From rkmoore@iol.ie Mon Jun 1 07:08:59 1998 Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:07:00 +0100 To: Gunder Frank From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Re: ReORIENT thesis - an objection JONATHAN FRIEDMAN , Carolyn Ballard , jslakov@TartanNET.ns.ca (Jan Slakov), wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network), philofhi@yorku.ca (philosophy of history) Dear Gunder, We've had earlier correspondence on your ReORIENT thesis, but I was not satisfied with how we left things. The quote below, from your recent widely-publicised announcement provides the context I need to make my point... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5/31/98, Gunder Frank wrote: > > R e O R I E N T : > G L O B A L E C O N O M Y I N T H E A S I A N A G E > [University of California Press, May/June 1998] > by > Andre Gunder Frank >AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT >This book outlines and analyzes the global economy and its sectoral >and regional division of labor and cyclical dynamic from 1400 to >1800. The evidence and argument are that within this global economy >Asians and particularly Chinese were preponderant, no more >"traditional" than Europeans, and in fact largely far less so. ------ >Europe took advantage of this world economic opportunity >through import substitution, export promotion and technological >change to become Newly Industrializing Economies after 1800, as is >again happening today in East Asia. That region is now REgaining its >'traditional' dominance in the global economy, with the Chinese >'Middle Kingdom' again at its 'center.' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have no problem with your analysis of the period 1400 to 1800, in fact I'm not qualified to comment, and even my sincere praise of your bold originality is not well-enough informed to be worth these bytes that express it. Where I have a serious objection is when you say: >That region is now Regaining its >'traditional' dominance in the global economy, with the Chinese >'Middle Kingdom' again at its 'center.' OK, I can easily go along with the thesis that there is some kind of `dynamism', or whatever, in Asia that would, if things were left to their `natural devices', lead to a global dominance by Asia. I can even believe that your book documents this dynamism and shows its historical roots. In fact, the existence of this tendency toward Asian power is rather obvious from more recent history, without reference to the earlier era. What must be noted, however, are the specific Western response to this tendency. Allow me to briefly review a few well-known historical `incidents' to illustrate what I mean... 1) Opium War. We had a situation where Britain was importing more tea than could balance its exports to China. In other words, China's natural economic dominance was beginning to display itself, as you `predicted'. But what happened? A specific act of _agency is what happened! Q. Victoria launched a specific imperialist war to achieve a specific enonomic objective: by forcing China to import opium, a mechanism was created that reversed the balance of payments and allowed the West to retain its economic dominance for another century. 2) WW-2. This time Japan was the focus of Asian power stirrings. Japan's dynamism allowed it to create a world-class industrial base, a navy that could challenge the US Navy, and an economic sphere that rivaled those of the Western great powers. Gunder - this _was the emergence of the "'traditional' dominance" that you describe! It has _already happened! And what was the Western response? The response was again a specific and decisive act of _agency. The Western powers made the decision to suppress this uprising, rather than welocme Japan as another great imperial power. This led to the `Pacific Theater' in WW-2, the destruction of Japan, and the systematic rebuilding of Japan in such a way that it became a player in the Western-controlled imperial system, able to compete econom- ically, but not able to participate in geopolitial management. 3) Containment of Red China. Again we had a situation where an Asian power was declaring its independence of Western hegemony, and aiming to assert itself. The _agent response in this case was military, economic, and technological containment, which succeeded in keeping China's influence and economic power down for decades. 4) SE-Asian currency crisis. Again an Asian power-nexus developed in Asia, this time the `tiger economies' of SE Asia. And again this uprising was squelched by Western agency, this time by pulling out investments precipitously and systematically rebuilding the economic and social structures under the guiding hand of the IMF (dominated by the same Western banking interests that control the international financial system and who pulled the plug on the tigers). What took MacCarthur, so to speak, a gener- ation to accomplish in Japan is being done in a fortnight by the IMF in SE Asia. And recent developments indicate Japan itself may be brought to its knees in the same way, and of course it will be re-programmed in the same way by the IMF. 5) The coming confrontation with China. China is gearing up to establish itself as Asian hegemon. It has said as much, it has asserted its `right', and it is launching on a `leap-frog' military upgrade, aimed especially at neutralizing the flagship of the US Navy, the carrier task force. In the meantime, the US is racing to upgrade its C4 warfare technology to enable it to overcome whatever the Chinese are able to come up with, gain `control of theater', and do to China what it did to Iraq. The strategic key to this coming confrontation is _tempo, and in that regard all the cards are held by the West. At the current moment the US could readily `win', under some definition of `acceptable losses', a military confrontation with China. So beginning now, the US can track Chinese developments, monitor its own progress with C4 deployment, and _choose the moment of conflict to its own advantage, never allowing China to get to the point where it might `win'. The US-engineered India-Pakistan conflict can be viewed as `keeping the pot simmering' vis a vis US plans for decisive intervention in Asia. So there you have it. The power struggle between Asia and the West has been going on uninterrupted since 1800. The natural dynamism of Asia has demonstrated itself time and time again, and always the West has used its specific advantages of the moment to keep Asia down and to systematically intervene in Asian arrangements so as to overcome the natural dynamics and re-channel them to permit continued Western hegemony. Imperialism is kind of like setting up an irrigation system, only instead of moving water to irrigate deserts, you move wealth from where it is created to those who control the canals. I therefore find the following statement highly misleading and in urgent need of retraction or substantial refinment: >That region is now Regaining its >'traditional' dominance in the global economy, with the Chinese >'Middle Kingdom' again at its 'center.' This is not at all a minor point. When one reads your AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT, this claim about a coming rise of Asia is in fact the climax of your presentation, literally the last sentence. You are in fact _selling your book on the basis of its supposed relevance to current affairs! There is indeed a relevance, Asian dyanmism is part of the equation, but your predicted `rise' has been occurring ever since 1800, has been systematically managed and controlled by the West, and this regime promises to continue indefinitely, just as has the domination of what we euphemistically call the Third World, most of which, as Parenti points out, should be `naturally' quite wealthy and prosperous. Sorry to be so confrontational about all this, but I just _hate it when knowledgeable people sell mumbo jumbo disinformation to the masses. rkm cadre@cyberjournal.org http://cyberjournal.org From dredmond@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Mon Jun 1 13:51:52 1998 Date: Mon, 01 Jun 1998 12:51:48 -0700 (PDT) From: Dennis R Redmond Subject: Re: ReORIENT thesis - an objection In-reply-to: To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Richard K. Moore wrote: > 4) SE-Asian currency crisis. Again an Asian power-nexus developed > in Asia, this time the `tiger economies' of SE Asia. And again > this uprising was squelched by Western agency, this time by > pulling out investments precipitously and systematically > rebuilding the economic and social structures under the guiding > hand of the IMF (dominated by the same Western banking interests > that control the international financial system and who pulled the > plug on the tigers). What took MacCarthur, so to speak, a gener- > ation to accomplish in Japan is being done in a fortnight by > the IMF in SE Asia. And recent developments indicate Japan itself > may be brought to its knees in the same way, and of course it > will be re-programmed in the same way by the IMF. Oh? Japan is the world's biggest creditor, my friend ($1 trillion in net assets and counting); the US is the world's biggest debtor. Japan has been buying Godzilla-sized quantities of T-bills during the 1990s, keeping US interest rates low and enabling Wall Street to run riot in one of the great financial manias of world history. Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong are efficient exporters and sit on a mountain of foreign exchange reserves. The sick tigers are mostly Second World countries, who went under thanks to rampant currency inflows and deregulation (Indonesia and Thailand had very weak developmental states, South Korea caught a bad case of the neoliberal virus in the early Nineties and deregulated everything in sight, and is paying for its hubris). The rest of the tigers have drawn the appropriate conclusions from the whole mess, and are mostly reregulating and increasing state supervision of the economy. Also, SE Asia is being bailed out not by American banks, who own surprisingly little of SE Asia's debt (see the BIS at www.bis.org for the details on this), but by Japanese and European banks. The American rentiers can rant and rave all they like, but the fact remains that their ass is *owned* by the EU-East Asian co-hegemons. -- Dennis From p34d3611@jhu.edu Mon Jun 1 21:34:18 1998 by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 1998 23:33:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Peter Grimes Subject: Globalization under attack...or not (fwd) To: WSN >GLOBALISATION UNDER ATTACK... OR NOT > >While there appears to be a difference in the way non-governmental >organisations in the North and those in the South view >globalisation and ways of dealing with it, some activists believe >that globalisation has forced people in developed and developing >countries into 'a common condition of exclusion', with 'grounds for >a new solidarity'. > > >By John Madeley > >Geneva: It is commonly assumed that non-governmental >organisations, unlike governments, work together - or that they >should. But they seem to stand divided - right down the middle - >over the issue of how to deal with globalisation. >Recently, NGOs from Africa, Asia and Latin America stole the show >from their counterparts based in affluent Northern countries by >convening a conference in Geneva to highlight the impact of free >trade. In addition, a debate on globalisation dominated NGO events >in London for the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM-2) in April 1998. >The aim of the Geneva meet was plain from its title - the 1st >Conference of Peoples' Global Action Against Free Trade and the >World Trade Organisation. It sought to allow peoples' movements >from all continents to pool into 'worldwide resistance against >globalisation' and build up local alternatives. >It was convened by groups that included Movimento Sem Terra in >Brazil, the Karnataka State Farmers' Association of India, the >Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, Nigeria, the Peasant >Movement of the Philippines, the Central Sandinista de >Trabajadores, Nicaragua, and the Indigenous Women's Network, based >in North America and the Pacific. >>From the North, a Spanish-based organisation - Play Fair Europe! - >played an important role in organising the conference in the city >that houses the World Trade Organisation. >But the North's mainstream development NGOs stayed away, possibly >deterred by pre-conference publicity which said that a hallmark of >the global alliance would be a 'confrontational attitude, i.e. >fundamental opposition to the world trading system, since we do not >think lobbying can have a major impact'. Lobbying is at the centre >of most Northern NGO campaigns. >The depth of the South's feeling against globalisation - the world >as a single market - was considerable in the Geneva meet. >'Globalisation is destroying millions of livelihoods,' said Sarath >Fernando of the Movement for National Land and Agricultural Reform >in Sri Lanka. 'The alternative is for us to fight back for our >survival.' >Farmers from India spoke of how globalisation has led to lower >tariff barriers on food imports into India, and that the increase >in these imports was affecting their livelihoods. >'We want to tell the governments that they are destroying humanity >with these policies,' said Alejandro Demichelis, of the >Confederation of Education Workers, Argentina. >There was nonetheless a wide range of views among the 300 >participants about lobbying and confrontation. The strategies >appear to stem from analyses of the globalisation process itself - >activists who think it can be reversed want to confront it; others >favour alternatives. >'The process of economic globalisation is irreversible,' said a >Filipino participant, Clarissa Balan, of the World Student >Christian Federation. 'We can develop an alternative, parallel >trading system that is fairer than the main system. If people will >spend their money on fairly traded products, then this type of >trade could be a real challenge to globalisation.' >A manifesto, agreed by the participants, spoke of the need to >revive traditional knowledge systems and strengthen local market >systems 'by developing producer-consumer linkages and >cooperatives'. Only a global alliance of people's movements, it >says, can implement action-orientated alternatives that can stop >globalisation. >The manifesto calls for direct confrontation with transnational >corporations, and stresses that 'direct democratic action' against >globalisation should be combined with the constructive building of >alternative and sustainable lifestyles. >It also says that 'democratic action carries with it the essence of >non-violent civil disobedience to the unjust system'. >Many participants believed that non-violent civil disobedience was >one way of fighting back against the 'undemocratic nature' of the >globalisation process. 'Even democratically elected governments >have been implementing policies of the globalisation of poverty >without debate among their own peoples or their elected >representatives,' the manifesto says. >Civil disobedience against globalisation is already happening in >both the North and South. In India, farmers have burnt imported >foodstuff in protest against an increase in food imports - just as >Indian freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi torched British-made clothes >in the 1940s. >In France, 120 members of the French Peasant Confederation forced >their way into a Novartis factory recently to denature transgenic >maize seeds in protest against a government decision to allow the >cultivation of this maize. During the action, the modified seeds >were mixed up with non-modified varieties. >In Britain too, small 'direct action groups' have been staging >imaginative protests against such globalisation-linked issues as >genetic engineering in food products and the proposed Multilateral >Agreement on Investment (MAI) that is aimed at easing the path of >Northern private investments into developing countries. >While issues such as the MAI are as yet little understood, the >movement is broadening in Britain - ordinary people are getting >involved as genetically-modified food is widely seen as a health >hazard. >Signs of a North-South NGO divide were apparent at the London >meetings to coincide with the Asia-Europe summit - held in the >backdrop of the financial crisis in Asia that is blamed by many >NGOs on the global free movement of financial capital. >Several activists disagreed with Britain's International >Development minister Clare Short's assessment that 'globalisation >is unstoppable - the genie is out of the bottle. If we demand that >it stop, it will not.' >Martin Khor of the Penang-based Third World Network replied: >'Globalisation is not something that has dropped from heaven. It >is not inevitable; it is made by human beings taking decisions in >rich countries. We can change those rules - in the WTO, in the >World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.' >An eight-page document brought out by the NGO event and presented >to British Premier Tony Blair avoids mentioning the word >globalisation altogether. >Andy Rutherford of the British NGO One World Action, who helped >author the document, said: 'It is not a question of evading >globalisation. The debate on whether globalisation is good or bad >is a disempowering debate. We have to go beyond those comments. >Our aim is to constructively engage with leaders in Asia and >Europe.' >Khor said if a similar NGO event had been held in the developing >world, 'I suspect the outcome would have been different. The >language would have been more pointed, very clear, more critical of >globalisation. For those of us living in the developing world, >globalisation is a dirty word. Here (in the North), it is a >positive word.' >However, Vandana Shiva, a well-known Indian activist on >agricultural, food and environmental issues, points out that >globalisation has forced people in both the North and the South >into 'a common condition of exclusion'. >'It's the first time that Northern citizens have experienced this >- it's a situation we have always experienced, and we now have >grounds for a new solidarity,' she says. - Third World Network >Features/PANOS >-ends- > >About the writer: John Madeley is a British development journalist >and editor of International Agricultural Development. The above >first appeared as a Panos Feature (30 April 1998). > >When reproducing this feature, please credit Third World Network >Features and (if applicable) the cooperating magazine or agency >involved in the article, and give the byline. Please send us >cuttings. >Third World Network is also accessible on the World Wide Web. >Please visit our web site at http://www.twnside.org.sg > >For more information, please contact: >Third World Network >228, Macalister Road, 10400 Penang, Malaysia. >Email: twn@igc.apc.org; twnpen@twn.po.my >Tel: (+604)2293511,2293612 & 2293713; >Fax: (+604)2298106 & 2264505 > > >1752/98 Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide Washington Office & Affiliate 6617 Millwood Road, Bethesda, MD 20817 301.320.4034; fax 301.320.4534 email wkatzfishman@igc.apc.org http://www.peacenet.org/projectsouth/ From austria@it.com.pl Tue Jun 2 02:14:29 1998 Tue, 2 Jun 1998 10:05:07 +0200 (MET DST) Tue, 2 Jun 1998 10:04:54 +0200 (MET DST) Reply-To: From: "Austrian Embassy" To: Subject: The nuclear arms race in South Asia - Pakistani/Austrian publication Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 10:11:31 +0200 I would like to draw your attention to a publication, which appeared 1987 with Izharsons Publishing company, 19, Urdu Bazar, Lahore, Pakistan, entitled Security for the Weak Nations. A Multiple Perspective, A Joint Project of Pakistani and Austrian Scholars Editors Syed Farooq Hasnat (Punjab University, Lahore, Department of Political Science) and Anton Pelinka (Innsbruck University) It carries excellent articles which, by now have become prophetic, on the nuclear option for Pakistan etc. The book can be regarded as an interesting, although by now politically failed attempt to search for an alternative security policy in South Asia, based on such concepts as defensive military doctrines, neutrality, non-alignement etc. Kindest regards Arno From dgreen@UDel.Edu Tue Jun 2 08:10:06 1998 Tue, 2 Jun 1998 10:09:30 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 10:09:29 -0400 (EDT) From: Daniel M Green To: Austrian Embassy Subject: Re: The nuclear arms race in South Asia Does the India/Pakistan arms race mean that John Mearsheimer was right about a return to multipolarity after the Cold War? There have been several articles in the press lately about the complete eclipse of America, our complete inability to persuade France, Russia, China to do almost anything. Unipolarity lasted from 1990 to January 1998? I wonder what shape hegemonic economic liberalism will take if true multilateralism paralyzes one of its biggest proponents (the US)? Or has neoliberalism already entrenched itself sufficiently to be immune to failed agency? It will be very interesting if an economic nationalist/isolationist Republican wins the 2000 presidential election. Some thoughts...now that the semester's finally over. Daniel Green Dept. of Political Science University of Delaware From dasmith@orion.oac.uci.edu Wed Jun 3 00:17:24 1998 Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 23:17:15 -0700 (PDT) From: David Smith To: world-system network Subject: (korea) Korea Letter Wed Jun 3 (fwd) Thought the following article, excerpted from a thing called KOREA LETTER (it takes reports from Seoul newspapers, the one that follows is from the English-language daily, THE KOREA HERALD), might be of interest. It illustrates the "wonders" of "globalization"! David A. Smith Sociology, UC-Irvine ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 06:38:32 -0600 From: The Korea Letter Reply-To: korea@lists.xmission.com To: korea@xmission.com Subject: (korea) Korea Letter Wed Jun 3 THE KOREA LETTER Thursday, Jun 3, 1998 KST ---------------------------- Reports copyrighted by publishing organizations. ENGLISH PRESS REPORTS ...... KOREA HERALD ...... Average Koreans Sympathize with Trade Union Struggling for More Equality By John Sullivan Staff reporter The Korean government may have good reasons for castigating its labor unions. While trying to improve Korea's image through social stability and flexibility in its labor market, the government has been continuously hounded by KCTU-led strikes that have caused foreign ratings agencies to downgrade credit levels, and caused millions of won in lost foreign investment. But what the government may fail to recognize is the point of view of the KCTU (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions). ``I never thought about joining a trade union, but now I am considering it,'' says an architect who asked to be identified by only his last name, Kim. In his company, all the employees were told to sign new contracts that allowed the company to make laying them off easier. Twenty-three employees were then asked to resign. Though the new labor laws stipulate businesses set up proper standards for layoffs, as well as taking ``every possible means'' to avoid them, social inequalities in the Korean workplace and society often make it difficult to resort to legal means in the case of abuse. Employers often demand resignations from their workers, and offer them severance payments much less than what they were expecting. If the employee chooses to challenge the resignation, then he must wait two months before an arbitration board decides whether or not the layoff is illegal. Because Korea has a much less legalistic culture than western countries, many workers shun legal remedies as the first method of resolving a conflict. Instead, the two parties involved settle on a remedy through negotiations among themselves. In most cases, the terms of resignation are usually negotiated and departure from the firm relatively nonproblematic, but abuses do exist. In one securities company, workers informed they would be laid off were forced to remain in a separate room away from other workers. The regular employees were then assigned to monitor them on a regular basis. ``If you got laid off,'' says Kim, ``they would take your I.D. away so you can't use the computers. And if the employee chooses to take the case to court, there is the fear that the process will be long and costly.'' Corporate culture in Korea is sometimes rigidly hierarchical with workers in lower positions having very little power. An employee at a securities firm in Yoido said that when his company tried to start up a trade union 10 years ago, the company put up strong resistance. When new people were hired the company would warn them that joining the unions would be unbeneficial. ``Eventually the union disappeared,'' he said. These undocumented but very real social realities are behind KCTU's resistance to unilateral economic reforms by the government. Addressing social inequalities during the process of economic restructuring, they argue, are as vital to maintaining a stable society as labor restraint. The divide in perception between business and government on one side and the KCTU on the other is marked by the government's breach of promises to protect worker's rights. ``There is a big problem with confidence in the government,'' says Yoon Young-mo, international secretary for the KCTU. Apart from stalling on many of the corporate reforms government promised, many businesses are abusing the layoff laws, he says. The organization already claims to have an expansive list of abuses in which severance payments were denied and companies unilaterally laid off hundreds of thousands of employees without worker consultation guaranteed by the law. The trade unions also point to consistent government waffling on the issue of mass layoffs. Despite President Kim Dae-jung's promise to the KCTU that he would ensure POSCO fulfill its obligation to protect workers when it took over Sammi Steel, 300 to 400 Sammi workers were laid off, Yoon points out. Social statistics also show that human suffering caused by economic restructuring is increasingly dramatic. In a recent report by a daily newspaper, the Hankyoreh Shinmun, suicides were reported to be almost twice that of traffic accident deaths between last December and March. About 43.1 percent of all the suicide victims, it said, were people who lost jobs, failed businesses, or suffered from psychological duress caused by Korea's economic crisis. When the unquantifiable effects of social inequalities and mass layoffs become countable, they argue, it may be too late. Though the public generally supports the KCTU's fight for equality in the workplace, many feel that their demands must wait. Scaring off foreign investors by creating social instability through labor strikes is unrealistic, say most observers. It may also destroy the very goals the trade unions seek: job security. Inequalities will have to be addressed, but only after the economy has been stabilized, they say. From chriscd@jhu.edu Wed Jun 3 14:45:50 1998 wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Wed, 03 Jun 1998 16:45:41 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 16:46:59 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: Re: The nuclear arms race in South Asia To: dgreen@UDel.Edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Dan Green wonders if multipolarity will return. It is likely to, but not right away. Real multipolarity means contending core powers with serious military capability. By the end of the next K-wave upswing ( in the 2020s) this kind of world could reemerge. It is a future that it would be better to avoid. Chris Chase-Dunn From rkmoore@iol.ie Wed Jun 3 19:22:16 1998 Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 02:21:52 +0100 To: dredmond@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Re: ReORIENT thesis - an objection I had written: > SE-Asian currency crisis. Again an Asian power-nexus developed > in Asia, this time the `tiger economies' of SE Asia. And again > this uprising was squelched by Western agency At 7:51 PM 6/01/98, Dennis R Redmond wrote: >Oh? Japan is the world's biggest creditor, my friend ($1 trillion in net >assets and counting); the US is the world's biggest debtor. Japan has been >buying Godzilla-sized quantities of T-bills during the 1990s, keeping US >interest rates low and enabling Wall Street to run riot in one of the >great financial manias of world history. Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong >are efficient exporters and sit on a mountain of foreign exchange >reserves. The sick tigers are mostly Second World countries, who went >under thanks to rampant currency inflows and deregulation (Indonesia and >Thailand had very weak developmental states, South Korea caught a bad case >of the neoliberal virus in the early Nineties and deregulated everything >in sight, and is paying for its hubris). The rest of the tigers have drawn >the appropriate conclusions from the whole mess, and are mostly >reregulating and increasing state supervision of the economy. Also, SE >Asia is being bailed out not by American banks, who own surprisingly >little of SE Asia's debt (see the BIS at www.bis.org for the details on >this), but by Japanese and European banks. The American rentiers >can rant and rave all they like, but the fact remains that their ass is >*owned* by the EU-East Asian co-hegemons. What planet, Dennis, have you recently arrived from? Perhaps an academic ivory tower? Unlike most neoliberal propaganda, I can't even find the grains of truth to sustain the line you've taken. To begin with, my claim about "Western agency" has nothing to do with the US as a nation, vis a vis SE Asia or Japan as nations. Western agency, while you've off planet hopping, has become concentrated in the capitalist elite, who now rule via their ownership of mass-media, their control of the international financial system, their all-powerful neoliberal bureacrices such as the IMF and the WTO, and their control over Western political machines. The "agent" behind Western "agency" is not Bill Clinton, it is the elite globalist regime. One almost hesitates to call it "Western" since capital is truly global, but the _institutions of globalism and most of the elite population are part of the matrix of US-Euro culture, and so it seems that under glboalization.... All nations are equal, but some are more equal than others. Four yen good, two dollars better. Contrary to your characterization, the whole thrust of the IMF `reforms' in S Korea et al are to _deregulate economies that were _too regulated and state-managed for the designs of the global neoliberal project. In case you haven't looked at the history, _all major economies, including that of the UK (imperial version) and the US (19th century) and Japan (postwar) were nurtured into prominence by protectionist policies. S Korea was no different. Have you read "The Global Trap"? A "mountain of reserves" turns out to be a scant defense in the face of `currency imperialism' or even `casino capitalism', and many deep pockets have regretted the attempt to post them as collateral against currency decline. The response of the Fed is often to simply `let it float' when the dollar is attacked, and no one ever hits the dollar that hard... do you know why? because the dollar is the preferred universal holding! The "mountain of foreign exchange" you allude to... I wonder, how much of that is in dollars? _That's where you can read the _real value of currencies. You do know, I assume, that the dollar is the standard currency in Russia. (just an anecdotal aside). How smug to say "South Korea...is paying for its hubris". I'd just love to see what you were publishing _prior to the Asian `meltdown'. The tigers were the universal darlings of the neoliberal establishment... admit it. Now after being raided by the machinations of the Western-dominated international financial scam, it is suddenly Korea's own fault. But of course this follows from neoliberal logic: A. The market is never wrong. B. Whatever the elite globalist institutions do is `in the name of the market'. C. The IMF reforms _must be prescriptions for Korea's sins. "It ain't necessarily so" -Cole Porter --- My primary objection to your whole way of framing things is the pretense that national economic competition is the primary operative dynamic in the global economy, as if the US was losing ground to the EU in some kind of economic dominance contest. The actual primary operative dynamic is the overthrow of the nation-state system by the centralized elite capitalist system. The repudiation of the Bretton Woods arrangements, the first decisive act of the neoliberal project, shifted the balance of global economic power from nations to the elite-owned international banking system, and we are now seeing the endgame as nations are selectively targetted for destablization and reprgramming under the auspices of the elite-controlled IMF. We saw it in Brazil, in Mexico, now in SE Asia, and Japan too is vulnerable, despite your adroit juggling of spreadsheet numbers to the contrary. I'll attach below a recent posting giving a more realistic and complex picture of the Japanese financial situation than exists in your abstract model. And then there are those reports of increasing homelessness all around Tokyo... rkm cadre@cyberjournal.org http://cyberjournal.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad (by way of Michael Eisenscher ) Subject: ASIA'S THREAT TO EVERYWHERE The Globe and Mail Report on Business Friday, May 29, 1998 ASIA'S THREAT TO EVERYWHERE By Peter Cook Let's start by sketching a truly global problem. In an attempt to pump life into its banks and economy, the Bank of Japan feels it must lower the cost of money and lower the yen. As the currency moves toward 200 yen to the U.S. dollar, a chain reaction sets in. First the South Koreans devalue. Then, the Chinese reluctantly let the renminbi go and, with it, end the Hong Kong dollar's fixed link to the U.S. dollar. Seeing this, other countries in the region feel that they must protect the competitive position of their economies, which leads to a number of forced, and unforced, devaluations and a renewed flight of capital. From there, we descend into the Asian Crisis, Part Two, a sequel that has many more spectacular special effects and disaster scenes than did Part One. As one grim side effect, investors in the West's towering stock markets are forced to think again about whether the future is quite so rosy. The result of their reassessment is that the previously benign effect of Asia Part One -- less inflation, low commodity prices, huge capital inflows, a strong U.S. dollar -- turns malign. Investors cannot get out of stocks fast enough and, in the time-honoured way of Great Crashes, panic in one place produces panic everywhere. What can be said about this "problem?" Not that it is fanciful because, in muted form, it has hurt Wall Street and European bourses and lifted demand for U.S. Treasuries in recent days. All that can be said is that it has not occurred yet. For Asia to recover from its first crisis, a number of things had to happen. Japan had to successfully stimulate its economy and thereby raise the level of demand for Asian goods and services. The IMF rescue packages in Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand had to be fully complied with and be effective enough to restore confidence, not precipitate fresh political crises and social unrest. And, most important, confidence had to be rebuilt sufficiently quickly so that foreign capital would flow in and local savings would not flow out. Five months after Mexico crashed in late 1994, the stock investor who had stayed put would have been 70 per cent richer; that has not been true anywhere in Asia. The result is that Asia is following an alternative scenario that puts it on course to go through all the unpleasant steps of deflation and devaluation listed above, but hopefully do it over enough time to avoid disaster. Japan is on the way to a cheap yen. Its economy is moribund, its central bank is engaged in surreptitiously monetizing commercial debt. China is doing everything to support and subsidize its industrial sector except devalue -- for now. Hong Kong is set to announce gloomy economic figures for the first quarter after already announcing that retail spending went down by a record amount. Meanwhile, total capital flows out of Asia are running at a seemingly unstoppable annual rate of $120-billion (U.S.), twice as fast as in 1997. Nor are they likely to slow down when Japanese long bonds yield 1.4 per cent while U.S. Treasuries stand at 5.8 per cent and Canadian 10-year government bonds at 5.5 per cent. These trends, and the overall deflationary track that Asia is on, suggest confidence will not come back unless and until currencies fall further. The only saving grace would be if they were to fall gradually, not suddenly. Gradualism is, to an extent, in the interests of the West. Wall Street took fright when U.S. News and World Report magazine suggested that U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was willing to see the Japanese yen go down if that was needed to save Japan's economy, and Mr. Rubin stepped in and denied it. But Washington does not mind a slowly depreciating yen or a stronger U.S. dollar because it is helpful at home. It is a painless way of slowing growth and cooling off a hot U.S. economy, allowing the Federal Reserve Board to hold off on raising rates. In Europe, much of the momentum behind this year's rally in stocks comes from the strength of the U.S. dollar and analysts' projections of what it will do to lift the profits of European multinationals. So a gentle descent is to be encouraged, while the yen going over a cliff, and dragging China, Hong Kong and the rest with it, is clearly not. Carry this message into financial markets and, unsurprisingly, it is a one- or two-day wonder. This week Wall Street got alarmed about Asia (and Mr. Rubin's alleged views) on a day when European bourses were in a happy mood, buoyed by news of a $12-billion Dutch-Belgian bank takeover and a record trading day in both Paris and Frankfurt. So Europe took a day to catch up with Wall Street's worries and only did so after Russia's ruble collapsed and Hong Kong's government warned its economy was in bad shape. Until now, the Asian contagion has been a some-time thing. Yes, Asia suffers. But when Asian deflation comes West, it takes the form of lower prices, higher capital inflows and a strong U.S. dollar, none of them unwelcome. Is this about to change? In the past few days, financial markets have been warning that it is. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From barendse@coombs.anu.edu.au Wed Jun 3 21:53:52 1998 Date: Thu, 04 Jun 1998 13:45:48 +1000 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: Dr Rene Barendse Subject: Re: ReORIENT thesis - an objection Regarding Richard K. Moore's posting on Gunder's remark: against Gunder's remark >That region (East Asia) is now Regaining its > >'traditional' dominance in the global economy, with the Chinese > >'Middle Kingdom' again at its 'center.' Now, I don't agree with Gunder on this either - it will still be a very, very long road for the Chinese economy to pass either that of the USA or the EU by - and I pretty much predict they'll stumble on the way. If there's one major power to rival the USA in future it's going to be good old Germany in my view. However, I strongly disagree with R.K. Moore's representation of events. > Allow me to briefly review a few well-known historical >`incidents' to illustrate what I mean... > > 1) Opium War. We had a situation where Britain was importing more > tea than could balance its exports to China. In other words, > China's natural economic dominance was beginning to display > itself, as you `predicted'. But what happened? A specific act > of _agency is what happened! Q. Victoria launched a specific > imperialist war to achieve a specific enonomic objective: by > forcing China to import opium, a mechanism was created that > reversed the balance of payments and allowed the West to retain > its economic dominance for another century. > That is not true - the opium-war arose because England (or rather British India) was exporting more opium to China than China exported in tea - so that Manchu officials wanted to curtail opium - imports (and for other good reasons as well). > 2) WW-2. This time Japan was the focus of Asian power stirrings. > Japan's dynamism allowed it to create a world-class industrial base, > a navy that could challenge the US Navy, and an economic sphere that > rivaled those of the Western great powers. Gunder - this _was the > emergence of the "'traditional' dominance" that you describe! > It has _already happened! And what was the Western response? The > response was again a specific and decisive act of _agency. The > Western powers made the decision to suppress this uprising, rather > than welocme Japan as another great imperial power. This led to > the `Pacific Theater' in WW-2, the destruction of Japan, and the > systematic rebuilding of Japan in such a way that it became a player > in the Western-controlled imperial system, able to compete econom- > ically, but not able to participate in geopolitial management. > Now this is what I mainly find a very objectionable passage - Japan was not `the center of Asian stirings' - it was simply another foreign imperialist power for the rest of Asia. The Pacific war arose because of the war in China - one Asian power against another and Communist guerilla's against an imperialist power. And, as to the European powers uniting to destroy Japan: Japan was originally aided by Britain - who needed an ally in the Far East against Russia - then aided by Germany and Italy and I do think that Japan's alliances with the axis was THE major reason for US-hostility. Not that Japan was in Asia - the US was helping the Guomindang, remember, and Roosevelt would have liked China to be one of the four `world-policeman'. There is a wider point here which I find VERY objectionable in virtually all WST-writings and that is arguing as if the outcome of world war II - a US-victory - was somehow certain before it even started. If Germany would have (God forbid !) defeated the USSR in 1942 and England in 1943 (and it might well have happened) the outlook for the US would have been very, very grim indeed. I therefore think that the Roosevelt - administration was sincere in saying that it was fighting Nazi-tyranny and was not `ultimately' pursuing some other aim (access to raw materials, replacing the British etc.). Much of the `revisionist' historiography of world war II benefits too much from hindsight. Japan was welcomed as a great power in 1900. That the US then turned against Japan after 1932 was because of Japan's imperial ambitions in China - an inter-imperialist quarrel but certainly not `Europe' turning against Asia. Britain was always reluctant to follow the US for example. If Britain's supreme interest would not have been to preserve the US-alliance it might wel have acquisced in Japan's greater Asian prosperity zone (and so probably would the US without the German alliance). This whole passage seems to me to be repeating propaganda of the Imperial Japanese army in the interest of `objectivity'. If we want to represent either side's case objectively in world war II why not also talk about a Jewish/plutocratic-capitalist/bolshevist conspiracy against the heroic German army which wanted to liberate Europe from the yoke of the City and Wall Street ? > 3) Containment of Red China. Again we had a situation where an > Asian power was declaring its independence of Western hegemony, > and aiming to assert itself. The _agent response in this case > was military, economic, and technological containment, which > succeeded in keeping China's influence and economic power down for > decades. > Sorry - I find this mumbo-jumbo too: China had to be contained because it was communist and allied to the USSR, not because it was Asian, and when it turned against the USSR the USA helped China instead. Let's please take anti-communism in the 1950's seriously and not start looking for some `real' pursuits of the Eisenhower and Truman administration. Again, that the USA was to win over the USSR was in the 50's by no means a foregone conclusion or at least so it seemed then. Communism then seemed to win in the third world and the US-administration sincerely tried to whipe out the perceived `communist conspracy' everywhere. It was not pursuing some `other' `real' interest. > 4) SE-Asian currency crisis. Again an Asian power-nexus developed > in Asia, this time the `tiger economies' of SE Asia. The governments of the `tiger states' were all US-pawns and all of them are now economically comparable to minor West European countries. And again > this uprising was squelched by Western agency, this time by > pulling out investments precipitously and systematically > rebuilding the economic and social structures under the guiding > hand of the IMF (dominated by the same Western banking interests > that control the international financial system and who pulled the > plug on the tigers). What took MacCarthur, so to speak, a gener- > ation to accomplish in Japan is being done in a fortnight by > the IMF in SE Asia. And recent developments indicate Japan itself > may be brought to its knees in the same way, and of course it > will be re-programmed in the same way by the IMF. This is making the IMF into an economic power equal to Japan! The IMF is NOT a power in its own right it's simply an instrument of the US-government (or the Fed). The IMF or the USA will NOT bring Japan to it's knees, the Japanese system of government may well achieve this on its own however. The Asian crisis was, I think, mainly a result of slow Japanese growth over the last five years and an inevitable stalling of the growth of productivity in the `tiger economies'. Certainly no result of a conspiracy of `western banking interests'. > 5) The coming confrontation with China. China is gearing up to > establish itself as Asian hegemon. It has said as much, it has > asserted its `right', and it is launching on a `leap-frog' > military upgrade, aimed especially at neutralizing the flagship > of the US Navy, the carrier task force. In the meantime, the > US is racing to upgrade its C4 warfare technology to enable it > to overcome whatever the Chinese are able to come up with, gain > `control of theater', and do to China what it did to Iraq. > Pentagon - mumbo jumbo: the military always needs an enemy to justify its expenditures (and, anyway, planning for a war against an enemy in the distant future is the work of the miltary so they always perceive enemies everywhere). I think China is much too occupied with its own problems to be contemplating even a limited war with the USA and, anyway, who would be the big loser ? Much of the economic growth of China derives from US-firms and their Japanese subsidiaries investing in the special economic zone's. I think that `China is asserting itself as Asian hegemon' is a good example of typical slogans used in the internal US-policy where the weapon-lobby has always to justify its existence by pointing to some alien power `gearing up to destroy the US local interest'. First it was Islamic fundamentalism, now we have China, who knows what next ? or yes - we know already - now it's `hindu nationalism' ! > The strategic key to this coming confrontation is _tempo, and in > that regard all the cards are held by the West. At the current > moment the US could readily `win', under some definition of > `acceptable losses', a military confrontation with China. More apparent Pentagon mumbo jumbo - China could use nuclear weapons in a confrontation - I think neither China nor the US are seriously contemplating this. Do you really think the US would contemplate a nuclear war with China in which hunderds of thousands of marines would die when the US pulled out of Somalia after four marines were killed ? Or that China would seriously consider waging a nuclear war on its own soil ? > beginning now, the US can track Chinese developments, monitor > its own progress with C4 deployment, and _choose the moment of > conflict to its own advantage, never allowing China to get to > the point where it might `win'. China is a nuclear power unlike Iraq which is why India is busily arming with nuclear weapons not to become another Iraq. The US-engineered India-Pakistan > conflict can be viewed as `keeping the pot simmering' vis a vis > US plans for decisive intervention in Asia. > India and Pakistan have enough reasons for quarreling without the USA interfering. > >So there you have it. The power struggle between Asia and the West has >been going on uninterrupted since 1800. No - you don't have it here: these categories are much too general. The US and Britain have heavily supported Japan in several cases primarily as a bulwark against Russia - and the US has helped China as a bulwark against the USSR. And the `tigers' as a bulwark against Vietnam, North Korea and against communist movements in their own country. >I therefore find the following statement highly misleading and in urgent >need of retraction or substantial refinment: There is >indeed a relevance, Asian dyanmism is part of the equation, but your >predicted `rise' has been occurring ever since 1800, has been >systematically managed and controlled by the West, and this regime promises >to continue indefinitely, just as has the domination of what we >euphemistically call the Third World, most of which, as Parenti points out, >should be `naturally' quite wealthy and prosperous. I agree with the last point which is precisely why I don't think the `West' is trying to subvert China or SE Asia. If the `tiger' industries were really becoming a major independent threat to US or European industry these would start either to claim for protection or try to take over their competitors (with the help of government-subsidies). Southeast Asia and China are not really a `competitor' to the USA or Europe since most of the investment there is by European or US multinationals. (By the same token Mexico should emerge as a threat to the US briefly). I do know a case, though, where European and US multinationals WERE facing an industry which was directly in competition with them and produced some high-tech products and virtually all raw materials cheaper than either the USA or Western European concerns did. I'm obviously talking about Eastern Europe and Russia here. European concerns have ever since 1990 either bought and then demolished potential Eastern European competitors or have tried to destruct their sales by anything from slander to dumping. The Russian military aviation-industry which potentially could take over the world market is a case in point here. MIG produces at one-fourth of the price of Boeing, one-fifth of British aerospace yet Boeing and BA - sales have soared while MIG-sales have slumped. Don't you think all the attention in the media to Russian aviation-disasters may not be serving a certain interest ? (That of the advertisers for one). If there is ONE country which is, and remains, a potential threat to the US either because it can wipe it out in a quarter of an hour (no minor threat this) or because its labour is as well schooled but paid one-hunderth of the US it's good old mother Russia. And if there is one country which the USA and Europe are trying to subvert and weaken it's Russia. I found out I'm in agreement with Solshenitzyn (of all persons !) on this, today. With good reasons - suffice to remind you, Richard, that if the Ukraine and Russia could get their act together practically the entire Canadian economy would be out of business. Since there is nothing Canada can sell which Russia can't produce cheaper (grain haah ... aluminimum haah ... steel haah ....) Fortunately for Canada that is not going to happen since Canadian farmers and industry would immediately claim for protection should Russia try to compete `unfairly' with Canada. >Sorry to be so confrontational about all this, but I just _hate it when >knowledgeable people sell mumbo jumbo disinformation to the masses. Yep. Much of this talk on the Chinese threat and European conspiracies belongs in an X-files episode - `if the impossible explanation is the obvious you must look for the impossible explanation' agent Fox Mulder. From dredmond@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Thu Jun 4 01:22:36 1998 Date: Thu, 04 Jun 1998 00:22:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Dennis R Redmond In-reply-to: To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK On Thu, 4 Jun 1998, Richard K. Moore wrote: > You do know, I assume, that the dollar is the standard currency in > Russia. The dollar and the Deutsche Mark. Most of Russia's foreign debt is owed to Germany, not the US. > My primary objection to your whole way of framing things is the pretense > that national economic competition is the primary operative dynamic in the > global economy, as if the US was losing ground to the EU in some kind of > economic dominance contest. But we are losing dominance to the EU and East Asia. They're bigger economic units than we are, invest more in their economies, have fairer distributions of wealth, and have even grown faster in per capita GDP terms than we have in the 1990s. As I've said over and over again, it's not really a question of national systems; the EU and East Asia are multinational entities, which just happen to be made up of a bunch of nation-states. Secondly, if you want to quibble with the statistics, then you'll have to explain to us all why the Commerce Dept. is lying to us when it says the USA owes the rest of the world a trillion bucks on our net international investment position. Is this just a mistake? Bad accounting? A political conspiracy? Inquiring minds would like to know. -- Dennis From austria@it.com.pl Thu Jun 4 01:46:47 1998 Reply-To: From: "Austrian Embassy" To: Subject: Re: The nuclear arms race in South Asia Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 09:54:08 +0200 Why core powers? This is a fatal conceit - I think - for the future of American-European relations, to put it bluntly. Looking at the quality and quantity of burning effigies, flags etc. around the world, I am afraid there are other candidates in other parts of the world! This is all too mechanistic, and overlooks the long term ideological challenges. People like Bassam Tibi and Adel Khoury did very good research on these issues; and in addition, we should not forget the already existing long-term power projections and military buildups, already described by Paul Kennedy. The real danger in South Asia is, that this regional conflict will link up in years to come to these structures, centered around China and the real feelings of discrimination, shared in large parts of the Islamic world. And a good analysis of Germany's challenge in the 19th and early 20th Century will show that, far from being a core power, it was rather an ascending semi-periphery. So my future projections rather look like those of Joshua Goldstein and Paul Kennedy. And what is the answer? World government, democratic structures, centered around the UN and inter-cultural dialogue, to avoid the desaster. Arno Tausch ---------- > From: christopher chase-dunn > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: Re: The nuclear arms race in South Asia > Date: Mittwoch, 03. Juni 1998 22:46 > > Dan Green wonders if multipolarity will return. It is likely to, but > not right away. Real multipolarity means contending core powers with > serious military capability. By the end of the next K-wave upswing ( in > the 2020s) this kind of world could reemerge. It is a future that it > would be better to avoid. > Chris Chase-Dunn > From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Thu Jun 4 07:45:05 1998 Thu, 4 Jun 1998 09:44:52 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 09:44:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunder Frank Reply-To: Gunder Frank To: agf H-Asia , eh.res@eh.net, WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK , dlandes@harvard.edu Subject: gunder frank response # 4 Thankfully the 'Landes/Frank' discussion has gone way beyond either of us. First, Landes received some considerable assent with a little dissent. Then, Frank received some qualified assent along the lines of Ghandi's famous retort about Western civilization: It would be a good idea, meaning not only what Ghandi said but also what Frank claims to say and do but also does not. So more and more the discussants have gone off on their own to have thir own say, and to debate with each other, thus increasingly leaving Landes and [except for Taylor & Jones and Moore] also Frank out of it. So much the better. That absolves Landes and me from having to intervene in most of this discussion. Therefore, I here limit myself to brief 'comments' on specific recent debaters points only - Don Wagner on recent events, I agree and even more with those of Peter Cook posted by ... - Richard Moore, with whom there evidently is disagreement, and with - Mark Jones, who more than disagrees with me and what i wrote about Marx et al. So be it. - Barendse does not see so rosy a future for Asia either. Only the future will tell, but it is not acceptable to rest that prognisis on the current financial 'meltdown' that others - not so much Barendse- invoke to prove that Asia was allegedly only a flash in the pan - Pat Manning disputes with the editors of econ-hist, and good for him, but I find my name used in vain when he refers to a Europe/China alternative or disjuncture that leaves the rest of the world out of consideration. My whole point is the need for holistic globalism and not just isolated comparisons between here and there, where/when-ever they may be. its nice to bring Africa in, but thats also not enough. - that brings me to my own reservations about the ec-hist editorial re-phrasing of our concerns. i long ago privately wished them good luck with that [which they have not had since others continue to go off on their own favorite tangents] and i proposed some re-phrasing of their ec-hist re-phrasing, some of which i now make public in excerpted form below: Their item/question # 2 was that if the explanation we seek is NOT the Marx Weberian et al ones, as some allege, then what was it? They then pose questions # 3 and # 4, about which I wrote them the following: 3. from your premise # 3 [on Asia/Europe], your final sentence/s conclusion in # 3 is a non sequitur, or at least not the only possible sequitur. The resulting question is NOT just or even primarily 'what in internat/world trade benefited Europe rather than Asia?' The question is more - at least according to the one I have been pushing - what conditions/circumstances in the world [political?] economy [including but not only trade] at that time led to the observed 'decisions/choices' here and there- which resulted in the IR/bifurcation? I suggest that this is a singificantly different and operationally more useful posing of 'the' question 3. [My editorial addition here : Hence I also assent to the Manning objection to confining ourselves to a simple China/Europe comparison, when what we are - or should be - dealing with is a WORLD economic/historical problem] 4.I believe it is a serious mistake for you econ hist editors to separate out # 4 [on colonial inputs to Europe and IR] from #3 [ and from1 & 2]. For the answers to [and even the asking of] # 4 is an essential element of the answer/s to # 3. Moreover, when you ask "what mechanism" it would help if you specified a bit, eg food/energy, ecology/demography, capital, finance, organization institution- for those who thing that that really matters, and especially opportunity costs and benefits -- but not only in and for Europe [eg less sheep eating less men], but for some Europeans relative to others in Europe and around the world. Of course it is my argument that it was # 4 that helped generate # 3 and that it was the 'only' thing that even gave any Europeans access to # 3. That is of course why # 4 is part and parcel of # 3 - if you re-phrase # 3 better. I hope that with this 4th intervention I may now sign off - at least till the next time, if any. thanks to all for all your interest and effort. gunder frank june 4, AM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 13:54:26 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunder Frank To: "Joshua L. Rosenbloom" "jack a. goldstone" , J B Owens , Albert J Bergesen , agf , dlandes@harvard.edu Subject: Re: EH.R: Frank versus Landes an Editorial Interjection my first reaction -PRIVATE to you and your co-signers, and my cc's Good for you for trying to organize us a bit. good luck! But I have serious reservations about your summary questions - and if posing the [right] question is more than half of getting the right answer, I fear that your questions are not moving us in that direction. in re your questions and taking your lead my re-phrasing by number: 1. accident - thats not a very useful proposition or even questioon, and especialy not if you fail to emphasize the difference bwtween accident and contingency/conjuncture [which is what Ken,Jack AGF etc contend]. So i think it would be more useful to ask what 'particular/specific'' conditions/circumstances then and there resulted in the path taken 2. yes, but then what? that is if answer to # 1 is NOT the Marx Weberian et al ones, as the people you name allege, then what was it? 3. from your premise # 3, your final sentence/s conclusion in # 3 is a non sequitur, or at least not the only popssible sequitur. The resulting question is NOT just or even primarily 'what in internat/world trade benefited Europe rather than Asia?' The question is more - at least according to the one i have been pushing - what conditions/circumstances in the world [political?] economy [including but not only trade] at that time led to the observed 'decions/choices' here and there- which resulted in the IR/bifurcation? That is a singificantly different and operationally more useful posing of 'the' question 3. 4.I believe it is a serious mistake for you to separate out # 4 from #3 [ and from1 & 2]. For the answers to [and even the asking of] # 4 is an essential element of the answer/s to # 3. Moreover, when you ask "what mechanism" it would help if you specified a bit, eg food/energy, ecology/demography, capital, finance, organization institution- for those who thing that that really matters, and especially opportunity costs and benefits -- but not only in and for Europe [eg less sheep eating less men], but for some Europeans relative to others in Europe and around the world. [Of course it is my argument that it was # 4 that helped generate # 3 and that it was the 'only' thing that even gave any Europeans access to # 3]. That is of course why # 4 is part and parcel of # 3 - if you re-phrase # 3 better. 5. My summary: you are still [re]prhasing the discussion in mostly the same old procedural [paradigmatic?] terms that will not let better answers emerge out of your 4 sided box. the point is to change the box to a single round global one - and then we might get someplace. and dont tell me Alan, that his is just more empty phrasealogy. I have printed out Alan's and am starting to styudy it now for possible response. but since Alan is away for a week, i suppose i have some time. best regards to all gunder On Thu, 28 May 1998, Joshua L. Rosenbloom wrote: > Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 10:26:09 -0500 > From: "Joshua L. Rosenbloom" > Reply-To: eh.res@eh.net > To: eh.res@eh.net > Subject: EH.R: Frank versus Landes an Editorial Interjection > > ÿÿÿÿÿÿEH.RES POSTING ÿÿÿÿÿÿ > > The current discussion prompted by Andre Gunder Frank's critical assessment > of David Landes' new book has generated a wide array of interesting lines of > discussion here and elsewhere on the net. Without foreclosing any of these > topics we feel it may be useful at this point to exercise our editorial > prerogative in an attempt to sharpen the focus of the discussion. > > The principle contribution of Landes' Wealth and Poverty of Nations is to > offer an explanation for why the Industrial Revolution occurred in Britain > first. Professor Frank and others have criticized this explanation as unduly > Euro-centric in its approach. > > It is hard to argue that knowledge of world history is worse than ignorance, > but the issue is to articulate precisely how such knowledge informs our > understanding of the Industrial Revolution. Judging from the discussion on > this list, it appears that there is a general willingness to accept the > evidence that up to c. 1800 Britain and Europe did not enjoy a marked > advantage in standard of living vis-à-vis parts of China (and possibly other > regions of the world?). But the emergence of differences in the standard > of living only at this late date does not preclude the existence of earlier > differences that would explain the post-1800 bifurcation. > > The unresolved issue then is to clarify the source of the post-1800 > "bifurcation", and to explain how a knowledge of world history would help > inform this view. In the last few days the discussion has begun to focus > more closely on this topic, and we want to encourage that focus. To that > end, it may be helpful to identify possible arguments for the importance of > world history. We can think of at least four, but we are certain that there > are others that someone may wish to articulate. > > 1. Europe's primacy was an "accident." The logical problems of attempting > to interpret primacy as evidence of superiority have been explored by N.F.R. > Crafts ("Industrial Revolution in Britain and France: Some Thoughts on the > Question 'Why Was England First," Economic History Review 30 (1977)) and the > subsequent discussion. The corollary of this view is that the Industrial > Revolution could equally well have occurred in China, India, or somewhere > else. If this is the point, then what is the evidence to support such a view? > > 2. Author's like Landes, Jones (in Growth Recurring), Mokyr, Rosenberg and > Birdzell, and McNeill, have all stressed aspects of European history that > appear to differentiate it from other areas of the world, and are at least > plausibly linked to Europe's distinctive growth trajectory. But more > careful examination of non-European history shows that these characteristics > are in fact not uniquely European. > > 3. Europe's take-off was the result of its interactions with Asia as part of > a world trading system. The counterfactual here is that in the absence of > Asia, Europe would not have undergone the Industrial Revolution. If this is > the argument the question becomes one of identifying the specific mechanisms > through which trade benefited Europe differentially, and how Asian trade in > particular contributed to Europe's take off. > > 4. Europe's access to New World gold, silver, or other natural resources was > the source of its advantage. If this is the argument, what was the > mechanism by which these resources stimulated European growth? > > > Joshua Rosenbloom > Barbara Sands > Alan Taylor > > Editors, EH.RES > > ÿÿÿÿ FOOTER TO EH.RES POSTING ÿÿÿÿ > For information, send the message "info EH.RES" to lists@eh.net. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 cjreid@netcom.com Thu Jun 4 13:33:03 1998 Thu, 4 Jun 1998 12:32:59 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 12:32:57 -0700 (PDT) From: "Charles J. Reid" Subject: Re: WSN digest 397 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Howdy, Folks! I wanted to comment on rkm's recent posting that included this statement: "The actual primary operative dynamic is the overthrow of the nation-state system by the centralized elite capitalist system." Let's all take a vacation and think about nothing except the color of the deep blue sky. When we come back to think about these things, it is clear that the nation-state foundation of the global system has passed to a system of Corporate Feudalism. In the system of contemporary Corporate Feudalism, the feudal princes control markets and some geography. Loyalty to nation-states by corporate power holders has shifted from nation-states to corporations -- talk to any executive after a few drinks! (Fortune 1000 companies have their own flags and songs, etc.) If a corporation's interests conflicts with that of a nation-state, it will not hesitate to act to promote its interests to the detriment of the nation-states. (Didn't oil companies blackmail Denmark about accounting procedures and fiscal policy in the late 70s, to take one example?) A mark of a major corporation's power it that is mostly succeeds. Corporate decision-making models (which are not egalitarian, and not democratic) are transmuting the mindsets of its employees, especially in industries where labor unions are weak. Note that the 75 largest centrally planned economies of the world are corporations. (Cuba is the 76th largest.) Corporations have their own security operations. They use selective criminality if they believe they can get away with it. And nation-state legal systems have few laws of accountability that sanction "owners" and decision-makers (i.e., some people can make nefarious decisions with impunity -- e.g., Guatamala, 1954). Finally, control of the media prevents public discussion of these things. Anyone doubt any of this? And how long will it be, before freedom of the internet ends? (I mean, you need people who believe in such freedom to maintain it. So, will we every reach a state where personal survival -- a paycheck from a feudal prince -- takes precedence over the maintenance of such a belief?) -- CJR cjreid@netcom.com "Salus populi suprema est lex" (Cicero) The welfare of the people is the highest law. ---------- "In the Country of the Blind the One-eyed man is King ... just until sundown." (Anonymous) --------------------------------------------- From dgreen@UDel.Edu Thu Jun 4 16:58:33 1998 Thu, 4 Jun 1998 18:58:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 18:58:27 -0400 (EDT) From: Daniel M Green To: christopher chase-dunn Subject: Re: The nuclear arms race in South Asia In-Reply-To: <3575B642.2A9D9607@jhu.edu> An interesting point. I was not thinking in terms of serious military competition among core powers. If one accepts the arguments in Ruggie's Multilateralism book, there was a multilateral revolution in the global system in 1945 which changed the way international politics would operate thereafter - greatly advancing norms of consultation, cooperation, and diffuse reciprocity and providing an excellent environment for a massive expansion of international law. Among the achievements of this order were increasing management of military conflict and the increasing liberalization of the world economy - two of the goals of liberal internationalism. For years multilateralism was in many ways a facade for heavy-handed American agency in both areas. Now, true multilateralism and truer multipolarity seem to be with us and I was just wondering what the implications might be. In some areas the liberal internationalist project continues - land mine controls (a global civil society effort?), international war crimes tribunals, neoliberalization of East Asian economies. But in others there seems little consensus or united action on what are considered American manias - the 1998 Iraq crisis, punishing India and Pakistan. I mention the 2000 American elections because one of the goals of Rooseveltian liberal internationalism and multilateralism was to at least get America engaged with the rest of the world on an institutionalized basis, and we were, particularly as long as it was on our terms. A President Gingrich would have different ideas in this new context. On the other hand, my guess is that the multilateral revolution was real, and that in spite of truer multipolarity, the northern "zone of peace" that so many speak of would not fragment. My own work on the post-Cold War era describes it as a "liberal moment" similar to those after WWI and WWII, but now one which may be ending or mutating considerably. Daniel Green On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, christopher chase-dunn wrote: > Dan Green wonders if multipolarity will return. It is likely to, but > not right away. Real multipolarity means contending core powers with > serious military capability. By the end of the next K-wave upswing ( in > the 2020s) this kind of world could reemerge. It is a future that it > would be better to avoid. > Chris Chase-Dunn > From barendse@coombs.anu.edu.au Fri Jun 5 01:55:33 1998 Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1998 17:47:27 +1000 To: H-NET List for World History From: Dr Rene Barendse Subject: Re: Dialogue: Frank, Landes and announcement. I hope I'll be permitted shameless self-advertising in this posting. I would like to point out here that this week the Dutch version of my magnus opus "Arabian seas 1640-1700" has appeared (475 pages, 200.000 words, 1.675 footnotes). I do not have further information available as yet (price, ISBN etc.) and will post these when I have returned from a long trip to the Australian outback (from 9 th of july) at the end of august. Now, relevant to the Landes-Frank discussion and especially Pommeranz posting to H-world, apart from many other matters (such as legal and social history) Arabian seas deals with many things which are directly relevant. Gunder would now probably say that I'm only looking under the Arabian seas' streetlight but, then, the Arabian seas are the Arabian seas, they are of no minor importance. And we know much less about the western Indian Ocean than we do about China (or Western Africa): A.)It shows that in spite of the huge total size of the production Indian manufacturing (I logically focus on textiles but this also relates to metal) was not likely to have led to an industrial revolution. The market was too much segmented as to region, class, yes, caste and taste and too unpredictable and manufacturing was organized according to the `quasi'-unlimited supply of labour in India. The problem was not how to produce goods it was how to sell them. While the eighteenth century in Britain witnessed both a standardisation of demand and a rapidly growing demand from the West Indies and North America, demand in India and the Middle East was still segmented. Indian manufacturing was more efficient in it's segment of the market than imports though as labour-costs could almost indefinitely be pushed down by an ever more intricate division of labour. Therefore, mechanisation would not have made sense. (By comparison remember that even now it is more efficient to use manual labour than cranes in construction-work in India.) B.)Most critically, the discussion on the `American factor' has too much focussed on South America and on silver. For, indeed, bullion was merchandise in Europe-Asian trade but it was NOT (as Flynn argues) traded because it was profitable - this is, alas, all too complicated to dwell on it in a single posting. Sure, silver was the most conspicious product traded by the Europeans. And it was traded to some extent since they enjoyed a comparative cost-advantage in this product (but this was not the main reason). I will not go into the issue of inflation at length here either but I argue Jim Blaut is partly right but for the wrong reasons: imports of silver indeed contributed to income-inequalities in the Arabian seas but not (except in Iran) because of inflation. In `Arabian seas' I spent a good 200 pages proving that the silver-imports were merely the beginning of a world-wide process of product-substitution. This was basically away from `Asian' land-intensive agriculture to American land-extensive agriculture which I call in the terms of the `old' Gunder the development of underdevelopment. Not only was a wide range of products imported from Asia in Europe being substituted by American products in the 17 th century but American products were substituting for Asian products in inter-Asian trade as well. I treat a long series of examples which together make up much of the trade in the Arabian seas: coffee, sugar, tobacco, indigo, cotton, wood and pearls. And, yes, much of this was increasingly coming from Maryland and Virginia. The rise of the Atlantic economy leads, I further argue, on the one hand to an expansion of demand for labour-intensive Indian products: Guinee textiles from the Coromandel coast have that name for a reason, whilst the buccaneers in the Arabian seas were mainly smugglers of Indian textiles to colonial New York and the West Indies. On the other hand it leads to an accumulation of money in the city of London which can then be invested in the East India Company and, more importantly, in the British inter-Asian trade. For - as I show this for the British and the Portuguese - much (for the British), most (for the Portuguese) of the funds invested in Asian trade derived from American revenues. The American edition which is in preparation will deal in more detail with the effects of the growth of the Atlantic economy (slavery in particular) on East Africa which bears a strong, and not at all coincidental, resemblance with developments in West Africa described in an earlier posting by Pat Manning. C.)I argue furthermore that, because of these investments from the City, the British in particular (to some extent the French and the Portuguese but not the Dutch VOC) were able to construct a powerful system of private banks (or better `agency houses') in India which financed both British private trade and the British military. The British therefore were financially superior to most Indian princes. But this was not because Indian banking was primitive, far from it - As I show in a 45-page section trade in Surat (Gujarat) was as sophisticated as in Amsterdam because both were focal points of global trade but it was structured very differently -. D.)The history of European expansion is a single process but its study has become separated between specialist on the Atlantic (America and Africa) and on Asia and this has seriously distorted our vision. (I would add now that treating East Africa as `African' and neglecting its Indian links seriously distorts our vision of the African past too.) I argue two cases at length: the American slave-trade with Madagascar which was a mainstay of the economy of colonial New York and the Portuguese empire in India which at the end of the seventeenth century became increasingly a sub-colony of Brazil. Now, since both empires were constructed on the `American conncetion' why the British and not Portugal? That is partly related to the different structures of the Brazilian and New England economy (basically New England's agriculture generated more purchasing-power than Brazil) but it is mainly caused by different initial positions: to wit Portugal's `semi-peripheral' position in European trade and basic weaknesses in the metropolitan economy. `Arabian seas 1640-1700' was originally written five years before Gunder's `Asia' book was, but, I guess, in the Landes-Frank discussion which developped since this leaves me (with many other discussants) in the position that both are to some extent right. Pro Landes I would argue that not all institutions were the same in Western Europe and South Asia and some may indeed have been important for the industrial revolution. Thus, English common law, thus, financial institutions, thus `the scientific revolution'. The `energy-base' argument is a weak one, I think, though. And, to come back to Arabian seas, I would not deny that Europe WAS having an important impact on Asia in the 16-18 th century - and probably less so vice versa. "Indian ships might well have sailed to England but there were no Mughal factories in Britain" I write in `Arabian seas'. And the empirical problem is that if Asian trade in the 17 th and 18 th century grew, European trade in Asia grew much faster. Moreover, the Portuguese and the chartered companies did indeed drive out Asian merchants out of the trade and not only through violence but also as they were better organized. So, some roots of the Europe-Asia bifurication DO lie at least in the 16 th century. But pro Gunder - and I do sympathize with the main tenants of Gunder and a fortiori of the so-called `California school' - this does NOT mean that Europe was in the 18 th century in all respects superior to Asia, let alone earlier. There is also no denying that Asia was still very important for `world-trade'. And moreover we should remind W.H. Moreland old remark that the entire long distance-trade of the Arabian seas might just have filled one freighter (I would say a supertanker) for maybe 90% of trade in the Arabian seas was regional and local. Therefore, the European impact on the economy as a whole was very, very limited until at least the mid-nineteenth century. And it is also certainly true that some parts of Asia were even in the eighteenth century at least as wealthy as Britain (and that parts of the British isles such as Ireland and the Scottish Highlands were as poor as the poorest parts of Asia.) The `third world' only arose from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Gunder would probably say this is a half-baked `both and' position but there are no sharp `either-or' positions in answering large historical questions (however hard that may be for economists and sociologists to accept). And I would emphasize contra Jack Goldstone that in `Arabian seas' which is based on fifteen years work in original sources in seventeen languages I do attempt to transcend the mere criticism of the `Eurocentric school'. Let me emphasize finally though, that even if I'm no `Californian', I sympathize with their position. For if history is as W.H. Mc Niell argues to a large extent myth-making (and the sociology and economics of our Californian colleagues are even more so) I think that even ethically this is a much more hopeful sign to give to poor countries than the Landes-line. Landes et alii basically signal to the third world that it has to discard all of its institutions and its culture (from the family to religion, from law to language etc. etc.) if they ever want to catch up with `modernity'. If I can be essentialist here: the Landes-line is a kind of `structural readjustment' of the third world's past. And they signal moreover, that the history of all other people has been a failure since dim antiquity compared to the relentless onward march of the Anglo-Saxon race. (For the roots of the industrial revolution go back to King Arthur if not Boedica in their view). Is this an essentialist caricature as Pat Manning would now say too ? Maybe - but, then, to me - a citizen of a small non English speaking country - it often seems as if the British and Americans often do see the nationalist splinter in the eyes of Dutch, Hindhi, Chinese or Russian historiography. (And are immediately prepared poke fun at it. No, the Dutch did not originally `sail into our country near Lobith in 66 B.C.' - as we got taught at school - and, of course, the Rus' were not Russians) But they do not perceive the nationalist beam in their own eye in which they were the originators of anything useful - with the Romans and the Greeks US- and British citizens honoris causae -. Goodbye to you all from Oz Next posting will be from the Low Countries Dr. Rene Barendse IIAS - Leiden barendse@coombs.anu.edu.au Those who are interested in obtaining a copy of `Arabian seas' should please contact: CNWS-publicaties Research School CNWS Leiden University Nonnensteeg 1-3 P.O.Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden e-mail:CNWS@Rullet.Leidenuniv.nl internet: http://oasis.leidenuniv.nl/interfac/cnws From chriscd@jhu.edu Fri Jun 5 07:34:36 1998 Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1998 09:35:40 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Nuclear Tests on the subcontinent] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------4C33D790407D9D1E8F3CE703 --------------4C33D790407D9D1E8F3CE703 for chriscd@jhu.edu; Fri, 05 Jun 1998 03:50:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1998 19:46:16 +1200 From: Ravi Arvind Palat Subject: Nuclear Tests on the subcontinent To: chriscd@jhu.edu Reply-to: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz Organization: University of Auckland This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --Boundary_(ID_Ge625Q7QQO8+1w0ZgKP7uA) Chris: I enclose an article I published in _The Press_, a Christchurc= h, New Zealand newspaper on Wed June 3, 1998...Can you post it on WSN? Thanks...Ravi How Asian tests reveal =91nuclear apartheid=92? Ravi Arvind Palat If five nuclear detonations by India last month shattered our complaisant assumption that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) = had virtually eliminated such tests, the six nuclear explosions Pakistan conducted in retaliation last week reinforced fears that we stand at = the beginning of a new nuclear arms race. An arms race between the two neighbours, is potentially more incendia= ry than the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The two super-powers did not share a common border. By the time they acquired the capability to launch missiles against each others=92 home territories, the certainty of assured mut= ual destruction operated as a strong deterrent. India and Pakistan, in contrast, share a 2000-mile frontier and their long-standing territorial dispute over Kashmir is now inflamed by the growth of religious fundamentalist movements on both sides. While th= e Arctic Ocean provided a 40 minute warning between the launch of missi= les and their targets in the Soviet Union or the United States, it takes only 3 minutes for Indian or Pakistani missiles to reach their target= s. There is no margin for error. If this realization has catapulted nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament to the top of the global agenda, fears of a new nuclear a= rms race are exaggerated as indicated by the Indian government=92s calm reactions to the Pakistani tests. Indeed, calculating that Pakistani tests would legitimate India=92s own tests and end the country=92s mo= ral and political isolation, hawkish members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did their best to goad Pakistan. Though Indian tests provoked the predictable Pakistani response, it m= ust be recognised that the two countries were responding to very differen= t geo-strategic imperatives and perceptions. The Indian tests were not directed against Pakistan. India has defeated Pakistan in three conventional wars over the last 50 years and can do so again as India has twice as many soldiers as Pakistan: 1.2 million against 600,000. =46rom its inception, India=92s nuclear weapons programme was always directed towards China. India=92s sense of vulnerability after her humiliating defeat in a brief border war with China in 1962 was heightened by the Chinese acquisition of nuclear weapons in 1964. Within four years, it was well-known that India had the technological capabilities to make nuclear weapons and all doubts were removed in 1= 974 when its scientists conducted a "peaceful nuclear explosion." Just as military defeat by China led to India=92s sense of insecurity= , the forceful vivisection of Pakistan by Indian forces in the War of Bangladeshi Secession in 1971 galvanised Pakistan=92s nuclear program= me. Former Prime Minister, Mr. Zulfikhar Ali Bhutto famously said that Pakistanis would even "eat grass" if that is what it took to develop nuclear weapons. During subsequent years, both countries were widely acknowledged to h= ave acquired all the requirements to assemble nuclear weapons at short notice. It is widely accepted that Pakistan had got blue-prints to m= ake nuclear bombs from China. As Chinese tests had proved that these designs worked, there were no compulsions to test them especially sin= ce tests would have triggered international condemnation. Why then, did India and Pakistan choose to rattle their nuclear sabres now? Strategically, the demise of the Soviet Union was a major blow for India. It lost its most powerful ally and increased its sense of isolation. Weak protests by the United States government against the transfer of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles from China and North Korea to Pakistan did nothing to assuage the Indian government= =92s growing sense of isolation and insecurity. Rather than addressing th= ese concerns, Western powers seemed bent on forcing India to accept a nuclear containment regime that it considers flawed and discriminator= y. Finally, the new BJP-led coalition government is unstable and the popular support certain to be generated by the tests would grant the government a new lease of life. Once India had tested, pressures to test were irresistible for the Na= waz Sharif Government in Pakistan. Soon after India=92s five nuclear tes= ts last month, Ms. Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister and leader of the Pakistan Peoples=92 Party even called on Western states to launch= a pre-emptive attack on India to "neutralize India=92s nuclear capabili= ty." Religious leaders and politicians in Pakistan, instigated by provocat= ive claims by fundamentalist Hindu politicians in India, also clamoured f= or nuclear tests. Internationally, while the United States gave North Korea some US$4 billion to renounce nuclear options, no such dollops of aid were offe= red to Pakistan. The offer to let Pakistan finally take delivery of the = 28 F16 aircraft it had bought and paid for in 1990 was never going to be enough especially when Ms. Bhutto was threatening mass demonstrations= in favor of` testing. The powerful military was also demanding tests an= d no Pakistani politician can ignore the military. Nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have completely derailed the non-proliferation framework and scuttled President Clinton=92s policy= of promoting economic and commercial interests over other goals as in th= e subordination of human rights issues in China to trade and investment= .. Will a nuclear Pakistan spur Iran to acquire nuclear weapons of its own? In the global indignation over Indian and Pakistani tests, it i= s also conveniently forgotten that Germany, Italy, and Japan had reserv= ed the right to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if th= e list of nuclear weapons states expanded from the original five. China=92s weakness in computer simulations may lead it to violate the= CTBT if India refuses to sign it. Since the CTBT was designed to cement U= S technological superiority in nuclear weapons, a resumption of Chinese tests would shatter any hope of the US Senate ratifying the treaty. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact was accompanied by a major review of security policies in Europe, culminating in the eastward expansion of the Western security alliance, NATO. There has been no comparable review of the post-Cold War security environment in Asia. Preoccupied with budget deficits, the US government has reduced military expendit= ure by 30 percent between 1989 and 1998 and hoped that the growing prosperity of Asian states will automatically create a strong consens= us against militarism. This hope has now been shattered. In dealing with the new geopolitical conditions created by the Indian and Pakistani tests, it is important to recognize the very different strategic perceptions that guide New Delhi and Islamabad. The Indian tests were claims to be recognised as a great power as the right of one-sixth of humanity. Pakistan=92s geostrategic aims are more modes= t. It is a claim to security rather than to great power status. The need for security can only be addressed within a larger framework which includes China, Russia, and the United States at the very least= .. In an age of intercontinental ballistic missiles, there are no defensible borders and security can be guaranteed only by political understanding. A regional security arrangement that accommodates all interested powers rather than Cold War-like alliances directed agains= t opposing superpowers is the only viable solution but it is one that would take time to establish. In the short-term, the only way Pakistan=92s legitimate security conc= erns can be addressed would be an offer by the five recognised nuclear weapons states to extend their nuclear umbrella over the country if i= t renounces nuclear weapons. An iron-clad commitment to defend Pakista= n would raise military expenditures when the trend is towards declining outlays but the alternative is far more destabilising. Simultaneously, the United States and Russia should offer to share advanced warning technologies with India and Pakistan to reduce tensions. India=92s claim to recognition as a major power cannot be accommodate= d merely by a commitment to defend it against nuclear attack as it sees China as its main adversary. India is also less likely to accept wha= t it calls "nuclear apartheid" now that it has tested weapons than it w= as before the tests. The only viable solution is for other nuclear weap= ons states to join India in working towards global nuclear disarmament. = If that were to be the case, there would be a silver lining to the mushr= oom clouds hovering over the subcontinent. --Boundary_(ID_Ge625Q7QQO8+1w0ZgKP7uA) begin: vcard fn: Ravi Palat n: Palat;Ravi org: Dept. of Sociology, Univ. of Auckland email;internet: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz note;quoted-printable:Private Bag 92019=3D0D=3D0A=3D =09Auckland, NEW ZEALAND=3D0D=3D0A=3D =09Phone:+64-9-373-7599,ext.5313=3D0D=3D0A=3D =09FAX:+64-9-373-7439 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version: 2.1 end: vcard --Boundary_(ID_Ge625Q7QQO8+1w0ZgKP7uA)-- --------------4C33D790407D9D1E8F3CE703-- From chriscd@jhu.edu Fri Jun 5 08:39:50 1998 Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1998 10:40:43 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: sessions at the SSHA meetings in chicago To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Two relevant sessions will be held at the Social Science History Association meetings in Chicago in late November 1998. these were organized by Nikolai Rozov. Macrohistorical Dynamics: Theory and Method Friday, Nov. 20, 8-10am Macrohistorical Dynamics: Longue Duree, World Systems and Modern Globalization Sunday, Nov. 22, 10:45 am -12:45 pm Best wishes, -- Tom Sugrue and Rick Valelly Co-Chairs 1998 SSHA Program Committee Macrohistorical Dynamics: Theory and Method Chair: Arthur Stinchcombe (Northwestern University) Discussant: Daniel Chirot (University of Washington) 1) Randall Collins (University of Pennsylavania). Logics of Prediction in Social-Historical Theorizing. 2) Nikolai S. Rozov (Novosibisrk State University, Russia). The Method of Theoretical History. 3) Charles Ragin (Northwestern University). The Comparative Method in Social Sciences (?) 4) Andrey Korotayev (Oriental Institute, Moscow, Russia). Driving Forces of Social Evolution: A Reconsideration. Macrohistorical Dynamics: Longue Duree, World-Systems and Modern Globalization. Chair: Thomas Hall (Depauw University) Discussant: Randall Collins (University of Pennsylavania) 1) Arthur Stinchcombe (Northwestern University). Big Structures and Long Duree. 2) Andre Gunder Frank (University of Toronto, Canada). ReORIENT World [System] History 3) Daniel Chirot (University of Washington). Warfare and Other Market Signals: Estimating How Well Societies Work 4) Wolf Schaefer (State University of New York at Stony Brook). Global Civilization and Local Cultures - From World to Global History 5) Richard Moore (Independent observer and writer, Wexford, Ireland). Globalization: A World-System Revolution From rneedham@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca Sat Jun 6 04:18:06 1998 Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 06:18:36 -0500 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: "W. Robert Needham" Subject: John McMurtry,UNEQUAL FREEDOMS: THE GLOBAL MARKET AS AN ETHICAL SYSTEM Finally published. This book has it all. Destined to be a classic RE:NEW BOOK NEW BOOK May 1998 by the author of "The MAI: The Plan to Replace Responsible Government" John McMurtry, UNEQUAL FREEDOMS: THE GLOBAL MARKET AS AN ETHICAL SYSTEM A complete guide to the theory and practice of the global market, with direct applicability to everyday life. Table of Contents below. Order from Garamond@web.net ISBN 1-55193-003-X Cdn.$24.95. "A devastating critique of market doctrine." - Gordon Laxer, University of Alberta "A brilliant, elegantly written exposé." - Harry Glasbeek, Osgoode Hall Law School "Some of the most exhilarating philosophy I have ever read." - G.A. Cohen, All Souls, Oxford University "Lays bare the foundations of a new economics ... bids well to become a classic." - William Krehm, Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform John McMurtry covers a broad range of important thinkers and major themes, from John Locke, Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx to Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Robert Reich and the liberal contractarians; from human needs, national debts and environmental crises to issues of the global information economy and consumerism vs. citizenship. A path-breaking work, this book is essential reading for anyone attempting to come to grips with the crises of the contemporary world and the common ground of their solution. This book has been tested to ensure that every subsection can be taught or read as an independent debate site or explanatory critique, and at any level of instruction or understanding from first-year to PhD. At the same time, its 70 subsections connect together into a definitive, systematic deconstruction of the dominant paradigm of our epoch, and set out the clear coordinates of an alternative economics structured to serve rather than to consume and exploit human and environmental life-hosts. Student reasoning and analytic abilities have been shown to advance dramatically by the challenge of understanding the theoretical, practical and value premises and arguments underlying the contemporary world system, and its domination of social and ecological life-organization across the planet. An ideal textbook or sourcebook for any course in the humanities, social sciences, interdisciplinary or environmental studies. Courses and course topics in which this book have been or could be used as a primary or secondary text include social and political issues, ethics, world politics, value theory, international political economy, economic history, contemporary educational theory, cultural studies, international development, environmental studies, global ideologies, media and communications theory, labour history, structural social work, law and justice, theology and society, women and gender studies, sociology of politics, philosophy of the environment, Canadian studies, international relations and trade, peace and conflict studies, and informal logic. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword Introduction: An Overview Understanding How We Live: Recognizing Value Programs Distinguishing between Representation and Reality Part One: Behind the Invisible Hand The Problem: A Question of Freedom The Pursuit of Freedom: An Irony of History The Postmodern Response The Freedom of No Alternative The Pursuit of Freedom The Founders of the Theory and Their Revisionists: From John Locke and Adam Smith to "Value-Free Economics" The Moral System of a Market Exchange Individual Freedom and the Neutral Market State: Are These Coherent Norms? The Case of Friedrich Hayek The Market as God The Problem of Evil The Regulating Principles of True Belief The Confusion of Moral Commandments and Physical Laws since Ricardo >From the Market System to the Cosmic Order Punishments for Disobedience to Market Laws The Underlying Principles of the Market Theology The Place of Free Will in the Market Theodicy Robert Reich's Conversion The Doctrine of Infallibility The Invisible Hand Revisited Part II: Market Theory and Practice: Arguments Pro and Con Freedom, Private Property, and Money: From John Locke to the New World Order John Locke on the Right to Private Property The Problem of Private Property In Slaves How Do We Distinguish Buying Slaves from Buying Labour? The Free Contract Solution The Problem of the Propertyless Unemployed Justifications for Private Property in Money without Limit The Trickle-Down Theory Where the Rich Refuse Contract Private Property for and against Life-Interests Abstraction as Disguise for Special Interest Do Property Rights Have Property Obligations? Money Investment and Community Fetters The New Crusade for Freedom Private Profit, Competition, and the Social Good Adam Smith's Moral Revolution I Am Rational, Therefore I Self-Maximize Dehumanizing Adam Smith The Corporate Person The New Global Market Sovereign The Money Ground of Value The Logic of Comparative Advantage The Homogenization of Nations in the World Market The Free Market and Democracy Freedom of the Consumer - If You Can Pay The Question of Need Consumer Sovereignty or Infantile Demand? The Truth of Consumer Choice Freedom of the Producer or the Non-Producer? The Knowledge-Based Economy Six Ways in which the Knowledge-Based Economy Is Structured against Knowing the Truth Education and the Market Model Freedom of the Press - for Those Who Own One The Invisible Curtain of the Media The Grammar of Censorship The Market Metaphysic: Rallying Cries and True Meanings Getting the State off Our Backs Removing Barriers to Trade No Free Lunches Part III: Planetary Health, the Global Market, and the Civil Commons The Decoupling of Capital from Civil and Environmental Life Freeing Capital from Society: The Function of Free Trade Freeing Corporations from Workers' Demands Freeing Corporations from Governments Rootless Investors and the Age of Disposable Life Seeing through the Rich to the Value Program The Mutations of the Profit System and Their Cure >From the Life-Code of Value to the Logic of the World-System Crisis Sacrificing Life to the Money-Sequence Towards a Cure: Relinking Banks to the Public that Charters and Funds Them Money Creation and Public Accountability The Economics of Life and Death Growth, Development, and the Mutations of the Money-Sequence The Pathologization of the Money-Sequence: From Means of Life to Means of Life Destruction Banks for and against the Public Interest: The Market Lessons of the Asian Tigers Pension and Mutual Funds: A Hidden Market Keel Taxing Money-Demand: The Unseen Principle of Justice Beyond the Mega-Machine to the Civil Commons Confronting the Death Spiral of the System The Life-Ground of the Civil Commons The Civil Commons and the State The Civil Commons and Real Capital Conclusion: The Way Ahead Index »«»« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« W. Robert Needham Director, Canadian Studies Program St. Paul's United College University of Waterloo Waterloo Ontario N2L 3G5 http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/ECON/needham.html From barendse@coombs.anu.edu.au Sat Jun 6 18:41:56 1998 Date: Sun, 07 Jun 1998 10:33:47 +1000 To: H-NET List for World History From: Dr Rene Barendse Subject: Arabian seas A small correction on my last posting about my magnus opus `Arabian seas 1640-1700'. When I wrote Dutch version I meant published by a Dutch publisher: the book is in English. Please inquire with: CNWS-publicaties Research School CNWS Leiden University Nonnensteeg 1-3 P.O.Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden e-mail:CNWS@Rullet.Leidenuniv.nl internet: http://oasis.leidenuniv.nl/interfac/cnws From austria@it.com.pl Tue Jun 9 04:46:59 1998 Reply-To: From: "Austrian Embassy" To: Subject: Fw: EU-extension countdown WIIW Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:52:26 +0200 ---------- > From: Sandor Richter > To: richter@wsr.ac.at > Subject: countdown is on line > Date: Montag, 08. Juni 1998 11:38 > > Dear Colleague, > > It is my pleasure to let you know that after more than two years hard > work > Countdown is on line!!! > > On June 1, 1998 the Vienna Institute of International Economic Studies > (WIIW) installed the first (documentation) part of an on line > information, > documentation and communication centre on the European Union's eastern > enlargement. The new facility is available under the Internet address > > http://wiiwsv.wsr.ac.at/Countdown/ > > IMPORTANT: This is the last mail you receive upon your earlier > registration > to Countdown news. Now you have the opportunity to visit the new site > and > decide whether you wish to receive further regular information on the > Countdown project. If yes, you should subscribe, what you can do > comfortably from the address > > http://wiiwsv.wsr.ac.at/Countdown/f_newsl.html > > ********************************************************* > Countdown is run by the WIIW and the first operational block is based > on > an international network of co-operating institutions in eight > associated > countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, > Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) and Austria. The new facility will have > two > parts, Documentation (partially operational already) and Communication > (under construction). > > DOCUMENTATION > > In the framework of Countdown, a systematic collection and > classification > of available "EU eastern enlargement" - relevant information takes > place. > Subject to this process is literature published on the topic, as well as > > lists of experts and institutions engaged in research on or dealing with > > practical problems of their respective country´s accession to the EU. We > > also try to facilitate non-virtual meetings, in as much as we > redistribute > information on conferences recently held or planned to be held on the > topic. > For easy search seventeen areas were identified to broadly cover the > most > important aspects of the EU's eastern enlargement. The search engine of > Countdown enables users to "look around" in their specific topic either > in > the literature, or the list of experts or list of conferences. The > documentation is continuously updated by cooperating institutes. In the > present, first stage of the project, the facility covers eight of the > ten > associated countries and Austria. An extension of coverage to all > associated countries and all EU member states is planned and will be > implemented. Certainly we could not include all the literature, experts, > > etc.; the system will continuously enlarged and up dated. Remarks, > suggestions are welcome. > > COMMUNICATION > > An on-line communication forum that will be an integrated part of > Countdown > is under construction. As a first step all-round inquiries are planned. > Questions of outstanding importance will be raised to members of the > expert > community. The responses and comments to responses in the framework of a > > moderated discussion list will hopefully contribute to solving the > problems > emerging in the difficult terrain of the EU´s eastern enlargement. Later > > on, the establishment of an electronic journal is planned. In this > journal > enlargement-relevant articles, comments on the articles and comments > on > comments or the authors' response to comments will be made available. > In a > third segment of the communication forum, called "Nest", niches will be > opened for discussions, mutual help and all kinds of communication for > professional and non-professional groups whose members are involved or > interested in a specific aspect of the EU's eastern enlargement. > > COUNTDOWN TEAMS > > Countdown is operated by the WIIW Countdown team. The WIIW has > co-operation agreements with eight Central and East European Research > sites, where national Countdown teams are contributing to the project. > Through links from the Countdown homepage you may contact national > Countdown teams in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, > Lithuania, > Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The WIIW has letters of intent from 13 > additional research sites both from the EU and Central and Eastern > Europe > to co-operate in the project. For comments on the whole facility and the > > Austrian part, please contact the responsible member in the WIIW > Countdown > team: Sándor Richter (richter@wsr.ac.at) project coordinator, Barbara > Apian-Benewitz (Apian@wsr.ac.at) in charge of Documentation part of the > project and Peter Fóti (foti@wsr.ac.at) responsible for the technical > operation. > > In the name of the WIIW Countdown team, > > Sandor Richter > > ************************************************************** > > Dr. Sándor Richter > > Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW) > http://www.wiiw.ac.at/ > > Oppolzergasse 6. > 1010 Wien > Austria > > E-mail: richter@wsr.ac.at > Tel: (00-431)-533-6610-25 > Fax: (00-431)-533-6610-50 > > ************************************************************** From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Jun 9 08:47:38 1998 Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 10:48:43 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Africa/Italy symposium] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------EF1B30CDEEBDBC96127CC68F --------------EF1B30CDEEBDBC96127CC68F 08 Jun 1998 13:48:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 13:48:50 -0400 From: Sante Matteo Subject: Africa/Italy symposium To: chriscd@jhu.edu Dear Professor Chase-Dunn, I thought you might be interested in the following interdisciplinary symposium on Africa and Italy which we are organizing for this fall, Nov. 6-7. I hope you will consider participating, and would appreciate it if you could forward this message to colleagues and acquaintances who might be interested. The symposium is shaping up to be an exciting and fruitful encounter among some very prominent scholars from a variety of disciplines. Pap Khouma, the Senegalese Italian author of IO, VENDITORE DI ELEFANTI (Garzanti, 1990/94), will be here. One of Italy's leading experts on African studies, Gian Paolo Calchi Novati, professor of political science at Pavia, author of many books on Africa, and past director of the Institute for African Studies, will speak. Two of his internationally renowned American colleagues, the historian Harold Marcus and the geographer Assefa Mehretu, both of Michigan State University, will also participate, addressing past and future relations between Italy and Ethiopia. Esther Sellassie Antohin, the great-granddaughter of Emperor Haile Sellassie, will present a paper with her husband, Anatoly Antohin, both of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. The archaelogist Reuben Bullard will talk about the cultural presence of Rome in the territory of ancient Carthage. Among Italianists we have commitments from Graziella Parati, of Dartmouth, Peter Carravetta, Queens, and Karen Pinkus, USC, to mention only a few. Tom Conley, of Harvard, will talk about the representations of Italy and Africa in the cartography of the Middle Ages and the Age of Exploration. I intend to publish the proceedings both in English and in Italian. ISIAO, the Italian Institute for Studies on Africa and the Far East, has indicated an interest in publishing the volume in Italy. Here is the original announcement and call for papers. The deadline for submissions can be postponed to the end of June. AFRICA/ITALY AN INTERDISCIPLINARY INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM Nov. 6-7, 1998 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD, OHIO Over the past two decades Italy, previously known as a country of massive emigration, has instead become the destination of a great number of immigrants from African countries. Some estimates put the influx of African immigrants to Italy over the past decade at more than one million, giving a new face to Italian society and adding intriguing new dimensions to Italian culture. This interdisciplinary symposium will explore past, present, and future relations between Italian and African cultures from various perspectives: geographical, historical, political, economic, sociological, and cultural, including the arts, music, literature, and cinema. Much of the history and culture of the Italian peninsula--and by extension all of Europe--has been shaped by its contacts with African cultures: from the Punic wars between Rome and Carthage in classical times, to the Crusades on the threshold of the Renaissance, to the colonial wars of the Fascist regime. The current renewed contact between Africans and Italians, with the flow of migrants going in a historically new direction, presents a new set of issues, problems, and opportunities which have important implications not only for the future of Italian society but for intercultural and interracial relations throughout the world. By considering a broad historical and multi-disciplinary context, the symposium will attempt to perceive and understand the diverse dimensions and opportunities inherent in this new encounter between Africa and Italy: whether it will give birth to another racially, culturally, and economically divided and unequal society, or if it may not instead prove to be the first step in a process of cross-cultural fertilization which might generate a new Renaissance. CALL FOR PAPERS: Send inquiries and proposals--title and 250-word abstract by June 15, 1998, to either: Sante Matteo Department of French and Italian Miami University Oxford, OH 45056 tel. (513)529-5932; fax 513-529-1807 e-mail: matteos@muohio.edu Stefano Bellucci Department of Political Science Miami University Oxford, OH 45056 tel. (513)529-5193; fax 513-529-1709 e-mail: bellucs1@muohio.edu Miami, a state-assisted university of approximately 16,000 students, has its main campus in the small city of Oxford, which is located in the south-west corner of Ohio near the Indiana border, c. 30 miles north of Cincinnati and c. 40 miles south-west of Dayton, a little over an hour's drive from either city's airport. --------------EF1B30CDEEBDBC96127CC68F-- From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Jun 9 08:50:10 1998 Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 10:51:13 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: call for papers] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------0C799C57694FE491A576D34A --------------0C799C57694FE491A576D34A Mon, 08 Jun 1998 14:39:00 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 14:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Roberto_P_KORZENIEWICZ@umail.umd.edu (rk81) Subject: call for papers To: chriscd@jhu.edu Dear Chris: Can you post this message in the WS list? Thanks, Patricio Call for Papers: PEWS 1999 Political Economy of the World-System XXIII Annual Conference INEQUALITY AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS The twenty-third annual conference of the Political Economy of the World-System Section of the American Sociological Association will take place March 26-27, 1999 on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park. In anticipation of the two plenary PEWS conferences to come in the years 2000 and 2001, we are interested in examining two pivotal issues in world-systems analysis from an inter-disciplinary perspective. Inequality and social movements have not only motivated many of us to work with a world-systems approach, but they have provided the substance of our work as well. They form two of the central concepts guiding the formation of world-systems analysis. At the same time, they point to two of the issues most contested across disciplinary boundaries. We hope to elicit an interdisciplinary discussion around the ways in which contestation over the centrality or limitations of these issues can inform world-systems analysis. *Inequality has been central to the development of world-system analysis as both constituting an object of knowledge and as a set of conceptual parameters for studying large-scale, long-term social change. What have we learned about (a) changes in patterns of inequality in the modern world-system; and (b) theoretical/methodological advantages of using a world-historical perspective in studying these patterns of large-scale, long-term social change? *Inequality has been linked to the development of social movements, and social movements are in turn central to our understanding of opposition and anti-systemic agency. What are some of the most salient contemporary features of these processes? What are the theoretical/ methodological advantages of using a world-historical perspective in studying patterns of opposition? *Recently, power has come to the fore as occupying an important axis around which social differences are constructed and challenged. The relationship between power and inequality has also been a topic of debate within world-systems analysis. What are the limits to the study of inequality? Is power a more inclusive analytical category? Is inequality an indicator of power? *We are interested in exploring areas of contention/intersection with other theoretical perspectives on social difference and social movements, and in analyzing how different perspectives produce knowledge(s) useful as so many strategic interventions into multiple locations of power and anti-systemic agency. For example, in what ways do post-colonial, postmodern, feminist, and cultural studies enhance our understanding of world-systemic processes and challenge the centrality of inequality to the study of the modern world-system? What are some of the similarities and differences in their approach to the study of, for example, hegemony? *Social movement entails a set of assumptions about how we know social change when we see it. New perspectives on power and social difference often rattle existing understandings of anti-systemic agency. In what ways? This set of questions has been reduced in the past to a debate between materialist and ideological/cultural positions. How can we best analyze such debates as artifacts of world-historical processes? Are there alternative ways of posing these questions that suggest innovations in the study of long-term, large-scale social change? We will provide lodging and some meals for conference participants. Selected papers from the conference will be published in the annual series edited through Greenwood Press. THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS OF PAPERS OR DETAILED ABSTRACTS IS DECEMBER 15, 1998. Please submit materials to either Nancy Forsythe (af55@umail.umd.edu) or Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz (rk81@umail.umd.edu), Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA, 20742. Roberto Patricio KORZENIEWICZ Associate Professor Department of Sociology University of Maryland College Park MD 20742 United States Email:RK81@umail.umd.edu Phone:(301) 405-6398 --------------0C799C57694FE491A576D34A-- From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Jun 9 09:26:44 1998 Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 11:27:42 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: [Fwd: Action Alert: World Bank Policies]] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------ED52490C9E8C05DB08D36700 --------------ED52490C9E8C05DB08D36700 09 Jun 1998 06:46:59 -0400 (EDT) Tue, 09 Jun 1998 06:47:01 -0400 (EDT) 09 Jun 1998 06:45:44 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 06:44:41 -0400 From: Barbara Larcom Subject: [Fwd: Action Alert: World Bank Policies] To: Carl Chatzky , Charles Petersen , Cheryl Avery , Chris Chase-Dunn , Chuck Johnson , Dave Schott , Denis Nikitin , Dick Ochs , Frida Berrigan , Howard Ehrlich , Howdy Burns , Jim Lunday , Joe Duncan , John Dickson , Jon Kerr , Kai Lit Phua , Leslie Bilchick , Max Obuszewski , Mike Bardoff , Mike Totten-Reid , Nan McCurdy , Peter Grimes , SLAC , Sue Hunt , Timmons Roberts Reply-to: larcom@bcpl.net This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --Boundary_(ID_9rl11nYQoHrmc8dqv/GPgg) --Boundary_(ID_9rl11nYQoHrmc8dqv/GPgg) 8 Jun 1998 15:55:12 -0700 (PDT) Mon, 8 Jun 1998 15:54:02 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 15:54:02 -0700 (PDT) From: Njoki Njoroge Njehu Subject: Action Alert: World Bank Policies Sender: owner-50-years@igc.apc.org To: 50-years@igc.org Dear Friends: The Action Alert below came from 50 Years Is Enough Network member Friends of the Earth, US (FoE). Please send your letters out as soon as possible. They need to know we are watching and they won't and can't get away with creating loopholes that make key policies optional. Let us know what the Bank's response is to your letters. In Peace & Solidarity, Njoki Njoroge Njehu Public Outreach Coordinator ===================================================== June 8, 1998 To: World Bank Watchers From: Andrea Durbin, Friends of the Earth Re: Update on World Bank Environmental and Social Policies : Making them Mandatory Dear Friends, In a recent meeting with the US Executive Director, FoE learned that several members of the World Bank Board have raised concerns about the Bank's efforts to narrow down which Bank policies are considered binding for all task managers. Several of the Board Members see this effort as an attempt by the World Bank to "panel proof" themselves so that they no longer have many policies that the Inspection Panel can investigate. In July, the Board of Director's Committee on Development Effectiveness (CODE committee of the Board with oversight on the policy conversion process) will meet with Bank Management to discuss the policy conversion problems in the restricted nature of the proposed list of "safeguard," or mandatory policies. Some members of CODE have said that the list of existing policies which the Bank considers mandatory is too narrow and leaves out several important environmental and social policies (exactly what NGOs have complained about!). The Board's Committee has asked for a discussion about extending this list to include other social and environmental policies. So far management has identified nine "safeguard" policies which are considered mandatory (Environmental Assessment, Natural Habitats, Pest Management, Indigenous People, Management of Cultural Property, Involuntary Resettlement, Forestry, Safety of Dams, and Project on International Waterways), leaving out important policies such as Poverty Reduction, Gender, Energy Efficiency, Social Aspects for Development, or Project Monitoring, Evaluation and Supervision. The upcoming meeting of CODE gives us an opportunity to persuade the Board to expand the list of policies that are considered mandatory. We encourage you to contact your Executive Director, state the concerns raised by the current process to narrow down the list of required policies and express your strong support for an expansion of the list of binding policies. Only a few EDs have voiced their concerns about this so far (the US, Netherlands and Switzerland). These countries and others should push hard on this issue with Bank Management. Attached is a sample letter that you can use to send to your Executive Director, as well as a list of the names and information for the 24 Executive Directors and the latest list of CODE members. I. SAMPLE LETTER (Fill in Name) World Bank Executive Director The World Bank 1818 H. Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 Dear The World Bank has been working for several years on the conversion of its existing policies into different categories that would allow management to know which should be considered mandatory and which should be regarded as optional guidelines or best practices. So far Bank's management has identified only nine safeguard policies which would be mandatory: OP 4.01 Environmental Assessment, OP 4.04 Natural Habitats, OP 4.09 Pest Management, OP 4.10 Indigenous People, OP 4.11 Management of Cultural Property, OP 4.12 Involuntary Resettlement, OP 4.36 Forestry, OP 4.37 Safety of Dams, and OP 7.50 Project on International Waterways. Important policies such as those on Poverty Reduction, Gender, Energy Efficiency, Social Aspects of Development, Project Monitoring and Evaluation and Project Supervision are excluded. Although presented as an effort toward more efficiency and better organization, this process has narrowed the list of important policies that are now considered binding by the World Bank Group. NGOs are concerned that the list of safeguard policies is excessively narrow and leaves out important social and environmental policies and guidelines. The exclusion of these policies undermines the Bank's effectiveness and credibility in pursuing its goals of poverty reduction and sustainable development. We respectfully ask that you take the necessary steps to raise this issue with management and seek the inclusion of all the World Bank's social and environmental policies to be considered "safeguard" or mandatory policies. Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter. We would appreciate being informed about the progress on this issue. II. LIST OF WB EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS BY COUNTRY * Albania, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal: Franco Passacantando * United States: Jan Piercy * Germany: Helmut Schaffer * Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Sri Lanka: Surendra Singh * Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Netherlands, Romania, Ukraine: Pieter Stek * Russian Federation: Andrej Bugrov * Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay: Juan Cariaga * Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe: Joaquim R. Carvalho * Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Spain, Venezuela: Enzo Del Bufalo * Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Ireland, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines: Leonard Good * Austria (informalrg, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Turkey: Luc Hubloue * Brunei Darussalam, Fiji, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga, Vietnam: Jannes Hutagalung * Australia, Cambodia, Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Republic of Palau (informally), Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu: Young-Hoi Lee * China: LI Yong * Azerbaijan, Kyrgiz Republic, Poland, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan: Matthias Meyer * Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden: Ilkka Niemi * Japan: Atsuo Nishihara * United Kingdom: Gus O'Donnell * Bahrain, Arab Republic of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Oman, Qatar, Syrian Arab Republic, United Arab Emirates, Republic of Yemen: Khalid M. Al-Saad * Saudi Arabia: Khali H. Aloha * Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Philippines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago: Juanita D. Embodying * France: vacant; Alternate: Oliver Bourges * Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Niger, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Somalia (informally), Togo: Ali Bourhane * Afghanistan, Algeria, Ghana, Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia: Kacim Brachemi III. LIST OF CURRENT EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS SERVING ON CODE Surendra Singh, Chair (India) Khali H. Aloha (Saudi Arabia) Ali Bourhane (Comoros) Leonard Good (Canada) Young-Hoi Lee (South Korea) Luc Hubloue (Belgium) Ilkka Niemi (Finland) Jan Piercy (United States) --Boundary_(ID_9rl11nYQoHrmc8dqv/GPgg)-- --------------ED52490C9E8C05DB08D36700-- From austria@it.com.pl Tue Jun 9 09:51:39 1998 Reply-To: From: "Austrian Embassy" To: Subject: Fw: June 1998 Le Monde Diplomatique Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 15:46:04 +0200 ---------- > From: Le Monde diplomatique > To: English edition dispatch > Subject: June 1998 > Date: Dienstag, 09. Juni 1998 14:28 > > LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE > _________________________________________________________________ > > Le Monde diplomatique > > english edition > > June 1998 > > edited by Wendy Kristianasen > > > > LEADER > > Giant corporations, dwarf states * > > by Ignacio Ramonet > > The power of the state is in retreat before an onslaught of giant > corporates, fuelled by a frenzy of privatisation. The recent > mega-mergers confirm the process of globalisation is beyond the > control of governments, but should citizens accept it? > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/en/1998/06/01leader.html > > Translated by Ed Emery > > > > THIRTY FIVE YEARS OF COMPLICITY > > Indonesia, master card in Washington's hand > > by Noam Chomsky > > The Asian crisis has claimed its first victim - apart from the > millions of workers now unemployed - General Suharto. President for > over thirty years, he had a monopoly of power based on emoluments > and corruption. Finally, he proved unable to carry out the reforms > demanded by the International Monetary Fund or to stop the riots. > On 21 May 1998 he resigned. His successor, Jusuf Habibie, has given > some signs of change with the announcement of elections, the > release of political prisoners and changes at the top of the army. > But will the country get the thorough-going change it needs? > > Original text in English > > > > Between the finance markets and the army > > by Françoise Cayrac-Blanchard > > Now that the dictator has resigned and been replaced by Mr Habibie, > whether the transition is towards a "constitutional" or "people's > power" model of democracy, the army is sure to play a decisive > role, even if it decides to take a back seat. > > Translated by Ed Emery > > > > NO OPTION BUT COOPERATION, DESPITE CONFLICTING INTERESTS > > Russia and America at odds in the Gulf * > > by Alain Gresh > > On a visit to Israel at the end of May, a United States Congress > delegation led by Republican Newt Gingrich and Democrat Richard > Gephardt confirmed its support for Binyamin Netanyahu's hard line > and its opposition to any attempt by Washington to put pressure on > Israel. But the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock is complicating US > strategy in the Gulf. Unable to mobilise its Arab allies against > Iraq, America is also encountering reticence on the part of the > European countries and running up against an increasingly > independent Russia. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/en/1998/06/04gresh1.html > > Translated by Barry Smerin > > The Iran factor > > by Alain Gresh > > Iran continues to preoccupy both Russia, with which it has close > relations, and the United States. Encouraged by President Khatami's > call for a "dialogue of civilisations", Washington is dropping > proceedings against Gazprom, Total and Petronas which have signed > an agreement with Iran to develop a large gas field. The Iran-Libya > Sanctions Act (Ilsa), adopted by Congress in 1996, had met with > stiff resistance throughout the world, nowhere more so than in > Europe. Washington's new approach towards Iran is all the more > important as President Khatami has limited room for manoeuvre. > > Translated by Wendy Kristianasen > > > > WILL THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATS DO ANY BETTER THAN THE RIGHT IN GERMANY? > > Elections offer brief respite from crisis * > > by Mathias Greffrath > > In Germany, the Christian Democrats are in danger of losing the > election on 27 September and Chancellor Helmut Kohl, in power since > 1982, may have to step down. Opinion polls at the end of May gave > Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder a clear lead. But the Germans are > not exactly thrilled by the alternative on offer. The trouble is > that the Social Democrat candidate has not put the real choice > between different kinds of society at the heart of his campaign. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/en/1998/06/06germany.html > > Translated by Barbara Wilson > > > > WORKING HOURS AND THE FIRST STRIKE IN A DECADE > > Bolt from the blue in Denmark > > by Hubert Prolongeau > > Denmark is being shaken by an unprecedented social movement. For > the first time since 1961, the workers' rejection of the biannual > agreement between the blue-collar trade unions and the employers > gave way to a two-week wildcat strike and the government was forced > to intervene. At issue is the length of the working week, opening > an important debate on the future of prosperous societies. > > Translated by Francisca Garvie > > > > DIVISIONS IN EUROPE OVER RELATIONS WITH THE SOUTH > > The Lomé Convention under threat > > by Anne-Marie Mouradian > > The Lomé Convention, which has been renewed and revised three times > since 1975, has historically symbolised Europe's ambitions to > establish new relations with the South. No more were these to be > dominated by economic interests and power politics. Despite the > modesty of its achievements, it is one of the last remaining means > for protecting the world's poor countries from the full force of > globalisation. But not for long. Europe is preparing to negotiate > the fifth Convention, and international finance and trade > organisations are insisting that it be brought into line with the > rules of the new world economic order. > > Translated by Ed Emery > > > > THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY SEARCHES FOR STABILITY > > India in the hands of the Hindu nationalists > > by Christophe Jaffrelot > > India's controversial nuclear testing has redirected attention to > the subcontinent where the Indian People's Party (BJP), the biggest > Hindu nationalist movement, emerged winners in this March's > elections. The BJP has its roots in the Hindu nationalist movement > that emerged in the 1920s, that sought to strengthen the Hindus in > the face of the Muslim minority, and this allegiance still remains > a constraint to the BJP. Some people have been pleasantly surprised > by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's reassuring attitude > towards Pakistan. But there is still rising Hindu nationalism - and > those nuclear tests. > > Translated by Malcolm Greenwood > > Very political crimes in Bombay > > by Jeremy Seabrook > > Social collapse in Bombay has taken the form of a growing number of > extra-judicial police killings. During the past three years there > have been almost 150 deaths in what have come to be known as police > "encounters". Here, in the state capital of Maharashtra and India's > commercial heart, the distinction between crime and politics has > become blurred. > > Original text in English > > > > THE WEST DISTANCES THE NEWLY-INDEPENDENT STATES FROM MOSCOW > > Transport and geostrategy in southern Russia > > by Jean Radvanyi > > "A 21st Century Silk Road" is what people are calling the project > for a Eurasian corridor in Southern Russia, which has been launched > by the European Union with the backing of the United States. Road > and rail networks, ports, pipelines and an air corridor are > providing access to the region's newly-independent states, but by > routes which avoid Russia and Iran but increase the crucial role of > Turkey. No holds are barred in this struggle to exploit natural > resources. > > Translated by Pat Phillips > > > > INVISIBLE BUT REAL > > When immigration turns to slavery > > by Thierry Parisot > > The 150th anniversary of France's abolition of slavery was the > occasion for many events marking the 19th century black slave > trade. But the enslavement of human beings is just as much a > reality today, affecting millions of women and children across the > globe. As this exploitation starts to reach the heart of Western > Europe, awareness of the phenomenon is slowly growing. The > children's march was the first public demonstration. > > Translated by Malcolm Greenwood > > Organising against child labour * > > by Claire Brisset > > The facts about the world's child labourers are only now beginning > to be understood for the international scandal and the economic > folly that they are. A scandal, because it deprives millions of > them of their childhood; and a folly, because it denies them any > hope of education, and thus seriously undermines their countries' > hopes of economic lift-off. > http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/en/1998/06/13slave2.html > > Translated by Ed Emery > > The Beirut slave trade > > by Marie Odile and Xavier Favre > > Virtual imprisonment and abuse, the hallmarks of slavery in an > earlier time, are now the daily experience of thousands of Sri > Lankan women (and others from Africa), employed as servants in > today's Beirut. The authorities are turning a blind eye and the > public at large is oblivious to this trade in human labour, which > goes on behind the closed doors of the employment agencies and the > employer families. > > Translated by Wendy Kristianasen > > > > (*) Star-marked articles are available to every reader. Other > articles are available to paid subscribers only. > > Yearly subscription fee: 24 US $ (Institutions 48 US $). > > > > ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - Le Monde diplomatique > ______________________________________________________________ > > 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 chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Jun 9 12:12:05 1998 Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 14:12:52 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Follow-up for todays Han Young Strike Support Demo] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------04803E05E5C11619BDA704EC --------------04803E05E5C11619BDA704EC chriscd@jhu.edu; Tue, 09 Jun 1998 13:00:47 -0400 (EDT) for chriscd@jhu.edu; Tue, 09 Jun 1998 13:00:48 -0400 (EDT) 09 Jun 1998 12:56:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 12:56:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Balt FNB Subject: Follow-up for todays Han Young Strike Support Demo To: Labor Support Follow-up on call for Han Young Strike Support Demos. Today's Demo June 9th, will convene at 4:30 at 101 West Lombard Phone Contact Number is (410)675.4600 - Carl, Karin, Sarah, Shannon - Baltimore Food-Not-Bombs; - Coalition in Support of Struggles Against Global Corporatism - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The situation at Han Young tells us why we should GET OFF THE FREE TRADE ROAD TO RUIN!!! Three times the workers at a small factory near Tijuana, Mexico have voted to be represented by the independent union of their choice: October 6, 1997, December 16, 1997, May 29, 1998 And each time, management has refused to respect the workers' choice; the Mexican government has violated its own labor laws; government-controlled unions have tried to muscle their way back into the factory. Remember all those promises about NAFTA? The Han Young workers can tell you what NAFTA is really about: Violence from paid thugs; Indifference and corruption from Mexican government officials; Empty promises from Mexican President Zedillo and U.S. President Clinton The workers at Han Young have been struggling for their rights since June 2, 1997...more than a year! They are fighting for the right of all workers along Mexico's border with the U.S. who would like to bust loose from corrupt, government-controlled unions and be able to join democratic, independent unions - real unions. The Han Young workers are not alone. We are out here today to show our solidarity. This is part of a national action. People in cities all across the country are participating in a national day of action on and around June 16, demonstrating at Mexican consulates and U.S. federal buildings. We will stand with these workers until justice is won. And we have learned the lessons of Han Young: Stop the Free Trade Area of the Americas (NAFTA on steroids)! Stop fast track! Dump NAFTA! For more information, contact: Campaign for Labor Rights at (541) 344-5410 or Summary of recent events: * Tuesday, May 19: Han Young management announces refusal to negotiate changes in existing current which runs only through May 21. * Thursday, May 21: Busload of CTM thugs arrives at factory. * Friday, May 22: Han Young workers go on strike. Production ceases. CTM thugs, who had stayed in the factory overnight, tear down strike banners. * Saturday, May 23: Management declares strike "non-existent." Labor board inspector backs up this patently false claim. * Tuesday, May 26: Labor board agrees to workers' demand for new strike vote to establish whether a majority supports the strike. * Wednesday, May 27: Labor board refuses to verify eligibility to vote, allows more than 52 clearly fraudulent participants to vote. Tally is 66 against the strike and 52 for the strike. * Thursday, May 28: Labor board declares strike non-existent, giving spurious justifications. * Friday, May 29: Third union certification election held at Han Young. Even though the labor board allows more than 48 ineligible participants to vote for the CTM, the tally is 75-65 in favor of "October 6," an independent union registered to operate within Baja. A Mexican federal judge suspends the labor board decision nullifying the strike, thus reinstating the strike at least until review by a higher federal court scheduled for June 18. In return for buying ad space in Tijuana newspapers, the government demands a local media blackout on coverage favorable to the workers. U.S. Congressman David Bonior issues statement that recent events at Han Young "could have long-term implications for U.S. trade policy." * Saturday, May 30: Local newspaper carries statement by government-aligned union official characterizing the Han Young workers as tools of foreign interests seeking to derail investment in Mexico. * Wednesday, June 3: The labor board announces that it is postponing indefinitely its scheduled decision on the outcome of the union certification election. In blatant violation of the federal court order, police forcibly remove strike banners from the Han Young factory and impound two workers' cars. Warrants issued for the arrest of the lawyer and the lead organizer for the independent union on unspecified charges. Union officials go into hiding. Workers issue statement declaring that "In Baja California, labor justice is a dead letter" and appealing for "national and international solidarity to unite in support of our just struggle for the defense of labor rights for maquiladora workers." Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers issues emergency appeal to international solidarity for contributions to worker strike fund. * Thursday, June 4: $1,000 bond paid to suspend action on arrest warrants but officials of the independent union are still wary, given recent blatant violations of Mexican law and federal court decision. Representatives of U.S. solidarity organizations plan long-term strategy for Han Young campaign and issue call for (inter)national day of action on June 16. Independent labor organizations hold press conferences in Mexico City and Mexicali (capital of Baja) in support of Han Young workers. * Friday, June 5: Solidarity delegation goes to Mexican consulate in San Francisco to deliver letter to Zedillo signed by representatives of more than 300 organizations around the world. List includes some Mexican labor officials. Han Young worker demonstration at U.S. consulate in Tijuana gets local media coverage, in spite of government attempts to impose media blackout on Han Young. HAN YOUNG DAY OF ACTION: Cities where demonstrations are certain or likely follows: San Francisco, California; Portland, Oregon; Eugene, Oregon; Long Beach, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Chicago, Illinois; New York City; Seattle, Washington; Baltimore, Maryland; Sacramento, California; Salt Lake City, Utah This is a strong show of solidarity to be brought together on very short notice. HAN YOUNG STILL REFUSING TO NEGOTIATE: Han Young management continues to refuse to negotiate with the workers. According to management, the government has told them that they shouldn't negotiate, pending the outcome of the June 18 federal hearing and should stick by the position that the strike is nonexistent. INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION PLACES AD: Tijuana papers today carried a full-page advertisement placed by the Tijuana delegation of the CNIT, one of the national industry associations. The ad applauded the labor board's May 28 decision that the strike at Han Young is "non-existent." The ad also reproached "intervention" by "foreign interests" seeking to "destabilize the cordial labor relations that have always existed in Tijuana." It is unlikely that the chief motivation of the CNIT was to publish their perspective but instead the association may be using its ad-purchasing power to buy silence from the local press, which acceded to similar pressure from the Baja state government last week. WORKERS DEMONSTRATE: While on strike, the Han Young workers have been demonstrating at sites in Tijuana on a 6-day-a-week basis. On Friday (June 5), their chief focus was the U.S. consulate. Today, their chief focus was the Korean consulate. They also have been reaching out to other workers in the area by leafleting at industrial parks. HUMAN RIGHTS HEARING: On Saturday (June 6), national deputies from Mexico City were in Tijuana in connection with a plan to reform Mexico's human rights legislation. As part of the process, there is a series of consultations throughout the country which are supposed to be open to the public. However, the hearings are never announced. The Han Young workers were able to learn of this consultation, which they attended in order to give their perspective, saying that basic labor rights such as the right to organize and the right to strike need to be understood as fundamental human rights. As Mexican law now stands, such labor rights are not considered as fundamental human rights and so governmental human rights personnel are barred from dealing with labor rights concerns. ****************************************************** "In Baja California, labor justice is a dead letter." - from a statement issued June 3 by the Han Young workers "We call for national and international solidarity to unite in support of our just struggle for the defense of labor rights for maquiladora workers." - from the statement issued by the Han Young workers ******************************************************* --------------04803E05E5C11619BDA704EC-- From kpmoseley@juno.com Tue Jun 9 21:27:46 1998 From: kpmoseley@juno.com To: chriscd@jhu.edu Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 22:51:31 -0700 Subject: Re: sessions at the SSHA meetings in chicago X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0 Could someone give me SSHA mail/email address? Many thanks -- K. _____________________________________________________________________ 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 OWENJACK@FS.isu.edu Thu Jun 11 12:24:52 1998 11 Jun 98 12:31:40 +600 From: "J B Owens" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 12:31:07 -0600, MDT Subject: CFP: Women, Science, and Technology ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 09:16:43 -0700 From: Ken Pomeranz Subject: CFP: Women, Science, and Technology Sender: H-NET List for World History To: H-WORLD@h-net.msu.edu Reply-to: H-NET List for World History Second Bulletin II INTERNATIONAL MULTIDISCIPLINARY CONGRESS WOMEN, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 17 - 19 1998 LOCATION: Museo Roca =AD Vicente L=F3pez 2220, Buenos Aires, Argentina ORGANIZED BY: Red Argentina de G=E9nero, Ciencia y Tecnolog=EDa =AD RAGCYT =AD (Argentinean Net on Gender, Science and Technology) Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios de G=E9nero Facultad de Filosof=EDa y Letras =AD Universidad de Buenos Aires Pu=E1n 470, 4to. Piso oficina 460 1406 Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina Fax: + 54 1 432 0121 E-mail: ragcyt@aiem.filo.uba.ar Sponsored by: * Universidad de Buenos Aires (University of Buenos Aires) * Honorable C=E1mara de Diputados de la Naci=F3n Argentina (National= Congress) * United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) * Comisi=F3n Nacional de Cooperaci=F3n con la Unesco (UNESCO National Cooperation Agency) ACADEMIC COORDINATION: * Ana Franchi * Silvia Kochen * Diana Maff=EDa PROJECT MANAGER: Patricia Laura G=F3mez SCIENTIFIC BOARD: * Dora Barrancos =AD Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Nora Dom=EDnguez =AD Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Gloria Dubner =AD Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Eva Giberti =AD Universidad Hebrea Bar =AD Ill=E1n, Argentina * Graciela Hierro =AD Universidad Nacional Aut=F3noma de M=E9xico, M=E9xico * F=E1tima Oliveira =AD Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brasil * Juana Mar=EDa Pasquini =AD Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient=EDfic= as y T=E9cnicas, Argentina * Eulalia P=E9rez Sede=F1o =AD Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Espa=F1a * Sara Rietti =AD Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Fanny Tabak =AD Universidad Nacional de R=EDo de Janeiro, Brasil * Luc=EDa Tossi =AD Laboratorio Pierre et Marie Curie, Francia SESSIONS TITLE: * Feminist History of Science and Technology * Biography of Women in Science and Technology * Epistemology and Feminist * Women, Power and Knowledge * Impact of Science and Technology on Women * Subjectivity and Knowledge * Science and Technology in Literary Discourses * Innovations and Pedagogic Experiences to Introduce Women on Science and Technology * Diagnosis of Women's Participation on Science and Technology * Affirmative Actions in Public Policy regarding Science and Technology EXPONENTS and LECTURERS: * Jos=E9 Omar Acha - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Mar=EDa Elena Acosta - Distrito Escolar San Mart=EDn, Argentina * Mariflor Aguilar Rivero - Universidad Nacional Auton=F3ma de M=E9xico, M=E9xico * Elida Aponte Sanchez - Universidad de Zulia, Venezuela * Tatiana Artemieva - Russian Academy of Sciencies, Russia * Teresa Azc=E1rate - Asociaci=F3n de Especialistas Universitarias en= Estudios de la Mujer / Espacio Feminista, Pluralista y Aut=F3nomo, Argentina * Ana Mar=EDa Bach - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Mar=EDa Elena Bartis - Asociaci=F3n de Especialistas Universitarias en Estudios de la Mujer / Espacio Feminista, Pluralista y Aut=F3nomo, Argentina * Andrea Emilce Bevacqua - Instituto de la Central de Trabajadores Argentinos, Argentina * Norma Blazquez Graf - Universidad Nacional Auton=F3ma de M=E9xico, M=E9xic= o * Andrea Bolcatto - Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina * Gloria Bonder - Universidad de Buenos Aires // Centro de Estudios de la Mujer, Argentina * Isabel Boschi - Fundaci=F3n "Isabel Boschi", Argentina * Stella Maris Brunetto - Escuela Jaim Najman Bialik, Argentina * Mabel Campagnoli - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Mar=EDa Cristina Casciano Maciel - Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social, Uruguay * Laura Cerrato - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * July Chaneton - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Alejandra Graciela Ciriza Jofr=E9 - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient=EDficas y T=E9cnicas / Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Argentina * Mar=EDa Lucila Colombo - Legislatura de la Ciudad Aut=F3noma de Buenos= Aires / Sindicato de Amas de Casa de la Rep=FAblica Argentina, Argentina * Stella Maris Delgado - Distrito Escolar San Mart=EDn, Argentina * M=F3nica Di Santo - Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Lucila D=EDaz R=F6nner - Espacio Feminista, Pluralista y Aut=F3nomo,= Argentina * Marilyn Di=E9guez Pinto =AD SENACYT, Panam=E1 * Patricia Digilio - Asociaci=F3n Argentina de Investigaciones =C9ticas, Argentina * Ana Beatriz Dom=EDnguez Mon - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Mar=EDa Teresa Doring Hermosillo - Universidad Aut=F3noma Metropolitana = =AD Xochimilco, M=E9xico * Gloria Dubner - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Edith Arlinet Elorza - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Mar=EDa Elina Est=E9banez - Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina * Beatriz Lidia Fainholc - Universidad Nacional de La Plata / CEDIPROE, Argentina * Susana Finquelievich - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient=EDficas y T=E9cnicas, Argentina * Amalia Eugenia Fischer Pfaeffle - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil * Ana Franchi - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient=EDficas yT=E9cnica= s, Argentina * Catalina N=E9lida Fratalocchi - Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Argentina * Nora A. Furlan - AMEN / CPEM 29 / IPAF, Argentina * M=F3nica Garc=EDa Frinchaboy - Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina * Lidia Mariana Gogorza - Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Rosely Gomes Costa - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brasil * Carmuca G=F3mez Bueno - Universidad de Granada, Espa=F1a * Rosa Mar=EDa G=F3nzalez Jimenez - Universidad Pedag=F3gica Nacional,= M=E9xico * Sara Beatriz Guardia Aguirre - Centro de Estudios La Mujer en la Historia de Am=E9rica Latina, Per=FA * Griselda Gutierrez Casta=F1eda - Universidad Nacional Aut=F3noma de= M=E9xico, M=E9xico * Graciela Hierro - Universidad Nacional Aut=F3noma de M=E9xico, M=E9xico * Silvia Kochen - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient=EDficas y T=E9cnicas, Argentina * Alfredo G. Kohn Loncarica - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Celinda Lilian Letelier V=E1squez - Universidad Federal de Para=EDba,= Brasil * Julia Estela Levi - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Olga Leonor L=F3pez de Illa, Argentina * Raquel L=F3pez Llames =AD EOL, Argentina * Diana Helena Maff=EDa - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Nora I. Mantelli - AMEN / IFD 12 / EATM / UNC, Argentina * Mariel Mart=EDn - Asociaci=F3n Mujeres Universitarias de Mar del Plata, Argentina * Pilar Miguez Fern=E1ndez - Universidad Pedag=F3gica Nacional, M=E9xico * Eliana Moreira - Universidad Federal de Para=EDba, Brasil * Gabriela Nouzeilles - Duke University, USA * Alejandra Oberti - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Michelina Oviedo =AD Guionarte, Argentina * Alejandra Rita Patuto - Asociaci=F3n Mujeres Universitarias de Mar del Plata, Argentina * Eulalia P=E9rez Sede=F1o - Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Espa=F1a * Susi Reich Giesso - Proyecto 3=BA Milenio, Argentina * Digna Altagracia Reyes G. =AD Coordinadora de Mujeres, Rep=FAblica Dominicana * Moira Rogers - Georgia State University, USA * Mar=EDa Graciela Ronanduano- Asociaci=F3n de Psic=F3logos de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Martha In=E9s Rosenberg - Foro por los Derechos Reproductivos, Argentina * Norma Isabel S=E1nchez - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Natalia G. Sardiello - AMEN / IFD 6 / ESBA, Argentina * Carmen Secades - Asociaci=F3n Argentina de Sexolog=EDa y Educaci=F3n= Sexual, Argentina * Mar=EDa Carlota Semp=E9 - Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina * Susana Sommer - Universidad de Buenos Aires / Foro por los Derechos Reproductivos, Argentina * Silvia Olga Starkoff, Argentina * Teresa Su=E1rez - Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina * Fanny Tabak - Instituto Direito e Sociedade, Brasil * Nidia Tadeo - Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina * Mar=EDa Delia Toledo - Universidad Nacional de Tucum=E1n, Argentina * Patricia Tomic - Okaganan University College, Canad=E1 * Rosa Eugenia Trumper Margulis - Universidad Austral de Chile, Chile * Adriana Eva Vagui - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * Marcelo Alejandro Villa - Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION: * By mail or personally: Red Argentina de G=E9nero, Ciencia y Tecnolog=EDa Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios de G=E9nero Facultad de Filosof=EDa y Letras =AD UBA Pu=E1n 470, 4to. Piso oficina 460 1406 Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina * By fax: + 54 1 432 0121 * By E-mail (please put "RAGCYT" as reference): patgomez@mail.retina.ar FEES: * Exponents: $ 75.- (Seventy five pesos) * General Public: $ 50.- (Fifty pesos) * Students: $ 25.- (Twenty five pesos) BOOKS, MAGAZINES, VIDEOS AND DOCUMENTATION EXHIBITION: Exhibition materials can be before the beginning of the Congress until July 17 1998. These materials will not be returned, and will be kept at the Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios de G=E9nero (Interdisciplinary Institute of Gender Studies Library's). SELLING OF VIDEOS, BOOKS, MAGAZINES AND DOCUMENTS: The Librer=EDa de las Mujeres (Women Bookshop's) will have a stand specially set up for the Congress. Those who want sell any materials should contact: Librer=EDa de las Mujeres Corrientes 1660 =AD Local 2 1042 Ciudad de Buenos Aires Tel=E9fono: + 54 1 370 5302 Fax: + 54 1 632 6884 HOUSING, AIRFARE AND TOURISM: Each participant should make his/her travel arrangements. Nevertheless the Congress organizers have asked for the assistance of Cristina Barone. She have information about hotel accomodations, transportation from and to Airports Buenos Aires, and guided tours. To request registration forms, please you can comunicate to: Cristina Barone Viajes R=EDo de Janeiro 1045, 5to. Piso depto "B" 1405 Ciudad de Buenos Aires Tel / Fax: + 54 1 863 0088 E-mail: cbarone@tournet.com.ar REGISTRATION FORM Please, send it before July, 3 to: RED ARGENTINA DE G=C9NERO, CIENCIA Y TECNOLOG=CDA =AD RAGCYT =AD Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios de G=E9nero Facultad de Filosof=EDa y Letras =AD UBA Pu=E1n 470, 4to. Piso oficina 460 - 1406 Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina Fax: + 54 1 432 0121 E-mail (please put "RAGCYT" as reference): patgomez@mail.retina.ar Last Name(s): First Name(s): Occupation: Institution/Organization: Department/Section: Address (Street, Number): City: Country: Zip Code: Telephone: (include area code): Fax: E-mail: Internet: Participation condition: ( ) General Public ( ) Student FORWARDED BY: ******************************************************** J. B. "Jack" Owens, Professor of History Project Coordinator, Computer-Mediated Distance Learning Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 83209 USA e-mail: owenjack@isu.edu www: http://www.isu.edu/~owenjack fax: 208-236-4267 ******************************************************** From slayman@2nature.org Fri Jun 12 14:24:08 1998 From: "Stephen Layman" To: WSN@csf.colorado.edu Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:31:30 -0400 Subject: Resources to support sustainability education ** apologies for cross-postings ** Dear Colleague, A new, free-access website (www.2nature.org) -- maintained by a nonprofit organization called Second Nature -- helps education professionals link the interdisciplinary principles of environmental sustainability to their teaching and campus operations, through online resources such as: Vision :: information about "Education for Sustainability" (EFS) and its relationship to higher education; Courses :: interdisciplinary syllabi and reading lists, with instructor comments; Bulletin Board :: online message board for you and your colleagues to discuss sustainability education; EFS Profiles :: case studies of EFS activities at various schools; Methods :: innovative teaching techniques and real-world applications; Biblio :: bibliographic references for books, articles, videos and other materials; EFS Essays :: topical essays authored by leaders in the field; and Calendar of EFS Events :: upcoming sustainability activities. The website's content can only grow through your efforts. Through (www.2nature.org), you can exchange innovative curriculum with your colleagues, dialogue with professionals from around the world about sustainability education, and highlight your own activities. Second Nature is a Boston-based, national nonprofit organization working to help higher education prepare future professionals for the increasingly complex environmental and social challenges we face. The organization offers colleges and universities a range of programs, training sessions, one-on-one consulting and resources to make the integration of environmental sustainability thinking "second nature" to higher education. Please visit (www.2nature.org) and become part of the online learning community! ----------------------- Steve Layman Bolton Starfish Program Manager Second Nature, Inc. 44 Bromfield Street, Fifth Floor Boston, MA 02108-4909 USA tel: 617-292-7771 ext. 124 fax: 617-292-0150 e-mail: sbolton@2nature.org http://www.2nature.org From rkmoore@iol.ie Mon Jun 15 03:16:09 1998 Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 10:15:41 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network), philofhi@yorku.ca (philosophy of history) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: re: globalization, marxism, and world government A marxist friend and I were debating the possibilities of overcoming capitalist power recently, and the nature of a `new regime', and we got into a debate about globalization, marxism, and world government. I thought this might provide some grist for the wsn mill. rkm ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Said my friend... >globalization was for >the first time described by Marx and Engels in "German Ideology" and >specially in the 1848 Manifesto. It is far from being an accident or a bad >course of History but it is embodied in the essential logic of capitalism. >It will bury capitalism... I find this analysis indefensible, although I've seen it oft repeated. It does not fit with the available evidence, which is overwhelming and undeniable. Globalization is all directed toward a single objective, and that is the monopolization of world power and wealth by a handful of TNC's, the elite who control them, and the bureacracies designed to serve them (IMF et al). The best models to look at, revealing where globalization is heading, are the 7-Sister petroleum `majors' which were the first TNC's (a hundred years before their time), and whose evolution gives a precursor of the future of all the other TNCs, which are now, decades later, following rapidly down the same path. In the early days, oil companies fought each other tooth-and-nail, stealing territory, price-cutting, driving each other out of business, and all those other things competitive capitalists do so well. But as the global industry matured, early in this century more or less, it settled down into a comfortable, gentlemanly _clique. The majors _collaborate to control production quotas, to manage distribution and prices, and to present a generally united front toward regulation, OPEC, etc. J D Rockefeller and J P Morgan devoted considerable of their later energy promoting such a collaborative ethic. Structurally, the oil industry is more like _feudalism than _capitalism. That is, it is about "wealth management" more than it is about "wealth growth". To be sure, Exxon Corp functions as a corporation which must show growth and profits, but the growth comes through _overall increase in petroleum consumption, not by Exxon trying to put Shell out of business. The clique manages the industry collectively, as a `cash cow'. When this same kind of `feudal' arrangement -- ie, market monoplization by a clique of TNCs -- occurs in _all market segments (food, transport, communications, etc. etc), as it _is rapidly doing under neoliberalism, then we can expect the dynamics of the global economy to shift radically. We are now experiencing the `shakeout' period of globalization, when the big TNCs elbow each other for position, and they collectively force the smaller companies out of business. Also being forced `out of business' by the TNCs are _nation _states, which are being robbed and sabotaged, and which are being brought under the strict, legalized, irreversible dominion of TNC-controlled institutions such as the WTO & IMF. During _any shakeout period, one sees instability, competition, temporary price reductions, bankruptcies, and mergers. In a few years, when nation-states have become powerless, population-suppressing puppets of the global regime, and when all wealth is owned and all commerce is managed by a community of overlapping TNC cliques, then the elite and their TNC's will _regularize the system. That is to say, they will organize themselves to collectively manage the world as a `cash cow' just as the oil majors currently manage the petroleum industry, or how the Britsh East India company managed India back before it became a British Colony. The historical precedents are clear in this regard, and Marxian predictions of capitalist collapse are simply invalid -- they are based on linear extrapolation from too little data, and they take into account too few of the operating forces. `Materialism', like most `-isms', suffers from insisting that all phenomenon be modelled by a specific mechanism, and the world just doesn't work that way. There are micro-economic factors, macro-economic factors, cultural and political factors, and, most of all, there is `elite agency' -- the conscious and calculated acts of whatever elite happens to be running a given society at the time. These factors do not add up in a linear way; they are not mathematically modelable. Decisive events in one domain can dominate the system one time, and be insignificant usually. To understand and to predict, one must consider the whole gestalt of factors. In this regard, one could well note that the `neoliberal program' was not some natural evolution, following some materialist program, but was a conscious, well-orchestrated political program launched by an elite who were well enough organized in their efforts to get Reagan and Thatcher elected, to supply them with Milton Friedman and a battalion of other neoliberal advisors, to support the whole campaign in the mass media, etc. to the current day. How, precisely, will the `world managers' `regularize' the system? One can only speculate, but one thing is for sure: they will _not allow it to collapse out from under them! They more than anyone else value a centrally-controlled, predictable, stabilized regime. At a stroke of the pen, for example, the casino-capitalism international financial system can be made stable, when the appointed time comes, just as it was destabilized by a stroke of the pen when Bretton Woods was intentionally abandoned. In the _military domain, the elite have telegraphed their intentions -- the architecture of the regularized global regime has been articulated and is being sytematically implemented. At the top is to be an elite hi-tech mobile `police' force, built out of US and NATO forces. Desert Storm was a field-test of how it intends to operate: hi-tech control-of-theater enables the victim nation to be systematically clobbered with essentially no casualties among elite forces, and meanwhile the global media carries a news-free propaganda circus in support of the `good and noble' intervention. The seemingly unexplainable reluctance of US and NATO to intervene in the long Bosnian conflict can be easily understood. The bloody scenario was intentionally encourged by the US and others to build up public pressure for US-NATO intervention, to achieve `legitimacy' for the elite strike-force concept. This strategem worked perfectly, and the `balance of Western opinion', I suggest, has now come to see US-NATO intervention as something `we need more of' to clean up `trouble spots'. (Who says you can't fool all the people all the time?) [this was written before kosovo was in the headlines] The rest of the military global architecture is explained by Samuel P. Huntington, in "The Clash of Civilizations". Under a _very thin disguise of _analysis, this book is actually an elite _policy announcement, from your same Council on Foreign Relations that earlier guided the US into and out of WW-2, and has been decisive in every major US geopolitical decision. The world is to be divided up into mutually-distrusting `civilizations', each with a `regional hegemon'. Thus the world won't have peace, and yet it won't be threatened by global war either. There will be regional conflicts, and perhaps untold human suffering, but the elite force will always maintain total technological superiority and will be able to `contain' any conflict at whatever level is deemed to be most expedient to elite designs at the time. Harry Truman's statement may have some metaphoric relevance here... If we see that Germany is winning we should help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible . . . Harry S. Truman, 1941 Rumors of the natural death of capitalism are exaggerated. Like a vampire, it arises again from the grave, in feudal attire instead of competitive, but still in charge. --- > Among other things, I would like to point out that Marxism is not an >ideology; it is far from being simplistic, but it is firmly rooted in the >Western thought tradition to reach an overall understanding of the >complexities of reality; to describe it as "simplistic" is to ignore >altogether what is Marxism; communism is not an idea, but, as Marx and >Engels said in one of their so called "works of youth" (in this case, >"German Ideology"), it is a process towards the future; USSR never was a >socialist state, but rather an extreme form of state capitalism (and the >first to say this was Lenin himself); to tell about "communist states" is >nonsense, since in communism the withering away of the state would have >already been completed; etc. I wish someone would come out and say what the hell marxism is and isn't. It seems to be whatever the person arguing wants it to be, an ever-shifting, never-erring `vision' of predictive certitude. You say it's not an `ideology', but do you have the right to say that? To millions it _has been an ideology. And _please, do _not ask me to read a shelf of books on marxism, I refuse. If you can't explain it in a message, then you don't understand it yourself. (Kurt Vonnegut insists you explain it to a ten year old; I consider that an excessive demand for a complex subject.) (:>) For the purposes of this discussion, which I believe is on the topic of `predictions about globalization', then marxism must be taken as an _analysis. Perhaps Marx has recanted some of his most important statements, and marxist experts can inform me on this, but I seem to recall him saying that "All value is created by labor", and I gather that many who call themselves marxists believe this fervently. As a piece of _analysis, I find this statement extremely _simplistic. It would in fact seem to be a propaganda message, issued to counter the capitalist propaganda about what wealth and property are all about, which is equally simplistic. As _analysis (rather than propaganda or ideology) it is simply _wrong. _Many things contribute to _value creation, and investment, management, creativity, luck, marketing, and many others take their place alongside labor in any rational analysis -- and this has been true for thousands of year, long before capitalism or industrialism were invented. >Globalization in itself is not an evil: it is the necessary step ---for >both economic and ecological reasons--- to establish a new world order >(a sane, rational and humanistic one), to abolish the national frontiers >and the state nations and to create a world government. What is wrong is >neoliberal globalization. Behind this statement are numerous implicit assumptions, none of which have been established or even mentioned, and all of which can be shown to be false. Since you don't state your assumptions, I am forced to, so I don't take responsibility for how many words that are required. First of all, by any reasonable definition of the word, globalization _is EVIL. It is based on cynical deception, abuse of power, the death of millions, unnecessary starvation and suffering, theft from the many by the few, oppressive dictatorial governments, torture and death squads, and destabilization of democratic institutions and whole cultures. If this isn't evil, then it'll do until something worse comes along! You say: >Globalization in itself is not an evil: it is the necessary step... By this are you saying "The end justifies the means"? Is this a marxist precept? That something evil is _not evil if something _good comes out of it? I refuse to accept such a moral precept, and I will be glad to argue against it on pragmatic grounds as well if you or anyone cares to defend it. Besides, submitting to globalization is _not necessary in order for the current capitalist regime to be overthrown. In fact the longer we wait, the fewer options we have to overthrow it. In this regard I find marxism to be one of the most _reactionary doctrines I know of! It _discourages political empowerment and _encourages people to just ride the roller coaster and hope for a gold ring at the end of the ride, a final reward in workers paradise. In that way it's much like Christianity with its `heaven', and which is equally disempowering politically. (Not that individual marxists and Christians can't be wonderful people and revolutionaries!, but we're talking here about _doctrine, and _analysis.) With respect to the heavenly gold ring: "All's I can say is `Good luck'" - Bob Dylan, from a dream --- You are also assuming that there is only one possible vision of a "sane, rational, and humanistic world order", and that it must be based on a world government. You are wrong on both counts. There can be _many visions of a new and better world, and I suggest we'll come up with a better vision in the end if we are open minded at the beginning about what its architecture might be. Insisting on the _sole validity of a _single vision is politically divisive, which translates into being politically _fatal, because only in _unity can elite hegemony be overthrown. --- A world government is a highly questionable proposition from many perspectives. I've written against that world government many times and will continue to do so. At this time I'll give three of the counter-arguments, which certainly is _not a conclusive proof, but at least it rebuts the notion that a world government is _obviously a good thing, with no further examination needed. --- (1) the argument from size Most of you may be familiar with E F Schmacher's "Small is Beautiful" which talks about the inefficiencies and wrong-headedness that naturally creep into organizations as they get larger. Carolyn Ballard sent me another book, Leopold Kohr's "The Breakdown of Nations", which takes the notion of `scale' even further. He argues the thesis that _wherever you see systems breaking down and not working you can _always trace it to "something got too big". Perhaps these writers don't have it 100% right, but I agree with them that as the scale of an operation gets bigger, that leads to _qualitative changes in its performance and its accountability. With _democracy in particular, the bigger the political unit, the more difficult it is to maintain democracy -- the easier it is for elites and power-brokers `at the center' to usurp power. That, I believe, is why the US was the first to be captured by neoliberal forces, and why the US is the leader of the globalization disaster. The smaller-scale European nations were able to maintain democracy longer -- which is why, by the way, the elite are pushing through the EU and the Euro, to move euro-sovereignty up to a larger scale, where they can more easily usurp power. >From considerations of size, I claim, a world government would be a disaster. Democracy would be unmaintainable, leading to some kind of elite power system. Who knows what would happen in areas like economic planning, but one can look at the Soviet experience and only shudder to think about 10 billion tons of corn being grown when 10 billion tons of soybeans were needed instead, or everything delivered to the wrong destination, or in mislabled crates, etc. etc. Bureacracy is a killer and the bigger the deadlier. --- (2) the argument from eco-theory & diversity In ecology, the principle has been generally accepted that an ecosystem is more robust and adaptable to change if it includes a wide _diversity of life forms. If an unusual drought kills off one species, for example, the it is unlikely to be a sole-link in the food chain, and the ecosystem as a whole can be expected to recover. In a mono-culture, on the other hand, such as a man-made orange grove, an unusual drought might kill off _all the principal life in the system, all at once. Furthermore, _evolution occurs more rapidly in a diverse ecosystem, _especially whenever unusual conditions kill off a species or two. Whether the unit is the nation, the cultural community, or the bio-region -- _some smaller-than-global unit of sovereignty is, I believe, preferable to a world government, whether your perspective be cultural, political, economic, or species-survival. Different experiments can be carried out by different sovereignties, in all the realms mentioned (cultural et al), and the whole world can benefit from the successes and failures. With a world government I fear a sterlilty would be introduced into societal evolution, a stifling of new growth, of new models of society. And out of such a sterility there might not even come stability, instead we might see a soicietal deterioration. I've seen an analysis, for example, of the Dark Ages which said the main reason they were `dark' is that a monoculture ruled (ie, Rome) which stifled learning, innovation, experimentation, etc. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." --- (3) the argument relating to the presumed `evil of nationalism' A great deal of the impetus for a world government comes from the observation that nationalism has led to wars, and that by erasing national borders we would therefore end the causes of war. This `observation', I submit, is historically wrong. We _think it's historically correct because our fist exposure to history, in pubic schools, subjects us to grossly-distorted historical interpretations, interpretations designed to serve the purposes of the capitalist system. And then the corporate media continues the myths as it interprets current events. Only those who study history beyond public school ever get a glimpse of what really happened in history, and again in academia only an incredibly narrow range of interpretations receive much airtime. (This general topic of history distortion is covered extensively by Chomsky, Parenti, and Zinn, among others.) It is _not popular nationalism, nor ethnic hatreds, nor citizen desire for more wealth, that has been ultimately responsible for wars in the capitalist-dominated parts of the world over the past century or two. Wars have occurred when one or another segment of the capitalist elite have arrived at the belief that they could benefit from a shift in imperial boundaries. I _laugh when someone refers to "Guns of August" as a definitive description of WW-1! That charming but limited book was about _holding _actions that were going on in Europe. WW-1 was mainly about the race to see who good grab the most of the crumbling, thousand-year-old Ottoman empire. The decisive action was _outside of Europe; after the War, European borders went back more or less as before, as they always do. Even Nazi Germany and WW-2 were about imperialism. The myth-history blames it on personalities (Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo) and rampant nationalist feelings. But the rise of Hitler was in fact carefully orchestrated and was funded and guided by German and American elites, and supported by Western capitalists generally. It was all part of a game to `shove back the tides of socialism'. (General Motors plants built warplanes in and for the Reich _throughout the war, and collected repartions from the US government because they were bombed by the US Air Force!) Within Germany, and within Hitler's own mind, as revealed in Mein Kampf, rearming and rebuilding Germany was primarily about re-establishing Germany's right to be a `great power', a right which had been `unjustly' taken away at Versailles. This was to be accomplished by subjugating `the slavic races' to German power. This is what was meant by `lebensraum', a populist term for `sphere of interest'. It was eastward that Hitler wanted to go, and he would have greatly preferred not to be forced to invade westward, which he did only to protect his back. The West knew that but wasn't having it: an imperial Germany which ruled Russia would be too powerful, would upset the `balance of power' in the imperial game. It was _not fascism that brought the West in against Hitler, the West had applauded and supported fascism, it was the imperial designs and potential of German military victories that caused the West to act. Hitler was mortal, but a firmly-established German empire would endure. The upshot of this argument is that wars have been unjustly blamed on nationalism. In fact wars have been intentionally started by this or that elite clique, and `nationalism' is something that has been intentionally stirred up, via sensationalist propaganda, and convenient demagogic leaders, in order to marshall public support for war and generate enlistments in the military. You may find this presentation over-long, but this is a very important point. Nations are quite capable of living peacefully alongside one another. The US and Candada have done it for years, and Western Europe has done quite nicely since 1945. The hundreds of brushfire wars going on in the world since 1945 can essentially all be traced to adjustments being made by the collective imperialst system that was set up then. Even the seemingly senseless and tribally inspired genocidal wars in Africa can be traced to the covert intrigue of sometimes the US, sometimes France, and sometimes the UK, and never for `nationalist' reasons, always for some advantage for this or that oil company, diamond mine, or other capitalist venture. If one imagines that capitalist hegemony can be overthrown, then one _must re-evaluate ones attitude toward the nation state -- and its _presumed prediliction for warfare -- in the context of that new capitalist-tamed world. --- I believe there are _very strong reasons to question the desirability of a world government, and that there are _strong reasons to entertain the possibility that a world can be peaceful while having multiple sovereignties -- _if the world is no longer controlled by an elite for whom greed and power are the only values. That's a big `if', but that's the `if' this whole discussion is about: what should _replace capitalist hegemony? respectfully yours, rkm Wexford, Ireland cadre@cyberjournal.org http://cyberjournal.org From chriscd@jhu.edu Wed Jun 17 07:45:22 1998 Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:46:16 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: job at johns hopkins To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Johns Hopkins University. The Department of Sociology invites applications for a tenure-track position at the rank of assistant professor, effective July 1, 1999. The Department seeks to strengthen its program in comparative cross-national research. Areas of substantive specialization are open, but we are specially interested in comparative studies of social inequality, social change, development, political sociology, and social structure and personality. A PhD in hand or to be completed before the time of appointment is required. Experience in teaching, research, and professional service should be commensurate with that expected in a research-intensive university in which there is a strong commitment to instruction at the undergraduate and graduate levels. A letter of interest, curriculum vitae, and the names of three references should be sent to: Chair, Faculty Search Committee, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218. The deadline for applications is October 31, 1998. Johns Hopkins University is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action employer. We actively encourage women and minorities to apply. From rozov@nsu.ru Wed Jun 17 07:48:55 1998 Wed, 17 Jun 1998 20:41:24 +0700 (NOVST) From: "Nikolai S. Rozov " To: kpmoseley@juno.com, wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 20:44:40 +0000 Subject: Re: sessions at the SSHA meetings in chicago Reply-to: rozov@nsu.ru In-reply-to: <19980609.232602.6982.12.kpmoseley@juno.com> SSHA (Social Science History Association as far as i know it still does not have a web-site e-mail addresses are: President Ira Katznelson (Columbia U) iik1@Columbia.edu Vice-President Michael Haines (Colgate U) mhaines@mail.colgate.edu Executive Director Erik W.Austin (Inst. for Soc.Res., Ann Arbor) erik@icpsr.umich.edu best wishes, nikolai On 9 Jun 98 kpmoseley@juno.com wrote: > Could someone give me SSHA mail/email address? Many thanks -- K. ****************************************************** Nikolai S. Rozov, PhD, Dr.Sc. Professor of Philosophy E-MAIL: rozov@nsu.ru FAX: 7-3832-397101 ADDRESS: Philosophy Dept. Novosibirsk State University 630090, Novosibirsk, Pirogova 2, RUSSIA Welcome to PHILOFHI (the mailing list for PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) http://www.people.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe/philofhi.html and Philosophy of History Archive (PHA) http://www.nsu.ru/filf/pha/ ********************************************************************* From chriscd@jhu.edu Wed Jun 17 11:56:54 1998 Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 13:57:44 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: how can we find out about the SSHA meeting in chicago? To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu You can contact the conference co-chairs, Thomas Sugrue and Richard Valelly, at ssha@history.upenn.edu. From rneedham@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca Wed Jun 24 05:39:45 1998 Wed, 24 Jun 1998 07:39:38 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 07:40:20 -0500 To: Committee for Sustainable Futures:; From: "W. Robert Needham" Subject: www ssites for Stephen Lewis Lecture >Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 07:35:33 -0500 >To: CDNSTPROGBOARD >From: "W. Robert Needham" >Subject: www ssites for Stephen Lewis Lecture >Cc: >Bcc: >X-Attachments: > > >> >>Stanley Knowles Lectures in Canadian Studies >> >>http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/ECON/needhm4.html >> >>Stephen Lewis Program and Lecture: The Rise and Fall of Social Justice >> >>http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/ECON/Lewisprog.html >> >> > > »«»« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« W. Robert Needham Director, Canadian Studies Program St. Paul's United College University of Waterloo Waterloo Ontario N2L 3G5 http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/ECON/needham.html From chriscd@jhu.edu Wed Jun 24 08:33:12 1998 Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 10:19:44 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: (fwd) Emerging Right Opposition to "Free Trade"] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------BF8B120457D3F9B8BFCF4546 --------------BF8B120457D3F9B8BFCF4546 24 Jun 1998 05:29:31 -0400 (EDT) Wed, 24 Jun 1998 05:29:34 -0400 (EDT) 24 Jun 1998 05:28:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 05:27:18 -0400 From: Barbara Larcom Subject: (fwd) Emerging Right Opposition to "Free Trade" To: Bill Harvey , Campaign for Labor Rights , Carl Chatzky , Chris Chase-Dunn , Dave Schott , Dick Ochs , Erika White , Howard Ehrlich , Jim Lunday , Leslie Bilchick , Mike Bardoff , Peter Grimes , Rafi Sharif , SLAC , Sue Hunt , Max Obuszewski , Lynn Yellott Reply-to: larcom@bcpl.net Subject: Emerging Right Opposition to "Free Trade" Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 07:27:54 -0700 (PDT) From: walda katz fishman (A forward from:) Jim Davis Sunday, June 21, 1998 GLOBAL ECONOMY The Coming Fight Over Free Trade By ROBERT L. BOROSAGE WASHINGTON--'To worship the market is a form of idolatry no less than worshiping the state." Sound like Jesse Jackson? Perhaps, but it is from "The Great Betrayal," the recent assault on global capitalism by Patrick J. Buchanan, Reaganite stalwart. "The truth is that free markets are creatures of state power and persist only so long as the state is able to prevent human needs for security and the control of economic risk from finding political expression." Excerpts of a Ralph Nader commencement address? No, from "False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism," by John Gray, British Thatcherite and leader of Britain's new right. "Mr. Chairman I urge you to revoke China's MFN [most favored nation] trade privileges. I do not believe that we are the moneybag democracy Beijing has contemptuously called us. I believe we can act to defend our people, our honor and our interests." House Minority leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) catering to the unions? No, Gary L. Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, and potential new-right contender for the GOP presidential nomination. As pundits celebrate the triumph of global capitalism, a populist rejection of what Gray calls "the Washington consensus" is gathering on the right. With the contradictions between free markets and strong families, between global corporations and love of country growing increasingly stark, more and more conservatives are questioning the laissez-faire corporate globalism that has enjoyed bipartisan support for two decades. Only a minority of conservatives have thus far embraced this new-right rejection. But its potential to transform our politics is already seen in the Congress, where the corporate trade agenda has been stalled by an uneasy coalition of new-right activists and progressive workers, consumer and environmental movements. As Buchanan and Gray show, the power of the conservative critique of globalism is likely to attract even greater support. In "The Great Betrayal," Buchanan scorns the globalist project touted by President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) as an idolatrous "first cousin to Marxism." For Gray, laissez-faire globalism is, like communism, a false utopia, sharing "their cult of reason and efficiency, their ignorance of history and their contempt for the ways of life they consign to poverty and extinction." Buchanan and Gray focus on the new right's core concern: the disintegration of the American family. The entire conservative galaxy--the Heritage Foundation, the Christian Coalition, Empower America--recites what William J. Bennett packaged as the "leading cultural indicators of America": divorce, out-of-wedlock childbirth, crime, drug use, delinquency. The "de-moralization of society," as Gertrude Himmelfarb put it, is the staple of conservative rhetoric. Yet, conservatives have been risible in their attempts to locate the cause of social disintegration. Most blame the poverty programs of the Great Society and the cultural upheavals of the '60s. But as decades pass, that grows less and less convincing. Bennett sporadically turns his attention to the decadence of the media, but has no explanation for why the most stable industrial society, Japan, coexists with the most blood-curdling media. The Heritage Foundation makes "the breakdown of the American family" a central chapter in its Issues 98 candidates briefing book, but is at a virtual loss about cause or solution. Clinton's repeal of a Ronald Reagan executive order on the family gets top blame. Tax cuts, school vouchers and privatization of Social Security are offered as key 1999 reforms. Buchanan and Gray dismiss this cant. For them, the global free market is the central cause of disintegration. "In the United States," Gray writes, "free markets have contributed to social breakdown on a scale unknown in any other developed country. Families are weaker in America than in any other country. At the same time, social order has been propped up by a policy of mass incarceration . . . . Levels of inequality resemble those of Latin American countries more than those of any European society." "Broken homes, uprooted families, vanished dreams, delinquency, vandalism, crime," Buchanan writes, "these are the hidden costs of free trade. And if not families and neighborhoods, what in heavens name is it that we conservatives wish to conserve?" They expose the dirty little secret of free markets. The global market, they argue, does not grow organically from society. Its imposition requires the exercise of concerted, centralized state power, in service of powerful private interests, shielded from democratic controls or social constraints. Buchanan and Gray denounce global institutions--the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank--as designed to empower unaccountable globalist technocrats to enforce rules that serve multinationals at great cost to society. "In the global economy," Buchanan writes in remarkable echo of progressive writer Richard J. Barnet, "money has no flag . . . . The transnational corporation has no home. It is an amoral institution that exists to maximize profits, executive compensation and stock dividends. If the bottom line commands the cashiering of loyal workers after years of service, it will be done with the same ruthless efficiency with which obsolete equipment is junked." This searing critique of the global market is not original. From Edmund Burke to Karl Marx, social philosophers across the political spectrum have marveled at the revolutionary energy of capitalism and warned of the social and moral destruction left in its wake. What makes Buchanan and Gray fascinating is that they are calling conservatives to arms against corporate globalism. Gray and Buchanan reflect the growing political frustration of the new right. Gray indicts Margaret Thatcher's experiment in laissez-faire for undermining the family, increasing inequality and strengthening the unaccountable state. For Buchanan, the contrast between Reagan--a "conservative with a heart"--who was the most protectionist president in the postwar era, and the Washington globalist consensus embraced by Gingrich and GOP presidential nominees is apparent. Bauer takes this into the political arena. He has called on the radical right to oppose the core agenda of the corporate globalists: MFN treatment for China, fast-track trade authority, expansion of the IMF. Last fall, fast-track authority was defeated by a right-left coalition. IMF refunding is being held up primarily by conservatives demanding antiabortion riders. MFN for China will face its strongest opposition from religious activists calling for sanctions because of China's repression of religious practice. The Gray-Buchanan critique provides the new right with an economic argument of enormous populist appeal. It also poses a painful choice between money and morality. It is difficult to imagine the GOP, awash in corporate contributions, turning against the corporate globalist agenda. Already, business lobbyists are warning Republicans there is a price to pay if IMF funding doesn't go through, or fast track isn't passed. Bauer and the leaders of the new right face a hard choice between the corporate money that sustains them and the conservative values they claim to represent. When conservatives turn to the destabilizing effects of a global economy, they find themselves in what the Wall Street Journal scorned as "Halloween coalitions" with progressives. Buchanan, for example, wants Republicans to return to their traditional support of high tariffs, but his agenda for a "new nationalism" begins with a call for full employment, rising wages, a fairer distribution of profits and prosperity and a family wage so that one salary can house, feed and educate a family. Gray calls for global regulation that will control capital, protect the environment, allow nations to follow their own path and give workers greater security. Together, they echo the "new internationalism" put forth by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, or the "moral-center politics" of Jackson. At the beginning of this century, the laissez-faire consensus that spawned the robber barons was shattered by the populist and progressive challenges that arose on the left and right. The potential of this new upheaval remains to be seen. As Buchanan admits, with the best economy in 25 years, this isn't an auspicious moment for a broadside critique. Yet, the U.S. trade deficit is soaring to new records each month. Even at the height of the business cycle, we're losing manufacturing jobs. Last fall, the president, the GOP leaders of Congress, the Business Roundtable and numerous economists and pundits were stunned when a right-left coalition in the Congress blocked renewal of fast-track trade authority. The president and the business community are committed to passing fast track after elections are out of the way. But the vote against fast track may turn out to be not the last gasp of an old protectionism, but the first breath of a new populist rejection of the Washington consensus. - - - Robert L. Borosage Is a Founder of the Campaign for America's Future Copyright Los Angeles Times ===================================== Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide Washington Office & Affiliate 6617 Millwood Road, Bethesda, MD 20817 301.320.4034; fax 301.320.4534 email wkatzfishman@igc.apc.org http://www.peacenet.org/projectsouth/ --------------BF8B120457D3F9B8BFCF4546-- From p34d3611@jhu.edu Wed Jun 24 12:30:56 1998 by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 14:30:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Peter Grimes Subject: [Fwd: South Korea: IMF ORPHANS] (fwd) To: WSN This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. Send mail to mime@docserver.cac.washington.edu for more info. ---2133065211-599097979-898713031=:15434 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 05:53:37 -0400 From: Barbara Larcom To: Peter Grimes Subject: [Fwd: South Korea: IMF ORPHANS] ---2133065211-599097979-898713031=:15434 Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:13:33 -0700 (PDT) Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:13:17 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:11:37 -0700 (PDT) From: Njoki Njoroge Njehu Sender: owner-50-years@igc.apc.org Subject: South Korea: IMF ORPHANS To: 50-years@igc.org Saturday, June 20, 1998 IMF ORPHANS Parents dump children as recession hits By JOHN LARKIN, Herald Correspondent in Seoul Ji Seung-yeop is too young to know why his father went to jail, or why his mother dropped him and his sister off some weeks ago at an orphanage. Technically they are not orphans, as their parents are alive. But for the time being four-year-old Seung-yeop and five-year-old Yu-na have effectively been orphaned by South Korea's deepening recession, which is breaking up marriages at an alarming rate. Their passage from home to orphanage is typical of a growing number of cases across South Korea this year. Rising unemployment and the resulting financial stress on low-income families is creating a social phenomenon of recession orphans. It began when their father lost his office job and was jailed for bankruptcy. Then their mother disappeared after packing them off to Seoul's Angels' Haven Orphanage. "Usually the father loses his job and can't pay the bills, so the wife gets fed up and runs away," said Ms Jennifer Yoo, a social worker at the orphanage. Seung-yeop and his sister, believe it or not, are the lucky ones. Their father, now out of jail, has insisted that he will return for them when he finds work. Others will never see their parents again. Since March, Angels' Haven has taken in 20 children aged four to seven brought by a parent, usually a newly jobless father, who cannot afford to keep them while he looks for work. Before this it had 34 children, few brought in by parents. The orphanage, opened in 1953 to shelter Korean War orphans, says it has rarely seen this sort of desperation. Father Park Mun-su, a United States-born Catholic priest, explains that the war produced huge numbers of orphans. "To see kids being orphaned for financial reasons means the present situation is like a war for some people," he says. Mr Cho Kyu-hwan, director of Angels' Haven, says some parents tell him it will be three years before they pick up their children. He knows from experience that while some will return, others won't. He notes sadly that orphanages across Seoul are reporting similar increases in "IMF orphans", named for the International Monetary Fund, which delivered a record bailout to South Korea last year and is blamed by many Koreans for the downturn. There are no figures on their numbers, only anecdotal evidence from social workers who say the problem is getting worse. Even before the economic crisis it was difficult to pin down orphan numbers, as official estimates are usually lower than those of social workers. "It's a bad situation, and it's going to get worse," says Mr Cho. "These children have parents who cannot take care of them since they have lost their job and sometimes their house." The recession has worsened the already chronic problem in Korea of discarded children. Orphans and adoption is a sensitive subject in this country, where the importance of family bloodlines has for decades produced unwanted children. They have parents, but are forced out of families by strict social expectations based on Confucianism. For example, a widowed or separated woman with a child stands little chance of finding a husband who will accept the child of another man. Usually, the man wants to continue his bloodline, and the child is put in a nursery or orphanage, or simply left outside a church or even on the street. Sometimes the motive is financial. Korean marriages often fall apart if the man cannot provide for the family. Usually it is the woman who leaves, and this explains why most children are left at orphanages by the father. His wife has probably left him for a wealthier man. "The father doesn't know what to do, so he takes the child to an orphanage," says Ms Margrit Ninghetto, a Swiss nurse who has worked in South Korea since 1985. "The recession is making the problem even worse," says Ms Ninghetto, who worked at an orphanage before taking a job last month at the Angels' Haven rehabilitation hospital. "The so-called IMF-era is making it easier for parents to drop off their children." Mounting concern has resulted in television networks running community service announcements exhorting poor parents not to dump their children on the street, but to take them to nurseries or orphanages. Ms Ninghetto says the majority of orphans have parents who in trying to avoid social shame have discarded them. Any thought that the decision is made easily is wrong, she says, as most parents agonise over their dilemma. Nevertheless, she believes orphanages are treated like permanent day-care centres by some cash-strapped parents. At her previous workplace, four children languished as orphans despite having contact with their parents who had begun lives with new partners. Ms Ninghetto says the Korean media have picked up the plight of the IMF-orphans, recently reporting on a three-year-old dropped at a market and going unnoticed for an entire day before being taken to an orphanage. "The IMF is certainly having an influence on the number of orphans. Whether it's used as an excuse or not, the result is the same for the child." ---2133065211-599097979-898713031=:15434-- From phuakl@sit.edu.my Wed Jun 24 21:06:53 1998 From: "DR. PHUA KAI LIT" To: #SCHOOL-SOCIAL_SCIENCE@sit.edu.my Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:42:17 +0000 Subject: SG DAILY: SingGov : CRISIS AND CONFIDENCE: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Singapore Government Press Release Media Division, Ministry of Information and The Arts 36th Storey, PSA Building, 460 Alexandra Road, Singapore 119963. Tel: 3757794/5 ___________________________________________________ SPEECH BY GEORGE YEO, MINISTER FOR INFORMATION & THE ARTS AND SECOND MINISTER FOR TRADE & INDUSTRY, AT THE BUSINESS WEEK ASIA LEADERSHIP FORUM ON 23 JUNE 98 AT 8.10PM AT CHIJMES CATHEDRAL CRISIS AND CONFIDENCE: BUILDING A NEW ASIA Tectonic Shifts We meet in the midst of an economic crisis that is sweeping through the region. From July 2 last year, a day after the return of Hong Kong to China, the crisis started with the collapse of the Thai baht and spread quickly from one country to another. The crisis unfolded with incredible speed and on a scale which no one could have foreseen. Nobody can be sure how much longer the crisis will last, nor how much worse it must get before the outlook improves. Its effects on North America and Europe can already be felt and there is a risk that the Asian economic crisis could lead eventually to a world economic crisis. Many explanations have been advanced to explain what led to the crisis but no explanation has been entirely satisfactory, which is why it has been so difficult to predict the course of the crisis. It may be many years before economists are able to agree on the causes but, by that time, it will be history. Till today, the causes of the Great Depression in the early 1930s are still a subject of dispute among scholars. What we know is that a major historical process is under way affecting all of Asia. This is not a normal cycle which will lead us back to more or less where we were before. When night becomes day again, it will be a different world. It will not be business as usual in Asia. In some countries, the economic crisis has become a political crisis. In the case of Indonesia, the political situation is still unsettled despite Suharto’s resignation. All over Asia, economic and political structures have come under great stress. Historically speaking, this is the most important event reshaping the whole of Asia since the Second World War. Trying to predict the course of this crisis is like trying to predict the occurrence of earthquakes. In reality, complex forces are at work giving rise to chaotic outcomes. What we are seeing is akin to tectonic shifts on the earth’s crust. With the end of the Cold War, old certitudes are gone. The world is in transition from one equilibrium to another in the next century whose shape is still unclear. However, the major forces driving historical change can be identified. If we understand these tectonic shifts, we can do some things to prepare ourselves better for further earthquakes and their aftershocks. US-Japan relationship A key driving force is the evolving US-Japan relationship. The regional havoc wreaked by the volatility in the Dollar-Yen exchange rate is the result of underlying tensions in this relationship. The shocks reverberate throughout Asia. In mid-1995, US$1 was worth about 80 Yen. Today, $1 is worth over 135 Yen. In just three years, the Yen has dropped by about 40%. This reflects the relative weakness of the Japanese economy and Japanese institutions, and the relative strength of the US economy. Even a highly sophisticated system will find it difficult to adjust smoothly to such a drastic change in the value of currency. This is like the effect of sudden climatic change on biological species. If we go back to an earlier period, as dramatic a shift in the opposite direction led to an era of prosperity in Southeast Asia. The Plaza Accord in September 1985 revalued the Yen from about 240 Yen to $1 to about 130 Yen to $1 in 1988. The result of the revalued Yen led to a massive outflow of investments from Japan to Southeast Asia. It was accompanied by parallel outflows from Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. This led to a long period of boom in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. After 1990, ethnic Chinese capital in turn fuelled rapid economic development in the coastal regions of Chinese mainland. Unfortunately, the rapid rise of the Yen also created an asset bubble in Japan. In the heady atmosphere of the late 1980’s, one can still remember it being said that if the land in Tokyo on which stood the imperial palace were sold, it could have bought the whole state of California. The asset bubble burst in Japan hit the stock market in 1990 and the property market in 1991. Japanese financial institutions were severely damaged by this asset implosion, the ramifications of which still plague Japan today. At its peak, the Nikkei almost reached 39,000. In Yen terms, prime property prices in Tokyo today are still less than one-third of what they fetched in 1991. The Plaza Accord was forced on Japan. In hindsight, it might have been overdone. The underlying tension was Japan’s high savings rate relative to the US. It led to persistently large current account surpluses which resulted in US mercantile pressure on Japan. Since the US occupation of Japan after the Second World War, Japan was basically subordinate to the US and prospered under that regime until the breakdown of the fixed exchange rate system in 1971. Japan is not a normal power. In some ways, because of the terrible experiences of the last war, it does not want to be a normal power, preferring instead to rely on the US as its big brother and for its security umbrella. While politically weak, Japan is economically powerful. The Japanese economy is two-thirds of the Asian economy. Japan accounts for one-third of the world’s total savings. With its enormous savings of about $20 trillion, Japan has the economic wherewithal to stabilise Asia in this economic crisis, but is unable to do so because of its economic and political structure. In recent years, the post Second World War consensus in Japan has broken down. Institutions which were once held in high esteem are being called into question, like the LDP, the Finance Ministry and Tokyo University. If Japan were a normal power with strong financial institutions, it would have been the biggest winner in this Asian crisis. All the countries in trouble would have sought Japan’s assistance and Japan would have been able to reshape much of maritime Asia according to its worldview. Fortunately or unfortunately, this is not the case. The size of the Japanese economy, instead of being an important part of the solution, has become a major part of the problem. It will take some time, maybe many years, before a new consensus re-emerges in Japan. The breakdown in the old consensus has led to the current recession. It is in the nature of Japanese society that, while slow to change, when it does change, it does so suddenly, decisively and comprehensively. When that change is made, the might of the Japanese economy will reassert itself throughout the region, not just economically but also politically. No one knows how Japanese society will evolve and change, but an important determinant is the evolving US-Japan relationship. With the end of the Cold War, the US is the only superpower left in the world. Since the Second World War, the peace in non-communist East Asia was largely an American peace, with Japan closely allied to the US position. In the next century, however, the strategic picture in Asia will become more complicated. It will be a multi-polar world in which US power will be contested. China and Japan will play bigger roles. The recent nuclear tests in India and Pakistan demonstrated clearly the limits of US dominance in world affairs. The economic crisis now raging through Asia can also lead to an anti-US backlash of one kind or another. Although the US economy is the largest in the world, it is an economy increasingly based on debt. The problem is a persistently low savings rate. Since the 1980’s the US has depended on large inflows of foreign capital to keep its economy going. The US today is by far the world’s largest debtor nation. Although the Federal budget will soon be in surplus because of unexpectedly strong growth in revenues, the US economy on the whole is heavily dependent on domestic and foreign debt. The deficit in the current accounts was $166 billion last year and is expected to grow significantly this year. In other words, to keep the US economy going, it has to suck in some half a billion dollars a day. Wall Street has boomed not only because of productivity growth but also because of low interest rates. Low interest rates are only possible because of the inflow of foreign funds. Of the $1.3 trillion in outstanding Treasury securities, about one-quarter are held by Japanese institutions. Together, Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Singapore hold over one-third of US Treasuries. We thus have a situation where the greatest power on earth is also the world’s largest debtor nation, while the world’s greatest creditor nation is, for historical reasons, unable to lead. This creates a dangerous faultline in world politics and economics. If Japan were part of the United States, that faultline would disappear and a major economic problem in the world would be solved. The Asian financial crisis would never have been allowed to spread. But Japan is not the 51st state, and the tension between Japan and the US is reflected in the volatility of the Dollar-Yen exchange rate and a lack of decisive response to the Asian contagion. There is no substitute for US leadership in the foreseeable future. The US remains the most creative society on earth and continues to attract some of the best and brightest from Asia to its shores. Without the continuing strategic engagement of the US in East Asia, the future will be troublesome. China Another major tectonic shift is the emergence of the Chinese behemoth. Barring a major catastrophe, it is a fair bet that, some time in the first half of the next century, China would become the world’s largest economy, as it was for most of human history. When we talk about China, it is important to remember its relative homogeneity and population size. With 1.2 billion people, China’s population is almost four times that of the European Union and almost twice that of the rest of East Asia combined. It is not possible for the incorporation of China into the global economy to be smooth or easy because of its sheer size. In the last hundred plus years, the emergence of Germany in Europe from the time of Bismarck, and of Japan in Asia since the Meiji Reformation, created great tensions in the world. The emergence of China is on a much larger scale and will have a correspondingly huge impact on world economics and politics. This complex historical process of incorporating China will take place over many decades and will be punctuated by upheavals in the global system. The cycles of China’s history have always spread tidal waves throughout the region. In one such cycle, modern Singapore was created as millions of Chinese sought a better life in Southeast Asia. All it took was for the Governor of China’s Central Bank to hint elliptically that the renminbi might have to be devalued for financial markets throughout the region to tumble. This is in 1998 when the Chinese economy is only one-tenth that of Japan. China’s decision not to devalue the renminbi despite the loss of export competitiveness has helped to stabilise the economic situation in Asia. China is willing to pay the price for this decision because of its concern for Hong Kong and its sense of regional responsibility. An expensive renminbi makes it more difficult for China to restructure its state-owned enterprises and bureaucracy, and to create jobs for a growing number of urban unemployed. It is a game of high stakes. The triangular relationship between the US, Japan and China will be of decisive importance to peace and prosperity in the region. The Asian crisis today is partly the result of tensions in that relationship. The European Union will also play an important role in the region. The Euro will become an alternative reserve currency to the US dollar in the next century. Together with the European Union, the US and Japan will have to manage carefully and strategically China’s incorporation into the global system. The alternative is global conflict. President Clinton’s present China policy recognises this necessity. An early entry of China into the WTO is good for the whole world. It is also important for China to be gradually brought into the G-8 or G-9. China’s economic role in the world cannot be less than that of Russia. Disintermediation Another tectonic shift in the world is the disintermediation brought about by the IT revolution. The IT revolution has undermined traditional hierarchies and weakened government monopolies all over the world. Disintermediation of old financial structures are well known. It has forced the restructuring of the international financial system. International financial markets are now beyond the control of any particular national authority. It started with the growth of the Euro dollar market in the 1960’s in response to attempts by the US government to restrict movements of the US dollar. The growth of the ACU market in Singapore continued that process in Asia. Today, national governments which try to fight the international financial markets cannot win. The disintermediation goes beyond financial institutions. Economic and political structures are also being disintermediated. Inefficient state-owned enterprises like those in China and huge government-supported enterprises like the chaebols in Korea can no longer rely on cheap financing. Everywhere in Asia, these privileged entities are in crisis. Political structures are also being disintermediated. The ability of national governments to tax, to divert investments and redistribute incomes is weakening everywhere. Rapid urbanisation in East Asia is shifting political power from the countryside to the major cities. Urban dwellers resent the heavy subsidy of the agricultural sector which provides the political base for many ruling parties. In Southeast Asia, the ability of national governments to tax and confine ethnic Chinese capital has also been undermined. Old economic and political institutions are breaking down before new institutions are in place. The present Asian crisis is very much an institutional crisis. Responses The evolving US-Japan relationship, the emergence of China and the disintermediation of economic and political structures by IT are tectonic shifts which will cause earthquakes throughout the region for many years to come. These are faultlines which cannot be wished away. Our strategy for survival must take them into account at three different levels. For individuals and corporations, we must go back to the basics. In a sense, we have always understood this in Singapore because of our precarious circumstances. There is no free lunch in the world. If you don’t work, you don’t eat, that is all. The most important asset is the human being and the culture which enables human beings to work together for common purposes. There is no substitute for good education and hard work. This crisis has reminded us that too much greed destroys itself and to be suspicious of short cuts. Old-fashioned values like thrift, honesty and strong families should never be given up. Far from being weakened, these aspects of Asian values are being reinforced by the present crisis. In these uncertain times, leadership and good government are particularly important. Until old economic and political institutions are reconstructed, it is difficult for some Asian economies to recover. This is a huge challenge which affects as much the present government in Indonesia as it does the LDP in Japan and the Communist Party in China. While there will be a plurality of political systems in Asia, building on the history, culture and traditions of different Asian societies, all of them must meet the test of good leadership, good government and wider political participation. Democracy can help to bring about good government, but is no guarantee of it. One way or another, the problem of corruption and lack of transparency must be tackled head on. We are likely to see a new generation of Asian leaders emerging in the coming years, either by smooth succession or by revolt. Their worldviews, including their attitudes towards the West, are being forged in the heat of the present crisis. The third response is the most difficult to achieve. This concerns the problem of world governance. During the Cold War, world governance was broadly achieved in the non-communist world by the US and by international institutions created after the Second World War, like the UN, the IMF and the World Bank. Right up to the mid-1950’s, the US economy was some 40% of the world economy. Today it is about 25%. In the next century, the US economy will still be dominant but not as much as in the past. Furthermore, the international institutions created at the end of Second World War are becoming less relevant to new situations. New power centres in the world have to be accommodated. We are entering a different era. IT has unleashed forces in the world which are beyond anybody’s control. The international financial markets which are capable of unsettling the world like an El Nino must somehow be tamed. No one knows how this can be achieved but there is a growing view that something must be done to create greater stability. When exchange rates fluctuate wildly, the real economy cannot operate properly. Volatile exchange rates can debase the meaning of hard work for ordinary human beings. We are entering a dangerous period in world history. Federal Reserves Chairman Alan Greenspan has said that there is a small but not insignificant chance that the Asian crisis will reach America. If it does, the whole world can plunge into recession. A prolonged recession in the world will in turn unleash dark forces of reaction against globalisation and the free market. The last Great Depression led to the rise of fascism, anti-Semitism and the Second World War. Another world depression will take humanity down a different path from the one which we have all been looking forward to. It took the calamity of the Second World War to create the UN, the IMF and the World Bank. We should not wait for another such calamity before rising to the challenge of world governance. At a time like this, we need points of stability in the world. Singapore can be one small point of relative stability in the region. We have no external debt. Our banks and financial institutions are among the strongest in Asia. However, we are exposed to the regional crisis. Preliminary figures from the second quarter show that growth momentum continues to slow down. The expected growth rate for this year will have to be revised downwards, although it is still not likely to be negative. Next Monday, on 29 June, the Finance Minister will announce in Parliament a package of off-budget measures to ameliorate the economic slowdown. The focus will be to reduce business costs, and help businesses to cope with this difficult period, rather than to pump-prime the economy or stimulate consumption. But whatever the Government does, Singapore cannot be fully insulated from the regional crisis. Unlike 1985-86, the causes of this economic downturn are largely external to us and beyond our control. What we hope for are leaders in the world who can see far. Too many national leaders today are preoccupied by domestic concerns. Without the US, Japan and China acting decisively, the Asian crisis can get much worse. If there is one thing good coming out of this crisis, it is the renewed awareness of the importance of global leadership. The success of President Clinton’s visit to China in the next two weeks is very important for this reason. Like all crises, this Asian crisis will either strengthen or weaken us. If there is sufficient global leadership, the promise of the Pacific century will eventually be realised. If not, Asia will still emerge, but it will be a troubled world. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All articles are posted here in the public interest. The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the list-owner. To subscribe/unsubscribe, please send an e-mail to majordomo@list.sintercom.org with the line: help SGDaily is part of the Singapore Internet Community (Sintercom) at: http://www.sintercom.org -________________________________________________ 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 thall@DEPAUW.EDU Thu Jun 25 07:13:45 1998 Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 08:13:37 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: query on PEWS annuals To: Network World-Systems WSNers, I'm updateing my essay on wst that I wrote in 1996. I would like to know/ verify what the 3 most recent PEWS annuals were, the full bib citation. Also if you know of some that are definitely in press, I will cite thoses too. Given publication delay, the in press will be out by the time galleys come back on this version. In our various bibliographic/on-line resources do we have a list of PEWS annuals, and/or do we have a list of PEWS Prize winners anywhere? reply to me off-list at THALL@DEPAUW.EDU in advance, thanks tom Thomas D. [tom] Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University 100 Center Street Greencastle, IN 46135 765-658-4519 HOME PAGE: http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm From timmons@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu Sun Jun 28 12:36:55 1998 Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 13:39:33 -0500 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: "J.Timmons Roberts" Subject: Re:PEWS annuals Tom and wsn: There is an extra advantage to having the full contents of the PEWS/ Greenwood press annuals listed online, namely the ability of people to find chapters electronically, since electronic bibliographic referencing usually does not include book chapters. Timmons At 12:16 AM 6/28/98 MDT, you wrote: > > WSN Digest 404 > >Topics covered in this issue include: > > 1) query on PEWS annuals > by "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" < >Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 08:13:37 -0500 (EST) >From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" < >To: Network World-Systems < >Subject: query on PEWS annuals >MIME-version: 1.0 >Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > >WSNers, > >I'm updateing my essay on wst that I wrote in 1996. > >I would like to know/ verify what the 3 most recent PEWS annuals were, the >full bib citation. Also if you know of some that are definitely in press, >I will cite thoses too. Given publication delay, the in press will be out >by the time galleys come back on this version. > >In our various bibliographic/on-line resources do we have a list of PEWS >annuals, and/or do we have a list of PEWS Prize winners anywhere? > >reply to me off-list at THALL@DEPAUW.EDU > >in advance, >thanks > >tom > >Thomas D. [tom] Hall >thall@depauw.edu >Department of Sociology >DePauw University >100 Center Street >Greencastle, IN 46135 >765-658-4519 >HOME PAGE: >http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm > > -- 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. From chriscd@jhu.edu Mon Jun 29 12:47:37 1998 Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 14:48:19 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: HomePage for Cuban Sociology] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------6744130962E81758BF4CC24D --------------6744130962E81758BF4CC24D Mon, 29 Jun 1998 06:59:46 -0400 (EDT) (usr-mtp-54.sensible-net.com [208.18.226.54]) by HPUX.sensible-net.com (Post.Office MTA v3.1.2 release (PO203-101c) ID# Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 06:54:54 -0400 From: tr@tryoung.com (T R Young) Subject: HomePage for Cuban Sociology To: psn-special@csf.colorado.edu socgrad@csf.colorado.edu, social-class@listserv.uic.edu NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW *************** The Red Feather Institute is pleased to announce a new HomePage for Cuban Sociology, Philosophy and the Social Sciences. It may be seen at: http://www.tryoung.com/CUBA/CUBA-1.html The HomePage is a product of the Radical Philosophy Conference in Havana this past two weeks. While there is much more to come on the HomePage from the Conference, those who teach might want to begin to plan their syllabi for the Fall Semester to include materials on Social Policy and on Social Problems. The HomePage features, for the first time, direct links to Cuban Scholars who might be helpful to US Scholars who teach and/or do research in the area. http://www.tryoung.com/CUBA/CONNECTIONS.htm There is also a partial listing of email addresses of US Scholars at the address above who could share their insights and understandings with your students. And...any one who would like to contribute 'camera ready' material to the Cuban HomePage is invited to contact me at the address above. TR Young, Director The Red Feather Institute TR Young, 8085 Essex Weidman, Mi., 48893 Email: tr@tryoung.com --------------6744130962E81758BF4CC24D-- From j@qmail.com Tue Jun 30 10:15:57 1998 Received: from haleakala.aloha.net (haleakala.aloha.net [204.94.112.33]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.5/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) with ESMTP id KAA26174 for ; Tue, 30 Jun 1998 10:15:54 -0600 (MDT) Received: from jay95 (hawaii-143.u.aloha.net [204.94.116.200]) by haleakala.aloha.net (8.8.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id GAA12435 for ; Tue, 30 Jun 1998 06:15:44 -1000 (HST) Message-ID: <002b01bda441$bf8f21e0$c8745ecc@jay95> From: "Jay Hanson" To: Subject: Highlights from "Titanic Sinks" Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 06:11:31 -1000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.0518.4 Highlights from "Titanic Sinks" http://dieoff.org/page143.htm ___ OIL There is NO substitute for energy. Although the economy treats energy just like any other resource, it is NOT like any other resource. Energy is the precondition for ALL other resources and oil is the most important form of energy we use, making up about 38 percent of the world energy supply. NO other energy source equals oil's intrinsic qualities of extractablility, transportability, versatility and cost. These are the qualities that enabled oil to take over from coal as the front-line energy source in the industrialized world in the middle of this century, and they are as relevant today as they were then. Forecasts about the abundance of oil are usually warped by inconsistent definitions of "reserves." In truth, every year for the past two decades the industry has pumped more oil than it has discovered, and production will soon be unable to keep up with rising demand. _______ ECONOMY The global economy relies on energy subsidies to function -- it burns energy to make money. By definition, an energy "source" must produce more energy than it consumes, otherwise it's called a "sink" -- it's "depleted". Today, the global economy receives almost 80% of its energy subsidies from nonrenewable fossil sources: oil, gas, and coal. They are called "nonrenewable" because, for all practical purposes, they're not being made any more. The reason they are called "fossil" is because they were "produced" by nature from dead plants and animals over several hundred million years. The key to understanding energy issues is look at the "energy price" of energy. Energy resources that consume more energy than they produce are worthless as sources of energy. This thermodynamic law applies no matter how high the "money price" of energy goes. For example, if it takes more energy to search for and mine a barrel of oil than the energy recovered, then it makes no energy sense look for that barrel -- no matter how high the money price of oil goes. This is expected to be the average case in America around the year 2005. This coming century, the global economy will "run out of gas" as nearly all fossil energy sources become sinks. One can argue about the exact date this will occur, but the end of fossil energy subsidies -- and its dependent: the global economy -- are inevitable. A good analogy is like having a motor scooter with a five-gallon tank, but the nearest gas station is 10 gallons away. You can not fill your tank with trips to the gas station because you burn more than you can bring back -- it's impossible for you to cover your overhead (the size of your bankroll and the price of the gas are irrelevant). You might as well put your scooter up on blocks because you are "out of gas" -- forever. It's the same with the American economy: if as a country, we must spend more-than-one unit of energy to produce enough goods and services to buy one unit of energy, it's impossible for us to cover our overhead. At that point, America's economic machine is "out of gas" -- forever. ______ MARKET The market is like the float in a carburetor, as the engine demands more gas, the float falls and allows more gas to flow in from the tank. But the float has no information concerning the amount of gas left in the tank until the fuel line is unable to keep up with demand. So it is with the market. As the demand for oil increases, the increase in price signals oil companies to pump more oil out of the ground. But the market will have no information about the amount of oil left in the ground until production is unable to keep up with demand. Global oil production is expected to "peak" around 2005. References at: http://dieoff.org/page143.htm From Jones_M@netcomuk.co.uk Tue Jun 30 17:02:24 1998 Received: from camelot.netcom.net.uk (camelot.netcom.net.uk [194.42.225.1]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.5/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) with ESMTP id RAA09496 for ; Tue, 30 Jun 1998 17:02:21 -0600 (MDT) Received: from netcomuk.co.uk (dialup-19-23.netcomuk.co.uk [194.42.232.215]) by camelot.netcom.net.uk (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA22729; Wed, 1 Jul 1998 00:02:07 +0100 (BST) Message-ID: <35996E5E.E9166204@netcomuk.co.uk> Date: Wed, 01 Jul 1998 00:01:50 +0100 From: Mark Jones MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lbo-talk@lists.panix.com, marxism@lists.panix.com, wsn@csf.colorado.edu, th , pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu Subject: Leninist-International Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Announcing the Leninist-International e-mail discussion list. The Leninist-International list has been set up, and will be run, by the Communist Party Refoundation, a new party established in Britain this year. Refoundation openly states its views: capitalism is headed for economic and ecological ruin, and is hell bent on taking humanity down with it. The only solution is for the workers and peasants of the world to overthrow the existing order, establish their own rule, and to proceed immediately to the revolutionary reorganisation of society from bottom to top and from top to bottom. We need a revolution, and a revolution is no tea party. It will be armed, or it will be nothing at all. For that reason, the only kind of party which will be able to lead the masses to victory is a Leninist Party. Given the internationalisation of capitalism, which is a world system, the revolution will also have to be international. Hence the need to recreate the international of labour to fight the international of capital. The appropriate form for this is the Communist International. The choice of the name Leninist-International for the new list is therefor not accidental. And it is not revolutionary phrasemongering. This list is part of the practical work necessary to rebuild the international communist movement. The party the workers need will master the entirety of modern science. It will be intellectually open, and rigorously scientific. Leninist-International will be open to ideas and debate, polemics and serious contributions from whatever source. But fools and time wasters will be shown the door. Our party has set the list up, but we do not want a restricted list. On the contrary, we invite other trends to participate in the list, and to subject our theses to systematic critique. We welcome criticism. We do not fear error, only the repetition of uncorrected errors. Leninist-International is closely tied to the electronic edition of the Communist Party Refoundation's journal, Insurrection. We want the website to be a source of archived news of struggles around the world, important theoretical and strategic documents from the international revolutionary movement, marxist classics, and links to those who are in the front line of the class war against imperialism and capitalism. And the website will be a store of materials on economics, environmental issues, international political economy, struggles in the neocolonies, women and patriarchy, racism and fascism and more. We will even archive the self-condemning reports and materials of the IMF, OECD, World Bank, the CIA and other agencies of late imperialism. The site will also archive important contributions to Leninist-International. The Internet was created by imperialism in order to strengthen its defences. We will use it to strengthen our offensive. This new list is one more weapon in our common arsenal. As our comrades from Turkey and Kurdistan say: We are right! We will win! Jim Hillier Mark Jones Moderators Leninist-International The Insurrection website URL is: http://www.geocities.com/~comparty