From mittals@MAGELLAN.UMontreal.CA Mon Jun 2 18:51:01 1997 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:49:55 -0400 (EDT) From: Mittal Sushil To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: FYI: New Book on History of Modern Colonialism Status: RO Ferro, Marc. 1997. _Colonization: A Global History_. Translated from the French by K. D. Prithipaul. World Heritage Studies in Colonialism, 1. St-Hyacinthe, Quebec: World Heritage Press. xiv + 402 pp. Marc Ferro's _Colonization: A Global History is a wide-ranging comparative perspective account of one of the most significant themes in recent history. Uniquely, Ferro considers European, including Russian, Japanese, Turkish and Arab colonization. He emphasizes ex-colonial views, and does not subscribe to the orthodox view that the history of colonization is necessarily followed by the history of the struggle of the people for their independence. He examines the impact on decolonization of other factors, such as globalization. _Colonization: A Global History_ is also unusual in giving prominence to the social and cultural dimensions of colonialism. Ferro analyses the new types of societies and economies brought about by colonization. He considers, for example, the impact of colonization in areas such as education and medicine. Ferro's richly textured overview offers a stimulating range of perspectives on a topic of considerable significance. It will be of interest to those researching and studying all aspects of colonization and decolonization. ======================================================================== CONTENTS: Preface 1 Colonization or Imperialism 2 The Initiatives 3 Conflicts for an Empire 4 A New Race of Societies 5 Rose-Coloured Legend and Pitch-Black Legend 6 The Vision of the Vanquished 7 The Movements for Settler-Independence 8 Leaven and Levers 9 Independence or Revolution 10 Liberation or Decolonization 11 Decolonization Halted Chronology Filmographic selection Notes Bibliography Index ======================================================================= AUTHOR: Marc Ferro is Professor at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He is the author of many books, including _The Great War_ (1987), and is a pioneer in the study of history and the cinema. ======================================================================== BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: A volume in the World Heritage Studies in Colonialism ISBN 1-896064-04-3 (hb) ISBN 1-896064-02-7 (pb) ======================================================================== PRAISE for _Colonization: A Global History_ "It is wonderful to have at last a truly comprehensive history of modern colonialism, from the sixteenth century to today and on all the continents. Ferro's book is a timely reminder of an unfinished saga whose history has been determinative of our present and future." Immanuel Wallerstein, Binghamton University "A lively and fascinating synthesis dealing with a major theme in the history of the world. Studiously avoiding the pitfalls of Eurocentrism, the author casts his net wide and his coverage is far more extensive than in any comparable work." Geoffrey Scammell, University of Cambridge "An extraordinarily adventurous work, in many respects almost a global history of the making of the modern world." Andrew Porter, University of London ======================================================================== Inquiries to: World Heritage Press 1270 St-Jean St-Hyacinthe, Quebec Canada J2S 8M2 Phone: (514) 771 0213 Fax: (514) 771 2776 ======================================================================== From dow@ucla.edu Mon Jun 2 20:25:34 1997 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:25:30 -0700 (PDT) To: mittals@MAGELLAN.UMontreal.CA From: David Wilkinson Subject: Colonization in World Systems Status: RO Thanks for posting the notice of the translation of Marc Ferro's Colonization: A Global History. I would like to raise a few questions about this work. (1) I wonder how far back in time Ferro takes the Russian, Japanese, Turkish and Arab cases. More generally: is it the case, as seems to be implied by your notice, that the work, despite its title, actually refers only to the modern era (though colonization is at least as old as human settlement)? If so, is this simply a matter of the author's limited time and energy, or does he believe that there was such a sharp break somewhere in history that the history even of such reasonably documented colonizations as the Greek and Roman can safely be omitted in a global history of colonization? (2) You label it a study of colonialism (a policy), though it labels itself a study of colonization (a movement of people). Which? It could be both, or either. If Ferro studies, say, the Plantation of Ulster, would he look at Cromwell (the colonialist in the case), or the transplanted Scots (the colonists in the case), or both? Regardless, Ferro's book does sound like a first step to a much-needed evolutionary and comparative study of both colonialism and colonization, in light of 5000-plus years of world system history, and by comparison across world systems. I wonder if anyone on the list is aware of other efforts to expand the comparative perspective and time horizon of such study. Have studies of Phoenician, Greek and Roman colonizations been done in comparative perspective? Chinese? Indian? From jbrooks2@lib.drury.edu Mon Jun 2 20:45:37 1997 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 21:49:54 -0500 (CDT) From: Jason Brooks Reply-To: Jason Brooks To: Terry Boswell Subject: Re: Capitalism and a Grimesian ecological crisis In-Reply-To: <47ECAB20B2@ss.emory.edu> Status: RO On Mon, 26 May 1997, Terry Boswell wrote: > In this sense, at the global level, ecological, women's, and labor > movements share point and purpose, and should be one interconnected > world movement. It would be a movement for a better world, one that > supersedes capitalism, not a reaction to a catastrophic collapse of > world capitalism brought on by ecological or any other single > crisis. Waiting for the final contraction or final crisis or other > catastrophe to replace capitalism is to hope for the worst and do > nothing for the better. Having followed this argument throught the last few posts, I found this statement to a welcome one. It would seem that, if one read all of the World Systems literature, there is a sense that the World System perspective is one of doom and gloom, both for humanity and capitalism. This recent thread, which appears to already have been discussed at length, is a perfect example of how this sociological perspective has that tendency to view large social structures in a strictly materialist fashion. While there is truth to this perspective, and Grimes presents a plausible possibility, the world with all of its social structures is not THAT deterministic. That is, there are plenty of instances in which people have not acted as we have expected them to. Likewise, there are times when people in general have done things that would seem out of place given their social background. Rozov echoes this point, I think, when he stresses the likelihood that capitalism will find some way to make it through this crisis. And why not? it has in the past, and there is no indication that those who run the capitalist system are so naive as to let the possibility for the destruction of capitalism go unnoticed. almost assuredly, the power core of capitalism will make adjustments in the capitalist system in order to ensure survival. Capitalism is organic, and as such, it has a sense that it needs to survive, and will do anything it needs to do to survive. By the same token, just as capitalism has within itself the possibility for non-deterministic change, so do non-capitalitst within the system have the opportunity to affect change as well. By this, I mean that persons like Boswell are not ultimately limited by social/economic/political background, and have open to them the opportunity to make moves that are outside of the dominant framework and indeed can and will change that framework. This is not to say that we can simply lay back and wait for some one on the margins to step up and change the rules of the game. To do so would be social suicide. By the same token, we are not limited to our backgrounds. We have available to us the opportunity to affect changes in the system, either forcing it to collapse or replace and modify it. i'm not making a judgement here as to which ought to be done, but rather I am emphasizing that are able to ask first what "ought" to be, rather than "let nature take its course." We are nature's course, and we CAN change it. Just to summarize, it was a nice change of pace to see Terry's comments, and his focus on the changes that we can affect. As I said earlier, so much of WS literature focuses on how things have been, and specifically the the faults of the current global capitalist system, that any praxis that has resulted from this perspective is one that fails to recognize the existentialist element of humanity. Just in case I have confused anyone as to my origianl position, I agree with Grimes in the respect that the final contraction of capitalism is possible, and ever more so at this point in time. However, it is not inevitable. Such a final contraction is one possibility among many. If such a collapse of capitalism is desirable, then we ought to do whatever is in our power to actualize that possibility. If another possibility is more desirable, then we ought to do whatever possible to actualize that possibility. Whatever is chosen as the "ought," the fact remains that we nonetheless have a choice. I sincerely hope that these ramblings make as much sense to everyone as they do to me. If not, i can try to clarify them. Thanks for letting me say a few words..... Jason From rkmoore@iol.ie Tue Jun 3 08:10:40 1997 Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 15:10:32 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Huntington: world system architect Status: RO Dear wsn, Subsequent to our previous discussion of Huntington, Kulturkampf, etc., I've had a chance to look at "The West - Unique, not Universal" (Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 96) and to view a tape of Sam's talk to the Chicago CFR, delivered in January. In addition, I've reviewed my text and video files re/CFR and have again been duly impressed by the decisive and comprehensive policy role CFR has played across the board - from formulation of post-war free-world system, to Vietnam, to China policy... "The Trilateral Commission doesn't secretly run the world. The Council on Foreign Relations does that." Winston Lord, President, CFR, "W" Magazine, August 4-11, 1978, Fairchild Publications I think Huntington's culture-alignment ideology campaign raises several topics which should be of interest to wsn, beyond what we discussed earlier. His thesis and argments - a world-system hypothesis claiming historical substantiation and primary current relevance - themselves deserve further examination and analysis. I find his assumptions and logic very flimsy indeed, and will be posting a concise critique if interest in these topics is expressed on list. That his arguments are deceptive and propagandistic should not be surprising - he himself proclaimed that skillful deception is necessary to carry the short-sighted masses along with enlightened elite designs, to help overcome the "excesses" of democracy. And such spurious scholarship from a recognized authority is equally unsurprising - it is his personal credibility which is meant to carry the weight of a shoddy hypothesis. (Shades of M Friedman). In the case of Huntington, we must clearly recognize that the speaker is as significant as the message. What he says should be viewed more as policy than analysis. His claim that Turkey would be the "natural" core-power for a Muslim sphere, for example, has been backed up by him pushing that agenda personally to the Turks (in preference to pursuing full EU membership), as well as by official US encouragement of intervention-drill by Turkey in Kurdish Iraq. (Similarly when CFR-colleague Kissinger expressed that "The US has never won a war without press control", this turned out to be more a policy announcement than an historical observation - as we learned subsequently in Grenada, Panama, and Iraq.) Huntington is not analyzing natural world-system evolution - rather he's publicizing and lending pundit-credibility to a world-system architecture which has apparently become a CFR-internal consensus vision, and whose imposition would solve certain global-management problems for the ruling elite which were previously solved by super-power antipodal alignments. Huntington actually says as much if you read between his lines and decode his CFR doublespeak rhetoric. Out of all this, what might be most interesting to wsn would be to project forward the scenario prescribed by Huntington - armed with our collective knowledge of word-system dynamics - and anticipate the consequences of a world divided into ethno-cultural spheres, each "led" by a designated "core-power" (his usage). This might well be where the world is being intentionally channeled, and understanding the world-system implications couldn't be more relevant to our interests, or at least I would assume so. As a kickoff to such a projection, I would draw an analogy with how Third-World countries have been traditionally dominated by outside elites. The most common pattern is to identify, recruit, and support a privileged elite within a country. That local elite is helped to gain local control and enjoys the ensuing economic benefits, graft opportunties, and general privileges of power. The local elite becomes dependent on outside support and arms, and develops a repressive posture toward the general local populace, thus burning its bridges re/local constituencies, and cementing its external dependence. It seems clear to me that Huntington's scenario is largely an extrapolation of this formula to accomplish regional control within the context of the coming globalist regime. Returning to the Muslim example, Turkey would be the local elite (within the Muslim sphere), it's military would be favored with superior training and weapons, and US/NATO intelligence and backup would be available when needed. The ongong acceptance of Turkey's role by the likes of Iran, Iraq, and Libya would be problematic, to put it mildly, and Turkey's continued dependence on outside support and direction would be assured. Turkey's role (as with the other designated core powers) would be to carry the yeoman enforcement burden, supplement outside intervention when necessary, and act as a scapegoat when sins are "discovered" and local reorganization is called for (as we saw in microcosm with: Shah, Marcos, Noriega, Saddham). With the US as the Euro core-power, Huntington's culture-spheres would not be equal - the US would be the big boss over the gang of little bosses (mafia dynamics relevant here), and the Euro-sphere would be a macro-elite at the global level, enjoying the same relative advantages globally that the local core-nations enjoy regionally. (Nothing really new in this regard.) The client core powers would not be autonomous local hegemons, and any attempt by them to establish a bold or expansionist sphere (or even an overly harmonious sphere) would, if it didn't fit into globalist schemes, be nipped in the bud, as we saw in microcosm when Noriega defiantly hosted the Contradora conference and sealed his fate. Ethno-cultural alignments are perfectly designed for divide-and-conquer tactics, adding another dimension of convenience and stability to the overall, hierarchical, ws design. >From another perspective, one might say culture-centricity is a cloning of the proven Soviet-foe model - enabling each sphere to be perceived as threatening from the outside, while remaining divided internally as was Russia from its satellites. Yours, Richard From cscpo@polsci.umass.edu Tue Jun 3 11:39:02 1997 Tue, 3 Jun 1997 13:38:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 13:38:26 -0400 From: "colin s. cavell" Subject: Re: Huntington: world system architect To: rkmoore@iol.ie Status: RO Richard, I would be interested in your "more concise critique" of Huntington's "culture-alignment ideology campaign", as I find your initial critique very insightful and to the mark. ______________________________________________________________________________ Colin S. Cavell "And there lies the most stupendous Department of Political Science labor problem of the twentieth century Thompson Tower, Box 37520 --transcending the problem of Labor University of Massachusetts and Capital, of Democracy, of the Amherst, MA 01003-7520 Equality of Women--for it is the Internet: cscpo@polsci.umass.edu problem of the Equality of Humanity in Voice: (413) 546-3408 the world as against white domination http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~cscpo of black and brown and yellow serfs. --W.E.B. Du Bois, (1868-1963) ========================================================================== Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 15:10:32 +0100 From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Huntington: world system architect ....I think Huntington's culture-alignment ideology campaign raises several topics which should be of interest to wsn, beyond what we discussed earlier. His thesis and argments - a world-system hypothesis claiming historical substantiation and primary current relevance - themselves deserve further examination and analysis. I find his assumptions and logic very flimsy indeed, and will be posting a concise critique if interest in these topics is expressed on list.... Yours, Richard From aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu Tue Jun 3 15:58:17 1997 Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 17:57:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Wayne Austin Reply-To: Andrew Wayne Austin To: "Richard K. Moore" Subject: Re: Huntington: world system architect In-Reply-To: Status: RO List, Samuel Huntington is an important intellectual mercenary for global capitalism. Dissident Taiwanese are forced to read his *Political Order in Changing Societies*, a polemic against democracy that, among other things, praises the Soviet Union for their effective use of authority. Why would the government make them read this? *Political Order* is used as part of Taiwan's re-education program for political dissidents, along with dissidents being compelled to act as human chess pieces in a big checkered courtyard while a commander of the military police barks the moves (the dissidents are forced to carry big stones during this ordeal). In a recent interview with David Gergen (January 9, 1997, NewsHour, PBS), Huntington set out his "cultural-alignment" thesis. The content of the "theory" does not warrant scientific debate, in my view. The argument is hopeless idealism. This is the nicest thing I can say about it. But the purpose of the argument is very important to understand. And in this regard some of the content is revealing. I won't go into Huntington's arguments (I think most of us are familiar with them), except to reproduce one key point he made and then decode it. I also want to reproduce another remarkable quote that--well, to use Bill Hicks' line in reference to Stacy Coon's interpretation of the Rodney King beating, "'Cuse me, 'cuse me, man with big testicles comin' through." Gergen asked Huntington: "What are the implications of your argument about clashes coming between civilizations? What are the implications for United States foreign policy?" Huntington argued that "we" (who are "we," anyway?) have to "recognize the world for what it is." And this reality is fraught with ethnic conflicts. The solution, according to Huntington, is to unify the West against the small threats of Islam and the big threat of China. Corporate media types assume this position uncritically and base their analysis on it, take the McLaughlin Group this past Sunday for example. (Unbelievably, Pat Buchanan--neofascism evidently providing an effective vaccine against the internationalist claptrap--had the only reasonable position of the group. Gergen, always the helpful host, clarified, "Strengthen the western civilization, itself." "Right," Huntington replied, "Which means not just in military and economic terms but in, also in moral terms and in commitment to western values." Gergen: "Right. And move away from the assertion that our values are universal." (You should detect that Gergen was fawning over Huntington.) "That's right," Huntington agreed. But then Gergen wondered about our "historical mission" (he didn't use those words, but he might as well have). Afterall, he asked, aren't we a "missionary nation"? Don't we spread the gospel of "democracy" all around the world? Huntington responded by saying that there are no universal values, and we are wrong-headed for believing that we can persuade the savage civilizations to adopt democracy. But, he said hopefully, and this is the clincher, we should still try. We just shouldn't be disappointed when we fail, and we should be prepared for the worst. Translation: We should spread the gospel of capitalism and polyarchy around the world, and call it democracy. We should spread our values of human rights, but recognize, like good realists, that these values are not universal. Huntington has given "us" justification for entering these savage civilizations with transnational corporations and diplomats. Why? Because this is the best way to neutralize their power, to at least introduce what "democracy" "we" think may hold (like capitalism). But, when the workers and peasants there resist, when the people protest inhuman conditions and the exploitation of labor, well, don't fret, these savage civilization don't hold the same view of human rights that "we" do (they are, after all, backwards). So it is okay to exploit and mistreat workers and peasants there, to operate in an environment where labor leaders are imprisoned and murdered, because these countries don't share our values (in my view, this argument is also racist). Huntington's argument provides the global capitalist class with an ideology of have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too. Fascinating to watch the mind of a sophisticated propagandist at work, isn't it. Gergen closed the interview with this: "I wish you well in the weeks ahead as you take your message elsewhere." How revealing. Huntington is on a crusade. Finally, one thing Huntington said that was precious that I just have to share. Early in the interview Huntington said this: "There's only one non-western territory that I can think is still run by a western government, and that's Hong Kong." I understand that Western nations don't formally run their client states, but who are we kidding here? "'Cuse me, 'cuse me, man with big testicles comin' through." Love, Andrew Austin From wwagar@binghamton.edu Thu Jun 5 14:06:07 1997 From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 16:07:24 -0400 (EDT) To: Mark Jones Subject: Re: ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION: CAPITALISM IN THE AGE OF ELECTRONICS In-Reply-To: <338C7A5D.34C@netcomuk.co.uk> Status: RO Dear Mark, I've just returned from some weeks in Ireland to find your two postings. You say a great many things that need saying--desperately--and I find myself largely, although not entirely, in agreement with them. In addition to the excellent issue of SCIENCE AND SOCIETY to which David Schwartzman refers in his reply, I will immodestly refer you to my scenario-novel A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE (1992, The University of Chicago Press; also Adamantine Press in the U.K.), which offers a vision of the next century not far removed from yours. You will find it lacking in various respects, perhaps critically lacking, but we are in accord on the reality of the planetary eco-crisis, the mad rush of globalization, the coming self-immolation of the capitalist behemoth accompanied by radical depopulation of the earth, and its replacement in a more chastened age by a world commonwealth of working men and women. Fraternally, Warren W. Warren Wagar From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Jun 5 14:24:09 1997 05 Jun 1997 16:22:30 -0400 (EDT) 05 Jun 1997 16:21:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 05 Jun 1997 16:21:00 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Post-doc, Cultural Environments/Development] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Status: RO Tue, 03 Jun 1997 17:15:46 -0400 (EDT) Tue, 03 Jun 1997 17:13:59 -0400 (EDT) 03 Jun 1997 16:09:40 -0500 (CDT) by mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/mcfeeley.mc-1.21) 03 Jun 1997 16:02:03 -0500 (CDT) ; Tue, 03 Jun 1997 16:02:07 -0500 (CDT) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 16:45:48 -0400 From: clas@uchicago.edu (Center for Latin American Studies-UC) Subject: Post-doc, Cultural Environments/Development Sender: owner-lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu To: lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu Reply-to: clas@uchicago.edu POST-DOC FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 1998 LATIN AMERICA: CULTURAL ENVIRONMENTS & DEVELOPMENT DEBATES Dear Colleagues: I enclose a description of a senior postdoctoral fellowship opportunity under the auspices of the Globalization Project and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago. The fellowship is funded by the Ford Foundation as part of an ongoing, interdisciplinary research and curriculum development initiative entitled Regional Worlds: A New Approach to Area Studies. This program aims to create new linkages among area studies, cultural studies and the natural and social sciences by conceptualizing world areas and research issues from more flexible and potentially integrative perspectives. During the 1997-98 academic year, the Globalization Project and the Center for Latin American Studies are collaborating on exploring the theme of Latin America: Cultural Environments and Development Debates. The postdoctoral fellow will take up residence at the University of Chicago during the Spring Quarter (March 30-June 15, 1998). I would appreciate it if you would bring this fellowship to the attention of any qualified scholar who might benefit from participation in this program. We are particularly interested in attracting strong candidates for the fellowship from Latin America. All nominations, applications and inquiries should be directed to Alan L. Kolata, Director, Center for Latin American Studies, 5848 South University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637. Phone: 773-702-8420; Fax: 773-702-1755; E-mail: clas@uchicago.edu. Sincerely yours, Alan L. Kolata Director, Center for Latin American Studies Professor of Anthropology ********************************************** REGIONAL WORLDS POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP DESCRIPTION: Regional Worlds Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Chicago The Globalization Project and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago invite nominations and applications for a senior Postdoctoral Fellow to participate in the ongoing, interdisciplinary initiative, Regional Worlds: A New Approach to Area Studies. Candidates from Latin America are especially encouraged to apply. Program Description The theme of Regional Worlds for 1997-98 is Latin America: Cultural Environments and Development Debates. Through colloquia, advanced research workshops, curriculum development discussions and a culminating conference, the program will consider the ways in which production, consumption, cultural values, cultural expression and social identities interpenetrate in the process of development. Program activities will explore fundamental questions regarding the importance and meaning of local cultural practice and values to perceptions of the environment and economic development. Within this general theme, special attention will be focused on intellectual property rights, particularly as related to the ecological knowledge and practice of indigenous and traditional peoples, territorial demarcation and dislocation, and environmental ethics. Residency and Responsibilities The Fellow will be in residence at the University of Chicago during the Spring academic quarter, from March 30 to June 15, 1998. While in residence, the fellow will conduct personal research, present one public lecture, interact with University of Chicago faculty, graduate research fellows and advanced graduate students through participation in the program's biweekly workshop, and participate as a presenter and discussant in the culminating conference. Application Procedures The Fellowship offers a stipend of $20,000, travel expenses and access to the University of Chicago libraries. Applicants should send two copies of a current curriculum vitae and a personal statement (not to exceed five pages) of the relevance of their research to the theme of Latin America: Cultural Environments and Development Debates, as well as one sample of published work. Applicants should also arrange for two letters of reference from persons with detailed knowledge of the applicant's research. Nominations, applications and inquiries should be directed to Alan L. Kolata, Director, Center for Latin American Studies, 5848 S. University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637. Phone: 773-702-8420; Fax: 773-702-1755; E-mail: clas@uchicago.edu. All application materials are due September 1, 1997 Regional Worlds is supported by a generous grant from the Ford Foundation. Center for Latin American Studies University of Chicago 5848 S. University Ave. Kelly 308 Chicago, IL 60637 773-702-8420 773-702-1755 fax clas@uchicago.edu From majones@netcomuk.co.uk Thu Jun 5 15:37:07 1997 Date: Thu, 05 Jun 1997 22:33:47 -0700 From: Mark Jones To: wwagar@binghamton.edu Subject: Re: ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION: CAPITALISM IN THE AGE OF ELECTRONICS References: Status: RO Warren Thank you so much for your kind response. I have always much respected and been influenced by Arrighi, Frank, Wallerstein, Braudel, Amir et al which probably explains the intemperate tone I took -- I kind of expect more. However that doesn't excuse me - I should be more tolerant. We have communicated once before -- I was working on a novel about Genghis Khan, you may remember you kindly prompted me to a reference (I haven't read her, but I will). I have heard of your novel, plan to read it and only haven't because I haven't been to a library or bookshop for a while. However I recently published a novel called CAVIAR -- no grand claims, it's about the Russian mafia of which I have some knowledge -- be happy to swap your book for mine. Let me know. I publish non-fiction with Pluto. I have been collaborating with some earth scientists. I want to pull a book together on this apocalypse now! theme, perhaps you would be interested to particpate. Mark wwagar@binghamton.edu wrote: > > Dear Mark, > > I've just returned from some weeks in Ireland to find your two > postings. You say a great many things that need saying--desperately--and > I find myself largely, although not entirely, in agreement with them. In > addition to the excellent issue of SCIENCE AND SOCIETY to which David > Schwartzman refers in his reply, I will immodestly refer you to my > scenario-novel A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE (1992, The University of > Chicago Press; also Adamantine Press in the U.K.), which offers a vision > of the next century not far removed from yours. You will find it lacking > in various respects, perhaps critically lacking, but we are in accord on > the reality of the planetary eco-crisis, the mad rush of globalization, > the coming self-immolation of the capitalist behemoth accompanied by > radical depopulation of the earth, and its replacement in a more > chastened age by a world commonwealth of working men and women. > > Fraternally, > > Warren > > W. Warren Wagar > From rkmoore@iol.ie Thu Jun 5 19:35:44 1997 Date: Fri, 6 Jun 1997 02:35:34 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Re: Huntington: world system architect Status: RO 6/03/97, colin s. cavell wrote: >I would be interested in your "more concise critique" of Huntington's >"culture-alignment ideology campaign", as I find your initial critique >very insightful and to the mark. Sorry for the delay - a deadline came up. Also I may have lied when I said "concise", we'll see... In outline, Huntington's thesis seems to be: (1) We had a world system structured by superpower alignments. (2) That system provided considerable free-world stability and gave the US a point of leverage with which to exercise leadership and influence. (3) That system is unravelling due to collapse of one superpower. (4) Regional cultural alignments bode to be the natural new organizing principle; the West is powerless to stop this tide. (5) Various historical observations demonstrate the naturalness and stability of such a culture-centric system. (6) "Core" powers - one dominant in each region - can play a natural and beneficial regional stabilizing role. (7) In response to this new system, the West should come together in solidarity as a single "region", unified by a re-dedication to traditional Western cultural values. (8) The other regions can be expected to similarly re-embrace their own traditional values - and this is as it should be. Superfically this thesis makes considerable sense, seems to fit the data, and promises that a comforting stability will develop out of the very divisive forces which seem threatening from the old-system perspective (eg- Muslim fundamentalism, anti-Western feelings, etc). It seems an attractive hypothesis on which to base US foreign policy, from both a national-interest and concerned-citizen perspective - it "goes with the flow" and it promises stability. But only slightly beneath the surface the analysis behind the thesis unravels. To begin with, Huntington bases much of his hypothesis on a strong distinction between Western culture and modernity. The widely-perceived identification of Western culture with modernity, he claims, is unfounded - Western culture preceded modernity and is characterized by such things as rule of law, democracy, human rights, etc. Hence economic modernization - which is not based on those characteristics - should not be expected to - and in experience is not leading to - a convergence of global cultures. Here he leaves out what may seem to be a fine distinction, but one which turns out to be significant. To wit: a modern culture is made up of _both_ its inherited cultural elements _and_ new cultural elements caused by modernization. Let me give a microcosmic example. There was a time when Western culture - I hope I'm not over-generalizing - could be characterized by mutually-supportive extended-family units, and by stable communities arising out of families remaining in the same communities for several generations. With modernization - which brings shifting job markets and increased mobility potential - family units have decreased in size, extended families have been dispersed, population transience is on the rise, and communities have become more unstable - leading to all kinds of social and psychological dysfunctions. This amounts to a significant transformation in the definition of what Western culture is, and this transformation is one which has been affecting - and can be expected to affect - all cultures in similar ways as a consequence of modernization. Similar considerations apply to other modernization-related cultural shifts, such as: increased dependency on wage employment for economic survival, decreased connection to - and ownership of - land by the majority of people, increased importance of cities as economic and social units, increased exposure to mass-media-propagated cultural models, and decreasing relevance of traditional culture and religion to the problems of daily life - lending strength to either secularism or reactionary fundamentalism, or perhaps both simultaneously (eg- Turkey, US). To assess the significance of such modernity-related cultural transformations would take a bit of research and analysis. But to ignore these cultural trends entirely, as Huntington does, is to ignore what may be a signicant degree of global cultural convergence, a convergence which can only be expected to increase as modernization expands its dominion as a consequence of free trade and globalized investment strategies. Additional encouragement of cultural convergence could be expected from increased world travel, globalized communications and media, increased trade, and the presence of the same corporations and products throughout the world. Although Huntington discounts it, MacDonalds, Sony, Toyota, Siemens, Shell, Agfa, Heinekens, and Nestle to name a few, do bring some degree of shared cultural experience with them, if only in the common economic activities which are displaced (ie decline in competing indigenous enterprises). If all these convergence factors turn out to be sufficiently significant, Huntington's thesis may be 180 degrees wrong (culture may ultimately be unifying rather than divisive), and certainly his thesis cannot be accepted without adequate consideration of such possibilities. * * * While Huntington makes much of the naturalness and beneficence of nations and regions retaining their distinct socio-political heritages, he never touches on the possibility - perhaps because it would be beyond his ability to imagine - that nations and regions could also be encouraged to retain their various traditional economic heritages, which in many cases have included communal rural land ownership, socialism, state-operated infrastructures, protected national economies, sustainable development, etc. When it comes to economics and trade, his focus on local variability, desirability of stability, and the limited power of the West is suddenly forgotten - he tacitly accepts that the West, with its considerable economic influence, and assited by the international agencies and treaties it has promulgated, should continue to impose the Western-evolved corporatist, unbalanced-growth economic model on all regions of the world indiscriminately - despite the obvious instability introduced, and the popular resistance which is often encountered. In economics Huntington is happy to see the West force homogenization despite opposition, while with respect to democracy and human rights he wants to take a hands-off, local-autonomy stance. Centralized control of econmomic policy and laissez-faire politics - an ironic twist in the evolution of neoliberal doctrine. Perhaps it is time we drop the pretense that Huntington is an objective political scientist, and take into account that he is in fact a flagship propagandist for the Council on Foreign Relations, and the elite interests embodied therein. * * * An objective political scientist would agree with Huntington that the end of the Cold War and the onslaught of globalist-accelerated modernization bodes the evolution of new global ordering structures, but he or she would see that many future scenarios are possible and that the West is in a position to strongly influence which evolving buds are nurtured and which are discouraged. The West _could_ excercise clear and steady pressure in the direction of democracy, human-rights, healthy working conditions, pollution controls, etc. It could do this effectively, without great cost, without imposing specific Western mechanisms, and without stirring up conflicts - it would only need the will to do so. Lack of success in this regard in recent experience reflects only that the effort was insincere - token pressure on China, for example, following Tianmen Square, was only a sop to public opinion and China well understood (and was probably told covertly and explicitly) that there was no resolve behind the rhetoric. Similarly, the West _could_ encourage civil fraternity among _all_ nations and help nurture a spirit of increasingly shared cultural experience - and cinema and other Western propaganda channels could be employed to this purpose. Huntington's proclivity to fixate immediately on one particular scenario - culture-centric spheres - does not reflect, let's be realistic, lack of intellectual imagination on his part - it rather reflects an obvious agenda: the CFR/elite interests simply do not want more democracy and human rights loose in the world - it's bad for profits. Simple as that. The rest is rationalization/ propaganda. * * * Huntington's further elaboration of his scenario - local core powers, a nostalgic return to "traditional values", and the circling of the Western wagons against a threatening world - flesh out the architecture of this CFR agenda of a mafia-like world heirarchy of gang-clans, as was explored in my posting of a few days ago. Regards, rkm From rkmoore@iol.ie Mon Jun 9 03:55:18 1997 Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 10:55:10 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: re Marx: When will they ever learn? Status: RO 5/27/97, Mark Jones wrote: >In a century's time, after the final and catastrophic colapse, after >capitalism has been dismissed from history by the proletariat, there >will far fewer humans living on earth, 2, billion or less at the best >estimate, and they will not live as they do now. They will live in >sustainable economies, they will not use non-renewable energy sources >and they will not live under capitalism. Geez - don't they ever learn? The one thing Marx was 180 degrees wrong about was how political change would occur. He predicted revolution in the most industrialized countries, and it came instead among the least industrialized. Marx didn't foresee the role of human intiative and responsiveness. In the industrialized world, the capitalists learned how to move the goalposts and fiddle the money and keep the system moving. In un-developed Russia, the people simply decided they weren't having any more of the czar - and it was Marx's inspiration - not his predictions - that contributed. Marx can be forgiven his mechanistic prediction model, coming out of a nineteenth century tradition mesmerized by the successes of Newton's simple mechanics - but we've now got more sophisticated scientific paradigms, not to mention the knowledge of subsequent history. Harder times, which Mark accurately foresees, are as likely to lead to fascist dictatorship as they are to enlightened revolution. Those who extrapolate infrastructure failure might also extrapolate trends toward police states in the West and increased military suppression in the rest - and put two and two together. When the last barrel of oil is allocated, it will be to a tank. The first vehicles be nuclear powered were military. Consider the frog who submits to be being boiled slowly to death. Yes, the Zapatistas responded with revolutionary zeal when their land was _suddenly_ taken from them, but most of us suffer a more gradual disenfranchisement, continually reduce our expectations - and the urgent spark of revolutionary fervor never kindles. Not from materialist necessity alone. If humanity is to wake up to the PRESENT NECESSITY of sustainable economies and renewable energy sources, it has ample warning already. The missing factor is poltical imaginaton and initiative, not materialist motivation. I think back to when I was a youth - if we had known then how bad things would be now, there would have been universal outrage. The frog factor is powerful. We cannot count on the contradictions of capitalism to deliver to us an inevitable salvation. 5/28/97, Mark wrote: >All value (and profit) comes from the exploitation of labor. >Laborless production means valueless production - and hence, >profitless production. Whoa! If I build a factory that produces paper-weights by a fully-automated process, then I can sell the paper-weights and make a profit. Or did the water turn to wine when I wasn't looking? Guinness printed some beer coasters which on one side say "`All property is theft' - Karl Marx",and on the other say "Not everything in black and white makes sense". >The economic middle ground is destroyed, resulting in a handful of >international capitalists on one side, and a vast majority of >marginalized or destitute proletarians, incapable of purchasing >the flood of goods, on the other. Such is the inescapable dilemma >faced by capital in the age of globalization. Objectively this trend will indeed continue - but the wealth disparity is _already_ severely polarized, and the masses, so to speak, are _not_ moving toward any sense of mutual solidarity. The middle class as we knew it may be collapsing, but whites are still better off than blacks, the employed than the unemployed, managers than workers, men than women, First World than Third World, etc. Divide and conquer continues to function, with "each one wishing for what the other has got". Down to the last crumb. By the way Mark - thanks for a brilliant globalization report ("ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION: CAPITALISM IN THE AGE OF ELECTRONICS"). You've described well the new bottle, but old wine isn't appropriate to fill it. Be assured that the Masters of Globalization have long understood what Greider now popularizes. They're building their global police forces; they've survived depressions; they can start wars when they want to; they routinely install fascism when peasants rebel - we cannot afford to be passive passengers on the roller coaster, waiting to arrive at some magic destination where contradictions are manifest and the masses - spontaneous and enlightened - take over. rkm From majones@netcomuk.co.uk Mon Jun 9 06:22:17 1997 Date: Mon, 09 Jun 1997 13:22:32 -0700 From: Mark Jones To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: What Marx said or did not say... Status: RO Richard Moore wrote: > By the way Mark - thanks for a brilliant globalization report ("ECONOMIC > GLOBALIZATION: CAPITALISM IN THE AGE OF ELECTRONICS") Unfortunately I canot claim responsibility -- that was authored by a New York-based marxist revolutionary group. I'm afraid I cannot concur with your characterisation of Marxism, which seems to only asymptotically relate to what Marx himself from time to time wrote. Mark From timmons@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu Tue Jun 10 09:22:31 1997 Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 10:22:26 -0500 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: timmons@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu (J. Timmons Roberts) Subject: Fwd: 200 Companies control 30+% of world... Status: RO FYI, a forward. TR > >Subject: 200 Companies Control the World >Date: Wed, 30 Apr 97 10:49:28 CDT >From: "Jagdish Parikh" > >(WNR Editorial 28-4-97) heiko@easynet.co.uk > >WNR Editorial 200 Companies Control the World > > Le Monde Diplomatique for April 97 reported the latest research into > the incredible pace of the concentration of Capital. This is leading > to what Le Monde calls a "A Global Government of the Multinationals". > >It reports that, Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union have been >"colonised" in the name of "the glories of the " and >that, inspite of 41 million unemployed in the advanced capitalist >countries, "the manufacturing industries worldwide (excepting those of >China) only operate at 70-75% of their capacity". "The top 200 >companies are conglomerates whose planetary activity cover all sectors >without distinction, the primary, secondary and tertiary, the grand >agricultural exploiters, the manufacturers, financial services, >commerce, etc. Geographically they are divided between ten countries: >Japan (62), the United States (53), Germany (23), France (19), Britain >(11), Switzerland (8), South Korea (6), Italy (5) and the Low >Countries (1)." Their turnover at 7,850 trillion dollars was equal to >30% of world GNP in 1995. Le Monde Diplomatique explains that in >reality the concentration is even greater than the figures indicate. >For example the world's number one company Mitsubishi owns five >companies in the top 200. Their empire pays 37% of the funds of the >Liberal Democratic Party of Japan thus completely corrupting the >political system. In South Korea, 6 of whose companies leapt into the >top 200 between 1985 and 1995, Daewoo the largest, now has a turnover >of over $ 52 billion (US), ahead of Unilever and Nestle. The largest >30 company groups in South Korea have a turnover over 4/5ths of the >country's GNP. These companies support the, "ruthlessly repression of >the working class and the liquidation of the rights of the >individual", says the report. Such dictatorial concepts pervade in the >older centres of world capital as well. The Director General of >Nestle, Helmut Maucher presides over the European Round Table of >Industrialists, the elite club of 47 companies. "An implacable >opponent of the European Social Chapter, he is an militant fighter for >the flexibility of work, like all the members of this caste". Le Monde >Diplomatique explains that the "Global Government of the >Multinationals" is run by "Totalitarian Structures". This latest >evidence of the increasing concentration of wealth and their >dictatorial hold on political and economic life, comes after the >shocking United Nations Human Development Report 1996. This revealed >that, "the assets of the world's 358 billionaires exceed the combined >annual incomes of countries with 45% of the world's people." (p2) The >UN Report showed that the idea that, "the only way to finance growth >would be by channelling the initial benefits into the pockets of rich >capitalists"...has ..." been disproved by recent evidence of a >positive correlation between economic growth and income >equality"...(p6) If there is not a radical shift towards >egalitarianism and control of the major corporations in the interests >of working people, then the predictions of the UN, of a "world >gargantuan in its excesses and grotesque in its human and economic >inequalities", will become a terrible reality. Trade Unionists and >Socialists worldwide must make it their responsibility to combine >together through computer networks which will link the unions in the >largest 200 companies together. In this way we can act to defend the >workers, protect the environment and the consumers. Unions monitoring >the activities of these companies will be able to shatter their >"Totalitarian Structures", establishing in their place direct >democratic control over decision making processes through worldwide >workers' councils. > >(WNR Editorial 28-4-97) heiko@easynet.co.uk > > > From jlgulick@cats.ucsc.edu Wed Jun 11 12:35:34 1997 From: jlgulick@cats.ucsc.edu id LAA02511; Wed, 11 Jun 1997 11:35:36 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 11:35:30 -0700 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: books on contemporary imperialism Status: RO Dear all, I am a sociology graduate student at the University of California-Santa Cruz and I am teaching a course this summer on the history of world capitalism. I was wondering if any of you out there could recommend an elusive book hot off the presses on the following topic: contemporary imperialist rivalry between the U.S., Japan, and the EC, with references to such phenomena as the Gulf War, Helms-Burton, U.S. sanctions against "rogue states," trade and investment policy w/China, the formation of supra-national currency blocs, the expansion of NATO, disputes in the WTO, and so on. I've been looking for such a comprehensive and theoretically savvy source but haven't found it yet. Whatever help you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Just e-mail me directly. Thanks much in advance, John Gulick Sociology Graduate Program UC-Santa Cruz jlgulick@cats.ucsc.edu From aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu Mon Jun 16 14:35:41 1997 Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 16:35:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Wayne Austin To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: Women are naturally more social. Status: RO List, What transpired a few days ago after a piece of genetic research was released is typical of the way the corporate media treats scientific matters supporting their reactionary agenda. On the basis of a study on Turners syndrome with a very small sample that supposedly supported the theory that women are more social and men are better at taking orders (because men lack that second X chromosome), the media drew all sorts of conclusions, e.g., men were aggressive and authoritarian because of their genetic deficiency in sociability, this defect making them "perfect for their roles as soldiers and football players." You could just hear Gingrich in the background saying to a colleague, "See, told you so, men are adapted to chase giraffes." The only voice of reason was a Harvard professor on the NewsHour who told us the study was insignificant and meant nothing to the "nature-nurture" debate. I haven't looked into this, but you can imagine who funded the research. Peace, Andy From joseph@indigo.ie Mon Jun 16 15:13:33 1997 Mon, 16 Jun 1997 22:13:18 +0100 (BST) Mon, 16 Jun 1997 22:13:10 +0100 (BST) From: "Karl Carlile" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 22:12:20 +0000 Subject: Globalisation (success) Status: RO The following is a recently written article by David Yaffe. Globalisation 2 =============== The politics and economics of globalisation =========================================== Globalisation is an ideological term. It encompasses the frenetic international expansion of capital - an expansion which has had devastating consequences for the majority of humanity. The debate around it, however, has tended to obscure rather than clarify our understanding of the forces at work. In his second article on this subject David Yaffe looks at the politics and economics of globalisation.[1] Among those whose primary concern is for a more competitive and efficiently functioning national capitalist economy, there are diametrically opposite positions concerning the reality of globalisation. The neo-liberal right strongly approves of globalisation and the limited effectiveness of national government intervention. 'A more globalised economy is in many ways a more efficient one' forcing governments to be more careful in handling their economies (The Economist 23 December 1995 - 5 January 1996). The removal of market constraints - free trade and deregulated labour and capital markets - is seen as the only way to increased growth, balanced trade and lower unemployment. At the other pole, with the old social democratic Keynesian strategy no longer viable, former social democrats, concerned to retain some progressive role for a reforming capitalist government, have argued that much talk about globalisation is exaggerated. The notion that there is 'one global, borderless, stateless market' is a myth. 'This global economy needs superintending and policing. Governments can and should co-ordinate their policies to manage it' (Will Hutton The Guardian 17 June 1995). This polarisation is mirrored on the socialist left. On the one side, we are told that there has been an epochal shift in capitalism in which new technology has substantially (irreversibly?) increased the power of capital over labour, fragmenting and even destroying working class organisations, and creating global market forces beyond national government control. Not to recognise these developments 'freezes us in modes and forms of struggle which are effete and ineffectual'(A Sivanandan). On the other side, globalisation is seen as 'an ideological mystification' which 'serves as an excuse for the most complete defeatism and for the abandonment of any kind of anti-capitalist project.' And that, while not denying the impact of new technologies and the destructive effects of deregulation, mass unemployment and growing poverty, we need to look elsewhere for an explanation of the long-term structural crisis of capitalism than in simplistic formulas about 'globalisation'(Ellen Meiksins Wood).[2] Globalisation and national governments ====================================== The policies of national governments in capitalist countries are mainly determined by two important dynamics: the first is the state of the national process of capital accumulation and its relative international strength; the second is the balance of class forces both nationally and internationally. It is of little surprise that the concept of 'globalisation' is being discussed; (1) during a period of stagnating national capital accumulation as excess capital is aggressively exported or deployed speculatively on the stock markets of the world to stave off a profits collapse and (2) following a dramatic shift in the balance of class forces nationally and internationally in favour of capital after the successful counterattack against labour in the 1980s, an attack which highlighted the weakness of working class and socialist forces world-wide. Tony Blair, the new British Labour Prime Minister, was simply giving expression to these realities when he told a conference of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 1995: 'What is called globalisation is changing the nature of the nation state as power becomes more diffuse and borders more porous. Technological change is reducing the power and capacity of government to control its domestic economy free from external influence' (Financial Times 20 March 1996). In effect he is reassuring the dominant sections of British capital with a very strong international presence, that, with domestic capital accumulation stagnating, he will not stand in the way of British capital even if this is at the expense of millions of people in Britain confronting drastic cuts in state welfare and growing impoverishment. On no other basis, given the balance of class forces, could he lead a capitalist government in present day Britain. The neo-liberal Financial Times journalist Martin Wolf reaches similar conclusions about the limited role of national governments in a global economy but plays down the impact of 'globalisation': 'When people write off the end of national economic sovereignty, it is an historically brief era that they lament. It ended not so much under the assault of an external force, the global market, but of an internal one, perceived failure. Governments were bad at much of what they were doing...Globalisation reinforced the limits already imposed by domestic constraints' (Financial Times 18 September 1995). Wolf's attack on the economic role of government again gives ideological expression to the changed needs of capital in today's circumstances. His explanation differs from Blair - they speak to a different constituency - but inevitably they reach the same class standpoint. The 'historically brief era' of state intervention in the capitalist economy after 1945 was the product of unique historical circumstances. First, inter-imperialist rivalry between the major capitalist powers since the beginning of the century had ended, temporarily, with the dominance of US imperialism over the capitalist world economy. This allowed the US economy, facing limited competition, to develop at the expense of other national capitals. Through Marshall Aid and export of capital, the US laid the basis for increasing control of world markets for US capital and a faster rate of capital accumulation at high rates of profit. Britain, with its access to the markets and resources of the British Empire and with little competition from its European rivals, followed in its wake. Second, a change in the balance of class forces in favour of the working class had occurred internationally after the devastation of depression, fascism and two world wars, a change reinforced by the standing of the Soviet Union and the spread of socialist revolutions and independence movements after the war. The restoration of capital accumulation after the war was achieved, therefore, at a political cost to capital. The balance of class forces necessitated this. But it was a cost that, initially in the victorious nations and, later, in the rebuilt European economies, capital could afford. State intervention in the capitalist economy, state welfare and military spending, in these unique circumstances, underpinned the most rapid accumulation of capital ever. But the fundamental contradictions within the capital accumulation process remained. When the rate of profit began to fall and inter-imperialist rivalries re-emerged at beginning of the 1970s, capital accumulation began to stagnate in most capitalist countries. The rising consumption institutionalised in state welfare became a barrier to the further accumulation of capital as high inflation accompanied stagnation in the major capitalist nations. State spending and state welfare had to be cut back. In Britain the first steps were taken by a Labour government a few years before Thatcher came into power. Capital went on the offensive and succeeded in changing the balance of class forces nationally and internationally but the problems within the capital accumulation process remained. State intervention was neither responsible for the post war boom nor the cause of the later stagnation. It was the particular circumstances of the capital accumulation process nationally and internationally which underlay both. Keynesianism and neo-liberalism are no more than ideological reflections of the changing requirements of capital in the two periods. The growing stagnation in the capital accumulation process and the re-emergence of inter-imperialist rivalries were the result of an overaccumulation of capital - insufficient surplus value to secure both the normal profitable expansion of productive capital and to finance the growing state sector together with a rapidly expanding unproductive private sector. The huge increase in the export of capital, the growing monopolisation of capital through mergers, acquisitions and privatisations, the unprecedented autonomy of the financial system from real production alongside the cuts in state welfare, downsizing and outsourcing, mass unemployment and rapidly growing inequality, in short, globalisation, was capital's response. Globalisation, therefore only reinforces the limits imposed by domestic constraints on national government intervention because both result from a stagnating capital accumulation. This is the context in which we can examine the differing class positions on globalisation. Globalisation and class interest ================================ Martin Wolf quite brazenly represents the dominant ruling class interests. As a spokesperson for large capital, he is an unashamed apologist for neo-liberalism. In a recent glowing tribute to globalisation, dismissing all evidence to the contrary, he maintains it has been a force for prosperity in much of the world. 'Globalisation is the great economic event of our era. It defines what governments can - and should do...Technology makes globalisation feasible. Liberalisation is responsible for it happening.' He celebrates its success. From 1970 to 1997 the number of countries removing exchange controls on goods and services increased from 35 to 137. A year ago, more constrained, in an article 'The global economy myth' (Financial Times 13 February 1996),[3] he argued that much of the talk about globalisation was exaggerated and governments on their own or together could do a great deal. Today he has no such reservations. In his latest article 'Global opportunities' he tells us that governments have learned the lessons of experience and have chosen or been forced to open their economies. Running with the tide, he now argues that, on balance, globalisation has gone further than ever before (Financial Times 6 May 1997). New Labour stands for the same ruling class interests. In the run up to the General Election Blair was forever stressing how Labour would accommodate multinational business. Immediately after the election he appointed Sir David Simon, chairman of British Petroleum, as a Minister of Trade and European Competitiveness. BP is accused of collaborating with military death squads in Columbia. Simon will be made a life peer. Almost the first act of the new government was to hand over control of interest rate policy to that bastion of neo-liberalism, the Bank of England. Nevertheless Blair cannot, as Wolf is able to do, conflate the 'can' and 'should' of government policy in relation to a global economy. For Blair is reliant to some degree on the middle class constituency which elected him to power. He will have to reassure the middle classes, as real economic developments threaten their security, that he will do what he can within the constraints imposed by the global economy ('external influence'). He is acceptable to the ruling class because, unlike the discredited and divided Tories, Labour is in a better position, as economic conditions deteriorate, to prevent an alliance against capitalism developing between the poor working class and sections of the middle classes threatened with proletarianisation. Hutton, generally regarded as ideologue for the New Labour Party, deals with the question of globalisation from a different class standpoint. He articulates the fear of the middle classes at what might occur if the New Right (neo-liberal) agenda succeeds. 'If there are no real economic and political choices...the way is open for the return of totalitarian parties of the right and left.' He fears the consequences of social breakdown. Hence his concern to play down the impact of globalisation, arguing that governments can co-ordinate their policies to manage it, to prevent the extreme consequences of an unrestrained market and to create a less degenerate capitalism. The relative prosperity in Britain during the post-war boom gave rise to new privileged sections of the working class - a new middle class. This layer of predominantly educated, salaried, white collar workers grew with the expansion of the state and services sector and, in the more recent period, with the information technology revolution. Sustaining its privileges is the key to social stability in all the major capitalist nations and playing to its prejudices is the necessary condition for political parties to be elected to power. As long as there were sufficient profits from production at home and trade and investment abroad, both to give an adequate return to capital, and to finance state welfare and the growing unproductive private sector, then the social democratic consensus of the post war years could be maintained. It was possible to guarantee the relatively privileged conditions of higher paid workers and the middle classes while sustaining adequate living standards for the mass of the working class. In the new conditions of capital stagnation and growing inter-imperialist rivalries in the middle of the 1970s, this consensus began to break down. The 1974-79 Labour government set monetary targets and cut state spending. The low-paid state sector workers fought back and the 'winter of discontent', 1978/9, drove the higher paid skilled workers and the middle classes into the arms of the Tory Party. Thatcher embraced this new constituency and, as Hutton says, 'the liberal professions, affluent council house tenants, homeowners, all benefited from her tax cuts, credit boom and privatisation programme.' The price was growing inequality as state welfare was cut and millions of working class people were driven into poverty to pay for Thatcher's programme. The privileges of the middle classes could only be preserved at the expense of ever increasing numbers of impoverished working class people. In spite of the revenues from North Sea Oil, productive investment stagnated in Britain, and record amounts of capital were invested abroad. Britain was rapidly becoming a rentier state. With the failure of Thatcher's economic policies at the end of the 1980s and with poverty and inequality rapidly accelerating, inroads began to be made into the standard of living of sections of the middle classes. It is the potentially explosive consequences of this development that drives Hutton. He offers his alternative to 'globalisation', to an unrestrained and deregulated capitalism. First, he says, we must alter the way the British financial system works - essentially from seeking high, liquid, short-term gains, irrespective of location, to giving a long-term commitment to regenerating the productive base of the British economy - a process which, he says, requires a political revolution to take power away from the entrenched 'conservative hegemony'. Britain has to be transformed into a high investment, high growth economy. Second, a coalition supporting social welfare has to be rebuilt. For this to happen the middle classes must opt in, rather than opt out into the privatised provision of the neo-liberal agenda. The middle classes, he argues, can be given 'a vested interest in the entire system' by 'incorporating inequality into the public domain'. A core system for the mass of the working class with the middle classes able to buy in the extra quality services they require - in short 'nationalising inequality' within the state system. However, if the degeneration of capitalism into a parasitic and rentier form is now a necessary trend emerging in all the mature capitalist nations, Hutton's response to globalisation - what I have called the political economy of the new middle class - is both idealist and reactionary.[4] We can now understand the significance of Sivanandan's standpoint. Living in a country where knowledge, culture and politics are dominated by the concerns and prejudices of middle class people; in which the poor and oppressed working class are outside the political process and ignored by the official labour movement; and where social relations seem frozen, repetitive and unchanging, it could appear that an epochal shift has occurred in capitalism and that the socialist project, at least as it is traditionally understood, has to be buried. We note Sivanandan's warning not to underestimate the dangers posed by the so-called 'culture of postmodernism', in a society where '"knowledge workers" who run the Information Society, who are in the engine room of power, have become collaborators in power'. But we respond as materialists. History has not ended. And globalisation, if it is anything, is a sign of the crisis of capitalism, of increasing instability, of rapidly changing circumstances in a world of obscene and growing inequality. Social relations are not fixed. The conditions which spawned a new middle class and turned it into a bedrock of social stability in the imperialist nations after the war have ended. Today it is those privileged conditions which are being threatened. Hutton, at least, recognises this - hence his terrible fear of a return to the extremes of class conflict that dominated the 1930s. Sivanandan is far too preoccupied with the ideological posturing of a small elite of academics and opinion formers caught up with globalisation and beneficiaries of it. Ellen Meiksins Wood develops a number of crucial points in her reply to Sivanandan. Firstly, more giant corporations with a global reach, and more international organisations serving the interests of capital, in no way imply a unified international capitalist class. The 'global' market ensures the 'internationalisation of competition' - a contradictory process. On the one hand it does mean new forms of capitalist integration and co-operation across national boundaries but on the other hand, it also means active competition between national and regional capitalists. 'So the 'global' economy if anything may mean less and not more capitalist unity.' The overall consequence of 'globalisation' far from integrating capital is at least as likely to produce disintegration. Secondly, the proposition that there is an inverse relation between the internationalisation of the economy and the power of the state fails to acknowledge that 'globalisation' presupposes the state. 'The nation-state is the main conduit through which national (or indeed multinational) capital is inserted into the global market.' Transnational capital may be more effective than the old-style military imperialism in penetrating every corner of the world but it accomplishes this, in the main, through the medium of local capital and local states. It may well, ultimately, rely on the military power of the last remaining 'super-power' to sustain the sovereignty of the market. Further, it depends on such local political jurisdictions to maintain the conditions of economic stability and labour discipline which are the conditions for profitable investment. And finally, new kinds of inter-imperialist rivalry will emerge in which the nation state is still the principal agent. >From this she advances her most important political point: the nation state is still the terrain of (class) struggle. 'If the state is the channel through which capital moves in the "globalised" economy, then it is equally the means by which an anti-capitalist force could sever capital's lifeline.' These arguments go a great deal of the way to undermining Sivanandan's position. But there is something lacking. It is perhaps best highlighted in the undue weight Wood gives to the ideological impact of the concept of globalisation as it is commonly understood. 'It is the heaviest albatross around the neck of the left today'. 'In the current conception of globalisation, left joins right in accepting that "There Is No Alternative" - not just to capitalism, but...to a more or less (the right goes for more, the left somewhat less) ruthlessly "flexible" capitalism.' She continues, if their conception of globalisation were an accurate reflection of what was happening in the world today her ideological objections wouldn't count for much and we would have to accept that the socialist project is dead. This is all very true but something more is surely needed. Ideas only become a material force when taken up by the masses. The ideological struggle is of political importance when it falls on fertile ground. In periods when the poor and impoverished working class are outside the political process, the politics of the left, in the main, reflect their class position in capitalist society - as part of the privileged working class or educated white collar and professional workers who form the backbone of the new middle class. The recomposition of the working class as a fighting force against capitalism has to be the product of developments within capitalism itself, it will not be the result of ideological combat alone. This process is already taking place as capitalist governments deregulate labour, attack state welfare, undermine the democratic right to protest and workers' rights to organise, attempt to divide the working class through racism and sexism, and destroy the environment. The ideological struggle has to be combined with the political organisation and defence of those sections of the working class under attack and fighting back. We need to show how developments within capitalism are making this possible. That is why a great deal more is required from the analysis of the latest stage of capitalism to finally lay to rest the ghost of globalisation. The reality of globalisation ============================ It is important not to underestimate the significance of globalisation. It might well be an 'ideological mystification' in the hands of a Martin Wolf or some intellectuals and academics on the political left, but its impact on the economic and political lives of the vast majority of humanity is of great political consequence. To say, as I have argued in my earlier article on globalisation, that 'far from it being new it is a return to those unstable features of capitalism which characterised imperialism before the First World War' is not to dismiss its importance but, on the contrary, to highlight it. It is beginning to create the very conditions which produced those dramatic shocks to the international capitalist economy and which led to the revolutionary developments in the first decades of the twentieth century. So what then are the crucial components of globalisation which suggest these developments. Multinational companies (MNCs)are the principle vehicle of imperialism's drive to redivide the world according to economic power. In 1995 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) outflows increased by a massive 38 per cent to $317bn, with a record $100bn going to Third World countries. That investment is concentrated in three competing power blocs, the 'Triad' of the European Union, Japan and the United States and their regional cluster of countries. 76 per cent of the investment in Third World countries (1993-5) went to only 10 countries. Five imperialist countries, United States, UK, Germany, Japan and France were responsible for almost two-thirds of the total outflows in 1995. The United States ($96bn), UK ($38bn) and Germany ($35bn) all exported record amounts.[5] Most MNCs are nationally based, controlled by national shareholders, and trade and invest multinationally with a large majority of sales and assets in their home country. A recent study showed 70 - 75 per cent value added by multinational companies was produced in the home country. They are highly concentrated. Only 100 MNCs, 0.3 per cent of the total, all from imperialist countries, own one-third ($1.4 trillion) of the total FDI investment stock. The process of concentration continues internationally through mergers and acquisitions. Cross border mergers and acquisitions doubled between 1988 and 1995 to $225bn. Globalisation is devastating the lives of millions of people. Even the World Bank admits that in the case of the ex-Soviet bloc 'transition has relegated an entire generation to economic idleness.' Output in Russia fell by 40 per cent between 1990 -1995 and between 16 and 30 per cent in the other countries. Growth has been falling over the last 15 years in about 100 countries, with almost a third of the world's people, dramatically reducing the incomes of 1.6bn people. The declines are unprecedented, exceeding in duration and sometimes in depth the Great Depression of the 1930s. One billion people, 30 per cent of the world's workforce, are either jobless or unemployed. Even in the imperialist countries 100m people live below the poverty line, 30m are unemployed and more than 5m are homeless.[6] The world is becoming more unstable. $1,230bn a day flows through the foreign exchange markets. Third World Debt, at a record $1,940bn, continues to increase despite massive debt repayment. A formidable $55 trillion is gambled on the world's derivatives market. All the major banks are large players. Barclays, for example, has liabilities of 922bn pounds, more than 80 times its capital base. A crash in the stockmarket will leave them facing huge losses. Growth in world trade halved last year because of a sharp deterioration in the performance of the so-called Asian 'tigers'. The conflict in Zaire has started a new scramble for Africa as inter-imperialist rivalry intensifies. Finally, inequality between rich and poor countries and between rich and poor in all countries has reached unprecedented levels and is still growing. These are not the conditions of an unchanging world. They are one's where the socialist message can once again take root. Throughout the world, from workers in Korea to guerrillas in Mexico, from public sector workers in France to landless peasants in Brazil, people are fighting for change. In Britain new alliances are being built with environmental campaigners taking to the streets to defend dockers in Liverpool. Globalisation is a long-term structural crisis of capitalism. It is laying the ground for turning what Ellen Meiksins Wood calls 'various fragments of opposition' to capitalism into conscious class struggle. References ========== 1 See 'Globalisation: a redivision of the world by imperialism' in Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 131 June/July 1996. 2 These positions appear in 'Capitalism, globalisation, and epochal shifts: an exchange' in Monthly Review Vol 48 No 9 pp19-32. That diametrically opposed positions on the significance of globalisation are held by writers throughout the political spectrum from 'right' to 'left' only adds to the confusion. 3 This was a favourable review of a book by Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson Globalisation in Question Polity Press 1996. Material from this book is used in my earlier article on globalisation. They hold a similar position to that of Hutton above, arguing that 'nation states, and forms of international regulation created and sustained by nation states, still have a fundamental role in providing governance of the economy (p185).' 4 Quotes from Hutton are from his book The State We're In Jonathan Cape 1995. For my review of this book see 'The political economy of the new middle class' in Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 124 April/May 1995. 5 See World Investment Report (WIR) UN 1996 for information. Other figures are taken from my earlier article or earlier WIR reports. 6 Figures from The World Development Report OUP 1996 and The Human Development Report OUP 1996. Yours etc., Karl From asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Mon Jun 16 15:17:57 1997 Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 13:18:33 -0800 From: asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Subject: Re: Women are naturally more social. In-reply-to: To: Andrew Wayne Austin Status: RO Hello Andrew: Interesting research! Please point me the direction of the specific reseach--in which you are discussing. Thanks Andrew On Mon, 16 Jun 1997, Andrew Wayne Austin wrote: > List, > > What transpired a few days ago after a piece of genetic research was > released is typical of the way the corporate media treats scientific > matters supporting their reactionary agenda. On the basis of a study on > Turners syndrome with a very small sample that supposedly supported the > theory that women are more social and men are better at taking orders > (because men lack that second X chromosome), the media drew all sorts of > conclusions, e.g., men were aggressive and authoritarian because of their > genetic deficiency in sociability, this defect making them "perfect for > their roles as soldiers and football players." You could just hear > Gingrich in the background saying to a colleague, "See, told you so, men > are adapted to chase giraffes." The only voice of reason was a Harvard > professor on the NewsHour who told us the study was insignificant and > meant nothing to the "nature-nurture" debate. I haven't looked into this, > but you can imagine who funded the research. > > Peace, > Andy > > > From dlj@inforamp.net Mon Jun 16 15:32:39 1997 by mail.istar.ca with esmtp (Exim 1.62 #10) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 17:32:30 -0400 From: David Lloyd-Jones Reply-To: dlj@pobox.com To: aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu Subject: Re: Women are naturally more social. References: Status: RO A.W. Austin wrote: > List, > > What transpired a few days ago after a piece of genetic research was > released is typical of the way the corporate media treats scientific > matters supporting their reactionary agenda. > . I haven't looked into this, > but you can imagine who funded the research. No, I can't. Capitalists agenda? Hmmm. Bill Gates? Football players? O.J. Simpson? But why are we asked to guess? Is the funding agency hidden in some cranny of the CIA? And if it's as insignificant as the Harvard Prof. sez, how does it get to be a deep dark capitalist plot? Hmm. Veddy puzzling indeed. -dlj. From rkmoore@iol.ie Tue Jun 17 02:19:23 1997 Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 09:19:11 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Re: Globalisation (success) Status: RO 6/16/97, Karl Carlile quoted David Yaffe: >On the one hand it does mean new forms of >capitalist integration and co-operation across national boundaries but >on the other hand, it also means active competition between national >and regional capitalists. 'So the 'global' economy if anything may >mean less and not more capitalist unity.' The overall consequence of >'globalisation' far from integrating capital is at least as likely to >produce disintegration. Perhaps a useful metaphor would be mafia turf behavior, competition among themselves, but only as to who will do the exploiting and over what domain - there's no consumer benefit, so to speak, from the competition. In final analysis, the behavior is likely to be more collaborative than competitive - more about this below. >[Transnational capital] may well, ultimately, rely on the military power >of the last remaining 'super-power' to sustain the sovereignty of the >market. Further, it depends on such local political jurisdictions to >maintain the conditions of economic stability and labour discipline >which are the conditions for profitable investment. And finally, new >kinds of inter-imperialist rivalry will emerge in which the nation >state is still the principal agent. Critical distinctions are glossed over above, and the seemingly cumulative case for the necessity of the strong nation state doesn't hold... Pax-Ameriana is not an argument for the nation-state generally. The US as global enforcer is a unique special case, and the US military is tied to a globalist agenda that bears little relationship to anything that could rightfully be described as domestic national interests. US interests have been redefined (by the CFR, so to speak) to be the interests of globalism, reflecting in fact the interests of the corporate elite that both dominate US politics and are the core instigators/ beneficiaries of globalism itself. The residual role of the nation state generally - as downsizing and deregulation are allowed to run their course - is exemplified where the ravages of globalisation are most advanced - in the Third World. Here we see the future: the role of the nation state is to manage the populace, by police-state tactics if necessary, and to extract tribute (in the form of taxes) to be paid to the corporate overlords as debt servicing or for corporate goods, with as little as possible retained for domestic infrastructure maintenance. With respect to corporations, their policies and their operations, governments are to play laissez-faire. Thus governments are factored out of most of what is going on. The nation state is no longer needed as a fortress home for capitalists - nation-based competitive nationalism died with the postwar era. Competition will be among corporations and kiratsu conglomerates and the world will be the stage. You might have a Tokyo-Berlin-Milan firm fighting for contol over some market with a New York-Paris-London joint-venture - the example may seem frivolous but the point is that the nation state just isn't a natural center of economic gravity anymore. The Seven Sisters were early adaptors to this global paradigm - who can say if Shell is British or Dutch or whatever. Corporations which view global opportunities (both for markets and for partners) without a geographical prejudice will have a clear competitive advantage. Modern corporate rhetoric even says so explicitly, but that shouldn't throw us off, in this case, from believing it. China, like the US, is a unique special case. China _is_ a national-centric economic center - and one far too large for globalism to simply "contain", as it does Cuba. Unless China truly and sincerely kowtows to globalist hegemony, it must inevitably be dealt with by severe military measures. The irresistable force of globalism cannot ignore and will overcome the the immovable object that China currently seems at-heart to be. But once you account for China, and the special role of US/NATO, I don't see a good case for the emergence of "inter-imperialist rivalry...in which the nation state is still the principal agent". The trends and economic-power realities point otherwise. >>From this [Ellen Meiksins Wood] advances her most important political point: >the nation state is still the terrain of (class) struggle. 'If the state is >the channel through which capital moves in the "globalised" economy, then >it is equally the means by which an anti-capitalist force could sever >capital's lifeline.' This raises a very critical issue indeed. Ms. Wood correctly identifies the dual constituencies of the historical nation state - the elite and the people - but she misses the point that this is precisely why the nation state is being consciously and urgently dismantled by the elite. The potential for anti-capitalist forces to exercise the rusty machinery of democracy (as they are trying to do right now in France, with success still quite uncertain) is seen as a direct threat to elite control - Huntington calls it the "crisis of democracy". "We" need the nation state - it is our only feasible channel to political influence. "They" - the elite - got their use, thank you very much, out of the nation state, and they're ready to move on to a modernized WTO replacement of representative government as the administrator of significant global affairs. "They" don't need a strong nation state anymore, and in fact it has become an albatross around their necks. Thus, from the perspective of class strategy - and ironically for the progressive minded - preservation of the nation state and nationalist vitality has become an urgent priority for the survival of civilization's humanist elements. >as I have argued in my earlier article on globalisation, that >'far from it being new it is a return to those unstable features of >capitalism which characterised imperialism before the First World War' >is not to dismiss its importance but, on the contrary, to highlight >it. It is beginning to create the very conditions which produced those >dramatic shocks to the international capitalist economy and which led >to the revolutionary developments in the first decades of the >twentieth century. Karl - do you know where the earlier article is? And do you have an email address for David Yaffe? I want to make his very point (above) in a television documentary I'm working on, and I'd like to talk with him. Thanks for the forward. -rkm From gsswork@uwichill.edu.bb Tue Jun 17 07:34:03 1997 by tropics.uwichill.edu.bb (post.office MTA v2.0 0813 Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 09:37:44 -0300 From: gsswork@uwichill.edu.bb (Dept. of Government, Sociology & Social Work) To: WSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: RE. GLOBALISATION (SUCCESS) Status: RO Yaffe's article on globalisation was quite interesting and along lines with which myself and others have been active (see my recent piece in TWQ Vol.17 No. 5 1996; also see vthe special issue on globalisation in New Political Economy (Feb) 1997). There is room, I believe, for more penetrative critiques of the concept (globalisation) itself. Notwithstanding the insights provided by rkmoore's last post, I am not persuaded that something is fundamentally transforming the deep structural logic of global capitalism. This was not and has not been sufficiently addressed by scholars. The historical constants are still very much with us: core-periphery antinomies; A/B phases of economic expansion and deceleration; ane hegemonic rilvary. The changeover to computer-aided technological processes has brought in its wake a restructuring fervour and imperative to firms, banks, and governments. At a superficial level, one might become dazzled by the revolutions in materials science, engineering and communications, but we ought to be mindful of the resilience of capitalism itself and how heartland technologies such as these act to provide new leases of life to accumulation processes. The penetrative reach of capital today is unambiguosly global, but this does not mean we abandon our historical understanding of capital as an a-spatial phenomenon. Yes there is a lot of hype in the corporate media as neoliberalism is in vogue. But `global---isation' is a neoliberalist imagining, gaining concrete expression in many countries via the recoding of the public order. Governments struggle to legitimise their efforts at privileging market goals over social ones as Keynesian -- both baby and bathwater -- are thrown out! We are in essence witnessing how the term `globalisation' itself has become a sort of new business mantra, an ideology, an organising principle to structure political economies along lines favourable to monopoly and finance capital. The thing here is that some statemanagers and their advisers have been hoodwinked into believing that all-out or a sufficient amount of market reform will automatically lead to improved terms of trade and investment. Only a few as historical capitalism informs us, can and will experience some success at this time. Don D. Marshall (Dr.) Department of Government University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Jun 17 09:43:14 1997 17 Jun 1997 11:42:27 -0400 (EDT) 17 Jun 1997 11:40:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 11:40:02 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Young Researchers Grants] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Status: RO Tue, 17 Jun 1997 11:06:12 -0400 (EDT) Tue, 17 Jun 1997 11:05:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 10:42:38 -0400 From: isa@sis.ucm.es (International Sociological Association) Subject: Young Researchers Grants Apparently-to: chriscd@jhu.edu To: chriscd@jhu.edu Reply-to: isa@sis.ucm.es To: Members of the International Sociological Association From: Guenther Schmaus e-mail: gunther.schmaus@ci.rech.lu Courtesy of Bulletin de Methodologie Sociologique, Paris Subject: TMR Grants - PACO Luxembourg Our institute offers to young researchers the opportunity for training in panel analysis and methodology . This training - while preparing PACO files, working with the data and doing cross-national research - will enable them to acquire fresh knowledge or get deeper knowledge and a wider competence in this rather new field. This kind of training by research is supported by the European Commission in its programme ' Training and Mobility of Researchers' (TMR) through Marie Curie Research Training Grants of different categories. In this scheme researchers will have the opportunity to train, specialize or impart their knowledge in a host centre in another country. In the present case CEPS/INSTEAD will be the host institute. We kindly ask you to propose to us your students or researchers who are interested in panel research and want to be trained (and funded) through this program. The candidates must be younger than 35 years. They should have either just finished their university degree (category 20), or should be PhD students, or researchers with 4 year's full time research activities (category 30). Please propose only students, you consider to be 'good' candidates. The arrangement could be as follows: You will act as their supervisor for their PhD, the main training and research work being done at our centre while the candidates work and live here. The researchers will have the possibility to use our new apartments at the institute. The applicant must define his/her research project (max 3 pages) and complete the individual application forms. You as the referee have to write a scientific assessment of the applicant. We as the host will present the description of the host institute. The application for a research training grant must be submitted by the individual candidate. The relevant deadlines for submissions are: 16. June 1997 or 15. December 1997. Applicants with excellent proposals - and after selection by the Commission - will receive a research training grant with the following components: (a) basic grant which corresponds to the net income of a researcher at the equivalent level of the host country (b) a monthly mobility allowance of 300-400 ECU (c) a flat rate reimbursement of return travel expenses In Luxembourg the indicated monthly take home pay rates will be approx. 1800 ECU for category ' 20' and 2300 ECU for category '30' researchers ( the mobility allowance will be added to this). The grants will be paid for a period of a minimum of six months and a maximum of two years, while for category '20' a one-year extension is possible in exceptional cases. All financial and administrative arrangements between the Commission and the applicant will be made by the host institute. You as partner and supervisor for the candidate, will be free to concentrate on research issues and will not be bothered by financial and administrative tasks related to the grants. More information about TMR Grants can be found at the TMR homepage: http://www.cordis.lu/tmr In our view these TMR grants are an excellent instrument for training young researchers and for fostering comparative panel research on households and individuals in Europe. We kindly ask you to be our partner in this initiative. Please let us have your response as soon as possible because of the next deadline. If you have questions or want to have more detailed information please do not hesitate to contact us. Guenther Schmaus e-mail: gunther.schmaus@ci.rech.lu PACO Project CEPS/INSTEAD B.P.48 L-4501 Differdange/Luxembourg Tel:+352-585855-509/Fax:+352-585560 *** CEPS Homepage: http://www.ceps.lu/index.htm *** From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Jun 17 13:19:46 1997 17 Jun 1997 15:18:29 -0400 (EDT) 17 Jun 1997 15:17:28 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 15:16:42 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: home pages of world-systems scholars To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Status: RO i am upgrading and updating the biographical and bibliographical subdirectories of the World-Systems Archive and i would like to include links to the home pages of world-systems scholars. please send me your home page addresses. to have a look at what is there now go to http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/archive/bios.html the front page of the archive is http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/archive/bios.html chris From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Jun 17 13:20:34 1997 17 Jun 1997 15:19:48 -0400 (EDT) 17 Jun 1997 15:18:56 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 15:18:10 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: correction To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Status: RO the front page of the World-Systems Archive is at http://csf.colorado.edu/wysystems/wsarch.html chris From upf@upf.org Tue Jun 17 14:11:18 1997 From: upf@upf.org Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 15:09:53 -0700 Reply-To: upf@upf.org To: chriscd@jhu.edu Subject: Re: correction References: <33A6E2F2.3A7C@jhu.edu> Status: RO christopher chase-dunn wrote: > > the front page of the World-Systems Archive is at > http://csf.colorado.edu/wysystems/wsarch.html ^ actually, it's http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/wsarch.html Your Friend in Peace, Glen Nuttall -- "Courageous People, United World, Committed Future" United Planetary Federation http://upf.org upf@upf.org "Out of Respect for Diversity comes Recognition of Freedoms and Individual Rights" "In the common interest of a Lasting World Peace through a Federal Democratic Republic" From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Jun 19 12:08:11 1997 19 Jun 1997 14:07:35 -0400 (EDT) 19 Jun 1997 14:06:33 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 14:05:44 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Re: Pacific & Islands V] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Status: RO Wed, 18 Jun 1997 21:46:40 -0400 (EDT) Wed, 18 Jun 1997 21:46:35 -0400 (EDT) by sam.comms.unsw.EDU.AU (8.7.5/8.7.5.kenso-central) 19 Jun 1997 11:46:26 +1000 (EST) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 21:50:52 -0400 From: Grant McCall Subject: Re: Pacific & Islands V In-reply-to: <33A7E719.665D@jhu.edu> To: chriscd@jhu.edu References: Okay, here it is: INTERNATIONAL SMALL ISLANDS STUDIES ASSOCIATION - ISISA Islands V - Small Islands in the Third Millennium - Problems and prospects of island living Mauritius -- 2 to 5 July 1998 ISISA is a voluntary, non-profit and independent organisation, the objectives of which are to study islands on their own terms, and to encourage free scholarly discussion on small island related matters such as islandness, smallness, insularity, dependency, resource management and environment, and the nature of island life. These objectives are pursued by encouraging the networking of small island communities through international communication systems, such as newsletters, journals and the holding of periodic, multi-disciplinary conferences, employing appropriate technologies to achieve these ends. Though ISISA was not officially established until 1992 on the occasion of the "Islands of the World III" conference held in Nassau, Bahamas, a group of scholars and researchers, professionals and others from around the world had met on two previous occasions, in Victoria, B.C., Canada, in 1986 and in Tasmania, in 1988. ISISA met officially for the first time in Okinawa (Japan) June 22-26, 1994. The meeting was sponsored jointly by the INSULA (International Scientific Council for Island Development), International University of Japan, the Okinawa Labor and Economic Research Institute and the Office of the Governor of the Okinawa Prefecture. Topics discussed at this meeting included global networking of island communities, non-nuclearisation of island realms, gender relations in solving socio-economic problems of small islands, island microstates and their prospects, sustainable, environmentally sound agro-ecosystems, the case for more effective utilisation of traditional resources and food-production systems and many other issues concerning the nature of island life, problems and prospects. The members of the Executive Committee of ISISA are as follows: ISISA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Dr. Vina Ram Bidesi Ocean Resources Management Programme, University of the South Pacific, Fiji Dr. Mark Hampton Department of Economics, University of Portsmouth, UK Dr. Teruyuki Higa Department of Economics, Okinawa International University, Naha, Okinawa Dr. Theo Hills President, ISISA, Professor of Geography, McGill University, Canada Dr. Grant McCall Centre for South Pacific Studies, University of New South Wales, Australia Dr. Peter Meincke Institute of Island Studies, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada ISLANDS OF THE WORLD V CONFERENCE will be held in Mauritius, early July 1998 (the dates are yet to be finalised) and is being sponsored by the University of Mauritius, the Mauritius Institute of Education and the Tertiary Education Commission. Dr. Prem Saddul is the ISLANDS V Meeting Coordinator. The major theme of the conference will be Small islands in the third millennium - problems and prospects of island living. Special attention will also be given to the following topics: i) the uncertainties of coastal zones of small islands and the ramifications for coastal peoples, their resources, culture, social life, and economic livelihoods; ii) the sustainability of typical coastal commercial and subsistence activities such as fishing, agriculture and tourism; iii) the effectiveness of regional island groupings for economic purposes; iv) how effectively do small island states explore and exploit the rapidly increasing number of electronic networking systems that have developed in the last decade? (Organiser Dr. Peter Meincke, a member of ISISA executive committee, is the director of UNDP's Small Islands Information Network - SIIN). Dr. K. Yamazato, the first director of the recently established Research Institute for the Subtropics, based in Okinawa, Japan, and a specialist in coral reefs, has been invited to organise a session on "Human and biophysical impacts on small island coral reefs". There will also be a series of workshops in which, in contrast to "sessions", the emphasis will be on instruction or provision of information, more intensive discussion of specific topics. One workshop will deal with remaining problems in expanding the use of electronic networking systems. Another will consider gender relations as an important aspect of developing and maintaining environmentally sustainable small scale, intensive, agroecosystems (tropical gardens). Given that the conference is being held in Mauritius, famous for the extinction of the "dodo", a workshop has also been proposed on the general topic of "Small islands and biodiversity - the balance sheet in the year 2000". Additional or alternative suggestions would be welcome. For further details at this preliminary stage, please contact: ********************************************************************** Theo L. Hills Department of Geography McGill University 805 Sherbrooke St. West Montreal, CANADA H3A 2K6 Tel: (514) 398-4955 Fax: (514) 398-7437 Email: braidwood@felix.geog.mcgill.ca ********************************************************************** From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Jun 19 14:05:18 1997 19 Jun 1997 16:04:16 -0400 (EDT) 19 Jun 1997 16:03:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 16:02:27 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Latin American History Position] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Status: RO Thu, 19 Jun 1997 14:38:58 -0400 (EDT) Thu, 19 Jun 1997 14:36:47 -0400 (EDT) 19 Jun 1997 13:32:46 -0500 (CDT) (POSTOFFICE.MAIL.CORNELL.EDU [132.236.56.7]) by mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu ; Thu, 19 Jun 1997 13:31:55 -0500 (CDT) (CU-DIALUP-1017.CIT.CORNELL.EDU [132.236.155.127]) ; Thu, 19 Jun 1997 14:31:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 14:31:51 -0400 From: Tom Holloway Subject: Latin American History Position Sender: owner-lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu To: Lasnet subscribers Reply-to: thh1@cornell.edu POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT: please distribute as appropriate Latin American History Cornell University seeks to fill a one-year term visiting assistant professorship in Latin American history for calendar 1998 (no Summer duties). To teach two-semester introductory survey course (modern half in Spring semester, beginning January 15, 1998, and colonial half in Fall semester, ending December 22, 1998), plus one other upper level course each semester depending on specialty. Sub-field and regional specialization within Latin American history open. Ph.D expected, record of successful teaching highly desirable. Salary competitive, depending on qualifications. Priority given to applications received by August 15, 1997. Send C.V, letter of application, statement of teaching interests, and letters of reference and/or placement file to Thomas Holloway, Department of History, McGraw Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-4601. AA/EOE. From rkmoore@iol.ie Thu Jun 19 16:39:27 1997 Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 23:38:58 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Globalism - The Outcome Status: RO Over the past month or two I've posted some pieces re/ Huntington, KulturKampf, and the prospects for war with China. That thinking, assisted by feedback from this list and others, resulted in a published article, "China vs. Globalization - the Final War and the Dark Millenium". I'd like to share the last section of that article with wsn, apropos David Yaffe's recently posted essay. rkm ________________________________________________________________ Begin part 3 of 3 - "China vs. Globalization" ________________________________________________________________ Epilog - The global megacorp state ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The current world system, now coming to an end, is an anarchistic (not centrally controlled) one - based on nation states, shifting alliances, imperialism, warfare, and trade. Just as capitalist monopolies constitute the natural final stage of an anarchistic economic system, so political/military monopolies constitute the natural final stage of an anarchistic political system. Thus over the past few centuries, as technology has been knitting a global infrastructure, we've seen ever more powerful empires vying for dominance. At the end of WW II, the system finally reached the stage where a single nation-state had achieved an effective near- monopoly of political/military power, cold-war rhetoric notwithstanding. When a system reaches its final stage, that stage may be stable or unstable. If it is stable (eg ancient Incas and Egypt), then that system may persist until outside events intervene. But if it is unstable, as happened with Rome, then the result will be either degeneration/fragmentation or else the birth of a new organizing principle - a principle strong enough to bind together the elements brought together by the predecessor system - but a principle that adds greater stability. Within the context of the anarchistic nation-state world system, the all-but-implemented final stage is a Global Imperial America. But if such were to be formally instituted, it would be highly unstable. Uncle Sam trying to rule a traditionally-structured world empire would make the Vietnam debacle look like a Sunday picnic. It is a tribute to the acumen (I didn't say wisdom) of our world leaders that they were well aware of this final-stage instability, and that they took effective steps to institute a new organizing principle. Preparations began during WW II (FDR & Churchill's United Nations Declaration) for the first-ever hierarchical world system. Since that time, by means (both overt and covert) of treaty arrangements, economic/political pressures, and military interventions, the US has used its dominant position to guide, bribe, and coerce the world into its current globalist phase. Globalization brings the necessary new organizing principle, a principle stable enough to create and maintain a new world order - at least for a while. The new principle is capitalist/corporate hegemony, and the infrastructure which supports it is the collection of transnational corporations, with their astronomical resources and control of the global economy. To a large extent, the megacorps already are the world system. They operate globally, they directly control global finances and much of the world's economic activity, and they've put together a set of mechanisms (WTO et al) that regulates, on a harmonious collaborative basis, the rules of their collective game. Globalization, at its heart, is the yielding of political sovereignty to this proven corporate system - acknowledging that nation-states have evolved themselves into a historical cul de sac. If the corporate elite can keep the world-system trains running, so to speak, that seems to be preferable, to many, to the uncertain future of nation-state political developments. The price to be paid - disenfranchisement and exploitation of the citizenry - is not clearly marked on the price tag of globalization. As the price becomes widely evident - as it already is in the Third World - instability will arise from citizen unrest. Police-state structures are being rapidly implemented (more about this later) to contain such unrest in the First World, and have already been deployed in the Third World. Meanwhile, the soporific mind-control mass media carries the primary burden of population control. The transition to megacorp rule is being accomplished in the First World by the dismantlement of national infrastructures, the bankrupting of governments, and the imposition of treaties which officially grant authority over the world's major economic and trade (and other) policies to corporate-dominated commissions (WTO et al). This transition program was launched in the early 1980's by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, acting as crowd-pleasing standard bearers for the corporate-sponsored agenda. With the rhetorical flags of "efficiency" and "reform" flying high, the wheels were set in motion for dismantlement (privatization and program cutbacks), bankruptcy (corporate tax cuts and reckless borrowing), and transfer of social and economic sovereignty ("free trade" and GATT). This program is rapidly spreading, with occasional temporary setbacks, from its original US-UK base to the other leading Western nations. In most of the Third World, corporate domination has been a fact of life for some time. Over the past several years the IMF, using as leverage the immense Third-World debt burden, has been increasingly assuming the authority to dictate, at a micro level, economic and social policies in Third World nations. In India, for example, many public officials take their instructions directly from the international commissions, rather than bothering to go through the central government at all. The transition program for First-World nations, as outlined above, has the effect of downgrading the First World to Third-World status. By ceding control of their own infrastructure (privatization), by undertaking unmanageable levels of debt, and by subscribing to disempowering treaties, First World nations are voluntarily caging themselves into a permanently weakened position. Regardless of which future governments might be elected, and regardless of what agendas they might espouse, First World nations will find themselves as powerless to overrule the dictates of the corporate commissions as do Third-World nations today. Already the commissions, and the corporations which they serve, are beginning to lay down the law to the First World. The WTO just this month overruled the EU's ban on US hormone-treated beef, and the Ethyl Corporation is using the NAFTA agreement to sue Canada for $251 million over a new Canadian environmental law. Earlier a Canadian no-fault insurance law was repealed, in preference to defending against expensive litigation by a US insurance firm. Under the guise of "free trade," we can expect domestic social, economic, and environmental polices to be increasingly dictated to the First World by the new globalist regime, as has already become commonplace in the Third World. The policy agenda of the WTO, therefore, should be of serious concern to citizens everywhere, given that it is the agenda they'll be living under. That agenda is being determined totally un- democratically - the membership of the commissions is dominated by megacorp representatives - and is being drawn up outside of public view. The agenda is not entirely secret, however, and what is known about it is more than a little alarming. A highlight or two from this agenda will serve to illustrate the magnitude of the problem. The Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), for example, is taking charge of worldwide food and drug regulations. We learn from the FDA's world-wide-web site that "Since its inception, Codex has developed in excess of 200 Commodity Standards, more than 40 codes and guidelines, about 2,500 pesticide/commodity maximum limits, and has reviewed the safety of over 500 food additives and contaminants." Codex is dominated by the largest pharmaceutical companies, and it is their profit interests that will determine - without any meaningful review - the health and safety of all of us. Among the radical measures being pursued by Codex is the outlawing worldwide of all non-prescription vitamins and health products. Scott Nova and Michelle Sforza-Roderick of Preamble Center for Public Policy, Washington, D.C., describe the work of another commission: "Virtually unreported, the latest and potentially most dangerous of these agreements is now under negotiation at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The purpose of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), as the proposed pact is known, is to grant transnational investors the unrestricted 'right' to buy, sell and move businesses, and other assets, wherever they want, whenever they want. To achieve this goal, the MAI would ban a wide range of regulatory laws now in force around the globe and preempt future efforts to hold transnational corporations and investors accountable to the public. The agreement's backers (the United States and the European Union) intend to seek assent from the 29 industrial countries that comprise the OECD and then push the new accord on the developing world." The scope of the issues being addressed, the radical nature of the policies being adopted, and the pace of the proceedings should, by rights, make the work of these commissions one of the hottest news stories of the day. But the story shows up not on the front page, but, if at all, in the business pages. The commissions have no need to build public constituencies for their endeavors, since they are outside the province of democratic process, hence the corporate mass media has no reason to inform the public about what's going on. Similarly, as the elite-controlled multinational force takes over control of international affairs, the media has recently announced a planned reduction in coverage of international news. Purportedly reflecting changes in viewer preferences, the reduced coverage can more reasonably be taken as a verification of the fact that military interventions are now to be decided above the level national governments, and that popular rabble-rousing for such activity will no longer be required. What I'm describing, in case it's not apparent, is the death of democracy. After a brief two-centuries of existence, democracy is being superceded by a corporate variety of neo-feudalism. Weakened and subservient nation-states are becoming hardly more than fiefdoms, whose governments have little role other than to keep the population in line and extract tribute (personal taxes) to be passed on to the corporate overlords as repayment of debt. All foreign policy and activity, and most domestic policy and activity, is to be managed offline from the democratic process by the lords of the manor - corporations and their representative agencies. The democratic institutions themselves may continue to exist, with elections, legislatures, courts, etc., but the governments are being disempowered, and the whole notion of meaningful popular sovereignty via representative democracy is rapidly becoming only a nostalgic memory. Thus the anarchistic nation-state world system is being replaced by a hierarchical world system with the WTO et al at the apex of the social and economic power pyramid, and the US-NATO axis at the apex of the military power pyramid - both controlled by the same elite corporate interests. This leaves us, however, with an anarchistic economic system. To be sure the WTO et al lay down the ground rules as a central authority, but the operating economy itself - who owns what, which development projects are to be undertaken, whether beans or corn will be planted, who will merge with whom, etc. - is an anarchistic competitive game. The endgame of this economic scenario is readily predictable from numerous historical precedents: a small number of monopoly operators will emerge and dominate each industry and market. Just as competitive nationalism leads ultimately, as we have seen, to a single dominant clique, so does unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism lead ultimately to fraternities of monopoly operators. The classic example, of course, is the Seven-Sisters gang of major oil companies - transnationals long before their time. More recently we've seen a dramatic spate of mega-mergers in the media and communications industries - creating whole new merged-industry categories of commerce. One could also mention the airline industry, retail food chains, book sellers, discount bulk-shopping chains, and many others. The advantages of scale - not only cost savings but the ability to control markets and pressure suppliers - are so overwhelming that large monopolies do inevitably form, force the development of similar competitors, and drive everyone else into marginal market niches. This is a familiar pattern. It ran rampant in the latter half of the nineteenth century, leading not only to extreme wealth and power concentration, but also to wide-scale corruption and chronic economic instability, signalled by frequent and severe depressions. The lesson became clear to everyone at the time that capitalism's invisible hand works best if government creates a level playing field and forces competition on the markets. The regulations which evolved from that hard-earned lesson, and which succeeded in stabilizing Western economies, are the very regulations which are being wholesale abandoned as part of the globalization process. History is being totally ignored, while "market forces" is being touted as a brave new idea, whose beneficent economic efficacy should be self-evident to all - a blatant example of Orwellian historical revisionism, accomplished by omission. The disenfranchisement, exploitation, and instability that is in store for everyone is bound to lead, as noted earlier, to chronic social unrest in the First World as well as the Third. In the meantime, social services, unemployment, infrastructure maintenance, and crime have all been greatly worsened by the intentional bankrupting of governments. Already we've seen massive protests of globalist measures in the First World, including Australia, France, and Germany. This prognosis for the future may appear speculative and perhaps even surprising to some readers, but it has been understood for some time by those pushing globalism. In preparation for containing the expected increase in social unrest, there has been a decades-long concerted campaign to appropriately re-invent law enforcement across a broad front: more prisons, mandatory sentences, paramilitary police forces, significantly reduced civil protections, increasingly arbitrary conspiracy laws, diminished right to trial by jury, routine surveillance of persons, transactions, and communications, and, last but not least, the development of a prison-labor industry. Not only can a greater quantity of troublesome individuals be processed by these modernized crime-management systems, not only can those individuals be put to profitable use while incarcerated, and not only does the criminal justice system drive a profitable industry in its own right, but the new enforcement regime is particularly well designed to monitor and disband any politically- oriented organization that might threaten to rouse the population in protest to its disenfranchised, serf-like status. It has been a testament to the effectiveness of media spin-masters that this wholesale installation of a police state - a globalist trend being led as usual by the US and UK - has been largely a stealth affair. Under cover of the mania over drugs, crime, and terrorism, the various repressive measures have been adopted one after the other, each time with debate - and hence public awareness - stifled by some media-linked crime or act of terrorism that was receiving intense news coverage at the time. One need only recall the Oklahoma bombing and how that event helped rush through the far- reaching Anti Terrorism Bill, or the World Trade Center bombing and the new precedents set there for conspiracy convictions, or the TWA 800 crash and the invasive airport security measures that were promptly adopted. The point is not that the problems of crime, etc., aren't real - it's that the "solutions" don't solve the problems, couldn't reasonably be expected to solve the problems, and have "collateral" consequences that move us systematically toward a police state. This process may appear to be a case of incremental, if faulty, responses to difficult problems - indeed it's been designed to appear that way - but it has been in fact the very preparation - and none too soon - necessary to manage popular unrest under the rapidly foreclosing globalist regime. This then is the overall picture of our globalist future: nations - possibly devolved in size - reduced to police-state, tax-collecting fiefdoms, paying tribute to outside-the-law corporate overlords - who in the meantime are organizing themselves into global monopolies while they operate the world's affairs. One is reminded of the evidently prophetic visions of such futuristic films as Rollerball and Blade Runner, with their haunting images of megacorp splendor contrasted with social squalor, repressive police, and political bankruptcy. If at a future time some nation might decide to re-assert its sovereignty through repudiation of treaties and debts and the expropriation of corporate facilities, then the multilateral force can make short shrift of such boldness, much as the US has done for decades in Latin America. That which globalism joins together, none may dare set asunder. There's a proud array of soldiers - what do they round your door? They guard our master's granaries from the thin hands of the poor. Lady Jane Wilde (1826-96): The Famine Years It is perhaps ironic that the final end of major warfare - an achievement right-thinking people for centuries have yearned for - seems destined to usher in an ominous new Dark Millennium. Be careful what you ask for, warned the sage, you might get more than you bargained for. So true. But there is a ray of hope: corporate globalism is not the only possible future. It is not mandated by natural forces - media propaganda notwithstanding - but is the intentional result of think-tank research, elite planning, and corporate political activism. For a few years yet - very few - democratic institutions may retain enough power that an aroused citizenry could achieve political ascendency in their several nations in time to moderate the plunge into a global laissez-faire corporatist regime. The time is running short for political movements of sufficient breadth and vision to emerge from the sea of vague dissatisfaction and provide a focus for citizen awakening. Any potential leaders and organizers who want to make a difference had better focus on the Main Problem and seek, with others, to form broad, inclusive, coalition movements around reclaiming democracy, reasserting national sovereignty, and restructuring the relationship (tax and regulatory) between governments and corporations. ...Can't add my name into the fight when I'm gone And I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone And I can't question how or when or why when I'm gone Can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here. Phil Ochs: When I'm Gone ________________________________________________________________ End - "China vs. Globalization" ________________________________________________________________ ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Richard K. Moore - rkmoore@iol.ie - PO Box 26 Wexford, Ireland Cyberlib: ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore/cyberlib | (USA Citizen) * Non-commercial republication encouraged - Please include this sig * * Please Cc: rkmoore@iol.ie directly on forwards & replies * ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Thu Jun 19 16:45:54 1997 19 Jun 1997 17:45:52 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 17:45:52 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: WSN & Buddhism To: Network World-Systems Status: RO WSNers, I'm in Honolulu at the East-West center for an institute on SE Asian cultures. In ne of those all too common conversations, someone asked had any one ever looked at parallels between wst & Buddhism--not in the sense of WST as a religion, but in the sense of systems and levels of analysis. Anyone every seen/heard of anyone doing something like that? If so I'd appreciate the ref(s) and I will forward to my colleague here. thanks 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 HOME PAGE: http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm From wwagar@binghamton.edu Fri Jun 20 09:27:44 1997 From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 11:29:07 -0400 (EDT) To: "Richard K. Moore" Subject: Re: Globalism - The Outcome In-Reply-To: Status: RO Dear Richard Moore, Thanks for your guide to the Dark Millennium. You have its dynamics and its contours right--if all proceeds according to the internal politico-economic logic of the current phase of global history. Of course it could be a darker millennium than even you think--if we factor in a spasm or two of illogic. The "final end of major warfare"? Maybe. Warren Wagar From joseph@indigo.ie Fri Jun 20 16:16:36 1997 Fri, 20 Jun 1997 23:16:22 +0100 (BST) Fri, 20 Jun 1997 23:16:20 +0100 (BST) From: "Karl Carlile" To: marxism-international@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 23:15:42 +0000 Subject: Yaffe1 Status: RO KARL CARLILE: Hopefully attached is David Yaffe's first article on globalisation. Yours etc., Karl From joseph@indigo.ie Fri Jun 20 16:16:41 1997 Fri, 20 Jun 1997 23:16:37 +0100 (BST) Fri, 20 Jun 1997 23:16:35 +0100 (BST) From: "Karl Carlile" To: aut-op-sy@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 23:15:42 +0000 Subject: Globalisation&Yaffe Status: RO KARL CARLILE: Below is a short off the cuff comment on what I believe is a principal feature of this article on Dvid yaffe's article on globalisation which I made accessible on the list. DAVID YAFFE: The policies of national governments in capitalist countries are mainly determined by two important dynamics: the first is the state of the national process of capital accumulation and its rel ative international strength; the second is the balance of class forces both nationally and internationally. It is of little surprise that the concept of 'globalisation' is being discussed; (1) durin g a period of stagnating national capital accumulation as excess capital is aggressively exported or deployed speculatively on the stock markets of the world to stave off a profits collapse and (2) f ollowing a dramatic shift in the balance of class forces nationally and internationally in favour of capital after the successful counterattack against labour in the 1980s, an attack which highlighte d the weakness of working class and socialist forces world- wide. KARL: I want to say, in passing, that the above analysis suggests that the process of the accumulation of capital in a given country is primarily national. Implicit in this thesis is a nationalist id eology with all its reactionary implications. Not unrelated to the above mistaken understanding of how capital accumulates your above piece also suggests that the accumulation process in any given country is an independent process that simply fo llows its own immanent process of regulation. Consequently any accumulation difficulties are due to the immanent logic of this process. What is not recognised here is that the process of accumulatio n of capital in a particular country and indeed globally is a process that proceeds in a modified or even distorted way. It is a process that is modified or adulterated by the statal system. This sys tem prevents the laws of capital from operating freely. Consequently accumulation difficulties are unable to freely resolve themselves in a dialectical way that is immanent to the accumulation proces s itself such as cyclical crises. In short the accumulation process cannot not be looked at as if something that operates in an independent form with the state simply tacked on like the proverbial mo nkey on one's back. In many ways the primary difficulty facing capital is the modified, distorted and restricted form in which capital accumulates because of the inextricable interweaving of capital and state. The two a re inextricably interwoven with each other and can be only separated within an analytical context. The world statal system is entangled in capital in order to protect capital from itself. In short its entanglement exists for political reasons. If capital were to operate freely according to the logic of the law of value it would result in the revolutionising of the contemporary social system le ading to an unprecedented massive restructuring of capitalism both internally among the bourgeoisie and in its relationship to the working class. Capitalism is neither strong nor confident enough to allow the law of value to operate in such an unadulterated fashion in the face of the potential threat posed by the world working class. To resolve its deep-seated profitability problems, however, ca pital needs to be able to follow its own immanent logic. This is not to say that there will not be future circumstances in which it may be compelled to allow the law of value to proceed virtually un obstructed. The state strives to straddle two contradictory courses. It seeks to constrain the laws of capital while contradictorily permitting their (relative) liberalisation. The establishment of the EU and NA FTA is evidence of this contradictory process. This contradictory strategy entails a finely tuned balancing act which, as I have already said, throws up a variegated manifold of social contradictions which give modern capitalism its perplexing and confusing character. Greetings, Karl Yours etc., Karl From joseph@indigo.ie Sat Jun 21 02:06:43 1997 for ; Sat, 21 Jun 1997 09:06:39 +0100 (BST) for ; Sat, 21 Jun 1997 09:06:37 +0100 (BST) From: "Karl Carlile" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 09:06:10 +0000 Subject: Globalisation&Yaffe Status: RO KARL CARLILE: Below is a short off the cuff comment on what I believe is a principal feature of this article on Dvid yaffe's article on globalisation which I made accessible on the list. DAVID YAFFE: The policies of national governments in capitalist countries are mainly determined by two important dynamics: the first is the state of the national process of capital accumulation and its rel ative international strength; the second is the balance of class forces both nationally and internationally. It is of little surprise that the concept of 'globalisation' is being discussed; (1) durin g a period of stagnating national capital accumulation as excess capital is aggressively exported or deployed speculatively on the stock markets of the world to stave off a profits collapse and (2) f ollowing a dramatic shift in the balance of class forces nationally and internationally in favour of capital after the successful counterattack against labour in the 1980s, an attack which highlighte d the weakness of working class and socialist forces world- wide. KARL: I want to say, in passing, that the above analysis suggests that the process of the accumulation of capital in a given country is primarily national. Implicit in this thesis is a nationalist id eology with all its reactionary implications. Not unrelated to the above mistaken understanding of how capital accumulates your above piece also suggests that the accumulation process in any given country is an independent process that simply fo llows its own immanent process of regulation. Consequently any accumulation difficulties are due to the immanent logic of this process. What is not recognised here is that the process of accumulatio n of capital in a particular country and indeed globally is a process that proceeds in a modified or even distorted way. It is a process that is modified or adulterated by the statal system. This sys tem prevents the laws of capital from operating freely. Consequently accumulation difficulties are unable to freely resolve themselves in a dialectical way that is immanent to the accumulation proces s itself such as cyclical crises. In short the accumulation process cannot not be looked at as if something that operates in an independent form with the state simply tacked on like the proverbial mo nkey on one's back. In many ways the primary difficulty facing capital is the modified, distorted and restricted form in which capital accumulates because of the inextricable interweaving of capital and state. The two a re inextricably interwoven with each other and can be only separated within an analytical context. The world statal system is entangled in capital in order to protect capital from itself. In short its entanglement exists for political reasons. If capital were to operate freely according to the logic of the law of value it would result in the revolutionising of the contemporary social system le ading to an unprecedented massive restructuring of capitalism both internally among the bourgeoisie and in its relationship to the working class. Capitalism is neither strong nor confident enough to allow the law of value to operate in such an unadulterated fashion in the face of the potential threat posed by the world working class. To resolve its deep-seated profitability problems, however, ca pital needs to be able to follow its own immanent logic. This is not to say that there will not be future circumstances in which it may be compelled to allow the law of value to proceed virtually un obstructed. The state strives to straddle two contradictory courses. It seeks to constrain the laws of capital while contradictorily permitting their (relative) liberalisation. The establishment of the EU and NA FTA is evidence of this contradictory process. This contradictory strategy entails a finely tuned balancing act which, as I have already said, throws up a variegated manifold of social contradictions which give modern capitalism its perplexing and confusing character. Greetings, Karl Yours etc., Karl --- from list aut-op-sy@lists.village.virginia.edu --- Yours etc., Karl From joseph@indigo.ie Sun Jun 22 04:36:04 1997 for ; Sun, 22 Jun 1997 11:35:59 +0100 (BST) for ; Sun, 22 Jun 1997 11:35:56 +0100 (BST) From: "Karl Carlile" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 11:34:32 +0000 Subject: fascism&freespeech Status: RO KARL: Just a while ago I had a discussion with some people from the radical left concerning fascism. They were of the view that the Left should fight for the denial of free speech to fascists. Basically I argued that it is politically incorrect for revolutionary socialism (which is virtually non-existent) under present conditions fight for the denial of free speech to fascists in public places or in acadmeci institutions etc. Yours etc., Karl From dgrammen@prairienet.org Sun Jun 22 08:23:35 1997 Sun, 22 Jun 1997 09:16:36 -0500 (CDT) Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 09:16:36 -0500 (CDT) From: Dennis Grammenos Subject: Re: fascism&freespeech To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Status: RO On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, Karl Carlile wrote: > KARL: Just a while ago I had a discussion with some people from the > radical left concerning fascism. They were of the view that the Left > should fight for the denial of free speech to fascists. > Basically I argued that it is politically incorrect for > revolutionary socialism (which is virtually non-existent) under > present conditions fight for the denial of free speech to fascists in > public places or in acadmeci institutions etc. Although I am rather ambivalent on whether fascists should be silenced, I reject the usual bourgeois platitudes about "freedom of speech." What is freedom of speech? More importantly for WHOM is freedom of speech? It is a chimera hoisted by the bourgoisie to lend moral legitimacy to their asphyxiating control over the means and modes of communication. Freedom of speech is for those who can afford it, not for the masses that are tossed the leftovers and are regaled with tales of freedoms they can barely sniff let alone taste. The line they feed us with is that "there are always two sides to a story," or "one must be fair," or "one should be balanced," blah, blah, blah... Oddly enough, such principles never apply to the dominant discourse they force-feed us with! Word, Dennis Grammenos _______________________________________________________ | Dennis Grammenos dgrammen@prairienet.org | | Departments of Geography | | & Russian and East European Studies | | University of Illinois Phone:(217) 333-1880 | | Urbana, Il 61801 Fax: (217) 244-1785 | ------------------------------------------------------- From joseph@indigo.ie Sun Jun 22 08:26:44 1997 for ; Sun, 22 Jun 1997 15:26:41 +0100 (BST) for ; Sun, 22 Jun 1997 11:36:13 +0100 (BST) From: "Karl Carlile" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 11:34:32 +0000 Subject: Sartre............ Status: RO KARL: My view is that the philosophy of Sartre was in some respects of value in terms of understanding the natur e of social being. It is my opinion that some of the thought of the earlier and later Sartre was of some value. However a lot of what he wrote is highly questionable in temrs of making a contribution to his thought. A browse through his conversations with Somone de Beauvoir indicates the great extent to which he and she could come out with drivel. Well................................ Yours etc., Karl From dlj@inforamp.net Sun Jun 22 09:03:38 1997 by mail.istar.ca with esmtp (Exim 1.62 #10) Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 11:01:57 -0400 From: David Lloyd-Jones Reply-To: dlj@pobox.com To: dgrammen@prairienet.org Subject: Re: fascism&freespeech References: Status: RO Dennis Grammenos wrote: > Although I am rather ambivalent on whether fascists should be > silenced, I reject the usual bourgeois platitudes about "freedom of > speech." > > What is freedom of speech? > More importantly for WHOM is freedom of speech? > > It is a chimera hoisted by the bourgoisie to lend moral legitimacy to > their asphyxiating control over the means and modes of communication. At this point I get a little uncomfortable. If there is a single badge of membership in the bourgeoisie, I would have thought that the ability to post a computer message might be it. Still, Dennis might be striving for something higher than the interests of his class, so I soldier on. > Freedom of speech is for those who can afford it, not for the masses > that > are tossed the leftovers and are regaled with tales of freedoms they > can > barely sniff let alone taste. A bit more of the same discomfort: clearly he is one of the ones who can afford it. Look, here I am reading his screed, internationally distributed yet. > The line they feed us with is that "there are always two sides to a > story," or "one must be fair," or "one should be balanced," blah, > blah, > blah... "They"!! Who is this "they"? It doesn't really matter. Here's the important point, to my mind: thereis no pretence that Dennis is a bourgeois looking to something better. Rather there is the outright denial that he is. I'm sorry, but this looks like a lie to me -- and a pretentious one which is extraordinarily common among self-styled leftists. I say "self-styled"because I don't see how you can build a left on foundations of pretence and dishonesty. These are the tools of privilege, not of egalitarianism. > Oddly enough, such principles never apply to the dominant discourse > they > force-feed us with! "Force-feed" he says. From his signature it looks like the guy is a teacher, fer crying in the beer! -dlj. From aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu Sun Jun 22 12:54:07 1997 Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 14:54:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Wayne Austin To: Karl Carlile Subject: Re: fascism&freespeech Status: RO List, (1) Following Chomsky's argument, if you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech precisely for those views which you find abhorrent and are oppose to. Freedom of speech would be a non-issue if we all agreed. (2) If you silence fascists publically, then they move below ground, put on suits, employ crafty euphemisms. You do not silence fascism; you simply make it harder to detect fascists. I want fascists screaming as loudly as possible. I want to know right where they are, preferably at all times. I want Nazis with their SS pins on, goosestepping and waving swastikas, right down mainstreet, where I can get a good look at their faces. I want to get to know them. (3) How can you refute fascist ideas, if you don't engage the debate? (4) The US government forbade communists to speak of their ideas. Communists were imprisoned, not for any deed, but what for they thought and wrote about. Mussolini imprisoned Antonio Gramsci because of Gramsci's ideas. The judge that sentenced Gramsci said "We have to stop this mind from working for 20 years." I regard these actions as deplorable and the sign a society that is not free. Why would those opposed to capitalism and fascism seek the same actions? When an individual on this channel argued that freedom of speech was a bourgeois right, that it did not extend to those whose views were outside the limits of bourgeois thought, I contemplated how one might differentiate a proletarian right if it produced the same effect as a bourgeois one. I can't think of how this might be accomplished. I am open to persuasion on this matter, however. Nobody is stopping you from convincing me. (5) Would somebody oppose fascist ideology if it were discussed by anti-fascists? Or do we only repress fascists who speak on fascism? I have written publically on the issue of fascism. Is this to be permitted? Whatever happened to "know thine enemy"? (6) Fascism is authoritarian capitalism. Trying to sanitize capitalism does the struggle for freedom and democracy no good at all. I recognize class struggle and class consciousness. I am deeply committed to the goals of socialist society and I committed to socialist values. But on matter of free speech, I am an anarchist. No question about it. Let Nazis talk. If they do more than talk, pull the trigger. It's self-defense. Love, Andy Austin From joseph@indigo.ie Sun Jun 22 16:40:14 1997 Sun, 22 Jun 1997 23:40:06 +0100 (BST) Sun, 22 Jun 1997 23:40:00 +0100 (BST) From: "Karl Carlile" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 23:39:28 +0000 Subject: Re: fascism&freespeech Status: RO KARL: Hi Andy! I think you missed the entire point of my posting on fascism and free speech. When I said that it is politically correct not to deny fascism the right of free speech it was in a tactical and strategic context that this was meant. You misunderstood me, I suspect, to mean that fascists are not to be denied free speech within the context of an some eternal moral paradigm going back to Cromagnon and beyond to Neanderthalia. I can visualise you Andy ostentatiously and proudly displaying a placard calling for Free speech for nearderthals. For me, as I just intimated, the question of supporting the right of free speech for fascists is a political one entailing tactical and strategic considerations. ANDY: Following Chomsky's argument, if you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech precisely for those views which you find abhorrent and are oppose to. Freedom of speech would be a non-issue if we all agreed. KARL: Given the above views of yours can we then conclude that within the context of a social revolution fascists have the right to free speech even if that speech is helping to mobilise considerable reactionary support that may eventually threaten the social revolution. Given that social revolution entails violent conflict between the forces of socialism and the forces of capitalism is free speech not to be denied to the latter (including fascists). Does this mean that in the violence of the class war we may direct our fire power at the forces of capitalism while not denying them free speech. ANDY: If you silence fascists publically, then they move below ground, put on suits, employ crafty euphemisms. KARL: The denial of free speech to fascist has as its aim the elimination of the osurce of fascism which is capitlaism. Its aim is not the silencing of fascism. Every mongrel in the street knows that fascism is not silenced by the denial of free speech. The fight against free speech for fascism is simply one individual layer in the fight against fascism's source, capitalism. ANDY: You do not silence fascism;you simply make it harder to detect fascists. I want fascists screaming as loudly as possible. I want to know right where they are, preferably at all times. KARL: Surely the profession of the revolutionary is not the profession of the private detective. Why do you want to know where the fascist are at all times? Is it to gaze at them all the more, particularly if they are of female gender (forgive the possibly implicit sexism here. I just couldn't resist it Andy.) Surely commies seek to achieve socialism rather than engage in mere voyeuristic exercses. ANDY: I want (female) Nazis with their SS pins on, goosestepping and waving swastikas, right down mainstreet, where I can get a good look at their faces. I want to get to know them. (Brackets mine). KARL: You kinky thing Andy! ANd your into faces too. My aren't you a big stud! By this stage they may "goosesteppping... down the mainstreet" past your house into government buildings after seriously beating you up for taking "a good look at their faces". ANDY: How can you refute fascist ideas, if you don't engage the debate? KARL: You seem to forget that the struggle for socialism is not tantamount to some petty bourgeois debating society with its standing orders et alia but a concrete class struggle entailing theory, debate, organisation, strikes armed action etc. Fascist ideas are ultimately refuted at the bayonet points of working class revolutionary militias. ANDREW: The US government forbade communists to speak of their ideas. Communists were imprisoned, not for any deed, but what for they thought and wrote about. Mussolini imprisoned Antonio Gramsci because of Gramsci's ideas. The judge that sentenced Gramsci said "We have to stop this mind from working for 20 years." I regard these actions as deplorable and the sign a society that is not free. Why would those opposed to capitalism and fascism seek the same actions? KARL: These communists (for the most part probably stalinists rather than commies, even so...) were denied free speech because there is a really a phenomenon called the class struggle. They were denied free speech because "communists" are potentially or actually a threat to the system. Free speech is only a (tactical) means by which the bourgeoisie maintain, develop and stabilise capitalist relations. It does not exist because the bourgeoisie believe in some absolute eternal moral values. If this were the case then there might be some argument for supporting the perpetuation of capitalism. Andy: Fascism is authoritarian capitalism. Trying to sanitize capitalism does the struggle for freedom and democracy no good at all. KARL: If commies support the denial of free speech to fascists it is not because they, as you claim, seek "to sanitize capitalism " but because they seek to overthrow it. Hardnosed commies, like myself, are not of the species that when you scratch its surface you find an all-purpose liberal underneath. ANDY: No question about it. Let Nazis talk. If they do more than talk, pull the trigger. It's self-defense. KARL: By then Andy they may have pulled the trigger on you. Surely if the fascists going to pull the trigger, obviously you are being horribly euphemistic here, then you anticipate this by forestalling their actions. To conclude: Ultimately an anti-fascist struggle centres around the aboliton of the source of all fascism which is capitalism. The only real way to defeat fascism is by defeating capitalism. It is in this context that the support or denial of free speech to fascists must be viewed which is why it is no more than a tactical or strategic issue. It is not, as some lefties mistakenly believe, an absolute question of either invariable support or denial of free speech for fascists. Transcendental absolutes, such as these, revolutionaries leave to scholastics. From dgrammen@prairienet.org Sun Jun 22 16:50:44 1997 Sun, 22 Jun 1997 17:43:47 -0500 (CDT) Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 17:43:47 -0500 (CDT) From: Dennis Grammenos Subject: Re: fascism&freespeech To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK In-Reply-To: <33AD3E64.1F4AAB6C@inforamp.net> Status: RO On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, David Lloyd-Jones wrote: dlj> At this point I get a little uncomfortable. If there is a single dlj> badge of membership in the bourgeoisie, I would have thought that dlj> the ability to post a computer message might be it. The ability to post a computer message may or may not signal one's class background. This is becoming more and more obvious as people of working class background are starting to get some access to the net. dlj> "Force-feed" he says. From his signature it looks like the guy dlj> is a teacher, fer crying in the beer! Actually, I am a very poor grad student from a peasant background. Silly me, when I saw your message I thought you would have something constructive to share with me (and the 4-5 people that might be tuned in). Instead I find that you get your kicks from ad hominem attacks. Oh, well! Dennis Grammenos From rkmoore@iol.ie Sun Jun 22 17:49:54 1997 Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 00:49:39 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Re: fascism & free speech Status: RO 6/22/97, Karl Carlile wrote: >Just a while ago I had a discussion with some people from the >radical left concerning fascism. They were of the view that the Left >should fight for the denial of free speech to fascists. and Dennis Grammenos wrote: >Freedom of speech is for those who can afford it, not for the masses that >are tossed the leftovers and are regaled with tales of freedoms they can >barely sniff let alone taste... >The line they feed us with is that "there are always two sides to a >story," or "one must be fair," or "one should be balanced," blah, blah, >blah... This topic can be related to world-sytems in terms of "methods of population control" or perhaps "principles of democratic states", but I presume the relevance for discussion has more to do with our shared role as citizens than it does to the list's official agenda. In any case, it's the citizen angle from which I'll respond. I'll speak to the American situation, for simplicity, but the principles apply more or less to other democracies. The right to free speech, as originally intended by the Bill of Rights, is a protection granted to citizens from government suppression. It was primarily intended to protect political speech, although it has been applied judicially to protect artistic expression as well. In an institutional sense, the purpose of free speech is to facilitate the democratic process: to prevent government from restricting the bounds of public political discussion. Free speech has little if anything to do with the concept of "fairness in reporting". The fairness doctrine is meant to partially remedy the fact that government has licensed the public airwaves to private operators: fairness supposedly introduces a "public interest" element into private programming - but this has been an abysmal failure in the US. In effect, "fairness" is a sop to the public - a cheap and inadequate substitute for the kind of responsible journalism the BBC has been famous for. (The BBC has its own faults, but that's another story.) Fairness is _in lieu of_ a democratically responsive press, and hence at root is counter-productive to democracy. Civil libertarians - by which I mean those who understand and support the original intent of the Bill of Rights - must support the inviolability of freedom of speech for _all_ political points of view. Any support for selective censorship - even against fascists - has only one lasting institutional consequence: it serves to grant to the government the right to decide what speech is permissable. Once the government has that right, then that right will obviously be used by the government to suppress speech the government finds objectionable. That _may_ include fascist rhetoric, but it is _certain_ to include the speech of political dissidents on the left, especially when such speech becomes politically threatening to ruling elites (ie- useful to the left). Leftists who support government suppression of fascist speech are poisoning the well of democracy for everyone, as a means of denying water to those they fear - a most suicidal strategy. The fact is that the US government is eager to destroy freedom of speech along with the entire Bill of Rights, and has been actively pursuing that agenda with considerable success for many years. The evidence for this is very plain, and I'm currently working on an article for a magazine on that subject. For now, let me simply refer to the so-called Anti-Terrorism Act, the arbitrary property seizures brought in by the so-called War on Drugs, and the ominously broad interpretation of conspiracy laws established by the World Trade Center case. The US government, it turns out, has covertly encouraged the activism of groups such as fascists, the Ku-Klux-Klan, and the militias - not only with funding, but also with agent provocateurs who push the envelope of extreme behavior. The intent of such support is to create a public reaction and ultimately justify repressive legislation, as part of the campaign to eliminate the Bill of Rights. Leftists who fall prey to this agenda are playing directly into the hands of their real enemies. As far as suppressing fascism goes, one might remember the analysis of David Hume, who pointed out that unpopular ideas don't need to be suppressed - their very unpopularity already disproportionately disfavors them in the public mind (since most people tend to give and withhold credence based on the opinions of those around them). If you happen to believe that fascism is in fact popular, and you believe in democracy, then suppression of speech can hardly be the appropriate defensive tactic. Suppression of popular ideas by an activist minority (in this case the left) is a formula for undermining democracy, not preserving it. Allow me to point out that the US (and many other Western) governments are more likely to be the instigators of a fascist takeover than they are to be the suppressors of same. Fascism was invented by capitalists in the 20's as a means to suppress popular democratic socialist movements in Germany, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere. Hitler was an operative of German military intelligence, Rhoem was his handler, and funding was provided by Krupp, Henry Ford, and many other Western industrialists. This is a matter of public record, not a conspiracy theory. Free speech helps defend us against totalitarianism, and totalitarian interests are behind anti-free-speech propaganda. Don't be duped or confused, rkm From rkmoore@iol.ie Sun Jun 22 18:36:54 1997 Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 01:36:40 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Re: socialist revolution Status: RO 6/22/97, Karl Carlile wrote: >Given that social revolution entails violent conflict >between the forces of socialism and the forces of capitalism is free >speech not to be denied to the latter (including fascists). Does >this mean that in the violence of the class war we may direct our >fire power at the forces of capitalism while not denying them free >speech... >It is not, as some lefties mistakenly believe, an absolute question >of either invariable support or denial of free speech for >fascists. Transcendental absolutes, such as these, revolutionaries >leave to scholastics. These are rantings one would rightly associate with a Stalinist. Socialism without democracy is simply another form of tyranny, and democracy without free speech is an oxymoron. Socialism is not simply the fairer distribution of bread, but a vision of government responsive to people's needs and desires - it is the inevitable economic system in any truly democratic society. By socialism I don't refer exclusively to state ownership, but to whatever pragmatic mechanisms achieve an economy which serves the people, including private enterprise or even corporations where appropriate. Socialist revolution in a modern state can only come about by peaceful means, through political organization. Violent revolution, even if it were feasible, which it is not, would be much more likely to lead to totalitarianism (ala French Revolution) than to democracy. To be sure a peaceful and effective socialist movement would involve violence - suppressive violence initiated by the state, as we saw for example in the sixties. For the left to initiate violence would be suicidal. Karl - your agenda is so counterproductive that I'm finding it increasingly difficult to retain faith in your sincerity. rkm From joseph@indigo.ie Mon Jun 23 12:06:38 1997 for ; Mon, 23 Jun 1997 19:06:33 +0100 (BST) for ; Mon, 23 Jun 1997 19:06:31 +0100 (BST) From: "Karl Carlile" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 19:05:57 +0000 Subject: Re: socialist revolution Status: RO KARL: Hi RIchard! RICHARD:These are rantings one would rightly associate with a Stalinist. Socialism without democracy is simply another form of tyranny, and democracy without free speech is an oxymoron. KARL: I never suggested nor implies anywhere or anytime that communism can exist in the absence of direct popular substantive democracy. Indeed I have written messages which criticised the Bolsheviks for decapitating the Russian revolution by eliminating democracy and introducing a totalitarian political system. RICHARD: Socialism is not simply the fairer distribution of bread, but a vision of government responsive to people's needs and desires - it is the inevitable economic system in any truly democratic society. By socialism I don't refer exclusively to state ownership, but to whatever pragmatic mechanisms achieve an economy which serves the people, including private enterprise or even corporations where appropriate. KARL: The above comments of yours provide evidence that, if anything, it is you that are advocating an impoverished form of socialism. It is the people who in effect constitute the government in the sense that by means of direct democratic procedures they appoint it on the condition that it is essentially subject to recall at any time. Furthermore the government will be a bottom/up structure which means that government has a continuous character proceeding from the popular base to the apex. In this way centralisation of power is maintained at a necessary minimum. Consequently the government begins and ends at no particualr place. Instead it is society that constitutes the government rather than the reverse. This being so it is not, as you state, a mere matter of "a vision of government responsive to people's needs and desires". Rather it is a matter of people directly determining the degree and way in which their "needs and desires" are to be met. Furthermore it is a matter of people determining and developing their "needs and desires". You seem to believe that under socialism a political institution in the form of the state will invariably exist. Communists, like myself, seek the establishemnt of a state free society. RICHARD: Socialist revolution in a modern state can only come about by peaceful means, through political organization. Violent revolution, even if it were feasible, which it is not, would be much more likely to lead to totalitarianism (ala French Revolution) than to democracy. KARL: Your preceeding observations are rather naive. There is no possibility of the capitalist class, in general, surrendering their wealth without violent struggle. There exists a state system that exists to protect their wealth in the form of capital. This state includes in its apparatii a vast ideological machinery together with a massive security system involving armaments. Greetings, Karl Yours etc., Karl From joseph@indigo.ie Mon Jun 23 12:07:07 1997 for ; Mon, 23 Jun 1997 19:07:03 +0100 (BST) for ; Mon, 23 Jun 1997 19:07:01 +0100 (BST) From: "Karl Carlile" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 19:05:58 +0000 Subject: Re: fascism & free speech4 Status: RO A KARL CARLILE MESSAGE: RICHARD: Civil libertarians - by which I mean those who understand and support the original intent of the Bill of Rights - must support the inviolability of freedom of speech for _all_ political points of view. Any support for selective censorship - even against fascists - has only one lasting institutional consequence: it serves to grant to the government the right to decide what speech is permissable. KARL: As I intimated in previous postings the question of supporting the denial of free speech to fascism is a tactical or strategical matter. At present it would be politically incorrect to seek the denial of free speech to fascism. In other words there is nothing to be gained politically by denying free speech to fascism under circumstances that are not alone unrevolutionary but not even "partially revolutionary". Under circumstances where a significant revolutionary working class movement exists together with a significant fascist movement then the conditions for seeking the denial of free speech for fascism might exist. Under circumstances where the class struggle has developed to fever pitch and the question of seizing state power is increasingly becoming an issue then it might make sense to seek to deny free speech to fascism. Under such a scenario the conditions may exist for marxism and social democracy taking joint action to fight fascism and deny it freedom of speech. Under these circumstances too the conditions for forcing the capitalist state through mass pressure to institutionally deny free speech to fascism may be present. On the other hand if the state fails to yield to mass popular pressure then this reveals all the more starkly the class character of the state and its inability to resist fascism. Such a development raises all the more urgently the need for the proletariat to attack the capitalist state and seize state power as the only effective means to defeat fascism. It makes acutely clear to the masses that the only way to abolish fascism is by abolishing the state and the capitalist system that is the source of fasicism. In seizing state power the working class will be forced to close down parliamentary institutions replacing them with directly democratic proletarian organs of power. The revolutionary proletariat will be compelled to expropriate bourgeois newspapers, radio and television stations. In other words it will be compelled in its class interests to deny freedom of speech to the bourgeoisie. Furthermore seizing state power will most probably entail a certain amount of bloodshed which in itself cosnstitutes a further denial of free speech. Overall then the right to free speech is not an absolute transhistorical right. The bourgeoisie concede free speech when it suits their class interests to institute this formal right. However it must be understood that is merely a formal right and not necessarily a substantive right. The daily experience of the working class supports this observation. If workers in a factory exercise free speech by urging fellow workers to join a workers' union in a traditionally non-unionised firm they will quickly discover how substantive freedom of speech as a right is. There exists copious other evidence in support of this observation. We only have to look back to the McCathyite era in the US to understand that free speech is not an absolute right. Communists have never viewed free speech as an absolute right. Indeed in a genuinely free society, a communist society, free speech would not exist as a formal right since it would form a constituent part of one's day to day existence. Communists do not absolutely support freedom of speech for a bourgeoisie that can utlise it to mobilise support against the working class movement. When communists do not seek the denial of free speech to capitalists and their ideologues it is a tactical matter and not a matter of universal norms. Tactically it, in general, makes sense to seek to deny the capitalist class free speech when the revolutionary movement is a significant and growing political force engaged in the revolutionary development of the class struggle. Indeed the revolutionary development of the struggle against the bourgoeoisie is a development of the struggle to deny the bourgeoisie free speech.The working class struggle to seize state power in order to crush the capitalist class. When in power the working class. to protect its interests. deny the bourgeoisie right to free speech. The struggle, then, to abolish capitalism and introduce communist relations is a struggle to progressively deny the capitalist class free speech. As the struggle develops the working class progressively establish political spaces, such as workers' councils, that increasingly deny the bourgeoisie free speech such as workers councils. Furthermore the right to free speech as a formal right is in many ways a farce and merely designed to disguise the inherently exploitative, oppressive and unfree nature of capitalism. It cannot be successfully argued that free speech is an inherent democratic right within western democracies: For example within western Europe, or indeed the US, one cannot validly argue that the semi-illiterate incoherent drop-out from a heavily disadvantaged background has freedom of speech in the same measure as the clever Harvard educated middle class person. In other words discursivity is assymetrical and invested with the power relations of capital. Greetings, Karl From mkarim@moses.culver.edu Tue Jun 24 11:39:33 1997 24 Jun 97 12:45:52 -600 24 Jun 97 12:45:45 -600 From: "" Date: Tue, 24 Jun 97 12:40:42 CST To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Status: RO How do I subscribe to the list? Manjur Karim From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Wed Jun 25 01:28:16 1997 25 Jun 1997 02:28:13 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 02:28:13 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Sanderson's review of Blaut To: Network World-Systems Status: RO WSNers, I am posting Sanderson's review of Blaut at his request and with UT Press's permission and the stipulations below. Please honor those stipulations. I also inserted page numbers in [] to show the page breaks in the published version. Many WSNers may recall rather forceful discussion of this book and this review some time back. tom hall Stephen K. Sanderson, review of The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History by J.M. Blaut, Sociological Inquiry, 66:4 (Fall 1996), pp 511-513; by permission of the University of Texas Press. -Permission is granted to distribute to the members of the WSN listserv only. Any further reproduction or any other edition, printed or electronic, requires that separate permission be obtained in writing from the University of Texas Press. [511] _The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History_ by J.M. Blaut. New York: Guilford Press, 1993, 246 pp., cloth $40.00; paperback $17.95. This book takes issue with Eurocentric interpretations of the development of the modern world and presents an alternative that fits nicely within the general framework of world-systems theory. James Blaut, a geographer, argues that virtually all explanations of the rise to economic and political power of the Western world have been Eurocentric, that is, have seen Europe as the repository of any number of attributes which have allowed it to advance beyond the levels of economic, political, and cultural development characteristic of Asia and Africa. As Blaut shows, Eurocentric explanations have come in a variety of forms. Some have stressed geography by making reference to the way in which the tropics inhibited economic development in Africa, as well as to the way in which arid environments in Asia allegedly led to despotic governments and long periods of economic stagnation. In contrast to Asia and Africa, Europe had temperate climates and rainfall farming, and these proved superior for economic development. Other arguments have followed one or another idea of Max Weber's. Thus, we have the notion that Europe's unique Protestant Reformation stimulated its [512] economic advance, or the idea that Europe had a unique form of political organization, or still yet the idea that Europe possessed a special form of cultural rationality that contributed to constant technological inventiveness. And some European historians, such as Alan Macfarlane, have claimed to see in European history a unique type of family structure that had enormously beneficial consequences for the European development. All of these and similar explanations, Blaut asserts, are badly wrong, and there was no set of qualities intrinsic to Europe that gave it any particular developmental advantage. There was no "European miracle," and, indeed, as of 1492 Europe was not more technologically or economically advanced than the continents of Asia and Africa. Why, then, did Europe spurt ahead after 1492 and ultimately leave these other continents far behind? Blaut's answer is that it was European colonialism that was the source of Europe's eventual superiority. Europe did have one enormous advantage over Asia and Africa, and that was its geographical location. It had readier access to the Americas, and this allowed it to establish voyages of discovery, implant colonialism in the New World, and plunder the New World's wealth. It was in particular the role of silver mined in the Americas that was the secret of Europe's success. What can we make of Blaut's overall argument? On the one hand it provides a useful corrective to those intellectual tendencies to see a stark contrast between Europe and Asia as early as the fifteenth century. As Blaut notes, an extensive amount of protocapitalism existed throughout Asia in the fifteenth century, and during this time China was technologically on a par with Europe if not, in fact, in the lead. He also quite properly notes that throughout the world in the time period between AD 1000 and 1500 there had been a buildup of extensive and intensive world trade and that, in a sense, the world as a whole was moving toward capitalism. Yet, on the other hand, Blaut overstates his case. His claim that Africa was economically on a par with Europe and Asia is not only wrong; it is absurd. And his claim that it was merely Europe's geographical accessibility to the Americas that led to its success rings hollow. The reader might wonder, "Wasn't West Africa essentially as close to the Americas as Europe?" Indeed, Blauthimself asks "why did not West Africans 'discover' America since they were even closer to it than the Iberians were?" (p. 183). Blaut's answer is that the mercantile centers of West and Central Africa were not oriented to maritime commerce. But, incredibly, Blaut stops there. Doesn't the fact that West and Central Africa were not oriented to maritime commerce mean precisely that these regions were at a lower stage of economic development? Blaut's response would be that the African civilizations oriented their trade inland to the north and the east. But I would disagree. I would like to suggest that Blaut has overlooked a major Asian society [513] whose parallel economic development with that of Europe suggests another interpretation of the development of the modern world. That society was Japan? As I have shown in detail elsewhere, Japan's economic development after the fifteenth century closely resembled Europe's, and both civilizations shared some very important characteristics that distinguished them from the rest of the world. First, Japan and two of the three leading countries of western Europe, England and the Netherlands, were small, and this may have given them an advantage. Large states are costly to maintain and drain away resources that can be used directly for economic development. 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 which, Blaut notwithstanding, has clear advantages over land-based trade. Third, 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. 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, I would argue, gave the merchantclasses of both civilizations more freedom of economic manuever than they had throughout the rest of the world. Charges of the 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 rest of the world, and there is no need to be shy or apologetic about pointing these out. And when we recognize that a major Asian society also had such advantages, then a good deal of the air is taken out of the balloon of those who fling the charges of Eurocentrism. 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 HOME PAGE: http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Wed Jun 25 11:03:34 1997 Date: 25 Jun 97 13:01:46 EDT From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: world systems network Subject: Sanderson on me Status: RO WSNers: Since Tom Hall has seen fit to post Sanderson's Eurocentric review of my book, *The Colonizer's Model...* I suppose Tom wants the discussion of Eurocentric world history to keep on going. I'll post a point-by-point rebuttal of Sanderson's criticisms and views soon. For the moment, since some WSNers may not have seen it, I'm reposting my earlier counter-critique of Sanderson. Jim Blaut From rkmoore@iol.ie Wed Jun 25 11:16:25 1997 Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 18:16:11 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: re: Sanderson's review of Blaut - & expansionist phases Status: RO Sanderson argues that Europe did have advantages - the combination of economic development and geographical location. But there is still justice in Blaut's claim that the pursuit of colonialism itself was the operative agent in transforming potential into actual dominance. But in what way was European colonialism a unique or novel event? Elsewhere in the world, quite obviously, there were many previous episodes of expansion, expatriation of wealth, establishment of core-favorable trading relationships, etc. Even if we accept that colonialism was the essential developmental factor in European global dominance, we yet need to characterize what was uniquely successful about the European colonial experience. The answer here, I suggest, is quite simply timing. Europe's "turn" at expansionism just happened to occur at that point when conditions were such - ocean-capable ships, cannon, capitalism, available new continent - that the expansionism could be leveraged into global dominance. If conditions had been that advanced in Muhammad's day, for example, the Arab rise could well have led to global dominance. He who laughs last laughs best, you might say. Similarly, one might examine the later dominance of the USA over the rest of the Euro community - hence making the US the first-ever globally hegemonic state, potentially if not in fact. In this case one must acknowledge, I think it is clear, that the US did have inherent advantages, including absolute size of industrial base and wealth, and lack of competitor neighbors (The US is perhaps the world's last defensible fortress.) But again timing is perhaps the unique critical factor. The US just happened to have its "turn" at Euro leadership when technological developments were at the stage - eg: nuclear weapons, jets, rockets, extensive global trade - to leverage that leadership into global dominance. Again, if technology had been that advanced when the British Empire was on the rise, London might have been the imperial seat of globalism instead of Washington. What I'm describing is a two-part thesis. (1) Nations/cultures experience phases of power expansion relative to their competitors; (2) the reach of such an expansion-phase is amplified by the technology/conditions available at the time. Whenever a qualitative breakthrough in conditions (esp. military technology) occurs, that nation/culture is competitively favored which happens to be in an expansionist phase at that time. Being in such a phase is independent of the technology/conditions - it reflects rather the internal state of the cultural/economic dynamics of the nation/culture itself. Sanderson suggests that Japan's inherent advantages were comparable to Europe's in 1492. He didn't, as I recall, offer an explanation as to why Japan didn't get into the colonial game at that time - exploiting fully the available technology. It seems clear that Japan's cultural dynamics were simply not expansionist at that time. When they later became so, in the industrial age, Sanderson's observations of inherent parity are borne out: Japan became a very credible threat indeed to Euro global dominance. We've accepted, in this discussion, the premise that dominance can be excercised collaboratively. Even though European nations competed violently, we can speak of a collective European dominance, vis a vis the rest of the world. In China, for example, European powers cooperated militarily to maintain their several economic interests when faced with Chinese resistance (eg: Boxer Rebellion) - it was Europe vs. China. Which nations/cultures are in expansioninst phases today? I'd say we've got two such entities, one a nation and the other a culture. The nation is China, and the culture is the traditional Euro brotherhood plus Japan. Huntington's definition of culture is not relevant here, in the sense that Japan's unique societal elements are not of significant functional relevanance to its global relationships. The "culture" which is the basis of G7-led collaborative expansionism is simply the culture of global capitalism. The "shared beliefs and values" of this culture have to do with comradarie in the pursuit of capital investment, with competition to be carried out peacefully among corporations rather than among nations. >From the G7 perspective, military activity would be in support of the globalist infrastructure - not as a means of securing relative national advantage. The US, for example, would claim its high-profile role in the oil-producing Arab states is aimed at maintaining stable oil supplies, not motivated by a desire for territorial advantage. You may not have thought of the G7 as expansionist, but globalization, I suggest, is nothing less than economic expansionism: it is the systematic and coercive development of investment and trading opportunities, set up so as to favor G7-based corporations at the expense of the Third World. It is functionally comparable to traditional Euro imperialist expansion. China is not yet part of this culture, because its national aspirations, apparently, are not sufficiently gentlemenly. According to credible reports and analysis, China is not content to simply compete economically from its existing territorial base, but feels itself entitled to a special dominant relationship in the Asian region - much in the spirit of the US's Monroe Doctrine. Thus, at a time when military technology is incredibly advanced - and when rapid breakthroughs can be highly destabilizing - we have two expansionist entities with conflicting agendas. Then scene can be described as dramatically potent. rkm From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Wed Jun 25 12:09:54 1997 Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 13:09:50 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Re: Sanderson on me In-reply-to: <970625170146_70671.2032_EHM41-1@CompuServe.COM> To: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> Status: RO Jim & WSNers, Actually not. That's why I pointed to the archives. When the first exchange took place several peoples asked steve or me to post his review. It took awahile to get permission for UTP, then I left or NEH here at East-West Center in Honolulu, and it has taken me some time to edit the submission draft of the review to exactly what was published and get it posted. In a more perfect world this would have been posted a few months ago, adn would have been reposted to H-world--but it didn't happen that way, and we do not have permission to repost. None of this is by way o my own opinion. By way of information, the argument Sanderson alludes to concerning Japan can be found in Review, or more fully in his _Social Transformations_. The refs got cut in the final form of the review. 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 HOME PAGE: http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm On Wed, 25 Jun 1997, James M. Blaut wrote: > WSNers: Since Tom Hall has seen fit to post Sanderson's Eurocentric review of my > book, *The Colonizer's Model...* I suppose Tom wants the discussion of > Eurocentric world history to keep on going. I'll post a point-by-point rebuttal > of Sanderson's criticisms and views soon. For the moment, since some WSNers may > not have seen it, I'm reposting my earlier counter-critique of Sanderson. > > Jim Blaut > > From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Wed Jun 25 21:46:32 1997 for ; Thu, 26 Jun 1997 09:50:28 +0700 (NSD) 26 Jun 97 09:50:37 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 09:50:25 -0600 (NSK) Subject: re: expansionist phases Status: RO Dear Richard, i support almost fully your balanced and clear interpretation of the 'european miracle' problem, just one point in your msg seems to me doubtful. you write: From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) >What I'm describing is a two-part thesis. (1) Nations/cultures experience >phases of power expansion relative to their competitors; (2) the reach of >such an expansion-phase is amplified by the technology/conditions available >at the time. Whenever a qualitative breakthrough in conditions (esp. >military technology) occurs, that nation/culture is competitively favored >which happens to be in an expansionist phase at that time. Being in such a >phase is independent of the technology/conditions - it reflects rather the >internal state of the cultural/economic dynamics of the nation/culture >itself. my question is, what is the basis of your claim of this independence? can you present any supporting historical cases? my view on this point (which seemed to me rather traditional for WS approach) is that not only internal dynamics but also (and significantly) the breakthrough to a higher technological level gives a society (nation/culture in your terms) opportunities to reach economic dominance (manufactiries in Florence and Netherlands, machinery in Britain are classical examples). This view fully corresponds with the thesis (close to yours one?) that economic dominance is added by military-political hegemony when the core manages to utilize a positive feedback between technological rise in goods production and the rise of new efficient weaponary (industrial metallurgy and canons on Portugeuse,Spanish,Holland, English fleets of XVI-XVIII, Britain steam machinery and steamship military-trade fleet in XIX, American both peaceful and military achievements in nuclear, jet, cosmic, computing technologies since WWII) best reagrds, 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://wsrv.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe /philofhi.html ************************************************************ From p34d3611@jhu.edu Wed Jun 25 22:29:54 1997 26 Jun 1997 00:29:38 -0400 (EDT) 26 Jun 1997 00:29:33 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 00:29:29 -0400 From: Peter Grimes Subject: Please Act! To: WSN Status: RO Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 11:42:03 -0400 From: "J. Timmons Roberts" To: Peter Grimes >From: dcintern@ucsusa.org >Date: Wed, 25 Jun 97 10:31:13 > > > URGENT ACTION ALERT > from the > UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS > > Senator Chafee Resolution on Climate Change > > ISSUE: A Senate Resolution, being circulated by Sen. Chafee > (R-RI), takes a constructive, moderate approach to the > international climate negotiations coming up this December > in Kyoto, Japan. Chafee's document is a response to a > deplorable Resolution initiated by Sen. Byrd (D-WV) that > would seriously hamper the Clinton Administration's ability > to negotiate a strong and environmentally meaningful > climate treaty. > > ACTION: Call, email, or fax your Senators ASAP. > > MAIN MESSAGE: Sign Sen. Chafee's Resolution -- it > recognizes the serious problem posed by climate change and > gives the Clinton Administration flexibility in negotiating > an effective climate protocol. > > DEADLINE: Today! (or as soon as possible) > > CONTACT INFORMATION: You can reach your Senators through > the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. You can also > find their phone and fax numbers, addresses and email on > the Internet's congressional homepage:http://www.senate.gov > > BACKGROUND: Two Resolutions regarding the climate > negotiations aimed at securing a greenhouse gas emissions > reductions protocol are currently circulating in the US > Senate. We must counteract the Resolution sponsored by > Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) because, if passed, it will > impede the Clinton Administration's ability to negotiate a > strong climate change treaty. It resolves that the United > States should not sign on to any protocol or treaty at the > negotiations in Kyoto, Japan, or elsewhere, which does not > include specific, legally binding commitments from > developing countries. This aspect of the Resolution > threatens to derail the negotiations themselves, and here's > why: > > * The countries that signed the UN Framework Convention on > Climate Change explicitly agreed in the treaty to the > principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities." > This tenet acknowledges that, while the global nature of > climate changes requires all nations to participate in > efforts to mitigate global warming, developed countries -- > like the U.S., Japan and the European Union -- must take a > leadership role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions for > historical, equity, and economic reasons. > > * The Byrd Resolution insisting on new commitments for > developing countries would require the Clinton > Administration to renege on the terms of the Berlin Mandate > or quit the negotiations. The Berlin Mandate, agreed to at > the 1995 2nd Conference of the Parties to the climate > treaty, resolved that the current round of negotiations > should produce new emissions reductions commitments for > **industrialized** countries in the post-2000 era. New > commitments for developing countries are therefore beyond > the mandate of the current talks. Without U.S. > participation, the climate negotiations are pointless. > > * Sen. Byrd's Resolution grossly exaggerates the negative > economic impacts resulting from emissions reduction policy > options. Over 2500 economists have publicly stated that > "... there are policy options that would slow climate > change without harming American living standards, and these > measures may in fact improve U.S. productivity in the > longer run." > > The more constructive Resolution, sponsored by Sens. Chafee > (R-RI), Lieberman (D-CT) and Kerry (D-MA), treats the > international efforts to mitigate climate change as an > ongoing process. Its preamble recognizes that climate > change is a serious problem and that the industrialized > nations of the world are the chief emitters of greenhouse > gases. The Resolution itself states that the current round > of negotiations should be aimed at securing legally binding > emissions reductions commitments for developed countries, > like the US, that would "represent a significant step" > towards mitigating climate change. Once these are ratified > and being implemented, a subsequent round of talks should > produce commitments for developing countries -- such as > China and India -- that would become effective within 10 > years of industrialized countries emissions limitations > commencement. TO COUNTER THE BYRD RESOLUTION, URGE YOUR > SENATORS TO SIGN ONTO THE CHAFEE RESOLUTION. > > URGENCY: In an unusual move, Sen. Byrd is talking > personally with his colleagues to generate support for his > Resolution and hopes to bring it to a vote in the Senate as > early as this week. YOUR SENATORS NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU > TODAY. > > *** SUPPORTING FACTS *** > > * A vast discrepancy exists in per capita emissions and > capacity to pay for emissions reductions between wealthy > countries like the US and developing countries like India. > > * Atmospheric buildup of greenhouse gases over the last 100 > years has been almost entirely due to the industrial > activity of the US and other developed countries. > > * For at least the next several decades, wealthy countries > emissions will continue to exceed those of the developing > nations. > > * Once industrialized countries move decisively to reduce > their emissions of heat-trapping gases, the developing > world will accept its responsibility to limit emissions > early in the 21st century. > > * The Chafee Resolution is good for the economy, our > health, and the environment. > > If you send a fax or email message, please send a copy to > us. If you receive a response from your Senators, please > let us know what he/she/they said. Send to: > dcintern@ucsusa.org or UCS, 1616 P Street NW Suite 310, > Washington, DC 20036-1495 (attn. Eric Wesselman) > > From angiealn@chickasaw.com Thu Jun 26 07:10:00 1997 Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 08:10:18 +0000 From: Angie Wood Reply-To: angiealn@chickasaw.com To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: remove Status: RO please remove From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Jun 26 07:43:03 1997 26 Jun 1997 09:42:24 -0400 (EDT) 26 Jun 1997 09:42:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 09:41:17 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: tausch's monograph To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Status: RO arno tausch's research monograph, "Transnational integration and national disintegration" is now available on the World-Systems Archive. the address is http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/archive/papers/tausch.htm chris From emerald@lark.cc.ukans.edu Thu Jun 26 07:52:35 1997 Thu, 26 Jun 1997 08:52:28 CDT (UTC -05:00) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 08:52:28 -0500 (UTC -05:00) From: emerald@lark.cc.ukans.edu (David Norman Smith) Subject: Re: remove To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Status: RO please remove From rkmoore@iol.ie Thu Jun 26 09:54:13 1997 Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 16:54:02 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: re: expansionist phases Status: RO 6/26/97, Nikolai S. Rozov wrote: >Dear Richard, >i support almost fully your balanced and clear interpretation of the 'european >miracle' problem, Thanks (:>) > just one point in your msg seems to me doubtful.. rkm: >>Being in such [an expansionist] >>phase is independent of the technology/conditions - it reflects rather the >>internal state of the cultural/economic dynamics of the nation/culture >>itself. > Nikolai: >my question is, what is the basis of your claim of this independence? can you >present any supporting historical cases? Actually, I posed it as a thesis rather than a claim. It seems to me that Europe was first "ready" for expansion, and then discovered America - Columbus FIRST sought venture capital for the purpose of seeking new trading opportunities - THEN he went voyaging. This observation/surmise led to the thesis. As to "proving" independence, I'd appeal to others on the list who may have examples. What I'm suggesting is that there's some kind of internally-driven "cycle of expansionism" that nations/cultures go through. If a nation/culture happens to be in a contracting phase when a new technology comes along, it isn't likely to exploit it maximally. A sumo wrestler waits until his opponent is exhaling before he attacks. The following two statements would seem to be true, and in some sense eqivalent: (1) When a new technology comes along, an expansion-seeking entity exploits it and achieves relative dominance. (2) When an entity enters an expansionist phase, its success depends on the technology available. Among competing expansionist entities, an advantage would go the entity which was best able to exploit a significant new technology. Thus Japan (later SE Asia) got an economic surge with computer hardware, the US (later India) with software. This would suggest a _partial_ dependency-linkage between expansionism and technology. I believe we are in close agreement. rkm From asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Thu Jun 26 15:43:15 1997 Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 13:43:48 -0800 From: asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Subject: Remove: Is it the trendy thing to do? In-reply-to: Status: RO I have been reading for days peoples one-liner messages of "remove" & "please remove." So what the hell is the deal? Are people upset with the content of this group? If so, why not contribute something useful or entertaining? Or perhaps are the people "removers" ,really Southern Baptists conservative-bigot-wackos, who realized this listserv is actually a Disney-orientated liberal discussion group. Heaven forbid! Andrew From timber@ksu.edu Thu Jun 26 15:51:59 1997 Thu, 26 Jun 1997 16:51:53 -0500 (CDT) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 16:51:53 -0500 (CDT) From: Michael F Timberlake To: asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Subject: Re: Remove: Is it the trendy thing to do? Status: RO please do not remove From asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Thu Jun 26 15:59:19 1997 Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 13:59:53 -0800 From: asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Subject: Are Southern Baptists really Conservative Bigots or Wackos? (fwd) To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Status: RO ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 13:57:54 -0800 From: asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU To: Soc@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Subject: Are Southern Baptists really Conservative Bigots or Wackos? The political agenda of the Baptists makes me wonder if they are attempting to legitimize racism, and bigotry in the name of religion. Banning Disney is comically--if not a last ditch effort to assert their failing political power (i.e., the conservatives are falling apart). Andrew From elkins@U.Arizona.EDU Thu Jun 26 16:00:26 1997 Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 14:58:09 -0700 (MST) From: Jake Elkins Reply-To: Jake Elkins To: asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Subject: Re: Remove: Is it the trendy thing to do? Status: RO On Thu, 26 Jun 1997 asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU wrote: > I have been reading for days peoples one-liner messages of "remove" & > "please remove." So what the hell is the deal? Are people upset with the > content of this group? If so, why not contribute something useful or > entertaining? > Andrew Perhaps the listowner could repost instructions on how to unsubscribe. I get so annoyed with this rudeness that I respond to each and every one of them with a "Sorry, I can't remove you from anything." message. But even that is getting to be a chore. --------Jake Elkins University of Arizona------------ 1309 E. Lee St. Planning graduate student --------Tucson, AZ 85719 e-mail: elkins@u.arizona.edu----- Put your ear down next to your soul and listen hard." Anne Sexton From asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Thu Jun 26 16:06:54 1997 Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 14:07:27 -0800 From: asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Subject: Are Southern Baptists really Conservative Bigots or Wackos? To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Status: RO To: Soc@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Subject: Are Southern Baptists really Conservative Bigots or Wackos? The political agenda of the Baptists makes me wonder if they are attempting to legitimize racism, and bigotry in the name of religion. Banning Disney is comically--if not a last ditch effort to assert their failing political power (i.e., the conservatives are falling apart). Andrew From dmk@world.std.com Thu Jun 26 16:33:21 1997 id SAA06314; Thu, 26 Jun 1997 18:33:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 17:21:25 -0700 From: David Reply-To: dmk@world.std.com To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Remove: Is it the trendy thing to do? Status: RO From: dmk@world.std.com I wasn't going to respond, but then couldn't resist the temptation. People subscribe and unsubscribe to electronic forums in accordance with their own perogatives without explanation to anyone. To remove, or not remove is not the question, it is a choice made by individuals for a wide range of reasons, some of which involve lightening email discussion groups for the summer months, and others for whatever reason they decide upon. Either way, "removal" doesn't interfer with any of the substantive discussions that take place on the World Systems Network, so keep on discussing and enjoy your summer. asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU wrote: > I have been reading for days peoples one-liner messages of "remove" & > "please remove." So what the hell is the deal? Are people upset with > the > content of this group? If so, why not contribute something useful or > entertaining? > > Or perhaps are the people "removers" ,really Southern Baptists > conservative-bigot-wackos, who realized this listserv is actually a > Disney-orientated liberal discussion group. Heaven forbid! > > Andrew From dmk@world.std.com Thu Jun 26 16:43:45 1997 Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 17:31:48 -0700 From: David Reply-To: dmk@world.std.com To: elkins@U.Arizona.EDU, wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Remove: Is it the trendy thing to do? References: Status: RO Yes that would be nice, please repost the the unsubscribe command. My hard drive crashed several weeks ago and I didn't---unfortunately---keep a back-up of my email logs, so when sending what I thought was an unsubscribe message to the listserv@csf.colorado.edu, I received a message error in response. The second best thing was to send an unsubscribe message to the list, which was not rude, but simply trying to unsub for the summer. Instead of sarcastic messages to folks, you could have easily sent directions helping them unsubscribe, but that would have been too helpful. In any case, have a nice summer. david Jake Elkins wrote: > On Thu, 26 Jun 1997 asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU wrote: > > I have been reading for days peoples one-liner messages of "remove" > & > > "please remove." So what the hell is the deal? Are people upset with > the > > content of this group? If so, why not contribute something useful or > > > entertaining? > > Andrew > > Perhaps the listowner could repost instructions on how to > unsubscribe. I get so annoyed with this rudeness that I respond > to each and every one of them with a "Sorry, I can't remove you > from anything." message. But even that is getting to be a chore. > > --------Jake Elkins University of Arizona------------ > 1309 E. Lee St. Planning graduate student > --------Tucson, AZ 85719 e-mail: elkins@u.arizona.edu----- > Put your ear down next to your soul and listen hard." Anne Sexton From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Fri Jun 27 04:45:23 1997 Fri, 27 Jun 1997 17:01:18 +0700 (NSD) 27 Jun 97 17:01:34 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" To: "A. Gunder Frank" , WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 17:01:06 -0600 (NSK) Subject: re: expansionist phases Status: RO Dear Gunder I have no problem with this advantage. Some days ago i've read a paper of one Russian orientalist Petrov who in the beginning of 1980th made a review of several hundreds publications (since XVIII) in Russia concerning transnational trade in the East and he maintains that all data say that the West overtook the East (in quantity, diversity, quality of goods) only up to 1830-50, not earlier. the dominance and advantages that i had in mind concern only European oicumena (f.e. technological advantage of Florence over France in 15-16, Netherlands over Spain in 16-17, England over rest Europe in 18-19) at the same time wide and successful colonial expansion of Portugal, then Netherlands and England in the Indian Ocean bassein shows that at least in one aspect - navy (military technologies + efficient regular trans-ocean transportation) Europeans HAD advantages over Asians (Arabs, Indians and Turks) even in 16- 18c. am i not right? best regards, nikolai Gunder Frank: > > Nicolai is discussiing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, > since these Eurpean places, etc did NOT have the technological > advanmtages and much less dominance over Asian ones before 1800, as I > have argued and 'demonstrated' ad nauseum on another net, and could > cross-post to this one if there is any interest. > gunder frank > From asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Fri Jun 27 15:49:54 1997 Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 13:50:28 -0800 From: asajh@UAA.ALASKA.EDU Subject: A Global Union In-reply-to: To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Status: RO When union jobs leave an industrial area--let say the US--should they (US union members) be obligated to establish a union in the third-world labor markets as a means to hinder their exploitation and the destruction of their culture & environment? Don't the people of the third world labor markets deserve the same marginal benefits (i.e., health benefits, 40 hour week, vacation time, safe conditions, descent wages, etc.) as their counterparts had doing the same job? Andrew From ms44278@email.csun.edu Fri Jun 27 17:25:10 1997 Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 16:25:34 -0700 From: Mike Shupp To: ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Subject: Re: expansionist phases References: Status: RO Nikolai S. Rozov wrote: > Some days ago i've read a paper of > one Russian orientalist Petrov who in the beginning of 1980th made a review > of several hundreds publications (since XVIII) in Russia concerning > transnational trade in the East and he maintains that all data say that the > West overtook the East (in quantity, diversity, quality of goods) only up to > 1830-50, not earlier. > at the same time wide and successful colonial expansion of Portugal, then > Netherlands and England in the Indian Ocean bassein shows that at > least in one aspect - navy (military technologies + efficient > regular trans-ocean transportation) Europeans HAD advantages >over Asians (Arabs, Indians and Turks) even in 16-18c. If we can't grant Westerners any material superiority in technology, economic development, etc, during the period in which they rose to (short term) mastery if the planet, we have to recognize the importance of immaterial factors, I would think. God perhaps, or more likely superior amounts of will, stamina, determination, zeal, "heart", pluck on the part of Europeans, and sloth, laziness, inefficiency, corruption, fatalism, etc. on the part of the non-European natives. What qualities did Europeans themselves attribute their successes to during the 1500-1850 AD period? Material or immaterial? -- Mike Shupp Graduate Student Department of Anthropology California State University, Northridge ms44278@csun1.csun.edu http://www.csun.edu/~ms44278/ From p34d3611@jhu.edu Fri Jun 27 17:43:23 1997 27 Jun 1997 18:27:24 -0400 (EDT) 27 Jun 1997 18:27:11 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 18:25:43 -0400 From: Peter Grimes Subject: INFOTERRA: HR 1951-Cubasoli (fwd) To: WSN Status: RO ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 11:31:54 -0400 From: "J. Timmons Roberts" To: Peter Grimes Subject: INFOTERRA: HR 1951-Cubasoli >X-Authentication-Warning: pan.cedar.univie.ac.at: majordom set sender to owner-infoterra using -f >Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 17:26:11 -0700 (PDT) >X-Sender: jreardon@pop.igc.org >To: jreardon@igc.apc.org >From: Juan Reardon >Subject: INFOTERRA: HR 1951-Cubasoli >Sender: owner-infoterra@cedar.univie.ac.at >Reply-To: Juan Reardon > >YOUR HELP IS NEEDED TO LIFT THE EMBARGO OF CUBA FOR FOOD & MEDICINE!!! >STOP THE CRIME. SEND YOUR SUPPORT FOR HR 1951! >VISIT THE CUBA-SOLIDARITY WEB PAGE AND FIND OUT HOW TO HELP! > --> Some of you are already involved with this effort. > Use "Cubasoli" as a resource for the campaign > -->> Where is "Cubasoli"? --> HTTP://WWW.IGC.APC.ORG/CUBASOLI/ > --> If you live outside the US ask your US friends to support. > --> E-mail your congress reps. and those of your state > --> Write a note to your local paper. > --> Please forward this message to any decent american out there! > Abrazos. > > > > > > >- >message sent by infoterra@cedar.univie.ac.at >to signoff from the list, send an email to >majordomo@cedar.univie.ac.at >the message body should read >unsubscribe infoterra your@email.address >- > > From dlj@inforamp.net Fri Jun 27 19:24:29 1997 by mail.istar.ca with esmtp (Exim 1.62 #10) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 21:25:07 -0400 From: David Lloyd-Jones Reply-To: dlj@pobox.com To: ms44278@email.csun.edu Subject: Re: expansionist phases References: <33B44BDF.26E7@csun1.csun.edu> Status: RO Mike Shupp wrote: > If we can't grant Westerners any material superiority > in technology, economic development, etc, during the period > in which they rose to (short term) mastery if the planet, > we have to recognize the importance of immaterial factors, > I would think. God perhaps, or more likely superior amounts > of will, stamina, determination, zeal, "heart", pluck on the > part of Europeans, and sloth, laziness, inefficiency, corruption, > fatalism, etc. on the part of the non-European natives. It amazes me that Mike can't get this right -- but then he is an American, from the land where a gun is called an "equalizer"or a "peacekeeper" and the big bombs are called a "nuclear umbrella." The thing that has distinguished north Europeans over the past five hundred years, The Gunpowder Years (tm), is simply the will to mass violence, and the willingness to direct it at other cultures and individuals, and their cats, dogs, libraries, customs, tax policies, and gods. > What qualities did Europeans themselves attribute their successes > to during the 1500-1850 AD period? Material or immaterial? > Godliness. Next question. -dlj. From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Sat Jun 28 20:30:35 1997 Date: 28 Jun 97 22:29:30 EDT From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: world systems network Subject: genes Status: RO -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: genes Date: 28-Jun-97 at 17:10 From: James M. Blaut, 70671,2032 TO: world system,INTERNET:wsn@csf.colorado.edu Mike Shupp asked: What kind of superiority did Eropeans have which led them to temporary mastery of the planet? dlj replied: "The thing that has distinguished north Europeans over the past 500 years...is simply the will to mass violence, and the willingness to direct it to other cultures and individuals..." I asked dlj: "And how did Europeans acquire this 'will to vioence' and 'willingness to direct it to other cultures?' Is it in the genes?" dlj replied: "Yes, it's in the genes," though diet, religion, and social structure have something to do with it, too. dlj: If you think its in the genes, how would you respond if someone were to point out that this sounds just a bit like racism? Jim Blaut From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Sat Jun 28 20:35:49 1997 Date: 28 Jun 97 22:35:20 EDT From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: world systems net Subject: genes Status: RO -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: genes Date: 28-Jun-97 at 17:10 From: James M. Blaut, 70671,2032 Mike Shupp asked: What kind of superiority did Eropeans have which led them to temporary mastery of the planet? dlj replied: "The thing that has distinguished north Europeans over the past 500 years...is simply the will to mass violence, and the willingness to direct it to other cultures and individuals..." I asked dlj: "And how did Europeans acquire this 'will to vioence' and 'willingness to direct it to other cultures?' Is it in the genes?" dlj replied: "Yes, it's in the genes," though diet, religion, and social structure have something to do with it, too. dlj: If you think its in the genes, how would you respond if someone were to point out that this sounds just a bit like racism? Jim Blaut From dlj@inforamp.net Sun Jun 29 13:55:21 1997 by mail.istar.ca with esmtp (Exim 1.62 #10) Reply-To: From: "David Lloyd-Jones" To: <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM>, "WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK" Subject: Dishonest quotes by Blaut. Was: genes Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 15:53:05 -0400 Status: RO > > Mike Shupp asked: What kind of superiority did Eropeans have which led them to > temporary mastery of the planet? > > dlj replied: "The thing that has distinguished north Europeans over the past > 500 years...is simply the will to mass violence, and the willingness to direct > it to other cultures and individuals..." > > I asked dlj: "And how did Europeans acquire this 'will to vioence' and > 'willingness to direct it to other cultures?' Is it in the genes?" > > dlj replied: "Yes, it's in the genes," though diet, religion, and social > structure have something to do with it, too. > > dlj: If you think its in the genes, how would you respond if someone were to > point out that this sounds just a bit like racism? > > Jim Blaut Jim, This is an entirely dishonest recounting of our private exchange. My reply to the above is Sure: the human race. What I said in our private exchange was that the genetic component of the will to violence is general -- and that what needs explanation is the performance of civilization. It is this latter, as exemplified by large and comparatively non-violent societies as China and India, in which I drew attention to diet (vegetarian, based on nitrogen-fixing lentils and soy), literacy, and social organization. I shall not reply privately to any more mail from Mr. Blaut. If he cares to write privately to me, the act of doing so waives the right of privacy in my reply. -dlj. From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Sun Jun 29 14:36:56 1997 Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 15:36:51 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Cina & India nonviolent In-reply-to: To: David Lloyd-Jones Status: RO On Sun, 29 Jun 1997, David Lloyd-Jones wrote: > What I said in our private exchange was that the genetic component of the > will to violence is general -- and that what needs explanation is the > performance of civilization. It is this latter, as exemplified by large > and comparatively non-violent societies as China and India, in which I drew > attention to diet (vegetarian, based on nitrogen-fixing lentils and soy), > literacy, and social organization. DLJ et al, 1) I do NOT want to get in the middle of teh exchange w/ Jim 2) I agree the spirit of the above quoted para, indeed Chris Chase-Dunn and I have addressd this issue in world-system terms in Rise & Demise--why Europe. The telegraphic version is: position [geographic, geopolitical, and world-systemic] in the Afroeurasian 'world-system.' If Europe is more warlike, it is because its 'position', not a source of it. 3) Maybe filable under the glass is half-full or half-empty, but I see no basis for the claim that China and India were less warlike--a la Jim's arguments aabout eurocentrism, we are less familiar with their wars. 4) Claudio Cioffia at UCol has a long term war project, and may have some real data on this [Caludio, if you can, would you shed what light you can on the issue?]. 5) Thus it seems to me there are two issues here: a) in principle factual was 'europe' more or less warlike than 'china' or 'india'? ['' on names, because these are shorthand referents to regional complexes].; b) what are to make of these diffs re rise to dominance of Europe 6) I do see our explanation [which borrows heavily from Sanderson inter alii] as better than Jim's [it's ours not his ;-)], but more importantly I do not see them as fundamentally incompatible. 7) In my view (6) applies mutatis mutandis to the differences between Blaud & Sanderson. They agree on much more than they disagree on--at least from my perspective. 8) Can we all agree that eurocentrism in some form or another has shaped our thinking, that in a variety ways we are trying to transcend that [how well we succeed in doing that will be decided by other scholars long after we all are investigating daiseys from the root side!] and stop wasting energy poking each other in the eye over who is more eurocntric than whom? 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 HOME PAGE: http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm From rkmoore@iol.ie Sun Jun 29 14:58:42 1997 Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 21:58:26 +0100 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Re: genes & racism Status: RO 6/29/97, James M. Blaut wrote, addressing dlj: >dlj: If you think its in the genes, how would you respond if someone were to >point out that this sounds just a bit like racism? No doubt, Jim, it was with a wry expression that you posted this deceptively simple question. My observation is that well-minded folk have rightly recoiled from situations where people have been hated, discriminated against, enslaved, massacred, etc., on the basis of race. As an over-reaction to this, I claim, there has been a "liberal" tendency to pretend all races are the same, that all observed differences are environmental. This has been accompanied by a tendency to discredit ideas of inherited traits in general. If people can only be brainwashed into being "color blind", the reasoning seems to go, then equality and justice might prevail. Well-minded or not, an over-reaction is an over-reaction - well-meaning falsehood is not truth, and in the long run counter-productive. The refusal to recognize that inheritance of behavioral characteristics (both at the species and parental levels) does happen makes it impossible to properly interpret human evolution and the human potential, and fatally confuses thinking about what kind of conditioning or education would actually be useful in making society more harmonious. Keeping toy guns away from kids, for example, will not banish warfare from the world, nor even reduce its frequency. There ARE racial differences. The most important proviso to these differences - a proviso that needs to be understood widely - is that the WIDTH of the various by-race bell curves (IQ-ability, running ability, musical ability, basketball ability, whatever) is very broad: individual differences are greater than racial differences. One race's bell curve (for a given metric, and after adjusting for environmental advantage) may be off-center from another's, but the two mostly overlap. A given person, regardless of race, may be the best or worst person for a given job, to have as a neighbor, etc. Race alone, regardless of aggregate differences, is never a very useful discriminator in any individual case, for any particular preference criterion (intelligence, industriousness, etc.) To deny diffences in such bell curves is to deny reality, and such denial, in my opinion, has lent fuel to what seems to be a resurgance of overt racism. The liberal line, so to speak, has been discredited by experience, and respect for liberal-minded thinking in general has declined. That's what I mean by saying that non-truth is ultimately counter-productive. Racism is partly the confusion of aggregate differences with individual differences, the belief that bell-curves have zero width, and that one race can be considered "superior" on that basis, for whatever given metric. Another aspect of this question is IQ-chauvanism. Where did the idea come from that IQ is more important or valuable to humanity than artistic ability, musical ability, ability to work harmoniously with others, or the ability/tendency to love and nurture? Where is it written that the best society includes only Mensa members? Boring! Diversity is not only strength - it is also delightfully interesting. IQ-chauvanism is more generally harmful than simply its racist application - for example, it distorts the education system for everyone. Education is too focused on individual, left-brain, intellectual development - at the expense of creativity, art, teamwork, and exploration of personal preferences and potential. Sorry - have to stop here - girlfriend just arrived to take me to the pub. rkm From majones@netcomuk.co.uk Sun Jun 29 15:48:09 1997 Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 22:48:03 -0700 From: Mark Jones To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: Re: genes & racism References: Status: RO What an extraordinary posting from Richard Moore: a simple, in-your-face capitulation, lock-stock-and-barrel, bell-curves and all, to the most invidious possible kind of racism. From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Sun Jun 29 16:08:49 1997 Date: 29 Jun 97 18:06:37 EDT From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: world systems network Subject: genes Status: RO Dishonesty, dlj? Or a red herring? Mike Shupp sent this query to the wsn list: How do you account for the rise of Europe? dlj replied to the wsn list as follows (emphasis added -- jb): "It amazes me that Mike can't get this right -- but then he is an American, from the land where a gun is called an "equalizer" or a "peacekeeper" and the big bombs are called a "nuclear umbrella." THE THING THAT HAS DISTINGUISHED NORTH EUROPEANS OVER THE PAST FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. the Gunpowder Years (tm), IS SIMPLY THE WILL TO MASS VIOLENCE, AND THE WILLINGNESS TO DIRECT IT AT OTHER CULTURES AND INDIVIDUALS, and their cats, dogs, libraries, customs, tax policies, and gods." Now, this assertion that there is some unique European mentality, sometimes described as rationality and progressiveness, at other times as acquisitiveness and predatoriness, is a very troublesome matter.* Those who arge this way sometimes claim that the mentality arose in ancient or medieval times; others claim, simply, that it is genetic -- i.e., racial. So I hit "reply" on my CompuServe menu and typed: "dlj: And how did Europeans acquire this "will to mass violence" and "willingness to direct it to other cultures and individuals? Is it in the genes?" I thought that, if you reply to a public message broadcast to the wsn list as a whole, your reply is also sent to the list as a whole. When dlj then replied to me, I assumed it also was a public stateement broadcast on the list. dlg replied: "Yes, its in the genes (and also of course in the structure of the social environment). The question is not how North Europeans acquired it surely. The question is how so many other peoples around the planet kep it under control." Then he adds the thought that other peoples eat a better diet, and don't have the "gencoide of the Canaanites" and "St. Augustine's bloody sword" as a religious background. So: over to you, dlj. Why do you give significance to genetic factors? Why are you defensive about admitting it instead of explaining it? This is a fundamental issue: Do Europeans have any mental qualities that help to explain their "rise" relative to all other societies? Is it in the genes? Or is it in the world-system? Jim Blaut *For instance, this is the central issue in debates over Afrocentrism. From aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu Sun Jun 29 18:27:57 1997 id UAA06957; Sun, 29 Jun 1997 20:27:52 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 20:28:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Wayne Austin Reply-To: Andrew Wayne Austin To: "Richard K. Moore" Subject: Re: genes & racism In-Reply-To: Status: RO Richard, Suggesting, as you have, that a rejection of biological race is an "over-reaction," is equivalent to suggesting that round earthers have jumped the gun. Andrew Austin From 6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu Sun Jun 29 19:09:47 1997 Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 18:09:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Judi Kessler <6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> To: Andrew Wayne Austin Subject: Re: modified remove In-Reply-To: Status: RO To Chris Chase-Dunn: Chris - is there a way in which I can remain on this network, but receive only your postings (re the journal, events, new books, etc)? I haven't seen any "world system" dialogue on the network for a long time. thx ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Judi A. Kessler University of California, Santa Barbara Department of Sociology Santa Barbara, California 93106 (805) 893-3751 fax (805) 893-3324 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From dlj@inforamp.net Sun Jun 29 20:09:21 1997 by mail.istar.ca with esmtp (Exim 1.62 #10) Reply-To: From: "David Lloyd-Jones" To: <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM>, "WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK" Subject: Blaut, Still Lying, Now Mumbling. Was:Re: genes Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 21:57:03 -0400 Status: RO Blaut has at least published part of my private reply to him, demonstrating that, as I had said, he was lying in his earlier partial quote. He now asks: > > So: over to you, dlj. Why do you give significance to genetic factors? Why are > you defensive about admitting it instead of explaining it? I didn't give any significance to genetic factors. I doubt that even Blaut thinks godliness is genetic in the large. When Blaut asked me "genes?" in his private note I downplayed genes as a factor in my reply. Possibly he is too stupid to understand my light reply, grasping only the partial significances he attaches to disembodied phrases he has bitten off. His attacks aimed at me have nothing to do with anything I wrote to him. I now feel as though I know what it's like to be attacked in public by an angry chihuahua. James, publish my entire text, apologise, and go away, OK? > This is a fundamental issue: Do Europeans have any mental qualities that help to > explain their "rise" relative to all other societies? Is it in the genes? Or is > it in the world-system? "Rise", Blaut's word, Blaut's quotation marks, is his entry to the conversation. My view is that China and India were both high civilizations which were attacked by successful vandals. Bertrand Russel once said of the Vandals that since they were illiterate they naturally got a bad press. Since we had steam driven presses, and now computers, we can spread the idea that sending soldiers to pick rubies out of the Taj Mahal with their bayonets constitutes a "rise." "Is it in the genes? Or is it in the world system?" I think betrays a two valued logic which would not crowd the brain pan of the hypothetical chihuahua above. > Jim Blaut > > *For instance, this is the central issue in debates over Afrocentrism. No it isn't. The central issue in discussions of Afrocentrism is the facts: we are only just beginning to do any digging in Africa, and the results turn out to be marvellous and intriguing. The press casting Leonard Jeffries as a racist -- and Jeffries Mau-Mauing everybody in sight -- is not a central issue. It is not even a peripheral issue. It is a little side show over at some other fair in a smaller stupider village somewhere. -dlj. From dgrammen@prairienet.org Sun Jun 29 21:48:04 1997 Sun, 29 Jun 1997 22:47:20 -0500 (CDT) Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 22:47:20 -0500 (CDT) From: Dennis Grammenos Subject: Lloyd-Jones: An Ignoramous Reactionary for All Seasons [WAS:Re: Blaut, Still Lying, Now Mumbling] To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK In-Reply-To: Status: RO I take exception to the pathetic personal attacks that David Lloyd-Jones has launched against Jim Blaut, even stooping as low as to suggest that Jim is "stupid"! Few subscribers to this list are surprised at the depths of ignorance that David Lloyd-Jones decides to drag just about any discussion. If he is so dead set against any expression of progressive thinking then why the hell does he choose to be on WSN except to provide tasteless provocation and derail any sort of discussion that does not satisfy his neo-conservative criteria. What an ignoramous! On Sun, 29 Jun 1997, David Lloyd-Jones wrote: > Possibly he is too stupid to understand my light reply [.....] > I now feel as though I know what it's like to be attacked in public by an > angry chihuahua. From dlj@inforamp.net Sun Jun 29 22:44:28 1997 by mail.istar.ca with esmtp (Exim 1.62 #10) Reply-To: From: "David Lloyd-Jones" To: , "WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK" Subject: Re: Lloyd-Jones: An Ignoramous Reactionary for All Seasons [WAS:Re: Blaut, Still Lying, Now Mumbling] Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 00:42:14 -0400 Status: RO : Dennis Grammenos writes: > Subject: Lloyd-Jones: An Ignoramous Reactionary for All Seasons [WAS:Re: Blaut, Still Lying, Now Mumbling] > Date: June 29, 1997 11:47 PM > > Perhaps the word he is looking for is "ignoramus." -dlj. From dlj@inforamp.net Mon Jun 30 06:52:27 1997 Received: from mail.istar.ca (iSTAR.ca [204.191.136.4]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id GAA27849 for ; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 06:52:26 -0600 (MDT) Received: from widgette [204.191.146.210] by mail.istar.ca with esmtp (Exim 1.62 #10) id 0wifwm-0000nU-00; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 08:52:52 -0400 Reply-To: From: "David Lloyd-Jones" To: , "WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK" Subject: Re: Lloyd-Jones: An Ignoramous Reactionary for All Seasons [WAS:Re: Blaut, Still Lying, Now Mumbling] Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 08:49:50 -0400 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: Status: RO Dennis Grammenos writes: > > I take exception to the pathetic personal attacks that David Lloyd-Jones > has launched against Jim Blaut, even stooping as low as to suggest that > Jim is "stupid"! > I have made no suggestions whatsoever about Jim's character or endowments. The idea that he "is stupid" is entirely Grammenos's. I have pointed out that he writes lies, and I have speculated on the specific aspect of character which may come into play to explain the repetition of a dishonest line of attack after the first breach has been pointed out. Stupidity is not, of course, the only possible hypothesis. It might have been carelessness, malice, or the infantile belief that by repetition he could make an invention credible. Perhaps he swooned at the keyboard. > Few subscribers to this list are surprised at the depths of ignorance > that David Lloyd-Jones decides to drag just about any discussion. If he > is so dead set against any expression of progressive thinking then why > the hell does he choose to be on WSN except to provide tasteless > provocation and derail any sort of discussion that does not satisfy his > neo-conservative criteria. I shudder to think what Grammenos imagines "progressive thinking" means. Does it have anything in common with brainwashing one's undergraduates? And just how big is the overlap between progressive and teleological anyway? > What an ignoramous! Perhaps he means "ignoramus," but, uh, we don't know. -dlj. From austria@it.com.pl Mon Jun 30 07:17:59 1997 Received: from zloty.it.com.pl (zloty.it.com.pl [195.116.142.4]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id HAA28927 for ; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 07:16:35 -0600 (MDT) Received: from 8626htb20426 (annex1-53.it.com.pl [195.116.134.153]) by zloty.it.com.pl (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id PAA00547 for ; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 15:16:58 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <199706301316.PAA00547@zloty.it.com.pl> Reply-To: From: "Austrian Embassy" To: Subject: 30 june 1997: euromonetarism Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 15:16:08 -0700 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO EURO-monetarism and the future of world capitalist currency reserves by Arno Tausch, Associate Professor of Political Science, Innsbruck University, Austria All opinions, expressed in this discussion paper, are those of the author and not of the Austrian Government This article should serve as a discussion input on the World Systems Network. Please send reaction to: austria@it.com.pl or as an open discussion input to the WSN in Colorado Please specify in the message title: Arno Tausch - Debating Euro-Monetarism We start here from the assumption, that there would be a chance for a socio-liberal transformation in Europe, that should not be missed. There is the danger, that Euro-monetarism will accelerate the tendency of the world system on its path towards financial speculation, narco-capitalism, and the shifting of resources away from the Atlantic region towards the Pacific. On the other hand, it is evident that Europe's long-term ascent from the Long 16th Century onwards from the state of a former periphery of the world system to a center (Arrighi, 1995; Amin, 1975), which was based on agrarian reform and mass demand, is now threatening to be reversed by the application of monetary orthodoxy. The Maastricht debate is characterized by the following basic fallacies: Fallacy number one: by high unemployment you can control inflation. At the outset of this technical appendix, we would thus like to state that unemployment, first of all, is an enormous waste of economic resources. For 18 western democracies with complete UNDP (or Federal Ministry of Labor of the Republic of Austria) data for 1995, we have: Graph 12.1: Unemployment is a waste of resources Thus, only at very small and at very high levels of already existing unemployment, a 'shock therapy' might work to flatten out budget deficits. But else, there is an across the board negative correlation between unemployment and budget surplus, i.e. increasing unemployment still increases deficits. Savings has limits. And here, the sad story of Euro-'monetarism' begins (the hyphens are to indicate, that the relationship between real monetarist theory of the Milton Friedman type to contemporary European applications is far from certain). And here, we start: 'Jacques Rueff, fierce 1950s critic of American monetary hegemony, once said: 'Europe will be built through a currency or it will not be built at all'. What the ERM story shows is quite the opposite: trying to lock countries like France and Germany together via their currencies does not forge one nation; instead it turns domestic monetary questions into international political conflicts' (Connolly, 1995: 1995) It is time to stress the fundamental weaknesses of the EMU project from the viewpoint of world system theory. Up to now, Europe does not form an integrated economic region with truly European transnational corporations; Europe forms only a preferential market (Amin, 1997). Secondly, Europe does not have a continental societal project, that would integrate such areas as research and development, public markets, and would have a joint commercial and corporate law, and as yet does not integrate the vital sectors of film and TV production. Trade union and other social law would have to be integrated, and Europe does not have as yet a joint project of external relations with the other regions of the world economy (Amin, 1997). The EMU project should facilitate a truly common market, the free movement of capital and stable external exchange rates. As the critics of the project have shown all along, the project could only function if there is a parallel economic and social policy in the member states of EMU; that means harmonization of tax and expenditure systems, the integration at the level of corporate policy, and the harmonization of trade union policy at the European level. There would have to be a coordinated European policy not only of the internal, but also of the external opening of markets - especially regarding foreign investment and capital inflows from third countries (Amin, 1997). I would even dare to say that neomarxists like Samir Amin and neo-liberals like Vaclav Klaus agree on the 'constructivist' approach of EMU - running counter to the world economic tendencies of contemporary capitalism. We all know by today the Maastricht criteria (Rothschild, 1997): a) in the examination year an inflation rate no more than 1.5 percent above the average of the three EU states with the lowest price rises b) a long-term rate of interest within two percentage points of the average of the three 'best' countries c) a national budget deficit (covering national, federal and local governments) less than 3 percent of GDP d) a public debt ratio which does not exceed 60 percent of GDP e) a currency for two years within the normal band of EMS Fallacy number two now arises: that economic theory supports the EURO. Academic economists found 24 main arguments against the EURO: (i) external changes and shocks will not be answered anymore by changes in the external exchange rate. Since the exchange rate is not anymore a factor of economic policy regulation, either migration, wage flexibility, fiscal policy or economic transfers from other countries will become the main regulatory mechanisms in the new, monetarily united Union (Klaus, 1997; Beirat 1996; Stephen Roach from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Monday, 16th of June, 1997: 16). Fiscal policy under Maastricht is also 'crowded' out, so practically only wage policy and or migration remains as the economic adaptation mechanism of a country to react to external shocks (Beirat, 1996) (ii) but labor is not that flexible; so the result will be - in all probability - economic transfers within the EMU countries. Economic transfers are the inevitable result of monetary union (a contradiction, perhaps spelt out most clearly by the neo-liberal acting Czech Premier and economist Vaclav Klaus, 1997). This scenario will lead to the inevitable result of a loss of autonomy of national fiscal policies (Klaus, 1997). Such a scenario is all the more likely since there is no convergence in the productivity of labor in the EMU countries themselves. Without a financial transfer system from the rich to the poor regions, EMU will prove to be not operational, anywhere up to $bn 1000 DM will have to be transferred (Borchert, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 1st March, 1997: 25), thus repeating the experience of the integration of the New Laender into the Federal Republic (iii) the problems of the classic 'euro-monetarist' Maastricht package are compounded by the fact that not governments, but parliaments decide on fiscal policy in European democracies - thus making the signatures of heads of governments or foreign ministers under treaties of stability liable to parliamentary control - or worse - Maastricht would have led to the gradual erosion of the role of the national parliaments in favor of the executive branch (iv) according to the textbooks, the function of financial markets is the transfer of savings into the financing of real economic investments (Beirat, 1996). On a global scale, European and Atlantic region savings in general will be transferred to real economic investments in Asia, the most dynamic region of the capitalist world economy (Arrighi, 1995). Gross domestic savings in the European Union are only 20%, and gross domestic investment only 19% of GDP. In the US, savings (15%) and investments (16%) are even lower. For the moment, the international system seems to work in a very simple way: international debts finance the Asian/US economic compound. On a global scale, East Asia achieves an investment boom (37% investments per GDP), followed by South-East Asia and the Pacific region (33%), while Eastern Europe and the CIS stand at 22% savings and investments each (UNDP, 1996). Only Sub-Saharan Africa has a lower savings and investments rate than the EU and the USA. At the heart of the 'euro-monetarist' Maastricht prescriptions against the European ills now lies the assumption, that monetary policy will influence only prices, but not output and employment. The EMU-optimists hope that the single currency will be an ideal instrument for Europe to sustain in international economic competition. But a 'hard' EURO will be of a negative influence on trade-, and hence, on European current account balances with the rest of the world, since European exports will become more expensive and European imports will become cheaper. Until now, de-valuations were a proper economic policy instrument of the weaker European economies to balance their negative current accounts, as the example of Spain and Italy over the last years amply demonstrates. This instrument would now be absent; only migration, the wage rate and or unemployment would be the only options left for the European mezzogiorno under EMU (Boyer, 1996). A sinister argument could even be, that the motives for the EMU project could be rather inner-European competition. A 'hard' EURO comprising the European mezzogiorno, would ruin exporters in the South (that made important headways against the dominance of German TNCs in Europe over recent years) while cementing the position of German and a few other multinationals - banks and companies - on an increasingly protected European home market. Then, indeed, the European Union would become what Samir Amin has contemptuously called 'The Fourth Reich' (Amin, 1997). Germany, far away from being Europe's 'growth locomotive', is on its 'best' way to become an economy, typically characterized by double deficits: total debts of the public sector exploding since the 1970s (now reaching DEMbn 2133.3); subventions now standing at DEMbn 116.2; the current account balance deficit 0.6% of GDP, unemployment, for years cosmetically 'polished up' by excluding the German East from the country's international statistics, now at 11.2% and reaching the highest levels since the end of the Weimar Republic (v) on the other hand, the 'euro-monetarist' package against future inflation under EMU, that solely relies on 5 monetary criteria, overlooks the very plausible role of encompassing trade unions in combating inflation - an argument, originally also conceded by neo-liberal economic theory. Furthermore, the 'euro-monetarist' Maastricht strategy, as envisaged by around 1995-1997, would have brought about a monetary union between precisely those EU countries that already are in the upper 1/4 or 1/3 of stability on the European continent - with uncertain implications for the unfortunate rest (Beirat, 1996). The election victory of the French left on June 1st 1997 is inseparable from the strains that the original 'euro-monetarist' interpretation of the Maastricht project brought about. The annual rate of inflation in EU-Europe is the minor problem: the real problem is massive European unemployment (vi) you cannot exclude an entire region from the project of European Monetary Union. The Kohl/Waigel strategy would have relied on the European North, and not on the South. The political backlash against Euro-monetarism, Frankfurt (Franc fort?)-style, is only too well understandable, considering the high social costs that French society in particular would have had to bear. Dramatic words are being used by European politicians nowadays: the EURO should guarantee peace on the European continent et cetera. But the reality is different: it creates the very conflicts between a 'hard' and a 'soft' European economic zone. But 'weak' Euro' would, most probably, also be no alternative: restructuring of ailing European enterprises will be postponed; with capital markets most probably reacting by pushing up interest rates (Neue Zuercher Zeitung, 16th of June, 1997: 9), thus prolonging the vicious downward cycle of the European political economy. The only real alternative would be to follow a socio-liberal flexible growth path, Danish, Dutch, Irish or Asian style (vii) export markets of the 'ins' are heavily dependent on precisely those European nations, whose participation in the EMU project was long considered to be doubtful. But currency de-valuations in the 'outs' would be a high probability during the initial phases of the project, thus making the employment situation in the 'ins' all the more difficult. Germany and France lost important market shares in Italy during 1992 - 1994 (Beirat, 1996). The 10 countries which fulfilled two, three or four Maastricht criteria by 1996 (Belgium, Germany, Finland, Netherlands, France, Austria, Luxembourg, Denmark, Ireland, United Kingdom) would have had 55 votes on the EU council, while the 'outs' (Sweden and the European 'mezzogiorno') would have had enough votes (32) to block voting in the Council (Beirat, 1996; our own calculations from Weixner and Wimmer, 1997). This perspective could have also blocked the project of extending Europe eastward (viii) all this will lead to a 'deficit' of democracy in the Union; in accordance with the liberal doctrine that the weakening of democracy is - inter alia - the result of the geographical distance between the locality, where decisions are taken, and the citizens, who are the subject of these decisions (Klaus, 1997) (ix) 1996, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece did not meet any of the first four criteria; Sweden missed three criteria; Germany and Austria two; and the rest of the Union at least one of the criteria (Weixner and Wimmer, 1997). Only Luxembourg meets all the five Maastricht criteria (Weixner and Wimmer, 1997; Rothschild, 1997) (x) international financial speculation will prove to be a formidable factor in the line-up for the realization of the whole project. On 'Black Friday', July 30th 1993, the Bundesbank had to buy foreign currencies to the tune of $bn 30 DM under the old EMS (Weixner and Wimmer, 1997). Now, the political conflict lines in Europe would suggest: either a 'weaker' EURO against the Dollar and the Yen, which is good for the European export industries and the European South on the world markets; an option, probably supported by the new left wing governments around Europe; with the inevitable flight into real estate and the Dollar by the accumulated wealth in Germany (and, to a minor extent in the other countries) to the tune of over DMbn 4000 to DMbn 5000 as the immediate consequence; or Maastricht is realized at the cost of transforming the European East and South into a mirror-picture of the process of the integration of the New Laender into Germany after 1989. The vast size of accumulated savings in Germany, together with the savings of the European shadow economy, are an immense pool of potential speculative money, should the EURO project get into real trouble. Anything can happen: transfers into US $, real estate, Yen, Swiss Francs, Swedish Crones. Remember in this context, that - compared to these huge amounts of accumulated legal and illegal wealth - the German currency reserves are 'only' $bn 80.2: a sustained speculation against the Deutschmark on the international financial markets could trigger-off a panic reaction on the part of German wealth-holders, which could mean the end of the EMU project. Hardly observed is the fact, that German currency reserves amounted $bn 85.3 in 1996 and melted down to 80.2 in March 1997 (see also, Chapter 8 and Chapter 12). International currency reserves could melt under such circumstances like an atomic reactor during a greatest possible accident. Seen in such a way, the political class that rules Germany knew well enough, why it insisted all along on a 'hard EURO' - to the detriment of European export industries. But you cannot expect banking capital to rule against banking capital. In a real battle over international finances, the European strategic currency reserves are small compared to the rising Asian reserves, brought about by the enormous accumulated current account balances over the years. In 1997, Taiwan alone had currency reserves to the tune of $bn 88.0; Japan 218.2; China 114.0; Hong Kong 69.6, Singapore 77.3; while Switzerland had 35.3; and the USA only 56.2, with the big European economies like France, Spain, the Netherlands and Italy holding reserves to the tune of around 25 to 60 billion $ each (see also, Chapter 12). Well-established German financial institutes already more and more propagate Dollar savings accounts - a clear sign how real the transfer of German savings into US $ already has become. It is significant, that the European mezzogiorno states Spain (60.6) and Italy (45.4) have increased their foreign currency reserves by about $bn 30 last year, and together already have larger reserves than the Federal Republic of Germany (xi) public opinion in the richer countries of the Union is mostly against the whole project, with rejection rates in 1996 already ranging from 46% in Austria to 64% in Denmark (Weixner and Wimmer, 1997) (xii) the erosion of the EMU-project finds it's counterpart in the erosion of the state of public finances in the Federal Republic of Germany. The economic consequences of Mr. Theo Waigel are very clear to judge: he presided over the doubling of Germany's public sector debt to $bn 1259 during his record tenure as Germany's longest-serving finance minister. Hid 'defiant alchemism' in his bitter dispute with the Bundesbank over German gold reserves is but the last straw in a long chain of events (Financial Times, Weekend, May 31st, June 1st, 1997) (xiii) the shadow economy will partially have to come out from the darkness, most probably increasing the already existing capital flight into the Dollar, the Yen, and into real estate. Indeed, considering the volatile character of international finances, a real avalanche could ensue, making the EMU-project impossible (xiv) the Maastricht criteria will prove to be an instrument of anti-Keynesian global governance (Raffer, 1997). But the reception of neo-liberal economics by the EU-Commission and the Maastricht heads of governments was highly selective: while they seem to imply the importance of 5 monetary criteria, the Union overlooks day by day other neo-liberal prescriptions in important policy areas - from human capital policy over trade policy to agriculture (xv) if General Motors, AT & T, and individual households had been required to balance their budgets in the manner applied to the Federal Government (which in the US is under similar pressures as the governments in Europe), there would be no corporate bonds, no bank loans, and many fewer automobiles, telephones and houses (Vickrey, 1996). The Maastricht criteria are part and parcel of the 15 fatal fallacies of financial fundamentalism (xvi) a more useful arrangement than Maastricht would have been to achieve first a certain degree of political cohesion in order to arrive at a more consensual democratic and better enforceable economic framework (Rothschild, 1997; Amin, 1997) (xvii) there are fundamental differences between the 'freedoms' for capital and labor - the first can be moved without having to learn a language and without leaving behind friends and a familiar environment - labor even when organized in a union cannot threaten to transfer as body to another firm or country. The freedom of labor does not present a countervailing power to the bargaining power obtained by business through the complete liberalization of capital movements; on the contrary; that bargaining power is strengthened by the uninhibited possibility of attracting workers from low-wage EU countries (Rothschild, 1997). The basic policy approach of Maastricht and the Commission overlooks this important fact (xviii) real outcomes in economic life, such as growth, employment, productivity, development, income distribution, do not figure at all in the so-called convergence criteria (Rothschild, 1997) (xix) full employment is a good precondition against inflation (xx) the harmonization of social conditions in the Union by the Social Charta remains one of the most important tasks for an effective, real monetary union, because this would lay down the conditions for a convergence in the real welfare conditions of the countries concerned (Rothschild, 1997) (xxi) with the Maastricht criteria, Kalecki's prediction, dated 1943, about a political business cycle with the entrepreneurs losing any real interest in full employment would come true (Rothschild, 1997; Raffer, 1997) (xxii) the institutionalized acceptance of neo-classical economics, inherent in the Maastricht criteria, is only one-sided. The Free Market optimism which had been developed on the assumptions of atomistic competition between powerless firms is transferred to a world of oligolopolies and mammoth corporations (Rothschild, 1997). (xxiii) the negative attitude to special protective treatment for the poorer regions and their development is the more astonishing in view of the fact that the Union is not opening it's own economic frontiers world-wide (Rothschild, 1997) (xxiv) the conflict between the 'ins' and the 'outs' would increase instead of decrease under a scenario of a strict implementation of the Maastricht criteria. Eastward extension of the Union would be more important than monetary union (Amin, 1997). Maastricht-style monetary union would, especially for the new members of the Union in the East, mean a two-class type of European integration Fallacy number three now consists in the assumption, that you can exclude the shadow economy and their accumulated savings from the EURO debate. A new currency will mean for the gangsters: open the money suitcases and try to exchange or place any bill that is not yet placed. But for many members of the huge and growing criminal underworld (there were 87 prisoners per 100000 population in the EU alone in 1993; i.e. a rise against the 77 per 100000 in 1987) the question of EMU is also a fundamental one: emerge with the cash? Place it somewhere? Exchange it for $ bills? To give an impression of the size of the criminal underworld, it might suffice here to state that in EU countries alone, there is a prison population of about 320000 people. Extending the Union eastwards and including the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Poland, would mean adding another 153000 people to this entire army. Just to give an imagination about the size of the problem, it might suffice here to state that by comparison, the entire armed forces of the European Union are only 2068000 people (all data calculated from UNDP, 1997). Recently, the international press has put the existing dangers in such terms: Rising Wave of Mafia-Style Violence Terrorizes Eastern European Nations Crime: Police seem helpless to deal with killings and bombings. Transition from communism to market economy helped create opportunities for gangs. Los Angeles Times SUNDAY January 19, 1997 JUDITH INGRAM; ASSOCIATED PRESS The businessman walked the few steps from home to his Jeep Cherokee before he was cut down by a bullet through the temple, fired from a silencer-equipped, large-caliber pistol about three yards away. No one saw the murder of Jozsef Prisztas, who was allegedly linked to gangsters, on a residential Budapest street shortly before noon on Nov. 1. At least, no one was talking. The slaying was emblematic of the Mafia-style crime wave that has taken hold across much of post-Communist Eastern Europe--where citizens were ready for just about everything democracy could bring except the terror of organized crime. No week goes by without a message from the underworld: a bus or car bomb here, a grenade there. Robbery, murder, the smuggling of drugs, arms and people, and money laundering are on the rise. Huge caches of smuggled weapons have shown up in Slovenia, the former Yugoslav republic between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea. Bombs have ripped through currency-exchange booths in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. A former Bulgarian premier, Andrei Lukanov, was gunned down in a Sofia street in broad daylight and the country's underworld was blamed. Across half a continent, gangland violence has spread fear--and left courts, police and politicians flailing. "We say that Europe has to unite," said France Bucar, a veteran anti-Communist dissident who recently stepped down as head of Slovenia's parliamentary security commission. "But organized crime discovered this already before. And the victim of all this is the security of our society. "Eastern Europe's gangs have grown rich on the divide between their countries and the West, supplying what legitimate businessmen couldn't: first pantyhose and jeans, then computer parts and drugs, finally "protection" for money, property and lives. The current gangland wars among Eastern Europe's underworld princes reflect just how big the stakes have grown. In Hungary, bomb explosions, hand-grenade attacks and shootings killed three men and seriously wounded three in November and December. The toll is not out of line with many Western nations--Budapest reported 60 murders among its 2 million residents in 1995, which compares with 72 in Berlin with nearly twice the population but 131 in Cleveland with one-fourth the people. But the bloodshed shocked this normally placid society because the police seem helpless. "Maybe it's a conflict of interest or a turf dispute, but we also think that someone made off with billions of forints, and that there's real estate speculation involved," said Laszlo Garamvoelgyi, spokesman for Hungary's national police. Organized crime spread rapidly in the legal limbo that accompanied Eastern Europe's transition from communism to a market economy. From restaurants and entertainment spots, gangs moved into protection rackets, loan-sharking and the drug trade--especially after the wars in former Yugoslavia shut down a key east-west narcotics route. In Hungary, illegal oil-importing schemes have reportedly netted huge amounts of money for the underworld. Prisztas' killing marked a new, deadly turn in Budapest's gangland war. Within three weeks, two of his associates were seriously wounded--jockey Csaba Lakatos, shot near the stables at Budapest's racetrack, and Pal Totka, a fish wholesaler and former boxer shot in the courtyard of his apartment building. As organized crime has flourished, officialdom has all but admitted defeat. In Maribor, a bucolic Slovenian town at the foot of the Alps, the mayor, Alojz Krizman, says the "mafia" rules in his nation. Take local anti-hero Maksmilijan Vollmajer. Before his death in a car crash this autumn, Vollmajer was as well known across the cozy Alpine country of just under 2 million people as its president or premier. "His name had become a symbol for the nonfunctioning of the rule of law," said Otmar Klepsteter, a Slovenian journalist. Vollmajer spent time in prison in neighboring Austria before rising to notoriety in the post-Communist chaos of Yugoslavia's breakup. Police and locals say he built a profitable line in illegal drugs, insurance scams and violent retribution on any foe. In 1994, he was even convicted for some of the 65 crimes police charged him with. But a liberal justice system--devised by those who wanted to break the heavy hand wielded by the police under communism--led an appeals court to overturn the sentence. Police allege Vollmajer took revenge by planting a bomb that missed the judge who had dared sentence him, but did maim the judge's wife. That was just one of 12 explosions that "poured fuel on the fire" in Maribor this past year, local police chief Milan Kus said. No one was killed. "The aim of these explosions is not an attack on bodies or life, but to spread fear," Kus said. Copyright © 1997, Times Mirror Company Los Angeles Times© 1997 Los Angeles Times. All rights reserved. DIALOG® File Number 630 Accession Number 2540137 Organized Crime Goes Global While the U. S. Stays Home The Washington Post May 11, 1997 Edition: FINAL By: John F. Kerry Most Americans still refuse to believe just how well-organized global crime has become. Such groups as the Russian mafia and the Chinese triads exist only in the slick fantasy world of television, movies and thriller novels. Like the dark and powerful men of the "Godfather" trilogy, they may thrill us or chill us, but we don't recognize them as a serious, unprecedented threat.Bu t a new criminal order is being born, more interconnected, violent and powerful than the world has ever seen. To fight it, we have to make fundamental changes in our legal and law enforcement structure, and encourage other nations to do the same. In strategy, sophistication and reach, the criminal organizations of the late 20th century function like transnational corporations and make the gangs of the past look like mom-and-pop operations. Today's criminal cartels use high-speed modems and encrypted faxes; they buy jet airplanes three or four at a time and even have stealth-like submersibles in their armadas. They hire the finest minds to provide the kind of complex accounting procedures any multi-billion-dollar empire requires. In one sense, this phenomenon can best be understood as part of the same great process of change that is transforming nearly all aspects of modern life. As Harvard's Rosabeth Moss Kanter has said, "The world century is beginning. " And, I would add, the century of world crime. Crime has been globalized along with everything else -- except our response to it. America is the great prize for criminals, the prime market for imported narcotics, weapons and vice. For that, Americans are, in part, responsible: We create the demand for these products. Individuals must be held accountable when they buy cocaine, guns and the services of prostitutes. But we must also recognize that the temptation to purchase is now enhanced by sophisticated organizations totally focused on the global marketing of vicious products and violent services, and capable of the wholesale corruption of governments and societies to protect these enterprises. As the former director of the CIA, James Woolsey, testified before my committee: "When international organized crime can threaten the stability of regions and the very viability of nations, the issues are far from being exclusively in the realm of law enforcement; they also become a matter of national security." A decade ago, my committee investigators and I began to uncover portions of a common international infrastructure for crime. We interviewed criminals inside various U. S. prisons and found that they had remarkable access to political figures in countries all over the world. This work led me to the drug network of Manuel Noriega and eventually to the place he laundered his money, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). During the dozens of hearings I held, I was able to expose a lot about this hidden world. But I felt that in the day-to-day headlines, some of the scope of what I was seeing had yet to be adequately described. The new global criminal axis is composed of five principal powers in league with a host of lesser ones. The Big Five are the Italian Mafia, the Russian mobs, the Japanese yakuza, the Chinese triads and the Colombian cartels. They coordinate with smaller but highly organized gangs with distinct specialties in such countries as Nigeria, Poland, Jamaica and Panama, which remains a significant transshipment and money-laundering point even after the arrest of General Noriega. Various alliances among these groups are still in the formative stage, but all indications are that those relations are rapidly becoming more complex and coordinated. For instance, in the summer of 1992 the leaders of the Russian and Italian mobs held a series of secret summits in Prague, Warsaw and Zurich. Our intelligence on these kinds of gatherings is woefully inadequate, but we can tell much from the results. They decided that rather than compete in the drug trade, they would form a strategic alliance: The Sicilians now provide the know-how to acquire and market the drugs, and the Russians provide security for transit routes and distribution networks throughout the former Soviet empire. To see where these interconnections can lead, consider such cases as the contract hit man who flew in from Moscow to kill an uncooperative store owner in New York, on behalf of the Organizatsiya. He got his fake papers by supplying the Sicilian Mafia with Soviet Army surplus ground-to-air missiles to smuggle into the Balkans to supply the Bosnian Serbs with the firepower to take on U. N. security forces. As French journalist Roger Faligot documented in his recent book on Chinese crime, "The Invisible Empire," Chinese, Japanese and Colombian criminals are working together in the drug trade: "The Colombian cartels produce the cocaine, the Chinese take it in exchange for heroin that can then be smuggled into the U. S. The triads bring cocaine to Japan and distribute it with the help of the yakuzas. Then the Asian mafiosi launder their drug money in Europe. " The triads also have spun out extortion and loan-sharking operations to major British cities such as London, Manchester and Glasgow; heroin trafficking to Rotterdam; prostitution, gambling, robbery and contract murder to Germany; money laundering to Prague; weapons trafficking to Romania, and alien smuggling to Moscow. In 1995, Italian officials uncovered a sophisticated joint venture between the Camorra crime group and the Russian mafia. The Russians received counterfeit $100 bills in exchange for giving the Italians property, possibly including a large bank, and significant arms shipments. The Italians also buy large quantities of the synthetic narcotics that are becoming a major industry in Russia. There is evidence that the American mafia, perhaps in an effort to modernize and rejuvenate, is striking similar alliances. Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the former acting boss of the Lucchese crime family in New York, has told investigators about New York mobsters taking part in scams developed by the Russians, especially gasoline tax frauds and gasoline bootlegging. "The Russians supplied the brains and the Mafia supplied the hit men," one investigator said. America must lead the world in the fight against these private criminal enterprises just as we led the world in the fight against public criminal governments. But we cannot fight alone; we need to create a new international alliance to meet the threats, like the alliances that defeated fascism, communism and Saddam Hussein. We need a revolution in the way we conceive of every aspect of the law, from jurisdiction to punishment. We need to move beyond traditional notions of national sovereignty when those notions benefit only the bad guys. When a Dominican hit man comes to the United States and engages in a contract killing that winds up also taking the lives of innocent bystanders, he knows he's scot-free if he can reach Dominican soil before the United States grabs him. The same is true if he is Panamanian, Costa Rican, Russian or, for all practical purposes, French. When a Colombian drug trafficker in a Honduran-flagged boat enters French or Dutch waters off the Caribbean island of St. Martin, he knows the pursuing U. S. Coast Guard vessel will have to stop at the three-mile limit. We have to recognize that the world's patchwork quilt of legal systems is as much an anachronism as carbon paper. A working system of laws to combat transnational crime must be hammered out among nations of good will. These would include: * Minimum standards of international law. Nations must agree both on a consistent system of laws and a consistent system of punishment. As matters now stand, money laundering is not a crime in Turkey or Russia; extradition is constitutionally banned in Colombia; and illicit financial dealings still account for too much of the business of banking systems in countries like Switzerland and Austria. * Crackdown on money laundering. The dozen or so countries, such as the Cayman Islands, Cyprus and Vanuatu, that have become centers for laundering and sheltering money must be made to desist. The United States has the power: We could refuse to allow pirate financiers to move currency through the U. S. , or impose customs limitations on their trade and search all their cargoes, or forbid Americans to do business there. * Controls on electronic money. We must insist that the electronic movement of capital be regulated far more strictly. The technology is available to monitor all electronic money transfers. But bankers, although they pretend otherwise, aren't doing all they can to identify the sources of money crossing their threshold. We need to make sure they understand their obligations as key players in enforcement efforts. * Global asset forfeiture laws. The personal holdings of criminals are often located in any number of foreign lands -- yachts in the Caribbean, homes in the south of France. Each country should have laws allowing domestic and foreign law enforcement to seize and share the property of convicted criminals. * Transnational courts. In partnership with friendly nations, we need to experiment with a system of special courts to try at home cases involving victims abroad. In such cases, which would be accepted only by agreement between both nations, trials could take place wherever the evidence and witnesses were located, applying the laws of the country where the crime took place. * More U. S. law enforcement officers abroad. As FBI director Louis J. Freeh wrote recently, "If the FBI operates only in the United States, there is no way we can cope with crime threats of foreign origin that suddenly arrive full-blown in the United States. " We should add 1,000 officers to the 2,000 already stationed abroad. Every U. S. embassy should have a law enforcement team. The damage done by international crime is rarely as specific and dramatic as that of a terrorist attack, but in fact it is greater. We cannot see the billions of dollars hemorrhaging out of our economy. We cannot directly feel the violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity by the smugglers of narcotics and human beings. We cannot easily envision the harm to our national security through the failure of countries that once bravely struggled for the dignity of freedom. If, however, we prove unable to connect the drive-by shooting with the jungle laboratory and the numbered account, we will fail to understand the world we live in. Worse, we will fail to meet our challenge at a critical junction in human history. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass. ) chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations. This article is adapted from his book, "The New War," to be published next month by Simon & Schuster. Washington Post Online (c) 1997 Washington Post. All rights reserved. DIALOG(r) File Number 146 Accession Number 4124940 The battle over the EMU-project now unfolds on the international financial markets. Our prediction for Germany in this context is very dire. Germany's curency reserves and current account balances are pointing in downward directions. This process is also inexorably linked to the phenomenon of the transfer by the elites in Germany into foreign currency holdings. On paper, the USA face the same current account balance trends - to be compared at any rate by the role of the $ in international transactions, but 'their' American-Asian-Pacific economic space attracts - mainly via the Japanese bank - a large percentage of the surplus capital of the world, partly also, because both legal and illegal funds, in anticipation of the EURO, flow to that region. Japan's official current account balance also points in a downward direction, but currency reserves go up - a clear indicator for the hypothesis, that both legal and illegal world surplus capital now flows to Japan. On a world level, it is absolutely unrealistic to overlook the power of international drug cartels and other criminal groups. 20 'narco states' (soft on drugs, according to the US State Department terminology, US State Department, 1996) even on international reserves. The leading 'drug countries' with comparable data (see list at the end of the graph) control already $bn 324.137 currency reserves, while the 10 leading western industrial democracies and financial places (Japan, USA, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden) still control $bn 739.707. But an alarming of their own currency reserves again stem already from the proceeds of money laundering, as the comparison between current account balances and international reserves suggests: Graph 12.1a: International reserves of 20 narco states and 10 leading western democracies Definition: A narco state is understood here as a country, figuring on the list of statements of explanation by the US Department of State International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1996 (unclassified, available via international booktrade) Even the most powerful capitalist nations are - due to the mechanisms of international financial markets, practically at the mercy of the currency reserves accumulated in the 20 leading narco states of the South (international reserves): Graph 12.1b: The share of narco states in international reserves of the main world financial centers In the direct comparison between Japan, the US and Germany, we also see the basic weakness of the Deutschmark against the main contenders: Graph 12.1c: currency reserves and current account balances since 1990 in the world system - Germany, Japan and the USA compared Maastricht tries to achieve a stability that it can never achieve. The real reasons of financial instability on a global scale are to be found in the ever-larger share of drug money in international reserves and savings. $85 billion in drug profits are laundered through the financial markets each year, with an upward tendency. With total world savings at 22% of world GNP (25385 US$ billions), these profits are 1.5% of world savings. The volume of the drugs trade - at least $bn 500 - is 9% of world savings and approximately double the size of the largest single currency holdings of any country in the world system, Japan. The drug lords could ruin the international financial system. Maastricht walks another path - that of financial austerity, to bring about financial stability. Another fallacy, fallacy four, of the Maastricht process is that it excludes the option of full employment. UNDP-data 1996 show that labor force participation rates and inflation rates in the highly developed countries had quite a negative correlation with each other which flattens off only at very high levels of employment, thus indicating certain limits of the 'NAIRU' debate ('non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment')(Beirat, 1996). Maastricht policy brings about not only short-term, but also middle range and long-term unemployment; which - in the long run - is a very costly strategy, even increasing the very inflation process: Graph 12.2: unemployment, labor force participation rate and inflation in developed capitalism Since official unemployment statistics tell us only half the story, the negative influence of labor force participation rates on inflation are telling indeed: Fallacy five consists in overlooking what a 'hard' EURO will mean for the European exporter. Like in the former GDR, it will mean an enormous upward push in the price of European export goods on world markets. This analysis maintains all along, that factors, like the position in the world economy, are far more important variables than mere monetary aggregates. So why should Germany push so hard for a 'hard EURO'? The hypothesis, that German corporations and banks, by a policy of a hard EURO, rather tend towards eliminating present and future unwelcome competitors from the closed European home market, instead of providing the European backbone in the trilateral competition between Asia, America, and Europe, finds further support by a look at the current account balances of the world's leading industrial nations, in comparison with the EU, by around end 1996: Graph 12.3: European current account balances by international comparison Proponents of EMU maintain, especially in Germany, that, if the project should not be realized, an immediate upward re-valuation pressure would develop against the Deutschmark. We think however, that this hypothesis rather belongs to the reign of fantasy; rather, down-ward corrections of the exchange rates of the Lira, the Peseta and the Franc over the last decade are to 'blame', that today, France, Spain and Italy have very high current account surpluses and comparably large foreign currency holdings at their central banks. Faced with an ever stiffer competitive pressure from the world markets, Germany indeed seems to be inclined (revert?) to a policy of monetarily regulating, if not dominating, the chances for export of the European continent. Only a 'hard' EURO would ruin profoundly enough the unwelcome competition from the European mezzogiorno countries, a competition, which is, nota bene, partly the result of the run-away of German productive capital abroad under present-day European Union regulations. A closer look at the trade-weighted exchange rates of major European and world currencies also shows us, that the myth of an upward pressure on the Deutschmark, should the EMU project fail, will not be maintainable in the long-run, a short and desperate attempt to create a mini-EMU after a possible failure of the large EMU project notwithstanding. A third, theoretically possible path, to combine a hard EURO with an attempt to 'recycle' German savings into real transfers towards the Mediterranean EU countries, and later, the East, could be attempted at Amsterdam as a last attempt by Chancellor Kohl to save the project, but it would be politically unthinkable in the long run and would create enormous pressures on the labor markets and for exporting industries. The story of exchange rates over 1996/97 is quite different from what politicians sometimes pretend. The strength of the Deutschmark is a myth: Graph 12.4: trade-weighted exchange rates since 1990 Fallacy six consists in overlooking the real weakness of the D-Mark over recent months, and it also consists in overlooking that this trend will continue. What now follows, is something for a Mr. George Soros, and not so much for the professional economist, let alone the Bundesbank in Frankfurt. You can safely borrow in the bank DM m 10; and change it into $. The rewards will be great. The casino-like economic times, that we live in, demand from social sciences casino-type models that live up to these necessities. Short of direct speculation, the following swings could be tentatively interpreted, without maintaining any rigor from that first inspection of the empirical data: Graph 12.5: The projected rise of the $ and the fall of major currencies Already, in more analytical terms, the following cross-national analyses from the ups and downs of the exchange rates are possible, using the data base of the 'Economist' newsmagazine (Economic Indicators, comprising GDP growth, unemployment, inflation, current account balance per GDP, growth rate of broad money supply (M2), interest rates (banks prime rate), foreign reserves) for 12 leading economies in the world over 1996/97. Available data series also show, that the obsession with inflation should give way to an obsession with economic growth. The ups and downs of the exchange rate are determined primarily by economic growth, and not by monetary aggregates. Thus, we expect an underlying, basic strength of the US $ for 1997 and 1998, since America will have a stronger growth than Europe: Table 12.1: the determinants of the 1996/97 exchange rate rise or fall The case for reflating Europe's economies can even be stated in a provocative fashion: Graph 12.6: growth, consumer price rises (1997 in %) and changes in the trade-weighted exchange rate, 1996/97 Legend: inflation and exchange rate dynamism One consequence of this relationship between inflation and upward movements in the trade-weighted exchange rates is a prediction of the behavior of the major currencies on the world markets in 1998. The prediction is based on the Economist's prediction of inflation in Europe and in the major other economies of the world in 1998 If you want to invest your money in Sterlings or US $, do it. Do not go for Swiss Franks, Deutschmarks, Swedish crowns, or French Francs. Graph 12.7: $ and Sterling - superstars 1998. Predicted exchange rate dynamics, 1998 in % Fallacy seven is equally important as the six previous ones. It consists in overlooking the effects of illegal money on Europe's poorer East. A hard EURO would attract an enormous amount of illegal Eastern capital to Western Europe, while the crooks will not hesitate to change their partially existing D-Mark wealth into $ or other non-EURO currencies, should the need arise. Market imperfections and the peripheral position of Eastern Europe in the world economy cause a tendency towards a secular current account balance deficit in most of the new democracies (at least those with historical records of big landholding and a weak national state), that can practically only be closed by the shadow economy, including illegal migration and money laundering: Table 12. 2a: economic performance in Central and Eastern Europe, 1997: Strict financial discipline indeed brings about less unemployment and not more, by international cross-national comparison. But rising unemployment pushes inflation up, and not down. Thirdly, current account balances determine only to a certain extent international reserves, and indeed, excess reserves are a good signal for money-laundering processes taking place in the economy, but such excess reserves dampen inlation. The transformation economy, successor to peripheral socialism 1945 - 1989, Nazi occupation 1938/39 - 1945 and peripheral capitalism 1450 - 1939, is characterized, as Amin teaches us, by a secular current account balance deficit, that has to be closed by almost any means - including imports of 'illegal savings'. Like all wealth-owning capitalist classes, the crooks of Eastern Europe become very interested in financial stability and the canon of 'property rights', once their illegal money is parked. The right-hand upper outlayers in our following graph - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, all have nowadays a much higher proportion of foreign currency reserves to their GDP as one might expect from the current account balance (see, by contrast, older data for around 1994 in Chapter 6). Only the first, rising parts of our curves - or the straight fitting line - correspond to economic wisdom, while much of the rest is due to the global casino of money laundering and capital flight. Eastern European inflation, to a great part, is also linked to the problem of illegal capital inflows that boost reserves in excess of the available current account balance data, contributing to a dampening of the inflation process in the semi-periphery. Thus, one might say, that the stability of the East European exchange rates depends on these very same huge semi-legal and illegal reserves, that were accumulated by the opening of the twin Pandora's boxes of open borders and liberalized world financial markets. But dependency becomes decisive, when long-term growth perspectives of East and Central European economies are being determined. There is indeed 'the balance of payments constraints' on economic growth. Not only the stability of the Eastern currency, but also Eastern economic growth becomes largely dependent on the import of 'narco' and other laundered money, that neatly shows up in the international reserves statistic. Fallacy eight is to overlook that in the long run, the stability of the capitalist system needs labor as an organized, countervailing power, that the very EURO process is about to crush. In the developed capitalist countries, the following relationships suggest a new, labor-oriented approach to stabilization policy. Our Aristotelean message of a middle course thus is: at least a medium-level unionization rate and earnings growth rate will be necessary to stabilize capitalism, while at the same time the empirical support for a shortening of the weekly working hours as a way out of the crisis is rather weak. From chriscd@jhu.edu Mon Jun 30 07:18:01 1997 Received: from jhuml2.hcf.jhu.edu (jhuml2.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.2.87]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id HAA28931 for ; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 07:17:57 -0600 (MDT) Received: from soc.jhu.edu.jhname.hcf.jhu.edu (chris.soc.jhu.edu) by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #13870) id <01IKOFO0B52O95N2B9@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:17:23 -0400 (EDT) Received: from soc.jhu.edu.jhname.hcf.jhu.edu (chris.soc.jhu.edu) by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #13870) id <01IKOFNWBRSO95MSKJ@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:16:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:15:29 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: INFOTERRA: HR 1951-Cubasoli (fwd)] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Message-id: <33B7B171.2F7D@jhu.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: MESSAGE/RFC822 Content-disposition: inline Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Status: RO Received: from jhuml2.hcf.jhu.edu ([128.220.2.87]) by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <2045-8>; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 19:46:20 -0400 Received: from csf.Colorado.EDU (csf.Colorado.EDU) by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #13870) id <01IKKUQXUCDS95MYIL@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu>; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 19:45:44 -0400 (EDT) Received: from csf.Colorado.EDU (csf.Colorado.EDU) by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #13870) id <01IKKURHPV3Y95MSKJ@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu>; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 19:45:22 -0400 (EDT) Received: from host (LOCALHOST [127.0.0.1]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id RAA04284; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 17:44:25 -0600 (MDT) Received: from jhuml1.hcf.jhu.edu (jhuml1.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.2.86]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id RAA04201 for ; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 17:43:22 -0600 (MDT) Received: from jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #13870) id <01IKKS1WSAG096VQYN@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 18:27:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: from jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #13870) id <01IKKS1OZXP495MSKJ@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 18:27:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: from jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu ([128.220.2.5]) by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <1020-8>; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 18:25:49 -0400 Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 18:25:43 -0400 From: Peter Grimes Subject: INFOTERRA: HR 1951-Cubasoli (fwd) Sender: owner-wsn@csf.colorado.edu To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Reply-to: p34d3611@jhu.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Precedence: bulk X-To: WSN X-Listprocessor-version: 8.0 -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 11:31:54 -0400 From: "J. Timmons Roberts" To: Peter Grimes Subject: INFOTERRA: HR 1951-Cubasoli >X-Authentication-Warning: pan.cedar.univie.ac.at: majordom set sender to owner-infoterra using -f >Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 17:26:11 -0700 (PDT) >X-Sender: jreardon@pop.igc.org >To: jreardon@igc.apc.org >From: Juan Reardon >Subject: INFOTERRA: HR 1951-Cubasoli >Sender: owner-infoterra@cedar.univie.ac.at >Reply-To: Juan Reardon > >YOUR HELP IS NEEDED TO LIFT THE EMBARGO OF CUBA FOR FOOD & MEDICINE!!! >STOP THE CRIME. SEND YOUR SUPPORT FOR HR 1951! >VISIT THE CUBA-SOLIDARITY WEB PAGE AND FIND OUT HOW TO HELP! > --> Some of you are already involved with this effort. > Use "Cubasoli" as a resource for the campaign > -->> Where is "Cubasoli"? --> HTTP://WWW.IGC.APC.ORG/CUBASOLI/ > --> If you live outside the US ask your US friends to support. > --> E-mail your congress reps. and those of your state > --> Write a note to your local paper. > --> Please forward this message to any decent american out there! > Abrazos. > > > > > > >- >message sent by infoterra@cedar.univie.ac.at >to signoff from the list, send an email to >majordomo@cedar.univie.ac.at >the message body should read >unsubscribe infoterra your@email.address >- > > From chriscd@jhu.edu Mon Jun 30 07:48:14 1997 Received: from jhuml2.hcf.jhu.edu (jhuml2.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.2.87]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id HAA00408 for ; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 07:48:12 -0600 (MDT) Received: from soc.jhu.edu.jhname.hcf.jhu.edu (chris.soc.jhu.edu) by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #13870) id <01IKOGRYEV4W95N2B9@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:47:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: from soc.jhu.edu.jhname.hcf.jhu.edu (chris.soc.jhu.edu) by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #13870) id <01IKOGRT419O95MSKJ@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:47:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:46:53 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: removing To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Message-id: <33B7B8CD.2F65@jhu.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Status: RO or those going away during the summer the way to unsub from wsn is to send the message unsubscribe wsn to listproc@csf.colorado.edu to resub when you get back send the message subscribe wsn "your personal name" to listproc@csf.colorado.edu chris From p34d3611@jhu.edu Mon Jun 30 10:09:15 1997 Received: from jhuml2.hcf.jhu.edu (jhuml2.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.2.87]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id KAA05371 for ; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 10:09:13 -0600 (MDT) Received: from jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #13870) id <01IKOLO89OLC96VRE7@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:08:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: from jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #13870) id <01IKOLO8V9H095MSKJ@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:08:29 -0400 (EDT) Received: from jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu ([128.220.2.5]) by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <1904-5>; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:08:25 -0400 Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:08:23 -0400 From: Peter Grimes Subject: INFOTERRA: Car technology (fwd) To: WSN Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Status: RO ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:33:35 -0400 > > > DESIGNERS CLAIM SOLUTION TO TRAFFIC POLLUTION > -------------------------------------------------------------------------= ----- > > Copyright =B8 1997 Nando.net > Copyright =B8 1997 Reuter Information Service > > OSLO (June 29, 1997 8:20 p.m. EDT) - While world leaders at the U.N. Eart= h > Summit debated how to curb fossil fuel emissions and save the planet from > environmental disaster, two Norwegian designers say they have the solutio= n to > traffic congestion and related pollution. > > Claimed to be the first ever combined solar and wind-power vehicle, their > three-wheeled, open, aluminium-framed car is based on a principle similar= to > the motorized rickshaw popular in many of the world's most over-populated > cities. > > "This vehicle is a signal for the challenges related to the environment, > especially when you think of the parts of the world where the majority of= the > globe's population lives," said Harald Roestvik, a Stavanger-based archit= ect > specialising in solar architecture. > > Together with Oslo-based industrial designer Peter Opsvik, he has worked > secretly for three years on the first prototype of the new car. > > Dubbed the Butterfly, because butterflies spread their wings to warm up t= heir > bodies with solar energy before they can fly, the general-purpose vehicle= is > slow in comparison to its gasoline-guzzling contemporaries -- it tops jus= t 30 > mph. But that is not a problem in crowded cities, Roestvik said. > > "About 85 percent of people live in Asia. The congestion and pollution in > Asian cities are a huge problem. (Average) traffic speeds in a lot of Asi= an > cities are about 4 mph per hour, compared with 12 mph in, say, London," h= e > told Reuters. > > LIKE A 2CV WITH SOLAR PANELS > > Looking like the legendary Citroen 2CV, with the roof jacked up at the ba= ck, > the Butterfly can seat the driver and two to three passengers. > > Its roof has three solar panels extending from the windscreen to a black = wire > sphere containing the windmill at the back. A battery at the rear of the = car > is continuously charged by electricity from the sun and wind. > > Roestvik said the vehicle could provide a solution to harnessing the natu= ral > resources of sunshine and wind abundant in many Asian and African countri= es, > which often spend large proportions of their budgets on importing fossil > fuels. > > "It is amazing nobody has looked at this before. In cities such as Dakar, > Calcutta and Bangkok, the pollution problems are dreadful. I've been > physically sick in Mexico City from pollution," said Roestvik. > > The Butterfly project so far has been funded solely by the designers, but= a > Norwegian environmental group, The Bellona Foundation, has now stepped in= to > lend support. > > Bellona has been a vocal critic of Norwegian energy policy, both for > increasing production of oil and gas without dealing with the resulting r= ise > in emissions of the so-called greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), and fo= r > doing little to encourage reductions in domestic energy demand. > > The Scandinavian country is the world's second largest oil exporter after > Saudi Arabia and is one of the top five gas sellers to continental Europe= =2E > > The state has a burgeoning budget surplus forecast at $7.9 billion in 199= 7, > thanks to the rich hydrocarbon resources in the North Sea. > > "We (Norway) are exporting oil with the result of 600 million tons of CO2 > emissions every year and we have the income from this oil," said Frederic > Hauge, Bellona's leader. > > "There is a moral responsibility for Norway to use some of the income fro= m the > oil industry to take the costs of developing new technology... We wanted = to > show this electric vehicle could form part of a realistic and practical > solution to the world's pollution problems," Hauge said. > > BENEFITS OF STATE-FUNDED PROJECT > > Roestvik said that, if two Norwegian innovators could come up with a seri= ous > prototype for a "clean" vehicle, just think what an industry or state-fun= ded > project could do. > > It was time for Norway and for authorities around the world to become inv= olved > in looking for alternative solutions to fossil fuels, he said. > > "Norway is not in the lead in environmental matters. Norway is protecting= its > oil and gas interests full stop," he said. > > "You don't need to be an expert in pollution or have any more proof, just > stand on the street corner of any major city and do your own research. > > By TANYA PANG, Reuter >- >message sent by infoterra@cedar.univie.ac.at >to signoff from the list, send an email to >majordomo@cedar.univie.ac.at >the message body should read >unsubscribe infoterra your@email.address >- > > From ms44278@email.csun.edu Mon Jun 30 13:16:06 1997 Received: from email.csun.edu (csun1.csun.edu [130.166.1.8]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id NAA14296 for ; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 13:16:03 -0600 (MDT) Received: from 130.166.10.193 (s010n193.csun.edu) by csun1.csun.edu with SMTP (1.40.112.8/16.2) id AA099438105; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:15:06 -0700 Message-Id: <33B7F44A.53EF@csun1.csun.edu> Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:00:42 -0700 From: Mike Shupp Mime-Version: 1.0 To: dlj@pobox.com Cc: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: Re: expansionist phases References: <33B44BDF.26E7@csun1.csun.edu> <33B467F1.B9700395@inforamp.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO David Lloyd-Jones wrote: > > we have to recognize the importance of immaterial factors, > > I would think. God perhaps, or more likely superior amounts > > of will, stamina, determination, zeal, "heart", pluck on the > > part of Europeans, and sloth, laziness, inefficiency, corruption, > > fatalism, etc. on the part of the non-European natives. > > It amazes me that Mike can't get this right -- but then he is an > American, from the land where a gun is called an "equalizer"or a > "peacekeeper" and the big bombs are called a "nuclear umbrella." The > thing that has distinguished north Europeans over the past five hundred > years, The Gunpowder Years (tm), is simply the will to mass violence, > and the willingness to direct it at other cultures and individuals, and > their cats, dogs, libraries, customs, tax policies, and gods. Well, splendid! You've identified an immaterial factor. Which more or less bears on my implicit point-- that explanations which are not of a materialist bent don't seem to work too well these days. They've gone out of style, and I wonder if they will someday swing back into style. -- Mike Shupp Graduate Student Department of Anthropology California State University, Northridge ms44278@csun1.csun.edu http://www.csun.edu/~ms44278/ From gsswork@uwichill.edu.bb Mon Jun 30 20:25:28 1997 Received: from pluto.uwichill.edu.bb (pluto.edu.bb [205.214.198.203]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id UAA25929 for ; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 20:25:24 -0600 (MDT) Received: from uwichill.edu.bb (uwichill.edu.bb [205.214.197.201]) by pluto with ESMTP (DuhMail/2.0) id XAA22620; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 23:16:39 -0400 Received: from secretary.uwichill.edu.bb ([205.214.197.126]) by tropics.uwichill.edu.bb (post.office MTA v2.0 0813 ID# 0-16322) with SMTP id AAA281 for ; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 22:26:15 -0400 Message-ID: <33B86ACC.32C6@uwichill.edu.bb> Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 22:26:20 -0400 From: gsswork@uwichill.edu.bb (Dept. of Government, Sociology & Social Work) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Beyond Genes & Racism; On Infoterra; Some Musings References: <33B74892.73B3720@netcomuk.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO I can agree with Mark Jones last post expressing shock at rkm's capitulation to bell-curve backed notions of racialist differences. My view is that the jury is still out on the method, ontology, and assumptions of such research. The complexities and processes involved in the shaping of a human being seem to defy behavioural methodologies with their predictive and scientistic leanings. I am prepared however to believe that the crudities in rkm's post was perhaps in his articulation. The pursuit of a nuance can prove hazardous if the articulation is rushed. I do agree with rkm's last point though on the dangers of IQ-chauvinism. On another note, we can appreciate the socially useful benefits that can arise out of the Norweigian solar & wind-powered vehicle. The only thing here is that we can again standby and observe how the victory for principle (ecological preservation) will be proclaimed at the precise time that it COINCIDES with the interest of capitalist and state chieftains in Norway. For those interested in the pursuit of ascent or graduation in the world system, I suppose this is a good discovery for Norway. But for those very overpopulated, low-accumulation countries and cities, they await the outcome of the political fashioning and structuring of the market (inclusive of production arrangements, patenting rules, and cost) for `clean' vehicles. I thought I would say this to counter the altruism and moralism that was evident in the comments of a Norweigian solar architect along with others in the Grimes post (re. Reuter news story). >Got to go. Don D. Marshall Department of Government, Sociology & Social Work University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus.