From borgonoz@nexus.rednsi.com Sat Feb 1 12:21:16 1997 Date: Sat, 01 Feb 1997 20:12:54 +0100 To: (WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK)wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: borgonoz@nexus.rednsi.com (Alfonso Lopez Borgonoz) Subject: Complexity ans WSH Is the first time that I write here, and I'am not sure that you have speak about the topic "Complexity Theory and WSH" before. How my english is not very good, I write in spanish (I'am sure that is more easy to understand my spanish that my english). Las sociedades humanas, como buenos sistemas complejos (con una interaccion no lineal -de efectos no predecibles a medio o largo plazo- entre los elementos que la integran), deberian ser caoticas. Sin embargo, podemos observar como las mismas tienen unas pautas de autoorganizacion similares en lo profundo. Con la evolucion animal ha pasado algo similar, tras una explosion de tipologia (phylae) muy variada en los primeros estadios, en la actualidad vemos que hay pocos tipos, pero con muchas especies, seguramente porque no todos los tipos son posibles ni igualmente probables para la supervivencia. Simplificando mucho, y ello nunca es bueno, creo que las sociedades humanas, y los elementos que las integran, no tienen un campo muy amplio de posibilidades de interaccion con su medio y otras sociedades, ni de ser estables a largo plazo, en el caso de que sobrevivan: a) Dadas las limitaciones que impone la naturaleza que les rodea,=20 b) Dadas las limitaciones que impone la relaci=F3n con el resto de las= sociedades. c) dadas las limitaciones de las interacciones entre sus propias variables constituyentes. Es por ello que creo que se dan los procesos de convergencia social a la larga en la mayoria de las sociedades.=20 Los puntos de equilibrio para que un sistema no degenere no son muchos, y si un sistema perdura, es que, por azar, ha sabido girar entorno a uno de dichos puntos atractores. Pienso que la teoria de la complejidad y la del sistema mundial no solo no son excluyentes, sino que son mutuamente necesarias, ya que ambas ayudan a entender un poco mas a las formaciones sociales, y sus fases A/B. Alfonso Lopez Borgonoz From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Sun Feb 2 18:37:02 1997 Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 12:35:51 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu To A. Gunder Frank (fwd) Here was one response to Gunder's post in response to remarks I had forwarded from pkt on WST and Keynes. Oh, and don't get too angry at the beginning ... the message may just turn out to be different than it first appears ... Virtually, Bruce McFarling, Newcastle ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au ________________________________________________________________ On Wed, 29 Jan 1997 08:36:20 -0500 (EST), Gernot Kohler writes, [this is not a flame war, this is fine leftist polemics among potential friends] This is a fact: where A G Frank is, there is no (NO) vacuum. Your post reveals another fact: AG Frank lumps (Post) Keynesianism together with "other 'received' econ theory/analysis" (by which he means: running dogs of capitalism, econometric humbugsters and putrid scum, equivalent to the hole in the donut that AG Frank is willing to bet). Now let me ask this: (1) what is the exchange rate system that world-system-donut-betters advocate? (2) where is the productivity theory that world-system-donut-betters put forward? (3) where is the global minimum wage that world-system-donut-betters advocate? (4) where is the regime of international capital flows that world-system-donut-betters advocate? (5) where are the monetary policies that world-system-donut-betters have thought out? (6) where is the working-class consciousness that world-system-donut-betters see everywhere? It's as metaphysical as the invisible hand of Classicism; not much of a "historisches Subjekt" (agent of change). World system theorists don't study how many angels dance on the head of a pin -- they study the world system 5000 years ago, instead. * * * Sorry, I couldn't come up with any better insults. * * * Having exchanged some insults, let me get down to the real thing: G R E E T I N G S ! :) :) :) (three Post Keynesian smiles, not authorized, but smiled under the general "freedom of speech" clause) It is wonderful that the planet "World System Theory" talks to the planet "Post Keynesian Thought". Of course, I have read some of your books. Of course, they are terrific. Of course, they use descriptive statistics. Of course, you beat me 2000 : 1 or 20,000 : 1. * * * Post Keynesians can sell you a good exchange rate system, Sir. We carry several models. We also carry fine monetary and taxation policies. Are you interested? I bet you a toothpick that you need those. Let's talk. Give us a call. Gernot Kohler Oakville, Canada (that's 30 km West of Toronto) From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Mon Feb 3 00:29:51 1997 Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 18:29:42 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: world system prediction (fwd) To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu This was sent last wednesday (csf.colorado time) as well. I've already got an answer for the first point, but I'll give those on WSN a crack at it first. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au ____________________________________________________________________))) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 17:48:31 -0500 (EST) From: "Gregoire de Nowell (ci-devant)" To: pkt@csf.colorado.edu Subject: world system prediction Frank's message sent me scurrying back to Amin, Arrighi, Frank & Wallerstein (1982), _Dynamics of Global Crisis_. p. 238: "Two immediate questions are on most people's minds when they think about their expectations for the 1980s. Will there be a "crash," and will there be a world war? The answer to the first depends on what one means by a crash. If one means a serious financial collapse followeed by a price drop and a significant increase in world unemployment, then Amin, Frank, and Wallerstein all think that there is a reasonably high probability of this in this decade." So w/a world-systems stockbrocker, you'd a missed out on the Great Bull Market of the 80s-which, crash of 87 included- was one of the great $$ oppportunities in history. Much better to stick with Malkiel whose late 70s edition of Random Walk said BUY. On other matters they get points: a forecast of serious potential ethnic problems in the USSR, which is seen as greatly stronger than under the Tsars (tho' the Tsars could conquer the Caucasus--and all that fearsome Soviet hardware was pretty worthlessin Afghanistan and Checnya). The labor movment in Poland is seen as "antisystemic" (w/regard to world capitalism). Hmmmm. I dunno. I need to mention that I love world systems stuff. Wallerstein and Frank have made some royalties off of me (even Frank & Gill's 500 Years). And I mean that I assign them, not just buy them for myself. But while it's great to look at all these historical interconnectednesses from Sandarkan to Zanzibar, never ever stake your portfolio on what these guys say. Especially over next-ten year increments. As for long-cycles 'n' stuff which is at the core of this work, I refer readers to Nathaniel Beck's "Illusion of cycles in INternational Relations" _International Studies Quarterly_ 1991, v. 35, pp. 455-476 with its rather devastating comparison of long-cycle trends to randomly generated stationary data (p. 460). So, as I say, I like the work--and Frank should surely know, I'm no stranger to global capital vs. global capital, since we exchanged books and other materials a year or so ago. But I think world systems and Kondratieffs are mostly an aesthetic. Commodity-chain politics I can see; the rest makes for interesting history. But predictions? I think that what savvy is there comes from expert knowledge of multiple regions. Back in 1980 Bill Griffith at MIT--no World Systems type he--called the USSR the last of the great multinational empires with all the problems attending thereto. What the two groupshave in common is not a "science of history" but a deep appreciation of history, period. And before the harpies descend--I don't think political "science" is a science either. I won't venture into economics. But if you want to stake your cycles on the acceleration principle or accumulation crises--go with the acceleration principle. Greg Nowell From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Mon Feb 3 09:00:02 1997 Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 10:59:32 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: world system prediction (fwd) Extensive or even intensive debates, and certainly turf wars, are not likely to bear much sweet fruit, but 1. one quote taken from a zillion writings is not exactly much, but 2. even that one quote does seem to have hit the mark pretty well in retrospect, since 3. If what has happened in "the Socialist East" and much of "the South" is not a DEPRESSION with a monstrous increase in unemployment and a sharp DEflation= price decline in terms of world money [ US$ and DM are now buying up natural resources, labor, rocket scientists, space stations for zilch], then I dunno WHAT that is or what words mean. and 4. WE/I never claimed to be in the stock market business [nor did PKT to my knowledge] and the Japanese market HAS FALLEN by 50% and the Russian equivalent by 99%, and 5. I at least explained that and how the Western economies were being sustained through capital flows AT THE COST OF THE OTHER, and 6. I and WE DID and DO [though i am now out of business] have answers to quite a few of the questions posed in the other posting, though I admit that not to all. but then I can make up quite a list of other questions to which PKT also has no answer, eg what time is it? gotta go gunder frank. On Mon, 3 Feb 1997, Bruce R. McFarling wrote: > Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 18:29:42 +1100 > From: "Bruce R. McFarling" > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: world system prediction (fwd) > > This was sent last wednesday (csf.colorado time) as well. > I've already got an answer for the first point, but I'll give > those on WSN a crack at it first. > > Virtually, > > Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW > ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au > > > ____________________________________________________________________))) > > > > Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 17:48:31 -0500 (EST) > From: "Gregoire de Nowell (ci-devant)" > To: pkt@csf.colorado.edu > Subject: world system prediction > Message-ID: <01IESK9EY9NS9KOB63@cnsvax.albany.edu> > > > Frank's message sent me scurrying back to Amin, Arrighi, Frank & > Wallerstein (1982), _Dynamics of Global Crisis_. > > p. 238: > > "Two immediate questions are on most people's minds when they > think about their expectations for the 1980s. Will there be > a "crash," and will there be a world war? The answer to the first > depends on what one means by a crash. If one means a serious > financial collapse followeed by a price drop and > a significant increase in world unemployment, then Amin, > Frank, and Wallerstein all think that there is a reasonably > high probability of this in this decade." > > So w/a world-systems stockbrocker, you'd a missed out on > the Great Bull Market of the 80s-which, crash of 87 included- > was one of the great $$ oppportunities in history. Much > better to stick with Malkiel whose late 70s edition of > Random Walk said BUY. > > On other matters they get points: a forecast of serious > potential ethnic problems in the USSR, which is seen > as greatly stronger than under the Tsars (tho' the > Tsars could conquer the Caucasus--and all that fearsome > Soviet hardware was pretty worthlessin Afghanistan and > Checnya). The labor movment in Poland is seen as > "antisystemic" (w/regard to world capitalism). Hmmmm. > I dunno. I need to mention that I love world systems > stuff. Wallerstein and Frank have made some royalties > off of me (even Frank & Gill's 500 Years). And I mean > that I assign them, not just buy them for myself. > > But while it's great to look at all these historical > interconnectednesses from Sandarkan to Zanzibar, > never ever stake your portfolio on what these guys > say. Especially over next-ten year increments. As for > long-cycles 'n' stuff which is at the core of this > work, I refer readers to Nathaniel Beck's > "Illusion of cycles in INternational Relations" > _International Studies Quarterly_ 1991, v. 35, pp. 455-476 > with its rather devastating comparison of long-cycle > trends to randomly generated stationary data (p. 460). > > So, as I say, I like the work--and Frank should > surely know, I'm no stranger to global capital > vs. global capital, since we exchanged books > and other materials a year or so ago. But > I think world systems and Kondratieffs are > mostly an aesthetic. Commodity-chain politics > I can see; the rest makes for interesting history. > But predictions? I think that what savvy is > there comes from expert knowledge of multiple regions. > Back in 1980 Bill Griffith at MIT--no World Systems > type he--called the USSR the last of the great > multinational empires with all the problems attending > thereto. What the two groupshave in common is > not a "science of history" but a deep appreciation > of history, period. > > And before the harpies descend--I don't think > political "science" is a science either. I won't > venture into economics. But if you want to > stake your cycles on the acceleration principle > or accumulation crises--go with the acceleration > principle. > > Greg Nowell > From GregoryS9@aol.com Wed Feb 5 17:49:23 1997 From: GregoryS9@aol.com by emout03.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) Wed, 5 Feb 1997 19:49:15 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 19:49:15 -0500 (EST) To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Call for Papers/Conference I am forwarding this call for papers and conference announcement to interested parties. There are two parts: The overall Asean conference and a symposium on "Economic Restructuring, New Forms of Work, and Worker Organization," which is taking place within the larger conference. Gregory Shank, Social Justice. Call for Papers Theme: Nation, Region, and the Modern World Venue: Mutiara Merdeka Hotel, Jalan Yosudarso, Pekanbaru Asean Inter-University Seminars on Social Development 16th to 19th June 1997 Universitas Riau Pekanbaru, Indonesia In partnership with: Ateneo De Manila University Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung National University of Singapore Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Participating Institutions Universiti Malaya University of San Carlos Universiti Sarawak Malaysia Xavier University Affiliates: Copenhagen Business School James Cook University of North Queensland University of Sydney BACKGROUND Set up in 1993, the ASEAN Inter-University Seminar series aims to promote common pursuits in exploring social issues in the ASEAN countries. This series provides a platform for communication and contact between scholars to facilitate the founding of collaborative research works among scholars and to enhance mutual understanding and encourage contributions to the enrichment of social scientific knowledge of the region. The seminars are held in a different Asean country each time to enable participants to experience the richness of the region. Efforts are also made to bring attention to the peripheral regions of the member countries by holding these seminars outside the capital cities. The Seminars are organized in the spirit of autonomous development and regional cooperation so that social science can flourish along with and support the advancement of the region. OBJECTIVES * to encourage the development of ASEAN-based scholarship on social issues, a necessary condition or empowerment; * to generate valuable analysis of the critical social, economic, and political trends within the ASEAN region; * to create unparalleled opportunities to meet and to network, with a view to establishing future collaborative ventures and solidarity in the interest of justice and equity; * to provide a forum for intellectuals from ASEAN-based universities, government officials as well as non-government decision makers and others concerned with the multi-faceted issues in development in the region. THEMES The main theme for the third ASEAN Inter-University Seminars on Social Development is Nation, Region and the Modern World. Panels will be organized based on the following main sub-topics: 1. Re-inventing Southeast Asia: Culture, Religion and Ideology 2. Industrialization, Urban Space and Sustainable Development 3. Networks and Regional Co-operation in Development 4. Poverty and Inequality at the Turn of the Century 5. Gender, Family and Work A. State, Politics and Strategic Relations in Asean 7. Law, Rights and Civil Society CALL FOR PAPERS This conference is open to: * Academicians and scholars working on contemporary social issues in the ASEAN region; * Government officials; * Private-sector executives and members of NGOs * Other interested persons Papers and suggestions for the organization of panels are welcomed. Papers may be presented in English or Bahasa Indonesia/Malaysia, but all abstracts should be in English. PAPERS AND ABSTRACTS For papers to be considered, an abstract of less than 250 words should be sent to the seminar secretariat by 15 February 1997. Completed papers should reach the secretariat by 15 April 1997. They should be submitted in the form of one hard copy together with a diskette specifying the software used. Notification of acceptance of paper will be sent on receipt of the abstract. Papers should be camera-ready and should not exceed 20 pages, single spaced on A4 size paper. Selected papers from this seminar may be included in a future publication. REGISTRATION FORM Name: Institution: Address: Tel.: Fax: E-mail: I will / will not present a paper* Title of paper: * Please delete whichever is inapplicable Registration before 15 April 1997: US $ 120 _ Registration after 15 April 1997 : US $ 150 _ Student rate: US $ 50 _ Accommodation The registration fee covers only tine conference papers, tea, lunch and local transportation. The fee does not include accommodation. Should you require accommodation, please enclose a deposit for one night's stay and specify your room preference below. Hotel Single Double Mutiara Medeka US $67.20 Anom US $30.00 Dates: to Number of nights: I enclose a draft of US$ Signature Date: Method of payment: Bank drafts should be made payable to "Universitas Riau". Please send completed registration form and payment by 15 April 1997 to: ASEAN Seminar Secretariat Department of Sociology National University of Singapore 10 Ridge Crescent Singapore 119260 Fax: (65) 777 9579 Tel.: (65) 772 611 0 E-mail: socconf@leonis.nus.sg ________________________________________ Call for Papers Symposium on Economic Restructuring, New Forms of Work and Worker Organization 17 June 1997 to be held in conjunction with a conference of the Asean Inter-University Seminar on Social Development hosted by: Universitas Riau Pekanbaru, Sumatra, Indonesia This conference is organized by a consortium of universities and institutes including the Ateneo de Manila University, the National University of Singapore, and the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Other participating universities from the region include the Xavier University (Mindanao), San Carlos University (Cebu), Universiti Sarawak Malaysia, and Universiti Malaya. This seminar series is also supported by the participation of universities from outside the region and they include the Copenhagen Business School, James Cook University of North Queensland and the University of Sydney. If you wish to present a paper on any aspect of the theme, please send an abstract by March 1, 1 997 to either: Hing Ai Yun Department of Sociology National University of Singapore Kent Ridge Crescent Singapore 119260 Fax: 65-7775979 E-Mail: sochay@nus.sg Russell Lansbury Department of Industrial Relations University of Sydney Sydney NSW 2006 Fax: 02-93514729 E-Mail: lansbury@sue.econ.su.oz.au It is expected that at least 200 participants from the Asia-Pacific region will attend. Pekanbaru is approximately 45 minutes by air from either Singapore or Jakarta and is well served by regional airlines. From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Wed Feb 5 21:47:42 1997 06 Feb 1997 15:46:31 +1100 Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 15:46:31 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Thirlwall's Z and World System (fwd) To: World System Network Two more responses to the question of potential for mutual ineraction of Post Keynesian economics: one optimistic, and a skeptical rejoinder. First the optimistic response. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au ____________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 09:27:01 -0500 (EST) From: Gernot Kohler To: pkt@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Thirlwall's Z and World System Thirlwall's Z by: Gernot Kohler mini #41 Feb. 1997 and World System [I extend my apologies to Professor Andre Gunder Frank for the rough tone of the first half of another post of mine and repeat the opinion expressed in the second half of the same post--namely, that it would be nice if Post(-)Keynesians and World(-)System scholars could work together -- for example, on the development of an "Economic Programme" for the democratic world party proposed in World System circles. --- One solidarity is stronger than two solitudes.] (Post Keynesian) Professor Thirlwall has a variable Z (world income) which is useful in world system economics. REFERENCE: A.P. Thirlwall, _Growth and Development_. 5th edition. London: MacMillan, 1994, p. 389-390. Thirlwall argues, in his theory of balance-of-payments constrained growth, that a country's aggregate income (Y) is constrained by the country's balance of payments. Because of this constraint, world income (Z) has an influence on national income Y, or: y = f ( z, other ) in words, the growth rate of national income (y) is a function of the growth rate of world income (z) and other variables. (For details, see below, Appendix 1.) By including Z (world income) as an independent variable in a model explaining Y (national income), Thirlwall uses a world system variable (mega-level, namely, Z) in order to explain a national variable (macro-level, namely, Y). This leads to my: OBSERVATION 1 Thirlwall's Z (world aggregate income) is the world-system equivalent of Keynes's Y (national aggregate income). Thirlwall uses Z as an independent variable. No harm is done if we entertain the notion that Z could be a dependent variable. This leads to my: OBSERVATION 2 Thirlwall's Z (world aggregate income) is to world system economics (megaeconomics) what Keynes's Y is to macroeconomics -- namely, the grand dependent variable ("the quaesitum", as Keynes calls it). Rounding this out, we can add: OBSERVATION 3 World income (Z) and its corresponding world GDP have several dimensions which are of interest to both the World(-)System school and the Post(-)Keynesian school, namely: history of Z [apology to AGF for a cheap shot on this one] politics of Z magnitude of Z distribution of Z growth of Z content of Z [ in the sense of, "ecologically sustainable or not"] LINKING TWO SCHOOLS I submit that Thirlwall's Z is an excellent analytic device for linking World(-)System Theory and Post(-)Keynesian Theory (and, hopefully, some action as well). This linkage operation involves also a linking of two levels of analysis (which is taken for granted in WS, but needs to be made explicit in PK). LINKING TWO LEVELS OF ANALYSIS Linking two levels of analysis is a familiar activity in economics -- as, e.g., when we speak of "the micro-foundations of macroeconomics" or, in Keynes's et al. reversal, "the macro-influences on microeconomics". Let's posit the existence of three levels of analysis, namely: mega macro micro Thirlwall's Z facilitates a linkage between the mega-level (world system level) and the macro-level (national system level). The causal influences can run both ways. Thus, we can speak of: (1) the macro-foundations of mega-economics, and (2) the mega-influences on macro-economics (i.e., nation-to-world and world-to-nation). Thirlwall's theory implies #2 (mega-influence on macro), while Davidson's and Harkness's theories of exchange rates imply #1 (macro-foundations of mega). XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX APPENDIX 1 THIRLWALL's EQUATION Reference: A.P. Thirlwall, _Growth and Development_. 5th edition. London: MacMillan, 1994, p. 389-390. [The equation looks more elegant in the original.] y = epsilon * (z) + (pd + pf - e) * [(1+eta+psi) / pi] where: y growth rate of Y (domestic income) z growth rate of Z (world income) price changes: pd change of average (domestic) price of exports pf change of average (foreign) price of imports e change of the exchange rate (pd+pf-e) rate at which the real terms of trade are changing elasticities: epsilon income elasticity of demand for exports eta price elasticity of demand for exports pi income elasticity of demand for imports psi price elasticity of demand for imports NOTE: Thirlwall's growth rate y is a postulated, longer-term y which may differ from measured, annual y . In Thirlwall's words: y is an "expression for a country's growth of income consistent with current account equilibrium" (p. 390). XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX APPENDIX 2 ADJUSTMENT OF DEFINITION There is a small discrepancy between Thirlwall's Z and the Z which I used in my discussion, as follows: If "i" is the number of all countries in the world (presently, approximately, i = 185 countries), then: (A) Thirlwall's Z = sum (Y) for 1 to (i - 1) (B) (my) all-inclusive Z = sum (Y) for 1 to i The difference is one country. I include all countries; Thirlwall's Z includes all countries less the exporting country. This is not stated explicitly, but can be inferred from the fact that Thirlwall analyzes exports/imports between one country and the rest of the world. Thirlwall's "world income" (Z) actually means "rest-of-world income". For a small economy, e.g., Mozambique, the difference between the two definitions of Z is inconsequential. However, for a large economy, e.g., USA, the difference is significant. Whenever we study the exports/imports of a single country, Thirlwall's Z applies. Whenever we study the world system, the all-inclusive Z applies. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX CLARIFICATION: This posting has not (NOT) been financed by Z magazine, neither by the Zapatista movement. The Z used in this posting is post-Keynes-ian, in as much as Z follows upon Y and in as much as Professor Thirlwall is a Post Keynesian. Furthermore, this Z is a clean, professional, Cambridge University Z , absolutely hygienic. Regards, Gernot Kohler Oakville, Canada From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Wed Feb 5 21:47:45 1997 06 Feb 1997 15:47:29 +1100 Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 15:47:29 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: Thirwall's Law and Z system (fwd) To: World System Network And now a skeptical rejoinder. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au ____________________________________________________ Date: Tue, 04 Feb 1997 10:36:58 -0500 (EST) From: "Gregoire de Nowell (ci-devant)" To: pkt@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Kohlerian world synthesis I think it is very *interesting* to try to synthesize the two views (Keynes and World systems)but it is not really possible to do so. The preconditions for Wallerstein's world system is 1) a multinational state system 2) a non-incorporated non-capitalist periphery The multinational state system allows capital to threaten to remove itself elsewhere. This is used to coerce the state (where it is not a willing accomplice) into anti-labor policies which increase the possibilities for surplus extraction. The reason the threat of abandonmnet "works" is that conditions are objectively worse in other countries--in particular, in those countries where pre- or non-capitalist peasant production provides a labor force that works for wages BELOW the minimum necessary to survive. This labor force can do this because it draws in part upon the resrouces of the non-incorporated sector (i.e. working a plot of land, Mom and the kids produce enough food for survival; Dad's (or, vice versa, Mom's) scant wages provide money income to puchase goods made in the market--bare necessities. In the absence of the periphery, and the threat of capital disinvestment, Wallerstein posits that an alliance of state and labor would increase its rate of extraction of surplus from capital. At which point the "system" would not longer be possible (i.e. private ownership). Wallerstein thus "solves" the problem of "why no revolution/ socialism" in the 19th century by positing a dynamic state/ economic system which can, at least for a time, function by differentiating labor on a global scale and partially (not fully) contain upward pushes on wages in the "core". In this way the "system" maintains itself in a state of dynamic disequilibrium and enters an accumulation crisis whenever the push to expansion slows down. By contrast, the Keynesian system is based on the interconntions gbetween the marginal propensity to consume and the income effects that follow from investment/non-investment. So long as state action can be used to balance deficiencies in demand, there is no crisis. We can posit an "expansive" or "imperialist" tendency as a result of the need to maintain employment in the capital goods sector (especially) but also in the consumer sector. Nonetheless this is not *necessary* to the Keynesian model. In fact, Keynes originally articulated a "closed system." This would be *impossible* under the Wallerstein assumptions (& he is, along with Arrighi, in my belief the best of the crowd; though the school as a whole is interesting). In Keynesian terms "the rate of extraction of surplus" is not a problem as such; everyone is assumed to be trying to sell something for a profit. The accumulation problem arises when aggregate income falls, and it is certainly implicit-- and even explicit--in the Keynesian model that a rise in income of people at the *bottom* of society, those with the highest marginal propensity to consume--would have *beneficial* effects--their MPC being the highest, their rise in income would have the greatest boost effects on aggregate demand, which would spur investment, which is the salvation of "capital." By contrast, Wallerstein's system is in *crisis* so soon as wages begin to rise at the bottom of the world economy. It threatens the surplus which is the sine qua non of privately directed investment. So ytou can't reconcile the two systems by throwing in a world aggregate demand function. They have diametrically opposed underlying assumptions. Abouyt the best I can dop for you is to point out that *both* analytic approaches can be used to support an improvement in the condition of the poor. But under Wallersteinian assumptions improvement s on a purely local scale (various nations or parts thereof) does not change the system. It merely shifts the accumulation of surplus from one country to another. About the only other way to reconcile the two approaches is to say that Keynsian aggregate demand approaches are "the politics of capitalism" (I should say the *progressive* politics of capitalism) which has explanatory power in the short and maybe medium term while the world system functions best in the long-term (as an explanation of systemn dynamics). To use a medical analogy: Keynesianism is about broken legs and cuts and wounds. Systems theory is about ageing. The level of approach is relevant. If you go to the ER with a broken leg you don'twwant a lecture about your cholesterol levels and heart attack risk thirty years hence. And it is not at all clear that the micro-cellular processes behind ageing have anything to do with your broken leg. And you would probably never go to a research cell biologist on ageing and ask for a prognostication on your recovery time from an accident. Nor would you ask such a person about your chances of performing well in the Olympics. And that is also why MWS people are the wrong ones to ask about your stock portfolio. To the extent that they offer opinions, they are outside their domain of expertise, and any truth content is purely coincidental. So to conclude the "Z" variable doesn't work. It is much better to approach both Keynesianism and MWS as alternative interpretive constructs and let it go at that. Current conditions are so brutally regressive (in the United States and elsewhere) that it is sufficient for today's purposes to be what engineers call "directionally correct" (favor wage protection, social security, human rights, etc.) without having to choose the "right" or "wrong" mega-construct which is, in any case, and only in the best of circumstances, a partially accurate way of trying to understand an infinitely complex system. greg nowell wallerstein modern world system keynesianism prediction From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Thu Feb 6 06:03:34 1997 Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 08:03:29 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: Thirwall's Law and Z system (fwd) This is interesting and ... but it seems to me that the objective should be not to try to combine views or theorires or models per se, but to analyze/make policy for THE REAL WORLD, using any combination of any and all theoretical/anaytical tools we got or can fashion. To that end, my personal inclination is to learn by doing. gunder frank On Thu, 6 Feb 1997, Bruce R. McFarling wrote: > Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 15:47:29 +1100 > From: "Bruce R. McFarling" > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: Re: Thirwall's Law and Z system (fwd) > > And now a skeptical rejoinder. > > Virtually, > > Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW > ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au > ____________________________________________________ > > Date: Tue, 04 Feb 1997 10:36:58 -0500 (EST) > From: "Gregoire de Nowell (ci-devant)" > To: pkt@csf.colorado.edu > Subject: Kohlerian world synthesis > Message-ID: <01IF0IR04WWY8WW8W8@cnsvax.albany.edu> > > > I think it is very *interesting* to try to synthesize the > two views (Keynes and World systems)but it is not really > possible to do so. > > The preconditions for Wallerstein's world system is > > 1) a multinational state system > > 2) a non-incorporated non-capitalist periphery > > The multinational state system allows capital to threaten > to remove itself elsewhere. This is used to coerce the state > (where it is not a willing accomplice) into anti-labor > policies which increase the possibilities for surplus > extraction. > > The reason the threat of abandonmnet "works" is that > conditions are objectively worse in other countries--in > particular, in those countries where pre- or non-capitalist > peasant production provides a labor force that works for > wages BELOW the minimum necessary to survive. This labor > force can do this because it draws in part upon the > resrouces of the non-incorporated sector (i.e. working > a plot of land, Mom and the kids produce enough food > for survival; Dad's (or, vice versa, Mom's) scant > wages provide money income to puchase goods made in > the market--bare necessities. > > In the absence of the periphery, and the threat of > capital disinvestment, Wallerstein posits that an alliance > of state and labor would increase its rate of extraction > of surplus from capital. At which point the "system" > would not longer be possible (i.e. private ownership). > > Wallerstein thus "solves" the problem of "why no revolution/ > socialism" in the 19th century by positing a dynamic state/ > economic system which can, at least for a time, function > by differentiating labor on a global scale and partially > (not fully) contain upward pushes on wages in the "core". > In this way the "system" maintains itself in a state > of dynamic disequilibrium and enters an accumulation crisis > whenever the push to expansion slows down. > > By contrast, the Keynesian system is based on the > interconntions gbetween the marginal propensity to consume > and the income effects that follow from investment/non-investment. > So long as state action can be used to balance deficiencies > in demand, there is no crisis. We can posit an "expansive" > or "imperialist" tendency as a result of the need to maintain > employment in the capital goods sector (especially) but also > in the consumer sector. Nonetheless this is not *necessary* > to the Keynesian model. In fact, Keynes originally > articulated a "closed system." This would be *impossible* > under the Wallerstein assumptions (& he is, along with > Arrighi, in my belief the best of the crowd; though the > school as a whole is interesting). In Keynesian terms > "the rate of extraction of surplus" is not a problem as > such; everyone is assumed to be trying to sell something > for a profit. The accumulation problem arises when > aggregate income falls, and it is certainly implicit-- > and even explicit--in the Keynesian model that a rise > in income of people at the *bottom* of society, those with > the highest marginal propensity to consume--would have > *beneficial* effects--their MPC being the highest, their > rise in income would have the greatest boost effects on > aggregate demand, which would spur investment, which is > the salvation of "capital." By contrast, Wallerstein's > system is in *crisis* so soon as wages begin to rise > at the bottom of the world economy. It threatens the > surplus which is the sine qua non of privately directed > investment. > > So ytou can't reconcile the two systems by throwing in > a world aggregate demand function. They have diametrically > opposed underlying assumptions. Abouyt the best I can dop > for you is to point out that *both* analytic approaches > can be used to support an improvement in the condition of > the poor. But under Wallersteinian assumptions improvement > s on a purely local scale (various nations or parts thereof) > does not change the system. It merely shifts the accumulation > of surplus from one country to another. > > About the only other way to reconcile the two approaches is > to say that Keynsian aggregate demand approaches are > "the politics of capitalism" (I should say the > *progressive* politics of capitalism) which has explanatory > power in the short and maybe medium term while the world > system functions best in the long-term (as an explanation > of systemn dynamics). To use a medical analogy: Keynesianism > is about broken legs and cuts and wounds. Systems theory is > about ageing. The level of approach is relevant. If you > go to the ER with a broken leg you don'twwant a lecture > about your cholesterol levels and heart attack risk thirty > years hence. And it is not at all clear that the > micro-cellular processes behind ageing have anything to do > with your broken leg. > > And you would probably never go to a research cell biologist > on ageing and ask for a prognostication on your recovery > time from an accident. Nor would you ask such a person > about your chances of performing well in the Olympics. And > that is also why MWS people are the wrong ones to ask about > your stock portfolio. To the extent that they offer opinions, > they are outside their domain of expertise, and any truth > content is purely coincidental. > > So to conclude the "Z" variable doesn't work. It is much > better to approach both Keynesianism and MWS as alternative > interpretive constructs and let it go at that. Current > conditions are so brutally regressive (in the United States > and elsewhere) that it is sufficient for today's purposes > to be what engineers call "directionally correct" (favor > wage protection, social security, human rights, etc.) without > having to choose the "right" or "wrong" mega-construct which > is, in any case, and only in the best of circumstances, a > partially accurate way of trying to understand an infinitely > complex system. > > greg nowell > > wallerstein > modern world system > keynesianism > prediction > > From U17043@UICVM.UIC.EDU Wed Feb 12 14:22:26 1997 Date: Wed, 12 Feb 97 14:47:06 CST From: "Daniel A. Foss" Subject: Illumination To: New Ways of Thinking List World Systems List , xiwangmu The following, in the form of a letter to a real Normal person, is farcical, yet the point is serious: Any attempt to posit a "Western Civilization" anteri- or to the mid-nineteenth century is ideologically spurious time-immemorializing of the past, and futurewardly procrastination of what is delusionally apprhend- ed as now in place. Andre Gunder Frank is conservative by about fifty years, and I should have come out with this long ago, but "personal motives" no longer seem so compelling, now. xiwangmu, Few US folk heroes had careers more amazing than that of Emil Sposzta (1809- 1872), the first Normal. According to Professor John H. Gagnon of SUNY Stony Brook, and his views since my discipleship swept the field, deviance was con- cocted in the latter half of the 19th century. It follows that, logically, so were Normals. Indeed, the life of Emil Sposzta was taught as a role model, until the 1950s, in the New York City schools. His autobiography, From Immi- grant to Mild Obscurity, was on optional reading lists along with Bulwer- Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii. (Unless you read the first, you will say, as I did, that the second stinks, and Mrs Applebaum, English Teacher, will Take Points Off, remarking in red, "There must be *some* reson it's a classic.") My mother, in helping me pronounce the name of Emil Sposzta, would merely sigh, cryptically, "Why can't you be more like him." As late as the New Leftish Era, Jonathan Kozol, in Death At An Early Age, found traces of the name of Emil Sposzta as "the way it s'pozed to be" in African-American English. Yesterday, when I beheld, in my Shrink's office, next to Monet's Daphnis Spraying The Field of Chloe From The Air, the famous engraving done for the publisher of From Immigrant to Mild Obscurity, and asked the doctor, "Why has not one dime been spent to find out what secret power that man had?" he merely scribbled notes. love and sex to steve, d. &: Forgot which Chinese Year this is, but for you, I do believe this is The Year of the Five Animals. One day, your beloved Steve will make the Sacrifices in question at the Suburban Altar of Heaven and Earth. Please take care now that, as my beloved Louise failed to do with her family's own hereditary occupation of cobbling, do not allow Travel Agentry and online-magging go to your head as she did Feet. Son-of-heavenning, nobody can do a thing about. This great land has a tale to tell of quite Normal immigrants killing quite Normal other immigrants. ******************* The preceding was made possible by a generous grant to the Unied Illuminating Company of Hartford CT, $20.54, let it shine let it shine let it shine. Daniel A. Foss From U17043@UICVM.UIC.EDU Wed Feb 12 20:52:59 1997 Date: Wed, 12 Feb 97 19:37:29 CST From: U17043@UICVM.UIC.EDU Subject: quantification/epistemological debate To: World Systems Network Dear WSN, I have greatly improved relations with the University of Illinois at Chicago since moving a thousand miles away, and I'd like to post this letter from a member of their faculty who, for reasons of Validity, I could never have, so do not, call Colleague. Her principal research concerns, as you know, the complex relationality as to whether Roman aggressive expansion to the East along the Silk Road to 363 "caused," or in what sense, the Goth immigration; and whether the Goth immigration, again, in whatever sense, "caused" the "decline and fall" as "objective reality" or as "ideological delusion." As promised, I will include warning signals to tell you that she's Out Of Hand by Chris Chase-Dunn's standards. But she almost makes it to the end without that. It should be borne in mind that her finding of one-third female ownership of the Antioch silk industry is a healthy corrective to Averil Cameron's studies of lives of female saints. Dear Daniel, I was frankly shocked that some on WSN seemed to quail, cavil, or disgrace- fully turn tail before the fetish of quantification. WSN deals with periods in our past when all known quantification is, in historical perspective, baloney today; even worse, it was patent baloney when it was collected. Consider your allusion to the ostensible decline in Chinese population, from 60 million to 50-60 million, between the Han period and the Tang, 500 years later. Did this reflect epidemic disease, smallpox, measles, or malaria, as you suppose, or illegal encroachment of the Great Families on peasant military allotments since the Toba-Wei (386-535)? *I* say, the population grew. Tang extravagance in human life, in-effect autogenocidal wars of conquest, and the even-worse An Lushan/Tibetan War which followed, is inexplicable otherwise, considering that, furthermore, that vast once-marginal agricultural zones were relegated to imperial-stud horse-rearing to provide mounts for armoured lance-knights. Even today, how much of our quantification would survive a true paradigm shift in social science, and in what condition? Well, just what I mean by that. Kuhn, in his earlier essays, even more than in Scientific Revolutions, assures us that scientific theories, once attaining paradigmatic or hegemonic status, generate their own appropriate measureing devices. The difference, epistomolo- gically, between a social-science practitioner and her sister in natural is, the former woman must live most of her quotidian existence as an *uncon- scious* participant, not a participant-observer, in the Observed at its norma- tive-power-of-facticity and even-worse facticity-is-telelology (my coinage, ie, if it's there, there's no question everything that ever was, has led up to it's being thare, and it's continuing forever to be there in some variant) worst. A woman, as you cannot possibly realize, Daniel, *must* get her hair done, or she is done. Hers not to reason, nay, question why. Since posing the question itself suffices to lay bare its arbitrary Stupidity, the principle "Total awareness is total paralysis" locks the city gates of sophistication against Barbarian nomads without. Recall your friend "mara media hell hound" who interviewed a graduate student at Northwestern University, Ms Yu, inviting her to Career Magazine, Denver CO, for the occasion, because Ms Yu had complained to ELLE Magazine that no Asian women had been invited to their "panel discuss- ion" fronting for marketing the latest concept-pseudocommodity model of "femininity" to rich white women. As an *extreme example of a Pervasive and Persistent Pattern of bias in social science theory and praxis, howbeit rarely this *blatant*, *what might have proved a stimulating exploration of race in relation to repressive gender fabrication* foundered on the commitment of both women to yuppie superficiality, attained or aspired-to. Daniel, the suit you are wearing, the grenish or the brownish one (actually newly-purchased after leaving Chicago, gray with brown stipes, Made in Israel, trash, $350) has remained stable in fundamental appearance for 80 years. Women confront, daily, *what to wear*, which differentially affects, ie, in failing relatively speaking to provoke you, our relation to theory. Women are advanta- ged in answering *unaskable* questions such that, however *unsoundly bizarre* - merely bizarre is hardly a drawback - yield data hitherto unlooked-for. A past ruler of China said, "You cannot make an omelette without breaking a woman." Also, "Women hold up half the ceiling." As Patricia Buckley Ebrey said, in The Inner Chambers, UC, 1994, about women in the Song Period, "Look for where the women are." Before emerging from the dim and distant past, my favourite habitat and vacation spot, actually, let me add some further oddities of social science theory relative to theory in Real Science. As hinted by your Eternal Suit, Daniel, society, the Knowledge Object, changes under our noses. Or other anatomical parts, paddings, and protuberances. What's more, too slowly or too fast, dapending, and you never catch all of it in the act until it's in the rearview mirror and the mirror is clean. What's more, it is required to be a special sort of rearview mirror for people living in a society where it is unimaginable what an automobile is, as we ourselves cannot imagine, can no longer even hallucinate, a society not organized inter alia to sell cars to itself. Which should that fail to suffice demands additional highway construction to subsidize the increase of the traffic density to what it previously was. And unlike the Real Sciences, the human behaviour within the Knowledge Object of our sort is contaminated by the monitoring by Observers, or potential monitorability of the selfsame behaviour, into something qualitatively diffe- rent from, let us call it, *naive* behaviour. After a fashion *which is not itself susceptible to quantification*. Have you, have you ever, been interview- ed by a journalist or, WORSE, by another social scientist? Can you honsestly said that the behaviour produced for the monitoring of it is *yours*? Can you say that the behaviour you exhibit when you suppose there is no prospect, possibility, or feasibility of monitoring - assumptions proven all-too-often wrong with evergrowing frequency - is *more you* than the classroom you, the interview you, the radio and television you, the conference you, the annual meetings you, the learned-periodical you, the published-book you. Our fabri- cated personae will become increasingly predominant in social life, at the expense of such selves we retain when we do not wear media makeup. Which is realer, and who cares. What do employment statistics today tell us where the women are? Some of them, in Mexico and Indonesia, we omit for simplicity's sake. Even domesti- cally, and woman, qua domesticated animal, has her own sense of the word, employment-measurement tells us nothing of the social relations organizing, defining, socially constructing work. Whether getting paid meant it ought to have ever been done. Or that you do not, cannot by definition think, unless paid to think, where in fact you are paid for class-appropriateness and what- ever your employer suppositiously fancies you are "doing," where "doing" is defined with lesser precision than that visited upon the vestigial working class, is called "thinking." Circularity squared. Strategic control of the definition of the cognitive is, next to control of the means of violence, the most fundamental guise of Power in any hierarchical society. Knowing I can make the lot of you, as a real Chinese, feel like a bunch of illiterate slobs, is the only protection my spindly weak body has in your animalistically violent whitedevil Bararism, no? Ideologically, we have regressed since 1978. That year, Samir Amin, in Accumulation on a World Scale, something I have not heard from the lot of you ever since. How many of you today would allow yourselves to think, "Tech- nology, potentially liberating humanity from mindless toil, paradoxically appears as the menace of unemployment." I say, Daniel, there are too many, tens of millions too many, jobs in the United States, and of the vestigial remnant I myself would permit to survive the Great Emancipation, I would counenance their survival only under the condition of the total divorce - women appreciate the right to divorce, which is our right to have our body elsewhere from you, however much we cannot get away from Them - of the productive function from the social-disciplinary function. Employment statistics obliviate the fact that the ruling power decides when and where your body is, via time-scheduling; hence also knows it, too. The rest of your life is taken care of, ie, snuffed out, by partitioning your quotidianity into Getting Ready For Work, the aforementioned Working Hours, and After Work. Daniel, I am telling you that you cannot know what you need to measure, and how, unless, and pursuant to, a true social transformation which permits the conditions of existence of a true paradigm shift. What am I going to wear under socialism? Were I younger, I'd be damned well certain: Like Lady Yang at Houqing Hot Spring! Daniel, there is a deservedly obscure book from 1991 or 1992 edited by Ivo Banac on Eastern European Nationalism, some of the articles evincing such superficiality that anyone carrying leaflets or, better yet, having acquired an actual mimeograph machine, got interviewed, with often amusing if hardly ever nasty-as-deserved results. I recall two sentences only: "World Systems Theory has been totally disconfirmed. No social science theory has ever been falsified the way World Systems Theory has been falsified." No explanation, no context. Why should anyone enunciate such rot? Because WST, like everyone else, was contaminated by ideological delusions of both the time-immemoriality of the Past and the eternal prolongation of the Present. Why did W. Warren Wagar's A Brief History of the Future require a second edition? Precisely. The fact is, WST clearly enunciated, ab initio ab ovo, there is one world market, which is a capitalist world market, and that, short of world socialism, socialism in one, one dozen, three dozen countries is chimerical. It is doomed to reabsorbtion, which happened as was Foretold. The creature doth not escape the black lagoon. Now, WSN/WST, I fear, has been acting like real men, whom we do not bother to accord a History Month, and I feel called upon to remind you Gentlemen, that the "sheer," as in "sheerest speculation," looks better on us than on you. The lesson drawn from Marx on creative thinking is that it is the privilege of the non-time-scheduled, academics in general, and it is the ultimate preserve of the tenured. Feminism stands for the unity of theory and tenure, and I am very good at both of them. Which is why Daniel insists I speak for him, even though he takes the chance of my talking about WST and extraterestrials./STOP. Louise C. Liu Associate Professor Thank you, Louise, Daniel A. Foss From CSC!COLLEGE!GaryM@cscolleg.attmail.com Thu Feb 13 02:50:44 1997 Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 09:38:00 +0000 From: CSC!COLLEGE!GaryM@cscolleg.attmail.com (Gray,Mark) Subject: Self-indulgence and WSN To: WSN@csf.colorado.edu ('WSN list') The last posting I received from this list, since subscribing again after a break of 4 months, was the self-indulgent musings of Daniel Foss. Should there not be some ground rules for the use of a common resource like this ? Such as...only contribute when the community served by the list benefits as much as (or more than) the contributor ? I don't want to subscribe to an internet-based therapy session or 'overhear' what seems very like the ramblings of a politically enthusiastic college student. As someone 'evesdropping' on the conversation of a community of researchers with something interesting to say, I want to have access to a mature and thought-provoking academic exchange. Mark Gray begin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end From rcniman@u.washington.edu Thu Feb 13 06:08:57 1997 Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 05:08:54 -0800 (PST) From: "'C.Cervantes' Ryan Niman" Reply-To: "'C.Cervantes' Ryan Niman" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: Re: Self-indulgence and WSN In-Reply-To: Pleeasseeee... Are posts that you consider "very like the ramblings of a politically enthusiastic college student" by Danial Foss or anyone else clogging your mail box? I doubt it. I get far more junk mail from out of the blue then I even get from this entire list. There is any easy way to deal with those messages you don't want. It's called 'delete.' Use it. Besides, I must ob ject for a couple of reason: 1.) I love Daniel's posts. "Around the Bend with Mao Zedong" and "tedious sermon instead of unappreciated serious jokes" (especially the later) are classics. Well, maybe not "classic" a la Shakespeare but as far as email messages go... There you go Daniel, I'd been contemplating writing to show my appreciate but, knowing myself, I never got around to it so there you go. 2.) I am "a politically enthusiastic college student" and by criticizing Daniel you have elicited "the ramblings" you see here. Ha Ha! This is the real "ramblings of a politically enthusiastic college student." No stuffy college prof. with a book deal imitating the real thing here. Nosirreebob. Although here in the International Studies department of the U-Dub we'd prefer to be called "Interntionally" enthusiastic. This is to distinquish ourselves from the Political Science department people who consider themselves too good for history and thus don't like us or the History department. Of course, then there are the Economics people who hate to hear terms like "capitol inflow" and "family structure" anywhere in the same paper. And I won't even mention the Sociology or Anthropology people... So in conclusion I must disagree with Mark. I think that the-posts-to-which-he-objects (with or without hyphens) ARE for the good of the list and propose a vote. All in favor of keeping Daniel Foss in our mists pelase say 'Aye.' "Aye." Oh, it looks like it is unanimous 1 to 0. You can stay! No need to go sit in the corner of the lunch room at the nerds' table after all, Daniel. You can sit with us 'cool' people. Ryan C. Niman (who hopes to look back on this post at sometime besides this ungodly hour and find it makes sense) P.S. Since I don't tend to post to this list I might as well say I just read Wallerstein's After Liberalism. Good book. Read it. And we could always use some "self-indulgent" (again, with or without... ah, nevermind) wisdom from you, Wallerstein. "What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more." -Hamlet (Act IV, Scene IV, Line 33) My Home Page and Pearl Jam Page: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~rcniman/index.htm Email: rcniman@u.washington.edu On Thu, 13 Feb 1997, Gray,Mark wrote: > > The last posting I received from this list, since subscribing again after > a break of 4 months, was the self-indulgent musings of Daniel Foss. > > Should there not be some ground rules for the use of a common resource > like this ? Such as...only contribute when the community served by the > list benefits as much as (or more than) the contributor ? > > I don't want to subscribe to an internet-based therapy session or > 'overhear' what seems very like the ramblings of a politically > enthusiastic college student. As someone 'evesdropping' on the > conversation of a community of researchers with something interesting to > say, I want to have access to a mature and thought-provoking academic > exchange. > > Mark Gray > > begin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end > From 6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu Thu Feb 13 08:58:21 1997 Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 07:57:02 -0800 (PST) From: Judi Kessler <6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> To: CSC!COLLEGE!GaryM@cscolleg.attmail.com Subject: Re: Self-indulgence and WSN In-Reply-To: I "ten-four" that. Coming from a silent corner of this network, I must say I am beginning to "delete" before I read. On Thu, 13 Feb 1997 CSC!COLLEGE!GaryM@cscolleg.attmail.com wrote: > > The last posting I received from this list, since subscribing again after > a break of 4 months, was the self-indulgent musings of Daniel Foss. > > Should there not be some ground rules for the use of a common resource > like this ? Such as...only contribute when the community served by the > list benefits as much as (or more than) the contributor ? > > I don't want to subscribe to an internet-based therapy session or > 'overhear' what seems very like the ramblings of a politically > enthusiastic college student. As someone 'evesdropping' on the > conversation of a community of researchers with something interesting to > say, I want to have access to a mature and thought-provoking academic > exchange. > > Mark Gray > > begin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end > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Judi A. Kessler University of California, Santa Barbara Department of Sociology Santa Barbara, California 93106 (805) 893-3751 fax (805) 893-3324 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From U17043@UICVM.UIC.EDU Thu Feb 13 10:45:32 1997 Date: Thu, 13 Feb 97 11:09:15 CST From: daf assisted by Louise Liu Subject: historical overview of Daniel To: World Systems Network Margaret Anne Johnson *** I am sure that Daniel will thank me for writing this to preclude overt manifestations of his temper *** Distinguished Gentlemen (ie Anticipatorily Socialized Into A Negligently Uncriminalized Subculture: I have searched the full, compleat & entire - which Daniel never did - database of this list, as available via fishnet or groundhog, and have ascertained that, circa 1992-1994, notably, the current complaints against Daniel were well-founded to the point of embarassment. Which, do not suppose, I permit him to forget for one second. Moreover, as a scholar knowing several hundred times as much about Zhu Yuanzhang than poor dilletantish Daniel, howsoever he pathetically tries to cover this up, I was myself stunned, even more than Daniel himself was, by the Zhu-Mao connection via Wu Han. I find it difficult to credit, myself, but even I have an emotional side. For the most part, with rather sporadic lapses - bearing in mind that I am viewing this in the perspective of the history of Daniel's evolution in Cyberstupidity - I conclude that, on the whole Daniel is telling the plain truth as to his maintaining silence "even when there is nothing good on" for the reason averred, "for the good of my Development." It is only at such times as yesterday, under conditions of "there is nothing wrong with your set, and in the meantime we are presenting a program of recorded muzak," do his "zany pranks" recrudesce; and he is not permitted to let even those go by. I have divorced him several times already, taking the precaution to have never married (which noone of my consciousness would countenance). I make no bones about compensating for his deplorable inadequacies and reminding him what he might have been had he not been what he was. I suggest that, for Daniel's sake, you burn spirit money. Also, leave cold leftovers on five-five. I'm putting a dot on his unmarked ancestral tablet and getting on with my scholarly projects, which are extremely burdensome. My theoretical piece on Doctress Neutopia As Logical Extreme of Woman's Nonlife will appear elsewhere. Contact, in event of continued dissatisfaction, Ms Margaret Johnson, U23976@UICVM.cc.uic.edu; she is Australian. If Australia is, as it claims, an "Asian" country, she should not object to the designation "handmaid," but I have experience of angry noises and minor injuries suggestive that she has some way to go in this direction. Yours, Louise C. Liu From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Feb 13 14:16:03 1997 13 Feb 1997 16:15:55 -0500 (EST) 13 Feb 1997 16:15:19 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 16:15:51 -0500 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: ASA session on the world polity school To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Organization: Sociology Department, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. 21218 USA I am organizing a panel for the PEWS section of the American Sociology Association's annual meeting in Toronto August 9-13, 1997. The session will focus on the "world polity" school of world-systems research, especially the work of John W. Meyer and his colleagues. Immanuel Wallerstein, Terry Boswell and Giovanni Arrighi will present commentary on the world polity school. The reason I am announcing this now is that those who plan to attend this session may want to read a paper that describes the basic approach under consideration. That paper will be coming out in the next issue of the American Journal of Sociology. The title is "World Society and the Nation-State" and the authors are John Meyer, John Boli, George Thomas and Francisco Ramirez. An earlier version of this paper is also available on the World-Systems Archive. The address is gopher://csf.Colorado.EDU:70/00/wsystems/papers/meyer_john_w/changing_cultural_content_of_the_nation-state or just go to the homepage of the World-Systems Archive at http://csf.colorado.edu/wsarch.html and choose the working papers (gopher) subdirectory. chris From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Thu Feb 13 17:15:34 1997 14 Feb 1997 11:15:17 +1100 Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 11:15:17 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: Self-indulgence and WSN In-reply-to: To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK I have picked up three useful references and one useful idea from Foss' 'self-indulgent ramblings'. I use 'useful' in the sense of having the potential to lead to publishable work. That makes about 25% of the useful references and 50% of the useful ideas. Admittedly, that is a biased indicator, since I've seen plenty of things with the reaction of "that's interesting, I hope someone pursues it further". But if this is an academic list in the sense of "for academic uses of academics", rather than "for the idle amusement and self-satisfaction of academics", the (clearly high-entropy) self-indulgent postings of Foss occasionally provide a spatially aware perspective on world system issues. To obtain a properly dignified world systems list only requires people with the time, patience, and lack of better things to do to moderate the list. And WSN is already asociated, via its archive site, with an even better solution: a peer reviewed electronic journal. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au From trv@evansville.net Thu Feb 13 19:50:31 1997 (Smail3.2 #15) id m0vvDjF-000eTvC; Thu, 13 Feb 1997 20:50:25 -0600 (CST) Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 20:57:59 -0600 From: tom virgin Reply-To: trv@evansville.net Organization: Evansville Online To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: (no subject) stop mail From ba05105@binghamton.edu Fri Feb 14 08:31:34 1997 From: ba05105@binghamton.edu Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 10:29:37 -0500 (EST) To: Judi Kessler <6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> Subject: Re: Self-indulgence and WSN In-Reply-To: Chalk up another vote against self-indulgence. A list is a collective product, and urging people to simply use the delete key is no solution. People thinking before hitting 'send' is. Steven Sherman Binghamton On Thu, 13 Feb 1997, Judi Kessler wrote: > I "ten-four" that. Coming from a silent corner of this network, I must > say I am beginning to "delete" before I read. > > On Thu, 13 Feb 1997 CSC!COLLEGE!GaryM@cscolleg.attmail.com wrote: > > > > > The last posting I received from this list, since subscribing again after > > a break of 4 months, was the self-indulgent musings of Daniel Foss. > > > > Should there not be some ground rules for the use of a common resource > > like this ? Such as...only contribute when the community served by the > > list benefits as much as (or more than) the contributor ? > > > > I don't want to subscribe to an internet-based therapy session or > > 'overhear' what seems very like the ramblings of a politically > > enthusiastic college student. As someone 'evesdropping' on the > > conversation of a community of researchers with something interesting to > > say, I want to have access to a mature and thought-provoking academic > > exchange. > > > > Mark Gray > > > > begin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end > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Judi A. Kessler > University of California, Santa Barbara > Department of Sociology > Santa Barbara, California 93106 > (805) 893-3751 > fax (805) 893-3324 > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > From hawley@micron.net Fri Feb 14 10:10:40 1997 Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 10:14:54 -0700 From: Tammy Hawley Reply-To: hawley@micron.net To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: please drop me RE: discussions of overindulgence I've been deleting without reading for two months now, sending e-mails to unsubscribe, and the damned list won't let me go. May you all drown in your own swill! From kdsolski@ix.netcom.com Fri Feb 14 11:27:43 1997 by dfw-ix9.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 12:27:40 -0600 (CST) id sma024699; Fri Feb 14 12:27:39 1997 From: kdsolski@ix.netcom.com (karen denise solski) Subject: It is really a shame..... To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From kdsolski@ix.netcom.com Fri Feb 14 12:04:51 1997 by dfw-ix1.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id NAA04089 for ; Fri, 14 Feb 1997 13:04:45 -0600 (CST) Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 13:04:45 -0600 (CST) id sma004040; Fri Feb 14 13:04:30 1997 From: kdsolski@ix.netcom.com (karen denise solski) Subject: It is really a shame... To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu I just signed on to find dessention in the ranks.....this should not be a question about whether or not to "self-indulge"...and spare me the quotations from literature... I signed on in hopes of eavesdropping on intellectual discussions pertaining to world system theory, especially since I am choosing to address an issue which may adversely affect the lives of 8 to 12 thousand people...in hopes, maybe, of gleaning insight and finding yet one more perspective with which to view the research problem. It is a shame that under the ruse of academic-speak, Mr. Foss presumptively believes that the whole world wishes to listen to his prattle and self-import through his admission of self-indulgence, lacking the maturity and insight which would normally inhibit such endeavors......but merely renders the facile form of this modern technology as a servile tool for self-agrandisement without virtue!! ...wasting this precious form of communication through corrupting the format of a network, such as wsn. Yes, it is truly a shame that people would take it upon themsevles to to pervasively occuppy and waste peoples' precious research time instead of contribute to the body of literature and understanding about world systems...through meaty discussion.....it is merely a sign of idleness. Mr. Foss, perhaps you should take it upon yourself to get out-there and do research that really matters; then get on the airwaves and contribute to our understanding, perhaps even enlightening the rest of us who choose to debate and interact about issues of ethics and models and other relevant material to the growth of world system theory, and how it may help in areas of development modelling and political understanding, and how these impact in the social and cultural arena. Please, learn not to delimit yourself from some academic pretense.... >From someone who has little time to waste. From ms44278@email.csun.edu Fri Feb 14 14:40:51 1997 Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 13:40:40 -0800 (PST) From: mike shupp To: Judi Kessler <6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> Subject: Re: Self-indulgence and WSN In-Reply-To: On Thu, 13 Feb 1997, Judi Kessler wrote: > I "ten-four" that. Coming from a silent corner of this network, I must > say I am beginning to "delete" before I read. > > On Thu, 13 Feb 1997 CSC!COLLEGE!GaryM@cscolleg.attmail.com wrote: > > > > > The last posting I received from this list, since subscribing again after > > a break of 4 months, was the self-indulgent musings of Daniel Foss. Count me in a Foss-partisan. His stuff is relevent to the subject matter of the list, and provides food for thought. And, while discursive, it's readible. Some of the journal papers I've had to wade thru recently ...! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ms44278@csun1.csun.edu Mike Shupp California State University, Northridge Graduate Student, Dept. of Anthropology From eeb@hknet.com Fri Feb 14 21:24:42 1997 From: eeb@hknet.com Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 11:35:04 +0800 To: ba05105@binghamton.edu, wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Please, on the self-indulgence... Another reader in favor of some sender self-restraint. Too much of the material has not been what readers hope to find on the WSN. For this reason, apparently, now some are dropping out -- or trying to. Elson E. Boles Hong Kong (Binghamton) At 10:29 AM 2/14/97 -0500, you wrote: >Chalk up another vote against self-indulgence. A list is a collective >product, and urging people to simply use the delete key is no solution. >People thinking before hitting 'send' is. > >Steven Sherman >Binghamton > >On Thu, 13 Feb 1997, Judi Kessler wrote: > >> I "ten-four" that. Coming from a silent corner of this network, I must >> say I am beginning to "delete" before I read. >> From prins@ksu.edu Fri Feb 14 21:49:04 1997 Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 22:48:58 -0600 (CST) From: Harald E L Prins To: eeb@hknet.com Subject: Re: Please, on the self-indulgence... In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19970214113458.00699da8@hknet.com> I would like to join my voice to the chorus of people who are asking for a bit more substance and focus in WSN's cyber parlor. Harald Prins Anthropology Kansas State University On Fri, 14 Feb 1997 eeb@hknet.com wrote: > Another reader in favor of some sender self-restraint. Too much of the > material has not been what readers hope to find on the WSN. For this > reason, apparently, now some are dropping out -- or trying to. > > Elson E. Boles > Hong Kong > (Binghamton) > > At 10:29 AM 2/14/97 -0500, you wrote: > >Chalk up another vote against self-indulgence. A list is a collective > >product, and urging people to simply use the delete key is no solution. > >People thinking before hitting 'send' is. > > > >Steven Sherman > >Binghamton > > > >On Thu, 13 Feb 1997, Judi Kessler wrote: > > > >> I "ten-four" that. Coming from a silent corner of this network, I must > >> say I am beginning to "delete" before I read. > >> > > From rragland@csir.co.za Sun Feb 16 02:52:43 1997 Disclaimer: The CSIR exercises no editorial control over E-mail messages originating in the organisation and the views in this message are therefore not necessarily those of the CSIR and/or its employees. Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 11:54:10 +0200 From: Richard Ragland To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu, hawley@micron.net Subject: World Order of Baha'u'llah Encoding: 21 Text Before too many people get disappointed and go away from this list for whatever reason, I was wondering if I could maybe stimulate some postive conversation in terms of world systems and world order. I am wondering if anyone has done any in-depth research or study of the writings of Baha'u'llah? Apparently, Leo Tolstoy said that their was a prisoner in the prison city of Akka, (then a part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, now a part of Israel) who "had the key". This person is apparently one referred to as Baha'u'llah who was exiled from Persia by the Persian Government. As I understand it, He submitted a new world order which is unlike any system currently known to man. I am finding out more about this myself, but I am wondering if anyone else has done any study and research about His Writings? Sincerely Rick 9 From U17043@UICVM.UIC.EDU Sun Feb 16 16:53:42 1997 Date: Sun, 16 Feb 97 12:21:13 CST From: U17043@UICVM.UIC.EDU Subject: ridding myself of this foss headache To: World Systems Network Chris Chase-Dunn , Mark Jones , Mike Shupp To Listowner: I've changed the passwords on Daniel's accounts. This is a practical measure to prevent any further drain on my time. Following distribution ("if any," ever-Paranoid Daniel remarks, as "Why should C-D be more stupid than Martha Gimenez, who cut off distribution?") of these two letters which follow, Daniel will be unsubscribed. The past days' silliness prove there are insufficient Amendments to any Constitution to make the inferior equal. Though I deplore any departure from *ren* this implies. The first letter, addressed collectively (ie *not* by name which I have refused to recall for any such case) to parties guilty of vilest behaviour, deals with micropolitcs and microsociology determined by *class*. The pervasiveness of the compartmen- talized human head (which in the 1850s had been conceptualized as a vast cloaca maxima with wide open spaces aslosh with sewage which, with the ironclad powered by steam engine superseded this model with the partitioned hull) sectioned by watertight bulkheads, one of which being labeled by the Freud-inclined as "sexuality," though a solid mass of materiality, gave off gamma-radiationlike emanations permeating opening peach cans, pouring cheerios, reading the Times at the breakfast table, and pecuniary transfers between marital partners, was the only such. Nothing of the kind was ever put over by the Marxists/Socialists on the Broad Masses (rather, it was the Freudians who told the Marxists how dirty Broad Masses were), because Class simply isn't as filthy an idea as "sexuality." Why, if we are "Soxually liberated" in Boston and Chicago, the "o" replaced by "e" elsewhere, is the pervasiveness of the overtones of dirty stuff so emotionally compelling, whilst nothing so potent, excuse me, may be socially constructed, even with volunteer unemployed WPA commercial artists, for the Proletarian Vanguard? Simplicity incarnate. There is no inversion from Catholicism corresponding to Class. "Sexuality" is merely Original Sin, the version brought to full flowering of female intensity by St Augustine, cf Peter Brown's book. Or take my course, for credit, please, Faith of the Wife-Murderer, 306-451. St Augustine was himself a product of Carthage, Los Angeles of the Roman Empire; media capital, gorgeous beaches, never rains, citrus fruits, masses of backbreaking-labouring Berbero-Semitic- speaking conquered, and deprived and seething with hatred as in our own LA; fashionable, faboulously wealthy, longstemmed-blonde (possibly dyed) women wedded to owners of Vast Estates. Then in the year 202 a sleazy media hack, who took money for keeping the Christian husband's name out of the media, him, named Tertullian, wrote the book which converted more Christians, and the Province of Africa in particular, than the Gospels, available only in clumsily-translated Greek, where The Passion of Sts Perpetua and Felicitas, thinly disguised erotic-porno fiction of extreme familiarity with whatever sexually aroused the mob at the Carthage Arena. Which has been supported by the archaeological finds in Aphrodisias, Caria, Asia Minor; also Tindouf, Tunisia (in the Louvre). There were two parts to the ritual murder of Perpetua, the rape and the beheading. The notion of a positive idealization of rape is Alien to us, but that is our Eurocentrism. The Romans were not Europeans. I have explained that elsewhere. The Aprodisias (Caria) statues show (a) an implausibly muscled Claudius, having raped Britannia, shown as a lady of noble rank, to shreds, prepares to deal death with spear, whilst she is *totally preoccupied* with covering her modesty to her feeble best. (b) an overpreposterously muscled Nero, having one supposes with some lack of physical grace, given obesity, ravishing to the uttermost the hapless yet proud Armenia, readies aim for the kill, as the lady straightens out.... Note that these women were *foreign* and Barbarian, not Roman Citizens, which makes a difference, the nature of which is unknown, as Perpetua was rich, Latin- speaking, and daughter of a senator (or 1,000,000 in sesterces). As she religiously hallucinates being raped by a *black* bull, the sportsfans in the arena are shown what *must have been* a real gang rape, possibly with men in bits of costume. It is established that her clothes are shredded and her long blonde hair is disheveled as one expects after a night of delirious lovemaking or a gang rape. There follows the beheading scene, the most erotically loaded race-class confrontation in ancient fiction, which this is. She's young, but Sexually Wise, she's Married With Children. He's black, poor, and so hard up for money he's signed up for the enlistment bonus in a gladiatorial school, but *tyronicus*. He's *never done it with a woman before*. Very possibly as he has relatives on the Old Plantation owned by her father or one of his close friends. She, the Experienced one, supportively strengthens his sword arm, makes a man of him, goes straight to Paradise, and all that's missing is the two of them making a date for after the show. This is the *Central Christian Myth of Roman Africa*. Look again. It's supposed to be about Sex, but it's about Class. Why is that? You don't understand that, you don't understand Europe. Cut to 315. Two men come before Constantine the Wife-Murderer, claiming legal election as bishop of Carthage. One, Donatus, in Semitic, Nathan, is Black; the other, Caecelian, is white. Donatus accuses Caecaelian of handing over sacred stuff during Diocletian's persecution; a hander-over is *traditor*, committer of *tradition*, so Tradition and Traitor are not just etymologically related; they're related much much closer than that, as soon as you ask, How Old is Tradition/Past. Delusions and hallucinations about Romans just like us. Authentic tradition's fake from the start, get's worse. You all know about the Papuan tribe where they sang 50s golden oldies off the radio for tribal music to the anthropologist. Now, and only now, does Roman Africa *really blow up*. Tertullian accomp- lished that, when it did happen, it was Christian on both sides. Sick over race and class, now sex, too. What with guerrillas, named after landless labourers looking for work, *circumcelliones*, roaming around hunting Romans, who were hunting them, the Grand Resolution is made, not in society, which gets Vandalized, but in the Soul in relation to God, and made ready for the Deep Freeze following the fall of the City of Man till its Springtime for Freudians in Austria (Mel Brook). Briefly: 1. Man Has Freedom of the Will, but Not Very Much, coercion must be used to get free will right. 2. Don't Look Behind You, The Sin Of Concupiscience Is Following. Now, to blow up a bulkhead this thick, you have got to explode a very large bomb indeed, and you might fear sinking the ship. What you do is *change the colour of the bulkhead door*, from Black to Ruby Red, but it's the same water- tight compartment with all the Dirty Stuff inside. You don't understand this, you have got no idea what got the Europeans to invent the idea of Europeans, which is exteremely weird. If you do not grasp why the idea of "Europeans" is extremely weird, you cannot be helped, due to sheer dumb luck which occurred in the fourteenth century, in two parts: Bubonic Plague and Zhu Yuanzhang. Please observe that Louise C. Liu does not teach "holistic history," and considers any selfstyled nincompoop detrimental to the field; Louise C. Liu teaches *whole history*. The second letter, addressed to you, the Listowner, deals with cultural repression of idiosyncratic anomaly. The singular form of the latter word indicates that the unit of analysis *on one level* is an organism (not "person," a *construct*); such that and only such that said repression of anomaly has *class* relevance. I'm not talking about this class here, the bell rang an hour ago, and if that one is here, she might actually be listening. The repression of anomaly I have in mind is so severe that it exceeds that of Late Imperial China. This is not the sort of judgment anyone should make, but if either of us should make it, it's me, whiteboy. All which follows is relevant to your list, as your (US) culture is global, invading all rivals, with it the generality of human consciousness, like a malignant tumour. - LCL (The only personal/psychic note I might have made, parenthetically, is the relief of being rid of Daniel, as he has *misrepresent- ed me*, and I could no longer stand it. I *have no lighter side*. For evidence, qv in Liu Song shu, a book not for the squeamish.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear WSN Boors: It is quite certain that those of you who over the past week, exhibited not merely the grossest violations of your purportedly cherished "netiquette" but, I fear, grossness tout court, generalized, mrally reprehensible, and devoid of the slightest emotional self-control. Unlike the "flame war" exchange, it was *unprovoked* by, and remained *unassociated* with, personal or other insults on Daniel's part, as documented in full. Where "full" includes not only what was posted but what was not. (Notebooks will be stored indefinitely, for the convenience of counsel.) Beyond the vilest ad-hominem-ism, you transmitted dirty pictures accompanying the verbal abuse and outright rage fits. Your snobbery exceeded the outer bounds of the academic-teratological variety, which combines the ludicrously snide with status-anxious dread of there being nothing to be snobbish about. Your usage, "self-indulgence" has the *exclusive* meaning: "Shut up! Slave!" ("Give this one a little *pour encourager*, hah?") I am myself an exuberant snob, my family having ruled China, 420-479. Consider yourselves excluded henceforth from qulaified scholars' citation lists by day, from their invitation lists by night, and from requests for letters or other favours. No civilized person can risk guests devouring food on carpets, performing lewd acts on lawns, idly making unauthorized calls to casual lovers on other continents, and scratching themselves in unseemly places. If Daniel cannot afford to live in your neighbourhood, you cannot afford to live in mine. The worst you perpetrated has legitimate use as illustrative of violations of Internet propriety in compilations, in evaluations of your moral character (yes, I do find "moral character" meaningful), and in complaints to authorities regarding abuses of computer accounts. Had you been engaging in your vaunted "dialogue" or "discourse," you would have been doing so. Daniel respects scholarship and erudition, though he cannot emulate it; hence he never intervenes while it is ongoing. If the complainers had the *class* they boast of, and I cannot insist too strongly that you *fixate* too strongly on this single word *class* as it captures the *entire difference*, socioeconomic status and social distance, between the complainers and Daniel; all other rationales, rationalizations, and ratiocinations are mere *turtle excrement*,....I say, if they had had the *class* whereof they boast, they would have shown it on that day, there having been no traffic on this list. Nor would they have behaved so Stupidly. Like *fanged animals*, since. The most *disgusting* note in this was - Daniel's having this time written better - I say this as part-time critic - than on some previous occasions. Personally, Daniel's humour is not to my taste. By age sixteen I had written twelve dirty books, and have no patience for farce which conceals tiresome sermons. My reputation suffices for those. As I have said, I have no lighter side. Sincerely, Louise C. Liu, Titular Imperial Princess and Faculty Member Offer in Guarantee of Bona Fides -------------------------------- My lifetime experience in deconstructing class specific discourse, in Ancient China, (5th Century BC to 5th Century AD) and the contemporary US entitles me to discard all responses to the foregoing not neatly word-processed on hard- copy, at least 20 double-spaced pages in length, mailed (US) to: Margaret A. Johnson, University of Illinois at Chicago. Allow considerable time for perusal without return; we are snowed under. I suggest that familiarity with hierarchically-differentiated forms of address in Japanese and Indonesian- Javanese may help. Now, if any of you gets any kind of case past *me* whose thrust is, you *deny* that what is substantively and emotionally going on *unthought* (here I resort to charitable interpretation) in your pitifully-pretentious-parodies of morally-outraged headlike appendages which I am certain must be something like: 1. Daniel is a Bum. 2. You, contrariwise, are a Better Crass of People. 3. From which, by heuristic inferential logic, it follows in your bigoted, twisted notion of Cosmic Order that, to repeat, Daniel is a Bum, and 4. Since Daniel is a Bum and 5. You are not a Bum or Bums, 6. Daniel is totally a-prioritized as 7. Mindless, or Daniel would not be a 8. Bum, proving that what you have 9. Is one or more minds, which 10. As minds, contain or are possessed by 11. Content, as ostensibly proven beyond a cavil of a doubt by Professional- looking, ritualized, iterative, formally neat-looking, safe and sensible high- occupational-prestige-score-appropriate *pablum* for which you urgently need opportunity for practice-exercise, comparable to working-out on an Exercycle. 12. Where Daniel writes nothing but Retarded Psychotic Drug-Degenerated Ignorant Gibberish, as defined officially as being What Does Not Look Like Knowledge, which is the only Real, in the ideological sense, possibility, because 13. Daniel is a Bum and at least six other kinds of morally-reprobated Deviant besides, each of these conferring ex-officio mindlessness besides, well, then: This putative achievement of yours, should you pull it off, will have been the most impressive Miracle since the so-called Yahweh parted the Red Sea with an Ace Pocket Comb. For which you will receive: *** a gob of spit full of pistachio juice full in the face from me, Louise C. Liu, to nullify the success of your coverup thus far. As a principled snob over the whole of my life, and not unfamiliar with my dear family's cherished ancestral practices (see Appendix A) inclusive of punishing your sort of social impertinence toward a Titular Imperial Princess of my station with death by beheading, I do, nevertheless, insist on the maintenance of civility at all times. The precise exact Truth should be confessed civilly. The sentencing and punishment of the Guilty should be administered civilly. Finally, the chastised criminal offender, assuming the latter has been allowed to live, should kowtow to the administerer of said punishment by reason of much-appreciated moral correction, again, civilly. You have not yet asked, "Why do you do this for Daniel?" Again, I tell the Truth. My father ordered me to. In my place you, too, would do the same. Most of all, I blame Daniel for having thoughtlessly set the entire succession of unpleasantnesses in train. Daniel had *theoretical knowledge*, even an understanding of societal-analogue Constitutional Law touching upon Bums, Obligation of Bums to Know their Place as Bums, and Consequences of Bums' Failure to Fulfill Place-Knowing Obligations, yet ignored it: "nonexist- ent rules which apply to you," "how to do nothing and escape before caught," "crashing the open party," "subliminal anomaly-detection/expulsion," "specifics and precision in We Don't Want Your Kind," "personal safety in Neighbourhood Watch," and "meaningful patterns in non-interaction." Who has Truth yet trusts in False is uneducated. Daniel knew the Law: to have nothing to say, no Self to express. He didn't. He knew the Law forbids an official Bum from illegally and fraudulently misrepresenting himself (technically there can be no official Bum; cf Doctress Neutopia) as Thinking In Public, also Felony Illegal Nonposs- ession of Mind; three strikes, you're out! LCU Matriarch, House of Liu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Professor Chris Chase-Dunn, Listowner Sir: Daniel is strictly forbidden to speak for himself, as he exhibits disgrace- ful cringing even to my servants. I have notified him, "Only a Shrink sells lies by the hour. You feel Inferior because you *are* Inferior, and the only way you will not feel Inferior is to not be Inferior, which is accomplished by incessant labour acompanied by incessant acquisition of disciplined styles of labouring. I possess the self-confidence you lack, even write better English prose, because I have the professional attainments, the depth and breadth of erudition, the concentrated intensity of work, and inexhaustible energies I focus upon the task at hand, and of course not least a tenured faculty position, which you lack. Without ever setting out to become the world's leading Authority on the Fourth Century, I found myself, accordingly, in this vexatious rivalry with Averil Cameron, King's College, Oxford, whose appalling contention that Christianity was on balance a positive step I am compelled to ridicule into the ground at great cost to otherwise-productive researches. Anyway, you may wallow in self-pity as much as you like, Daniel, so long as you work like an ox whilst so doing; and you must work, however rarely the happy ending is empirically observed, with the expectation, howbeit doomed to frustration, that if you work long enough, hard enough, and specta- cularly enough, somoene will buy an admission ticket to watch you. It is true that I possess an unearned cache of two and one half tons of gold bullion; but this is a supplemental argument for the virtue of having ancestors only. That story is for later; and mind you, none of it goes to you come hell or Lake Michigan. In Daniel's stead, I commence with the words of the Sage, from the Analects. "To subdue oneself and regain propriety is the highest virtue." Among scholars, "subdue oneself" is called Graduate School. "Regain Propriety" is to turn over each and every rock to discern beneath it the foul presence of racism, sexism, class exploitation, domination. The deconstruction of in toto of the bizarre list-disturbance of last week shows the predominance of class animus. Of Daniel's two posts on Wednesday, the first dealt with delusional educational policy, as reported in the Wednesday February 12 NY Times, "Clinton and Republican Leaders Agree on Five Goals--Education Help And Tax Cuts Are on List," which induced him to laugh out loud on a bus in the presence of a young woman in the next seat, whom he presumed Yalish, though she did not look Yalish, and indeed was a delusional psychotic, as were nearly all those on the bus (going to "group"), with consequences I shall not repeat. Daniel's recreation of the schools' institutional culture at the time the schools "worked" was a well-written piece, quite relevant to your list. The failure of its correct decipherment is not to be faulted to the post but to the complainers whom you now personify. I merely require Daniel to work at all times in excess of capacity; how or what he does over and above what he is ostensibly incapable of achieving is not my concern. I digress. When you take offense at this post, you reject "Regain Propriety." That is, you play the Authority Figure, not the Sociologist. The further relevance of this is explored below. In the second post, the operative sentences, which are tiresome sermons, are concealed by apparent frivolity. I have no need for such ploys, being as deadly serious in animalistic lust as I am at work, but Daniel does. One of the sermon sentences states that "The practitioner of social science differs from her sister, practitioner of physical science, in that, unlike the latter, she must perforce spend the vast bulk of her waking life as an unconscious participant in the quotidianity of the Observed." The latter is wholly, almost trivially, valid. Notwithstanding its validity, it must be ignored, obliterated from awareness, to purchase petrol; and, moreover, to purchase petrol *gendered*. See Diane Bennett O'Rourke, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, "Out Of Gas Twixt Yale and Harvard," unpublished draft. With the exception of that "amost trivially valid" sentence and two others, the entire post was contrived to appear as if written by a *complete moron*. The post requests (involuntarily) the *reader* to *image* the *writer*. Daniel told me, "I should sell StreetWise on the Chicago El or StreetNews on the New York City Subways," by reason of some people at that same social level doing just that. One familiar construct, an atheoretical and purely descriptive coinage of Leon Festinger, circa 1956, "cognitive dissonance," tells us the reader unreads, or dys-reads, the non-Stupid (if unoriginal) sentences to sustain the positing of a determinate relation between relative absence of Stupidity and privileged rank (where the imagined or putative reader is both the latter). It follows, you see, Daniel is *nothing but a Stupid Bum*, as cosmology decrees. True morality demands that Daniel be Driven Out. As we see around us. *Note Carefully* that: These latter operating premises, used in writing that post and many others, with results fully as predictable as the workings of the "fully-axiomatic self-serving rationalization" in hand-staplers and German machine guns, are taken from that branch of Social Psychology called Attribution Theory, having been validated by interminably boring professional literature which only experimental psychologists endure without complaint (now that use of electric shocks in such experiments is prohibited). The two sentences relating this principle to WST are generalizations, using the decline in critique from the 1970s to the present as reflections of global- ization and intensification of Stupidity in an inegalitarian sacralization, having the effect of facilitating Stupidity in gross or subtle forms, such that WST no longer anticipates, but reacts. The final sentence including "unity of theory and Tenure," is both *critical* and *True*. Colleagues, the Object of Investigation is *screwed up* as we find it. Sociological Truth is "Highest Virtue." Yet I have said, "True philosophy is the polite discourse about extraterrestrials among ladies and gentlemen of the landed elite, holding examination degrees, over the most expensively exotic teas poured by servants charged also with barring the doors against those disqualified by agricultural pursuits." Consider the alternative. What the creme de la creme actually did in the fourth century, according to authorities (myself included) on the Six Dynasties, was argue *the* question: was nothingness, or nothing for short, another kind of something, which made a hell of a lot of sense, or was it nothing at all, which was very difficult to grasp. We called this *xuanxue*, Abstruse Learning. I prefer extraterrest- rials. You needn't. Oh, Professor Chase-Dunn, you recall Daniel's having written a WSN post on the emperor Julian, made Caesar in Trier by the Paranoid Constantius II to get him killed, 357; who in 358 gave up the Roman province of Belgica Secunda, roughly, modern Belgium (who needed it, anyway), then known as the swamps and bogs of Toxandria whence the Roman landlords had gone broke and left, to the Salian Franks. An instance, I told Daniel, of the Roman policy of "giving the country back to the Indians," where they were losing money, whilst *aggressive- ly expanding* to the East, down the Silk Road through Persia, where the money was being made. How Julian, falling on a disorganized mass of Alemanni, who had simply got lost, at the "Battle of Strasbourg," 360, acquired delusions of military genius, and no mean Paranoid himself led a coup of his legions in Paris, 361, marched east, found Constantius II conveniently dead and equally conveniently in Pre-War Diplomatic Threats with Persia, declared war forthwith, and marched farther and deeper into Persia than ever before, perhaps due to Bipolar Disorder. According to Peter Brown, "The Emperor Julian," in Society and Religion in Late Antiquity, 1982, "He fought like a Roman emperor and he died like one." Though at the time, Ammianus Marcellinus, I don't mind telling you, at age nineteen I figured him for the *coolest* guy in fourth-century Antioch! He said at the time, "Irrumate that! Julian couldn't fight his way out of a silk-gauze party dress!" Irrumate? I'm sorry, I'd hoped I wouldn't have to explain, but it's a latin obscenity, untranslatable into English, which...excuse me, one second...this is a silk-gauze party dress, Antioch Ladies of Station used to wear these on the street before the Christians got in, it's a genuine Drusilla of Antioch, the DKNY of the Antioch silk factory district. See, nothing underneath. I was saying, the Romans disting- uished conceptually between two types of penis-in-mouth oral sex, depending on whether the person with the mouth was active and the person with the penis was passive, which was *fellatio*. Getting semen in one's mouth was *egregious- ly* defiling, but being active, in fellatio, was nowhere near as much so as being passive for someone actively ejaculating, *irrumare, -atio*, into your mouth. Literally, fuck-your-mouth, and I'm happy to say that it was successful- ly translated for the first time by a Jewish Feminist Classicist, Amy Richlin, just recently, in 1983, at Yale, not *two blocks* from this very spot! Isn't *True Scholarship* so very exciting?! Next, before I get to the archive, I simply *must* tell you about Lady Sima, related to the ruling House of Sima of the Eastern Jin dynasty. Fearing, quite correctly, that she was going to be executed in the coup of 391, she very heroically hid the gold bullion reserve of the Eastern Jin empire, which was being used for nefarious purposes I cannot tell you about at this stage of my research. Amounting to three and one half tons of pure gold. She was a truly wonderful artist, scroll-painter. And quite a brilliant critic besides, perhaps the finest of the century. Well, two of her last paintings, her very last, I'm certain, dated 391, just prior to her death, survived, both of them materializing quite recently, seemingly out of nowhere. The gold was buried in a secret location, with the map required to excavate it concealed in, of all places, the Ancestral Temple of the Lius, recently built by my *parvenu*, *arriviste* family, specifically, my Guatemalan-dictator type brother, Liu Yu. Who was on the junta that ordered Ladies Peng and Sima executed. Also Chong, who got away. In regular history, he was caught and beheaded. I'm saying things I shouldn't. I'm sorry. Cut to 1949, the map was *discovered* by a Liu who was making the Ancestral Temple presentable, can you imagine, for the entry into Nanjing of the victorious Communists. Whose sworn policy was the destruction of Ancestral Temples with the tablets and all, for worshipping. This caretaker, need I say, never told Chiang Kai-Shek, why bother the poor man, who had enough on his mind to worry about, trying to pack up and leave, deciding whom to desert, leave for the Communists to execute very shortly, and such, before leaving in a very great hurry. But the caretaker didn't tell anyone else. He died in Chicago, in 1995, owner of the Radiance Obscured Bookshop, on Argyle St. This...is the map. The negotiations with the Communists, once the political climate for purpose of protecting foreign property and investment had improved *rather tremendous- ly*, were still rather ticklish. Jiang Zemin, PRC President and CCP Chairman, he tickled me here, here, here, and would you believe...here. I don't know about his wife, but I simply could not stand the man. Which cost me, however, a mere ton of solid gold, in return wherefor I got to export, under fake but protectedly, solemnly guaranteed as extremely legal in the highest, shipping labels and bills of lading, the remainder to Chicago, in 4...excuse me, 1995. Dear me, I am lapsing into dreadful mistakes. Anyhow, could you do me a bit of a favour, lie down on the bed one second, oh, before you do, those boxes under the bed which read IMELDA MARCOS do not, for once, contain shoes. That's five million dollars in solid gold. If you like, I can make that ten million, just for the *subjective experience* of lying on top of so much *bull*ion. Now, the archive. *This*, my dear colleague, is the *piece de resistance*. Oh, do be a dear and tell me how my pubic region comes off beneath that rather see-thru-ish silk-gauze party dress. Drusilla her-...excuse me, I've slipped again. I was informed, by a modern, very well-known Authority in Late Antique Roman fashions that the way the snatch region snatches the eye makes or breaks the lady presenting herself, ah, in this type of couture. Griefness, is there no way to avoid the entendre-ness, "try a little entendre-ness," Yes, I have had a bit of LSD, what of it. It had been my operating, guiding, rather, ass- humption that the gentleman envisaging, actually, *beholding* the lady, be he not yet, if perhaps about to be, *holding* the lady, who *makes* the lady, sensu *makes it with* the lady, not the visual image of the lady so beheld which makes the lady, which rather a grossly inept way of representing what is taking place even as overmixed metaphor. Imagine, shall we, one sociologist to another, a *moment of status-realization* initiating foreplay with a living, meaning *abstract* to a *lesser degree*, after all, none of us is entirely unabstract, or should that be nonabstract, at any time, adult woman. Who was it who said, "The human being exudes signification as a cat does fleas in the summertime." It's part of our pardon the expression Part of Our Nature, we give off clouds and fogs of things-which-mean-things without *meaning to*, you know, informing, misinforming, disinforming, all indifferently, and concentrating attention upon the tiniest subset only. Here it is. The *papyri lupenarii*, the complete archive of Drusilla of Antioch, in Greek, Syriac, a bit of Latin here and there, Late Phoenician, Aramaic, and odds and ends. Covering the multifarious activities of her numerous silk factories, appears to have had close to a *complete lock* on the manufacturing end of the business and to have dominated retail distri- bution in the city of Antioch itself and the whole of Roman Syria, for that matter. Imbricated throughout with extensive and elaborate organized prosti- tution, where it was quite impossible to tell whether any given female (or male to be fully accurate) employee, as opposed to slaves, if not entirely, was more of a silk or a sex worker. Contingent on season, volume of raw silk, retail sales, price of bread, weather, and military campaigns. The latter was of course critically important. Drusilla's military intelligence was certainly superior as to the activities of the Praetorian Prefecture of Oriens, the General Staff and Command Headquarters of the Roman Army of the East, than was that of the Persian Empire and, I would venture to guess, that of the Roman Empire itself. Consider as of the reign of Septimius Severus, 193-207, one third of the Roman legions were already stationed in the East, and it was Septimius Severus himself who, in 196, had been the last Roman emperor to have sacked and burned Ctesiphon on Tigris, then the Parthian capital, now the Persian. Talking about 376. Valens, Augustus of the East, had announced that the Goths who fled from the Huns were going to be made good little farmers in Moesia. That's what Ammianus was so skeptical about. "Irrumate that!" Libanius figured the same way. There was this *shipment of human meat*, splendid soldier material, Valens was not going to resist sending down the Old Silk Road through Persia, lookiee, Awexandew the Gweat I yam I yam, just because Julian, who was Psycho, who also figured, while he was whipping masocistic Persia into screaming More! More! he could simply sign a piece of papyrus, *disestablish the Christian Church*, reestablish a free, open, competitive market, the Joy of Sects, like trading sow bellies on the Chicago Commodity Exchange with him, Julian, playing the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Food and Drug Administration, protecting good honest Paganism from Unfair Religious Competitive Practices. Valens was a good solid soldier, went by the Book. The Persians were of course very well read in the Book; Julian was insane, could not be predicted. Valens was what you call, uh, a Cigar Store Indian, characterologically. And Stupid, oh, my, was he stupid. Ammianus, when we heard, *officially*, we had to be *officially* certain we were rid of Valens, raised his glass, said, "So died a man as ignorant of literature as he was of war." August 8, 378. We had such a huge, lavish party the night of August 7-8, after which I'm afraid I did something with Ammianus Marcellinus I'm *ashamed of*, he wasn't royalty or hereditarily *anything*, he was such a great writer, though,...Oh, my, I am getting in rather deep, I am sincerely sorry about these lapses, which I solemnly assure you will not recur. Valens, too, was an Arian, as were the Goths. Some people wonder, was this curious fact relevant to Valens counting on the Goths putting up with whatever he was going to do with or to them, like marching them down the Tigris to sack Ctesiphon, as he sure as hell was not settling them down in Moesia, Bulgaria, you know, playing one little two little three little Indians. His bureaucrats where swindling the clothes off their backs, reducing them to starvation, leaving them with apparently nothing to do or nowhere to go but Resettlement In The East. First thing Daniel remembered from History 105-106, you know, INT HIS WES CIV, Prof wrote big scrawl on the board, huge lecture class, BATTLE OF ADRIAN- OPLE, 378, and this was the biggie for dates on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Now, as they say, "At this stage of the research." You can, if you like, keep my right sock. Also my left sock. I am going to bet you, it will turn out that, until the very moment Valens, Augustus of the East, died of a lethal overdose of Goths, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire was entirely in your mind. Completely Eurocentric garbage, as much Eurocentric delusion as the notion the Romans were Europeans, what hypernonsense. Really. Now, do you like my feet. No, I am asking you, very seriously, your consid- ered opinion of my pedal extremities and the pedal digits extending therefrom. I am thrilled to hear that, Professor Chase-Dunn. Ah, how sad it is, there is an insuperable obstacle between us, you are not any sort of royalty. Here, take this, you've seen one of these before, at the very earliest when you were quite a small child. It is called a Brannock Device, and is used to measure foot size. I would be most thrilfully honoured, kind sir, if you would apply the Brannock Device just once to each foot and call out the readings. I am in the process, you see, of constructing a weighted statistical measure, perhaps a twelve-month moving average. Frankly, I had not anticipated your quite intense arousal from your exposure to the *papyri lupenarii*, which goes to show there is nothing stirs the blood like Dispassionate Quest For Knowledge, Learning, And Truth. EMETH. URIM V'THUMIM. Amen. Ah, if only you were Jewish. You recall when Kissinger told Nixon the Nation was facing a Grave Crisis. "We are running out of Jews." Nixon says, "That means, I cannot say it, Henry, I have Sinned, I have redbaited. You, Henry, must say it." "We must get China back, Mr President." "Thank you for saying it for me, Henry." "You are most welcome, Mr President." Happy new year of the anything, Louise C. Liu Titular Imperial Princess, Matriarch House of Liu, Faculty Member ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Appendix A) BUT NOT NEXT DOOR: Brief summary history of Liu Song dynasty (420-479) ----------------- The following is taken from Grousset, The Rise and Splendour of the Chinese Empire, UCal, 19321933Ù. Such books are archaic today, as today's historians are trained to the conviction that idiotic listing of kings in chronological order went out with the Assyrians. Minor cleanups and change of Romanization to Pinyin are Daniel's. "...decadence was ever more apparent in the Chinese Empire of the south, at the Jiankang (Nanjing) court of the last of the Eastern Jin dynasty (317-420), that Taiwan *avant le lettre* of the Dark Ages. At the beginning of the fifth century a soldier of fortune named Liu Yu, a former cobbler turned general, gave a transitory vitality to the old empire. Emboldened by a few successes against the barbarians, he dethroned the Eastern Jin (420) and proclaimed himself emperor of the Song dynasty (now called Liu Song, to distinguish it from the great Song dynasty founded in the tenth century). His family, which occupied the throne of Nanjing from 420 to 479, lapsed into a state of degene- racy worse than ever before. The third emperor of this line was assassinated at the instigation of one of his sons (453). The parricide was afterwards put to death by his own brother, who became emperor (454-465) and, fearing a similar fate, took the precaution of massacring the majority of the other princes of royal blood. The next emperor, who only reigned for six months (465)--he came to the throne at sixteen and was assassinated at seventeen-- was a sort of Nero who ordered the execution of his regents, close relations, and concubines. It was not long before he was murdered himself, but his uncle and successor (465-472), nicknamed "The Pig" because of his obesity, was no less bloodthirsty, and he in turn had all his brothers and nephews executed. When he was dying, "The Pig" bequeathed the empire to the son of his favourite. This emperor-by-chance was a precocious youngster (crowned at ten, killed at fifteen) and showed such ferocity that he had to be beheaded, which was done during a night of drunkenness (477). Liu Yu's family was already decimated and dishonoured when, in the year 479, one of the state officers deposed it and founded a new dynasty called Qi. D., Thanx. - Lou. Can't figure what you mean, "What did they use for Hallmark Cards." Happy Valzday to you, too. No, we shall *not* get married, though we most certainly will get divorced again, I can see it coming. I've never been married, but obeyed my father this much. From 6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu Sun Feb 16 18:27:54 1997 Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:27:42 -0800 (PST) From: Judi Kessler <6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> To: U17043@UICVM.UIC.EDU Subject: Re: ridding myself of this foss headache In-Reply-To: <199702162353.QAA03581@csf.Colorado.EDU> Chris (and this goes out over the WSN), What is all this!? If this is some sort of net-fun, I'm not laughing - I=20 want off this service pronto if this is going to continue. Is there anything you can do...? On Sun, 16 Feb 1997 U17043@UICVM.UIC.EDU wrote: > To Listowner: >=20 > I've changed the passwords on Daniel's accounts. This is a practical > measure to prevent any further drain on my time. Following distribution > ("if any," ever-Paranoid Daniel remarks, as "Why should C-D be more stupi= d > than Martha Gimenez, who cut off distribution?") of these two letters whi= ch > follow, Daniel will be unsubscribed. The past days' silliness prove there > are insufficient Amendments to any Constitution to make the inferior equa= l. > Though I deplore any departure from *ren* this implies. The first letter, > addressed collectively (ie *not* by name which I have refused to recall f= or > any such case) to parties guilty of vilest behaviour, deals with micropol= itcs > and microsociology determined by *class*. The pervasiveness of the compar= tmen- > talized human head (which in the 1850s had been conceptualized as a vast > cloaca maxima with wide open spaces aslosh with sewage which, with the > ironclad powered by steam engine superseded this model with the partition= ed > hull) sectioned by watertight bulkheads, one of which being labeled by th= e > Freud-inclined as "sexuality," though a solid mass of materiality, gave o= ff > gamma-radiationlike emanations permeating opening peach cans, pouring che= erios, > reading the Times at the breakfast table, and pecuniary transfers between > marital partners, was the only such. Nothing of the kind was ever put ove= r > by the Marxists/Socialists on the Broad Masses (rather, it was the Freudi= ans > who told the Marxists how dirty Broad Masses were), because Class simply = isn't > as filthy an idea as "sexuality." Why, if we are "Soxually liberated" in = Boston > and Chicago, the "o" replaced by "e" elsewhere, is the pervasiveness of t= he > overtones of dirty stuff so emotionally compelling, whilst nothing so pot= ent, > excuse me, may be socially constructed, even with volunteer unemployed WP= A > commercial artists, for the Proletarian Vanguard? Simplicity incarnate. T= here > is no inversion from Catholicism corresponding to Class. "Sexuality" is m= erely > Original Sin, the version brought to full flowering of female intensity b= y > St Augustine, cf Peter Brown's book. Or take my course, for credit, pleas= e, > Faith of the Wife-Murderer, 306-451. St Augustine was himself a product o= f > Carthage, Los Angeles of the Roman Empire; media capital, gorgeous beache= s, > never rains, citrus fruits, masses of backbreaking-labouring Berbero-Semi= tic- > speaking conquered, and deprived and seething with hatred as in our own L= A; > fashionable, faboulously wealthy, longstemmed-blonde (possibly dyed) wome= n > wedded to owners of Vast Estates. Then in the year 202 a sleazy media hac= k, > who took money for keeping the Christian husband's name out of the media, > him, named Tertullian, wrote the book which converted more Christians, an= d > the Province of Africa in particular, than the Gospels, available only in > clumsily-translated Greek, where The Passion of Sts Perpetua and Felicita= s, > thinly disguised erotic-porno fiction of extreme familiarity with whateve= r > sexually aroused the mob at the Carthage Arena. Which has been supported > by the archaeological finds in Aphrodisias, Caria, Asia Minor; also Tindo= uf, > Tunisia (in the Louvre). There were two parts to the ritual murder of > Perpetua, the rape and the beheading. The notion of a positive idealizati= on > of rape is Alien to us, but that is our Eurocentrism. The Romans were not > Europeans. I have explained that elsewhere. The Aprodisias (Caria) statue= s > show (a) an implausibly muscled Claudius, having raped Britannia, shown a= s > a lady of noble rank, to shreds, prepares to deal death with spear, whils= t > she is *totally preoccupied* with covering her modesty to her feeble best= .. > (b) an overpreposterously muscled Nero, having one supposes with some lac= k > of physical grace, given obesity, ravishing to the uttermost the hapless = yet > proud Armenia, readies aim for the kill, as the lady straightens out.... = Note > that these women were *foreign* and Barbarian, not Roman Citizens, which = makes > a difference, the nature of which is unknown, as Perpetua was rich, Latin= - > speaking, and daughter of a senator (or 1,000,000 in sesterces). As she > religiously hallucinates being raped by a *black* bull, the sportsfans in= the > arena are shown what *must have been* a real gang rape, possibly with men= in > bits of costume. It is established that her clothes are shredded and her = long > blonde hair is disheveled as one expects after a night of delirious lovem= aking > or a gang rape. There follows the beheading scene, the most erotically lo= aded > race-class confrontation in ancient fiction, which this is. She's young, = but > Sexually Wise, she's Married With Children. He's black, poor, and so hard= up > for money he's signed up for the enlistment bonus in a gladiatorial schoo= l, > but *tyronicus*. He's *never done it with a woman before*. Very possibly = as > he has relatives on the Old Plantation owned by her father or one of his > close friends. She, the Experienced one, supportively strengthens his > sword arm, makes a man of him, goes straight to Paradise, and all that's > missing is the two of them making a date for after the show. This is the > *Central Christian Myth of Roman Africa*. Look again. It's supposed to be > about Sex, but it's about Class. Why is that? You don't understand that, > you don't understand Europe. >=20 > Cut to 315. Two men come before Constantine the Wife-Murderer, claimin= g > legal election as bishop of Carthage. One, Donatus, in Semitic, Nathan, i= s > Black; the other, Caecelian, is white. Donatus accuses Caecaelian of hand= ing > over sacred stuff during Diocletian's persecution; a hander-over is *trad= itor*, > committer of *tradition*, so Tradition and Traitor are not just etymologi= cally > related; they're related much much closer than that, as soon as you ask, = How > Old is Tradition/Past. Delusions and hallucinations about Romans just lik= e us. > Authentic tradition's fake from the start, get's worse. You all know abou= t the > Papuan tribe where they sang 50s golden oldies off the radio for tribal m= usic > to the anthropologist. >=20 > Now, and only now, does Roman Africa *really blow up*. Tertullian acco= mp- > lished that, when it did happen, it was Christian on both sides. Sick ove= r > race and class, now sex, too. What with guerrillas, named after landless > labourers looking for work, *circumcelliones*, roaming around hunting Rom= ans, > who were hunting them, the Grand Resolution is made, not in society, whic= h > gets Vandalized, but in the Soul in relation to God, and made ready for t= he > Deep Freeze following the fall of the City of Man till its Springtime for > Freudians in Austria (Mel Brook). Briefly: 1. Man Has Freedom of the Will= , > but Not Very Much, coercion must be used to get free will right. 2. Don't > Look Behind You, The Sin Of Concupiscience Is Following. >=20 > Now, to blow up a bulkhead this thick, you have got to explode a very = large > bomb indeed, and you might fear sinking the ship. What you do is *change = the > colour of the bulkhead door*, from Black to Ruby Red, but it's the same w= ater- > tight compartment with all the Dirty Stuff inside. You don't understand t= his, > you have got no idea what got the Europeans to invent the idea of Europea= ns, > which is exteremely weird. > If you do not grasp why the idea of "Europeans" is extremely weird, yo= u > cannot be helped, due to sheer dumb luck which occurred in the fourteenth > century, in two parts: Bubonic Plague and Zhu Yuanzhang. >=20 > Please observe that Louise C. Liu does not teach "holistic history," a= nd > considers any selfstyled nincompoop detrimental to the field; Louise C. L= iu > teaches *whole history*. >=20 > The second letter, addressed to you, the Listowner, deals with cultura= l > repression of idiosyncratic anomaly. The singular form of the latter word > indicates that the unit of analysis *on one level* is an organism (not > "person," a *construct*); such that and only such that said repression of > anomaly has *class* relevance. I'm not talking about this class here, the > bell rang an hour ago, and if that one is here, she might actually be > listening. The repression of anomaly I have in mind is so severe that it > exceeds that of Late Imperial China. This is not the sort of judgment any= one > should make, but if either of us should make it, it's me, whiteboy. >=20 > All which follows is relevant to your list, as your (US) culture is gl= obal, > invading all rivals, with it the generality of human consciousness, like = a > malignant tumour. - LCL (The only personal/psychic note I might have made= , > parenthetically, is the relief of being rid of Daniel, as he has *misrepr= esent- > ed me*, and I could no longer stand it. I *have no lighter side*. For evi= dence, > qv in Liu Song shu, a book not for the squeamish.) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------= ------ > Dear WSN Boors: >=20 > It is quite certain that those of you who over the past week, exhibite= d not > merely the grossest violations of your purportedly cherished "netiquette"= but, > I fear, grossness tout court, generalized, mrally reprehensible, and devo= id of > the slightest emotional self-control. Unlike the "flame war" exchange, it= was > *unprovoked* by, and remained *unassociated* with, personal or other insu= lts > on Daniel's part, as documented in full. Where "full" includes not only w= hat > was posted but what was not. (Notebooks will be stored indefinitely, for = the > convenience of counsel.) Beyond the vilest ad-hominem-ism, you transmitte= d > dirty pictures accompanying the verbal abuse and outright rage fits. Your > snobbery exceeded the outer bounds of the academic-teratological variety, > which combines the ludicrously snide with status-anxious dread of there b= eing > nothing to be snobbish about. Your usage, "self-indulgence" has the *excl= usive* > meaning: >=20 > "Shut up! Slave!" ("Give this one a little *pour encourager*, hah?") >=20 > I am myself an exuberant snob, my family having ruled China, 420-479. > Consider yourselves excluded henceforth from qulaified scholars' citation= lists > by day, from their invitation lists by night, and from requests for lette= rs or > other favours. No civilized person can risk guests devouring food on carp= ets, > performing lewd acts on lawns, idly making unauthorized calls to casual l= overs > on other continents, and scratching themselves in unseemly places. If Dan= iel > cannot afford to live in your neighbourhood, you cannot afford to live in= mine. >=20 > The worst you perpetrated has legitimate use as illustrative of violat= ions > of Internet propriety in compilations, in evaluations of your moral chara= cter > (yes, I do find "moral character" meaningful), and in complaints to autho= rities > regarding abuses of computer accounts. >=20 > Had you been engaging in your vaunted "dialogue" or "discourse," you w= ould > have been doing so. Daniel respects scholarship and erudition, though he = cannot > emulate it; hence he never intervenes while it is ongoing. If the complai= ners > had the *class* they boast of, and I cannot insist too strongly that you > *fixate* too strongly on this single word *class* as it captures the *ent= ire > difference*, socioeconomic status and social distance, between the compla= iners > and Daniel; all other rationales, rationalizations, and ratiocinations ar= e > mere *turtle excrement*,....I say, if they had had the *class* whereof th= ey > boast, they would have shown it on that day, there having been no traffic= on > this list. Nor would they have behaved so Stupidly. Like *fanged animals*= , > since. The most *disgusting* note in this was - Daniel's having this time > written better - I say this as part-time critic - than on some previous > occasions. >=20 > Personally, Daniel's humour is not to my taste. By age sixteen I had w= ritten > twelve dirty books, and have no patience for farce which conceals tiresom= e > sermons. My reputation suffices for those. As I have said, I have no ligh= ter > side. >=20 > Sincerely, > Louise C. Liu, > Titular Imperial Princess and Faculty Member >=20 > Offer in Guarantee of Bona Fides > -------------------------------- > My lifetime experience in deconstructing class specific discourse, in Anc= ient > China, (5th Century BC to 5th Century AD) and the contemporary US entitle= s me > to discard all responses to the foregoing not neatly word-processed on ha= rd- > copy, at least 20 double-spaced pages in length, mailed (US) to: Margaret > A. Johnson, University of Illinois at Chicago. Allow considerable time fo= r > perusal without return; we are snowed under. I suggest that familiarity w= ith > hierarchically-differentiated forms of address in Japanese and Indonesian= - > Javanese may help. >=20 > Now, if any of you gets any kind of case past *me* whose thrust is, yo= u > *deny* that what is substantively and emotionally going on *unthought* (h= ere > I resort to charitable interpretation) in your pitifully-pretentious-paro= dies > of morally-outraged headlike appendages which I am certain must be someth= ing > like: > 1. Daniel is a Bum. > 2. You, contrariwise, are a Better Crass of People. > 3. From which, by heuristic inferential logic, it follows in your bigo= ted, > twisted notion of Cosmic Order that, to repeat, Daniel is a Bum, and > 4. Since Daniel is a Bum and > 5. You are not a Bum or Bums, > 6. Daniel is totally a-prioritized as > 7. Mindless, or Daniel would not be a > 8. Bum, proving that what you have > 9. Is one or more minds, which > 10. As minds, contain or are possessed by > 11. Content, as ostensibly proven beyond a cavil of a doubt by Profess= ional- > looking, ritualized, iterative, formally neat-looking, safe and sensible = high- > occupational-prestige-score-appropriate *pablum* for which you urgently n= eed > opportunity for practice-exercise, comparable to working-out on an Exercy= cle. > 12. Where Daniel writes nothing but Retarded Psychotic Drug-Degenerate= d > Ignorant Gibberish, as defined officially as being What Does Not Look Lik= e > Knowledge, which is the only Real, in the ideological sense, possibility, > because > 13. Daniel is a Bum and at least six other kinds of morally-reprobated > Deviant besides, each of these conferring ex-officio mindlessness besides= , > well, then: >=20 > This putative achievement of yours, should you pull it off, will have > been the most impressive Miracle since the so-called Yahweh parted the Re= d > Sea with an Ace Pocket Comb. For which you will receive: >=20 > *** a gob of spit full of pistachio juice full in the face from me, Lo= uise > C. Liu, to nullify the success of your coverup thus far. >=20 > As a principled snob over the whole of my life, and not unfamiliar wit= h my > dear family's cherished ancestral practices (see Appendix A) inclusive of > punishing your sort of social impertinence toward a Titular Imperial Prin= cess > of my station with death by beheading, I do, nevertheless, insist on the > maintenance of civility at all times. The precise exact Truth should be > confessed civilly. The sentencing and punishment of the Guilty should be > administered civilly. Finally, the chastised criminal offender, assuming > the latter has been allowed to live, should kowtow to the administerer of > said punishment by reason of much-appreciated moral correction, again, > civilly. >=20 > You have not yet asked, "Why do you do this for Daniel?" Again, I tell > the Truth. My father ordered me to. In my place you, too, would do the sa= me. >=20 > Most of all, I blame Daniel for having thoughtlessly set the entire > succession of unpleasantnesses in train. Daniel had *theoretical knowledg= e*, > even an understanding of societal-analogue Constitutional Law touching up= on > Bums, Obligation of Bums to Know their Place as Bums, and Consequences of > Bums' Failure to Fulfill Place-Knowing Obligations, yet ignored it: "none= xist- > ent rules which apply to you," "how to do nothing and escape before caugh= t," > "crashing the open party," "subliminal anomaly-detection/expulsion," "spe= cifics > and precision in We Don't Want Your Kind," "personal safety in Neighbourh= ood > Watch," and "meaningful patterns in non-interaction." Who has Truth yet t= rusts > in False is uneducated. Daniel knew the Law: to have nothing to say, no S= elf > to express. He didn't. He knew the Law forbids an official Bum from illeg= ally > and fraudulently misrepresenting himself (technically there can be no off= icial > Bum; cf Doctress Neutopia) as Thinking In Public, also Felony Illegal Non= poss- > ession of Mind; three strikes, you're out! >=20 > LCU > Matriarch, House of Liu > -------------------------------------------------------------------------= ------ > Professor Chris Chase-Dunn, Listowner >=20 > Sir: >=20 > Daniel is strictly forbidden to speak for himself, as he exhibits disg= race- > ful cringing even to my servants. I have notified him, "Only a Shrink sel= ls > lies by the hour. You feel Inferior because you *are* Inferior, and the o= nly > way you will not feel Inferior is to not be Inferior, which is accomplish= ed > by incessant labour acompanied by incessant acquisition of disciplined st= yles > of labouring. I possess the self-confidence you lack, even write better E= nglish > prose, because I have the professional attainments, the depth and breadth= of > erudition, the concentrated intensity of work, and inexhaustible energies= I > focus upon the task at hand, and of course not least a tenured faculty > position, which you lack. Without ever setting out to become the world's > leading Authority on the Fourth Century, I found myself, accordingly, in > this vexatious rivalry with Averil Cameron, King's College, Oxford, whose > appalling contention that Christianity was on balance a positive step I a= m > compelled to ridicule into the ground at great cost to otherwise-producti= ve > researches. Anyway, you may wallow in self-pity as much as you like, Dani= el, > so long as you work like an ox whilst so doing; and you must work, howeve= r > rarely the happy ending is empirically observed, with the expectation, ho= wbeit > doomed to frustration, that if you work long enough, hard enough, and spe= cta- > cularly enough, somoene will buy an admission ticket to watch you. It is = true > that I possess an unearned cache of two and one half tons of gold bullion= ; but > this is a supplemental argument for the virtue of having ancestors only. = That > story is for later; and mind you, none of it goes to you come hell or Lak= e > Michigan. >=20 > In Daniel's stead, I commence with the words of the Sage, from the Ana= lects. > "To subdue oneself and regain propriety is the highest virtue." Among sch= olars, > "subdue oneself" is called Graduate School. "Regain Propriety" is to turn= over > each and every rock to discern beneath it the foul presence of racism, se= xism, > class exploitation, domination. The deconstruction of in toto of the biza= rre > list-disturbance of last week shows the predominance of class animus. Of > Daniel's two posts on Wednesday, the first dealt with delusional educatio= nal > policy, as reported in the Wednesday February 12 NY Times, "Clinton and > Republican Leaders Agree on Five Goals--Education Help And Tax Cuts Are o= n > List," which induced him to laugh out loud on a bus in the presence of a > young woman in the next seat, whom he presumed Yalish, though she did not > look Yalish, and indeed was a delusional psychotic, as were nearly all th= ose > on the bus (going to "group"), with consequences I shall not repeat. >=20 > Daniel's recreation of the schools' institutional culture at the time = the > schools "worked" was a well-written piece, quite relevant to your list. T= he > failure of its correct decipherment is not to be faulted to the post but = to > the complainers whom you now personify. I merely require Daniel to work a= t > all times in excess of capacity; how or what he does over and above what = he > is ostensibly incapable of achieving is not my concern. I digress. When y= ou > take offense at this post, you reject "Regain Propriety." That is, you pl= ay > the Authority Figure, not the Sociologist. The further relevance of this = is > explored below. >=20 > In the second post, the operative sentences, which are tiresome sermon= s, > are concealed by apparent frivolity. I have no need for such ploys, being > as deadly serious in animalistic lust as I am at work, but Daniel does. O= ne > of the sermon sentences states that "The practitioner of social science > differs from her sister, practitioner of physical science, in that, unlik= e > the latter, she must perforce spend the vast bulk of her waking life as a= n > unconscious participant in the quotidianity of the Observed." The latter = is > wholly, almost trivially, valid. Notwithstanding its validity, it must be > ignored, obliterated from awareness, to purchase petrol; and, moreover, t= o > purchase petrol *gendered*. See Diane Bennett O'Rourke, Victoria Universi= ty > of Wellington, New Zealand, "Out Of Gas Twixt Yale and Harvard," unpublis= hed > draft. >=20 > With the exception of that "amost trivially valid" sentence and two ot= hers, > the entire post was contrived to appear as if written by a *complete moro= n*. > The post requests (involuntarily) the *reader* to *image* the *writer*. D= aniel > told me, "I should sell StreetWise on the Chicago El or StreetNews on the= New > York City Subways," by reason of some people at that same social level do= ing > just that. One familiar construct, an atheoretical and purely descriptive > coinage of Leon Festinger, circa 1956, "cognitive dissonance," tells us t= he > reader unreads, or dys-reads, the non-Stupid (if unoriginal) sentences to > sustain the positing of a determinate relation between relative absence o= f > Stupidity and privileged rank (where the imagined or putative reader is b= oth > the latter). It follows, you see, Daniel is *nothing but a Stupid Bum*, a= s > cosmology decrees. True morality demands that Daniel be Driven Out. As we= see > around us. *Note Carefully* that: These latter operating premises, used i= n > writing that post and many others, with results fully as predictable as t= he > workings of the "fully-axiomatic self-serving rationalization" in hand-st= aplers > and German machine guns, are taken from that branch of Social Psychology = called > Attribution Theory, having been validated by interminably boring professi= onal > literature which only experimental psychologists endure without complaint= (now > that use of electric shocks in such experiments is prohibited). >=20 > The two sentences relating this principle to WST are generalizations, = using > the decline in critique from the 1970s to the present as reflections of g= lobal- > ization and intensification of Stupidity in an inegalitarian sacralizatio= n, > having the effect of facilitating Stupidity in gross or subtle forms, suc= h > that WST no longer anticipates, but reacts. The final sentence including > "unity of theory and Tenure," is both *critical* and *True*. > Colleagues, the Object of Investigation is *screwed up* as we find it. >=20 > Sociological Truth is "Highest Virtue." Yet I have said, "True philoso= phy > is the polite discourse about extraterrestrials among ladies and gentleme= n of > the landed elite, holding examination degrees, over the most expensively > exotic teas poured by servants charged also with barring the doors agains= t > those disqualified by agricultural pursuits." > Consider the alternative. > What the creme de la creme actually did in the fourth century, accordi= ng to > authorities (myself included) on the Six Dynasties, was argue *the* quest= ion: > was nothingness, or nothing for short, another kind of something, which m= ade > a hell of a lot of sense, or was it nothing at all, which was very diffic= ult > to grasp. We called this *xuanxue*, Abstruse Learning. I prefer extraterr= est- > rials. You needn't. >=20 > Oh, Professor Chase-Dunn, you recall Daniel's having written a WSN pos= t on > the emperor Julian, made Caesar in Trier by the Paranoid Constantius II t= o get > him killed, 357; who in 358 gave up the Roman province of Belgica Secunda= , > roughly, modern Belgium (who needed it, anyway), then known as the swamps= and > bogs of Toxandria whence the Roman landlords had gone broke and left, to = the > Salian Franks. An instance, I told Daniel, of the Roman policy of "giving= the > country back to the Indians," where they were losing money, whilst *aggre= ssive- > ly expanding* to the East, down the Silk Road through Persia, where the m= oney > was being made. How Julian, falling on a disorganized mass of Alemanni, w= ho had > simply got lost, at the "Battle of Strasbourg," 360, acquired delusions o= f > military genius, and no mean Paranoid himself led a coup of his legions i= n > Paris, 361, marched east, found Constantius II conveniently dead and equa= lly > conveniently in Pre-War Diplomatic Threats with Persia, declared war fort= hwith, > and marched farther and deeper into Persia than ever before, perhaps due = to > Bipolar Disorder. According to Peter Brown, "The Emperor Julian," in Soci= ety > and Religion in Late Antiquity, 1982, "He fought like a Roman emperor and= he > died like one." Though at the time, Ammianus Marcellinus, I don't mind te= lling > you, at age nineteen I figured him for the *coolest* guy in fourth-centur= y > Antioch! He said at the time, "Irrumate that! Julian couldn't fight his w= ay > out of a silk-gauze party dress!" Irrumate? I'm sorry, I'd hoped I wouldn= 't > have to explain, but it's a latin obscenity, untranslatable into English, > which...excuse me, one second...this is a silk-gauze party dress, Antioch > Ladies of Station used to wear these on the street before the Christians > got in, it's a genuine Drusilla of Antioch, the DKNY of the Antioch silk > factory district. See, nothing underneath. I was saying, the Romans disti= ng- > uished conceptually between two types of penis-in-mouth oral sex, dependi= ng > on whether the person with the mouth was active and the person with the p= enis > was passive, which was *fellatio*. Getting semen in one's mouth was *egre= gious- > ly* defiling, but being active, in fellatio, was nowhere near as much so = as > being passive for someone actively ejaculating, *irrumare, -atio*, into y= our > mouth. Literally, fuck-your-mouth, and I'm happy to say that it was succe= ssful- > ly translated for the first time by a Jewish Feminist Classicist, Amy Ric= hlin, > just recently, in 1983, at Yale, not *two blocks* from this very spot! Is= n't > *True Scholarship* so very exciting?! >=20 > Next, before I get to the archive, I simply *must* tell you about Lady > Sima, related to the ruling House of Sima of the Eastern Jin dynasty. Fea= ring, > quite correctly, that she was going to be executed in the coup of 391, sh= e > very heroically hid the gold bullion reserve of the Eastern Jin empire, w= hich > was being used for nefarious purposes I cannot tell you about at this sta= ge > of my research. Amounting to three and one half tons of pure gold. > She was a truly wonderful artist, scroll-painter. And quite a brillian= t > critic besides, perhaps the finest of the century. Well, two of her last > paintings, her very last, I'm certain, dated 391, just prior to her death= , > survived, both of them materializing quite recently, seemingly out of now= here. >=20 > The gold was buried in a secret location, with the map required to exc= avate > it concealed in, of all places, the Ancestral Temple of the Lius, recentl= y > built by my *parvenu*, *arriviste* family, specifically, my Guatemalan-di= ctator > type brother, Liu Yu. Who was on the junta that ordered Ladies Peng and S= ima > executed. Also Chong, who got away. In regular history, he was caught and > beheaded. I'm saying things I shouldn't. I'm sorry. Cut to 1949, the map = was > *discovered* by a Liu who was making the Ancestral Temple presentable, ca= n > you imagine, for the entry into Nanjing of the victorious Communists. Who= se > sworn policy was the destruction of Ancestral Temples with the tablets an= d > all, for worshipping. This caretaker, need I say, never told Chiang Kai-S= hek, > why bother the poor man, who had enough on his mind to worry about, tryin= g to > pack up and leave, deciding whom to desert, leave for the Communists to e= xecute > very shortly, and such, before leaving in a very great hurry. But the car= etaker > didn't tell anyone else. He died in Chicago, in 1995, owner of the Radian= ce > Obscured Bookshop, on Argyle St. This...is the map. >=20 > The negotiations with the Communists, once the political climate for p= urpose > of protecting foreign property and investment had improved *rather tremen= dous- > ly*, were still rather ticklish. Jiang Zemin, PRC President and CCP Chair= man, > he tickled me here, here, here, and would you believe...here. I don't kno= w > about his wife, but I simply could not stand the man. Which cost me, howe= ver, > a mere ton of solid gold, in return wherefor I got to export, under fake = but > protectedly, solemnly guaranteed as extremely legal in the highest, shipp= ing > labels and bills of lading, the remainder to Chicago, in 4...excuse me, 1= 995. > Dear me, I am lapsing into dreadful mistakes. Anyhow, could you do me a b= it > of a favour, lie down on the bed one second, oh, before you do, those box= es > under the bed which read IMELDA MARCOS do not, for once, contain shoes. T= hat's > five million dollars in solid gold. If you like, I can make that ten mill= ion, > just for the *subjective experience* of lying on top of so much *bull*ion= .. >=20 > Now, the archive. *This*, my dear colleague, is the *piece de resistan= ce*. > Oh, do be a dear and tell me how my pubic region comes off beneath that r= ather > see-thru-ish silk-gauze party dress. Drusilla her-...excuse me, I've slip= ped > again. I was informed, by a modern, very well-known Authority in Late Ant= ique > Roman fashions that the way the snatch region snatches the eye makes or b= reaks > the lady presenting herself, ah, in this type of couture. Griefness, is t= here > no way to avoid the entendre-ness, "try a little entendre-ness," Yes, I h= ave > had a bit of LSD, what of it. It had been my operating, guiding, rather, = ass- > humption that the gentleman envisaging, actually, *beholding* the lady, b= e he > not yet, if perhaps about to be, *holding* the lady, who *makes* the lady= , > sensu *makes it with* the lady, not the visual image of the lady so behel= d > which makes the lady, which rather a grossly inept way of representing wh= at > is taking place even as overmixed metaphor. Imagine, shall we, one sociol= ogist > to another, a *moment of status-realization* initiating foreplay with a l= iving, > meaning *abstract* to a *lesser degree*, after all, none of us is entirel= y > unabstract, or should that be nonabstract, at any time, adult woman. Who = was > it who said, "The human being exudes signification as a cat does fleas in= the > summertime." It's part of our pardon the expression Part of Our Nature, w= e give > off clouds and fogs of things-which-mean-things without *meaning to*, you= know, > informing, misinforming, disinforming, all indifferently, and concentrati= ng > attention upon the tiniest subset only. >=20 > Here it is. The *papyri lupenarii*, the complete archive of Drusilla o= f > Antioch, in Greek, Syriac, a bit of Latin here and there, Late Phoenician= , > Aramaic, and odds and ends. Covering the multifarious activities of her > numerous silk factories, appears to have had close to a *complete lock* o= n > the manufacturing end of the business and to have dominated retail distri= - > bution in the city of Antioch itself and the whole of Roman Syria, for th= at > matter. Imbricated throughout with extensive and elaborate organized pros= ti- > tution, where it was quite impossible to tell whether any given female (o= r > male to be fully accurate) employee, as opposed to slaves, if not entirel= y, > was more of a silk or a sex worker. Contingent on season, volume of raw s= ilk, > retail sales, price of bread, weather, and military campaigns. The latter= was > of course critically important. Drusilla's military intelligence was cert= ainly > superior as to the activities of the Praetorian Prefecture of Oriens, the > General Staff and Command Headquarters of the Roman Army of the East, tha= n was > that of the Persian Empire and, I would venture to guess, that of the Rom= an > Empire itself. Consider as of the reign of Septimius Severus, 193-207, on= e > third of the Roman legions were already stationed in the East, and it was > Septimius Severus himself who, in 196, had been the last Roman emperor to > have sacked and burned Ctesiphon on Tigris, then the Parthian capital, no= w > the Persian. Talking about 376. >=20 > Valens, Augustus of the East, had announced that the Goths who fled fr= om > the Huns were going to be made good little farmers in Moesia. That's what > Ammianus was so skeptical about. "Irrumate that!" Libanius figured the sa= me > way. There was this *shipment of human meat*, splendid soldier material, > Valens was not going to resist sending down the Old Silk Road through Per= sia, > lookiee, Awexandew the Gweat I yam I yam, just because Julian, who was Ps= ycho, > who also figured, while he was whipping masocistic Persia into screaming = More! > More! he could simply sign a piece of papyrus, *disestablish the Christia= n > Church*, reestablish a free, open, competitive market, the Joy of Sects, = like > trading sow bellies on the Chicago Commodity Exchange with him, Julian, p= laying > the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Food and Drug Administration, > protecting good honest Paganism from Unfair Religious Competitive Practic= es. >=20 > Valens was a good solid soldier, went by the Book. The Persians were o= f > course very well read in the Book; Julian was insane, could not be predic= ted. > Valens was what you call, uh, a Cigar Store Indian, characterologically. = And > Stupid, oh, my, was he stupid. Ammianus, when we heard, *officially*, we = had > to be *officially* certain we were rid of Valens, raised his glass, said,= "So > died a man as ignorant of literature as he was of war." August 8, 378. We= had > such a huge, lavish party the night of August 7-8, after which I'm afraid= I > did something with Ammianus Marcellinus I'm *ashamed of*, he wasn't royal= ty > or hereditarily *anything*, he was such a great writer, though,...Oh, my,= I > am getting in rather deep, I am sincerely sorry about these lapses, which= I > solemnly assure you will not recur. Valens, too, was an Arian, as were th= e > Goths. Some people wonder, was this curious fact relevant to Valens count= ing > on the Goths putting up with whatever he was going to do with or to them, > like marching them down the Tigris to sack Ctesiphon, as he sure as hell = was > not settling them down in Moesia, Bulgaria, you know, playing one little = two > little three little Indians. His bureaucrats where swindling the clothes = off > their backs, reducing them to starvation, leaving them with apparently no= thing > to do or nowhere to go but Resettlement In The East. >=20 > First thing Daniel remembered from History 105-106, you know, INT HIS = WES > CIV, Prof wrote big scrawl on the board, huge lecture class, BATTLE OF AD= RIAN- > OPLE, 378, and this was the biggie for dates on the Decline and Fall of t= he > Roman Empire. Now, as they say, "At this stage of the research." You can,= if > you like, keep my right sock. Also my left sock. I am going to bet you, i= t > will turn out that, until the very moment Valens, Augustus of the East, d= ied > of a lethal overdose of Goths, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire w= as > entirely in your mind. Completely Eurocentric garbage, as much Eurocentri= c > delusion as the notion the Romans were Europeans, what hypernonsense. Rea= lly. >=20 > Now, do you like my feet. No, I am asking you, very seriously, your co= nsid- > ered opinion of my pedal extremities and the pedal digits extending there= from. > I am thrilled to hear that, Professor Chase-Dunn. Ah, how sad it is, ther= e is > an insuperable obstacle between us, you are not any sort of royalty. Here= , > take this, you've seen one of these before, at the very earliest when you= were > quite a small child. It is called a Brannock Device, and is used to measu= re > foot size. I would be most thrilfully honoured, kind sir, if you would ap= ply > the Brannock Device just once to each foot and call out the readings. I a= m in > the process, you see, of constructing a weighted statistical measure, per= haps > a twelve-month moving average. Frankly, I had not anticipated your quite > intense arousal from your exposure to the *papyri lupenarii*, which goes = to > show there is nothing stirs the blood like Dispassionate Quest For Knowle= dge, > Learning, And Truth. EMETH. URIM V'THUMIM. Amen. Ah, if only you were Jew= ish. > You recall when Kissinger told Nixon the Nation was facing a Grave Crisis= .. > "We are running out of Jews." Nixon says, "That means, I cannot say it, H= enry, > I have Sinned, I have redbaited. You, Henry, must say it." "We must get C= hina > back, Mr President." "Thank you for saying it for me, Henry." "You are mo= st > welcome, Mr President." >=20 > Happy new year of the anything, > Louise C. Liu > Titular Imperial Princess, Matriarch House of Liu, Faculty Member > -------------------------------------------------------------------------= ------ > (Appendix A) > BUT NOT NEXT DOOR: Brief summary history of Liu Song dynasty (420-479) > ----------------- > The following is taken from Grousset, The Rise and Splendour of the Chine= se > Empire, UCal, 1932=8D1933=D9. Such books are archaic today, as today's hi= storians > are trained to the conviction that idiotic listing of kings in chronologi= cal > order went out with the Assyrians. Minor cleanups and change of Romanizat= ion > to Pinyin are Daniel's. >=20 > "...decadence was ever more apparent in the Chinese Empire of the south, = at > the Jiankang (Nanjing) court of the last of the Eastern Jin dynasty (317-= 420), > that Taiwan *avant le lettre* of the Dark Ages. At the beginning of the f= ifth > century a soldier of fortune named Liu Yu, a former cobbler turned genera= l, > gave a transitory vitality to the old empire. Emboldened by a few success= es > against the barbarians, he dethroned the Eastern Jin (420) and proclaimed > himself emperor of the Song dynasty (now called Liu Song, to distinguish = it > from the great Song dynasty founded in the tenth century). His family, wh= ich > occupied the throne of Nanjing from 420 to 479, lapsed into a state of de= gene- > racy worse than ever before. The third emperor of this line was assassina= ted > at the instigation of one of his sons (453). The parricide was afterwards= put > to death by his own brother, who became emperor (454-465) and, fearing a > similar fate, took the precaution of massacring the majority of the other > princes of royal blood. The next emperor, who only reigned for six months > (465)--he came to the throne at sixteen and was assassinated at seventeen= -- > was a sort of Nero who ordered the execution of his regents, close relati= ons, > and concubines. It was not long before he was murdered himself, but his u= ncle > and successor (465-472), nicknamed "The Pig" because of his obesity, was = no > less bloodthirsty, and he in turn had all his brothers and nephews execut= ed. > When he was dying, "The Pig" bequeathed the empire to the son of his favo= urite. > This emperor-by-chance was a precocious youngster (crowned at ten, killed= at > fifteen) and showed such ferocity that he had to be beheaded, which was d= one > during a night of drunkenness (477). Liu Yu's family was already decimate= d and > dishonoured when, in the year 479, one of the state officers deposed it a= nd > founded a new dynasty called Qi. >=20 > D., Thanx. - Lou. Can't figure what you mean, "What did they use for Hall= mark > Cards." Happy Valzday to you, too. No, we shall *not* get married, though= we > most certainly will get divorced again, I can see it coming. I've never b= een > married, but obeyed my father this much. >=20 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Judi A. Kessler University of California, Santa Barbara Department of Sociology Santa Barbara, California 93106 (805) 893-3751 fax (805) 893-3324 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Sun Feb 16 23:19:16 1997 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 14:21:52 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: ridding myself of this foss headache In-reply-to: To: Judi Kessler <6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Judi Kessler wrote: > Chris (and this goes out over the WSN), > What is all this!? If this is some sort of net-fun, I'm not laughing - > I want off this service pronto if this is going to continue. > Is there anything you can do...? A quick reading of the post indicates that if some list members would talk about World System Theory (as opposed to talking about why someone else doesn't talk about what the poster wishes they would talk about), then the condition will clear up. This a good general rule, to get out of flame war situations as well as pointless naval gazing questions about what WSN is supposed to be about. WSN is, after all, not a subscriber / publisher enterprise but a cooperative venture. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au From austria@it.com.pl Mon Feb 17 02:23:31 1997 From: austria@it.com.pl id KAA01260 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 10:23:48 +0100 (MET) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 10:23:48 +0100 (MET) Subject: transnational integration and national disintegration - availability via wsn To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu To all receivers of the WSN interested in a substantial debate about world system theories and especially those on the brink of unsubscribing the network I'd like to tell you that my discettes together with a hard copy are underway to Chris Chase Dunn, and I hope the technicians in Colorado and in Baltimore will be able to offer to you early on my re-analysis of Osvaldo Sunkel's penetrating analysis, published over a quarter of a century ago; with new data about capitalist world development in 123 countries and from 1740 onwards. I trust that the EXCEL graphs essential for the text, as well as as statistical tables containing the EXCEL regression results will be manageable at the archive. I gather that the file will be made accessible via the archives available at the WSN web-site Yours Arno Tausch From eeb@hknet.com Mon Feb 17 03:58:17 1997 From: eeb@hknet.com Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 18:58:06 +0800 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: transnational integration and national disintegration -availability viawsn Dear Arno Tausch, To get things going, why not stick your neck out and give us the basic theoretical argument or provocation? yours, Elson E. Boles At 10:23 AM 2/17/97 +0100, you wrote: >To all receivers of the WSN interested in a substantial debate about world >system theories and especially those on the brink of unsubscribing the network >I'd like to tell you that my discettes together with a hard copy are underway to >Chris Chase Dunn, and I hope the technicians in Colorado and in Baltimore will >be able to offer to you early on my re-analysis of Osvaldo Sunkel's penetrating >analysis, published over a quarter of a century ago; with new data about >capitalist world development in 123 countries and from 1740 onwards. >I trust that the EXCEL graphs essential for the text, as well as as statistical >tables containing the EXCEL regression results will be manageable at the >archive. >I gather that the file will be made accessible via the archives available at the >WSN web-site > >Yours Arno Tausch > > > > > From austria@it.com.pl Mon Feb 17 09:59:49 1997 From: austria@it.com.pl Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 17:59:46 +0100 (MET) Subject: introduction to transnational integration project To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Transnational integration and national disintegration. all copyrights: Arno Tausch, Warsaw/Salzburg/Innsbruck by Arno Tausch, Attaché for Labour and Migration, Austrian Embassy Warsaw . Opinions expressed in this paper, are exclusively those of the author and not necessarily those of the Austrian Government ‘For upward of a thousand years the tendency of the economic centre of the world has been to move westward, and the Spanish War has only been the shock caused by its passing the Atlantic. Probably, within two generations, the United States will have faced about, and its great interests will cover the Pacific, which it will hold like an island sea (...)’ Brooks Adams (1900) ‘America’s Economic Supremacy’, as quoted in David and Wheelwright, 1989 ‘The Ten Duties of Kings are: liberality, morality, self-sacrifice, integrity, kindness, austerity, non-anger, non-violence, forbearance, and non-opposition to the will of the people’ (Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Buddhist view of responsible kinship) ‘Although famines can kill millions of people, they do not kill rulers. Kings and presidents, bureaucrats and bosses, generals and police chiefs - these people never starve’ (Amartya Sen) Table of Contents: List of abbreviations (functional terms) List of Tables List of Graphs 1) Introduction 2) The theoretical framework: what can policy-makers know about the ascent and decline in the world economy? 3) The international environment is basically unstable. A survey of the contemporary research methods for the study of changes in the world system since 1989 4) Problem number 1: Europe is characterised by the typical ‘mix’ of conditions that lead to stagnation 5) Problem number 2: Europe must come to terms with the ‘new’ social problems arising from the contradictions of the process of the global environmental destruction, to which Europe as one of the main regions of world industry and traffic, disproportionately contributes, and Europe must find a proper way for gender empowerment 6) Problem number 3: Europe must come to terms with the contradictions of world cultures and world cultural conflict, global anarchy and global decay 7) Problem number 4: Europe must come to terms with the contradictions between Europe, the developed centre, and its Eastern European periphery, and the problems of political instability, nationalism, and unequal development, that the present form of interaction between the centre and the periphery bring about 8) Problem number 5: Europe must come to terms with the contradictions of the process of the ageing of democracies, especially phenomena which one might term sclerosis bruxelliana and sclerosis Europea 9) Transnational Integration and National Disintegration - A Synthesis Appendix Bibliography Index List of Tables Table 2.1: Global patterns of foreign direct investments, 1975-1995, in billions of $: Table 4.1a: MNC penetration by international comparison Table 4.1b: The share of inward FDI stock in the gross domestic product of European Union countries by international comparison, 1980-1994 Table 4.1c: The re-iteration of the dependency and neo-classical model of growth and development in the capitalist world economy, 1980 - 1992 Table 4.1d: The effects of dependency (FDI stock per total GDP in the host countries) and world development - data for the 1980s and beyond Table 4.2: International dependency and its effects on growth and adjustment, allowing for the influence of the migration process Table 5.1: environmental quality in Eastern Europe and the former USSR in comparison to the US, the UK, France, (West) Germany, Sweden and Austria Table 5.2: the marginalisation of women, social devastation and decay in former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe in comparison to the European Union countries Table 5.3: gender empowerment Table 6.1: the influence of Huntington's index on development performance at the level of world society Table 6.2: The determination of the Gurr-Index of ethno-political conflict in the periphery and semi-periphery Table 6.3: Money-laundering and its destructive effects on the national economy: Table 7.1: Poverty and peripherisation in (Eastern) Europe Table 7.2: Poverty on a world scale Table 7.3: the position of the East and the (former) 'de-linking' South in the new world system Table 7.4a: The 1993 elections in Poland Table 7.4b: The 5th of November 1995 elections in Poland Table 7.4c: The 19th of November 1995 elections in Poland Table 7.5: the political ecology of foreign capital attraction to the different regions in Poland, 1993 Table 7.6: The transformation success or failure 1989-95 Table 7.7: The determinants of economic growth in the transformation countries Table 7.8a: Inequality, savings, taxes, and social expenditure. Evidence from Eastern Europe by cross-national comparison Table 7.8b: Gini-Index of income inequality in the formerly socialist or quasi-socialist countries Table 7.9: foreign aid, aggregate resource flows per GNP and economic growth in the transformation countries Table 7.10: The external conditions of the transformation and the World Bank’s liberalisation index: Table 7.11: EU-eastward expansion - a synopsis of the conditions, prevailing in the European periphery: Table 8.1: trade balances in Eastern Europe Table 8.2: The extractive economy on a world scale. Poland by international comparison List of Graphs Graph 1.1: Structural dependence of the European East Graph 1.2: The debt crisis of the world periphery Graph 1.3: The 11 - 19 main crisis points in the world system Graph 1.4: The demand side of the distribution of gross domestic product in a Tiger economy and in a successful transformation country - Singapore and Poland compared Graph 2.1: Capital flows, projected from outflow and inflow data 1984 - 1995 from major economic regions. North America will become the major source of capital outflows over the coming years Graph 2.2: national origin of the foreign population of 16.9 million people, living in the European Union countries Graph 3.1: the tendencies of the capitalist world economy towards Kondratieff cycles Graph 3.2: The war cycles since 1495 Graph 3.3: Kuznets-cycles in the world system, 1756 - 1975 Graph 3.4a: New evidence regarding the Kondratieff cycles, 1740-1975, based on 5-year moving averages Graph 3.4b: Kondratieff cycles, based on 10 year moving averages Graph 3.5a: the Human Development Index as a function of the level of development (real purchasing power) Graph 3.5b: capability poverty as a function of real purchasing power - the results at the level of the semi-periphery and periphery countries Graph 3.5c: capability poverty as a function of real purchasing power - the results at the level of the semi-periphery and periphery countries with a real GDP per capita between 4000 $ and 8500 $ Graph 3.6: critical values of the t-test Graph 4.1: inward and outward FDI stock as a percentage of gross domestic product over time in 1980, 1985, 1990 and 1994 in major regions of the world economy Graph 5.1 Charles D. Keeling’s data series from Mauna Loa - atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse and ozone-depleting gases, 1959-90, and the trend for the next 60 years Graph 5.2: CO2 emissions and their growth rates from 1950 onwards Graph 6.1: War victims and victims of mass murder after 1945 Graph 7.1: unemployment in Poland - total outflows and outflows to work, 1990-1995 Graph 7.2: human development and poverty Graph 7.3: MNC investments in the Polish economy Graph 7.4: unemployment in Poland - regional aspects Graph 7.5: unemployment in Poland - the time series Graph 7.6: inequality and economic transformation on a world level and in the transformation countries Graph 7.7a: foreign aid and economic growth in the transformation countries Graph 7.7.b: foreign aid per capita and economic growth on a world level Graph 7.7.c: resource flows and economic growth in the transition countries Graph 7.8: the weighted averages of the economic and political indicators of European periphery countries Graph 8.1: the world-wide recipients of transnational investment, 1984 - 1995 Graph 8.2: Triad fortresses? The share of intra-regional trade, trade with the other parts of the triad and with the rest of the world in a time-perspective 1) Introduction The aim of this work is mainly to serve as an invitation to the research community to further develop our insights into the dynamics of world development in the post 1989-world. Walking in the fog of a world order, that seems to be characterized by instability and low-intensity conflict, by the shifting of the centres of gravity of the world economy, by the increase in the contradictions of the process of globalization, by environmental decay, refugee crises, by violations of human rights on a scale unthinkable since the end of the Second World War. The liberal paradigm, that shaped politics and economics of the post-1989 world, seems to have reached its limits, while the predictions of world society paradigms - starting with Karl Polanyi - gain in relevance for the analysis of the post-1989 world. Our book - limited in aim and in scope - and well aware of our limitations both in terms of the possible sophistication of mathematical-statistical models used as well as in terms of the data at our disposal - we nevertheless think that our modest aim to write an honest cross-national analysis of the post-1989 tendencies of world development is justified, timely and above all politically relevant. The advantage of the body of 'critical' thinking about the world economy and world politics, that again and again achieved to catch the imagination of a scholarly public even in a country, where the values of the free market economy are as firmly entrenched as they are in the USA - has always been, that it hinted at the darker, possible outcomes of events to come, and that it showed to the world the continued relevance of the mechanisms of great power rivalry, conflict, and the continued relevance of dependence, cyclical ups and downs of the world economy, and finally, both the 'outer' i.e., environmental, and the 'inner', i.e. gender frontiers of the existing social order. It is no coincidence, that precisely now, after years of silence in Europe, a book, written by two German speaking journalists - Martin/Schumann, 1996, has become a best-seller. Globalization. As if the issue had not existed before. All of a sudden, Europeans especially begin to discover that their societies and economies are being exposed as well in an almost ruthless fashion to the pressures of the globalization process. For many years, such arguments were the hobby of a small minority of development re-searchers. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the so-called End of the Cold War, the capitalist world economy found opportunities, qualitatively and quantitatively unheard of only a decade ago. Suffice to re-read today the still relevant volume edited by Christopher K. Chase Dunn (1982) to see what today has become possible in terms of transnational capitalist expansion and penetration into the world of former 'real socialism’. Even in the most populous former or still communist-party-ruled countries of the world, the central state as an economic actor (in the sense of activity) is out, while transnational investment is in. Let us compare here China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine, whose population each will exceed 35 million inhabitants by the year 2000. All governed by different elites in the 1980s, whose common denominator was an official rejection of 'Western' capitalism, often associated in the official propaganda with decay, rottenness and what more, it can be safely assumed today that their central governments withdraw from the economy or have already done so, and are actively engaged in promoting foreign direct investments from the very same transnational companies which once were bedevilled in the propaganda in the 1980s and earlier on. The average Eastern European former communist country now has FDIs, which amount to 7.4 of their respective national products, in former Soviet Central Asia this percentage is at 3.3%; while in China the ratio is even now at 17.9% (UNCTAD, 1996). From wwagar@binghamton.edu Mon Feb 17 15:13:17 1997 From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 17:13:57 -0500 (EST) To: Richard Ragland Subject: Re: World Order of Baha'u'llah In-Reply-To: Dear Rick, About a century ago (so it feels), I discussed the Baha'i theology of world order in my book "The City of Man: Prophecies of a World Civilization in Twentieth-Century Thought" (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963; revised, Penguin Books, 1967), Ch. 2, pp. 117-120. I do not stand by everything I wrote in that book, but it does put the Baha'i Faith in historical and ideological perspective from a viewpoint not entirely dissimilar to world-systems theory (which at that time did not quite exist). Baha'u'llah and his successors believed they had created a new world faith, via divine revelation, that would serve as the spiritual foundation of a new global civilization, a world-system beyond the politically and culturally fractured system of our time. Regards, W. Warren Wagar Department of History Binghamton University, SUNY On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Richard Ragland wrote: > Before too many people get disappointed and go away from this list for > whatever reason, I was wondering if I could maybe stimulate some > postive conversation in terms of world systems and world order. > > I am wondering if anyone has done any in-depth research or study of > the writings of Baha'u'llah? > > Apparently, Leo Tolstoy said that their was a prisoner in the prison city > of Akka, (then a part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, now a part of Israel) > who "had the key". This person is apparently one referred to as > Baha'u'llah who was exiled from Persia by the Persian Government. > > As I understand it, He submitted a new world order which is unlike any > system currently known to man. I am finding out more about this myself, > but I am wondering if anyone else has done any study and research > about His Writings? > > Sincerely > > Rick > 9 > From rozov@cnit.nsu.ru Wed Feb 19 09:26:28 1997 Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 22:13:30 -0800 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" Reply-To: rozov@cnit.nsu.ru To: philofhi@yorku.ca Subject: Project ICONS Home Page it was a question in philofhi about education/scientific programs which concern global social change i strongly recommend to all who are interested in this field to get info of the project ICONS (International Communication and Negotiations simulations) organized by U of Maryland (Wash, DC). i personally take part in this program as a facilitator since 1994 and find it very potentially rich and provocative for both research and teaching. now this program really lacks leaders-facilitators with understanding of both w-systemic and philosophy of history aspects of global praxis the address is: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/icons/icons.html best from siberia, nikolai -- Nikolai S. Rozov, Professor of Philosophy E-MAIL: rozov@cnit.nsu.ru FAX: (3832) 35 52 37 (Russia) Moderator of PHILOFHI (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe/philofhi.html From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Wed Feb 19 09:45:37 1997 Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 11:44:56 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Sea VOL 13, now out To: Archaeology theory History World , Sociology Network Progressive , list World-L , Network World-Systems , Peter Peregrine Apologies for cross listings. The Latest Society for Economic Anthropology is now out [I actually have a copy--this one has been slow in arriving]. It has a variety of papers that may appeal to various interests. Thomas D. [tom] Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University Greencastle, IN 46135 ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE 765-658-4519 ------------------- ECONOMIC ANALYSIS BEYOND THE LOCAL SYSTEM Monographs in Economic Anthropology, No. 13 1997. New York: University Press of America. Edited by Richard E. Blanton, Peter N. Peregrine, Deborah Winslow, Thomas D. Hall CONTENTS Introduction: Economic Analysis Beyond the Local System--and Back Again v Richard E. Blanton, Deborah Winslow, Peter N. Peregrine, and Thomas D. Hall PART I: Economic Analysis Beyond the Local System: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives 1. Main Assumptions and Variables for Economic Analysis Beyond the Local System Richard E. Blanton and Peter N. Peregrine 3 2. Macro-Scale Perspectives on Settlement and Production in Ancient Oaxaca Gary M. Feinman 13 3. The Millennium Before the "Long Sixteenth Century:" How Many World-Systems Were There? Thomas D. Hall 43 4. A Local Elite and Underdevelopment in a Peripheral Economy: Iceland in the 18th-20th Centuries E. Paul Durrenberger 71 PART II: Finding the Global in the Local: Contemporary Case Studies 5. Finding the Global in the Local Thomas D. Hall 87 6. Emerging Linkages in the World System and the Challenge to Economic Anthropology Richard R. Wilk 97 7. Fertility in Maragoli: The Global and the Local Candice Bradley 109 8. Producing Agrarian Transformation at the Indonesian Periphery Tania Murray Li 125 9. The Invisable Peasant Donald W. Attwood 147 10. Historical Perspectives on Long Term Change: Compadrazgo Choice Patterns in Rural Paraguay Christina Bolke Turner 171 PART III: Structural Adjustment Programs: Local Contexts for Global Policy 11. Anthropology and Structural Adjustment Programs Deborah Winslow 197 12. Local-Global Interactions in Ghana's Structural Adjustment Gracia Clark 209 13. Household Adaptations in a Regional Urban System: The Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico Arthur D. Murphy, Mary Winter, and Earl W. Morris 235 14. Structural Adjustment, Hometowns, and Local Development in Nigeria Lillian Trager 255 15. Rural Workers and the Re-Adjustment of Egypt's Economy: Applying Regulation Theory to Anthropology James Toth 291 Contributors 317 From claudir@hubcap.clemson.edu Wed Feb 19 20:50:28 1997 Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 22:50:16 -0500 (EST) From: Claudia Robinson To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Seminar: Ecopsychology for Systems Educators Hello People, Here is an exciting opportunity! Cheers, Claudia * + + + + Join ECOPSYCHOLOGY at listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu + subscribe ecopsychology Firstname Lastname + "Integrating Mind and Nature" >|< >|< claudir@hubcap.clemson.edu Ecopsychology For Educators A Four Day Training Seminar Offered By: The Colorado Institute for A Sustainable Future March 26-30, 1997 in Boulder, Colorado or June 18-22, 1997 in California Would you like to teach a course in ecopsychology? A growing number of psychologists, ecologists and educators are exploring the roots of our behavior toward the environment, and in so doing are developing the field of ecopsychology. We invite you to join with other innovative educators to participate in creating meaningful education for an ecological era. This course will provide the foundational training and essential materials to enable academic faculty to teach their own courses in ecopsychology. Who This Course Is For: College and university faculty in psychology and environmental studies, and other educators, psychotherapists and interested professionals. Faculty: Will Keepin, Ph.D. is an environmental scientist. Laura Sewall, Ph.D. is a perceptual psychologist and educator. Jed Swift, M.A. is an educator, consultant, wilderness guide and adjunct professor at the Naropa Institute and Prescott College. Both courses are limited to the first 30 registrants. Please register early. Contact claudir@hubcap.clemson.edu for more information on course content, details, and application. Cheers, Claudia * + + + + Join ECOPSYCHOLOGY at listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu + subscribe ecopsychology Firstname Lastname + "Integrating Mind and Nature" >|< >|< claudir@hubcap.clemson.edu From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Feb 20 09:03:30 1997 20 Feb 1997 11:03:13 -0500 (EST) 20 Feb 1997 11:02:52 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 11:03:37 -0500 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: dan To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu dan is off. he had his chance. sorry for the inconvenience. chris From sbabones@jhu.edu Thu Feb 20 11:29:57 1997 20 Feb 1997 13:29:01 -0500 (EST) 20 Feb 1997 13:27:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 13:27:04 -0500 From: Salvatore Babones Subject: JWSR Volume 3 - Spring Issue now out In-reply-to: <330C75D9.7EB@jhu.edu> To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Fellow WSNers, We have just published the Spring issue of Volume 3 of the Journal of World-Systems Research. You can view the Journal by pointing your web browser to: http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html The line-up for the Spring issue includes four major articles and seven book reviews. The articles are: Arthur S. Alderson Globalization and Deindustrialization: Direct investment and the Decline of Manufacturing Employment in 17 OECD Nations Kjell Hausken and Thomas Plumper Hegemons, Leaders and Followers: A Game-Theoretic Approach to the Postwar Dynamics of International Political Economy Stephen K. Sanderson Evolutionism and its Critics Lawrence R. Alschuler Divergent Development: The Pursuit of Liberty, Equality, and Growth in Argentina and the Republic of Korea We've also made improvements to the programming (you can now jump directly to view footnotes and back!) and the presentation (pages are now numbered consecutively throughout the volume, just like in a print journal). Have a look and tell us what you think. Yours, Salvatore J. Babones Assistant Editor, JWSR Sociology Department Johns Hopkins University sbabones@jhu.edu From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Thu Feb 20 14:15:12 1997 20 Feb 1997 16:15:08 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 16:15:08 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: NEW LIST: H-Bahai, Bahai Studies (fwd) To: Network World-Systems I picked this up on H-World, and thought it might be of interest to those discussing Bahai's a few days ago. tom Thomas D. [tom] Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University Greencastle, IN 46135 ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE 765-658-4519 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:15:19 -0800 From: Ken Pomeranz Subject: NEW LIST: H-Bahai, Bahai Studies ANNOUNCING H-BAHAI H-NET LIST ON BAHAI STUDIES Sponsored by H-Net, Humanities and Social Sciences On-line and The Society for Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Studies Supported by Michigan State University H-BAHAI is devoted to the academic study of the Baha'i religion, which began in Baghdad in 1863. It has as its background Iranian, Shi`ite Islam, especially the esoteric Shaykhi school, and the millenarian Babi movement of the mid-nineteenth century in Iran. Founded by Mirza Husayn `Ali Nuri Baha'u'llah (the "Glory of God," 1817-1892), the Baha'i Faith became a new and independent religion, with its own book of revealed law and its own spiritual teachings and social principles. It spread through the Middle East and South Asia, and then came to the United States in the early 1890s, brought by Lebanese immigrants, where it attracted a following among Americans. It remains the largest religious minority in Iran, and has grown rapidly in India and elsewhere in the global South, numbering a few million world-wide. Among its basic teachings are the unity of the world religions, the unity of humankind, the need for a world government and a single global language, and the centrality of the Baha'i covenant that vests authority in successive Baha'i holy figures and institutions. H-Bahai is an interactive network of scholars, teachers, and students who use a variety of electronic and print media to to foster productive exchange of ideas and materials in the social sciences and humanities. The H-Bahai list uses electronic mail for interactive communication about teaching and research and to disseminate announcements and professional information. The H-Bahai web site archives list documents and contains links to valuable resources on our subject. As a member of H-Net, H-Bahai offers announcements about conferences, fellowships and grants, research and publication opportunities, and jobs. H-BAHAI is FREE and open to everyone with a mature and abiding interest in the subject. Scholars, writers, teachers, and librarians professionally interested in the subject are particularly invited to join. H-Bahai is edited by Prof. Juan R. Cole, University of Michigan, jrcole@umich.edu; and Prof. Susan Maneck, Berry College, smaneck@berry.edu. It is advised by a board of scholars and is associated with "The Society for Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Studies," a group of Middle East scholars with Baha'i interests that has been meeting in conjunction with the Middle East Studies Association. Like all H-Net lists, H- BAHAI is moderated by the editors to filter out inappropriate posts. It is advised by a board of scholars. More information can also be found at the H-Net Web Site, located at http://h-net.msu.edu/. To join H-BAHAI, please send a message to: listserv@h-net.msu.edu (with no subject line) and only this text: sub H-BAHAI firstname lastname, institution Capitalization does not matter, but spelling, spaces and commas do. When you include your own information, the message will look something like this: sub H-BAHAI Jane Smith, Ball State U If you have any questions or experience any difficulties in attempting to subscribe, please send a message to: Juan Cole H-Net is an international consortium of scholars in the humanities and social sciences that creates and coordinates electronic networks, using a variety of media, and with a common objective of advancing humanities and social science teaching and research. H-Net was created to provide a positive, supportive, equalitarian environment for the friendly exchange of ideas and scholarly resources, and is supported by Michigan State University. For more information about H-Net, write to H-Net@H-et.msu.edu, or point your web browser to http://h-net.msu.edu. We look forward to hearing from you! Juan Cole Susan Maneck Editors *********************** From austria@it.com.pl Fri Feb 21 02:42:12 1997 From: austria@it.com.pl Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 10:40:33 +0100 (MET) Subject: excellent article by paul farmer, harvard medical school, on suffering and structural violence; further issues on this subject; invitation for a limited number of excellent papers for consideration To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Dear colleagues, I just wanted to draw your attention to the excellent article written by Paul Farmer from Harvard Medical School, written in Daedalus, Winter 1996, page 261 ff. on the political psychology of suffering in a Third World Country (Haiti) with far-reaching general implications. The article's title is: On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below I noted with interest that Farmer re-discovers there also the significance of the contributions of liberation theology. I am in the process of editing, together with Paul Zulehner from Vienna University, a volume on this subject. I include here parts of our introduction, and the list of invited contributors. Introduction On November 16th 1989, at the time of opimism connected with what then was perceived to be the end-of-history, created by the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the successful revolutions in Eastern Europe, 5 leading proponents of liberation theology, among them the Jesuit Fathers Ignacio Ellacuria and Juan Luis Segundo Montes, were assassinated in San Salvador together with two Salvadorian employees of their University. Far from participating in the optimism prevailing at that time, Ellacuria even foresaw in his very last article (1989) the ever-larger emergence of contradictions of the capitalist order on a world scale and the necessity of divinity studies to come to terms with a capitalist system that is a world-wide system. Liberation theology is not a theoretical exercise: as Jon Sobrino so aptly writes in his introduction to the volume Sobrino/Ellacuria, 1993 (second edition 1996): ‘It is only from amidst oppression, carried to its maximal expression in martyrdom, that the theology of liberation can be understood (...) But what continues to give life to this theology is the pathos of liberation that pervades it, a pathos that not only stands at the origin but also originates the theological reflection.’ (Sobrino in Sobrino/Ellacuria, 1993/96: x-xi) Even in the secularised countries of the developed world, this pathos is well understood, far beyond the social strata that, in one way or the other, are active in the main ecumenical denominations. The life and death of Archibishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero symbolises the martyrdom of well over a thousand clerics who paid their committment to the cause of the poor with their life since the Bishop’s Conference of Medellin in 1968. With social contradictions rising on a global scale and affecting more and more the so-called developed countries as well, we think the time has come to return once again to liberation theology and the question it posed - to both the social sciences and divinity studies. Many believed at the time of the demise of communism in Eastern Europe, that dependency theory, liberation theology, and the writings on periphery capitalism, of which they were part, can safely be forgotten. Liberation theology, especially for the development researcher, was and continues to be an interesting meeting place between economics and theology/social philosophy. It reminds the social scientific profession of the origins of economic science in moral philosophy, and it also reminds us that the great issues of the scriptures, like poverty and the struggle of the poor for self-determination, are an ever-more important reality in the contemporary world system. As the dictionary defintion will have it, ‘Liberation theology: a term covering various theological movements which have developed since the mid-1960s and which are concerned to understand the Christian Gospel in terms of current needs for establishing human freedom. Four areas of oppression particularly treated by these movements are the economic exploitation of the less-developed countries, sexual prejudice against women (...) racial discrimination, and political tyranny. The liberation theologies, which often adopt analyses of social situatuations from Marxism, interpret redemption as liberation, see Jesus Christ as identified with the oppressed, and challenge the male-dominated conceptualities of theology and culture’ (Hinnells, 1984) During the late 1980s and the early 1990s, it became clearer and clearer for the political economic profession, that one has to go back to the foundations of political economy and anthroplogy in order to understand the workings and contradictions of capitalism on our globe and with our globe. At the time of the crisis of dependency theory, Karl Polanyi and the world systems school, founded by him, now seem to provide a coherent scientific answer to the questions left unanswered by 1989 and by the forceful return of the ‘market principle’ on the world-wide ideological arena. Karl Polanyi, post-Marxist Hungaro-Austrian-Canadian anthroplogist, Socialist, Christian and Jew, began to present with his ‘Great Transformation’ in 1944 a theory of the world system that can serve as a starting point for a renewed encounter between the social sciences and theology. The issues of social policy on a global scale, thought to be overcome by 1989, are back again on the agenda. Even in most highly developed countries, social marginalisation, poverty, and homelessness have increased. Globalisation negatively affected the lifes of around 1.5 thousand million people on earth, whose per-capita incomes were lower than in earlier decades. These 1.5 thousand million people live in around 100 countries; while 15 nations experienced rapid capitalist development over the last decade. Among the world’s desparate nations, 43 countries had a per-capita income which was lower - in real terms - than that of of the 1970s. The poorest 20% of the world saw their share in global product reduced from 2.3% to 1.4% over the past 30 years. The share of the richest 20% rose from 70% to 85%, with the differences between these two rising from 30:1 to 61:1 (UNDP, 1996). The wave of the world recession - or as we prefer to say, the Kondratieff B-phase - first hit Africa in the 1970s, and rolled on to hit Latin America and the Arab world in the 1980s and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Even in the highly industrialised countries, capitalist development became more and more (i) jobless: in the countries of the European Union in 1993, there were 16.86 million unemployed people (ii) ruthless: global GNP grew by 40%, but the number of poor grew by 17%. In the European Union, the ratio between the richest 20% and the bottom 20% is now 7.5 in France, 9.6 in the UK, 7.1 in Denmark, 5.8 in Germany, and 6.0 in Italy (iii) voiceless: human and political rights performance on a global scale has deteriorated in many countries according to the well-known Freedom House data series (Stiftung, 1996); even in the countries of the European Union, the following performances in 1993 were below the maximum value ‘1’ Germany: civil rights 2 France: civil rights 2 Greece: civil rights 3 Great Britain: civil rights 2 Northern Ireland-political rights 5 civil rights 4 Irish Republic: civil rights 2 Italy: civil rights 3 Spain: civil rights 2 (iv) rootless: 10000 cultures o humans and millions of species are on the verge of disappearance world-wide; local human dialects, cultures and accents, disappear also in Europe at a rapid pace. Nationality conflicts and regional conflicts have increased in many countries of Europe over the last decade. Low-quality satellite TV more and more substitutes national TV output; the transnational economy dominates more and more domains of radio, TV, and the press. Even in EU countries, nationally made films amount to only 2% (Greece) to 34.9% (France) of all films shown in cinemas. The US film industry holds a market-share of 2/3 or ¾ and more. At the same time, social deviance increases in the age of rootless growth or stagnation. In the European Union, there were 77 prisoners per 100 000 people in 1987; now there are 87. The intentional homicide rate is Union-wide 7.7 per 100 000. 44% of all male EU adults smoke (women: 25%), alcohol consumption is 9.6 litres per capita and year, and the male cancer rate is 235, the female cancer rate is 171 Union-wide. Television takes up now some 40% of the free time of the average American, and participation in voluntary associations such as the Red Cross has declined by 25-50%. The basic networks, necessary for the functioning of democracies, are on the retreat around the globe. Trade Union membership rates declined in the Netherlands from 39% in 1978 to 25% in 1991; from 30% to 15% in the USA et cetera. In the Union as a whole, trade union membership declined from 37% in 1970 to 33%; in Austria and in many other countries, the decline was even more dramatic (from 62% to 46%). (v) futureless: annual fresh water withdrawals amount to 862 m^3 in the Union. Commercial energy use in oil equivalents is 3588 kg per capita in oil equivalents, and each year, the Union produces 15.13% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, 3373 metric tons of heavy metal from nuclear reactors, 48220 tons of hazardous highly-toxic waste. The average Union citizen produces 399 kg of municipal waste a year, and recycles only 45% of his or her paper and 52% of his or her glass. During 1965-90, world merchandise trade tripled, and financial cross-border flows exceed a trillion US $ a day. Unfortunately, there is still too little attention being paid to his legacy of the world system school in the debate between the social sciences and the divinity schools. Starting with Karl Polanyi in 1944, a number of authors - among them Samir Amin, Andre Gunder Frank, Folker Fröbel, Jürgen Heirnichs, Otto Kreye and Immanuel Wallerstein - have taken up the challenge of the analysis if capitalism as a world system. While imperialism theories were mainly fixed at the centres, and dependency theories on the peripheries (more often than not, Latin America), the world system school looked at the totality of capitalism on a global scale. Polanyi’s reading of the history of capitalism as a single world economy is a continuation of the analysis of capitalism as a world system, inherent in the third volume of Das Kapital; yet Polanyi’s social anthropology is definitively post-Marxist, leaving behind much of the pre-totalitarian German philosophy that has daunted the trajectory of Marxism since 1917. Polanyi, in addition, to be sure, was among the early European socialists to re-discover the great spiritual wealth of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and his anthropology assumes - in the moving final chapter of his ‘Great Transformation’ - the concept of the immortality of the human soul, so central for the Judeo-Christian tradition and the religions of the book (Polanyi, 1944: ; Khoury, 1994). Polanyi was not a human being of books alone - he was among the first to lay the intellectual foundations for the joint resistance of Christians and Socialists against the rising tide of fascism in Europe in the late 1920s and the 1930s, and he deeply believed in a lively worker’s democratic movement. A refugee from the totalitarian forms of power of both the extreme left and the right, Polanyi led a ‘world’s life’ that brought him to reflect early on on such issues as ‘globalisation’, ‘international finance’ and the instability of democracy in periphery regions. Polanyi’s theory is also much more sensitive to the concerns of the world environment than classical marxism all too often is; thus overcoming the red/green divide. In the light of a Polanyiean anthropology, yes, dependency theory as a critique of developmentalism in the 1960s might indeed be dead, and with it the proper social scientific foundation of classical theologies of liberation, but the contradictions of the world system have even deepened, before, during and after the ominous year 1989. World systems theories can provide a solid, even more encompassing theoretical frame of reference for theology, while contemporary ‘critical theology’ poses some of the most relevant questions for the social sciences in return. A fruitful, and hopefully long dialogue might be ahead. However valid the reception of the critique of ‘developmentalism’ in Latin America in the 1960s and early 1970s by dependency theory in the theological discourse of that time might still be, new problems call for new comprehensive theoretical approaches. Surveying some central recent theological publications (Brackley, 1996; Fornet-Betancourt, 1991; Hessel, 1996; Sobrino/Ellacuria, 1994; Schüssler-Fiorenza, 1996), one is led to the conclusion as a social scientist, that the world systems approach as the legitimate successor to dependency studies even ideally fits itself to become the future social scientific basis of ‘critical theological writing’ in the 1990s, so heavily involved in the debate about feminism, the ecology, inequality, and people empowerment or - if you prefer Brackley’s term - the Divine Revolution. This renewed encounter between development theory and theology is the aim of this book. We have invited a great number of authors, and we are particularly pleased that the debate between liberation theology and the world system school - with this volume - finally gets underway. Today’s conflict lines are not just a mere reflection of the old conflict line between wage labour and capital. Marginalisation affects the distribution of power between the genders, marginalisation takes on not only economic, but also ecological forms, and more importantly than ever before, it is the logic of world-wide accumulation that endangers life on our planet itself. Polanyi’s concern for international peace in the nuclear age was taken up later by scholars like Joshua Goldstein, who reflect - often with quantitative data analysis - on the propensity of the world capitalist system to lead to global wars and to global conflicts. The tasks ahead of people, caring for and loving themselves and the other creatures on our planet, are simply enormous. In the Christian churches, among them in the 2000 year old Catholic Church, the willingness to confront these tasks are growing. It is no coincidence, that at a time of the retreat of the social democratic worker’s movement in the West, at a time of the retreat of the trade unions and the social democratic parties, like in the United States of America, also in Europe the Churches - or rather - the socially most conscious segments of them - rediscover the ‘southern’ heritage of liberation theology and social doctrine, because with the process of globalisation, ‘we’ in the developed West begin to learn that poverty is among us, that tuberculosis and diphteria, homelessness and other processes, known twenty years ago to most of us from the history books - are again in the midst of the ‘developed countries’. Germans, French, Italian, Austrian workers, intellectuals, service-sector employees make, more and more, the experience of unemployment, insecurity, and the uncertainty of tomorrow. (Zulehner: Christian social engagement and the tasks of the 1990s in the light of Church documents in the 1990s and in the light of new basic Church initiatives) After 1945, an entire generation of people, living in Western Europe and the other OECD countries, became accustomed to rising real wages in the rythm of productivity increases. Since the mid-1960s, with a new international division of labour on the horizon, these old certainties disappeared, in some countries more rapidly than in others. The wave of Thatcherism and Reaganomics, began in the UK and in the USA in the 1980s, seems to be gaining ground in Europe right now; with Germany leading the trend and introducing tax-cuts for the highest income groups, but taxes for the unemployed. After the Second World War, development theory was first dominated by development planning and structuralism. Later on, when the contradictions of Third World development became ever more apparent, more radical approaches on both the Left and the Right gained ground, basically neo-liberal and neo-conservative approaches on the one hand, and dependency theory on the other hand. Although dependency theory was widely received in the moral and social theology profession, even at the height of Vatican documents, it is interesting to note for the social scientific community, that the legitimate successor to dependency theory in the social sciences - the world system approach - has not received an equal share of world-wide attention. (here follows the introduction to the different contributions) Finally, the international readership of this book might permit us to explain the particular Austrian connection in the lives of Ellacuria and Segundo. Both of them studied theology at Innsbruck University (Ellacuria from 1958 to 1962; Segundo from 1960 to 1964), both of them were disciples of the Austrian Karl Rahner and presented their master’s thesis (Ellacuria in 1962, Segundo in 1964), and both of them were ordained to the priesthood in Austria (Ellacuria on July 26th, 1961, Segundo on July 25th 1963). These two martyrs of the poor were among us, living 4 years with us, and receiving their call to follow the Lord in Innsbruck. So let this book be a bunch of roses that we thus lay down at the grave of Don Ignacio and Don Juan Luis and their slain sisters and brothers in their tormented far-away country, which bears the name of El Salvador, the Saviour, perhaps remembering a bit the words of the Rabbi from Nazareth: ‘And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house’ (Matthews, 13, 57) Arno Tausch, Warsaw Paul Zulehner, Vienna PROVISIONAL TITLE Global Capitalism, Liberation Theology amd the Scoial Sciences An Analysis of the Structures of Dependency at the Turn of the Millenium A. Tausch & P.M. Zulehner (eds) Arno Tausch & Paul M. Zulehner Introduction A general introduction by the editors Samir Amin (Professor, Forum du Tiers Monde, Dakar, Senegal) The Spirit of Our Time, Religion and Liberation Amin discusses the relation between present economic policies, relgion and the self-assertion of peoples. Interestingly, the retreat of critical approaches in economics and social sciences during the recent past was accompanied by new and radically conservative tendencies in religious thinking, which can be seen globally and in more than one religion at present. Gustavo Gutierrez (Lima) Dependency Theory, Liberation Theology after the Downfall of Communism or Jon Sobrino, San Salvador Global Capitalism and the Kingdom of God (still to be confirmed) Ignacio Ellacuria (posthumously) Utopia and profetism from Latin America. A cocnrete essay of historical soterology (his political testament, as yet untranslated into English. It appeared in Revista Latinoamericana de Teologia, 6, 17: 141-84; copyright for the English translation from the Jesuits in El Salvador would have to be cleared for Macmillan by Prof. Zulehner) Arno Tausch (Associate Prof. of Political Science, University of Innsbruck, Austria) The Social Scientific Relevance of Liberation Theology in the Light of Recent Macroquantitative Evidence on World Development Tausch analyses the underlying basic instability of the capitalist world system by using quantitative multiple-regressions, using 19, mostly UNDP based development indicators. Stocks of Foreign Direct Investment (measured as a percentage of host country GDP) are shown to affect subsequent development in a very negative way. Elisabeth Schuessler-Fiorenza (Stendahl Professor of Holy Scripture, Harvard University) The Feminist Movement and Liberation Theology Schuessler-Fiorenza analyses in her article the connections between feminist theologies and liberation theologies Inge Kaul (Director, Office of Development Studies, UNDP, New York) Global Public Goods: A New Rationale for Development Co-operation An increasingly globalising world calls for "global public goods", such as the provision of international communications ans transportation systems, global health, balanced environmental conditions, international peace and security dependening more and more on human security. A growing number of arrangements to provide such public goods has already emerged. Discussing the concept of "global public goods" Kaul suggests to expand the concept of international development co-operation to include the provision of global public goods besides "aid". Krystyna Tausch (writer and specialist on Peruvian affairs, Salzburg) Luis Zambrano (theologian and parish priest, former Commissioner of Human Rights, Diocese of Puno, Peru) The 'Greening' of Liberation Theology - The Peruvian Experience Feminism and environmental concerns are relatively new issues for liberation theology. The authors use the example of Peru to show the relevance of this 'greening' of liberation theology. They focus on the history and the recent experience of the feminism in Peru as well as the environmental concerns of the Church in the Altiplano region. Mansoob Murshed (Lecturer in Economics, Dept. of European Studies, University of Bradford) Development in the Light of Recent Debates about Development Theory Murshed deals with dependency theory as a means to analyse the process of economic development after the Cold War. The East asian experience shows that some economies with low income inequality do well in terms of growth and may be more able to cope with economic shocks. The concepts of dependency and unequal exchange are occasionally turned on their heads as North-South trade is said to hurt unskilled workers in the developed North. Kunibert Raffer (Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Vienna) New Forms of Dependency in the World System New and stronger froms of dependency developed during the 1980s and 1990s, ironically at a time, when the dependency approach had largely vanished from academic debate. The debt problem, globalisation, and changes in the economic framework, most notably by the Uruguay Round, reduced the options of "developing countries" substantially, demanding a new formulation of dependency relations. Severin Renoldner (social scientist, Linz, Austria, former Assistant Prof. and Member of Parliament for the Austrian Green Party) Towards a Theology of the Democratisation of Europe Drawing on Renoldner’s experience as a theologian and a former member of the Austrian Parliament for the Green Party he develops a theology of democratisation. His new framework is to provide a theoretical base for the evolution of alternative structures in Europe. Robert J. Ross (Professor of Sociology, Clark University, Worcester, Mass., USA) NAFTA, the American Left and the Forces of Contradiction and Contention in the Emerging World Order Starting from his theory of global capitalism as a critique of former dependency and imperialism theories Ross discusses the North Amercian Free Trade Associatian (NAFTA). He shows how this form of capitalist transnational integration affects the livelihoods and perspectives of the working class in the United States. A. Pieris (Jesuit Priest, member of the board of editors, Concilium; Director of Tulana Research Center, Sri Lanka, recognized by Buddhist authorities as master of research and insight into ancient Pali texts) The Theology of Harmony and the Contradictions of the Asian Economic Miracle Starting from the inisght, that there is no room for Christ in Asia if the Crhist being spoken of is a Western Christ, Pieris develops his ‘Asian Theology of Liberation’ Paul Michael Zulehner (Prof. of Theology, University of Vienna) The Curch in Eastern Europe after the Transformation The Church in Eastern Europe before the transformation was portrayed by many to be a counter-model to liberation theology. Zulehner looks at the sociological development of the Church in Eastern Europe after 1989 and discusses the implications of the secularization process in the region for the perspectives on liberation theology Aims and objectives Marking the demise of the Soviet-led Communist "East" the year 1989 is often hailed as the final victory of capitalism. In the social sciences this event is often said to signify the end of theories analysing the present world system critically. Conservative and "pure capitalist" ideas have, in fact, dominated thinking as well as practical politics during the last years. This has happened at the same time while the dependence of the South and impoverishment in the North have increased dramatically. Now an urgent need exists to analyse these new tendencies appropriately. A revival of the results of dependency thinking and liberation theology, two schools of thinking emanating from the South, has become mandatory. It is necessary to take up the challenge of presently ruling orthodox thinking by clarifying, elaborating and defending the ideas of dependency theory, the world system approach, and liberation theology as well as their strong relevance in and for the new, post-1989 world system. Our interdisciplinary and ecumenical book does so. At a time, when the economic and social viability of present policies are increasingly doubted, these critical approaches can provide useful insights and a better understanding of the mechanisms of the world system, stimualating the discussion on present trends and evolutions. Intended Markets As an interdisciplinary volume our book will be of great interest to both social scientists and theologians, as well as to a readership interested in present global trends and interdisciplinary research. Markets would thus be - universities and other academic libraries (in particular but not exclusively in the social sciences and theology) as well as people working in universities or research institutions - international organisations, such as the UNDP, the OECD or the World Council of Churches - Non-Governmental Organisations working on international issues - scientists and politicians interested in issues of global governance, which have increasingly become of interest in the recent past - development institutions and agencies - interested individuals and the general public - church groups of various denominations Competion None. This is precisely the reason why we decided to produce this volume. ********************************************************** Dependency theory and liberation theology based on it are becoming increasingly relevant concepts to analyse the present world system marked by even stronger forms of dependence than those existing when these schools of thinking emerged. This book takes up the challenges to defend and clarify the important insights of these approaches against the present conservative tide. Authors with different scientific backgrounds elaborate and develop these critical approaches further in the light of present tendencies towards crisis in the world system. ********************************************* List of e-mail Addresses: S.M.Murshed1@bradford.ac.uk rross@vax.clarku.edu DC211IK%DC211.UNDP-FF@nylan.undp.org In case you might be interested in this subject further on, or perhaps you think about sending me an extra top-quality-paper, please feel free to do it. We will still carefully consider your contribution, although we're already pretty tightened-up spacewise. Kind regards from Warsaw and Salzburg (where I spend my weekends with my family) Your colleague on the wsn Arno Tausch From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Fri Feb 21 21:42:01 1997 Date: 21 Feb 97 23:41:16 EST From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: world systems net Subject: Response to Sanderson's Review From: Jim Blaut, jblaut@uic.edu Date: February 20, 1997 Subject: Response to Steve Sanderson There are 1,001 Eurocentric explanations for the rise of Europe. Steve Sanderson, in his review of my book _The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History_, which appeared in the special world-systems issue of _Sociological Inquiry_ edited by Tom Hall (66,4:1996), agrees with me that most of these explanations are wrong. But not all of them. "Charges of Eurocentrism of much modern Western social science have become very popular these days, and these charges are often justified. But they often go too far. Europe did have developmental advantages over most of the world, and there is no need to be shy or apologetic about pointing these out." (p.513) We critics of Eurocentric history "go too far." We should accept the fact of the European miracle, the uniqueness-of-Europe doctrine, the idea that Europe had certain "developmental advantages" before 1492 -- before the beginnings of colonialism; before a Europe- centered world system began to take shape -- but we should of course explain the miracle in the right way, Sanderson's way, and we should not be apologetic about it. I have not read Steve Sanderson's other writings on this subject, but his basic argument is summed up in the review of my book. Of the 1,001 explanations for the European miracle, Steve favors four rather traditional arguments (numbers 84, 212, 403, and 593 -- he doesn't even go with the higher numbers, the more recent innovative explanations, such as #822, the Uniqueness of the European Family Theory, and #997, the Palestinian Origin of Cognitively Modern Humans Theory, the latter a new archaeological substitute for number #1, the Garden of Eden Theory.) European countries were small. "Large states are costly to maintain and drain away resources that can be used directly for economic development." This is a familiar argument (it was made for instance by E.L. Jones, Michael Mann, and for that matter by Max Weber) but it is an empty one. Just why would large states have been at a disadvantage in the 15th century? Was China not developed? Were the fragmentary feudal-remnant states of Europe so marvelously progressive? As I argue in my book, this view is an heir to the late, unlamented "Oriental despotism" doctrine. It has no empirical foundation. "In addition, Japan and the leading countries of capitalist Europe were located on large bodies of water that allowed them to give predominance to maritime trade." Capitalist countries in the 15th century? Maritime trade? European mercantile-maritime centers were inferior to such centers around all the coasts of the Indian Ocean and into the China Seas, in terms of radial travel distances and scale of trade. Japanese centers were (I think) much smaller than Chinese and Southeast Asian centers, and Japanese were not prominent among traders in Southeast Asia in c.1500. (I deal with the myth of Chinese withdrawal from maritime trade in my book.) Europeans became preeminent maritime traders after they discovered the profitability of colonialism in the Americas. "[The] fact that Europe and Japan both had temperate climates helped them to escape colonialism, inasmuch as colonial ventures were concentrated in tropical and subtropical regions." When? In the period 1492-1650 colonial ventures went where there was gold, silver, and valuable trade goods. After c.1650, colonial ventures went also to Western Hemisphere sugar lands and to midlatitude targets in both Americas. Here I sense a telescoping of history: confusion with 19th- century settler colonialism in North America, Argentina, Australia, etc. "Finally, Europe and Japan had strikingly similar feudal sociopolitical structures that contrasted markedly with the centralized states of much of the rest of the world. Feudalism...gave the merchant classes of both civilizations more freedom of economic maneuver than they had throughout the rest of the world." Notice first that "feudalism" here refers to "sociopolitical structure": Steve is not advancing a Marxist argument about classes or a Weberian argument about seigneurial property. Apparently he is referring to the fragmented-polities argument (see above) or to chivalry etc. This, again, is a traditional Eurocentric thesis and it is romantic nonsense. Nor were merchants more comfortable in complex feudal landscapes, with their myriad tolls and risks, than in large unitary polities. But, this aside, feudal sociopolitical structures were widespread in all continents of the Eastern Hemisphere and here and there in the Americas. Why, then, did European feudalism make a difference? And why didn't Japan conquer the world? Steve refers in passing to my "absurd" argument (p. 512) that Africa could have done what Europe did had it not been for Europe's locational advantage. He correctly summarizes my argument about accessibility: there were no major mercantile-maritime centers in West Africa because the great civilizations were inland and traded overland to the east, south, and north, so European mercantile-maritime centers were far more accessible to America than were any competitors in Africa or Asia. This argument "rings hollow" in Steve's ears but he does not tell us why. And my claim "that Africa was on a par with Europe is not only wrong; it is absurd." I am tempted (but will resist the temptation) to burden him (and you) with a long statement in support of this claim which I posted on the African history list (H-Africa) last December, a statement which fomented some 40 comments, not all of them in disagreement. What troubles me most about this review is the fact that it employs a world-systems perspective yet it denies the importance of colonialism in the origin and development of the modern world-system. Isn't that a bit strange? Jim Blaut From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Sat Feb 22 10:07:10 1997 Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 12:07:04 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: blaut on sanderson on blaut I second almost but not totally all of what Jim says about Steve's review gunder frank From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Sat Feb 22 17:35:59 1997 Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 19:35:54 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: blaut/sanderson again Gunder franks responds by 'popular' request [of 2 and 1/2 respondents, among them Blaut] on what the reservations are on my otherwise secdonging of what Blaut said about Sandersons review of Blaut: 1. the feudalism bullshit. a curse on both their seignoral houses! 2. the geographical proximity argument, in re Africa/Europe/Asia, or at least the amoung of weight Jim puts on that, which as to Steve rings soo so to me. This is NOT to be confused with their OTHER argument about AFrica/Europe and Steve's saying that Jims position is "absurd", which I think it is NOT absurd at all. Howver, both leave out of the drama the prince of Denmark, which was most of Asia - an not just Japan on which Steve focuses. of course that statement of mine only dimly reflects what i have been saying on tis net andelsewhere for some time, and spell out in my ASIAN AGE book. so there. gunder From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Sat Feb 22 23:18:14 1997 Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 13:38:56 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: Response to Sanderson's Review In-reply-to: <970222044115_70671.2032_EHM73-1@CompuServe.COM> To: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> I just wanted to note that E.A.J. Johnson's thesis regarding both Europe and Japan regards the particular type of central place structure that existed in both places. I would argue that this can be tied in with the arguments of Jane Jacobs. In this argument, it is not 'feudalism' as such, but the central place structure in *some* areas that might be characterised as feudal. However, in my view arguments regarding spatial structure only take us part of the way. Speaking loosely, they may be able to explain the leverage, but they don't explain the origin of the force that is being leveraged. Until Europe established a semi-peripheral position for itself post 1492, extracting precious metals to trade with the center, but at the same time as much as possible acting as a center with respect to the Americas, the spatial system permitted the development of lower quality substitutes for imports from the center, but by itself could not permit peripheral West Asia to leapfrog central East Asia. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au From chad@ssu.southwest.msus.edu Sun Feb 23 10:48:20 1997 Sun, 23 Feb 1997 11:47:31 -0600 (CST) From: "Carl H.A. Dassbach" To: Subject: Sanderson's review of Blaut Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 11:53:24 -0600 Would someone post this review to the list. Thanks, Carl Dassbach ----------------------------------- Carl H.A. Dassbach 506 N. 4th St Marshall, MN 56258 (507)532-7369 CHAD@SSU.SOUTHWEST.MSUS.EDU From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Mon Feb 24 09:03:31 1997 24 Feb 97 21:57:31 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 21:57:27 -0600 (NSK) Subject: Re: Response to Sanderson's Review i agree with Bruce in the following: > From: "Bruce R. McFarling" > leveraged. Until Europe established a semi-peripheral position for itself > post 1492, extracting precious metals to trade with the center, but at > the same time as much as possible acting as a center with respect to the > Americas, the spatial system permitted the development of lower quality > substitutes for imports from the center, but by itself could not permit > peripheral West Asia to leapfrog central East Asia. and regard this as 1) spatial factor of geoeconomic centrality since Americas discovery and utilization and suggest to consider such well-known factors as: 2) expansionist initiative, competition in first discovery (between Spain,Portugal, then Nederlands, England,France) in constellation with caravels supplied by guns - most powerful maritime military and transportation instruments in that period 3) fortunate union between states (monarchies), bankers, traders and masses of conquestadors-colonists 4) missionary features of Christianity in combination with geopolitical view of that time that all non-Christian countries can and must be captured by Christian ones 5) demographic pressure in Europe (since 16 century?) 6) existance of some restriction (not absolute of course) for large territorial expansion within self-Europe after 1648 Westfal consensus - a transfer of military-geopolitical activities outside Europe (compare with 2- 7) Tremendous positive economic reinforcement of expansion-long- trade-and-colonization policies that urged various elites and social groups to reinvest in activities given above it is difficult for me to argue if these factors are more pro-Blaut or pro- Sanderson, but in any case i am sure without considering them one can understand nothing in european success since 1500 best regards, nikolai *********************************************************** Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe /philofhi.html ************************************************************ From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Mon Feb 24 10:10:07 1997 Date: 24 Feb 97 12:08:49 EST From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: world systems net Subject: Reply to Nikolai Nikolai: You points are all valid, in my opinion, if they refer to processes occurring after the late 16th century -- after the huge accumulation of gold and silver, and after the beginnings of the slave trade and slave plantations. In other words, I believe that nothing that existed in Europe prior to 1492 suggests a potential for a later "rise of Europe" above other civilizations. Colonialism started the process and there was no "European miracle." I defend this position in my book and in articles published in the journals _Science and Society_ (1989) and _Political Geography_ (1992). Jim From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Mon Feb 24 11:55:37 1997 Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 13:51:39 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: "Nikolai S. Rozov" H-NET List for World History Subject: Re: Response to Sanderson's Review In-Reply-To: <38418057CA@cnit.nsu.ru> It seems NOT difficult to judge if Nikolai's is more on Steve's or Jims's side. and from our previous discussions, it is also easy to see that Nikolai would be on Steve's side. Alas IMHO NONE of the factors Nickoali mentions have any signifiocant bearing on the matter whatsoever, since none are exceptional to Europe and even if they were, which they are NOT, they are NOT very pertinent, Nikolai's, Marx's, Webers, Jones',Hall's and all other Eurocentrists to the contrary notwithstanding. Whatever our differences on other matters, i am sure that Jim will back me up on THIS one. And Dear Nikolai, like Steve, you just dont want to look at the facts on this one! Why not? love and kisses gunder On Mon, 24 Feb 1997, Nikolai S. Rozov wrote: > Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 21:57:27 -0600 (NSK) > From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: Re: Response to Sanderson's Review > > i agree with Bruce in the following: > > > From: "Bruce R. McFarling" > > > leveraged. Until Europe established a semi-peripheral position for itself > > post 1492, extracting precious metals to trade with the center, but at > > the same time as much as possible acting as a center with respect to the > > Americas, the spatial system permitted the development of lower quality > > substitutes for imports from the center, but by itself could not permit > > peripheral West Asia to leapfrog central East Asia. > > > and regard this as > > 1) spatial factor of geoeconomic centrality since Americas discovery and > utilization > > and suggest to consider such well-known factors as: > > 2) expansionist initiative, competition in first discovery (between > Spain,Portugal, then Nederlands, England,France) in constellation with > caravels supplied by guns - most powerful maritime military and > transportation instruments in that period > > 3) fortunate union between states (monarchies), bankers, traders and > masses of conquestadors-colonists > > 4) missionary features of Christianity in combination with geopolitical view > of that time that all non-Christian countries can and must be captured by > Christian ones > > 5) demographic pressure in Europe (since 16 century?) > > 6) existance of some restriction (not absolute of course) for large > territorial expansion within self-Europe after 1648 Westfal consensus - > a transfer of military-geopolitical activities outside Europe (compare with 2- > > 7) Tremendous positive economic reinforcement of expansion-long- > trade-and-colonization policies that urged various elites and social groups > to reinvest in activities given above > > > it is difficult for me to argue if these factors are more pro-Blaut or pro- > Sanderson, but in any case i am sure without considering them one can > understand nothing in european success since 1500 > > best regards, nikolai > > > > > *********************************************************** > > Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy > Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University > rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk > Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA > > Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI > (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) > http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe > /philofhi.html > ************************************************************ > From rene.barendse@tip.nl Mon Feb 24 14:23:51 1997 (Smail3.1.29.1 #16) id m0vz7tM-000DpuC; Mon, 24 Feb 97 22:25 MET id <01BC229E.8839D580@amsterdam26.pop.tip.nl>; Mon, 24 Feb 1997 22:03:14 +-100 From: barendse To: "'wsn@csf.colorado.edu'" Subject: AW: Nikolai Rozov's posting Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 21:59:34 +-100 On 24 february Nikolai i Rozov enumerates a number of causes for = European expansion: 2) expansionist initiative, competition in first discovery (between=20 Spain,Portugal, then Nederlands, England,France) in constellation with=20 caravels supplied by guns - most powerful maritime military and=20 transportation instruments in that period 3) fortunate union between states (monarchies), bankers, traders and=20 masses of conquestadors-colonists 4) missionary features of Christianity in combination with geopolitical = view=20 of that time that all non-Christian countries can and must be captured = by=20 Christian ones 5) demographic pressure in Europe (since 16 century?) 6) existance of some restriction (not absolute of course) for large=20 territorial expansion within self-Europe after 1648 Westfal consensus - a transfer of military-geopolitical activities outside Europe (compare = with 2- 7) Tremendous positive economic reinforcement of expansion-long- trade-and-colonization policies that urged various elites and social = groups=20 to reinvest in activities given above Maybe, but why restrict expansion in the period 1500-1800 to WEST = Europeans ? Wat about Russian expansion, =20 finally, as to the amount of territory added, the Russian expansion from = its Moscow core into Siberia, the Ukraine and the Eurasian steppes is = the largest wave of expansion of the early modern period. Actually = Russian expansion seems to approximate these conditions much more = closely than Spanish, Portuguese, let alone Dutch expansion. (The Dutch = didn't care a bit about Christianity for example)) To very briefly deal with these conditions: 2.)Except in the very early phase - the Tartars were nearly as well = provided with guns as the Russians were, though not with artillery- the = people of Siberia were not provided with guns. 3.)That's a fascinating element in the Russian expansion in Siberia the = whole thing being driven forward initially by merchant houses like the = Stroganov firm, tied (this is often overlooked) to Nuernberg/Augsburg = bankers from 1600 onward, with the Dutch stepping in after 1640 and the = Russian state participating late r by giving out concessions for = merchants to collect furs and foodstuffs. 4.)Obviously a major element in Russian political theory in 1600 (e.g. = the famous letters of Ivan Grozny) but as far as I see the missionary = endeavour played only a minor role in Siberia. This was purely a ann = enterprise out for profit - no missionary fig-leaves here, most people = in Siberia were not converted until 1800 if at all (like the Buryat = Mongols),. 5.)Obvious - in spite of the demographic disasters like the Oprichnika = or the `time of troubles' Russian population increased from 16 to about = 35 milion friom 1500 to 1650. And Siberia grew much faster. 6.)That's a hotly disputed point but one might make an argument that = Poland, then Sweden to the west, Ottoman empire/Crimea Tartars withheld = Russia from expanding in its `normal' (as some Russian writers would = say) direction westwards to turn eastwards, or, rather, that the = military/strategic balance on the European steppes/Caucasian borderlands = restricted Russian expansion westwards until after 1720 when Russia = begins to turrn south: beginning of a new massive wave of expansion. 7.)Precisely - settlement of nobles and the church in Siberia begins = only after the area has been opened by the warrior-merchants (Cossacs = mainly, although the whole thing is intertwinned with the expansion of = Armenian and Greek merchant-houses in Siberia - and let us not forget = the Tartar and Turkis h merchants on the Kazak frontier - `Russian' = expansion was really driven forward by Eurasian investment). =20 Actually there were several expansion movements in the early modern = period, all driven by some of the same forces as west European = expansion. Consider the Chinese move into Turkestan, Mongolia and Tibet = from 1460 onward and the Arab expansion in the Indian Ocean. But that's = .. a different matter. N.b. Sorry for the unfamiliar places and terminology of this posting but = the history of the Eurasian heartland is a very useful corrective to = most history (including Worldsystem Theory) which is mostly written from = the vantage point of the ship's bridge as Van Leur reminded us long ago. From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Mon Feb 24 15:29:10 1997 Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 17:24:39 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: barendse Subject: Re: AW: Nikolai Rozov's posting In-Reply-To: <01BC229E.8839D580@amsterdam26.pop.tip.nl> Good for you Rene, and for sending this to Nikloai in Siberia!I secoind ALL of Rene's comments. See ya in Ams soon R. sorry you did not make it to Pomona N. gunder gunderOn Mon, 24 Feb 1997, barendse wrote: > Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 21:59:34 +-100 > From: barendse > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: AW: Nikolai Rozov's posting > > > > On 24 february Nikolai i Rozov enumerates a number of causes for European expansion: > > 2) expansionist initiative, competition in first discovery (between > Spain,Portugal, then Nederlands, England,France) in constellation with > caravels supplied by guns - most powerful maritime military and > transportation instruments in that period > > 3) fortunate union between states (monarchies), bankers, traders and > masses of conquestadors-colonists > > 4) missionary features of Christianity in combination with geopolitical view > of that time that all non-Christian countries can and must be captured by > Christian ones > > 5) demographic pressure in Europe (since 16 century?) > > 6) existance of some restriction (not absolute of course) for large > territorial expansion within self-Europe after 1648 Westfal consensus - > a transfer of military-geopolitical activities outside Europe (compare with 2- > > 7) Tremendous positive economic reinforcement of expansion-long- > trade-and-colonization policies that urged various elites and social groups > to reinvest in activities given above > > Maybe, but why restrict expansion in the period 1500-1800 to WEST Europeans ? > Wat about Russian expansion, > finally, as to the amount of territory added, the Russian expansion from its Moscow core into Siberia, the Ukraine and the Eurasian steppes is the largest wave of expansion of the early modern period. Actually Russian expansion seems to approximate these conditions much more closely than Spanish, Portuguese, let alone Dutch expansion. (The Dutch didn't care a bit about Christianity for example)) > To very briefly deal with these conditions: > > 2.)Except in the very early phase - the Tartars were nearly as well provided with guns as the Russians were, though not with artillery- the people of Siberia were not provided with guns. > 3.)That's a fascinating element in the Russian expansion in Siberia the whole thing being driven forward initially by merchant houses like the Stroganov firm, tied (this is often overlooked) to Nuernberg/Augsburg bankers from 1600 onward, with the Dutch stepping in after 1640 and the Russian state participating late r by giving out concessions for merchants to collect furs and foodstuffs. > 4.)Obviously a major element in Russian political theory in 1600 (e.g. the famous letters of Ivan Grozny) but as far as I see the missionary endeavour played only a minor role in Siberia. This was purely a ann enterprise out for profit - no missionary fig-leaves here, most people in Siberia were not converted until 1800 if at all (like the Buryat Mongols),. > 5.)Obvious - in spite of the demographic disasters like the Oprichnika or the `time of troubles' Russian population increased from 16 to about 35 milion friom 1500 to 1650. And Siberia grew much faster. > 6.)That's a hotly disputed point but one might make an argument that Poland, then Sweden to the west, Ottoman empire/Crimea Tartars withheld Russia from expanding in its `normal' (as some Russian writers would say) direction westwards to turn eastwards, or, rather, that the military/strategic balance on the European steppes/Caucasian borderlands restricted Russian expansion westwards until after 1720 when Russia begins to turrn south: beginning of a new massive wave of expansion. > 7.)Precisely - settlement of nobles and the church in Siberia begins only after the area has been opened by the warrior-merchants (Cossacs mainly, although the whole thing is intertwinned with the expansion of Armenian and Greek merchant-houses in Siberia - and let us not forget the Tartar and Turkis h merchants on the Kazak frontier - `Russian' expansion was really driven forward by Eurasian investment). > > Actually there were several expansion movements in the early modern period, all driven by some of the same forces as west European expansion. Consider the Chinese move into Turkestan, Mongolia and Tibet from 1460 onward and the Arab expansion in the Indian Ocean. But that's . a different matter. > > N.b. Sorry for the unfamiliar places and terminology of this posting but the history of the Eurasian heartland is a very useful corrective to most history (including Worldsystem Theory) which is mostly written from the vantage point of the ship's bridge as Van Leur reminded us long ago. > From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Tue Feb 25 09:13:43 1997 25 Feb 97 22:09:54 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" To: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 22:09:46 -0600 (NSK) Subject: Re: Reply to Nikolai dear Jim, i don't mind against the crucial role of colonization but efficient colonization (as well as warfare) has certain systemic (political, financial, mental, social, technological etc etc) prerequisits. in fact Europe managed to use its chance as well as Russia used its chance in occupation Siberia (i almost fully agree here with Barense's msg). Perhaps Arabs, Turks, Indian and Chinese people had up to 1500 in principle the same or even better opportunities (finance system, marytime skills, weapons, demographical resourses, etc) for colonization far-away countries or Northern-East Asia but they did not do it! Rusian territorial expansion was in fact a prolonged geopolitical policy of Moscovia. I still think that such dynamic strategy (in G.Snooks's terms) as investment in extraordianry long and dangerous sea adventures with non- clear results, mass recruitment, the Will for Expansion (to transform Nietzshe formule) is specific for Western Europe. Surely it is not a miracle but this dynamic strategy did lead to miraclous - extraordinary (and certainly tragic for millions of non-Europeans) historical results. best regards, Nikolai > Nikolai: > > You points are all valid, in my opinion, if they refer to processes occurring > after the late 16th century -- after the huge accumulation of gold and silver, > and after the beginnings of the slave trade and slave plantations. In other > words, I believe that nothing that existed in Europe prior to 1492 suggests a > potential for a later "rise of Europe" above other civilizations. Colonialism > started the process and there was no "European miracle." I defend this position > in my book and in articles published in the journals _Science and Society_ > (1989) and _Political Geography_ (1992). > > Jim > > *********************************************************** Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe /philofhi.html ************************************************************ From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Tue Feb 25 11:53:44 1997 Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 13:44:46 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: "Nikolai S. Rozov" H-NET List for World History , H-Asia , "Philip L. Wagner" Subject: Re: Reply to Nikolai In-Reply-To: <5078374D83@cnit.nsu.ru> I am beginning to realize the the concept of EXPANSION of Europe itself is what is misguiding the perceptions of what really went on in the real world. It would be much more accurate - and thereby easier to see/understand what "really" happened, to speak in terms of European ATTACHMENT OR LINKAGE TO ASIA, of course using American money to buy itself into the Asian market as Jim Blaut rightly insists - though he is not the first to do so, since all European contemporaries KNEW that and Adam Smith registered it long ago. So it is the "European expansion" glasses, whether rose or black colored [leyenda rosa o negra en el debate espan~ol], which "cause" the MISpercetion of what went on, most certainaly before 1757 Battle of Plassey in India. The New world, and even Siberia, were EXCEPTIONAL, and NOT the rule. As my geographer friend Phil Wagner pointed out to me at 3 AM last night [Vancouver time], in the Americas - he did not say so but in siberia as well - Europeans were able to use military/commercial power to take over the overland trade and production sites. Everywhere else in the world [that is in the most populous and economically richest and productive parts] Europeans did and could NOT do any such thing. they lacked both the military power to do so, and they had nothing to sell or give in exchange as trade goods, except their American silver which was the ONLY European export, so all the Europeans could and did do was to use their American silver to buy a third class seat on the Asian wagon - or more precisely on the marginal Asian coastal cabotage boat, and to establish a few TEMPORARY marginal expatriate emporia trading posts, or more accurately to rent some space in them from the Asians on a temporary basis, at Hormuz,Goa, Malacca, Macao, Nagasaki, and a couple of spots in Southeast Asia, eg Batavia or where as in Manila the Chinese residents and traders [AND TRADE!] outnumbered/outcompeted the European ones 10-20 to 1. NONE of that qualifies for or justifies the Eurocentric terminology "European EXPANSION", better translated into Eurocentric bullshit. Respectfully submitted - to the historical evidence! gunder frank agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Nikolai S. Rozov wrote: > Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 22:09:46 -0600 (NSK) > From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: Re: Reply to Nikolai > > dear Jim, > > i don't mind against the crucial role of colonization but > efficient colonization (as well as warfare) has certain systemic (political, > financial, mental, social, technological etc etc) prerequisits. in fact > Europe managed to use its chance as well as Russia used its chance in > occupation Siberia (i almost fully agree here with Barense's msg). > > Perhaps Arabs, Turks, Indian and Chinese people had up to 1500 in > principle the same or even better opportunities (finance system, marytime > skills, weapons, demographical resourses, etc) for colonization > far-away countries or Northern-East Asia but they did not do it! > > Rusian territorial expansion was in fact a prolonged geopolitical policy > of Moscovia. > > I still think that such dynamic strategy (in G.Snooks's terms) as > investment in extraordianry long and dangerous sea adventures with non- > clear results, mass recruitment, the Will for Expansion (to transform Nietzshe > formule) is specific for Western Europe. Surely it is not a miracle but > this dynamic strategy did lead to miraclous - extraordinary (and certainly > tragic for millions of non-Europeans) historical results. > > > best regards, Nikolai > > > > > > Nikolai: > > > > You points are all valid, in my opinion, if they refer to processes occurring > > after the late 16th century -- after the huge accumulation of gold and silver, > > and after the beginnings of the slave trade and slave plantations. In other > > words, I believe that nothing that existed in Europe prior to 1492 suggests a > > potential for a later "rise of Europe" above other civilizations. Colonialism > > started the process and there was no "European miracle." I defend this position > > in my book and in articles published in the journals _Science and Society_ > > (1989) and _Political Geography_ (1992). > > > > Jim > > > > *********************************************************** > > Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy > Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University > rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk > Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA > > Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI > (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) > http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe > /philofhi.html > ************************************************************ > From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Tue Feb 25 15:24:02 1997 26 Feb 1997 09:23:01 +1100 Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 09:23:00 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: Response to Sanderson's Review In-reply-to: To: "A. Gunder Frank" On Mon, 24 Feb 1997, A. Gunder Frank wrote: > On Mon, 24 Feb 1997, Nikolai S. Rozov wrote: > > i agree with Bruce in the following: > > > > > From: "Bruce R. McFarling" > > > > > leveraged. Until Europe established a semi-peripheral position for itself > > > post 1492, extracting precious metals to trade with the center, but at > > > the same time as much as possible acting as a center with respect to the > > > Americas, the spatial system permitted the development of lower quality > > > substitutes for imports from the center, but by itself could not permit > > > peripheral West Asia to leapfrog central East Asia. > > and regard this as > > > > 1) spatial factor of geoeconomic centrality since Americas discovery and > > utilization Since in agreeing with me, a position is taken in opposition to the one I expressed, there seems to be a failure in communication here. By 'central place', I am referring to the usage in Economic Geography, that is, hamlet, village, town, city, etc. Not a 'central' position in a WS hierarchy. And my argument was that part of the capability to emerge from peripheral to semi-peripheral standing is just such low-level structure characteristics that may be expressed in the more local notions like 'central place'. Second, I did not argue that the opening to America by itself *put* West Asia in a 'central ' 'geoeconomic' position: on the contrary, that it put West Asia into a *semi-peripheral* position -- a step up from where it had been before, true -- and development into a transitory center (what I referred to as 'leapfrogging') came after. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au From SKSANDER@grove.iup.edu Wed Feb 26 09:16:05 1997 26 Feb 1997 11:15:59 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 11:15:59 -0500 (EST) From: s_sanderson Subject: sanderson on blaut on sanderson on blaut To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu This is in response to Jim Blaut's posting of a few days ago. My argument for the rise of modern capitalism concentrates not only on Europe, but on the parallel case of Japan. Since I am arguing that Japan experienced a capitalist transition that was similar to the European transition, my argument can hardly be regarded as some some of Eurocentrism. I am talking about what made EUROPE AND JAPAN distinctive -- how they differed from the rest of the world. The full argument can be found in "The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism: The Theoretical Significance of the Japanese Case," published in REVIEW in 1994 (volume 17, I think, and pp. 15-55). Or see chapter 5 of my Social Transformations (Blackwell 1995). I point to 5 features shared by Japan and Europe that predisposed to more rapid and extensive capitalist development than the rest of the world. However, my argument also relies crucially on the idea that from about 3000 BC there has been a process of EXPANDING WORLD COMMERCIALIZATION, and that by about AD 1500 world commercialization had been built up to a sufficient level to trigger a capitalist explosion in those parts of the world most hospitable to capitalism. However, I also argue that even if there had never been a Europe or Japan, capitalism would have developed anyway, only later. Jim Blaut: read my whole argument, not just the little snippets of it in the review of your book. Blaut says that my argument for the importance of feudalism in Europe and Japan is wrong because feudalism was found all over the world. This is a common argument, and it usually rests on a simple definition of feudalism as a society based on landlords and serfs. But my conception of feudalism is more precise -- again, read my works. What I claimed was "absurd" in Blaut's book was his claim that Africa was on a par, economically speaking, with Europe in 1500. I see no reason to alter my view. Now, finally, as to the role of colonialism, which Blaut accuses me of ignoring. How can he say such a thing by merely inferring my views from a tiny little book review? Colonialism contributed significantly to European capitalist development after 1500, and I say so at some length in chapter 6 of my aforementioned Social Transformations. Again, read my work so you'll know what I'm really saying. Steve Sanderson From modelski@u.washington.edu Wed Feb 26 13:44:48 1997 Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 12:44:45 -0800 (PST) From: George Modelski To: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Reply to Nikolai In-Reply-To: <970224170848_70671.2032_EHM76-2@CompuServe.COM> To James M. Blaut: Of course there was no "European miracle", and no "European expansion" either. But there was evolutionary potential, ca. 1250-1450, most clearly exemplified, though not confined to, Genoa and Venice. These were republics, engaged in long-distance trading that was supported by their own navies, bases, and alliances, and whose activity reinvigorated the regional spaces in the Mediterranean and Western Europe. They were not peripheral to anything, but were in charge of the Western end the then world system route, the Silk Roads. The system they created in the Mediterranean and the coastal areas of Western Europe became the model that Portugal in particular employed in creating the global system after 1450. In Frederic Lane's terms, Genoa and Venice were the motors of the Commercial-Maritime Revolution that Portugal and Spain then projected world-wide in the next era of world system evolution. That was the positive evolutionary potential. By contrast, China, India, or the Mongol world empire, or Timur, lacked evolutionary potential. GM On 24 Feb 1997, James M. Blaut wrote: > Nikolai: > > You points are all valid, in my opinion, if they refer to processes occurring > after the late 16th century -- after the huge accumulation of gold and silver, > and after the beginnings of the slave trade and slave plantations. In other > words, I believe that nothing that existed in Europe prior to 1492 suggests a > potential for a later "rise of Europe" above other civilizations. Colonialism > started the process and there was no "European miracle." I defend this position > in my book and in articles published in the journals _Science and Society_ > (1989) and _Political Geography_ (1992). > > Jim > > From TBOS@social-sci.ss.emory.edu Thu Feb 27 00:19:52 1997 From: "Terry Boswell" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 02:17:35 EST5EDT Subject: Money is the root. Two points seem to be missing in the recent discussion of the impact colonial silver on the rise of Europe. First is the monetary effect of the huge import of American silver, in effect an import of money, into the Euroasian economy in the 16th and 17th centuries. The discussion sometimes reads as if the European colonizers simply bought global dominance. Adding money to a market causes inflation, in this case, a massive inflation that lasts perhaps 150 years in W. Europe. The long term inflation tended to commodify relations in general and to favor merchants over producers, manufacturers over landlords, and commercial states over landed states in particular. The result was a fundamental transformation away from a slow changing landlord dominated economy with limited monetarization, and toward an ever expanding and increasingly commodified economy dominated by commercial interests (I will avoid the "c" word in the hopes that this time point does not get lost in a debate over semantics). As far as I can tell, no comparable inflation occurs in E. Asia, yielding a relative decline in the value of Asian goods, despite what some suggest may have been a greater apriori degree of market relations. One reason for this critical difference is that European corporate merchants (especially the Dutch East India Co.) held a near monopoly on the Euroasian trade. Moreover, they colonized the "spice islands," capturing the massive profits at both ends. Other explanations focus on Chinese state and class relations. Frank has suggested some possible demographic factors as well, and one could point to other reasons. Which combination of factors one highlights is less important than recognizing that the result is the rise of W. Europe. The second point, briefly, is that this fundamental transformation occurs in the "long 16th century," not the 19th century. I do not understand how Gunder and others can repeatedly and emphatically insist on the central importance of American silver in the rise of Euorpe, yet refuse to recognise the fundamental commercial transformation it wrought. TBos (long distance merchants were virtually guaranteed that inflated prices at the end of a long voyage would exceed costs at the beginning). Terry Boswell Department of Sociology Emory University Atlanta, GA 30322 From eeb@hknet.com Thu Feb 27 07:12:36 1997 From: eeb@hknet.com Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 20:49:33 +0800 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Japan and sanderson I'd like to jump in on Sanderson's argument regarding Japan. At 11:15 AM 2/26/97 -0500, you wrote: >My argument for the rise of modern capitalism concentrates not only on Europe, >but on the parallel case of Japan. Since I am arguing that Japan experienced a >capitalist transition that was similar to the European transition, my argument >can hardly be regarded as some some of Eurocentrism. I am talking about what >made EUROPE AND JAPAN distinctive -- how they differed from the rest of the >world. There is no doubt that strong forms of capitalist accumulation were integral to the economy of pre-1860 Japan. Their forms as part of the Edo-system's (1600-1868) contradictions, and in relation to its dissolution/incorporation into the modern world-system, have been misunderstood I think. The Edo-system's basic contradictions, I argue in a sub-thesis in my dissertation (which I'll be defending in Binghamton this April), did not consist of only (a) the upper intra-class conflict between capitalists and samurai and (b) the class conflict between the peasantry and the ruling class stratums. To this we should add the most consequential systemic contradiction, (c), the upper intra-class conflict between the two rival camps of power: the southwest domains vs. the bakufu, its domain allies, and the "big business"merchant agents. In the former camp, the most successful of the southwest domain accumulators, Satsuma and Choshu, fused business and governmental organizations with the establishment of domain monopolies. Domain monopolies/enterprises were a feudal form of state monopoly capital. This stands in contrast to the rival camp - the bakufu, its allies, and their large merchant agents -- which was characterized by a more clear-cut differentiation between capitalist business enterprise and feudal government organization. This was its weakness. The more feudalistic form of capital proved to be a more effective means of power aggrandizement. It is no accident that Satsuma and Choshu, being among the most successful domain accumulators, defeated bakufu forces in 1868. Their prior success at export-oriented profit-making enabled them to do so. Through the domain form of feudal capitalist accumulation -- domain developmentalism -- Satsuma and Choshu domains built up their financial liquidity and political-military power during the 18th and 19th centuries. This starkly contrasts the dilapidation of the Tokugawa regime and its domain allies at the hands of their commercial agents, the nascent zaibatsu. By the mid-19th century, only Satsuma and Choshu possessed the means to challenge Tokugawa hegemony. (The powerful merchant houses could not since, unlike Venice, they had no access to military power and could not create their own domain or city-state. They probably did not want to take power anyway, since the costs of protection were born by the bakufu and because they made all the profits they wanted as the banking and merchandizing mediators of feudal rent and the market.) Thus, during the 1850s Satsuma and Choshu could better exploit the opportunities that arose with the arrival of Westerners, in particular, purchases of modern military technologies, tactics, and weapons which they used to defeat Tokugawa forces between 1866-8. But I don't agree with Sanderson that Japan, or I would say, the Edo-system, was "essentially capitalist" by 1868. A world-system is not "capitalism" on the basis of strong capitalist forms alone. If one thing is certain from the "5000 years of world system" perspective it is that forms of capital and have been around just about everywhere and anywhere. (And, contra footnote 2 in Sanderson's Review article, Wallerstein does not define "capitalism"as production for profit. Social system's are defined, not concepts, and in this case, the other side of the coin is missing. The modern world-economy that emerged centered on Europe ca 1500, is capitalist also on the basis of the inter-state system.) The Edo-system's political system was the baku-han system (e.g. in English see Totman, 1967), a very feudal political system which rested on the military hegemony of the Tokugawa regime and the territorial confinement imposed on the other domains. Incorporation of areas outside the Japanese archipelago was out of the question for the feudal domains; long distance foreign trade occurred, but less than before 1600, and it was not fundamental to the Edo-system's contradictions until the 1850s. Hence, the very political controls of Tokugawa hegemony -- the requirements of the baku-han system (alternate attendance and territorial control) -- encouraged the southwest domains to pursue mercantilist strategies centered on regular trade with Osaka. The downfall of feudalism and Tokugawa hegemony resulted from a triple punch. As the market economy grew, Tokugawa income from rent declined; it was sapped by commercial agents and rural accumulators. Two, growing polarization between rural entrepreneurs and peasants led to large scale uprisings during the 1830s and 1860s that further weakened the bakufu. And three, the topper, involved the southwest domain's success at domain developmentalism which gave them the financial means to take advantage of Western imperialism. These were the systemic contradictions that undermined what was a essentially a feudal social system. Elson E. Boles Hong Kong (Binghamton) From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Thu Feb 27 08:57:43 1997 27 Feb 97 21:51:31 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" To: "Bruce R. McFarling" , wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 21:51:14 -0600 (NSK) Subject: chance of centrality, Europe/Russia Dear Bruce, you write: > Since in agreeing with me, a position is taken in opposition to > the one I expressed, there seems to be a failure in communication here. > > By 'central place', I am referring to the usage in Economic > Geography, that is, hamlet, village, town, city, etc. Not a 'central' > position in a WS hierarchy. it's really a misunderstanding here, i had in mind namely spatial and commercial centrality > position -- a step up from where it had been before, true -- and > development into a transitory center (what I referred to as > 'leapfrogging') came after. > Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW > ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au this leapfrogging was in fact grasping of absolute monopoly of Americas-India trade routes (maybe somebody knows smth about Indian, Turkish or Arabian ships near American beaches that time?). Accompanied with the effects of silver- swamping and long-term inflation, so valuably cleared by Terry Boswell in recent msg, and with potential of long-trade tradition, pointed by G.Modelski, this monopoly became in fact most efficient utilizing of the chance of spatial centrality (earlier Arabs and Venetians also efficiently used centrality between China-India-Indonezia-Africa and Central-Northern Europe and even as allies tried to stop Portugalian challenge to their monopoly but failed). no miracle, no absolute specifics of Europe, but the chance of Europe has coincidented with globalization of trade scale, and the Will for Expansion of Europeans fitted the challenge of globalization dear Gunder and Dr Barense surely one can observe many parallels in European and Rusian colonization but in definite point the analogy stopes alas, Russia failed and still failes to utilize her spatial centrality between Europe and China-Korea-Japan. Russia had and realized tradition of geopolitical and tribute-extracting expansion, but she still is extremely weak in trade, investment, industry-organizing,etc one can also compare Australia, Northern America and Siberia which 250 years ago did not differ much in density of population and colonization status but Siberia with all its richness of natural resourses is still a miserable Russian colony, it can hardly can be compared now with USA, Canada and Australia, Why? so, friends, i cannot share with you the joy of finding many parallels between European and Russian processes of colonization. best from Siberia, Nikolai *********************************************************** Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe /philofhi.html ************************************************************ From sbabones@jhu.edu Thu Feb 27 09:06:16 1997 27 Feb 1997 11:05:49 -0500 (EST) 27 Feb 1997 11:05:48 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 11:05:40 -0500 From: Salvatore Babones Subject: Re: Terry's Money is the root. In-reply-to: <4502BA747D@ss.emory.edu> To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Let's be careful about assigning the credit/blame for the 16th century transformations to the influx of silver. Two classes of people benefit from an expansion of the money suppy: those whose money is being expanded, and debtors. The direct results of the influx of silver were that the Castillian crown could finance a bid for mastery in Europe and that English privateers got rich quick. The indirect effect was that debtors over the whole monetary area found their fixed payments more bearable. In the case of landlords, this was a mixed blessing: if they had rents fixed in monetary terms, these also declined in value. Most landlords, though, received rents in kind. My scanty knowledge of Iberia is that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the age of the landlord, not the age of the merchant. This in spite of the fact that the expulsion of the Jews and Moors should have opened up enormous opportunities for Christain Iberian merchants. My better knowledge of Scotland is that by 1700 the great Scottish landlords had lots of cash on hand and were looking for ways to invest it, leading (among other things) to the foundation and healthy capitalization of the British Linen Company, the Bank of Scotland, and the Royal Bank of Scotland, with most of the investment coming from the landed classes. Rising prices only help merchants who operate on long-term credit, and merchants don't work on long-term credit. As I read the history (and my knowledge of the history is weak enough that I don't mind being corrected) the big winners in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were "landlords and landed countries." Spain, Austria, and France rose to dominate Genoa, Venice, and Antwerp. The Dutch did well - eventually - but they had to fight for their lives, and were it not for the canals . . . . England did well, but later, mainly after 1700. All in all, I subscribe to the view that silver helped finance a European expansion, not a European transformation. For the cause fo the industrial transformation, see my upcoming dissertation, "Economic Development in the Liberal State." :) Yours, Salvatore PS - Everyone go read the Winter 1997 issue of the Journal of World-Systems Research, now available at: http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html Salvatore Babones Doctoral Candidate Sociology Department Johns Hopkins University Ph.D. expected May, 1998 > of the huge import of American silver, in effect an import of money, > into the Euroasian economy in the 16th and 17th centuries. The > discussion sometimes reads as if the European colonizers simply > bought global dominance. Adding money to a market causes inflation, > in this case, a massive inflation that lasts perhaps 150 years in W. > Europe. The long term inflation tended to commodify relations in > general and to favor merchants over producers, manufacturers over > landlords, and commercial states over landed states in particular. > The result was a fundamental transformation away from a slow changing > landlord dominated economy with limited monetarization, and toward an > ever expanding and increasingly commodified economy dominated by > commercial interests (I will avoid the "c" word in the hopes that > this time point does not get lost in a debate over semantics). > > As far as I can tell, no comparable inflation occurs in E. Asia, > yielding a relative decline in the value of Asian goods, despite > what some suggest may have been a greater apriori degree of market > relations. One reason for this critical difference is that European > corporate merchants (especially the Dutch East India Co.) held a near > monopoly on the Euroasian trade. Moreover, they colonized the > "spice islands," capturing the massive profits at both ends. Other > explanations focus on Chinese state and class relations. Frank has > suggested some possible demographic factors as well, and one could > point to other reasons. Which combination of factors one highlights > is less important than recognizing that the result is the rise of W. > Europe. > > The second point, briefly, is that this fundamental transformation > occurs in the "long 16th century," not the 19th century. I do not > understand how Gunder and others can repeatedly and emphatically > insist on the central importance of American silver in the rise > of Euorpe, yet refuse to recognise the fundamental commercial > transformation it wrought. > > TBos > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > (long distance merchants were > virtually guaranteed that > > inflated prices at the end of a long voyage would exceed costs at the > beginning). > > > > > > > Terry Boswell > Department of Sociology > Emory University > Atlanta, GA 30322 > From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Thu Feb 27 17:38:30 1997 Date: 27 Feb 97 19:37:16 EST From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: world systems network Subject: Modelski's comments Dear George Modelski: Everything you say about Europe's "evolutiionary potential" in 1250-1450 is correct, but you are, in my opinion, wrong in saying that various other regions, including India and China, did *not* have that potential. See Janet Abu-Lughod's very definitive argument. I talk about these things in my book, also. Jim Blaut From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Thu Feb 27 17:39:09 1997 Date: 27 Feb 97 19:37:30 EST From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: world systems net Subject: Blaut's reply to sanderson's reply etc. Dear Steve: Of course I'll read your stuff but my posting was a reply to *your* review of *my* book, and what I say is a refutation of *your* attacks on *my* positions, and I have to respond to what you say in the review, don't I? And it is hardly adequate as a respone to my reply for you to say, in essence, "Oh, I answered *that* criticism in *another* one of my writings, q.v." It is indeed a form of Eurocentrism -- and a common one these days -- to say, in, effect, "Well, Europe was superior to everyone else *except* Japan" (or some would say China). This fits so neatly with the present-day situation of Japan. It happened, so it was foredoomed to happen, etc. Moreover -- and I am definitely *not* referring to your position -- there are new, or newly popular, forms of both cultural and genetic racism that use the modern rise of Japan as an argument against Africans (abnd African-Americans). The extreme racism is found, for instance, in a book by I-forget-his-name which claims that the East Asian genes are slightly superior to the European genes but both a re *vastly* superior to African genes. More commonly, we get arguments suggestiong that cultural qualities of medieval Japan or China somehow held the same potential for modernization as did European cultural qualities -- but evryone else was and is a barbarian. (Part of this can probably be explained by the need to accomodate Eurocentric world history to Needham's work.) You haven't addressed my (actually, Gunder's) point that Japan achieved core status because of its isolation and thus its unique chance to prepare defenses against colonialism. As to the nature of feudalism, I erred unthinkingly in saying it was "widespread." I meant it was found in many widely spread places. There were, for instance, serfs in many societies, manors in many societies, feudal aristocracies in many societies, nested-hierarchical systems of sovereignty in many societies, etc., in Africa, Asia, Europe, and also, it seems, among the Maya and Aztecs. So why does Japan win any prizes? If you had read my book more carefully, you'd have noticed that I make the same point that you do about commnercialization. Whether the end product would have been capitalism-as-we-know-it or something a bit different (and hopefully more humane), I don't know. I *do* think it likely that Africa waas on a par with Europe in 1500. If sufficiently goaded, I will re-transmit on this list my long defense of that positiion which I sent to the H-Africa list. Colonialism: In my book I argue that colonialism gave Europe its unique advantage, and that Europe became the great imperial center not for reasons of pre-1492 qualities but becasuse of the fact that Europe was much more accessible to the Americas -- initially, to the looting grounds-- than any other maritime-oriented protocapitalist (or whatever you want to call it) society. And I was obligated to explain why West African civilizations were not maritime-oriented. You say in the review: "Doesn't the fact that West and Central Europe were not oriented to maritime commerce mean precisely that these regions were at a lower stage of economic development?" (p. 512) Maritime orientation does not equal or imply higher levels of development for those periods. And late-medieval West and Central Africa had very advanced and complex civilizations and traded intensively with the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean regions. But more concretely, it would have made no economic sense to send or obtain trade products by sea, because of the vastly greater distances and because of the rather unfavorable wind systems. Colonialism again: Your list of the factors that you favor as explanatory in the rise of Europe and Japan does *not* include colonialism. I am delighted to learn from you that in other writings you do emphasize the significance of colonialism/imprerialism in the rise of the modern European world system. Jim Blaut X (his mark) From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Thu Feb 27 21:05:18 1997 Date: 27 Feb 97 23:03:40 EST From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: world systems net Subject: Correction to "Blaut's reply..." Oops! I misquoted Sanderson, in my reply to his reply, just posted. He did not say "West and Central Europe." He said "West and Central Africa." Jim Blaut From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Fri Feb 28 08:58:48 1997 Received: from bebop.chass.utoronto.ca (bebop.chass.utoronto.ca [128.100.160.4]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id IAA00449 for ; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 08:58:44 -0700 (MST) Received: from chass.utoronto.ca by bebop.chass.utoronto.ca via ESMTP (951211.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH1042/940406.SGI) id KAA17278; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 10:58:43 -0500 Received: from localhost by chass.utoronto.ca via SMTP (951211.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH1042/930416.SGI) id KAA00534; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 10:58:34 -0500 Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 10:58:34 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: Terry Boswell cc: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: Re: Money is the root. In-Reply-To: <4502BA747D@ss.emory.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Alas Terry takes my name in vain [though i dunno why since i did not speak to this issue before] and misrepresents my position and/or mis-undersands what - IMHO! - really went on. Chapter 3 of my forhtcoming book is entitled MONEY WENT AROUND THE WORLD AND MADE THE WORLD GO ROUND. It documents the flow of silver, about half of which ended up in China! Like Terry, it denies [the common thesis of ] inflation in Asia. But it explains that in sort of MV=PT terms as an increase of M and of V leading to a large increase of T [and None of P], and it also supplies direct evidence on the same. In fact, the new money increased production and population growth MORE and FASTER in Asia, espeecialy China but also India, than in Europe. Terry continues to look under the European streetlight and to miss the much more crucial evidence of what was really going on in the REAL world, in which Europe continued to be a minro marrginal player [excepr that it did distribute this silver around the world, whgich as Jim Blaut says and Adam Smith already recognized, was just about the ONLY thing it did and COULD do. Terry you will NREVER see what went on untuil you take of your European glasses. cheers gunderOn Thu, 27 Feb 1997, Terry Boswell wrote: > Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 02:17:35 EST5EDT > From: Terry Boswell > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: Money is the root. > > Two points seem to be missing in the recent discussion of the impact > colonial silver on the rise of Europe. First is the monetary effect > of the huge import of American silver, in effect an import of money, > into the Euroasian economy in the 16th and 17th centuries. The > discussion sometimes reads as if the European colonizers simply > bought global dominance. Adding money to a market causes inflation, > in this case, a massive inflation that lasts perhaps 150 years in W. > Europe. The long term inflation tended to commodify relations in > general and to favor merchants over producers, manufacturers over > landlords, and commercial states over landed states in particular. > The result was a fundamental transformation away from a slow changing > landlord dominated economy with limited monetarization, and toward an > ever expanding and increasingly commodified economy dominated by > commercial interests (I will avoid the "c" word in the hopes that > this time point does not get lost in a debate over semantics). > > As far as I can tell, no comparable inflation occurs in E. Asia, > yielding a relative decline in the value of Asian goods, despite > what some suggest may have been a greater apriori degree of market > relations. One reason for this critical difference is that European > corporate merchants (especially the Dutch East India Co.) held a near > monopoly on the Euroasian trade. Moreover, they colonized the > "spice islands," capturing the massive profits at both ends. Other > explanations focus on Chinese state and class relations. Frank has > suggested some possible demographic factors as well, and one could > point to other reasons. Which combination of factors one highlights > is less important than recognizing that the result is the rise of W. > Europe. > > The second point, briefly, is that this fundamental transformation > occurs in the "long 16th century," not the 19th century. I do not > understand how Gunder and others can repeatedly and emphatically > insist on the central importance of American silver in the rise > of Euorpe, yet refuse to recognise the fundamental commercial > transformation it wrought. > > TBos > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > (long distance merchants were > virtually guaranteed that > > inflated prices at the end of a long voyage would exceed costs at the > beginning). > > > > > > > Terry Boswell > Department of Sociology > Emory University > Atlanta, GA 30322 > From WhiteneckDJ.DFPS.USAFA@usafa.af.mil Fri Feb 28 12:14:50 1997 Received: from heimdall-nf1.usafa.af.mil (HEIMDALL.USAFA.AF.MIL [204.34.211.17]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id MAA15121 for ; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 12:14:44 -0700 (MST) Received: from scb-2.usafa.af.mil by heimdall-nf1.usafa.af.mil via smtpd (for csf.Colorado.EDU [128.138.129.195]) with SMTP; 28 Feb 1997 19:14:44 UT Received: by scb.usafa.af.mil; Fri, 28 Feb 97 12:18:51 MST Date: Fri, 28 Feb 97 12:18:28 MST Message-ID: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) To: From: "Dr. Daniel J. Whiteneck, 333-4191, office: 6K18E" Subject: re: Blaut and Modelski X-Incognito-SN: 548 X-Incognito-Format: VERSION=2.01a ENCRYPTED=NO Dear Jim Blaut: What "Europe", or more precisely its leading and future powers (Venice and Portugal and their allies) possessed, was a nascent epistemic community of actors within and outside governments that pushed the agenda of exploration, expansion, and integration. This community of cartographers and explorers set the agenda for European expansion with leaders like Henry of Portugal and the Doges of Venice. India and China did not possess either the community of actors nor the governments that set the agendas. It is not enough to have the capabilities, there must exist the "idea" to put the capabilities to use. While this may make research difficult, it deserves an important place in world systems studies. Daniel Whiteneck USAF Academy From SKSANDER@grove.iup.edu Fri Feb 28 14:57:23 1997 Received: from maple.grove.iup.edu (maple.grove.iup.edu [144.80.128.6]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id OAA29499 for ; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 14:57:21 -0700 (MST) Received: from grove.iup.edu by grove.iup.edu (PMDF V5.0-6 #2467) id <01IFYG8571Q88YA1YH@grove.iup.edu> for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:57:19 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:57:19 -0500 (EST) From: s_sanderson To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Message-id: <01IFYG8571QA8YA1YH@grove.iup.edu> X-Envelope-to: wsn@csf.colorado.edu X-VMS-To: IN%"wsn@csf.colorado.edu" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT From: IN%"postmaster@grove.iup.edu" "PMDF Mail Server" 28-FEB-1997 16:54:53.84 To: IN%"SKSANDER@grove.iup.edu" CC: Subj: Undeliverable mail: SMTP delivery failure Return-path: <> Received: from grove.iup.edu by grove.iup.edu (PMDF V5.0-6 #2467) id <01IFYG545WR68YCGTL@grove.iup.edu> for SKSANDER@grove.iup.edu; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:54:52 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:54:52 -0500 (EST) From: PMDF Mail Server Subject: Undeliverable mail: SMTP delivery failure To: SKSANDER@grove.iup.edu Message-id: <01IFYG551SIS8YCGTL@grove.iup.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: MULTIPART/MIXED; BOUNDARY="Boundary (ID ZHwynGd8CdVVtlav/HwJ3g)" --Boundary (ID ZHwynGd8CdVVtlav/HwJ3g) Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII The message could not be delivered to: Addressee: ws@csf.colorado.edu : Remote system's reason for rejecting: ... User unknown --Boundary (ID ZHwynGd8CdVVtlav/HwJ3g) Content-type: MESSAGE/RFC822 Received: from grove.iup.edu by grove.iup.edu (PMDF V5.0-6 #2467) id <01IFYFPPBC628YA1YH@grove.iup.edu> for ws@csf.colorado.edu; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:54:49 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:54:49 -0500 (EST) From: s_sanderson Subject: reply to blaut To: ws@csf.colorado.edu Message-id: <01IFYFPPBC648YA1YH@grove.iup.edu> Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania X-Envelope-to: ws@csf.colorado.edu X-VMS-To: IN%"ws@csf.colorado.edu" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Blaut is certainly right in his argument that Japan's isolation from the West during the Tokugawa era facilitated its economic development. I quite agree. Had Japan been colonized and peripheralized by Europe, then things would undoubtedly have turned out differently. However, it's not just the absence of a negative characteristic that made a difference in Japan. Europe was not somebody else's capitalist periphery either. Like Europe, Japan had to have a number of POSITIVE characterisitcs that stimulated its capitalist development. I still disagree with Blaut on his overly general usage of the term "feudalism." I follow Perry Anderson's conception of feudalism as a politico-economic system based on fiefs, vassalage, and the fragmentation of political power. Defined as such, Europe and Japan have had the only true feudal systems in world history. Blaut finds feudalism all over the place because of the highly inclusive way in which he defines it. Finally, I feel it is important to note that Blaut keeps insisting that I am somehow claiming that Europe and Japan were "superior to" the rest of the world. I make no such claim. Rather, I say they were DIFFERENT, not that they were better, that they had a certain mix of characteristics not found elsewhere. It is very much an open question as to the "superiority" of such traits. Steve Sanderson --Boundary (ID ZHwynGd8CdVVtlav/HwJ3g)-- From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Fri Feb 28 20:40:41 1997 Received: from dub-img-2.compuserve.com (dub-img-2.compuserve.com [149.174.206.132]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id UAA10828 for ; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 20:40:40 -0700 (MST) Received: by dub-img-2.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id WAA24231; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 22:40:33 -0500 Date: 28 Feb 97 22:39:57 EST From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: chris chase-dunn Cc: gunder frank , world systems network Subject: no mail for 10 days Message-ID: <970301033956_70671.2032_EHM88-6@CompuServe.COM> Chris: I hate to burden you with this but I need to advise WSN that I will be away from home (in England) from March 1 through March 10. Could you either organize this or quick tell me how to do so? Can it be done in such a way that on March 10 I ask wsn to give me all accumulated messages? Recall that I am a babe in the cyber-woods. Thanks again Jim Blaut jblaut@uic.edu