts were private business owners, it complained. By July 1998, Qinghui county outside Shanghai had 158 capitalists in the local party. Of the county's 52 party cells, 36 were run by private businessmen. In three cities in Jiangsu province, 40 per cent of private business owners, 858 people, had applied to join the local branch. "If we do not take stern measures there will be more and more capitalist bosses who are party branch secretaries," the article's author, Liu Changfa, warns. One of the first acts of now President Jiang Zemin when he was appointed party secretary in 1989 was to issue an edict purging capitalists from the party - the vanguard of the working class - and to stipulate that they could not be admitted in the future. The article argues the relationship between private business and the working class is the relationship between exploiters and the exploited so private businessmen are not entitled to be enrolled in the party. "They control the means of production and hire workers," it said. "They take profits from the output of the workers as their own." The goals of private business are the opposite of what the party is fighting for, the realisation of communism is the abolition of private property, it argued. "Private businessmen cannot accept the party's principles and policies. If they do, then they are rejecting themselves," it said. "They only want to join the party to influence the adoption and implementation of local policies. They hope to enrol more private businessmen into the party to strengthen their own role." The article does not explicitly say that party membership is now up for sale but complains that local branches which are strapped for cash are tempted to enlist private businessmen to raise funds and help stimulate the growth of the local economy. "Now there is trend to encourage them to join," the article said. "Business owners sometimes appear to resign and give control of their business to relatives but they still control their independent kingdom. They wear communist caps on their head but inside they have the brains of capitalists."
Re: Chinese new left
Henry wrote: The importance of this development is that the youths of China have finally rediscover the right path, unlike the misguided students in Tiananmen Square in 1989. This sounds like hyperbole to me. None of the Marxists I know in China in their correspondences with me are seeing a major trend of students rediscovering the right path. There *is* a segment of students who, especially since the bombing* of the Chinese embassy last year are questioning more and more the link that Chinese leaders make between liberalization and making China stronger. So the importance of the development might be that *some* students are less enamoured of US capitalism than was the case in the past. In 1989, the students, who were already a privileged elite enjoying the unequally distributed fruits of China's new experiment with market economy, were agitating for a still better deal for themselves and for the right to indulge in bourgeois liberalism, and US style "democracy and individual "freedom", much of the poison fed to them blind by US journalists. However, left students from China are also quite cynical about how the Party uses its monopoly on political power to keep activists on the left from engaging in organizing activities that come naturally to leftists, i.e. supporting laid off workers, helping workers understand the law in factories that have been subjected to blatant corruption...This kind of activity, is generally eschewed by left students/professors in China because of the obvious risks involved. The NYT recently published an article on a left cadre who was jailed for his involvement in organizing laid off workers in Shenyang. That article was also posted to the China Bulletin, which is the leading journal of the new left students in China and overseas. One can be critical of the effects of a politica party's monopoly of power without being bourgeois. The Tiananmen protestors, in their ignorance of the West, mistook US prosperity as proof of the correctness of the capitalist/democratic system, not realizing that that very prosperity had been achieved through oppression both internally and globally. The New Left are students who have lived in the West for a decade and have first-hand knowledge of the reality of capitalism. I would agree with that, although the reason why students in China often don't believe that capitalism can be oppressive is closely tied to their not believing much of what they read about socialist development in China. The New Left among Chinese youths is significant because it can play a timely role in the ideological and policy struggle within the CPC that is expected to come to a climax within the next two years. The CPC is committed to a jeunvenization program and is seeking a balance between the development of a modern economy without total surender to US globalization. The left has two favorable conditions at its disposal against overwhelming odds. The odds are that to fight globalized finance capitalism is easier said than done. The odds are made more high because many leftists reject serious studies of finance out of ideological distaste. Well, many delight in focusing on purely economic formulas or 'laws' at the expense of focusing on how power is organized. If the left in China wants to exert influence on the CCP, it's going to have to develop a base, which is going to require more than developing fine arguments or backroom horse trading skills. This idea btw is not coming from my brain alone, it is one that has been expressed to me by a number of Marxists I know in China and who work at chinabulletin.com . Steve
Re: Re: Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle
On Fri, 14 Jul 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yoshie, you asked me a while ago how I planned to get support for antiimperialism. I said, organize, agitate, join groups, propagandize, etc. I belong to Solidarity, the NLG. I write acdemic papers. I engage in thsi sort of discussion. I do strike support work. In other words, the usual drill. If I knew something better, I would tell you. I would not keep in a secret. The difference is, I am struggoing for something intelligible and demonstrably superior to what we have. You and much of the far left are not, and taht is part of our problem. People don't believe you have anything better, and they are right. --jks It seems we might do well to keep in mind that much of what goes on on these lists are disagreements between people who are committed to struggle at most of the levels it takes place. We on this list know should know that Justin is a quite committed human being and committed to activism just as we should also know that Yoshie is quite committed to activist work, in addition to all else that she is doing. Then what we have left are debates over theoretical issues and no need to remind others that we are engaging in x, y, or z type of activity. Steve
Excellent Taiwan source
Here's an excellent source from Taiwan, the English web site. www.coolloud.org
[PEN-L:11117] Re: Feminism is sexist?
excellent job of flame provoking... steve On Thu, 3 Jul 1997, Karl Carlile wrote: Comrades, While having a mug of coffee I thought to myself that much of what is regarded as progressive feminism is essentially sexist and separatist. It is quite common for many feminists to make general criticisms of men as a gender. Yet if a man was to make critical comments about women as a gender he would be castigated by much of feminism as sexist. It seems to me that much of the the generalities of a critical nature made about men as a gender have a sexist character to them. It would therefore seem that much of the so called feminist movement is sexist and seeks to create a reactionary polarization within the working class along gender lines thereby reinforcing division within the working class. This in turn sustains the politically weak nature of the working class. In short sexism is prevalent both among men and women. Karl
[PEN-L:11098] Re: Barbarism
On Wed, 2 Jul 1997, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: Today the state of Maryland executed Mr. Hunt, a black man, for killing a white police officer some 12 years. This barbaric human sacrifice was broadly televised, as "execution countdown" on local TV. At the same time, The United States is the only industrialised country that has death penalty. This puts it together with countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, North Korea, China and other so-called rogue nations. In fact, as the enclosed postings In moments like that, I am really proud of being just a vistor in this country. It is a great emotional comfort to be able to say "I am not really a part of this society and its barbaric rituals." Wojtek Sokolowski Thanks for this post Wojtek. In your comments you seem to want to disassociate yourself from "this society," but I would not recommend that. I am part of this society, like many others who strongly oppose this form of barbarism, and I think it would be far better to associate yourself with certain parts of American society, namely those of us who are politicized and possess a social conscience that you should identify with. I don't identify with the America that allows such barbarism to occur, nor am I willing to allow it to be defined as "American," even if it is state sanctioned. Your poignant posting reminded me of a passage from Barbara Kingsolver's novel, *The Bean Trees*, pp.134-136. A rural working class young single mom from Kentucky ends up in Arizona and ends up acquainting a couple from Guatemala, organizers of a teacher's union in exile and hiding from the INS at -get this- "Jesus is Lord Used Tires," which serves as a sanctuary for Central American refugees. Well, gradually this woman ends up learning this couple's tragic story of encounters with political repression and torture.and this is her reaction: "I don't know exactly how to say this, I thought I'd had a pretty hard life. But I keep finding out that life can be hard in ways I never knew about" "I can see that it would be easier not to know," he replied. (She replies) "That's not fair, you don't see at all. You think you're the foreigner here and I'm the American, and I just look the other way while the President or somebody sends down this and that, shiploads of telephones to torture people with. But nobody asked my permission, ok? Sometimes I feel like I'm a foreigner too. I come from a place that's so different from here you would think you'd stepped right off the map into some other country where they use dirt for decoration and the national pastime is having babies. People don't look the same, talk the same, nothing
[PEN-L:10946] re: Juneteenth
If they're allowed to work, unions should be allowed to unionize'em. Steve Clearly prisoners are being exploited as workers and this diminishes the well-being of workers who aren't incarcerated. At the same time, for some convicts the chance to work at some jobs, even for a pittance, is probably seen as very valuable. Moreover, the state benefits financially from their work and this adds to scarce public revenues. So there is some issue about weighing the welfare of the two against each other, unless you think convicts should be entitled to no relief whatsoever. If you say they should both be able to work, that's evading the actual practical choice available at the moment. 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 Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:11816] Re: ups and the need for a pen-l web site
Michael, Michael is, in my book providing a valuable service in a responsible fahion. For those who do not wish to look at his messages, it should take no more than a milisecond to delete his messages. Surely there are more important things to get worked up over than Michael's posting *informative* articles about the UPS workers' strike, like, say, the strike itself? Thank you Michael for the time spent sending off posts on the strike. My two cents worth Steve On Sat, 16 Aug 1997, Michael Perelman wrote: I am getting very positive feedback about Michael E.'s UPS postings, plus a couple of complaints about the volume that one individual is sending. My feeling is that the UPS strike is an exceptional opportunity. They union actually has a chance of winning something -- and with public support. Harry Cleaver was doing something similar -- on a smaller scale with Chiapas, but now he uses the web and his own list -- which is probably the appropriate way to go. I do wish that someone had the time and the expertise to create a web site for pen-l -- so that we could have information such as Michael is providing in a handier form. Also, I would like to know if my sample is biased -- if more of you think that the volume of Michael's postings are burdensome, or if you appreciate the service he is performing. I am only raising the question because 1) it has been posed to me and 2) I would like to know how to make the list as useful as possible. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again
On Sat, 1 Nov 1997, Gerald Levy wrote: Yes, but Jerry you have to explain why you recommend that Doug a) choose a liberal school that charges outrageous tution rates that most working class students cannot afford instead of the Marxist School, which is much cheaper and run by a group of admisitrators who have a much greater commitment to Marxism. b) retain a liberal faith in education through taking classes in lieu of praxis in political activity (i.e. organizing workers..), which would reflect a Marxist commitment. c) engage in such activities in order to 'learn' something about value. I agree with Gil, who writes," Doug's book is certainly "about political economy", and writes, As you know I have my doubts about the relevance of value theory, but my assessment of capitalism wouldn't change one way or another if somehow these doubts were vanquished. So, it's ok for Gil, but God forbid should Doug do this. Can't but help wonder how much your bitterness directed at Doug is personal, not political...Then again, considering how much energy you have used to defend the likes of a Malecki, well... Steve
Re: [PEN-L] Re: My one and only reply to Levy
jerry, On M-I and Pen-L you have singled out Doug for your bitter attacks. I subscribe to these two lists and have not seen you attack anyone else with such bitterness. As Michael Yates and James Devine have pointed out, your criticisms are especially vitriolic, which this list is not supportive of. On this list I have seen people getting into extended debates with Doug on different issues, but none telling him to go back to school...you leave your readers with little choice but to believe this is personal, not political. Think of it like this. Maurce Dobb and Paul Sweezy had a very lively debate in the 1950's. Their views were largely irreconcilable, yet neither party ever sunk to telling the other one "to go back to school to learn (fill in th eblank)..." Brenner and Wallerstein likewise had a very fierce debate in the 80's, again without sinking to such remarks... Ya wanna debate Doug, fine. Offer an alternative to his book after finally reading it? Fine. Great even, this list is for that. But the petty personal attacks we can do without.
Re: dead girls in China
That's a great reply Bill. I'm so tired of all the anti-China hype. If Suharto received half as much flack for human rights violations as China did in the media I suppose i wouldn't be so tired of it... Steve On Mon, 3 Nov 1997, Bill Burgess wrote: I understand that most of the gap in the number of girls as opposed to boys in China is due to *under-reporting* of girls rather than female infanticide. If the first born is a girl, if she is not reported a second child may be the desired boy. China's one child rule is a reactionary measure, but one-sided reports are no better. Bill Burgess ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Department of Geography, Tel: (604) 822-2663 University of British Columbia, B.C. Fax: (604) 822-6150
Re: Web site on evils of tobacco
Evils of tobacco? What next, evils of sex? steve On Tue, 4 Nov 1997, Sid Shniad wrote: There's a terrific new web site focusing on the evils of tobacco: The URL is http://www.tobaccofacts.org Especially useful for teachers and other moulders of minds. Sid Shniad
Re: ripening contradictions?
So, comrades, what is to be done? World revolution, now! Of course. I know because I read Workers Vanguard. Doug Aw Doug, First we need to have an internecine war between revisonists, mensheviks, true trots and false trots*then* and only then can we have a world revolution Steve
Re: dead girls in China
Bill wrote: In my response to Maggie Coleman's post of the NYT article about the "slaughter of girl babies" in China I said the one-child policy was reactionary, but that one-sided reports were no better. By one-sided reports I meant those that ignored other plausible explanations for the recorded gap in the number of girls and boys, explanations that the anti-communist, anti-chinese and anti-choice lobbies like to *avoid*. I am no expert on demography or China. I just think that recognizing the political context of these kinds of reports is the beginning of wisdom. Steve wrote: Thanks Bill for the thoughtful reply. When I first read Maggie's response and the rather bizarre ad hominems that came with it, I couldn't help but wonder if this kind of exchange would have been possible on a left political economy list even ten years ago. With the downfall of the Soviet Union, it seems that many assume the cold war to be over, or the rules by which it was played to have changed substantively. As a result, the source of information and whether or not it's likely to be tainted by US foreign policy needs seems also to be less and less something that liberal and even left scholars critically interrogate (as Bill did so well in his response to this article). In Hawaii China's human rights violations is a favorite pet cause of liberals who fashion themselves to be quite progressive. This to me is particularly problematic, not because China does not have a human rights problem, but because one would like to think that activists in the States would want to give their time and energy to raising awareness about (much graver) violations of human rights in countries that do not appear on the front page of the NYT as topics of human rights discourse (Indonesia, Turkey, Israel...). In early 1997, Harry Wu came to speak at the University of Hawaii. He gave a public talk for $9 per person!! The guy is a blatant fraud, but liberals and progressives here just can't believe that someone who talks human rights is insincere, or god forbid very right wing. Recall all the utterly naive hopes progressives placed in Lech Walesa. It is not so upsetting that liberals don't get it. But one would expect better of lefties including Coleman. You might wish the cold war was over, but yes it is very possible that liberal sounding rhetoric about oppressed "slaughtered" women might very well be funded by some very reactionary (even anti-choice, anti-feminist) institutions. Even in this day and "Post-cold war" age.
Anti-China lobby-Remnants of Cold War Hyperbole
On Tue, 4 Nov 1997 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 97-11-04 00:21:15 EST,[ several people have self righteously said more or less the following]: I understand that most of the gap in the number of girls as opposed to boys in China is due to *under-reporting* of girls rather than female infanticide. If the first born is a girl, if she is not reported a second child may be the desired boy. China's one child rule is a reactionary measure, but one-sided reports are no better. 1. The Chinese government now admits that infanticide of girls is a problem and an unwanted side effect of the one child policy (this was in the last paragraph of the article and has been admitted officially by the Chinese for the last year or so). I don't see what is so self-righteous about Bill or my reply. We questioned data used to legitimate the hyperbole that the US and th emainstream human rights movement activists use to justify singling out China as worthy of condemnation. Myself, i wonder how it is that China's policies are worse than, say, Indonesia's, or more deserving of censure than Indonesia. We know that anti-Communism is America's favorite religion (to paraphrase Noam Chomsky) and that this religion allows the US to make just about any claim about its 'enemies' without being questioned, a luxury that opponents of its non-enemies cannot afford. On eexample suffices. In the 1980's allegations of horrible massacres of the Miskito Indians in nicaragua were made by th eReagan administration. which were later used to justify support of the terrorist organization known as "The Contras". At the time, it took quite a bit of courage not to jump on the bandwagon and condemn the Sandinistas as genocidal. Not because there were not violations of this indigenous groups' rights committed by the Sandinistas, but because there was also much more to the story, something I'm sure I don't have to go into detail to explain on *this* list. Forget the utter hyperbole the adminstration and much of the media engaged in, to th epoint where an uninformed observer would have to conclude that, by virtue of all the attention given to the Miskito Indian issue in Nicaragua, Nicaragua's mistaken policies vis a vis indigenous people's stood out compared to its neighbors'. Of course, anyone who knows the history of indigenous genocide in Guatemala knew that this was utterly untrue. Anti-communism skewed the issue that much! And I suspect it does in the case of China at present. Chian is not th eonly developing nation that engages in policies that are harmful to women. One just wonders, why is China the only country that we hear this about in the national media? There is probably something at work other than a councern for women here, just like there was something at play in the US when such profound concern was expressed by the US adminstration and the media about "genocide" of Miskito Indians in Nicaragua in the 80's. 2. This information came from census data collected and released by the Chinese government. sure, now we have to ask, is the way the anti-china lobby interprets such stats reasonable? Or do we just accept everything they tell us? Prison labor, gov't endorsed infanticide,...pedaphilia, satan abuse...tibet...Jesse Helms, harry Wu, and richard gere say it's true, must be true... 3. I fail to see why 'not admitting' that you've had a girl is any better than infanticide in the long run. Think about it for a minute, if you don't admit you have the child, she can't get medical care, can't go to school, can't be included in child benefits of any kind. But then perhaps the proponents of not admitting there are girls feel this is o.k., after all, do you also think uneducated baby makers in the kitchen are the best women? (sarcasm absolutely intended) Of course, just as sarcasm was used against those of us who questioned the veracity of the US's claims that the Sandinistas were engaged in a systematic campaign of genocide against the Miskito Indians...how could we not care about that awful awful depraved anti-indigenous governments' genocidal acts? We must have just felt that "the only good injun's a dead injun' right? how *could* we question the cold war consensus? indeed. 4. The 'non-reporting' does not hold water, especially since the ratio of boys as a majority over girls widens with age AND, there's just all those pesky little corpses. And exactly how does this differ from the problem of disappearing women in the rest of the developing world? Why should China be the only country that people notice this phenomenon in? Or do such questions not matter? 5. If the ratios were the other way around, I'd bet you guys would be out there screaming your heads off. What a few girls amongst all you self righteous revolutionaries, eh? Revolutionary schmevolutionary. Side issue. The real issue at hand is whether allegations made about the Chinese government as being most
When the Rich Get Even Richer
A series of letters written in response to the "Why Decry Wealth" article published in the NYT two days ago: January 26, 2000 When the Rich Get Even Richer __ To the Editor: W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm ask, "Why Decry the Wealth Gap?" (Op-Ed, Jan. 24). First, inequality is correlated with political instability, one of the strongest findings of cross-national research. Second, inequality is correlated with violent crime. Third, economic inequality is correlated with reduced life expectancy, shown by a large and growing body of public health research. A fourth reason? Simple justice. There is no moral justification for chief executives' being paid hundreds of times more than ordinary employees. Social policies that reduce inequality, like progressive taxation and living wages, should be strengthened and expanded for the health and well-being of those not at the top of the pyramid. RICHARD HUTCHINSON Ogden, Utah, Jan. 24, 2000 The writer is an assistant professor of sociology, Weber State University. * To the Editor: Re "Why Decry the Wealth Gap?" (Op-Ed, Jan. 24): Americans need to make a public choice about the standard of living that we believe the least among us should enjoy. We should be able to reach a consensus -- rough and fractious, to be sure -- on minimal acceptable levels for housing, nutrition, health care, education and other essentials. Most of us will live well above those basic standards, and that likely reflects personal qualities and good fortune rather than injustice. We can also pursue voluntary actions and public policies to make sure that our neighbors remain part of the community by not dropping below those minimal levels. NEIL J. SULLIVAN New York, Jan. 24, 2000 The writer is a professor of public affairs at Baruch College, CUNY. * To the Editor: W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm (Op-Ed, Jan. 24) assert that artificial efforts to curb inequality do more harm than good and that Americans ought to care more about growth than inequality. But this overlooks the fact that people of wealth and privilege are in a position to pass great advantages on to their children, while the children of the poor, lacking in resources, fall further behind. Would Mr. Cox and Mr. Alm consider Social Security an "artificial" attempt to curb inequality? It is one of America's most successful and popular programs. Do they think more good would be done by eliminating it? One by-product of economic inequality is its debilitating effect on social cohesion. Studies show that states and nations with great inequality often have reduced levels of social involvement and trust. These, in turn, are correlated with higher rates of illness and death. GERALD KLOBY Upper Montclair, N.J., Jan. 24, 2000 The writer is coordinator of the Institute for Community Studies, Montclair State University. _ Home | Site Index | Site Search | Forums | Archives | Marketplace Quick News | Page One Plus | International | National/N.Y. | Business | Technology | Science | Sports | Weather | Editorial | Op-Ed | Arts | Automobiles | Books | Diversions | Job Market | Real Estate | Travel Help/Feedback | Classifieds | Services | New York Today Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company [pixel.gif] [pixel.gif]
Mainland economist's criticism of China's WTO entry
See the interview here: http://www.chinaonline.com/issues/wto/currentnews/secure/c00052556.asp "Amid the cheers at China's quickening progress toward accession, Dr Han Deqiang has sounded a lonely voice of opposition. In his book "Collision," Han highlights the negative impact of WTO on China. Fearful of increased unemployment and economic dependence on foreign companies, Han is critical of American "hegemony" and double standards. Since its publication in January this year, "Collision" has attracted increasing attention from concerned officials and academics across China. The first print run of 10,000 copies has been snapped up by bookstores nationwide where it remains the most popular title on the WTO."
Some recent articles from the Journal of Contemporary Asia
For those who are interested, JCA is a leftie journal...Marty Hart-Landsberg and I have published articles there, I think Bill Brugger might have? Steve Some articles from volume 30 issue 1 of the Journal of Contemporary Asia: Russel Smyth, "Asset Stripping in Chinese State Owned Enterprises." pp3-16 Seung Wook Baek, "The Changing Trade Unions in China." pp 46-66 James Petras, "China in the Context of Globalization." pp 108-117
Chile's social security?
Anyone on lbo or pen mind providing me with a good source on the chilean social security system? thanks much in advance, steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
Researcher into laid-off workers in China investigated for subversion
Subject: Researcher into laid-off workers in China investigated for subversion Monday, June 12 7:23 PM SGT Researcher into laid-off workers in China investigated for subversion BEIJING, June 12 (AFP) - A man who conducted research into the massive number of workers being laid off in China's state-owned enterprises has been arrested and is being investigated for subversion, a human rights group said Monday. Feng Daxun, a 59-year-old former journalist from China's southwestern Sichuan province, was arrested on December 16, a day after police found him talking to participants of a 2,000-strong protest in the province's Nei Jiang city, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. Feng was at the scene asking the workers from the Sichuan Nei Jiang Machine Tool Factory about the cause of the protest and their views on the government's three-year plan to close, merge or restructure inefficient and money-losing state-owned companies. The workers, who had not been paid for a year, blocked a highway. Feng was accused of inciting the workers to stage further protests. The rights group in statement faxed to Beijing said Feng had been charged with subversion and was facing a prison sentence of 10 years or more. But an official with Nei Jiang city's procuratorate told AFP that Feng's case was still being investigated and that the case might be sent back to the police for further investigation because there was insufficient evidence to charge him. "It depends on how our investigation goes," said the official who identified himself only as Mr. Zheng. Feng is being kept in a detention center. Mr. Zheng said Feng had also written open letters to Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji as well as essays criticizing the government. But there was no evidence Feng widely distributed his writings, he said. The Information Center said Feng had served five years in prison for pro-democracy activities. He worked as a reporter for 10 years and continued to freelance after retiring in the 1980's. Since October 1998, three dissidents have been imprisoned for between seven to 10 years for revealing information about workers' protest, including one who was interviewed by Radio Free Asia, the rights group said. Labour protests are one of the most common types of demonstrations in China. Last year, the number of protests rose nearly 70 percent from 60,000 in 1998 to 100,000, according to government statistics obtained by the Information Center. The rise in the number of demonstrations is causing concern for the country's leadership, which has in recent months frequently espoused the importance of maintaining social stability and paying workers and retirees' wages and pensions on time and in full.
China 'Short-term pain, long-term gain'
SCMP Friday, May 26, 2000 PNTR VOTE 'Short-term pain, long-term gain' WILLIAM KAZER in Shanghai While Beijing has applauded its likely entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO), joining the global body could contribute to slower economic growth, more job losses and a weaker trade position next year as pain offsets early gains. Economists, speaking shortly after the US House of Representatives voted to smooth the way for WTO accession by backing Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status for the mainland, said the real benefits for Beijing would be substantial but would take time to emerge. "There will be big shocks to the economy next year," said Yin Xinming, an economist at Fudan University. "There will be more negatives in the short run." Other economists agreed with that view. "GDP [gross domestic product] growth could slow to seven per cent next year from about eight per cent this year," said Chi Lo, regional head of research at Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong. That would reflect a variety of factors, including weaker global economic growth as well as the restructuring of the mainland's inefficient state industry under pressure from increased competition from abroad. Beijing has been warning its state enterprises, many of which are overstaffed and unable to operate profitably, that they would have to prepare for new challenges after entry to the WTO. It has agreed to reduce import duties gradually and to scrap several non-tariff barriers to trade and investment that have long angered foreign businessmen. Import duties on cars, for example, will fall to 25 per cent by 2006 from 80 to 100 per cent now. Agricultural duties will drop to 17.5 per cent from 22 per cent, while a host of restrictions will be eased in areas from telecommunications to finance and retailing to transport. As a result, economists are predicting more mergers and closures among state-run companies. This was likely to mean increased layoffs, which in turn would drag down economic growth. Mr Chi said the mainland could have a current account deficit of US$16 billion (HK$123 billion) next year. While that would still be manageable, it would compare with an expected surplus of US$4 billion this year and an actual surplus of US$12 billion last year. A slower expansion in main markets could slow the mainland's export growth next year to 12 per cent from a forecast 15 per cent this year. Meanwhile, imports could climb by 18 per cent next year against 20 per cent this year, the economist said. The bright spot in the near-term economic picture is foreign direct investment (FDI), where a moderate upturn could be expected fairly soon. Mr Chi expects to see FDI rising to US$50 billion next year from US$45.6 billion this year. Government officials have been quick to play up this aspect of the expected entry into the WTO. Liu Zuozhang, deputy director of foreign investment at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation, said accession to the WTO would promote foreign investment. He called this a "win-win" situation. But more companies competing for a share of the domestic market will put pressure on unemployment, which officially stands at 3.1 per cent in urban areas but is believed to be considerably higher. "Short-term pain and long-term gain," said Merrill Lynch economist Ma Guonan, in a description of the overall impact of WTO entry. But he and other economists said Beijing still had several ways to cushion the blow from increased competition - and one of them was its currency. Beijing has already been testing the waters, allowing more flexibility in the exchange rate for the yuan, which had been held firmly at about 8.27 to the US dollar. Analysts said a slight weakening of the yuan could offset some of the pressure for more imports due to lower tariffs.
[PEN-L:686] Warm Coke in China, was banning Coca Cola?
On Sun, 9 Aug 1998, Eugene P. Coyle wrote: Consumption is learned behavior. The desire for Coca Cola doesn't spring unbidden from the innocent mind. And Coca Cola needs an infrastructure. Refridgeration and ice. Coca Cola had a hard time getting started in the UK because ice boxes weren't in stores. Many other prodcuts need an infrastructure. Who puts that in place, some thirsty guy who installs an ice box at every grocery store so that he can have a Coke? No, a marketing expert. Don't be so sure about the 'need' for refrigeration of coke either. In China (at least in Beijing) they look at you like you're crazy to ask for a 'cold' coke or (in my case) Sprite. Even during the Beijing summer this is still the case in some places. Though this is less and less the case it seems, but at least until it is screaming hot outdoors, noone seems to need a Coke or Sprite that is refrigerated. Warm will do just fine (except for me). Steve
Murky figures cloud China state sector reform
Murky figures cloud China state sector reform by Jeremy Page FUSHUN, China, June 19 (Reuters) - After a wave of factory closures, mass lay-offs and bankruptcies at state firms, officials in China's northeastern province of Liaoning say they see light at the end of the economic tunnel. But analysts say the actual progress of painful state sector reforms in China's ``rust belt'' is blurred by murky regulations on restructuring and opaque accounting which overnight can miraculously turn basket cases into pillars of the economy. On paper, Liaoning is on track. During an April visit to the province -- home to 10 percent of China's large state firms -- Premier Zhu Rongji declared there was hope of turning round all its loss-making state firms within three years. If Liaoning could do it, Zhu said, the rest of the country would be a walkover. This year, the province aims to slash the proportion of state firms in the red to under 30 percent, from 60 percent at the end of 1998. Analysts are sceptical. ``There are a lot of different ways of making enterprises appear profitable,'' says James Greener, General Manager of Shenyang Corporate Advisory, which helps attract foreign investors to the Liaoning capital of Shenyang. ``Until consolidated accounting comes along, it's going to be quite hard to work out exactly what the situation is in these enterprises,'' says Greener, who helps the city package assets of state-owned firms for foreign investors. GOVERNOR SAYS REFORMS ON TARGET Liaoning governor Zhang Guoguang maintains the reforms are on target. The provincial economy grew 8.1 percent in 1999, outstripping the national rate of 7.1 percent, due mainly to successful restructuring of state enterprises, he says. State firms are now preparing for competition with foreign companies after China's entry to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) expected later this year. ``It's not about how many enterprises are loss-making, it's about how we can increase our competitiveness,'' he says. ``We must develop key industries, develop core products and open up domestic and international markets.'' However, analysts say few have become competitive. Many have been closed or merged, thus reducing the number of firms in the red but doing little to alter the overall balance sheet. Others use nifty accounting tricks to hide losses. Inflating sales orders through subsidiaries in other provinces and disguising major losses as capital expenditure are common practice, says Greener. ``Several of the major expenses related to reform like paying for pensions, paying for redundancies, interest on loans, don't go through the profit and loss,'' he says. ``That way you can make your profit and loss look profitable even when it's not.'' VAGUE RULES ON SURPLUS LABOUR When it comes to trimming payrolls to offload crippling welfare obligations, regulations appear to be equally flexible. In theory, state firms are obliged to give laid-off workers a monthly allowance of about 250 yuan ($30) for three years. But with no unified system covering medical care, housing and pensions -- all formerly taken care of by the Communist Party's ``iron rice bowl'' -- and no social security law to enforce payments, most firms deal with the problem on an ad hoc basis. Many cash-strapped firms simply refuse to pay the allowance, leaving workers to fend for themselves in the private sector. Firms in less dire circumstances offer workers a one-off payment of up to 10,000 yuan instead of the monthly allowance. Many more pass on their liabilities to insurance firms or the government, which launched a drive to reform state enterprises in 1997 through mergers, closures and share-owning schemes. At the other extreme, some simply transfer excess workers to non-core parts of their business, as did Petrochina Fushun Petrochemical Co, a unit of recently-listed Petrochina (PTR.N). When the refinery needed to shed 1,100 workers, it set up subsidiary companies ranging from hotels to shoe factories and staffed them entirely with former workers. ``These enterprises are not run to make a profit,'' says Fushun Petrochemical president Duan Wende proudly. ``They are run to look after the workers.'' He says the subsidiaries are not part of the listed company, and are not a drain on the firm's financial resources. ``They simply fulfil the functions we used to contract out to other companies. As long as their prices are competitive we direct all our business to them,'' he says. WTO TO BE LITMUS TEST While such methods provide a quick fix to the unemployment problem, they do nothing to help the overall streamlining of the state sector, analysts say. The litmus test of Liaoning's reforms will be China's WTO entry, they say. The provincial government has identified almost 500 state firms in trouble. The 60 largest will be given special help. The rest are to be left to sink or swim. Governor Zhang admits many risk
CNN on Graham
Michael, I just went to the CNN cite and I didn't see anything that mentioned his bragging about the murder. In fact the article was pretty sympathetic with the argument that had this guy had an even half way alive lawyer he would have been acquitted, forget a good lawyer. What website were you referring to, sure it was CNN? Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
Re: CNN on Graham
Thanks Yoshie. Yeah, i see where it mentions Graham's bragging, but it isn't the author stating that, it's the victim of his rape stating that he had bragged about it to her. The article seemed to give pretty fair play to the supporters of a new trial. The momentum around the death penalty issue is amazing to me, something I didn't think we were gonna see for a while. The focus, if the DP Abolition goal is ever to be reached has to be on the use of the DP to put to death people who would not be put to death if they had a decent lawyer, or put more bluntly, if they were not poor. Thank God for the OJ trial. The pundits keep on hoping that this issue doesn't become a 'campaign issue,' but it looks to be picking up steam despite their wishes. I knew we could have neo-liberalism and free trade with rogue states, gays kissing on prime time TV,... but I didn't see how we could have that *and* an end to the death penalty...Life in a world of globalized capitalist relations only gets more and more interesting Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822 On Tue, 20 Jun 2000, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Stephen Philion writes: I just went to the CNN cite and I didn't see anything that mentioned his bragging about the murder. In fact the article was pretty sympathetic with the argument that had this guy had an even half way alive lawyer he would have been acquitted, forget a good lawyer. What website were you referring to, sure it was CNN? I just visited CNN.com, and I think it's the following article that Michael was talking about: * Guilt of Texas inmate Gary Graham debated as execution draws near Protesters heckle Bush; crime victims talk of terror June 20, 2000 Web posted at: 12:39 p.m. EDT (1639 GMT) http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/06/20/condemned.man.02/index.html * Yoshie
Re: Ronald Chilcote's New Volume on Imperialism (fwd)
Actually, I was thinking of someone else, I'm mistaken in my characterization of Chilcote. In addition to agreeing that Chilcote is a fine progressive thinker, I might add that I think Jim Devine's a real sharp thinker who makes very insightful use of Marx in his writing btw... His web page is great also. Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
Re: Re: Ronald Chilcote's New Volume on Imperialism (fwd)
What debate? I said I agree with you, RC is a fine progressive thinker. I then added I think JD is also. I wasn't debating anything with you. I would also add that trees are known to grow leaves. Steve Mine wrote: On Wed, 21 Jun 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't think that we should continue this unproductive debate about who is who. Ronald Chilcote is well known to be an _established_ Marxist
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GT (fwd)
The thing about you Mine, is you are just so SMART! Steve On Wed, 21 Jun 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sometimes, it is interesting to follow the "orientation" of discussion taking place in this list. The intellectual ranks of _Analytical Marxism_ include people like Cohen, Elster, Przeworski, Roemer and Olin Wright. It is increasingly becoming hard for me to understand how one criticizes Cohen's functionalism, and takes a position on Elster's or Hahnel's application of game theory at the same time, given that both disregard the broad conception of history, economy and society in Marx's thought... ohhh well... life! Mine
