From chriscd@jhu.edu Wed Apr 1 11:42:07 1998 Date: Wed, 01 Apr 1998 13:37:25 -0500 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: special issue of JWSR To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Volume 4, number 1 of the Journal of World-Systems Research is now up. It is a special issue on the globalization of labor movements edited by Brad Nash (Virginia Polytechnic). JWSR is available free for educational and research purposes. The web address is http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html The table of contents of the special issue is below. I will also mail the table of contents page directly to wsn participants. Thanks to Brad Nash and the contributors, and also to Salvatore Babones, Dan Shupp and Sarah Khokar. Chris Chase-Dunn/Editor-JWSR Volume 4, Number 1 (Winter 1998) Special Issue: Global Labor Movements Guest-Edited by Bradley Nash, Jr. Editors' Introduction: Globalizing Solidarity: Praxis and the International Labor Movement Bradley Nash, Jr. Bradley Nash, Jr., ed. Forum: Prospects for a Global Labor Movement Edna Bonacich, The Problems and the Prospects Ralph Armbruster, Globalization and Cross-Border Labor Organizing Bradley Nash, Jr., Organizing a Global Labor Movement from Top and Bottom Dan Clawson, Contradictions of Labor Solidarity Beverly Silver, The Global Restructuring of Labor Movements Edna Bonacich Organizing Immigrant Workers in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry Ralph Armbruster Cross-Border Organizing in the Garment and Automobile Industries: The Phillips Van Heusen and Ford Cuautitlan Cases Dimitris Stevis International Labor Organizations, 1864-1997: The Weight of History and the Challenges of the Present From chriscd@jhu.edu Wed Apr 1 11:42:14 1998 Date: Wed, 01 Apr 1998 13:43:28 -0500 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: Journal of World-Systems Research To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu sjonas@igc.apc.org, susan manning , su hoon lee , "Roberto_P_KORZENIEWICZ@umail.umd.edu" , Ralph Armbruster , patrick bond , markselden , kmm15@cornell.edu, joe feagin , giovanni arrighi , dale wimberley , dagmac@datasys.com.mx, dag mccleod , claudia scholz , Carolyn Hock , bruce podobnik , "Bradley Nash, Jr." , denemark@udel.edu, asa marxist section , beverly silver Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------2A1129AE154B http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr/vol4num1.htm --------------2A1129AE154B vol4num1.htm" Journal of World-Systems Research an ascii-art rendition of the globe

Journal of World-Systems Research


Volume 4, Number 1 (Winter 1998)

Special Issue: Global Labor Movements

Guest-Edited by Bradley Nash, Jr.

Editors' Introduction: Globalizing Solidarity: Praxis and the International Labor Movement Bradley Nash, Jr.

Back to Volume 4 contents page --------------2A1129AE154B-- From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Apr 2 10:18:24 1998 Date: Thu, 02 Apr 1998 12:20:09 -0500 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: INVITATION: Special SSSP Panels, co-sponsored by CS] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu X-Confirm-reading-to: Richard Dello Buono Return-receipt-to: Richard Dello Buono 01 Apr 1998 23:38:44 -0500 (EST) 01 Apr 1998 22:39:14 -0600 (CST) 01 Apr 1998 22:37:43 -0600 (CST) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 1998 22:37:39 -0600 (CST) From: Richard Dello Buono Subject: INVITATION: Special SSSP Panels, co-sponsored by CS In-reply-to: <19980330.110604.CRITSOC@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU> To: ERosen5014@AOL.COM, nsokolof@power.adm.jjay.cuny.edu, jsalt@ALPHA.UTAMPA.EDU, spectors@mail.netnitco.net, wharton@wsu.edu, wright@ssc.wisc.edu, tr@TRYOUNG.COM, vburris@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU, kowalski@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU, dwall@chass.utoronto.ca, mkoc@ACS.RYERSON.CA, mmurray@BINGHAMTON.EDU, rdellob@email.dom.edu, wkatzfishman@igc.apc.org, flacks@alishaw.ucsb.edu, gimenez@csf.colorado.edu, goertzel@CRAB.RUTGERS.EDU, marty@lclark.edu, chowe@HOLYCROSS.EDU, mkarim@moses.culver.edu, llangma@cpua.it.luc.edu, jlembcke@HOLYCROSS.EDU, rlevine@BINGHAMTON.EDU, oppenhei@rz.uni-potsdam.de, pincus@UMBC7.UMBC.EDU, larry.t.reynolds@cmich.edu, roz@PIPELINE.COM, ebonacic@wizard.ucr.edu, tbos@social-sci.ss.emory.edu, brownc@woods.uml.edu, chriscd@jhu.edu, CRITSOC@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Organization: Dominican Univ., River Forest, IL This is an invitation to all affiliates of CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY and fellow travelers to participate in a special panel discussion being organized in San Francisco on the future of Radical Sociology. It takes place in walking distance of the ASA on the day following the ASA-Marxist Section sessions at the Hotel Nikko San Francisco at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP). *************************************************** Breaking and Entering the Sociological Establishment: An Open Panel Discussion on the Future of Radical Sociology Saturday, August 22 2:30 pm - 6:15 pm Room: White Pearl I *************************************************** Panel co-sponsored by the journal CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY and the SSSP Program Committee Presiders/Organizers: Shelley Kowalski, University of Oregon Kate Stout, Dominican University Walda Katz Fishman, Howard University Richard Dello Buono, Dominican University Panelists: (registration ongoing) Wanda Alderman-Swain, Seton-Hall University Ken Bolton, University of Florida Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, University of Michigan Richard Dello Buono, Dominican University Abigail Fuller, Manchester College Walda Katz Fishman, Howard University and Project South Shelley Kowalski, University of Oregon Lauren Langman, Loyola University of Chicago Jerry Lembcke, Holy Cross College Janice Monti-Belkaoui, Dominican University Jerome Scott, Project South Kate Stout, Dominican University Registered participants will be listed on the program as panelists, with name and affiliation. Special registration and membership rates are available for students, low-income and unemployed panelists. Those interested need to send their name and address, phone, fax and email information ASAP if they wish to appear on the Preliminary SSSP Program which comes out in May. Send info NOW to: rdellob@email.dom.edu Richard A. Dello Buono Sociology Department Dominican University 7900 West Division St. River Forest, IL 60305 FAX: 708-763-0362 From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Apr 2 12:54:37 1998 Date: Thu, 02 Apr 1998 14:36:46 -0500 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: world congress of sociology-montreal To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu You can get information about world congress of sociology in montreal from http://www.bcoc.umontreal.ca/socio98/ From gernot.kohler@sheridanc.on.ca Fri Apr 3 10:36:34 1998 Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:36:26 -0500 (EST) From: Gernot Kohler To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: inadequate demand in the world system (Mandel) This book contains interesting views on global demand: REFERENCE Ernest Mandel The Second Slump: A Marxist Analysis of Recession in the Seventies London, England: NLB, 1978 [revised and translated from the 1977 German edition] ISBN 86091 0121 Mandel's work implies a world system view. _The Second Slump_ addresses, inter alia, the problem of global demand (effective demand in the world system), both in terms of (1) general theory and (2) concrete historical analysis. (The book does not use the terms "world(-)system" or "global demand" as such.) A. GENERAL THEORY Chapter 5 ("Marxism and the Crisis") contains the general theory of the book. Mandel observes that, in Marxism, "(t)wo great 'schools' have arisen. One claims that the crises are caused by the under-consumption of the masses (...), the other that they are caused by over-accumulation (...). This debate is but a variant of the old debate between those who explained the crises by 'insufficient aggregate demand' and those who explained them by 'disproportionality'." (p. 165) Mandel goes on criticizing both schools: "both commit the error of arbitrarily dividing what is organically linked..."(p. 165) and argues that we must "combine" both views. In support he quotes the older Marx, as opposed to the younger Marx, namely: QUOTE: "the conditions of direct exploitation and those of realizing it are not identical ... The first are only limited to the PRODUCTIVE POWER OF SOCIETY, the latter by the proportional relation of the various branches of production and the CONSUMER POWER OF SOCIETY." [Marx, Capital, vol. 3, p. 244] (Mandel, p. 165-166, my emphasis) Similarly, Mandel states that: QUOTE: "The capitalist mode of production ... is both a system oriented towards the PRODUCTION of a growing mass of surplus-value (...) and a system in which the real appropriation of this surplus-value is dependent on the possibility of ACTUALLY SELLING commodities ..."(p. 166, my emphasis) Mandel goes on discussing over-accumulation, under-consumption, anarchy of production, falling rate of profit and states that: QUOTE: "Whatever the deeper meanderings of the analysis, the first phenomenon that must be grasped is this sharp break in the UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN SUPPLY AND DEMAND of commodities..."(p. 169) There you have it: the importance of demand in Mandel's theory of crises. B. CONCRETE HISTORICAL ANALYSIS In the chapters which deal with the concrete historical analysis of the world system and its "second slump" (title of the book), Mandel points to the inadequacy of demand in the world system as a major problem. Here are examples: QUOTE 1: "Contraction of world trade" ... "became inevitable once this recession had spread to all the imperialist countries, since they still constitute the predominant sector of the world market (of 'worldwide available PURCHASING POWER')." (p. 19, my emphasis)[refers to 1970's] QUOTE 2: "neo-Keynesian recovery techniques" [sc. 1975-76]: "Because of enormous injection of additional PURCHASING POWER into the economic circuit, the recession was effectively halted after about a year or a year and a half. After this a recovery began." (p.62, my emphasis) QUOTE 3: "DEMAND for consumer goods on the domestic market was no longer rising after it acted to 'DETONATE' the recovery." (p. 96, my emphasis) [refers to G-7 countries 1975-77] QUOTE 4: re Third World demand: "... the semi-colonial countries continue to occupy a marginal position in the world market ..." (p. 137) "This is the fundamental reason why the restructuring of the world market now under way will not be able to stimulate a new accelerated expansion of the international capitalist economy. (p. 138) "To take the example of the EEC countries, their exports to Brazil, India and Pakistan stagnated or declined throughout 1975, 1976, and 1977. These three countries, inhabited by a total of nearly 800 million people, PURCHASE fewer commodities from the nine Common Market countries than does Austria alone, with its less than 8 million inhabitants!" (p. 138, my emphasis) QUOTE 5: Food money: "Nothing illustrates the capitalist character of the market economy and its unjust and inhuman consequences better than this spectacle of half of humanity afflicted by hunger not because of lack of food products, but because MONEY DEMAND cannot keep up with physical demand." (p. 146, my emphasis) C. CONCLUSION Ernest Mandel was of the opinion that effective demand in the world system is important and that effective demand in the world system tends to be inadequate. -gk From rkmoore@iol.ie Sun Apr 5 09:20:40 1998 Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 16:19:16 +0100 To: cyberjournal@cpsr.org From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: cj#796> *-> Announcement: PEOPLES PRESS INTERNATIONAL (PPI) Susan Envoy , Andy Oram , Marsha Woodbury , "Carl B. Page" Dear cyberjournal community, writers & publishers (via Bcc:), Announcement> PEOPLES PRESS INTERNATIONAL (PPI) - a new incarnation of - In collaboration with "CADRE Productions Unlimited" (CPU), and with the hosting support of "Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility" (CPSR), I am pleased to announce a revamp of the cyberjournal list -- a dedication to an expanded mission in support of _Social Responsibility_ on a GLOBAL scale: the PEOPLES PRESS INTERNATIONAL (PPI). PPI aims to connect people to people, worldwide, bringing you the _real_ news of the world -- the news Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner, the UPI, Reuters, the API, and the New York Times don't think you need to see. 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In liberty, Richard K.Moore (US Citizen) CADRE chief Cyberjournal editor PO Box 26 Quay Largo, Selskar Wexford, IRELAND mailto:editor@cyberjournal.org http://cyberjournal.org Ask not what the world is doing to you, but what you can do to the world. -cadre folk saying ~-===================================================-~ "Seeking an Effective Democratic Response to Globalization and Corporate Power" - an international workshop for activist leaders - *>---> June 25 July 2 - 1998 - Nova Scotia - Canada > Organized by: Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance < ~-===================================================-~ ~================================================~ Restore democratic sovereignty Create a sane and livable world Bring corporate globalization under control. * CITIZENS FOR A DEMOCRATIC RENAISSANCE (CADRE) * http://cyberjournal.org mailto:cadre@cyberjournal.org ~================================================~ ~=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by: Richard K. Moore | PO Box 26, Wexford, Ireland mailto:contributions@cyberjournal.org | http://cyberjournal.org * Non-commercial republication authorized - incl this sig * ~=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ From phuakl@sit.edu.my Mon Apr 6 03:55:58 1998 From: "DR. PHUA KAI LIT" To: wchew@concentric.net, wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 17:55:36 +0000 Subject: (Fwd) (Fwd) [sangkancil] 'Asian values' idea: Is it out? ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: yfyap@pop.jaring.my (Yap Yok Foo) To: sangkancil@malaysia.net Subject: [sangkancil] 'Asian values' idea: Is it out? Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 02:42:05 GMT Organization: Private Reply-to: yfyap@pop.jaring.my (Yap Yok Foo) ________________________________________________ This week's sponsors -The Asia Pacific Internet Company (APIC) Business Internet Services. Some talk. Some do. We talk and do! for instant info ________________________________________________ >From Singapore Sunday Times MAR 29 1998 'Asian values' idea: Is it out? The regional tigers have gone bust. Should they abandon the 'Asian values' model for the Western ideal of free-markets-with-democracy? By LINDA LIM THE Asian economic crisis is cause for rethinking the long-established consensus about the region's "miracle" economic growth. Most recently restated in the Asian Development Bank's 1997 study, Emerging Asia: Changes And Challenges, the consensus view was as follows: Asian economic success was the product simply of orthodox Western textbook economic principles -- on the one hand, external "openness" to trade and foreign investment; and on the other, domestic "good governments", with balanced or surplus budgets and conservative monetary policy leading to low inflation and high savings rates. But mainstream economists are not the only Western scholars who have sought to dissect the Asian economic miracle. Political scientists too have had their say on the subject. They have usually cited the "developmental state" -- focused on promoting economic development -- and "statist" industrial policies targeted at developing specific "strategic" industrial sectors, as keys to the rapid industrialisation of East Asia. South Korea is the classic case, but it is harder to identify similar instances in South-east Asia outside of Malaysia and Singapore. State development policy in Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines is more likely to be viewed as having been "captured" by "crony capitalists" with close personal relations with governments. Notwithstanding this, both "conservative" Western think-tanks like the Heritage Foundation, as well as "liberal" multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, always cited South-east Asian countries as part of the so-called Asian economic miracle. Although these economists generally did not care for the "statist" model of economic growth, they nevertheless praised East Asia's practice of conventional macroeconomic policy. When the Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand became politically democratic as well, this completed the picture of triumph for the Western liberal model of free-markets-with-democracy, which Francis Fukuyama proclaimed ushered in The End Of History. In Asia, it was proclaimed that the United States "lost the Vietnam war (against communism) but won the peace", as reflected in the economic prosperity and political stability enjoyed by its capitalist allies in the region. Culture as an element in the Asian economic miracle has largely been neglected or dismissed by both Western economists and political scientists, though the former might occasionally acknowledge the highly entrepreneurial populations in the region, while the latter sometimes noted that Confucian cultures may have lent moral authority and political legitimacy to interventionist developmental states. Western anthropologists and sociologists, on the other hand, have identified kin and ethnic networks, or "culturally embedded network capitalisms", as locally-efficient means of mobilising capital and industrial growth. Culture has also played a much larger role in explanations offered by indigenous Asian intellectuals, hailing mostly from the political establishment in patriarchal-authoritarian and semi-authoritarian states like Singapore, Malaysia, China and Indonesia. They have argued that "Asian values" -- emphasising the primacy of order over freedom, family and community interests over individual choice, and economic progress over political expression, together with thrift, ambition and hard work -- were largely responsible for the "Asian miracle". Whose model failed? THE Asian values school was unpopular among many Western commentators for suggesting, among other things, that capitalism and democracy need not go hand-in-hand. So it was predictable that when the Asian economic crisis hit during a period of economic strength in the United States and economic recovery in Europe, opponents of the Asian values school were out in full swing crowing over its assumed demise and the concomitant assumed triumph of the "American way". The Asian miracle has been attacked for its reliance on industrial policy and cronyism, both of which contributed to "moral hazard" in the inefficient financial sector and the resultant over-investment in a classic "asset bubble". Mr Paul Krugman, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who had some years earlier pronounced the Asian miracle a "myth" based on low total factor productivity growth, is one of those who favours the "moral hazard" argument that "crony capitalism" or guanxi (relationships) is what caused the crisis. This line of argument challenges both the praise of statist industrial policy by (mostly) Western political scientists and of "culturally-embedded networks" favoured by (mostly) Western anthropologists and sociologists. There is no question that crony capitalism did play a role in the crisis. But this is far from the only or most plausible interpretation of the crisis. Indeed, in the affected Asian countries, another interpretation is taking hold, one that is much less favourable to the Western liberal orthodoxy. In this view, it is the "Washington consensus", the Western model of free-markets-with-democracy, which has failed with the collapse of its prime success stories in Asia -- a case of "the West won the Cold War, only to lose the peace". The perils of openness FIRST, if openness was a key ingredient of the Asian economic miracle, "too much openness too fast" was responsible for its downfall. In particular, rapid and sweeping (though not complete) capital market liberalisation beginning in the late '80s, led to a massive influx of foreign capital, especially short-term loan and equity capital. Without this influx of foreign funds -- which in some cases amounted to as much as 75 per cent of the equity capital on local stockmarkets -- domestic "crony capitalism" alone could not have created the Asian bubble economies of the '90s. High domestic growth and investment in turn contributed to ballooning current account deficits, with imports constantly exceeding exports by a wide margin. This was further fuelled by overvalued currencies, the result both of exchange-rate regimes established to attract foreign capital, and of large inflows of capital. Open capital markets and capital-account convertibility also increased these economies' vulnerability to currency speculation. Financial market liberalisation in Asia had proceeded in advance of the appropriate state institutions necessary to monitor and regulate financial institutions, and in advance of local expertise to manage them. The region's much-vaunted entrepreneurialism led to the establishment of a horde of new banks -- in Indonesia alone, over 200 banks -- most of which with inadequate expertise in the management of money. Even without crony capitalism, excess capacity in the financial sector and intense competition among the neophyte institutions would have led to a fair proportion of "bad investments". This was aggravated by the easy availability of cheap capital from abroad, in many cases pressed on local borrowers by over-eager foreign lenders who "should have known better". Openness in the Asian economies severely limited their governments' ability to intervene to control such flows. Governments should have allowed their currencies to depreciate, raised taxes and interest rates, and cut government spending, to reduce domestic demand and correct the external imbalance. But in very open economies such as these, currency depreciation would have increased costs, including offshore loan servicing costs, and caused inflation from higher import prices. Higher domestic interest rates would also have been ineffective so long as businesses could resort to cheaper borrowing in accessible offshore markets. In addition, public sectors were small and governments had little control over private sector over-borrowing. This reduced the effectiveness of raising taxes and cutting expenditures. In short, the dominance of private enterprise reduced the influence that governments had over the macroeconomy. The perils of democracy DEMOCRACY took hold in South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines in the late '80s. Whereas previous authoritarian regimes could impose higher interest and taxation costs on local business communities almost at will, and had done so to maintain currency stability for decades, this had become difficult in the '90s. The political influence of business over elected legislatures grew, especially when legislators were either business persons themselves, or required business support to get and stay elected. Thailand, especially, because of its short-lived coalition governments (five in six years), was particularly vulnerable to vested interests. Democracy also contributed to the expansion of crony capitalism, as exemplified by the favouring of businesses with ruling political party connections in Malaysia. In contrast, Hongkong, which does not have an elected government, and Singapore, which has a single-party-dominated parliament, have done relatively well through the economic crisis. Like the authoritarian governments of the past in South Korea and Thailand, both administrations maintain strong central economic control and can impose economic hardship on their ly populations or take political-unpopular measures when necessary. Thus the Singapore government acted to cool off the domestic property market when it was still booming in 1996, and the Hongkong authorities ignored domestic business leaders' complaints about the currency peg hurting their businesses, and raised interest rates to beat back an attack by currency speculators last year. In the terminology of political scientists, both states possess an autonomy from business interests that governments in their newly-democratic neighbours do not have. In defence of the Western model PROPONENTS of the Western liberal model do not, of course, see things this way. Instead, they assert that open markets and democracy have worked, and it is rather the "Asian" parts of the Asian economic model which have failed. They further argue that the excess lending and investment by domestic and foreign financial institutions resulted from information gaps caused by inadequate local government prudential regulation, monitoring and disclosure requirements, not from mistakes made by financial market actors. They believe that financial restructuring along Western lines and the takeover of troubled local financial institutions by more experienced foreign counterparts would increase efficiency in the channelling of local savings to investments. The IMF occupies a peculiar position in the Western economic policy canon. On the one hand, the multilateral agency is seen as an instrument of Western policy orthodoxy, advocating free trade and capital flows together with fiscal austerity and monetary conservatism. It typically requires policy deregulation and liberal economic reforms, including financial sector liberalisation and restructuring, in exchange for low-interest emergency loans. At the same time, it is recognised that the availability of IMF "bail-outs" creates another "moral hazard" problem, by encouraging governments and private borrowers and lenders to take excessive risks in emerging markets, secure in the (rational) expectation that their risk is minimised by the likelihood of an IMF rescue should things go really bad. The Asian response FOR Asians, disillusionment with market openness has set in. At worst, they see themselves as the victims of a massive Western conspiracy to first deliberately inflate, and then deflate the asset values of Asian banks and corporations, the better to subsequently take control of them at post-crisis "fire sale" prices. At best, Asians view the current crisis as a case of massive market failure, particularly on the part of globally unregulated foreign financial market actors. Despite their greater expertise and experience, they still indulged in excessive lending and investment in Asian markets, and so cannot be trusted to better manage the local financial institutions that they may take over. Already, China and Vietnam have postponed capital market liberalisation that would expose their currencies to speculation, and there have been calls for more regional and global cooperation in the monitoring -- and possibly, regulation -- of international capital flows. There is a growing consensus that, at a minimum, some international monitoring, and perhaps, risk-insuring agency, is necessary to oversee these largely unregulated flows. Conclusion CLEARLY, both the Western economists' and Western political scientists' competing "open" and "statist" models, have, in some sense, failed. On the one hand, market openness without the requisite institutional infrastructure and expertise to manage it, can be a recipe for economic disaster. Even the normal workings of global financial markets themselves can be disruptive to small open economies. On the other hand, statist industrial policy can lead to crony capitalism, excess capacity, and "bad investments". Both openness and statism have contributed, not only to the Asian miracle, but also to the Asian meltdown. What about Asian values? At first glance, the need that all see for more state-led institution building, state monitoring if not control of private sector financial transactions, and state autonomy from private interests in the political sphere, might seem to be a confirmation of the wisdom of the "Asian values" school. "Too much freedom too fast" in both markets and politics can lead to downfall, suggesting a continued need for strong, benevolent central state authority. But at the same time, Asian cultural networks, as well as the the involvement of Asian governments in industrial policy, may also be indicted for fostering the "crony capitalism" which led to over-investment in "bad projects", ranging from Indonesia's national car project, to Malaysia's favouring of politically well-connected businesses and individuals in the privatisation of huge public infrastructure projects, to the over-extension of credit by Overseas Chinese-owned banks to Overseas Chinese industrial conglomerates with the presumed security of "relationships" substituting for modern "risk assessment". The fact that policy errors committed by the continued authoritarian regime in Indonesia has compounded both the economic crisis and its adverse social and political consequences in that country, also undermines the belief of some Asian values advocates that authoritarianism might be superior to democracy in economic policy management. The Indonesian case contrasts vividly with the market confidence increasingly inspired by the policy statements and actions of newly-elected President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea. In short, the Asian economic crisis does not provide unqualified support for either the Western open-markets-and-democracy model or the Asian strong-government-and-cultural-values model. Both need some adjustment for global and national capitalisms to work smoothly. Certainly the paths to capital market liberalisation and democracy should be carefully planned, and perhaps staged to occur only in line with the concomitant development of supportive state and civil institutions. At the same time, governments need to resist the pressures of would-be "crony capitalists" to interfere with their fiscal, monetary and regulatory autonomy, while private sector business networks need to be adjusted to adequately account for risk. Above all, the Asian crisis does expose the futility of applying simplistic and essentially ideological models to the messy practical business of public and private sector economic management. Far from presaging the "end of history" -- in this case, the presumed triumph of "Western" over "Asian" models -- the crisis suggests that it is time to return to history, that is, to each country's particular configuration of economic, political, social and cultural forces, to discern both the complex, multi-faceted causes of the crisis, and its eventual solutions. This is a task too important to allow to be jeopardised by those who would approach it only through the limited lenses of partial theories, and models of one or the other cultural-ideological predilection. The writer is the director of the South-east Asian Business Programme, University of Michigan. The essay is an excerpt of a paper first presented at the Harvard Business School. Copyright c 1998 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved. http://www.asia1.com.sg/straitstimes/pages/stfea1.html ======================================================== NIL CARBORUNDUM ILLEGITIMI Don't let the bastards grind you down ======================================================== Uncle Yap Yok Foo yfyap@pop.jaring.my Tel : 603-7811648 Fax : 603-7812108 ======================================================== -________________________________________________ List Owner: M.G.G. Pillai Free Homepages on malaysia.net - send blank Check out the malaysia.net web site on List Postings to ________________________________________________ From ba05105@binghamton.edu Mon Apr 6 13:58:58 1998 From: ba05105@binghamton.edu Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 15:58:47 -0400 (EDT) To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Arabs & Iran Contemplate A Different Middle East (fwd) The following news item might interest those who maintain the position (often heard on this list, and often repeated at the recent PEWS conference) that US hegemony is virtually unchallenged and unchallengable. Steven Sherman Binghamton U. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 01 Apr 1998 00:16:38 -0500 From: MID-EAST REALITIES - _______ ____ ______ / |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S / /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East /_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\ www.MiddleEast.Org ARABS & IRAN CONTEMPLATE _____________________________________________________________________ M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know. ___________________________________________________________________ TO SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE EMAIL TO: INFOMER@MiddleEast.Org ------------------------------------------------------------------- A M E R I C A N D E C L I N E ? MER - Washington - 1 April: ARABS AND IRAN CONTEMPLATE A LESS AMERICAN- The foreign ministers of Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday completed two days of talks in Riyadh, aimed at shaping a coordinated response to the stalled Middle East peace process. The surprise meeting was prompted by recent failed attempts by representatives of the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and United Nations to breathe life into the Palestinian-Israeli dialogue. Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa reportedly briefed Syria's Farouq al- Sharaa and Saudi Arabia's Saud al-Faisal on talks held Monday between US envoy Dennis Ross and Egyptian leaders. The three also met with Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, who unexpectedly arrived in Riyadh on Monday. Coincidentally with the Riyadh meeting, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak telephoned Jordan's King Hussein on Monday night to discuss recent developments in the peace process. According to diplomatic sources in Riyadh, the three foreign ministers agreed to hold a mini-summit of Arab leaders in Cairo next month, to include Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian National Authority, and Morocco. With the United States clearly unwilling or unable to pressure the Netanyahu regime into making concessions necessary to restart the peace process, Washington's Arab allies have joined with more hard-line Arab leaders and resolved to take matters into their own hands. Washington is being shoved aside as ineffective as the Arab states attempt to shape a regional response to the issue. This not only threatens to complicate the situation by increasing the number of players and turning it back into a confrontational pan-Arab versus Israeli issue, but also lays the groundwork for pan-Arab cooperation in other realms, including the Persian Gulf. Indeed, one of the central features of the region in recent months has been the emergence of an assertive Iran seeking closer ties to Arab countries. A central feature of Tehran's agenda has been the call for a regional security framework for dealing with crises without American or European involvement. Iran has charged that Middle Eastern problems should face a Middle Eastern response, and has gone as far as to say that, had Arabs and Iranians cooperated to confront Iraq, there would have been no need for an American military presence in the region. Iran has also led calls lately for regional action against weapons of mass destruction, an idea that could just as easily be applied to Iraq as to the stated offender, Israel. As we reported on February 25, the abrupt conclusion of the latest US- Iraqi confrontation over UN arms inspections set off a sudden flurry of diplomatic initiatives throughout the Middle East. Diplomatic efforts continue unabated, with Saudi Arabia drawing ever closer to Iran, and Egypt moving closer to Syria, with both Riyadh and Cairo pulling away from their American moorings. With Washington appearing increasingly impotent in the region, the stage is set for Arab-Iranian coordination and cooperation on security issues, with possible support from the Russians and maybe the French. Three questions remain: Has Washington completely lost control of Middle Eastern events? Can it regain control? And how far will this new regional cooperation extend? From: Global Intelligence Update - 4/1/98 __________________________________________________________________ MID-EAST REALITIES is published a number of times weekly and the MERTV Program shows weekly on Cable TV. M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S MER may be freely distributed by email and on the Internet so long as there is no editing of any kind. For any print publication, permission in writing is required. MER@MiddleEast.Org / Fax: 202 362-6965 / Phone: 202 362-5266 From rkmoore@iol.ie Mon Apr 6 23:53:10 1998 Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 06:52:58 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: US hegemony is virtually unchallengable Carolyn Ballard 4/06/98: >The following news item might interest those who maintain the position >(often heard on this list, and often repeated at the recent PEWS >conference) that US hegemony is virtually unchallenged and unchallengable. M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S ARABS AND IRAN CONTEMPLATE A LESS AMERICAN- ~-==============================-~ Steven Sherman Binghamton U. Dear Sherman, MER reports on a sentiment of an oppressed people, we learn of yet-another attempt at Arab unity, and even of a possible synergy with Russian arms! _All at once_ this appears, a sudden ripple... it would need to last a while to be even a wave, even longer to be a tide. And then _so_ fragile... so infinitely destabilizable the region remains. Consider, at random, the Russian link in the chain: how very deeply into the pockets of the banks, western investors, and imported campaign technicians is our pathetic vodka swiller... HE?... _he_ kingpin the anti-systemic revolt of the desert tribes??... hardly. Not even if he's replaced by a hardliner. The ghost of the USSR is just that. Meanwhile, in the US, muslim demonization propaganda continues unabated, the pentagon increases the pressure for its next weapons test, Clinton would take any skiff on offer in _his_ storm... all in all, "Just Make My Day!" is the implicit answer to any real attempt at regional self-hegemony in your friendly handy oil reservation. Do you recall the recent SE Asia regional economic summit? All set they were, those prosperous princes of globalization, those tigers of the markets, those darlings of the neoliberal apologists... all set they were to declare a new Asian agenda, to banish white-devil economic imperialism... even, pray tell, to stand up collectively for China and tell Admiral Uncle Sam to quit treating their waters like his holiday cruising lake. If there was a time for doubting continued US hegemony, that was surely the one. What was the momentous outcome of this unparalleled choral call, from voices of seeming substance? These fellows who can make their own weapons, thank you... no medieval shieks, these, gloating over the baubles the majors leave them. They were put down by a mere switch of the spreadsheet numbers, a decision, taken in elite western banking circles, to call their credit, to downgrade their D&B to where six decks flooded... with a keystroke they sunk the unsinkable. All nations are equal under globalization, but some are more equal than others. Four yen good, two dollars better. I urge, nay I plead, if you genuinely want to understand what US hegemony is about, and why regionalism and devolution just kind of seem to be springing up everwhere, PLEASE read Samuel P. Huntington and BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ. He is not an analyst, he doesn't seriously try to do that any more, he is an articulator of elite strategy, a court apologist, a reframer into third-tier elitist terms... he puts the elite agenda on record, where it will be read by the intended, in Foreign Affairs. As a British journal of record recently reported, in their US Perspective feature, "Huntington's Kulturkampf has become the sea in which Washington policy makers swim." Regional identity and a cliquish attitude to outsiders is precisely the formula the elite have prescribed. In their scenario-analysis simula-parlance it's called "programmable tension", and you can see its microcosm in China/Taiwan and in Israel/Arabs -- the one tension-cluster being set up by the US alone, and the other a joint venture with Britain. In disunity there is weakness, and all power goes to the broker. We all recognize and salute this power, even as we hail Sen. Mitchell as fair broker, or see Clinton's attention to N Ireland as being one of his few _good_ features. And this broker - like his mythical antecedent the Western Marshall - packs a .45 _and_ a quick-action rifle. If the phony carrot won't do the job, the stick is just a cruise missile away, and there are carrier task forces always at hand... and oh, did I forget?... all those submarines that we just never hear about anymore, except in a Sean Connery movie which apologizes for having been written "before". *-> No weapon system of strategic importance in the US arsenal has stood down nor been scaled below excess-of-requirements, quite the reverse. As regards US hegemony, you haven't seen anything yet, you've been watching warm-up exercises, a kind of global shake-out airshow. rkm fwd if you like From thomas.nielebock@uni-tuebingen.de Tue Apr 7 01:49:13 1998 Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1998 09:47:53 -0700 From: Thomas Nielebock To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: literature Dear colleagues, together with colleagues of my institute I am preparing an IR course in which we want to analyze the Gulf war (1990/91), the international politics on the ozone layer and the European financial integration policy in the view of different schools of thought. If you have any information about an explanation in the view of the world system theory on the three mentioned topics (article or book) it would be grateful if you send me a short message. Thanks you your help. Thomas Nielebock -- Thomas Nielebock Universitaet Tuebingen Institut fuer Politikwissenschaft Melanchthonstrasse 36 D-72074 Tuebingen Tel.: ++49 / 7071 / 297 6463 Fax: ++49 / 7071 / 29 2417 Email: thomas.nielebock@uni-tuebingen.de URL: http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/uni/spi From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Apr 7 09:08:56 1998 Tue, 07 Apr 1998 11:06:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1998 11:10:18 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: Re: literature To: thomas.nielebock@uni-tuebingen.de Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu on the gulf war see John O'Loughlin, Tom Mayer and Edward S. Greenberg (eds.) Ware and Its consequences: Lessons from the Persian Gulf Conflict (HarperCollins 1994). (especially the last section on "the war and the international system). I think Walter Goldfrank also wrote an interesting paper about the Gulf War. his email address is wally@cats.ucsc.edu chris From gderlug@nwu.edu Tue Apr 7 10:38:59 1998 Tue, 7 Apr 1998 11:38:55 -0500 (CDT) In-Reply-To: <352A58B8.AF8@uni-tuebingen.de> Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 11:42:57 -0500 To: thomas.nielebock@uni-tuebingen.de, WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK From: "Georgi M. Derluguian" Subject: Re: literature Dear Thomas, Wallerstein, of course, has a couple of appropriate articles. One is called America: Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow. The Gulf war is interpreted there as a dangerous sign of decline of the US hegemony, something that would have never happened had the USSR been around (I agree, as former Soviet officer, I know some details about how we handled the Third World allies.) A very elegant piece, stylish tour de force, Immanuel at his best. It was published in IW's collection of essays After Liberalism (New Press, 1996), if I am not mistaken. Also take the recent book Wallerstein and Hopkins (coord.) The Age of Transition: Trajectory of the World-System, 1945 - 2025. (L., Zed Press, 1997) This is a comprehensive volume, which covers everything from geopolitics and economy to social movements (my own chapter), the current trajectory of sciences and arts. In the chapter on social movements (the Social Cohesion of the States), in the very end, I argue that the Green movements are the only available gamble for preserving the capitalist system as we know it, a major humanitarian issue with usually unnoticed bureaucratic and political implications, like Abolitionism in the early 19th century. The Age of Transition goes nicely with Huntington's Clash of Civilizations in my courses. Nice contrast. Good luck, Georgi Georgi M. Derluguian Assistant Professor Department of Sociology Northwestern University 1812 Chicago Avenue Evanston, Illinois 60208-1330 (847) 491-2741 (rabota) From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Tue Apr 7 12:00:51 1998 Tue, 7 Apr 1998 13:59:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 13:59:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunder Frank To: christopher chase-dunn Subject: Re: literature In-Reply-To: <352A41DA.1169@jhu.edu> whats this about? - i never saw the original question. noam chomsky wrote tons in 90-91 and so did i=agf. we both also have chapters in books edited by/with other authors. i have a list of mine, he may have of his. i think one of mine is in the wsn archive. most important was the documentation prepared for the "tribunal" run by the former US Attoney General Ramsey Clark. agf ..On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, christopher chase-dunn wrote: > Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1998 11:10:18 -0400 > From: christopher chase-dunn > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: Re: literature > > on the gulf war see > John O'Loughlin, Tom Mayer and Edward S. Greenberg (eds.) Ware and Its > consequences: Lessons from the Persian Gulf Conflict (HarperCollins > 1994). (especially the last section on "the war and the international > system). > > I think Walter Goldfrank also wrote an interesting paper about the Gulf > War. his email address is wally@cats.ucsc.edu > > chris > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Andre Gunder Frank University of Toronto 96 Asquith Ave Tel. 1 416 972-0616 Toronto, ON Fax. 1 416 972-0071 CANADA M4W 1J8 Email agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca My home Page is at: http://www.whc.neu.edu/whc/resrch&curric/gunder.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From dasmith@orion.oac.uci.edu Tue Apr 7 12:16:18 1998 Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 11:16:04 -0700 (PDT) From: David Smith Reply-To: David Smith To: Thomas Nielebock Subject: Re: literature In-Reply-To: <352A58B8.AF8@uni-tuebingen.de> At least one version of Wally Goldfrank's "take" on the Gulf war appears in A NEW WORLD ORDER? GLOBAL TRANSFORATIONS IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY edited by David A. Smith and Jozsef Borocz (Greenwood/Praeger, 1995). It's in a chapter entitled, "Lessons from the Gulf Wars: Hegemonic Decline, Semiperipheral Turbulence, and the Role of the Rentier States," is co-authored by Cynthia Siemsen Maki and Walter Goldfrank. There are other chapters in that volume (which is available in paperback) that might be of interest for the described IR course, including one on the global history of ecology/environmental movements (Sing Chew) and another on the EU and "the European periphery" (Denis O'Hearn). dave smith From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Apr 7 14:14:41 1998 Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1998 16:16:11 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Re: literature] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu X-Confirm-reading-to: Enric BAS Return-receipt-to: Enric BAS Date: Sun, 05 Apr 1998 13:23:21 -0100 From: Enric BAS Subject: Re: literature In-reply-to: <352A41DA.1169@jhu.edu> To: chriscd@jhu.edu Organization: Dpto.SOCIOLOGIA.UdeA Dear all, there are an interesting book titled "The World Order after the Gulf= =20 War Crisis". In this book you can find the papers presented to a=20 Conference developed in Alicante some years ago, coordinated and= =20 introduced by Jose Ma Tortosa. The only trouble (or advantage, it depends on the reader) is that= =20 it is in spanish. The complete quote is: "El orden mundial tras la crisis de la guerra del golfo", Instituto= =20 de Cultura Juan Gil-Albert, Alicante, Espana, 1993. The authors are:Johan Galtung, Andre Gunder Frank, Inmanuel=20 Wallerstein and Silviu Brucan. Enjoy it. Enric. _______________________________________________ "Sabio es aquel que monotoniza la existencia, pues as=A1 cada m=A1nimo incidente=20 alcanza el privilegio de la maravilla" Fernando Pessoa _________________________________________________ Enric Bas Dpt of Sociology II Social Sciences Building University of Alicante P.O. BOX 99. E-03080. Alicante. Spain (f)+34 6 5903795 From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Tue Apr 7 15:33:41 1998 Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 17:32:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunder Frank To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: Re: literature In-Reply-To: with apologies, actually a dozen or more of my Gulfwar publications are listed on my home page [address below] Section 4 or 5 on Publications by Topic [subectoon] Gulf War.The most detailed one is entitled something avout Third World War. agf On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, Gunder Frank wrote: > Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 13:59:19 -0400 (EDT) > From: Gunder Frank > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: Re: literature > > whats this about? - i never saw the original question. > noam chomsky wrote tons in 90-91 and so did i=agf. we both also have > chapters in books edited by/with other authors. i have a list of > mine, he may have of his. i think one of mine is in the wsn archive. > most important was the documentation prepared for the "tribunal" run by > the former US Attoney General Ramsey Clark. > agf > > > .On Tue, 7 Apr > 1998, christopher chase-dunn wrote: > > > Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1998 11:10:18 -0400 > > From: christopher chase-dunn > > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > > Subject: Re: literature > > > > on the gulf war see > > John O'Loughlin, Tom Mayer and Edward S. Greenberg (eds.) Ware and Its > > consequences: Lessons from the Persian Gulf Conflict (HarperCollins > > 1994). (especially the last section on "the war and the international > > system). > > > > I think Walter Goldfrank also wrote an interesting paper about the Gulf > > War. his email address is wally@cats.ucsc.edu > > > > chris > > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Andre Gunder Frank > University of Toronto > 96 Asquith Ave Tel. 1 416 972-0616 > Toronto, ON Fax. 1 416 972-0071 > CANADA M4W 1J8 Email agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca > > My home Page is at: http://www.whc.neu.edu/whc/resrch&curric/gunder.html > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Andre Gunder Frank University of Toronto 96 Asquith Ave Tel. 1 416 972-0616 Toronto, ON Fax. 1 416 972-0071 CANADA M4W 1J8 Email agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca My home Page is at: http://www.whc.neu.edu/whc/resrch&curric/gunder.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From dale.wimberley@vt.edu Tue Apr 7 15:36:24 1998 Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 17:39:00 +0100 To: World-System Network From: dale.wimberley@vt.edu (Dale W Wimberley) Subject: Personal appeal for solidarity with Nicaraguan maquila workers Some of you know that I have been closely involved in cross-border solidarity supporting unionization efforts of garment workers in the Nicaraguan free trade zone. Over the past year and a half I've followed the Nicaraguan maquila situation closely. Last summer I was part of a Witness for Peace labor delegation to Nicaragua and stayed in the home of one of the union members. This is my personal plea for your solidarity with these workers. I urge you to send a letter to the JC Penney CEO as described at the end of this message. Also, please forward this message to other likely sympathizers. BACKGROUND: Since 1996 there have been several "urgent action" appeals from the Campaign for Labor Rights and related organizations to support these workers' efforts to organize - generally fax campaigns to corporate and government officials. The determination of the workers, spurred on by the empowerment they experienced during the revolutionary period of 1979-1990 and assisted by international solidarity, has paid off. There are now 5 legally recognized unions in the Nicaraguan maquilas (out of fewer than 20 maquilas), one of which has gotten a contract with its employer. Earlier this year nearly all the 1800 workers at Nicaragua's Chentex plant (a jeans-making maquila) held sitdown strikes (and they received cross-border solidarity) to get legal recognition. Their success prompted some activists to surmise that - with the lowest garment worker wages in the Western hemisphere - Nicaragua's maquila unionization could well become a foundation on which garment maquila workers elsewhere in the region could build their unions. Now comes a potentially pivotal point in the Nicaragua maquila struggle. for the first time, a company has threatened to move its plant out of the country due to union activity. Chentex has threatened to move operations to Mexico. Perhaps this is merely a bargaining ploy; perhaps not. Cross-border solidarity is urgently needed to put pressure on Chentex owners via their major customers - US retailers. See below for action to take. For more background information, see this website: http://www.montgomery-floyd.lib.va.us/pub/compages/cjca/sweat Thanks for your solidarity! Dale Wimberley >Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 09:29:26 -0700 (PDT) >X-Sender: clr@pop.igc.org >Mime-Version: 1.0 >To: clr@igc.org >From: Campaign for Labor Rights >Subject: Nicaragua factory threatens cut-and-run > >Labor Alerts: a service of Campaign for Labor Rights >To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to CLR@igc.apc.org >Phone: (541) 344-5410 Web site: http://www.compugraph.com/clr >Membership/newsletter. Send $35.00 to Campaign for Labor Rights, 1247 "E" >Street SE, Washington, DC 20003. Sample newsletter available on request. > >NICARAGUA FACTORY THREATENS CUT-AND-RUN >1,800 workers at recently unionized Chentex would lose jobs > >[This alert was prepared April 3, 1998 on behalf of a coalition which >for Peace (202) 544-0781 ; the National Labor Committee >(212) 242-3002 ; the U.S./Guatemala Labor Education >Solidarity Center of the AFL-CIO; and the International Textile Workers >Federation.] > >*********************************** >See ACTION REQUEST at end of alert! >*********************************** > >In recent months, we have posted alerts on the certification of a union at >the Chentex clothing factory in Nicaragua's Las Mercedes free trade zone. >This was the third union in the zone to receive official recognition from >the Nicaraguan Labor Ministry. > >Just when it seemed that the free trade zone in Nicaragua had been cracked >open to labor organizing, Chi Shing, the Taiwanese consortium which owns >Chentex and two other factories in the zone, announced that it will close >Chentex in June and shift production to Mexico. Management sought to justify >the planned move by references to unsubstantiated allegations of union >violence. > >Cut-and-run is the central strategy of transnationals. Threats to move >production are used regularly in union busting and rollback in both the >industrialized nations and the Global South. It is crucial that we mobilize >strongly in defense of the Chentex workers, to demonstrate to Chi Shing >management - and to all cut-and-run companies - that there is no place for >them to hide in the global economy. > >Two of the biggest labels produced at Chentex are Bugle Boy pants and >Arizona Jeans, both of which are sold in J.C. Penney stores. The coalition >working on Nicaraguan sweatshop issues is mounting a campaign to pressure >J.C. Penney into exerting its leverage on Chentex and Chi Shing. > >We have drafted a sign-on letter for leaders of national religious >organizations. The letter seeks a commitment from Penney's to sever ties >with Chi Shing if it moves production from Nicaragua to Mexico. In support >of that letter, we are asking local activists to sign the following letter. > >*************************** >URGENT ACTION REQUEST >*************************** > >Please sign and send the following letter today and send a copy to Campaign >for Labor Rights at 1247 "E" Street SE, Washington, DC 20003. It would be >especially helpful if you could collect signatures in public situations such >as tabling events, union meetings, places of faith and campuses. > >James E. Oestereicher, CEO >J.C. Penney >P.O. Box 10001 >Dallas, TX 75024 > >Dear Mr. Oestereicher: > >I am writing to express my serious concern about the recent news that one of >your contractors has threatened to close its factory in Nicaragua and move >its production to Mexico. The Chentex factory produces Bugle Boy pants and >Arizona Jeans, both of which are sold in your stores. > >I understand that this announcement comes just one month after a union >received legal recognition at the Chentex factory and is widely seen as an >attempt to suppress the right of the union to bargain collectively. This is >the latest in a series of anti-union tactics by the company, including >efforts to discredit union leaders by disseminating reckless and >unsubstantiated allegations. I also understand that five workers recently >have been fired from the factory, in what appears to be yet another >union-busting tactic. > >Abandoning some 1,800 workers simply for exercising their right to join a >union, as guaranteed under Nicaraguan law and internationally-recognized >conventions, hardly seems consistent with the moral standards to which your >company has publicly committed itself. > >We urge you to make a public commitment that J.C. Penney will sever all of >its business relations with Chi Shing if that consortium closes its Chentex >factory in Nicaragua, and to communicate your concerns directly to Chi Shing >and inform its management of your decision to sever relations if the >consortium does shift operations from the Chentex factory to Mexico. > >As a consumer, I take a personal interest in the conditions under which >products are made. The rights of working people matter to me. You can >demonstrate to me the seriousness with which you regard these concerns, not >by writing back that you have "looked into the matter," but by informing me >that you have made an arrangement to meet with the religious and human >rights representatives who have written to you. > >I eagerly await your response. > >Sincerely, > >NAME: > >ADDRESS: > Dale W. Wimberley Department of Sociology Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University From compciv@email.msn.com Tue Apr 7 17:10:20 1998 From: "compciv" To: "World Systems Network" Subject: World systems and worldviews Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 16:28:05 -0400 >From David Richardson compciv@msn.com I haven't figure out how to make a text in Word97 serve as a text in email. So I enclose my text below. I discuss the issues in terms of modern writers, mostly subscribers to WSN. begin 666 wilk2.txt.DOC MT,\1X*&Q&N$`````````````````````/@`#`/[_"0`&```````````````! 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M````______________]__W__?P,````````````````````````````````` M````````)3@````````%`%,`=0!M`&T`80!R`'D`20!N`&8`;P!R`&T`80!T M`&D`;P!N````````````````````````````````````* `"`0(````$```` M_________W__?_]_`````````````````````````````````````"4````` M$ ````````4`1 !O`&,`=0!M`&4`;@!T`%,`=0!M`&T`80!R`'D`20!N`&8` M;P!R`&T`80!T`&D`;P!N````% `?#^!/T" X``(!________________.EP` M`````````````````````!'N*0`R```\``"')):-( !W+0`````0```N1$]# M`0!#`&\`;0!P`$\`8@!J`````* L\D4`_ !%`$1/0P!724Q+,E1^,2Y$3T.X M?$4`'@``\!0`'P_@3] @ZCII$!(``@#_______________\`````____?___ M_W____]__W__?P``````````````````````````:@`````````````````` M``````#=" "@1 I&`/P`10#___]_____?_]__W\````````````````````` M`````````````````````/_______________T0*1@#\`$4`ZCII$*+8" `K M,#"=='U%`#(``/ G`#$``````)$C.G@0`$]N;&EN92!397)V:6-E Subject: Re: Ozone/enviro global politics lit. Thomas Nielebock asked for WS perspectives on ozone treaties... not much out there, to toot my horn I wrote a piece in Sociological Inquiry 1996 about "Predicting Participation in Enviro Treaties: A World-System Analysis." Vol .66, no. 1. 38-57. There are now a lot of books like Swift's _Global Political Ecology_, Steven Yearley's _Sociology, Environmentalism, Globalization_, and several on how global enviro movements are affecting capitalism and global politics. Good luck. Timmons Roberts > >together with colleagues of my institute I am preparing an IR course in >which we want to analyze the Gulf war (1990/91), the international >politics on the ozone layer and the European financial integration >policy in the view of different schools of thought. If you have any >information about an explanation in the view of the world system theory >on the three mentioned topics (article or book) it would be grateful if >you send me a short message. > >Thanks you your help. > >Thomas Nielebock > -- 8080,0000,0000J. Timmons Roberts Associate Professor; Department of Sociology/Center for Latin American Studies Tulane University; New Orleans LA 70118; tel: 504-865-5820/FAX 504-865-5544 timmons@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu disclaimer: the views above are those of the author and not of the institution. "Where the wealth's displayed, thieves and sycophants parade and where it's made, the slaves will be taken. Some are treated well in these games of buy and sell And some like poor beasts are burdened down to breaking." ---Joni Mitchell From compciv@email.msn.com Wed Apr 8 18:14:27 1998 From: "compciv" To: "World Systems Network" Subject: World systems and worldviews Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 20:15:29 -0400 From: David Richardson My fellow social scientists, discussing the question of Eurocentrism (the West as premier hegemon), presuppose the civilization or world system. David Wilkinson's model puts Eurocentrism in the context of Central Civilization, now Global. Hence, Magian Culture appears in a new light, as I explain below. On the Role of Worldviews in World Systems Spengler's Magian Civilization (Near Eastern ecumene) appeared in 1 AD et seq. Toynbee never recognized the Magian Civilization, though his scheme of civilizations fairly well fits. I first called the post-1 AD Magian society "Magian II," in order to account for its long life prior to 1 AD. But I now believe civilizations often decline without perishing. David Wilkinson (bibl. below) also asserts the surviving quality of long-lived civilizations. Wilkinson's Central Civilization is, at least, coterminous with my idea of Magian Civilization during the first fifteen hundred years (1500 BC-1 AD). Wilkinson is one of the few who see a single Near Eastern civilization in that time period. He justifies his theory by a stuy of transactional networks. War itself signifies and causes an intersocietal system. His key idea of Central Civilization is compatible with my theory of the Magian Civilization. David views Central Civilization forming from Egypt and Mesopotamia around 1500 BC. And his Central Civilization resembles my worldview model. Two approaches bode well for the ancient Levant being an ecumene. Like sociologist Chase-Dunn, historian McNeill, and scientific philosopher Thos. Kuhn, David adheres to the conscious acts of history. Kuhn, Chase-Dunn, McNeill, and David avoid the worldview approach to history. Kuhn implicitly assumed that paradigms presuppose an intuitive origin. But, under intense pressure from fellow historians of science, he gave up his paradigm theory of scientific revolutions. Like Wilkinson and McNeill, Kuhn finally saw worldviews (paradigms) as intuitive. Yet, unfortunately, he decided to regard history not from a paradigm (worldview) model. His readers often prefer Kuhn's earlier paradigm theory. C.G. Jung's Psychological Types gave me a scientific approach to worldviews. My view agrees with Wilkinson, McNeill,and Kuhn's idea that worldviews are intuitive. C.G. Jung came close to my position. He was perhaps influenced by Wilhelm Dilthey's theory of worldviews. All types of worldviews are non-intuitive. Jung's "Weltanschauung" (in a long essay, so titled) means "worldview- consciousness." In the same essay, however, Jung held that "attitude" is all-important. "Attitude" is close to my (and Jung's) idea of unconscious intuition. Intuitions, for Jung, are naturally unconscious. Sometimes, less naturally, intuitions are conscious. They include feelings, values, reasons, sensations, and intuitions. Neither Jung or his followers have applied (psychiatric) analysis to civilizational worldviews. But Jung was a scientist. He determined the unconscious intuitions of his patients scientifically. He studied their unconscious feelings, reasonings, and sensibilities. I determine some unconscious intuitions composing a worldview scientifically. Thus, I study some unconscious feelings, reasonings, and sensibilities of the Magian worldview. From Max Jammer I learn, Magian space is the place of God; from study of law, Magian law is the absolute law of God; from John Hord and others, covenants were all-important for ancient Levantines; from study of Near Eastern religions, Magians give high value to emoton. That Magians felt at home with the Roman arch, while Indians, Chinese, and Japanese avoided the Roman arch, can be interpreted. That an Indian fifth century Jain monk discoursed on a dozen different infinities, and that Georg Cantor and Dietrich Dedekind used transfinite (infinite) numbers to create set theory, can be interpreted rationally. Both instances throw light on the Indian worldview and the post-Faustian worldview. I have examined methodically and with empirical historical study, the putative thesis: "Indian Buddhist point-instant theory affected the world's greatest mathematical discovery, the calculus." To do this last, I studied the Baghdad school's eighth century Mutazilite theologians and the tremendous effect, via Maimonides' report, on Renaissance natural philosophers and mathematicians. This was not, by far, the first Indian influence on the West. Wilkinson's, Frank's, Chase-Dunn's, Wallerstein's, and Sanderson's claims for binding contacts between civilizations reinforce my theory that the West was Sinified from 1600 onward and Indianized after 1790. Georg Cantor read Indian literature, but Indianization began in Alexander's time. China's cultural reputation in Europe reached a never to be exceeded peak in the eighteenth century. William McNeill's claim that China was paramount in the world from 1000 to 1500 supports my view of Europe's Sinification. Worldviews lack hegemons' brute strength. As McNeill says, few citizens participate aesthetically in a society's history. "I fall back on 'style of life,'" writes McNeill, "a metaphor borrowed from art history." He thus recognizes worldviews' (secondary) importance. Yet, Western mechanics (hence, mechanical technology) came from the Faustian worldview. My idea of worldview-intuitions (archetypal exemplars, a Kuhnian term) in civilizations mostly agrees with with Wilkinson's different idea of Central Civilization. ## K. Sanderson, editor _Civilizations and World Systems: Studying World-Historical Chane_ (Alta-Mira Press: Sage Publications, 1630 N. Main St., Walnut Creek, CA 94596, 1995), pp. 46-74. William H. McNeill, op cit, "The Rise of the West _after_ twenty five years," pp. 308-9. Sincerely, David Richardson compciv@msn.com From rkmoore@iol.ie Thu Apr 9 05:41:06 1998 Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 12:40:35 +0100 To: Jeff Jewell From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Re: ESSAY>On US Hegemony 4/09/98, Jeff Jewell wrote: >I want to follow up the recommendation to read Huntington. Can you >advise specific title[s]? Thanks. The classic statement is the book "Clash of Civilizations". But more interesting than the book is the ongoing follow-up thread (including responses to the book by noted authors) which appears in "FOREIGN AFFAIRS". rkm From kpmoseley@juno.com Thu Apr 9 22:31:31 1998 From: kpmoseley@juno.com To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 00:25:36 -0700 Subject: Ernest Hamilton : Re: "compciv" : World systems and worldviews X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-2,4-5,7-16,18-29,31,33-34,36-39,41,43-45,47-55 --------- Begin forwarded message ---------- From: Ernest Hamilton To: kpmoseley@juno.com Subject: Re: "compciv" : World systems and worldviews Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 05:30:42 -0400 (EDT) I (kpm) really did not follow the earlier posting on the ancient near east, but posted it to someone who did: Ernest Hamilton responds: By the way, is that from a list? That is how I perceive history. one of these days, i'll put it on the internet. The first world was constituted of Egypt and Sumeria. then Iran became ascendent and initiated the idea of a world culutre--Cyrus' dream. In the 6th century he united Eastern Greece, Egypt, the Middle East, and India into a single world empire.That's where Alexander got his notion of what later is known as Hellenism. Alexander wanted to rival the Persians, being brought up under Persian controlled Macedonia. Europeans all but omitted the persian ideal of a world culture--basically to replace it with Hellenism, simply to establish an antiquity for themselves! It is now being more openly talked about that Greece saw itself as Asian and as part of the Middle Eastern-Egyptian world--south and eastward, not northward. Persia dominated this world from the 8th century b.c to the the 7th century ad, til it was destroyed by the Arabs. It is in this period that Persia played the role of introducing Indian philosophy, religion, and science into the greek-egyptian-iranian world, beginning from the 7th century. This is what gave Pythagoras (socrates, plato, and aristotle following), the essenes in Palestine, Mani in persia, st. Augustine in Africa their philosophies--although later the Indian be monism of the Upanishads became mixed with zoroastrian dualism to produce neo-platonism. Later on, with regard to Europe, fron 1560 onwards, Europe comes increasingly under the infuence of China--its inventions and its political theories--leading to a centruy or so, particularly in the 18th century, of admiraion and emulation of the non-european cultures til 1860, by which time the europeans begin to colonize most of Asia and Africa, leading to the 19th century full-fledged imperialism, and what i call, the century of hatred of the non-european peoples and cultures. by the way, to see how important chin was in making the modern world (through Europe) you can turn to my file on China on the internet! Let's get together and soon. cheers, EH. --------- End forwarded message ---------- _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] From kpmoseley@juno.com Thu Apr 9 22:56:19 1998 From: kpmoseley@juno.com To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 00:50:08 -0700 Subject: Hassan Sisay : FW: Dual citizenship, part 1 of 2 X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-14,16-18,20-31,33,35-43,45-47,49-51,53-55,57-62, 64-66,68-71,73,75-81,83-87,89-100,102-105,107-109,111-116,118, 120-123,125-127,129,131-133,135,137,139,141-143,145-148,150,152, 154-157,159-160,162-166,168-171,173-177,179-180,182-188,190, 192-194,196-200,202-203,205-210,212-214,216-221,223,225-229, 231-238,240,242-246,248,250-256,258-259,261-263,265-267,269-273, 275,277-283,285,287-291,293-298,300-306,308,310-317,319-322, 324-327,329-341,343-344,346,348-357,359,361-367,369,371-374, 376-382,384,386-388,390,392-396,398,400-409,411,413-416,418-428, 430,432,434,436-439,441-445,447-451,453-460,462-474,476-477, 479-482,484-490,492-495,497,499-503,505,507-516,518-519,521,523, 525-530,532,534-537,539-552 In re globalization symptoms and processes...... kpm --------- Begin forwarded message ---------- From: Hassan Sisay To: LEONENET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Subject: FW: Dual citizenship, part 1 of 2 Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:51:34 -0700 ______________________________________________________________________________ _ To: Hassan Sisay From: James Luyirika-Sewagudde on Thu, Apr 9, 1998 10:52 AM Subject: FW: Dual citizenship, part 1 of 2 [For CISNEWS subscribers: Part one, below, is the fine survey of the subject from Monday's L.A. Times, while part two includes the sidebars to that story. I found the concept of an effective way of describing the trivialization of nationhood caused by dual citizenship. -- Mark Krikorian] Pledging Multiple Allegiances A global blurring of boundaries challenges notions of nationality. U.S. analysts worry about a rise in dual citizenships of convenience. Los Angeles Times, Monday, April 6, 1998, page 1 By MARK FRITZ, Times Staff Writer NEW YORK -- Jesus R. Galvis came to America, built a business in New Jersey and got elected to the City Council of Hackensack. Last month, he decided to expand this American success story by running for the Senate. The one in Colombia. Galvis was attempting a feat perhaps unprecedented in American politics: holding two elected offices simultaneously in two countries. He is, after all, a citizen of both places, with a pair of passports to prove it. "I was going to travel back and forth," said Galvis, who runs a travel agency in Hackensack. "I saw this as a good opportunity to keep some ties to the homeland there." He lost, however. But the fact that a public servant from an American city campaigned for a post in a foreign government is but one example of a growing global phenomenon: dual citizenship. For better or worse, some analysts say pledging allegiance to more than one flag is becoming the hot status symbol of the coming century. "You can now live in two societies at the same time," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. "This is an issue of significant concern worldwide." Years ago, voting in a foreign election was a good way to lose your U.S. citizenship. No longer. While the federal government doesn't endorse dual citizenship, it increasingly tolerates it, at a time when more countries are allowing it and more people are seeking it. A second or even a third passport has become not just a link to a homeland but also a glorified travel visa, a license to do business, a stake in a second economy, an escape hatch, even a status symbol. In the last seven years, Colombia, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and most recently, Mexico -- the suppliers of some of the fastest-growing immigrant groups in America -- have allowed their nationals to become citizens elsewhere without losing their original nationality. New leaderships in South Korea and India have expressed support for the same idea. Upscale Australians in the United States have been pressuring their government to allow dual citizenship so they can become Americans without losing their native status. The main motivation? Avoiding the stiff estate taxes that the U.S. government imposes on foreigners who work here. "The whole issue is just an aggravation. [Australians in the U.S.] feel discriminated against," said Helen Cameron, who traded her Australian citizenship for American nationality so she could do business, serve on the school board and even seek the mayor's seat in Irvine. Portable Patriotism Is On the Rise Signs of portable patriotism, a sort of citizenship of convenience, are everywhere. In Denver, an American sells passports from Belize to Russian nouveaux riches looking to broaden their travel privileges. In Toronto, an immigration lawyer custom fits his clients with whatever citizenships will help them navigate global markets. One Canadian tried to get his son an Italian passport as a graduation present. Last year, a French Canadian with a U.S. passport ran for mayor of Plattsburgh, N.Y. He argued that the incumbent spoke French too poorly to be running a city so close to Quebec. He lost. Also last year, a retired top American official for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ran for president of Lithuania. He was inaugurated in February to a burst of fireworks. Even some of his fellow Chicagoans had been able to vote for him. In 1996, Dominicans from New York not only could vote in the Dominican Republic's presidential elections for the first time, they could vote for a New Yorker. And Russian Jews in Israel could help decide whether to reelect President Boris N. Yeltsin. Multiple nationalities have become so commonplace that some analysts fear the trend is undermining the notion of nationhood, particularly in the place with the most diverse citizenry on Earth: the United States. Debate over the issue intensified last month, when Mexico joined the growing list of poor nations that say it's OK for their nationals to be citizens of the countries to which they have migrated. Under the law that took effect March 21, Mexicans abroad -- most of them in the United States -- will be able to retain Mexican citizenship even if they seek U.S. citizenship. And naturalized Americans of Mexican descent will be able to reclaim their original citizenship. The Mexican government stopped short, for now, of giving expatriates the right to vote. "It's hard to overestimate how important the Mexico situation is," Krikorian said. "There are now 7 million Mexican-born people in the United States. That's almost a third of all immigrants." Krikorian is among those who say dual citizenship hinders assimilation and undermines the sense of shared experience that makes a nation a community. These critics say dual citizenship reduces the United States to a place to make a buck, a mere land in which to live while blood loyalties lie elsewhere. "I think people think, 'So what. We're all democrats today. What's the big deal?' " said Noah Pickus, an immigration expert at Duke University's Sanford Institute of Public Policy. "[But] if you make citizenship strictly a passport, it doesn't have much substance to hold people together." Others disagree. They say the trend toward multiple nationality is just a sign that the world is shrinking, that accessible transportation and easy communication as well as regional trade agreements and the globalization of the marketplace have created a new world of porous borders, a place where issues and agendas are more regional than national. "It reflects the growing interrelationship of the world," said T. Alexander Aleinikoff, former general counsel for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and a leading authority on immigration law and citizenship. "Some people think of dual nationality as bigamy. Another way to look at it is having your family, and then when you get married, you have someone else's family as well. You may have to negotiate where you spend Christmas." Many Latinos in America are troubled that people get alarmed about dual citizenship trends in Latin America, while other regions are rapidly unifying. "Europe is coming together. Asia is coming together," said Adriano Espaillat, a naturalized American from the Dominican Republic and a member of the New York State Assembly who is the first Dominican elected to a U.S. statehouse. "I think that Irish Americans are still Americans first," he said. "Latino Americans are Americans first." Limitations to Land Loyalties Yet even people who actively promote the idea of dual citizenship say there are limits to subdividing loyalties. New York City Councilman Guillermo Linares, the first Dominican American elected to any office in this country, made it a point not to vote in the 1996 Dominican election, the first in which Dominicans abroad could vote. "I am an elected official of the United States," Linares said. Although Galvis' candidacy for the Colombian Senate was virtually unknown to the U.S. public, it was the topic of much debate in the local Colombian community. Saramaria Archila, head of a Latin American social services agency in Queens who had lobbied for the dual citizenship law in Colombia, nevertheless said Galvis crossed the line. "If I am an elected official in a country, it is impossible to defend the interests of my community in another country," she said. Galvis, asked whether he could represent his Hackensack constituents while splitting time in Colombia, said he would have been like a U.S. congressman with an office in his district and one in Washington. In each place, he said, "I would be representing the Colombians in the United States." The U.S. State Department reserves the right to revoke the citizenship of Americans who vote in foreign elections, seek a foreign citizenship or run for foreign office, yet almost never does. During the last 30 years, the courts have sharply limited the State Department's ability to revoke citizenship, except in the case of the occasional Nazi war criminals who seem to surface on a regular basis. In recent years, in fact, the rules have made it easier for people who dodged the Vietnam War by fleeing to Canada to come home and resume their citizenship. By 1994, the U.S. rules had been liberalized to the point where even Winston Churchill, who had an American mother, could easily claim U.S. citizenship if he were alive today. Some other examples of tacit U.S. support for dual citizenship: * Last year, when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced an end to a decade-old ban on U.S. travel to Lebanon, she referred to the hardship the ban was causing to thousands of Americans with dual Lebanese citizenship. Beirut's Marriott Hotel and Casino is run by a man with U.S. and Lebanese citizenship. * Also last year, the U.S. State Department and Slovakia rescinded an old treaty, thereby enabling "the citizens of both countries to hold dual citizenship," the Slovak Embassy in Washington said. * Two years ago, Washington protested when Israel threatened to revoke the residency rights of Palestinian Americans in Jerusalem unless they surrendered their American passports. In that case, the U.S. was in effect acting to protect dual allegiances. * The State Department said that as far as it can tell, Hussein Mohammed Aidid, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, is still a naturalized American citizen as well as Somalia's most powerful warlord. Losing U.S. citizenship is not easy. "About the only way you can lose your citizenship is if you renounce it," said Robert Mautino, a San Diego immigration lawyer who has written on the topic. Only 612 Americans lost or renounced their citizenship in 1996, about a third of the number as during some of the Vietnam War years. Occasionally a billionaire will renounce his citizenship to avoid paying taxes. Ted Arison, founder of Carnival Cruise Lines and owner of the National Basketball Assn.'s Miami Heat; and John Dorrance III, heir to the Campbell Soup fortune, saved millions by renouncing their U.S. citizenship. Dual Citizenships Usually Accidental Dual citizenship mainly happens by accident, when foreigners have a child in a country, like the United States, that bestows citizenship on anybody born on its soil, or when two people from different countries get married. Yet immigration lawyers say they are seeing an increase in the number of people who actively seek an extra citizenship. And more than half the countries in the world now allow people to keep their citizenship even after acquiring another one. Or two. "For poor countries, one incentive for embracing dual citizenship is the economic stake it can give them in the United States," said Hiroshi Motomura, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Law. "Many countries rely on remittances from countrymen who make decent wages in the West and send cash to their relatives back home. "The presence of a significant contingent in the United States really amounts to a significant form of foreign aid. In some cases you have remittances exceeding exports, like in El Salvador." The trend toward tolerance of dual nationality has coincided with enormous changes in the world during the last 10 years, one of the great periods of migration in history. This vast movement of people was triggered in large part by the fall of the Soviet empire and the opening and realignment of countless borders. One out of every 100 people on Earth lives outside the land of their birth. Added to that is the globalization of the marketplace and the rise of the big trade alliances, such as the North American Trade Agreement and the European Union. Factor in that it's easier to maintain ties to more than one country, thanks to the availability of cheap transportation and communication. "I don't think this is a trend that's going to abate. I think it's going to increase." said Peter Schuck, a Yale Law School professor who has written extensively on the topic. Schuck believes dual citizens are more an asset to the United States than a threat. "One advantage is that if they continue to vote in their original countries they would infuse their home countries with American values." He cited the 1996 Dominican Republic presidential election, one of that nation's most honest and orderly. Others say dual citizenship threatens to turn the United States into an amorphous piece of real estate that lacks a national identity. Canada, which legalized dual citizenship in 1977, is now "more like an airport than a country," Pickus said. He said Canada is being forced to rethink its liberal citizenship rules in part because people from Hong Kong are now using Canada as a security blanket in case China imposes authoritarian rule on their homeland. "They're saying: 'Hey, we don't want to live [in Canada]. We just want it as a backup plan,' " Pickus said. Canada has become something of a convenience store for citizenship kits. Lawyers advertise its advantages around the world. Some, like Toronto attorney Guidy Mamann, are experts at cobbling together all sorts of combinations. Ethnic Iraqis or Palestinians are typically eager to seek an extra citizenship so they can get more visas and travel to more places without having to disrobe at the border. Customs agents around the world assume even the most law-abiding Iraqi is an agent or terrorist. "They are frisked from top to bottom. They are refused visas," Mamann said. People Build Up Passport Portfolios Some people build up portfolios of passports. Mamann said he's working on the case of an American with dual Israeli citizenship and permanent residency rights in Hong Kong who is seeking permanent Canadian residency as a prelude to citizenship. This would enable him to, for example, do business in Cuba. "He will have three or four passports and will use the one that suits him the best," he said. "And this is only going to continue. People are going to want to acquire as many nationalities as possible." Patrick D. Lennon, an immigration lawyer in Hamilton, Canada, spends evenings at home with his wife listening to Italian language lessons on a CD-ROM. They aren't Italian, but they're working on it. A few years ago, with the Canadian economy in the doldrums and the European Union preparing to turn itself into one big market, he thought it would be wise to get his son Italian citizenship when he graduated from college. "I thought, 'God, this would be a real bonus to hand him another market for job search," Lennon said. "I looked at my own Irish ancestry to see if there was something there, and it was a dead end. And I looked into my wife's Italian ancestry, and there was something there." His son found a job, but Lennon and his wife, whose mother emigrated from Italy as a child, were intrigued by the idea of moving to the EU themselves. He's been piecing together the paperwork for five years and figures he's a document or two away. Lennon sees nothing wrong with such designer citizenship. "We don't expect all these other cultures to meld into this homogenous landscape called Canadian, whereas the Americans expect everyone to come together into this one big Disneyland," he said. "That melting pot thing really doesn't work." The American ideal of assimilation, Lennon contended, is passe. "People who were more or less conned to believe that the minute they saw the Statue of Liberty they become an automatic American are reaching back for their origins." Every country in the world seems to have a slightly different take on just what constitutes citizenship and nationality, and what it takes to tamper with it. A few years ago, some West African nations extended dual citizenship to black Americans in a bid to build old bridges broken apart by slavery. Dr. Christian Barnard, the South African heart transplant pioneer, was granted dual citizenship in Greece because it was the birthplace of Hippocrates, the father of medicine. After the author Mario Vargas Llosa lost his bid for president of his native Peru, his countrymen literally found they wouldn't have old Vargas Llosa to kick around anymore; he took out a second citizenship in Spain. "Ever since I was young, it has been my ideal to become a citizen of the world," he told a Times reporter last year. Some countries don't like that. Ulf Samuelsson, a National Hockey League player, was booted off the Swedish national team during the Winter Olympics in Nagano because it was found that he also had a U.S. passport. Sweden, liberal in so many ways, considers people no longer Swedes if they take citizenship somewhere else. Samuelsson's defenders said he got U.S. citizenship so he wouldn't have to keep applying for a U.S. work permit every year, the sort of coldly pragmatic rationale that drives critics of dual citizenship crazy. Dual citizenship has been an explosive issue in such conflict-ravaged countries as Rwanda, Cambodia and the former Yugoslav federation, where the balance of power sometimes rests with people forced to flee murderous regimes and who subsequently become citizens somewhere else. Britain began embracing the idea of dual citizenship to protect its nationals abroad when it began granting independence to its various colonies. Russia did much the same when the Soviet Union broke apart. Many people say that Latin American nations are affording the same sort of protection for their people in the United States, where anti-immigrant sentiment is high and benefits have been sharply curtailed. Some analysts see the retention of property rights in Mexico as the significant part of the dual citizenship law because more Mexicans would be likely to become U.S. citizens if they knew that they could keep home ownership in their native country. U.S. Citizenship Often About Cash Aleinikoff said that some people have always sought U.S. citizenship for economic reasons, and whether they have dual citizenship is irrelevant. "It is important to take citizenship seriously and cultivate in citizens a sense of loyalty and commitment and sacrifice that comes with being a citizen of the United States," he said. "If the United States is successful about doing that, we have very little to fear about dual citizenship." Yet U.S. citizenship is often just about cash. In 1989, when Congress eliminated the ability of foreigners to claim the same exemption on estate taxes that U.S. citizens got, "The Brits dashed down and got U.S. citizenship right away," said Philip Minter, an Australian American from Philadelphia. This disturbed Australians working here, he said, because that country doesn't recognize dual citizenship. Well-heeled Australians in America, including media mogul Rupert Murdoch, have been pressing Sydney to recognize dual citizenship for years. Minter was born in Australia, married an American woman and got a job as chief of information for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta in 1968. To keep that job, he became an American and gave up his Australian citizenship. Minter, 69, said his late father never got over the fact that a son renounced Australian citizenship. "He just felt I let the side down." His father cut him out of his will, "which cost me a fantastic amount of money," said Minter. He wouldn't say how much, but Helen Cameron, an acquaintance, said it was $1 million. Minter later went to work for the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Philadelphia and decided to reapply for Australian citizenship. It was granted last year because, he said, he was able to prove that he took on U.S. citizenship under duress. Today, though, he said he has no doubts about where his allegiance lies. "I've lived in Philadelphia for 30 years. I consider myself a Philadelphian." The surge in dual citizenship comes at a time when the number of Americans born outside the country has risen to nearly 10%, double what it was three decades ago. The number of Americans born elsewhere was once up to 15%, in 1910. Scott Wasmuth, director of a nonprofit refugee relocation agency in New Jersey, deals with a particular type of immigrant. These are people from Liberia who have managed to survive seven years of merciless combat by avaricious warlords. Or families from Bosnia purged from their homelands by their fellow citizens. They are different from most immigrants in that their lives were so threatened, their living conditions so deadly, they were granted political asylum. To these immigrants, Wasmuth said, U.S. citizenship is more than a passport, economic benefit or immigration status one notch above green card. "Citizenship should be about ideals." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark Krikorian, executive director Center for Immigration Studies 1522 K St. N.W., Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005-1202 (202) 466-8185 (phone); (202) 466-8076 (fax) msk@cis.org http://www.cis.org/cis ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------- End forwarded message ---------- _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] From phuakl@sit.edu.my Fri Apr 10 19:14:54 1998 From: "DR. PHUA KAI LIT" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 09:14:13 +0000 Subject: (Fwd) [sangkancil] Lives risked in "heinous" asylum refusal ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: yfyap@pop.jaring.my (Yap Yok Foo) To: sangkancil@malaysia.net Subject: [sangkancil] Lives risked in "heinous" asylum refusal Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 00:33:09 GMT Organization: Private Reply-to: yfyap@pop.jaring.my (Yap Yok Foo) ________________________________________________ This week's sponsors -The Asia Pacific Internet Company (APIC) Business Internet Services. Some talk. Some do. We talk and do! for instant info ________________________________________________ >From Sydney Morning Herald MALAYSIA Saturday, April 11, 1998 Lives risked in "heinous" asylum refusal By CRAIG SKEHAN, Herald Correspondent in Bangkok Diplomats from France, Switzerland and Brunei were accused of putting lives at risk yesterday by handing over to Malaysian authorities 27 Indonesians who broke into embassy compounds to seek asylum. "This is ridiculous - they should have called in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)," said Ms Elizabeth Wong from the Suaram human rights group. "What they have done is put these people's lives in danger. "We are shocked that countries such as Switzerland and France, who are strong advocates of human rights in the international arena, could have done such a heinous act." The Indonesians entered the Brunei, French, Swiss and US compounds, some of them scrambling over high walls, others rushing through gates, in a co-ordinated move at about 7.30am, diplomats said. Malaysian police quickly removed 12 Indonesians from the Swiss embassy, seven from the Brunei embassy and eight from the French embassy. But eight Indonesians who scaled the wall of the US embassy were staying there overnight and a spokesman said the matter had been referred to Washington for a decision on what should happen next. The US embassy was closed as Malaysian police stood guard. Ms Wong said handing over the Indonesians to Malaysian police breached the universal declaration of human rights which guaranteed the right to seek asylum. She praised US representatives for calling in the UNHCR. Suaram urged the US to protect the Indonesians until a resettlement country could be found. A representative of the Aceh National Liberation Front (ANLF) said all 35 men, in detention or at the US embassy, were supporters of the secessionist group from the north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. They were among 105 men who escaped from a Malaysian detention centre on March 26. "We don't understand why the French, Swiss and Brunei embassies would not save them," the ANLF spokesman said. "If they are sent back to Indonesia, they could be killed." Human rights groups say that some 500 Indonesians from Aceh province deported earlier had been held at the notorious Rancung Military Detention Centre and questioned by the Kopassus special forces army unit about separatist activities. They said the International Committee of the Red Cross had been denied access to those being held. The head of the Kuala Lumpur office of the UNHCR, Mr Gottfried Koefner, said interviews would be conducted to determine whether the men at the US embassy should be granted refugee status. He also said that if the 27 Indonesians who were detained sought refugee status, a request would be made to the Malaysian Government for access to them so an assessment could be made. Human rights groups have been highly critical of the way the Malaysian Government has handled deportations of thousands of foreign, mostly Indonesian, workers in recent months against the backdrop of the regional economic crisis. At least eight Indonesians and a Malaysian policemen died in recent violence during a repatriation operation from an overcrowded detention centre. A decision is yet to be made on an asylum request by 14 Indonesians from Aceh province who used a truck last month to ram their way into the UNHCR compound in Kuala Lumpur. http://www.smh.com.au/daily/content/980411/world/world6.html -________________________________________________ List Owner: M.G.G. Pillai Free Homepages on malaysia.net - send blank Check out the malaysia.net web site on List Postings to ________________________________________________ From rkmoore@iol.ie Sat Apr 11 05:00:16 1998 Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 12:00:03 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network), philofhi@yorku.ca (philosophy of history) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Invitation to contribute: "Globalization and the Revolutionary Imperative" ~-===================================================================-~ PEOPLES PRESS INTERNATIONAL (PPI) - a public service of CADRE (Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance) - http://cyberjournal.org republication permission given for non-commercial and small-press use http://cyberjournal.org/cadre/PPI-archives ~-===================================================================-~ 008-revolutionary-imperative.txt * ANNOUNCEMENT BOOK IN PROGRESS * "Globalization and the Revolutionary Imperative" - an annotated collection of topical essays - CADRE, 8 April 1998 *-> mailto:contributions@cyberjournal.org Richard K. Moore - producer, author Carolyn Ballard - chief editor, co-author Wade B. Ward - senior editor, co-author - Produced in collaboration with South End Press - ~-===================================================================-~ Dear wsn & philofi, I am offering you this "book report" for two reasons. First, I want to extend an invitation to writers, historians, analysts, and publishers to collaborate with us in this endeavor. You can tell from the Book Design below what our scope of interest is. We are seeking exceptional contributions, whether original, previously-published, or specially adapted to this project. We ask of potential contributors: What is it that _only you_ can say exactly the way it _needs_ to be said? What piece of the puzzle have you _really_ figured out? If you can say it clearly, in your own style and focus, and if we agree that it needs to be heard, then we will find a way to incorporate it effectively into the book. (See: "editor's thread", below). We are planning to maintain the book-in-development (ie, drafts in various states of completion) on our web site, available to the public -- our mission with the book is to accomplish some revolutionary conscious-raising, and we'd like to use the web for that purpose while we're waiting for the slower process of print media. The second reason for this posting is simply to share the book outline -- our best effort at a taxonomy that makes sense of the modern world and leads to an understanding of its democratic potential. Feedback and contributions are invited. Please forward this posting to (writing related) people or lists who you believe would be interested, and where it would be on-topic. kind regards, rkm ~-===================================================================-~ "Globalization and the Revolutionary Imperative" Book Design - 1.0 8 April 1998 Richard K. Moore Book Architecture ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This book will be a collection of essays (& poems & aphorisms & photos & whatever) but with an innovative twist: there will be a hand-holding editor's-thread flowing through the material that will provide continuity, will articulate development of the book's thesis, and will add substantiating material to the featured pieces. The editor's thread will consist of the following: 1) a Introduction and Summation for the book as a whole, and for each Part 2) a "Book Map" -- a foldout spread with map-of-world, history-timeline, and taxonomy-map: each of these is used to present a unique graphical map-of-contents to the books material, making it easy, for example, to find all essays that deal with Africa, or that deal with economics 4) sidebars or inserted pages, of whatever appropriate design, wherever beneficial to development of thesis: -a source item (letter, photo, newsclip) illustrating an essay remark -a poem, quotation, map, diagram, etc, that enhances or clarifies the presentation 5) a specially-flagged "Editor's Narrative Thread", easily distinguished from all other material, which pops up from time to time, as sidebars or an inserted paragraph or two. This is the "reader's friend", it provides thesis-orientation, reminds of points made elsewhere that are relevant to the current discussion, raises questions that remain to be dealt with, etc. The use of the editor's thread enables the purity and charm of the essay form to be retained without sacrificing completeness or rigor. The diversity of essay styles and viewpoints will add considerably to the appeal and readability of the book, as compared to the typical serious non-fiction genre. This book will be unusually inviting and reader-friendly, will be designed to appeal to mass-audiences worldwide, will be accessible to all, and yet will be informative even to the academic and thoroughly rigorous in its thesis development. Book Design ^^^^^^^^^^^ Introduction Maps of Contents - - - PART I -- GLOBALIZATION: what it is, where it came from, where it's heading Introduction Chapter 1 - Capitalism, democracy, and the nation state: a five- century struggle among elites, the people, and the environment Chapter 2 - Pax Americana, the "free-world", and neoliberalism: the destabilization of the nation-state world-system Chapter 3 - The global economy, TNC's, and the Commission system: the path to corporate neo-feudalism Chapter 4 - The New World Order: media and propaganda, programmed factionalism, police-state regimes, the hi-tech elite strike force, the China question Summation - - - PART II -- ENVISIONING A SANE WORLD: sustainability AND prosperity AND a robust ecosystem; collaborative international relations; genuinely democratic governance under existing constitutions Introduction Chapter 1 - Sustainable economics, appropriate technology, and ecosystem-awareness: prosperity in harmony with a finite world Chapter 2 - Consensus, collaboration, and democracy: escaping from the trap of competitive politics and power brokerage; learning from the Cuban model Chapter 3 - An agenda for democratic reform: taking back politics; setting societal goals; incremental system evolution Chapter 4 - Collaborative internationalism: the world as community; national diversity and human evolution; a collaborative approach to the global commons; the question of counter- collaborative nations Summation - - - PART III -- THE REVOLUTIONARY IMPERATIVE: the necessity of global democratic revolution; the vanishing window of opportunity; building the revolution Introduction Chapter 1 - The seeds of revolution: arrogance of the elite; over- dependence on sophisticated propaganda; universal exploitation as goad to revolutionary consciousness; Chapter 2 - Achieving mass popular consciousness: coalition networking and the aligning of scattered forces; reaching the people through creative use of media; realizing empowerment Chapter 3 - Engaging the elite corporate regime: understanding the the elite game plan and its defenses; identifying vul- nerabilities and anticipating responses; launching the revolution and protecting its flanks Chapter 4 - The Democratic Renaissance: the plentiful society; creative collaboration in place of greed and competition; returning to our societal roots; the next stage of human evolution Summation - - - Summation ~-===================================================================-~ ~-===================================================-~ "Seeking an Effective Democratic Response to Globalization and Corporate Power" - an international workshop for activist leaders - *>---> June 25 July 2 - 1998 - Nova Scotia - Canada > Organized by: Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance < ~-===================================================-~ ~================================================~ Restore democratic sovereignty Create a sane and livable world Bring corporate globalization under control. * CITIZENS FOR A DEMOCRATIC RENAISSANCE (CADRE) * http://cyberjournal.org mailto:cadre@cyberjournal.org ~================================================~ ... ~=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by: Richard K. Moore | PO Box 26, Wexford, Ireland mailto:contributions@cyberjournal.org | http://cyberjournal.org * Non-commercial republication authorized - incl sigs * ~=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ From rross@clarku.edu Mon Apr 13 13:20:42 1998 Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 15:15:54 -0400 From: "Robert J.S. Bob Ross" Subject: Between a Rock and a Hard Place: a Dialogue on American Sweatshops, 1820 to Present - Washington, CitySearch To: Tami J Friedman , Progressive Sociology Network , World Systems Network , Al Haber , Allen Young , Betty Garman Robinson , Cathy Wilkerson , Clark Kissinger <73447.1527@compuserve.com>, David Wellman , Dorothy Burlage , "Goldsmith, Steve" , "JAMES W. RUSSELL" , Jim Monsonis , Jim Russell , Joan Goldsmith , Jonny Lerner , Laura Hammond , Marc Flacks , Marilyn Katz , Marilyn Webb , Mariya Strauss <71112.2765@compuserve.com>, This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------41097BA943908A2F8B79D5D3 http://wp-210.washingtonpost.com/E/E/WASDC/0000/03/32/cs1.html -- Robert J.S. Ross Professor and Chair Department of Sociology Clark University 950 Main Street Worcester, Massachusetts 01610 Voice: 508 793 7376 Fax: 508 793 8816 Webpage: http://www.clarku.edu/~rross --------------41097BA943908A2F8B79D5D3 ASDC/0000/03/32/cs1.html" Between a Rock and a Hard Place: a Dialogue on American Sweatshops, 1820 to Present - Washington, CitySearch
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Between a Rock and a Hard Place: a Dialogue on American Sweatshops, 1820 to Present
LOCATION: National Museum of American History
ADDRESS: 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, Washington 20560
HOURS:
Apr 22-Oct 30,1998 Daily 10:00am- 5:30pm

TICKET INFORMATION: Call 202/357-2700
NOTE:The closing date is tentative; Please call 202/357-2700 for more information.


Part of ongoing programs at the museum exploring the history of work, this exhibition examines the history of sweatshop production in the United States. The exhibit provides historical perspectives on sweatshops, examining their origins, the effect on immigrants, labor movements, and international competition and technological innovation. It includes a re-creation of an El Monte sewing room, discusses the global nature of apparel manufacturing and provides a forum for national leaders in business, labor, community organizations and government to address sweatshop production. The exhibition highlights good industry practices by showing how affordable garments are being made in the United States and abroad in non-sweatshop conditions.


last published: Thursday April 9, 1998
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--------------41097BA943908A2F8B79D5D3-- From austria@it.com.pl Tue Apr 14 04:54:20 1998 Tue, 14 Apr 1998 12:54:02 +0200 (MET DST) Tue, 14 Apr 1998 12:53:57 +0200 (MET DST) Reply-To: From: "Austrian Embassy" To: Subject: Fw: FT.com gets a New Look Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:48:26 +0200 This is a very interesting web-site for all world system scholars Kind regards Arno Tausch ---------- > From: FT.com > To: ft.com-news2@postbox.co.uk > Subject: FT.com gets a New Look > Date: Dienstag, 07. April 1998 13:57 > > > Dear FT.com registered user > > Since you last visited we've given a completely new look to FT.com, > the Financial Times web site. The redesigned FT.com gives you > faster and easier access to the business and financial information > you want. Now updated 11 times daily, FT.com combines authoritative > global news and analysis with near real-time market data. The site > is better looking and better organised, navigation and searching > are streamlined and pages download faster. > > The redesign marks a significant step in the evolution of FT.com, > already the No 1 financial site based outside the US. > Why not revisit FT.com today http://www.FT.com/challenge and enter > the FT.com Challenge? You could win 5000 (UK Pounds Sterling)worth > of British Airways flights or a Psion Series 5 hand-held computer. > > If you have forgotten your FT.com user name or password, please > just take a few minutes to fill in our new simplified registration > form. > > PS. If you no longer wish to receive occasional information from > FT.com, please Mailto:FT.com-newscaster@postbox.co.uk with the text > of your message containing the line "unsubscribe". Your name will > be removed from our mailing list. > > If you would like send comments to FT.com please e-mail us at: > Mailto:FT.com-Feedback@postbox.co.uk > > Regards from FT.com From austria@it.com.pl Tue Apr 14 04:55:42 1998 Tue, 14 Apr 1998 12:54:24 +0200 (MET DST) Tue, 14 Apr 1998 12:54:04 +0200 (MET DST) Reply-To: From: "Austrian Embassy" To: Subject: The superb new issue of Le Monde Diplomatique April 1998 Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:51:20 +0200 This will be of interest to all of you Kind regards Arno Tausch ---------- > From: Le Monde diplomatique > To: English edition > Subject: April 1998 > Date: Samstag, 11. April 1998 20:00 > > LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE > _________________________________________________________________ > > Le Monde diplomatique > > english edition > > April 1998 > > edited by Wendy Kristianasen > > > > LEADER > > Neo-fascism * > > by Ignacio Ramonet > > Much has been written about the crisis of the left which followed > the events that brought the post-war period to a close. But not > enough has been said about a similar collapse of the right. In > France, there has been a failure of policies leading to a massive > loss of confidence and an explosion of social ills. With the > dangerous results that were seen on 20 March. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/en/1998/04/01leader.htm > > Translated by Ed Emery > > > > A HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AFTER FRANCE ABOLISHED SLAVERY > > The impact of the slave trade on Africa > > by Elikia M'Bokolo > > On 27 April 1848 Victor Schoelcher, the French under-secretary of > state for the colonies, signed a decree abolishing slavery. To > force the decision through, he had warned of the danger of a > general uprising if nothing was done. Resistance by the slaves > themselves was thus of capital importance in the French > government's decision, and freedom, when it came, was due more to > Africa's own efforts than to a sudden burst of humanitarian feeling > on the part of the slave traders. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/inside/1998/04/02africa.htm > > Translated by Barry Smerin > > > > Let the colonies perish... > > by Marcel Manville > > The enslavement of thirty million Africans and their transportation > to the Americas over a period of three hundred years need to be > recognised as the earliest crimes against humanity. Despite the > abolition of slavery, in France's remaining dependencies the > problems remain - as they do in the rest of the third world. It is > time to speak out, claim the right to national sovereignty and > emerge from a shadow world consigned to the margins of history. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/inside/1998/04/03slave.htm > > Translated by Barbara Wilson > > > > SPORT AS A TOUCHSTONE FOR SOCIAL CHANGE > > A third half for Iranian football > > by Christian Bromberger > > The adventures of Iran's national football team on its way to > qualifying for the World Cup have provoked some very public > reactions in a society normally characterised by its silences. > Watching the games and reading the commentators, it became apparent > that crucial issues were being played out: the aspiration to > alternative lifestyles, Iran's re-entry into the society of > nations, the debate on cultural openness versus "invasion", and the > place of women in Iranian society. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/inside/1998/04/04iran.htm > > Translated by Ed Emery > > > > BEHIND THE FACADE OF RECONSTRUCTION > > The "Lebanese miracle" in danger > > by Georges Corm > > Who is gaining from the reconstruction of Beirut? For nearly six > years now, most Lebanese have been urged to rally round a > "unifying" theme - the renaissance of their capital - and forget > their own vital needs. But the promised miracle has become a > mirage. From one end of the country to the other, life is growing > increasingly difficult and inequalities ever more glaring. In their > quest for an elusive peace in the region, Europe and the United > States have chosen to ignore the seriousness of the discontent, > continuing instead to dream of "their" Lebanon. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/inside/1998/04/05liban.htm > > Translated by Malcolm Greenwood > > > > IMMIGRATION, INTEGRATION AND EXPLOITATION > > Unemployment hits Southeast Asian migrant workers * > > by Solomon Kane and Laurent Passicousset > > The South East Asian crisis has made victims of several million > immigrant workers. They are the first to pay the price of > mismanagement by the governments that invited them and of the > carelessness of the companies that employed them. Yet the countries > of the region continue to compete with each other to export > unskilled labour and increase their foreign currency revenues. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/en/1998/04/06asia.htm > > Translated by Malcolm Greenwood > > > > Europe's Muslims find a place for themselves > > by Tariq Ramadan > > Immigrants are welcome when their labour is needed but find > themselves rejected as soon as the effects of an economic crisis > are felt. However, there are signs that we are on the way to > witnessing a real integration of the Muslims living in Europe. Now > in their third generation, Muslim communities have taken important > steps to adjust to changing circumstances, ready to make a positive > contribution to the new Europe. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/inside/1998/04/07islam.htm > > Translated by Ed Emery > > > > SEEN FROM THE UNITED STATES > > France, an unforgivable exception * > > by Thomas C. Frank > > The US press boasts of the importance it gives to the facts. Yet > the media's treatment of international affairs often serves merely > to demonstrate the benefits of the American way of life and the > head-in-the-sand nature of those who refuse to follow it, notably > France. The left's electoral victory and the government's refusal > to follow in the footsteps of Washington's would-be Gulf warriers > have added to the media's complaints about this most vexatious > nation. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/en/1998/04/08frank.htm > > Original text in English > > > > DEMOCRATIC DEVOLUTION IN THE UK > > Scotland's quiet revolution > > by Philip Schlesinger > > Under Tony Blair's New Labour, Scottish devolution is under way, > spelling an end to centralist decision-making in the United > Kingdom. In accordance with the September 1997 referendum, Scotland > is to have home rule. Nearly three hundred years after the > abolition of the last Scottish parliament, the country will again > have its own elected legislative authority. Within Europe, Scotland > will have an identity as specific as, for instance, Catalonia or > Bavaria. But there is no knowing if this stage will be Scotland's > last. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/inside/1998/04/09scot.htm > > Original text in English > > > > A DOUBLE CRISIS > > Bloodshed and bargaining in Kosovo > > by Jean-Arnault Derens and Sébastien Nouvel > > The elections of 22 March 1998 have seen the crisis in Kosovo enter > a new phase. Although the elections were "illegal" and many had > called for them to be boycotted, there was a huge turnout. Ibrahim > Rugova was re-elected "president" and his Democratic Alliance of > Kosovo (DAK) gained a majority in "parliament". This outcome is in > keeping with the negotiations that Serbia is apparently willing to > embark on. However, fresh outbreaks of violence and the extreme > right's involvement in the Belgrade government leave a question > mark over the future. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/inside/1998/04/10kosovo.htm > > From integration to rebellion * > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/en/1998/04/11koso2.htm > > Translated by Julie Stoker > > > > VISIONS OF A NEW SOCIETY > > Jobs: it's all only make-believe * > > by Anne-Cecile Robert > > The United States and United Kingdom are constantly praising the > advantages of work flexibility, claiming that it creates jobs, > while, they say, the rigid continental European system "prefers" > unemployment. Looked at more closely, however, the British approach > is less than exemplary. Quite apart from often fudging the figures > and ignoring demographic data, it represents a severe step > backwards in terms of wages and social welfare. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/en/1998/04/12robert.htm > > Translated by Francisca Garvie > > > > WHEN INTERNATIONALISM MEANT SUPPORT FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLES > > Henri Curiel, citizen of the third world > > by Gilles Perrault > > Twenty years ago Henri Curiel was gunned down at his Paris home. > Born in Egypt, Curiel helped to found the Egyptian communist > movement. Exiled by King Farouk in 1950, he came to France, where > he devoted his life to helping third-world liberation movements and > furthering the cause of peace between Israel, the Arab countries > and the Palestinians. His lasting achievement was to have invented > a new form of internationalism suited to the momentous anticolonial > struggles that have marked the second half of the twentieth > century. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/inside/1998/04/13curiel.htm > > Translated by Barry Smerin > > > > The silent idealist > > by Uri Avnery > > A personal recollection of working with Henri Curiel from the late > 1950s. Committed to the Algerian national movement, the two men > dreamed up an Israeli-Algerian connection based on winning the > support of the local Jewish community for the Algerian freedom > fighters. Failure to win Israeli backing put paid to the idea. But > Curiel went on to facilitate the first secret contacts between > Israelis and Palestinians. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/inside/1998/04/14curiel2.htm > > Original text in English > > > > > > (*) Star-marked articles are available to every reader. Other > articles ar available to paid subscribers only. > > Yearly subscription fee: 24 US $ (Institutions 48 US $). > > > > > ______________________________________________________________ > > For more information on our English edition, please visit > > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/en/ > > To subscribe to our free "dispatch" mailing-list, send an > (empty) e-mail to: > dispatch-on@london.monde-diplomatique.fr > > To unsubscribe from this list, send an (empty) e-mail to: > dispatch-off@london.monde-diplomatique.fr > > > From austria@it.com.pl Tue Apr 14 05:06:32 1998 Tue, 14 Apr 1998 12:53:57 +0200 (MET DST) Tue, 14 Apr 1998 12:53:40 +0200 (MET DST) Reply-To: From: "Austrian Embassy" To: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Subject: Fw: New web site on democracy, democide, and war Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:39:31 +0200 This message from my colleague from the University of Hawaii at Manoa might be of interest to all scholars and diplomats working on transformation problems here in Warsaw and beyond Kind regards Arno Tausch Labor Attache Austrian Embassy ---------- > From: Rudy Rummel > To: 100060.20007@compuserve.com; 102216.676@compuserve.com; 176mckinley@WORLDNET.ATT.NET; 359117@umdd; Jane Boudon <538-7898@mcimail.com>; 76245.436@compuserve.com; abelkin@socrates.Berkeley.EDU; abercrombicl@wofford.edu; ackerman@wiko-berlin.dbp.de; acolbath@abacus.bates.edu; afishlow@uclink.berkeley.edu; afk.organski@um.cc.umich.edu; agerber@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu; aknight@hera.ubishops.ca; alamborn@vines.colostate.edu; alevine@pantheon.yale.edu; alexander.wendt@yale.edu; alf@phoenix.princeton.edu; alijphar@ucsd.edu; alisa.masterson@yale.edu; alker@mit.edu; allan.stam@yale.edu; Ann Mason ann.green@yale.edu; anne_corbett@quickmail1.yale.edu; annlin@umich.edu; APSR ; apsrbook@colorado.edu; archibu@www.isrds.rm.cnr.it; arizol@newschool.edu; Arline McCord ; arline_mccord@yale.edu; armand.clesse@ieis.lu; armony@post.tau.ac.il; aronson@mizar.usc.edu; asartori@umich.edu; asmith@wueconb.wustl.edu; austria@it.com.pl; ayumi.kusafuka@yale.edu; b.schennink@bw.kun.nl; andrew enterline ; ba02729@bingvmb.cc.binghamton.edu > Subject: New web site on democracy, democide, and war > Date: Samstag, 11. April 1998 00:54 > > Aloha, > > I have set up a web site on democide (genocide and mass murder), democracy, > and war. This includes data, sources, statistical analyses, books, and > articles. The democide data covers major pre-20th century episodes of > democide, and all democide for all nations 1900-1987. Following are the > contents: > > ******** > Web Site Introduction > Personal > Murder by Government--Democide > 20th Century Democide > Statistical Evidence For Understanding And Explaining Democide > Individual Megamurderers and Mortacracies > Lesser Megamurderers > The Miracle That is Freedom > Data and Results on Dimensions of Nations > Conflict and Violence > Conclusions and Policy Recommendations > Some Links to Related Material > ******** > > The site is: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel/ > > R.J. Rummel > Professor Emeritus of Political Science > University of Hawaii > 46-393 Holopu Place > Kaneohe, Hawaii 96744 > Ph: (808) 235-8866 > E-mail: Rummel@Hawaii.edu > > From edtgg@cc.newcastle.edu.au Tue Apr 14 18:41:11 1998 wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:40:40 +1000 Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:41:58 +1000 From: Thomas Griffiths Subject: Re: Fw: New web site on democracy, democide, and war To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Not long ago there was some discussion on the wsn about anti-communist propaganda. The website on 'democide' is of interest as an example of this propaganda, but not much else. 'Freedom', it explains, brings economic prosperity, since freedom means private entrepreneurship without government interference. Democratic Freedom is of course capitalist liberal democracy, the right to vote every two years or so... If you have any doubts there are colourful graphs and statistics empirically proving the superiority of capitalist freedom over communist demagoguery... Glad I've got that cleared up. Tom Griffiths. ______________________________ > >This message from my colleague from the University of Hawaii at Manoa might >be of interest to all scholars and diplomats working on transformation >problems here in Warsaw and beyond > > >Kind regards > > >Arno Tausch Labor Attache Austrian Embassy ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas G. Griffiths Ph: Uni: (02) 4921 6658 PhD Research Student Home: (02) 4965 3293 Faculty of Education University of Newcastle Fax: (02) 4921 6895 NSW. 2308. Australia. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From edtgg@cc.newcastle.edu.au Tue Apr 14 19:22:47 1998 wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:21:31 +1000 Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:22:49 +1000 From: Thomas Griffiths Subject: Re: New web site on democracy, democide, and war To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Not long ago there was some discussion on the wsn about anti-communist propaganda. The website on 'democide' is of interest as an example of this propaganda, but not much else. 'Freedom', it explains, brings economic prosperity, since freedom means private entrepreneurship without government interference. Democratic Freedom is of course capitalist liberal democracy, the right to vote every two years or so... If you have any doubts there are colourful graphs and statistics empirically proving the superiority of capitalist freedom over communist demagoguery... Glad I've cleared that up. Tom Griffiths. ______________________________ > >This message from my colleague from the University of Hawaii at Manoa might >be of interest to all scholars and diplomats working on transformation >problems here in Warsaw and beyond > > >Kind regards > > >Arno Tausch Labor Attache Austrian Embassy From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Wed Apr 15 13:58:20 1998 Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 13:58:17 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez To: wsn@CSF.colorado.edu, socgrads , socy dept faculty Subject: CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY (FWD) ******FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ******* PLEASE FORWARD TO LIST AND/OR PUBLISH CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY: Effective immediately, all new submissions to "Critical Sociology" should be sent to the new editor at the new editorial office: Morton G. Wenger, Editor CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY Department of Sociology University of Louisville Louisville, KY 40292 USA (502) 228-6279 CRITSOC@ulkyvm.louisville.edu All correspondence regarding current subscriptions should be sent to the former offices at the University of Oregon. The editorial policies of the journal will remain unchanged: masked review of submissions by three or more competent readers prior to a decision regarding publication. The goals of the journal will also remain unchanged: the publication of the highest quality scholarship working within the parameters of a broadly defined critical sociology, emphasizing that work which deploys, builds upon, and/or subjects to critical evaluation the contributions of the various Marxist traditions. Morton G. Wenger, Editor e-mail: CRITSOC@ulkyvm.louisville.edu Telephone: (502) 228-6279 FAX: (502) 852-0099 From edtgg@cc.newcastle.edu.au Wed Apr 15 18:02:06 1998 wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:00:03 +1000 Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:01:22 +1000 From: Thomas Griffiths Subject: Re: Fw: New web site on democracy, democide, and war To: austria@it.com.pl Not long ago there was some discussion on the wsn about anti-communist propaganda. The website on 'democide' is of interest as an extreme example of this type of propaganda. 'Freedom', it explains, brings economic prosperity, since freedom means private entrepreneurship without government interference. Democratic Freedom is of course capitalist liberal democracy, the right to vote every two years or so...etc. If you have any doubts there are colourful graphs and statistics empirically proving the superiority of capitalist freedom over communist demagoguery... Glad I've cleared that up. Tom Griffiths. ______________________________ > >This message from my colleague from the University of Hawaii at Manoa might >be of interest to all scholars and diplomats working on transformation >problems here in Warsaw and beyond > > >Kind regards > > >Arno Tausch Labor Attache Austrian Embassy ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas G. Griffiths Ph: Uni: (02) 4921 6658 PhD Research Student Home: (02) 4965 3293 Faculty of Education University of Newcastle Fax: (02) 4921 6895 NSW. 2308. Australia. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Apr 16 08:27:38 1998 Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 09:04:46 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: ESA Conference] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu 15 Apr 1998 19:50:04 +0200 (MET) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 19:49:45 +0200 From: isa@sis.ucm.es (International Sociological Association) Subject: ESA Conference Apparently-to: chriscd@jhu.edu To: chriscd@jhu.edu Reply-to: isa@sis.ucm.es To: Members of the International Sociological Association 4th European Conference of Sociology: Will Europe Work? 18-21 August 1999 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands Organized by the European Sociological Association Preliminary Announcement The Programme Committee currently is seeking suggestions or offers about any aspect of the organisation of the Conference. These may include: * suggestions for Plenary and Semi-Plenary speakers; * proposals for the titles of topic-based working group sessions, * the names of Convenors for these sessions; * suggestions or offers for workshops on research or other academic skills; * suggestions for additional activities such as the popular 'Meet the Author' sessions at the last ESA conference. The Programme Committee is open to any offers or suggestions about the organisation of the Conference. Additionally, if you or a group wish to play an active part in any aspect of the 4th European Conference of Sociology, now is the time to contact the Programme Committee: 4th European Conference of Sociology - Conference Programme Mojca Novak Social Protection Institute of the Republic of Slovenia Rimska 8 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia Phone: +386 61 121 27 801 Fax: +386 61 121 27 806 e-mail: mojca.novak@guest.arnes.si ----------------------------------------------------------- From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Apr 16 08:28:37 1998 Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 09:38:55 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Citizen's Gathering in D.C. Protest MAI and Corporate Power] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu 15 Apr 1998 22:04:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:06:36 -0400 From: David Snyder Subject: Citizen's Gathering in D.C. Protest MAI and Corporate Power Sender: owner-slac@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu To: "'Moira Smith'" , "'amarley@jhsph.edu'" , "'bombast@hotmail.com'" , "'cnordone@aol.com'" , "'disarmnow@aol.com'" , "'dschubert@infoam.com'" , "'emuir@umd5.umd.edu'" , "'esak.garcia@yale.edu'" , "'E7h4ryo@toe.towson.edu'" , "'etandc@igc.apc.org'" , "'fnb@icaer.org'" , "'jheeg@jhu.edu'" , "'johnson@wou.edu'" , "'JPula@umpsy.ab.umd.edu'" , "'lexikyle@prodigy.net'" , "'lmagder@epi.umaryland.edu'" , "'mackay@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu'" , "'marmed@mailexcite.com'" , "'nalabdul@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu'" , "'nzook1@tiger.towson.edu'" Reply-to: slac@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Illegal-Object: Syntax error in To: address found on listproc.hcf.jhu.edu: To: ^-extraneous tokens in address, missing end of address Dear Friends; 4-15-98 The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance, and the recent discovery of negotiations for the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) has come like Paul Revere's horse and awakened people all over the world to the growing power of corporations and global institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. JOIN US FOR A RALLY TO PROTEST THE MAI THURSDAY, APRIL 23rd @ NOON Senate Side Lawn of Capitol, Across from Supreme Court The MAI is, as the head of the WTO put it, the constitution of a single global economy-but one in which multinational corporations have the right to exploit all the world's resources, and governments are greatly hindered from regulating that activity. In fact, under the MAI, if a corporation feels that a government has taken its profits away, even indirectly (through an environmental law, for example), that corporation can sue the government in the International Chamber of Commerce! The increasing centralization of power in the hands of unaccountable corporations portends the demise of the hopes of many for viable democracy and social justice-the MAI was initiated by the US Council of International Business (USCIB) in May 1995, and many of our Senators still don't know what the MAI is! When corporations reign unhindered, dictatorships flourish (just ask the people of Burma, or Nigeria) peasants are kicked off their lands (ask the people of Mexico or Brazil), the environment is plundered (every year, forested areas four times the size of Switzerland are cleared), and workers are exploited (ask the workers of Decatur, Illinois, or those who work at the Maquiladoras, for starters). In the world of MAI-style free trade, speculative investors are subsidized by our taxes and trillions of spectral dollars cause economic meltdowns like those seen in Mexico, Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia (the MAI would prevent countries from slowing down or regulating those investments, as Chile currently does.) The struggle between human beings and corporations reaches back to the 18th century, when Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" condemned corporations as destructive of the conditions necessary for free trade-for Smith, free trade required that businesses be locally owned and rooted in the community. That struggle is being waged all over the world today, and in the case of the MAI, it has succeeded in at least delaying the negotiations at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris. But already, the principles of the MAI-an absolutely deregulated global economy-have appeared in other pieces of legislation, like the Crane Bill for Africa and the Articles of Agreement of the IMF. There is also talk of moving the MAI negotiations to the World Trade Organization. Now that global citizens everywhere are waking up to the reality of corporate power, we cannot rest with the postponement of a single treaty! It is already being pushed through by other means, as we speak. By coming together next Thursday at the capital, and by raising awareness of the perils of corporate rule, we are opening a space in the political realm for people (like us!) to put forth alternatives. If we do not show our legislators that we condemn the MAI and the faulty vision which animates it (and NAFTA, and the GATT, etc.), that fragile space, which even now begins to show itself in our public sphere, will be shut by the power of the corporate lobby and mass media. That is the power of grassroots activism. And that is the responsibility we bear as citizens and stewards of the Earth. Indeed, it is the price of liberty. -David Snyder Sponsoring Organizations include: Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, The Citizen's Trade Campaign, Center for International Environmental Law, Progressive Challenge and the Global Economy Project of IPS, Women's Division of the United Methodist Church and the Alliance For Democracy. For More Information About the "MAI International April Week of Action" Contact Chantell Taylor at Public Citizen @ (202)546-4996 or www.citizen.org/gtw In Baltimore, e-mail David Snyder at dsnyder@goucher.edu - we may be able to provide transportation From chriscd@jhu.edu Fri Apr 17 08:09:23 1998 Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 10:10:36 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: kohler on global money To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Gernot Kohler has written an interesting short essay on global money and exploitation. Gernot's essay, entitled THE STRUCTURE OF GLOBAL MONEY, is on the World-Systems Archive at http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/archive/papers/kohler.htm Please send comments to him and/or to wsn. chris From austria@it.com.pl Mon Apr 20 02:52:40 1998 Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:50:51 +0200 (MET DST) Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:50:47 +0200 (MET DST) Reply-To: From: "Austrian Embassy" To: Subject: Kohler - comments from Arno Tausch Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:55:15 +0200 Comment from Arno Tausch (for God's sake, please forget the Embassy heading at the top - these are my personal scientific comments) I've read Gernots paper with great interest. I'd like to comment, though, on some of the points raised by him. Although the paper is brilliant, we should - please pardon me - not try to invent the wheel again, and put the stuff in the right and proper framework. In preparing my "Globalization and European Integration" (which by the way I could present on last Friday here in Warsaw at a magnificent Polish Academy of Sciences meeting, chaired by our friends and wsn subscribers Prof. Jadwiga Staniszkis and Jery Gierus) I've come across very valuable literature on the discrepancy between GNP per cap and PPP's, in the framework of what most economists simply call ERDI (exchange rate deviation index). The Vienna Institute for International Economic Comparisons has done some magnificent research on that (if I had only their website address right now at hand!; but at any rate YAHOO or other good search engines will bring you to their Website), and you could advance the point in the following empirical fashion: 1) calculating the regression between PPP per cap (x-axis) and GNP (y-axis) 2) subtracting real, observed GNPs from the estimated GNPs, i.e. taking the residuals This will be a powerful indicator for an artificially high or low exchange rate. Peripheries, in general (and hence Gernot's correct point on Mozambique) will be tending towards low, very negative residuals, while most of the centers will be showing positive residuals. For that reason, the hypothesis is justified, that ERDI could be positively related to economic growth or social development, keeping the Matthew's effect or the basic human needs Plateau curves constant. However: we must be careful. This might be a very spurious relationship, that expresses nothing else than the fact that Mozambique is a periphery and, say, the US a center. Does the relationship still hold, when we include the new UNCTAD MNC Penetration data for over 150 countries (UNCTAD World Investment Report), from 1980 to 1985, 1990, and beyond, into our multiple regressions, predicting economic or social development or decay since the 1980s? Does it still hold under inclusion of terms of trade data, social expenditure data (to control for the influence of "Keynesianism" on growth or development)? That, Gernot, is the crucial empirical question, and I hope you or your doctoral students will jump to their PCs and their EXCELs or SPSSs and use the UNDP or other data for post 1980s development to arrive at the empirical verdict in this debate. Money laundering etc. is now a powerful force that inflates the GNPs of semiperipheries dangerously upward from time to time. What Ruediger Dornbusch and others have written in this context on the tequila or caipirinha effect is valuable scholary knowledge, regardless of the fact, folks, and don't massacre me, that neoclassics have written it. We also should recall Michael Lipton's wonderful essay on the urban bias in world development, published back in 1977. The urban elites and property owners (and today, the money launderers) will always have an interest in high exchange rate, high interest rate, while the export industries, and rural society will be benefiting in the long run from a low ERDI. That is also one of the main reasons, why I am personally afraid that the "Asian virus" will hit, with full force, the Italian Lira this spring or summer, perhaps also some countries in East Central Europe, to roam on in 1999 to hit the superstar, the $, thus finalizing the Arrighean rock the boat cycle of financial transfers to - yes ASIA, which will come out from the mire in an Andre Gunder Frankian fashion by, say, 1999 or 2000 in the end. The future experience of the EURO will also teach us, Gernot, what is good for growth: a low or a high ERDI. Germany's present ills, to my view, are to a large part caused by the too high ERDI during the late 1980s and the 1990s; which ruins the export performance, threatens the current account balance, and causes long-run unemployment. So it might very well be, that for semiperipheries 1/ERDI will be positively, and ERDI negatively related to long-run "development", again keeping Matthews effects or Plateau curves constant. This makes the case for true multivariate research on the determinants of growth and development and or decay in the 1980s and 1990s all the more important, at a time, when we have entered, long ago, around 1980, a new Kondratieff-cycle set up of "flexible specialization", that puts into question our research results about development from the 1960s to the late 1970s, which were valid for that waning Kondratieff cycle, but not necessarily any more for the new logic of the post-fordist/corporatist world. Kind regards and happy further research, which indeed is needed Yours Arno Tausch From PAT.LAUDERDALE@ASU.Edu Mon Apr 20 10:09:11 1998 From: PAT.LAUDERDALE@ASU.Edu Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 09:09:06 -0700 (MST) Subject: From: the International Commission of the FZLN. (fwd) To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK A colleague in Chiapas asked me to post this message. Most people sending messages on this issue have been prudent so I post this one since it is a useful summary of some 30 other messages even though it does not contain information on the "spy" network in the government of Mexico - that network received the most media attention over the weekend. Sincerely, pat lauderdale Forwarded message: We want to inform you that the situation of the conflict in Chiapas deteriorates day by day like product of the political pressure and provocations that the Mexican government develops and that the possibility of open war is dangerously close. A brief summary of the serious cases of repression of these last days shows the cynicism and impunity with which the government is acting. The 11th of April, hundreds of police, soldiers and agents of Migration made searches, scares and attacks in Taniperlas, headship of Autonomous municipality Ricardo Flores Magon, municipality that was constituted the day before. Like product of that action, 11 Mexicans (among them two observers of human rights) and 12 foreigners were detained. The former have been already transferred to the Cerro Hueco penitentiary, in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, adding the list of political prisoners who are found in that jail. The latter were deported to their countries of origin, in one more show of xenophobia the government seeks to deport the eyes and ears of the world from Chipas. In the context of those events, journalists Oriana Elicabe (of AFP) and Paschal Gorriz (of AP) were attacked in the airport of Tuxtla Gutierrez, by Chiapan police, when they covered the information on the deportation of the detained in Taniperlas. The 13th of April, a manifestation of inhabitants of Taniperlas demanded the withdrawal of the police and assailed the army resulting in 2 wounded indigenous. At this hour (12:20 hours of the 14th of April, Mexican time), we are informed that another 11 companeros of the community of Taniperlas who were also detained and taken to Ocosingo, in practice have disappeared, in that they are not in Ocosingo, nor San Cristobal, nor in Tuxtla Gutierrez. To this is added new information regarding the impunity within which the paramilitary groups of the region act. Today is denounced that this past 17th of March, the paramilitary group Peace and Justice assassinated Trinidad Cruz Perez, in the autonomous municipality of Work, in Palenque, Chiapas, after having been submitted to tortures. In other parts of the country, the situation of oppression has also become serious. The last 10th of April, when the inhabitants of several communities gave a visit to the municipal headship of Matlapa, San Luis Potosi (in the north-center of the country), to demand the fulfillment of the San Andres Accords, they were repressed violently; the operation was realized with the participation of police effectives from the judicial police and the federal army, who, between insults and interrogations intimidated, aggravated and privated of liberty six companeros for four hours. A day later, were detained of new account the companeros Javier Copado, Luz. Ma. Saldana and Miriam Sanchez, members of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation, that works in the indigenous communities of the region. They were detained by the military and Federal road police at the military checkpoint that is in the road of Actla and were led to Ciudad Valles, where they are kept illegally detained under the argument that they carried with them documents of a subversive kind. Said documents are diverse papers of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation, totally legal. In journalistic notes of dates 10, 12 and 13 of April of 1998, one is informed that presumed agents of Federal Judicial Police (PJF) and of the Judicial Police of the state of Morelos (in the center of the country) assassinated 5 native farmers of the state of Puebla, minors, that were cutting wood in the community of Hueyapan, Morelos. The victimas were found with signs of execution, one of them in Ocuituco, Morelos, and the four others in Jolalpan, Puebla. According to an eyewitness of the acts, who was 50 meters from the place where the woodcutters were apprehended, he saw as they shot his companeros and lifted them up into their light trucks (compacts), one of them with the abbreviations of the Procurator General of the Republic. Up to this point a brief and without doubt incomplete radiogragph of the most recent governmental repression in Mexico. In this way, even though it seems that the presidential initiative of indigenous law was obstructed in the Senate and that so far will not pass, the provocation is transferred directly to Chiapas. The National Indigenous Congress has announced that it will mobilize its forces to stop these aggressions and will constitute 20 autonomous municipalities in the states of Veracruz, Oaxaca and Guerrero. On their part, the different autonomous municipalities from Chiapas are in red alert and have announced that they will defend their process of organization; there are rumors furthermore of a great movement of troops, that soon the army and the police will enter to dissolve them. We must be very alert everywhere. Please, do not lose contact and use any public that you have to denounce the situation and to demand: the freedom of the political prisoners; the cease of attacks on the indigenous communities; the cease of deportations of international observers, the fulfillment !ya! of the San Andres Accords, as the way to deactivate the threats of war and a return to the search for a peace with justice and dignity. We will continue to be in contact. International Commission of the FZLN -- Zapatista Front of National Liberation: -> http://www.peak.org/~joshua/fzln/ (English) http://www.peak.org/~joshua/fzln/ (Spanish) <- From rozov@nsu.ru Tue Apr 21 08:15:49 1998 Tue, 21 Apr 1998 21:09:56 +0700 (NOVST) From: "Nikolai S. Rozov " To: PHILOFHI@YORKU.CA, wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 20:13:10 +0000 Subject: (Fwd) Millennium Institute News, April 1998 Reply-to: rozov@nsu.ru this info maybe of interest because this futurologist project rather seriously deals with history (unlike majority of other global projects of this kind)and even has a special subproject 'Lessons of History' nikolai From: Philip Bogdonoff Organization: Millennium Institute Subject: Millennium Institute News, April 1998 To: MILLEN-L@AMERICAN.EDU Hello friends, Below is the table of contents for the Millennium Institute's latest newsletter. The full text can be found on our Web site at www.igc.org/millennium/news You can also subscribe to an e-mail edition (instructions below). I hope you'll be interested to read it. Highlights in this newsletter include a description of the Millennium Gifts Project, which we launched in December with a few of our key partners. We welcome and invite others to join with us in this Project. Imagine, as our Trustee Daniel Gomez-Ibanez says, using the turn of the Millennium to foster a "culture of giving, instead of a culture of taking" on planet Earth. That's in part what is possible through the Millennium Gifts Project. See the expanded Millennium Gifts section of our Web site for more information and examples of gifts already given: http://www.igc.apc.org/millennium/gifts/ This newsletter also reports on the two-day working meeting, culminating nearly a year of preparation, of the Strategy and Action Project for Chinese and Global Food Security. The purpose of this Project is to identify what needs to be done to narrow the range of projections of how much grain China may need to import in the coming years: Some say only a modest amount; others say enough to disturb the world food market. Don't forget to visit the Year 2000 and Millennium Events section of our Web site. It's chock-full of descriptions and links to plans being made around the world in anticipation of the new millennium. At last count nearly 40 countries have one or more points of contact for plans. See http://www.igc.apc.org/millennium/events/ Towards sustainability, Philip Bogdonoff Vice President --------------------------------------------------------------- M i l l e n n i u M I n s t i t u t e News for Friends -- April 1998 Edited by Jean Harrison The Mission of the Millennium Institute is to help create the conditions for the peoples of the world to achieve a sustainable future for Earth and to use the energy of the year 2000 to begin building a diverse alliance committed to this task. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Contents * The Millennium Institute's Plans * State of Our World Indicators * Millennial Activities Millennium Report to the World Millennial Events Planning Millennium Gifts for a Sustainable Future * The Strategy and Action Project for Chinese and Global Food Security * THRESHOLD 21 Update A Brief Description of THRESHOLD 21 Malawi "2020 Vision" Project Reports for Italy 1. Sustainable Development for Italy: An Integrated Model-Based Report 2. Applying the THRESHOLD 21 Model to Urban and Regional Areas * Millennium Institute Staff and Interns * For More Information: Millennium News On-Line ---------------------------------------------------------------- For More Information Contact the Millennium Institute at: 1117 North 19th Street, Suite 900 Arlington, VA 22209-1708 USA Telephone: +1 703 841-0048 Fax: +1 703 841-0050 E-mail: millennium@igc.apc.org. WWW: http://www.igc.apc.org/millennium To subscribe to the e-mail version of future issues of this newsletter, send an e-mail message to pbogdonoff@igc.apc.org with the phrase "subscribe MI news" in the subject field. To unsubscribe, send an e-mail message to pbogdonoff@igc.apc.org with the phrase "unsubscribe MI news" in the subject field. The HTML version of this newsletter can be found on the WWW at http://www.igc.apc.org/millennium/news/. +---------------------------+ | Make 2000 the Threshold | | to a Sustainable Future! | +---------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright (c) 1998, by the Millennium Institute. From rozov@nsu.ru Wed Apr 22 04:28:56 1998 Wed, 22 Apr 1998 17:23:06 +0700 (NOVST) From: "Nikolai S. Rozov " To: PHILOFHI@YORKU.CA, wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:26:17 +0000 Subject: 2 'Millenniums', sorry Reply-to: rozov@nsu.ru i was confused myself and sorry that caused further confusion. namely Jerry Glenn's project includes 'lessons of history' nikolai From: "Jerome C. Glenn" Subject: Separate Organization To: MILLEN-L@AMERICAN.EDU The Millennium Institute's Newsletter that you just received is from a separate organization than the AC/UNU Millennium Project. We cooperate with many related organizations around the world that do sound similar to The Millennium Project. Jerry Glenn From chriscd@jhu.edu Wed Apr 22 08:13:53 1998 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:15:32 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: IS-Notes: New Issue on-line!] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------B8D74A0203B90BC897E90A97 --------------B8D74A0203B90BC897E90A97 Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:41:26 -0700 From: Lawrence E Imwalle Subject: IS-Notes: New Issue on-line! Sender: International Studies Association News To: ISA-NEWS@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Reply-to: International Studies Association News Approved-By: Lawrence E Imwalle Dear ISA Members: The latest issue of International Studies Notes is currently available on the ISA website -- featuring the full text of all articles. ISNotes is the first ISA Journal to be available in this format. Please point your web browsers to the following URL: http://csf.colorado.edu/isa/isn/isn-home.html Best regards, ISA Staff Lawrence Imwalle Phone: 520.621.7754 Department of Political Science Fax: 520.621.5051 University of Arizona email: imwallel@u.arizona.edu Tucson, AZ 85721 http://www.u.arizona.edu/~imwallel ******************************************************************* --------------B8D74A0203B90BC897E90A97-- From austria@it.com.pl Thu Apr 23 00:37:25 1998 Reply-To: From: "Austrian Embassy" To: Subject: Fw: Le Monde on Chiapas Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:43:51 +0200 from Arno Tausch, Warsaw ---------- > From: Le Monde diplomatique > To: info-diplo > Subject: << Pacification >> politico-militaire au Chiapas > Date: Dienstag, 21. April 1998 18:30 > > _________________________________________________________________ > > UN CLASSIQUE CENTRAMÉRICAIN > > « Pacification » politico-militaire > au Chiapas > > (21 avril 1998) > > > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/dossiers/chiapas/ > > Imputer de prime abord le meurtre de 45 habitants du village > d'Actéal, dans le Chiapas, le 22 décembre 1997, au pouvoir mexicain > en tant que tel, serait aussi injuste que peu pertinent. Dès la > nouvelle connue, le président, M. Ernesto Zedillo, qualifiait ce > massacre de « cruel, absurde et inacceptable ». Le 3 janvier 1998, > le ministre de l'intérieur, M. Emilio Chuayffet, était amené à > présenter sa démission de même que, le 7 janvier, le gouverneur de > l'Etat du Chiapas, M. Julio César Ruiz Ferro. Dès le 9 janvier, 46 > personnes étaient arrêtées et inculpées, dont le maire priiste (1) > de Chenalhó, M. Jacinto Arias Cruz (inculpé pour avoir fourni des > véhicules et des armes aux meurtriers), ainsi que le directeur de > la sécurité publique de l'Etat du Chiapas. Au terme d'une enquête > somme toute promptement menée, 113 personnes seront incarcérées. > > Le contrôle de l'électorat dans les Etats de la fédération, surtout > dans les régions rurales, s'est longtemps fait par l'intermédiaire > d'oligarchies et de caciques locaux. Il n'est guère surprenant, à > l'heure où est affichée une substantielle volonté de > démocratisation du système politique (en témoigne la victoire de M. > Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, du Parti de la révolution démocratique, à la > mairie de Mexico), de voir ces acteurs se soustraire à l'emprise du > pouvoir central. Celui-ci n'entend-il pas modifier les règles d'un > jeu qui leur a toujours assuré domination et impunité ? > > On ne peut toutefois s'arrêter à ce seul constat. > > Le 26 décembre, M. Jorge Madrazo, procureur général de la > République, s'est déplacé sur les lieux du crime, a exprimé sa > solidarité avec les victimes et a donné son explication des faits : > « Des actes de grande violence dans la commune de Chenalhó et > d'autres communes du Chiapas ont été constatés depuis les années > 1930 et cette situation n'a malheureusement jamais disparu. Ces > conflits peuvent être qualifiés d'intercommunautaires, dans un > contexte de disputes constantes entre les pouvoirs locaux > politiques et économiques. Ils découlent également de l'existence > d'une diversité religieuse et, plus récemment, de divisions d'ordre > idéologiques (2). » > > Explication simpliste. Pour s'en référer à la seule période > 1982-1988, sous le gouvernorat du général Castellanos, les > organismes de défense des droits humains recensaient au Chiapas 153 > assassinats politiques (intercommunautaires ?), 692 incarcérations > abusives (disputes ?), 503 séquestrations acompagnées de torture > (diversité religieuse ?), 407 expulsions de familles de leurs > communautés, 54 expulsions de villages, 12 viols et 29 agressions > contre des mouvements de protestation. En 1988 et 1990, le code > pénal de cet Etat était révisé, sanctionnant désormais divers > délits qualifiés de « politiques », notamment l'occupation des > voies publiques, d'édifices publics, les réunions « tumultueuses » > (!), tous modes d'action constituant les voies traditionnelles > d'expression des populations paysannes (3). Une série de violations > des droits élémentaires qui ne sont pas étrangers au soulèvement de > janvier 1994. On est loin d'une simple permanence de « disputes > locales »... > > Le président Zedillo s'est engagé, le 23 janvier à Kanasín > (Yucatan) à ne pas utiliser la force pour résoudre le conflit du > Chiapas. Soit. Mais dans le même temps, le ministère de la défense > a dépêché sur les lieux plusieurs détachements de l'armée pour > « rétablir un climat de sécurité et éviter des affrontements entre > groupes rivaux ». On retrouve là une stratégie élaborée dans les > années 80, en Amérique centrale, entre autres par la démocratie > chrétienne au Salvador : un gouvernement démocratique « pris en > tenaille » entre deux extrémismes - extrême gauche et extrême > droite - renvoie dos à dos, mis sur le même plan, un mouvement > social armé (en l'occurence le Front Farabundo Marti de libération > nationale - FMLN) et les escadrons de la mort. Puis, prétendant > lutter contre les seconds, s'attaque au premier. > > Il n'était un secret pour personne qu'une prolifération de groupes > paramilitaires - Paix et Justice, les Chinchulines, le Masque > rouge, Les égorgeurs, l'Alliance San Bartolomé de los llanos, les > Brigades d'opérations mixtes, le Mouvement révolutionnaire indigène > anti-zapatiste, la communauté Tomas Müntzer, etc. - opéraient au > Chiapas, semant la terreur, entraînant des déplacements massifs de > populations, avec la complicité passive, voire active, de l'armée > et des autorités. L'enquête menée a mis au jour que d'ex-militaires > et d'ex-policiers avaient entraîné le groupe Masque rouge, > responsable du massacre d'Actéal ; l'arrestation, le 2 avril, du > général Julio César Santiago Diaz (jusque-là en fuite), confirmait > l'implication de l'armée au plus haut niveau : le général > commandait un détachement de 40 hommes qui, postés près des lieux, > auraient pu empêcher la tragédie et ne l'ont pas fait. > > Ainsi est mise à jour la stratégie (et la réelle responsabilité) du > pouvoir. Il s'agit bel et bien, par la militarisation d'une grande > partie du territoire et l'appel plus discret aux paramilitaires > (par nature « incontrôlés ») de mener une répression très large à > l'encontre de l'ensemble du mouvement social. La tragédie d'Actéal > n'est en l'occurence qu'une inopportune « bavure » - par son > ampleur et, par conséquent, les réactions, entre autres > internationales, qu'elle a entraînées. > > Les négociations menées entre l'Armée zapatiste de libération > nationale (EZLN) et le gouvernement avaient permis la signature, en > février 1996, des accords dits de San Andres. S'appuyant sur ces > accords, la Commission pour la conciliation et la paix (Cocopa) - > constituée de députés de tous les partis repésentés au Parlement - > a présenté un projet de loi en intégrant le contenu dans la > législation nationale, ce qui implique une réforme de la > Constitution. « Si le gouvernement a signé les Accords de San > Andres, c'est bien évidemment pour les respecter, déclare, le 1er > mars 1998, M. Francisco Labastida Ochoa, ministre de l'intérieur. > Le président de la République lui-même a dit, en de nombreuses > occasions, que le gouvernement respecterait cet engagement. Ce > point n'est pas sujet à discussion. Celui qui prétendrait le > contraire proférerait une contre-vérité. La Cocopa a formulé un > projet de réformes constitutionnelles. Ce projet n'a jamais été > approuvé par le gouvernement. Nous n'avons jamais pris > d'engagements en ce domaine. Rien n'a été signé. » En fait le > pouvoir, alléguant l'atteinte à la souveraineté nationale et à > l'unité du Mexique que constituerait le contenu et la portée de > l'autonomie indigène, revient sur ses engagements. Un projet de loi > gouvernemental sur la réforme constitutionnelle, présenté le 15 > mars 1998 par le président Zedillo, sera rejeté par les zapatistes > mais aussi par le principal parti d'opposition le Parti de la > révolution démocratique (PRD). L'EZLN refuse de renouer les > négociations mais, les bases sociales zapatistes mettent > unilatéralement en oeuvre les accords de San Andres à travers la > formation de 38 municipios autonomes. > > Plus que l'EZLN - qui n'a pas tiré un coup de feu depuis janvier > 1994 -, c'est ce processus d'organisation sociale pacifique mené > par les indigènes que le pouvoir entend « casser ». Comme on le > fit, là encore, en Amérique centrale, il s'agit, « la guérilla se > déplaçant dans le peuple comme un poisson dans l'eau », d'enlever > l'eau au poisson. Une grande partie de la population rurale du > Chiapas vit désormais dans une situation d'occupation militaire. > Les groupes paramilitaires font régner la terreur. Ne reste plus, > pour le pouvoir en place, qu'à restaurer la discrétion propice à > toute campagne de « reprise en main » digne de ce nom. > > Depuis 1996, 4 435 étrangers ont pénétré les zones en conflit, > presque tous membres de quelque 200 organisations non > gouvernementales (4). On retrouve là, peu ou prou et sans lien > formel, une démarche expérimentée avec succès au début des années > 90 au Guatemala. La mise en place d'accompagnateurs et > d'observateurs internationaux, avec deux principales missions : > dissuader, par leur présence, les violations des droits humains et > diffuser des informations vers l'extérieur. > > Dans le cadre d'une campagne officielle contre les étrangers, > accusés de « manipuler les indigènes », une quinzaine de > reconduites à la frontière ont déjà eu lieu (les 13 et 16 avril). > De même, le Français Michel Chanteau, 67 ans, prêtre de Chenalhó > depuis 32 ans, a été expulsé, accusé d'« activisme prozapatiste » > (trois autres religieux avaient déjà subi le même sort). > > Répression, isolement et silence. On retrouve là les ingrédients > qui ont accompagné les campagnes de « pacification » élaborées, il > n'y a pas si longtemps, en Amérique centrale. > ______________________________________________________________ > > (1) Membre du Parti révolutionnaire institutionnel, au pouvoir > depuis plus de 60 ans. > (2) Le Mexique aujourd'hui, service d'information de l'ambassade du > Mexique, Paris, n° 68-69, décembre 1997-janvier 1998. > (3) « Rapport Mexique », Fédération internationale des ligues des > droits de l'homme (FIDH), n° 251, février 1998. > (4) El País, 13 février 1998. > > > > MAURICE LEMOINE. > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > « Le Monde diplomatique » > > * La 4e guerre mondiale a commencé, > par le sous-commandant Marcos, août 1997. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1997/08/MARCOS/8976.html > > * Vivre avec les pierres, > par John Berger, novembre 1997. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1997/11/BERGER/9457.html > > * La drogue, alibi de Washington en Amérique latine, > par Mariano Aguirre, avril 1997. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1997/04/AGUIRRE/8085.html > > * Le grand virage des zapatistes, > par Maurice Najman, janvier 1997. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1997/01/NAJMAN/7560.html > > * Une multitude de guérillas, > par Françoise Escarpit, janvier 1997. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1997/01/ESCARPIT/7561.html > > * Le défi du Chiapas, > par Eduardo Galeano, août 1995. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1995/08/GALEANO/1722.html > > * Les embûches du nouvel ordre latino-américain, > par Janette Habel, juin 1995. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1995/06/HABEL/1531.html > > * « Eliminez les zapatistes! », > par Serge Halimi, juin 1995. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1995/06/HALIMI/1580.html > > * Le Mexique en guerre au Chiapas, > par Maurice Lemoine, mars 1995. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1995/03/LEMOINE/1345.html > > * La fin des illusions pour le modèle mexicain, > par Francis Pisani, février 1995. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1995/02/PISANI/1193.html > > * Le Mexique à l'heure de tous les dangers, > par Francis Pisani, mai 1994. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1994/05/PISANI/466.html > > * Où sont les Indiens ? > par Guillermo Aramburo, mai 1994. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1994/05/ARAMBURO/456.html > > * Pourquoi la révolte au Chiapas ? > par Victorien Lavou, février 1994. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1994/02/LAVOU/217.html > > Dans les livres > > * « Depuis les montagnes du Sud-Est mexicain », de Luis E. Gomez et > « Mexique, du Chiapas à la crise fiancière », collectif, par > Maurice Lemoine. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1996/08/LEMOINE/5785.html > > * « Le soulèvement au Chiapas », de Aurore Monod, Mario Humberto Ruz > et Martine Dauzier, par Laurence Villaume. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1995/02/VILLAUME/1207.html > > * « ¡ Ya basta ! », du sous-commandant Marcos, > par Laurence Villaume. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/1995/02/VILLAUME/1206.html > > _______________________________________________________________________ > > Sur la Toile > > * EZLN. Ce site consacré à l'armée zapatiste de libération nationale > est édité aux Etats-Unis. Il est le point focal d'un gigantesque > réseau de solidarité. (multilingue) - http://www.ezln.org/ > > * FZLN. Sur le site du Front zapatiste de libération nationale, un > dossier spécial est consacré au massacre d'Actéal. (espagnol) - > http://spin.com.mx/~floresu/FZLN/ > > * Sipaz. Le service international pour la paix propose des dépêches > et rapports sur la situation au Chiapas. Son dernier rapport > trimestriel date d'avril. (anglais et espagnol) - > http://www.nonviolence.org/sipaz/ > > * Tendance floue. Superbe reportage photographique de Mat Jacob, > réalisé auprès de l'EZLN en juin 1995 et en juillet 1996. Sur des > textes d'Eduardo Galeano. (français) - http://www.chez.com/tf/ > > * Guide des ressources zapatistes sur Internet. Un catalogue > illustré de sites et de listes de discussion et d'informations par > courrier électronique. (anglais) - > http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/zapsincyber.html > > > TOUS DROITS RÉSERVÉS - LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE. > _________________________________________________________________ > > ÉGALEMENT SUR NOTRE SITE > > * « Comprendre la mondialisation », un cédérom de poche (110 F) > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/cederom/ > > * Les archives 1987-1997, sur cédérom (250 F) > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/cederom/ > > * L'édition en langue anglaise du Monde diplomatique > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/en/ > > _________________________________________________________________ > > COMMENT S'INSCRIRE À LA LISTE 'info-diplo' ? > > Entrer son adresse sur la page d'accueil du Monde diplomatique, > puis répondre à la demande automatique de confirmation. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/ > > > COMMENT QUITTER CETTE LISTE ? > > Si vous souhaitez vous désabonner de ce service, > il vous suffit d'envoyer un message à l'adresse > > > > EN CAS DE CHANGEMENT D'ADRESSE... > > Pour modifier votre adresse d'inscription, > veuillez quitter la liste à partir de votre > ancienne adresse, puis vous inscrire à partir > de votre nouvelle adresse. > > > > > From austria@it.com.pl Thu Apr 23 02:15:51 1998 Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:15:16 +0200 (MET DST) Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:15:08 +0200 (MET DST) Reply-To: From: "Austrian Embassy" To: Subject: Fw: gernot's interesting comment Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:20:50 +0200 here is Gernot's reaction to my suggestions on his paper. Even if you do not know German, you will find his interesting literature hint at your disposal. Gernot's problem is real, and it is charged with rather explosive social consequences. I wonder why there has been such a more than 3 day silence silence on his brilliant paper, considering all the issues of exchange rate over-or undervaluations in the wake of the Asian crash in the fall of 1997. I agree with Gernot on the important nature of the problem, but I disagree with him on the research strategy. I did meanwhile therefore a non-linear regression analysis on the interesting relationship between PPP and GDP per capita. This analysis somewhat qualifies Gernot's thesis. The relationship - the best fit is a polynomial regression of the second order - looks like the lower, right hand quarter of an elipse, with PPP being the x-axis and GDP per cap the y axis. When you use a logarithmic sclaing for PPP, then the form of curve transforms itself into the right-hand part of an "U". Simply calculating the division between PPP and GDP or GNP is not a good research strategy, I find. You would have to control for this eliptic trade-off and you would have to calculate the RESIDUALS FROM THE NON LINEAR REGRESSION BETWEEN PPP PER CAP AND GNP PER CAP to arrive at more meaninful results. Seen in such a way, the deviations are not so dramatic, and rather, and we find the structural shortcomings of Kravis' method which in the end determine this eliptic trade-off. If you do not consider this eliptic trade off, you are the victim of Kravis peculiar PPP calculation method - and not necessarily confronted with a real, world economic phenomenon. Sorry, that the wsn machine in Colorado again and again rejected my earlier color graphs in the past, sent around via the wsn network, but let me attempt to draw a brief Graph here to summarize my thoughts: l GNP per cap * l * l * l * l * l * l* * * * --------------------------------------- PPP per cap The empirical values, based on UNDP HDR data, neatly scatter around this curve, the R^2 is above 90%. Only residuals from this function will deliver to us an unbiased estimate of the "Kohler" or "ERDI" effect. Performing a simple division f (Kohler formulation) = PPP per cap/GNP per cap will be a far inferior (second best and flawed) formulation about this effect. Simple correlations with growth, in addition, will be biased as well. We have to take the Matthews effect into account. To repeat the most important development level development performance trade-offs, let me state here: economic growth/adjustment success = a1 + b1* ln (PCItn-1)-b2* (ln(PCItn-1))2 The same function is also applied to income inequality, following a famous essay published by S. Kuznets in 1955. Redistribution gets underway after 1000 $ per capita income is reached; the share of the richest 20% diminishes from approximately 55% to around 40%. Growth and adjustment accelerate with redistribution. DYN LEX = ((log 10 (LEX tn)-log 10 (LEX tn-1)) * 100 Let LEX denote life expectancy or other basic human needs indicators, PCI per capita incomes, ENCONS p.c. energy consumption rates per capita and year in kg oil equivalent, and DYN rates of increases of basic human needs satisfaction. On a world scale and for different groups of countries, levels of human development and increases in terms of human development, reductions in infant mortality et cetera will always significantly correspond to the following function and the first derivative: LEX = a + b1 * (ENCONS p.c.)^(1/(e^2)) - b2 * (ENCONS p.c.)^ln(pi) R2 = 72.4%; F = 157.63; df. = 120; alpha (one-tailed) 5% > 1.289 DYN LEX(tn) = a - b1 * LEX (tn-1) +- b2 * (PCI)(tn-1)^((1/(e^2))-1)-b3 * (PCI)(tn-1)^(((ln(pi))-1))) R2 = 69.8%; F = 91.85; df. = 120; alpha (one-tailed) 5% > 1.289 predictors b2 and b3 only: R2 = 43.3%; F = 45.89; df. = 120; alpha (one-tailed) 5% > 1.289. Formulation also possible with ENCONS p.c., but the PCI data series is more complete Based on UNDP (1993) data for all the countries that report economic growth rates for the periods 1965-80-90, equation (3.4) explains 72.4% of total variance of life expectancy; equation (3.5) - even without life expectancy in 1960 as an additional control variable - explains 45.9% of total variance. human development or gender development or gender empowerment = a1 - b1* ln (PCItn-1) + b2* (ln(PCItn-1))2 or political rights violations or civil rights violations = a1 + b1* ln (PCItn) - b2* (ln(PCItn))2 The following statistical properties of the functions hold: human development index R^2 = 82.4%; F = 281.0 gender development index R^2 = 80.1%; F = 240.8 gender empowerment index R^2 = 60.0%; F = 90.0 political rights violations R^2 = 38.0%; F = 36.8 civil rights violation R^2 = 40.0%; F = 39.9 Human Development Index = a + b1 * (real purchasing power p.c.)^(1/(e^2)) - b2 * (real purchasing power p.c.)^ln(pi) Kind regards, and thanks to Gernot for his important paper. Arno Tausch ---------- > From: Gernot Kohler > To: austria@it.com.pl > Subject: > Date: Mittwoch, 22. April 1998 16:36 > > Danke vielmals fuer Ihren Kommentar. Ich habe das Wiener Institut (WIIW) > ausfindig gemacht (web) und fand einen abstract of a research report by > Havlik. Er argumentiert allerdings *fuer* currency undervaluation. Nachdem > ich meinen Essay fertiggestellt hatte, habe ich noch ein Buch gefunden, das > Sie interessieren wird, da es die Beziehung zwischen "undervaluation" und > Wirtschaftswachstum untersucht: > Pan A. Yotopoulos > Exchange rate parity for trade and development: > Theory, tests, and case studies > Cambridge University Press, 1996 > ISBN 0 521 48216 > Unter anderem: "causality goes from undervaluation of NER to low rates of > growth of GDP" (p. 143) [NER=nominal exchange rate] und: "intervention in > the foreign exchange market" seen as attractive (p. 286). Zusaetzlich zu > multivariater Analyse hat er vier Fallstudien, unter anderem um > festzustellen/nachzuweisen, dass "government" (gute Regierung) wichtig ist > in diesem Zusammenhang. Passt wahrscheinlich gut zu Ihrem "lean and socially > just government". > > Freundliche Gruesse, > Gernot > From fei-ling.wang@inta.gatech.edu Thu Apr 23 07:52:19 1998 Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 09:55:57 -0400 To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK From: fei-ling.wang@inta.gatech.edu (Fei-ling Wang) Subject: Leave Please stop sending me messages for the next three months. thanks! Fei-Ling Wang, Ph.D. The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332-0610, USA (404) 894-1904 (404) 894-1900 (fax) fei-ling.wang@inta.gatech.edu From scc1@axe.humboldt.edu Mon Apr 27 10:38:08 1998 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:36:25 -0700 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: Sing Chew Subject: Please forward! >Comments: Authenticated sender is >From: Alf.Hornborg@etn.lu.se >To: scc1@axe.humboldt.edu >Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 14:32:01 +0000 >Subject: Please forward! >Reply-To: Alf.Hornborg@humecol.lu.se >Priority: normal > >DEAR SING, >PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO THE WHOLE WORLD SYSTEMS >NETWORK. I THINK IT WILL INTEREST THEM. >BEST WISHES, >ALF > >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >From: Sviatoslav Zabelin >Goldman Environmental Prize winner-93 >Co-chairman of the Council of >Socio-Ecological Union, International >E-mail: svet@glasnet.ru >P.O.Box 211 Moscow 121019 Russia > >To: The World Community >Subject: Implications of the "Business-As-Usual" Scenario. > A Call to Action. > >Date: April 7, 1998 > > >Dear Friends: > The reason for this open letter is both very simple and very >complex. On one hand, economic and environmental indicators show that >we are at a critical threshold within the global economic and social >system . On the other hand, the majority of the population, from the >heads of government to the bottom of society cannot accept the idea >that the usual order will change crucially --and it will probably >happen in the very near future. > > I believe the foundation for this open letter is absolutely >pragmatic and realistic, without mystical interpretation. My intent is >not to frighten anyone but simply to transmit the facts, as I see >them, so that we humans can make the correct, life-giving decisions. > > I > In 1972 Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Renders and >William Behrens III prepared the report "Limits to Growth" for The >Club of Rome's project, The Predicament of Mankind. The computer >projections made by their World3 model showed that under the "business >as usual" scenario the economic growth of the world economic system >will stop and the system will collapse before 2020. > > In their book "Beyond the Limits" published in 1992 they repeated >their calculations and confirmed that no significant changes occured >during the past 20 years and the development of the world economy is >still coinciding with the computer projections stated in "Limits to >Growth". > > The financial crisis of South-East Asia in 1997, a 40% drop of >oil prices, and other indicators, show that the real growth in >production on the planet is slowing drastically. And what is really >booming are prices of stock shares. > > From my point of view we will face the predicted fall of the >global economy not in 2020 but much earlier, possibly at any moment. >The fall of the Berlin wall, the end of apartheid in South Africa, and >the break-up of the USSR, are good reminders of how quickly and >unpredictably social change can happen. > > Lester Brown, head of the World Watch Institute, stated that "the >global economy as now structured cannot continue to expand much longer >if the ecosystem on which it depends continues to deteriorate at the >current rate" He is deeply concerned that a poor grain harvest, most >notably in China, is the kind of spark that ignites an economic >forestfire with lethal repercussions. > > A crisis of this magnitude, will lead not only to a catastrophic >decrease of industrial production, not only to a catastrophic decrease >of agricultural production but also to a catastrophic decrease in >world population -- and the computer model World3 shows this quite >clearly. > > My first recommendation to those who would prefer not to "wait >and see " but instead, to act - is to reread the books of D.&D.Meadows >and Co, and compare their findings with your own observations. > > II > A global catastrophe, resulting from going beyond the limits to >growth, is not a fantasy. Please study the smaller, but highly >illustrative, crisis that happened with the Soviet Union as a limited >economic system in the 1980's in order to understand what lies ahead >if we do not change our ways. > > The description of crisis mechanisms and consequences from >"Limits to Growth" coincided with the reality of the Soviet and >post-Soviet society (despite the fact that the World3 model was made >for a market economy). > > This crisis led not only to a 10-year decline of industrial >activity, not only to the collapse of science, medicine, education, >not only to enormous unemployment, not only to hundreds of thousands >of victims in civil wars, but to a significant decrease of population >also (approximately 1,000,000 per year in the total Russian >populationof approximately 150,000,000). > > My second recommendation is to look at the crisis of USSR not >from the point of view as a victory of capitalism over communism but >to look at the deeper lesson to be learned. The demise of communism >can be seen as a limits-to-growth crisis. Come see the Russian >province for yourselves to learn what a crisis can do to a developed >country which launched the first man to the Cosmos. > > III > Despite massive amounts of evidence, most decision makers, >businessmen and NGO activists, spiritual leaders and artists--together >with the majority of the world population-- behave like we have >centuries to solve systemic problems. And it is understandable, the >human mind wants to avoid such painful information. Key crew members >on the ship Titanic failed to heed the warnings given to them. The >ship was considered "unsinkable" and speed and profits were the >priorities. However... WE can change course. We are flexible thinking >human beings who can act responsibly and save ourselves, our children, >and the living beings of Mother Earth. > > IY > It seems quite clear what preventative medicine is needed, both >generally and specifically. Lester R. Brown and Jennifer Mitchell's >concluded the "State of the World - 1998" by saying "we know what an >environmentally sustainable economy would look like, and we have the >technologies needed to build such an economy". > >I agree with them and... > We humans need to urgently realize that we are passengers on one >small ship: Planet Earth. > We need urgent cooperation between countries, between sectors, >between NGOs, between peoples, etc > We need disarmament immediatedly. > We need an exponential decrease of resource exploitation. > We need to respect life, the life of each woman/man and each >animal/plant. > We need self-limitation in consumption (firstly in the rich >countries). > And... > We humans can establish urgent binding international agreements. > We can increase taxes on environmentally destructive activities. > We can stop wilderness degradation. > Etc. > > Y > It is clear that the existing state machine cannot respond. > It is clear that pressuring this machine is simply ineffective. > It is clear that no one sector alone (governments, business, NGO) >can solve the problems that we face. > > YI > I am a leader of one of the biggest and well-known international >NGO networks, and I am scientist. > I am a citizen of the former USSR & Russia and I know how to live >in a "limits-to-growth-crisis". > I've met leaders of many other organizations and I respect their >efforts very much. But I know the limits of methods and means that we >have used in the past, what we are still using to this day. > I feel certain that we simply have no time to wait. We do not >have years to make critical decisions, only months, and I will repeat >this sense of urgency a thousand times if it will help. > > YII > I am sure that only a coalition of courageous peoples from >different sectors, from different countries can give humanity a chance >not to return to the Dark Ages with its murders, wars and plagues. > > I cannot avert, or lessen, this crisis alone. > I ask you to distribute my message by any means that you have. > I ask you to send this message to the businessmen, policy makers, >and leaders that you trust. > The positive future of Humanity and Life on Earth is in our >hands. > We must act together! > I am at your service. > > What follows is a description of what is likely to happen to the >developed world if the current trends are not radically altered. > Our choice is to wait or to act. > > *** > > Anticipated Crisis Events 1998 - 2003 (2010). > > This text is prepared using the results of investigations of Club >of Rome's experts D.&D.Meadows and others from the reports "Limits to >Growth" and "Beyond the Limits" as well as real facts sheets of the >Soviet Union's economy in 1985-1998 and what the author experienced >personally. > Nothing else. > From my point of view the scenario as described below can happen >at any moment if the current activities of governments, business, and >NGOs do not change dramatically in the next few months. > My goal is to invite you to do everything possible to avoid the >anticipated events. > Please excuse my brevity and lack of professional English - I am >prepared to answer all those who are interested with specific analysis >if requested. > > *** > 1. The first and most evident consequence of the crisis will be >the deep de-globalization of economy. > As in the USSR all interstate borders and barriers will be >restored and strengthened and the nations will restore their full >sovereignty including prevention of emmigration and extradiction of >immigrants and foreigners. > The biggest nations (like big systems); ie the US, Canada, >Russia, and China, will break up into smaller units: confederations, >states or republics. Maybe it will not just happen to the big systems? >Remember the cases of Yugoslavia and Checkoslovakia?! > It is easy also to foresee the disruption of the majority of >communications - Internet (the first to go), then the postal service, >transportation, etc. > > 2. The world market will simply disappear and the companies that >rely on world trade will be destroyed. It will be the same with the >countries that have an export oriented economy. It is easy to predict >the bankruptcy of companies where they have production units >distributed in different countries or simply where there are large >distances separating them from each other. > The high technology sector will collapse because it is dependent >on global trade -the manufacture of computers and electronics require >parts and labor from many countries. > > 3. The international bodies like UN, UNESCO, WTO, World Bank, etc >will be also cease to exists or will become vestigial structures >without any real power or influence. It is very probable that even the >idea of international legislation and international rights will be >abolished. > > 4. Because of the extremely difficult economic situation all the >states will deliberatly separate from each other and disavow all >social obligations, including the support of science, education, >healthcare, etc. Conversely, the state authorities will quickly build >up the military and police structures and will spend the majority of >their budget to build a strong army and strong internal security, >including the structure of suppression of the popular protests. > Because it is likely fear will reign, the population of the >majority of the countries, including the most democratic, will agree >with such changes in state policy and even the notions of civil >society and state's rights will be forgotten for centuries (hopefully, >only decades). > In the majority of states, authoritarian or totalitarian regimes >will establish themselves under democratic election procedures >(Germany in 1933 and Belorussia in 1996 are prime examples of how this >happens). > It is very probable that humanity will lose Science as a means of >managing society. Science will be replaced by the worship of >technology and antiquated religious beliefs. > > 5. The inequality in capability by the nation-states to arrive at >some form of economic self-suffiency will lead to an array of >international military conflicts where the whole spectrum of weapons, >including nuclear, chemical and bacteriological, will be used. > All international mechanisms preventing the use of chemical and >nuclear weapons will cease to exist. Poverty will force the states >(and private citizens) possessing such weapons and/or technologies to >sell them to those who would use them! > It is very probable (and the Iraq-US conflict illustrates this ) >that the Western countries will in all likelihood be the initiator of >the Third World War: they will lose their financial stability during >the crisis but not their ambitions and weapons. > *** > The result of the crisis will be that Humanity will return, to >God knows what century... > *** > The first victims of the crisis will be the population of the >developed countries, ie North America, Western Europe, New Zealand, >Australia, Japan, etc. They have the most to lose. They will lose >their quality of life, their comfort and their position as leading >nations. > Believe me - these will be truly national catastrophes. And I >really feel compassion for these peoples because they have no modern >experience of growing food and living off the land. They do not have >any recent experience in long-term storage (foods, clothing. etc ) > Even if they did, the majority of the population in these >countries have no private parcels of land to provide themselves with >food. > On the other hand - the developed countries - because they are >still rich, educated, powerful, etc have the chance to meet the crisis >with appropriate means. And to succeed to soften it - because it is >too late to entirely prevent it. > > The Socio-Ecological Union (285 groups from 18 countries) >formulated these means as follows: > > - assist the development of all forms of local democratic >self-government, mutually beneficial, self-sufficient local economies, >and the emergence of a non-governmental citizen movement to protect >human and environmental rights. A form of minimally centralized, >collective, self-organization will serve as the societal means to >overcome the crisis. > > - enhance the access of essential life-affirming information and >develop the spread of environmental education, using all means >possible. This is the equivalent to creating the intellectual, moral, >and spiritual conditions needed to overcome the crisis. > > - technologically "retro-fit" the human race within the limits >imposed by the Biosphere which includes processing all human waste. >This means quickly developing the appropriate technology necessary to >overcome the crisis. > > - reduce industrial and agricultural impact on the environment >and conserve as many natural areas as possible in different parts of >the world. This means conserving the natural environment and resources >necessary to overcome the crisis. > > - initiate global cooperation among all people despite their >social, political, national, or religious beliefs, or their >involvement in state, business or public sectors--anyone able to act >together towards reaching the above-stated goals. This means creating >the organizational mechanisms to overcome the crisis. > > All these objectives are equally important, and progress towards >realizing any one of them will both help lessen the impact of the >crisis and move us towards the development of a new civilization. > > *** > We as Human Beings, as Homo Sapiens, have a chance not to go >backwards, but to move forward to the next level of social >organization--what could be termed a cooperative, spiritually informed >civilization. God and/or Evolution gave us free-will. Let us choose >Life! > > > > > > > > > >Professor Alf Hornborg >Human Ecology Division >Lund University >Finngatan 16 >223 62 Lund, Sweden >Tel. 46-46-222 3113 >Fax. 46-46-222 3695 > > From rkmoore@iol.ie Tue Apr 28 05:58:11 1998 Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 12:57:44 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: re: Implications of the "Business-As-Usual" Scenario (was: `please forward') Carolyn Ballard , jslakov@TartanNET.ns.ca (Jan Slakov) Sviatoslav Zabelin Goldman Environmental Prize winner-93 Co-chairman of the Council of Socio-Ecological Union, International E-mail: svet@glasnet.ru P.O.Box 211 Moscow 121019 Russia Dear Sviatoslav, Thank you very much for your excellent call to action, based on sound systemic analysis. You said: > I feel certain that we simply have no time to wait. We do not >have years to make critical decisions, only months, and I will repeat >this sense of urgency a thousand times if it will help. >... > I am sure that only a coalition of courageous peoples from >different sectors, from different countries can give humanity a chance >not to return to the Dark Ages with its murders, wars and plagues. I am pleased to inform you that there are people who agree with you, who have made a similar analysis, and who have launched precisely the coalition you envision. I sincerely hope you will align your energy and vision with our initiative. I have taken the libery of subscribing you to our the coalition's networking list, which includes people from all over the world: renaissance-network@cyberjournal.org It is easy to unsubscribe, just send a blank message to: renaissance-network-unsubscribe@cyberjournal.org and equally easy to subscribe, with a blank message to: renaissance-network-subscribe@cyberjournal.org Please visit our website to find out all about us: http://cyberjournal.org As a secondary issue, I must differ with part of your analysis. You say... >In their book "Beyond the Limits" published in 1992 they repeated >their calculations and confirmed that no significant changes occured >during the past 20 years and the development of the world economy is >still coinciding with the computer projections stated in "Limits to >Growth". There is a problem with using linear projections in this way, and that is they discount the ability of those who control the system from responding intelligently (from their perspective). There _have been significant changes in the past 20 years, but they have been changes of _political _control, the consolidation of the reins of power into the hands of the capitalist elite. It is not _yet in the interests of the elite to moderate the destructive impact of traditional capitalist enterprise: it serves the important purpose of furthering the destabilization of the nation-state world system. This centuries-old world system is "thesis", globalization is "antithesis", but "synthesis" is _not, I suggest, to be total systemic collapse. There are those who considered the Great Depression of the thirties a `collapse' and a `disaster', but for the banks who grabbed up agricultural land at bargain prices, and the warmongers who engineered WW-II out of the chaos, it served a very useful purpose. The standard marxist assumption that capitalism must, based on its own premises, finally collapse, turns out to be also be based on a false linear extrapolation, and fails to take into account the actual experience of latter-day capitalism. That latter-day phenomenon is exemplified by the petroleum industry, which long ago reached its essential global limits. Instead of collapse, it transitioned from competitive capitalism into fraternal market collaboration among the seven-sister majors. One might say the actual capitalist endgame is a return to a kind of feudalism, with the capitalist elite in the old role held by kings, popes, and landed aristocracies. The same endgame is now being played out in every major market segment, under globalization, as market after market comes under the dominion of cliques of global mega-operators, who only compete marginally. Finally, allow me to share this recently published article, which you may find of interest... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) To: cyberjournal@cpsr.org Subject: PPI-017-rkm essay> Destroy & Rebuild -- The story of the global economy PEOPLES PRESS INTERNATIONAL (PPI) - a public service of CADRE (Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance) - Destroy & Rebuild -- The story of the global economy (c) Richard K. Moore, 1998 cadre home page -> http://cyberjournal.org PPI home page -> http://cyberjournal.org/cadre/PPI-archives cadre library -> http://cyberjournal.org/cadre/cadre-library - Republication permission granted for non-commercial and small-press use, with all sig & header info incorporated (somehow), please. 017-rkm-destroy-and-rebuild.txt ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Destroy & Rebuild -- The story of the global economy (c) Richard K. Moore, 1998 The standard pattern of capitalist development, repeated fractally at every scale of operations, and througout the past two centuries, is `Destroy and Rebuild'. You can see this when an area is demolished to make room for a shopping center. What was a collection of residences, or whatever, suddenly becomes transformed into a reliable revenue-stream for the development-investors. Or a forest with wildlife becomes transformed into a sterile mono- culture `tree farm', with much higher board-foot per acre per year yields. Or the Great Plains and Western US, from whence the Indians and the Buffalo were `cleared' for the grandest single development program ever undertaken (ie, the USA), prior to globalization itself. You can see this very same pattern in the former Soviet realm, where economies and infrastructures are being razed to the ground, forced by Western intentional policies, overt and covert, so that a new international-capital friendly regime can be established -- and who gives a damn about whatever human suffering might occur during the transition. `Destroy and Rebuild' applies to plots of land, markets, technologies, industries, nations, and as well to international arrangements. Bretton Woods, together with the US gold standard, created an extremely stable and sound international financial regime in the postwar era -- nothing's ever perfect but that was a damn good job. A primary characteristic of this system was that nations enjoyed relatively stable currencies (if their policies were sound) and could keep control over their economies. At some point an elite decision was made in capitalist circles that this regime was insufficiently profitable -- national economic policies were too restrictive of capital investments by the international investor community. There followed a series of destabilizing measures -- the `Destroy' phase: - US goes off gold standard - safe havens for unaccountable financial transactions (in truth money laundering operations) setup in Bahamas, Panama, and elsewhere - erosion, by deep & well-funded lobbying, of regulations on financial transactions across borders In fact, this was the beginning of the overt globalization process, beginning well in advance of the public coming-out-of-the-closet of neoliberalism, with Reagan and Thatcher as standard bearers, c. 1980. We are still in the very midst, the climax even, of the `Destroy phase' regarding the international financial system. As a matter of fact, the international financial system, under the guidance and with the direct participation of the elite-controlled IMF, has become a highly tuned instrument for the destabilization of national and regional economies, as we have seen in Brazil, Mexico, etc, and most recently in South East Asia, and soon-to-come in Japan. What we are seeing is a sequence of search-and-destroy operations being carried out against any economy which has any quality of local or regional integrity, which embodies any semblance of local optimization for local advantage -- the globalization vision is that all econonomies everywhere lie prone on their backs ready for consentual rape by passing capital investors -- `competitiveness' means that the nations should dress-up sexy so as to be more attractive to the capital-investor community. These intentional destabilization raids will continue, and when they cross the Rubicon into the USA and Europe, they will _suddenly be _perceived (ie, characterized in the media) as a _serious problem that _something must be done about. Then pundits will all-at-once realize that a more stable international financial system is needed and _lo and _behold a plan will be all ready for adoption! Such wonderful serendipity! And guess who will administer this marvelous just-in-time solution? That will be the WTO, or some other acronymical-bureaucracy equally dominated by `public-spirited staffers' from the TNC sector. So in the end financial stability will be `rebuilt', as is the standard final phase of every capitalist development project. We started with a stable Bretton-Woods, nation-centered regieme, it was `destroyed' by a sequence of measures, and we'll end up with a `rebuilt' regime which is elite-centered. The world economy has been razed so that it can be turned into a shopping mall for the capitalist elite, where they can conveniently go shopping for bargains among the world's various `markets', each of whom is expected to `compete' on the basis of its seductiveness to capital. rkm ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - - - "Seeking an Effective Democratic Response to Globalization and Corporate Power" - - - - an international workshop for activist leaders - *>---> June 25 July 2 - 1998 - Nova Scotia - Canada - - - Restore democratic sovereignty Create a sane and livable world Bring corporate globalization under control. * CITIZENS FOR A DEMOCRATIC RENAISSANCE (CADRE) * http://cyberjournal.org mailto:cadre@cyberjournal.org - - - To join PPI/cyberjournal, simply send: To: listserv@cpsr.org Subject: (ignored) sub cyberjournal John Q. Doe <-- your name there - - - To leave PPI/cyberjornal, simply send: To: listserv@cpsr.org Subject: (ignored) unsub cyberjournal From PAT.LAUDERDALE@ASU.Edu Tue Apr 28 08:33:56 1998 From: PAT.LAUDERDALE@ASU.Edu 28 Apr 1998 07:33:49 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 07:33:49 -0700 (MST) Subject: re: Implications of the "Business-As-Usual" Scenario (was: `please forward') In-reply-to: To: "Richard K. Moore" Your argument is interesting, however, I doubt that you need the "Dark Ages" strawperson/strawthing. If you examine history written by people such as Vine Deloria, Jr. or James Riding In, you will find that the Dark Ages were quite Light. Sensational depictions of murders, wars and plagues are the cosmetic halloween masks of old mainstream history---used to frighten us in contemporary times or to minimize current problems. >From that old historical view, Druids were atavistic, yet AIDS or cancer, or any new plague will be solved via modern technology. Incidentally, as you imply, the "Dark Ages" also seem to have been quite Light for indigenous peoples, especially for those who had not been colonized. But, of course, this issue is very complex. In general, this is not to say that the 20th century is the best of times, or the worst of times. And, the same goes for the ostensible "Dark" Ages. On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, Richard K. Moore wrote: > > Sviatoslav Zabelin > Goldman Environmental Prize winner-93 > Co-chairman of the Council of > Socio-Ecological Union, International > E-mail: svet@glasnet.ru > P.O.Box 211 Moscow 121019 Russia > > Dear Sviatoslav, > > Thank you very much for your excellent call to action, based on sound > systemic analysis. > > You said: > > I feel certain that we simply have no time to wait. We do not > >have years to make critical decisions, only months, and I will repeat > >this sense of urgency a thousand times if it will help. > >... > > I am sure that only a coalition of courageous peoples from > >different sectors, from different countries can give humanity a chance > >not to return to the Dark Ages with its murders, wars and plagues. > > I am pleased to inform you that there are people who agree with you, who > have made a similar analysis, and who have launched precisely the coalition > you envision. I sincerely hope you will align your energy and vision with > our initiative. I have taken the libery of subscribing you to our the > coalition's networking list, which includes people from all over the world: > renaissance-network@cyberjournal.org > > It is easy to unsubscribe, just send a blank message to: > renaissance-network-unsubscribe@cyberjournal.org > and equally easy to subscribe, with a blank message to: > renaissance-network-subscribe@cyberjournal.org > > Please visit our website to find out all about us: > http://cyberjournal.org > > > As a secondary issue, I must differ with part of your analysis. You say... > >In their book "Beyond the Limits" published in 1992 they repeated > >their calculations and confirmed that no significant changes occured > >during the past 20 years and the development of the world economy is > >still coinciding with the computer projections stated in "Limits to > >Growth". > > There is a problem with using linear projections in this way, and that is > they discount the ability of those who control the system from responding > intelligently (from their perspective). There _have been significant > changes in the past 20 years, but they have been changes of _political > _control, the consolidation of the reins of power into the hands of the > capitalist elite. > > It is not _yet in the interests of the elite to moderate the destructive > impact of traditional capitalist enterprise: it serves the important > purpose of furthering the destabilization of the nation-state world system. > This centuries-old world system is "thesis", globalization is > "antithesis", but "synthesis" is _not, I suggest, to be total systemic > collapse. > > There are those who considered the Great Depression of the thirties a > `collapse' and a `disaster', but for the banks who grabbed up agricultural > land at bargain prices, and the warmongers who engineered WW-II out of the > chaos, it served a very useful purpose. > > The standard marxist assumption that capitalism must, based on its own > premises, finally collapse, turns out to be also be based on a false linear > extrapolation, and fails to take into account the actual experience of > latter-day capitalism. That latter-day phenomenon is exemplified by the > petroleum industry, which long ago reached its essential global limits. > > Instead of collapse, it transitioned from competitive capitalism into > fraternal market collaboration among the seven-sister majors. One might > say the actual capitalist endgame is a return to a kind of feudalism, with > the capitalist elite in the old role held by kings, popes, and landed > aristocracies. The same endgame is now being played out in every major > market segment, under globalization, as market after market comes under the > dominion of cliques of global mega-operators, who only compete marginally. > > Finally, allow me to share this recently published article, which you may > find of interest... > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 > From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) > To: cyberjournal@cpsr.org > Subject: PPI-017-rkm essay> Destroy & Rebuild -- The story of the global economy > > > PEOPLES PRESS INTERNATIONAL (PPI) > - a public service of CADRE (Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance) - > > Destroy & Rebuild -- > The story of the global economy > (c) Richard K. Moore, 1998 > > cadre home page -> http://cyberjournal.org > PPI home page -> http://cyberjournal.org/cadre/PPI-archives > cadre library -> http://cyberjournal.org/cadre/cadre-library > > - Republication permission granted for > non-commercial and small-press use, > with all sig & header info incorporated (somehow), please. > 017-rkm-destroy-and-rebuild.txt > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Destroy & Rebuild -- > The story of the global economy > (c) Richard K. Moore, 1998 > > > The standard pattern of capitalist development, repeated fractally at > every scale of operations, and througout the past two centuries, is > `Destroy and Rebuild'. You can see this when an area is demolished to > make room for a shopping center. What was a collection of residences, > or whatever, suddenly becomes transformed into a reliable revenue-stream > for the development-investors. > > Or a forest with wildlife becomes transformed into a sterile mono- > culture `tree farm', with much higher board-foot per acre per year > yields. Or the Great Plains and Western US, from whence the Indians and > the Buffalo were `cleared' for the grandest single development program > ever undertaken (ie, the USA), prior to globalization itself. > > You can see this very same pattern in the former Soviet realm, where > economies and infrastructures are being razed to the ground, forced by > Western intentional policies, overt and covert, so that a new > international-capital friendly regime can be established -- and who > gives a damn about whatever human suffering might occur during the > transition. > > `Destroy and Rebuild' applies to plots of land, markets, technologies, > industries, nations, and as well to international arrangements. > > Bretton Woods, together with the US gold standard, created an extremely > stable and sound international financial regime in the postwar era -- > nothing's ever perfect but that was a damn good job. > > A primary characteristic of this system was that nations enjoyed > relatively stable currencies (if their policies were sound) and could > keep control over their economies. > > At some point an elite decision was made in capitalist circles that this > regime was insufficiently profitable -- national economic policies were > too restrictive of capital investments by the international investor > community. > > There followed a series of destabilizing measures -- the `Destroy' > phase: > - US goes off gold standard > - safe havens for unaccountable financial transactions (in truth > money laundering operations) setup in Bahamas, Panama, and > elsewhere > - erosion, by deep & well-funded lobbying, of regulations on > financial transactions across borders > > In fact, this was the beginning of the overt globalization process, > beginning well in advance of the public coming-out-of-the-closet of > neoliberalism, with Reagan and Thatcher as standard bearers, c. 1980. > > We are still in the very midst, the climax even, of the `Destroy phase' > regarding the international financial system. As a matter of fact, the > international financial system, under the guidance and with the direct > participation of the elite-controlled IMF, has become a highly tuned > instrument for the destabilization of national and regional economies, > as we have seen in Brazil, Mexico, etc, and most recently in South East > Asia, and soon-to-come in Japan. > > What we are seeing is a sequence of search-and-destroy operations being > carried out against any economy which has any quality of local or > regional integrity, which embodies any semblance of local optimization > for local advantage -- the globalization vision is that all econonomies > everywhere lie prone on their backs ready for consentual rape by passing > capital investors -- `competitiveness' means that the nations should > dress-up sexy so as to be more attractive to the capital-investor > community. > > These intentional destabilization raids will continue, and when they > cross the Rubicon into the USA and Europe, they will _suddenly be > _perceived (ie, characterized in the media) as a _serious problem that > _something must be done about. > > Then pundits will all-at-once realize that a more stable international > financial system is needed and _lo and _behold a plan will be all ready > for adoption! Such wonderful serendipity! > > And guess who will administer this marvelous just-in-time solution? > That will be the WTO, or some other acronymical-bureaucracy equally > dominated by `public-spirited staffers' from the TNC sector. > > So in the end financial stability will be `rebuilt', as is the standard > final phase of every capitalist development project. We started with a > stable Bretton-Woods, nation-centered regieme, it was `destroyed' by a > sequence of measures, and we'll end up with a `rebuilt' regime which is > elite-centered. > > The world economy has been razed so that it can be turned into a > shopping mall for the capitalist elite, where they can conveniently go > shopping for bargains among the world's various `markets', each of whom > is expected to `compete' on the basis of its seductiveness to capital. > > rkm > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > - - - > "Seeking an Effective Democratic > Response to Globalization > and Corporate Power" > - - - > - an international workshop for activist leaders - > *>---> June 25 July 2 - 1998 - Nova Scotia - Canada > - - - > Restore democratic sovereignty > Create a sane and livable world > Bring corporate globalization under control. > * CITIZENS FOR A DEMOCRATIC RENAISSANCE (CADRE) * > http://cyberjournal.org > mailto:cadre@cyberjournal.org > - - - > To join PPI/cyberjournal, simply send: > To: listserv@cpsr.org > Subject: (ignored) > sub cyberjournal John Q. Doe <-- your name there > - - - > To leave PPI/cyberjornal, simply send: > To: listserv@cpsr.org > Subject: (ignored) > unsub cyberjournal > > > > From rkmoore@iol.ie Tue Apr 28 10:08:39 1998 Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 17:08:19 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: re: Implications of the "Business-As-Usual" Scenario (was: `please forward') ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4/28/98, PAT.LAUDERDALE@ASU.Edu wrote: >Your argument is interesting, however, I doubt that you need the "Dark >Ages" strawperson/strawthing. If you examine history written by people >such as Vine Deloria, Jr. or James Riding In, you will find that the Dark >Ages were quite Light. Sensational depictions of murders, wars and >plagues are the cosmetic halloween masks of old mainstream history---used >to frighten us in contemporary times or to minimize current problems. >>From that old historical view, Druids were atavistic, yet AIDS or cancer, >or any new plague will be solved via modern technology. > >Incidentally, as you imply, the "Dark Ages" also seem to have been quite >Light for indigenous peoples, especially for those who had not been >colonized. But, of course, this issue is very complex. > >In general, this is not to say that the 20th century is the best of times, >or the worst of times. And, the same goes for the ostensible "Dark" Ages. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pat gives us a most remarkable thesis indeed. First of all, he seems to be accepting the hypothesis, without actually ackowledging the fact, that the endgame of of capitalism is likely to be a return to a neo-feudalism, or Dark Ages. This would be a rather extreme degree of agreement with myself and with Sviatoslav Zabelin, quite counter to the points of view typical on this list, and it might be helpful for Pat to be more explicit about his stand on this. As stated his post _seems to be a _disagreement, rather than a 95% (so to speak) _agreement with our analysis. Second, he refers to such a dark-ages-scenario as a "strawthing" and goes on to describe the Dark Ages as being "quite Light". In fact, I agree with him that `old mainstream history' is mainly propaganda as regards the Dark Ages, but that doesn't mean they are something it would desirable to return to, nor that a post-capitalist version would be desirable. The main characteristic of the Dark Ages, from my perspective, was that it was a Dark Ages of thought - under the brutal thumb of a harsh theocracy, which had no qualms about massacring ideological dissenters (eg. Albigensian and other `heresies'). The current elite has a similar morality, except that ideology plays no real role: those whose societies do not generate sufficient elite profits are the ones exterminated, as in East Timor, American Old West, Sub-Saharan Africa, etc, and sometimes they are labelled "marxist" or "heathens" and sometimes not, depending on other circumstances. rkm