From chriscd@jhu.edu Mon Sep 1 10:27:13 1997 Mon, 01 Sep 1997 12:26:44 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 01 Sep 1997 12:25:12 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: (Fwd) (Fwd) The UN and the Corporate Agenda] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Sun, 24 Aug 1997 02:11:28 -0400 (EDT) 24 Aug 1997 08:02:48 +0200 (GMT+0200) Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 19:35:59 +0000 From: Patrick Bond Subject: (Fwd) (Fwd) The UN and the Corporate Agenda Sender: pbond@wn.apc.org To: chriscd@jhu.edu Reply-to: pbond@wn.apc.org Comrade Chris it was great to even have a few minutes to hash over issues with you. Thought the attached might amuse you, re balance of int'l forces and reforming the UN... ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: "David C. Korten" Subject: The UN and the Corporate Agenda On June 24, 1997 the CEOs of 10 TNCs met over lunch at the United Nations with the UN leadership and a number of senior government officials to chart a formalization of corporate involvement in the affairs of the United Nations. I attended the lunch. It is rare that any of us from the NGO community has such an opportunity to sit in on a meeting of the powerholders in the private chambers. I found it a shattering experience for it revealed a seamless alliance between the public and private sectors aligned behind the consolidation of corporate rule over the global economy. It raised serious questions in my mind as to whether progressive civil society organizations should in fact be aligned behind the United Nations and its funding. The following is a personal report. I'm sending as an attachment a memo I subsequently wrote to Ambassador Razali Ismail, President of the UN General Assembly who chaired the meeting. An insightful cartoon foreseeing a UN in which the global corporations sit as equals with nations in the UN chambers and a list of luncheon participants will be posted to the PCDForum web site in the next day or two. See: http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf David C. Korten THE UNITED NATION AND THE CORPORATE AGENDA by David C. Korten It was a true power lunch of lobster and an exotic mushroom salad held in a private dining room at the United Nations on June 24, 1997. Thirty seven invited participants were co-hosted by Ambassador Razali Ismail, President of the UN General Assembly, and Mr. Bjorn Stigson, Executive Director of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) to examine steps toward establishing terms of reference for business sector participation in the policy setting process of the UN and partnering in the uses of UN development assistance funds. The players in the meeting were 15 high level representatives of government, including three heads of state, the Secretary General of the UN, the Administrator of UNDP, and the UN Under Secretary General responsible for presiding over the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, the Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerice, 10 CEOs of transnational corporations. The CEOs were mostly members of the WBCSD, a council of transnational corporations (TNCs) originally organized by Stephan Schmidheiny and Maurice Strong to represent the interests of global corporations at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992. In a limited gesture toward transparency and multi-stakeholder participation, two "academics" and two NGOs were invited to observe. The academics were Jonathan Lash of World Resources Institute and myself. Chee Yoke Ling of the Third World Network and Victoria "Vicki" Tauli-Corpuz of the Indigenous Peoples' Network, Philippines were the NGO participants. The meeting's outcome was preordained. It closed with Ambassador Razali, President of the General Assembly, announcing that a framework for the involvement of the corporate sector in UN decision making would be worked out under the auspices of the Commission on Sustainable Development. Listening to the presentations by the governmental and corporate representatives left me rather deeply shaken, as it revealed the extent to which most of the messages the world's NGOs have been attempting to communicate to the UN and its governmental members at UNCED and the other UN conferences have fallen on deaf ears. On the positive side, Mr. Thorbejoern Jagland, the Prime Minister of Norway, called for a tax shift to place the burden of taxation on environmentally damaging consumption. Both Ms. Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development of the United Kingdom and Mrs. Margaret De Boer, Minister of Environment for the Netherlands, called for giving high priority to ending poverty. Ms. Chee Yoke Ling of the Third World Network, the only non-corporate stakeholder voice given the floor, spoke eloquently of the growing concentration of wealth being created by the corporate sector and of the corporate commitment to the unattainable agenda of creating a universal consumer society. She observed that there are not enough resources in the world for everyone to live even at the current level of consumption of the average Malaysian, let alone the level of the United States or Europe. She further noted that people are becoming increasingly cynical about the professed corporate commitment to sustainability given that in corporate dominated forums such as World Trade Organization (WTO) they talk only of the rights of corporations and nothing of their obligations. Such moments of enlightenment were the exception. On the less enlightened side, we were treated to the views of Mr. Samuel Hinds, the President of Guyana. He was the only speaker to take any note of Chee Yoke Ling's comments and he dismissed out of hand. Indeed, he accused NGOs of causing popular unrest by trying to postpone in the name of environmental protection the development that people so desperately want. Besides, he pointed out, if he does not cut down his country's forests someone might grow marijuana in them. The United States sent Larry Summers, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury as its representative to the luncheon. The Clinton administration could hardly have sent a clearer message as to how it views the trade-off between its commitment to sustainability and its commitment to its corporate clients. Summers is the former Chief Economist of the World Bank who gained public fame for advocating the shipping of more toxic wastes to low income countries because people there die early anyway and they have less income earning potential so their lives are less valuable. Summers treated the luncheon guests to a litany of neoliberal platitudes. He praised privatization, noting that people take better care of their homes when they own them, implying that environmental resources will be better cared for when they are all privately owned by the corporate sector. He assured us that economic growth leads the way to creating both the will and the means to deal with the environment. In other words, he believes that the more a person consumes the more careful that person will be of the environment. And he noted that by attracting private foreign capital to build bridges and roads on a fee for use basis, the receiving countries will eliminate their need to use scarce public funds for physical infrastructure. He might well have noted as a further advantage that the private toll roads and bridges will be less congested than open public facilities as fees will exclude their use by the poor. Mr. Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN, gave the corporate CEOs a warm welcome with his message that he sees opportunities for the private sector and the UN cooperating at many levels. He referred to the Rio meeting as an example of where the private sector participated in setting the standards rather than the UN or government imposing them. He of course made no mention that corporate participation in Rio helped assure that few standards were actually set and that even fewer have been met. He called on the private sector to come up with alternative energy sources for the poor so they "don't have to cut down every tree in sight," while making no mention of the corporations that are strip mining the world's forests. He praised UNDP for its role in preparing the way for private investment to come into Third World countries and called on governments to provide incentives to move business in this direction_in short he is firmly committed to using UN and other public funds to subsidize the corporate buy-out of Third World economies. Gus Speth, the Administration of UNDP, said that the best hope for the 3 billion people in the world who live on less than $2 a day is to bring them into the market by redirecting more private investment flows to low income countries. UNDP is apparently facilitating this process by giving priority to using its limited funds to "leverage," read "subsidize," private foreign investment. He mentioned that peace and justice will require a particular kind of development, but did not elaborate as to what kind that might be. Underlying the words of everyone who was allowed to speak, with the sole exception of NGO spokesperson Chee Yoke Ling, was an embrace of the neoliberal logic of market deregulation and economic globalization. According to the prevailing official wisdom, economic globalization and the economic dominance of corporations are irreversible realities to which we must simply adapt. Since global corporations have the money and the power, any viable approach to dealing with poverty and the environment must center on providing market incentives (read public subsidies) that will make it profitable for them to invest in job creation and environmentally friendly technologies. Thus it follows, by the twisted official logic, that corporations need to be brought in as partners in public decision process to assure that the resulting policies will be responsive to their needs. If any speaker other than Chee Yoke Ling saw any problem in giving over ever more power to global corporations, they revealed no hint of it at this power luncheon. The underlying commitment to the use of public resources to advance unrestrained global corporate expansion brought to mind the central message of a book that first appeared in 1980 written by Bertram Gross titled FRIENDLY FASCISM: THE NEW FACE OF POWER IN AMERICA. Gross looked beyond the familiar racism, hatred and brutal authoritarian rule associated with the practice of fascism to describe the institutional structure of fascist regimes. Herein he revealed a nasty little secret. The defining structure of fascist regimes is a corporate dominated alliance between big business and big government to support the expansion of corporate empires. Those of us who have been studying these issues have long known of the strong alignment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, and the IMF to the corporate agenda. By contrast the United Nations has seemed a more open, democratic and people friendly institution. What I found so shattering was the strong evidence that the differences I have been attributing to the United Nations are largely cosmetic. It seems that all our official forums function within the culture of ideological dogmatism that international financier George Soros denounced in his ATLANTIC MONTHLY article on "The Capitalist Threat." With dissenting voices quickly silenced, there is no challenge within the halls of power to flawed logic and assumptions. So long as official forums remain captive to this closed and deeply flawed ideological culture, our governmental and corporate institutions will almost surely lead our world ever deeper into crisis. The burden of providing alternative leadership that falls on those elements of civil society that are not captive to the official culture is thus enormous. We must speak fearlessly with force and clarity in an effort to penetrate the veil of silence that shields our official and corporate institutions from confronting the devastating consequences of their ideologically driven leadership. From chriscd@jhu.edu Mon Sep 1 11:36:11 1997 Mon, 01 Sep 1997 13:35:30 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 01 Sep 1997 13:33:58 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Support EZLN March to Mexico City] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 19:38:20 -0400 (EDT) 28 Aug 1997 18:34:16 -0500 (CDT) by mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/mcfeeley.mc-1.21) 28 Aug 1997 18:30:33 -0500 (CDT) ; Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:30:18 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:24:28 -0700 From: Gerardo Otero Subject: Support EZLN March to Mexico City Sender: owner-lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu To: anthap1@oakland.edu, lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu Reply-to: otero@sfu.ca "DO NOT LEAVE THEM ALONE" The Zapatista Army of National Liberation will begin a march to Mexico City that leaves from Chiapas and arrives on the 12th in the Federal District. The economic expense of this mobilization is great due to the 40 buses required to transport the committee of 1111 members of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation from San Cristobal de las Casas to Mexico City, the stay in Mexico City, and the return to their communities. For that reason we are turning to national and international civil society since its generous support is indispensable for the realization of this march. We wish to thank you in advance for all your donations to Bancomer account number 5580991-7 in the name of Margarita Gonzalez de Leon y/o Paz Carmona. More information at (525) 593 94 42, 563 73 13 Fax: (525) 598 07 77 (please send you receipt of deposit to the fax number above). For the Finance Committee, Luis Villoro Alfredo Lopez Austin Julio Moguel Margarita Gonzalez de Leon Paz Carmona Adriana Lopez From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Sep 2 11:40:44 1997 Tue, 02 Sep 1997 13:39:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 13:37:31 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Call for Papers] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Tue, 02 Sep 1997 11:42:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 17:32:22 +0200 From: isa@sis.ucm.es (International Sociological Association) Subject: Call for Papers Apparently-to: chriscd@jhu.edu To: chriscd@jhu.edu Reply-to: isa@sis.ucm.es To: Members of the International Sociological Association From: ISA Research Committee Alienation Theory and Research REGIONAL SEMINAR ON RESEARCHING ALIENATION IN THE LIGHT OF GLOBALIZATION Dates: December 15-17, 1997 Venue: University of Nevada, Reno CALL FOR PAPERS Submission Deadline: October 1, 1997 The conceptualization of alienation has undergone interesting changes in the last decade. While philosophers continue to investigate the inner significance of the construct of alienation, many researchers have focused on explorations of Marxist theory, attempting to draw conclusions about how to describe conditions of alienation in contrast to conditions of de-alienation, or liberation. Others have followed the lead of empiricists, formulating and adapting measures for locating alienation in responses to pen and pencil tests, in discourse, and in behavior. The development of globalization sets new challenges for social scientists. In a world linked by presumably irrevocable economic ties and political interests, which stretch across continents and oceans, the appropriateness of thinking in terms of alienation has to be re-examined. Variations in objective alienation as a function of different kinds of social order is one pole of interest. At the other pole, there is the variability of the social psychological and psycho-analytic evidence of alienation. A sociological understanding of the ways in which theories of alienation help us to grasp structure and process necessarily has implications for political action on every level of analysis. Please reply to: Devorah Kalekin-Fishman, RC36 President From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Sep 2 12:23:22 1997 02 Sep 1997 14:22:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 14:20:38 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: antisystemic movements To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu W. Warren Wagar presented a short and provocative paper at the American Sociological Association PEWS roundtable on global democracy. Its title is ANTISYSTEMIC MOVEMENTS, REAL AND IMAGINARY, IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE. I would like to have a discussion seminar on WSN focused on this paper beginning on Monday September 15, 1997. That day I will post Warren's paper on WSN and ask subscribers to post their considered responses. Those who want to read the paper earlier can find it on the World-Systems Archive under "Seminars." The address is http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/wsarch.html but please wait until September 15 to post your responses. Thanks, Chris Chase-Dunn WSN Facilitator From OWENJACK@FS.isu.edu Wed Sep 3 12:40:36 1997 From: "J B Owens" To: WSN@csf.colorado.edu Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 12:44:50 -0600, MDT Subject: N.E. World History Symposium ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 13:42:41 +0100 Reply-to: H-NET List for World History From: Patrick Manning Subject: New England World History Symposium, Sept. 20 From: Pat Manning, Northeastern University manning@neu.edu The New England Regional World History Association (NER-WHA) announces its World History Symposium, to be held Saturday, September 20, 1997, at Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire. The conference will proceed through four plenary sessions, plus a lunch and keynote speech by Ross Dunn of San Diego State University. Conference registration (including lunch) is $15, and should be sent to conference organizer Wilfred Bisson, Keene State College, Keene, NH 03435-1301. (Or contact him by phone at 603-358-2961; by fax at 603-358-2773; or by e-mail at fbisson@keene.edu. For accomodations, inquire at the Keene Chamber of Commerce, 603-352-1303.) Massachusetts teachers can register to gain 8 PDP (professional development) points; teachers in other states may obtain equivalent credit. SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM: 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. Registration, refreshment and conversation 9:00 a.m. - 9:10 a.m. Welcome and introductions 9:10 a.m. - 10.40 a.m. Session I: The West and The World in Global History Moderator: James H. Overfield, University of Vermont "A Medievalist Considers the West and the World to 1400," Alfred J. Andrea, University of Vermont "A Modernist Reconsiders the East and the World Since 1400," A. Gunder Frank, University of Toronto Commentary: David Burzillo, The Rivers School 10:50 a.m. - 12:20 p.m. Session II: The Problem of World Systems Moderator: Roland Higgins, Keene State College "World Systems: A Source of Disunity and Wars," Theodore Von Laue, Emeritus, Clark University Discussants: Pamela Crossley, Dartmouth College Ross Dunn, San Diego State University 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. Lunch and Keynote Speech "Western Civilization, Multiculturalism and The New World History," Ross Dunn, San Diego State University 2:00 p.m. - 3:20 p.m. Session III: Pedagogy in World History "The Contemporarialities Method of Teaching World History," Wilfred Bisson, Keene State College Presentation and discussion of other techniques solicited Commentary and discussion by audience 3:20 p.m. - 3:40 p.m. Stretch and soft drinks 3:40 p.m. - 5:10 p.m. Session IV: Teaching with Technology Patrick Manning and Gerald Herman, Northeastern University Includes demonstration of "Migration in Modern World History" CD-ROM 5:10 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Wine and conversation (Thorne-Sagendorph Arts Gallery) Vew current Gallery exhibit From CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Mon Sep 8 15:02:37 1997 Date: Mon, 08 Sep 97 16:56:48 EDT From: CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Subject: call for papers To: W-S Network I'm writing to invite all world-system folk to submit papers to the Southern Sociological Society meetings. More information about the meetings is appended. The theme this year, "Inciting Sociological Thought: Engaging Publics in Dialogue," is an exciting one, and one I think is particularly relevant for our scholarship, particularly given the "Whither PEWS" discussions published in PEWS NEWS the last few years. Rebecca Adams, president of the Southern Sociological Society, created the theme because (as she states) "If we are to have any impact on life outside of our discipline, we must. . . find ways of inciting sociological thought among nonsociologists. We must find ways of engaging administrators, policy makers, members of the communities we study, members of other disciplines, and other professionals in sociological dialogue." For further information about how to submit a paper, look in The Southern Sociologist, or contact me, and I'll email the relevant information. I'm on the program committee this year, so I will be putting together many of the political soc and PEWS sessions -- I really would like it if we were able to have several PEWS- oriented session at this meeting. All you need to do is send in the submission form and an abstract by October 15th! Please send this to students and others who may be interested... Thanks! Joya Misra cmsjoya@uga.cc.uga.edu CALL FOR PAPERS SOUTHERN SOCIOLOGICAL SOCIETY APRIL 2 - 5 1998, Atlanta, Georgia INCITING SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT: ENGAGING PUBLICS IN DIALOGUE The 1998 Annual Meetings of the Southern Sociological Society will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 2 - 5, at the Radisson Hotel. The Theme for the meeting will be Inciting Sociological Thought: Engaging Publics in Dialogue. Submissions must be mailed directly to the Program Chair by October 15, 1997, and must include 2 copies of the Submission Form and of a short (under 150 words) abstract. Also include in the mail a copy of the short abstract on an MS-DOS disk (Wordperfect or ASCII format) or a processing fee of $10.00 if you send a submission without a disk. Mail submissions to: Rhonda Zingraff, Program Chair, Department of Sociology & Social Work, Meredith College, Raleigh, NC 27607-5298. Inquires about submissions may be addressed to Rhonda Zingraff, Program Chair, at the address above or by phone (919) 829-8564; by FAX (919) 829-7487; or e-mail: zingraffr@meredith.edu. From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Sep 9 15:04:36 1997 Tue, 09 Sep 1997 16:48:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 09 Sep 1997 16:46:07 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Web page on Zapatista March] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Mon, 08 Sep 1997 17:30:56 -0400 (EDT) 08 Sep 1997 16:24:37 -0500 (CDT) by mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/mcfeeley.mc-1.21) 08 Sep 1997 16:23:10 -0500 (CDT) ; Mon, 08 Sep 1997 14:22:57 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 08 Sep 1997 14:16:19 -0700 From: Gerardo Otero Subject: Web page on Zapatista March Sender: owner-lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu To: lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu, anthap1@oakland.edu Reply-to: otero@sfu.ca A la opinion publica internacional amigos y amigas... les avisamos que el colectivo web-o ha puesto en linea una pagina para seguir la marcha de 1,111 zapatistas a la ciudad de Mexico, en esta podran mandar saludos a la delegacion zapatista que marcha a la ciudad para: - protestar por el incumplimiento a los acuerdos de san andres. - exigir el fin de la militarizacion en las zonas indigenas de mexico - demandar para todos un Mexico democracia, libertad y justicia la pagina se puede visitar en: http://planet.com.mx/~chiapas/index.html http://planet.com.mx/~chiapas/marcha.html invitamos a participar activamente desde sus lugares de origen a todos los que comparten los ideales de democracia, libertad y justicia para todos.. atte colectivo web-o From Roberto_P_KORZENIEWICZ@umail.umd.edu Wed Sep 10 12:03:57 1997 for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 14:03:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 97 14:03 EDT From: Roberto_P_KORZENIEWICZ@umail.umd.edu (rk81) Subject: PEWS To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu The PEWS Section of the ASA is currently seven members short of the 400 mark. As you know, it's important to be above 400, as the number of sessions allocated to the Section would drop if we fell below that number. The deadline for making the cut is the end of September, but applications must be processed by that deadline. This means that applications for membership in the Section must be received at the ASA by (roughly) September 22. To join the Section, you must be an ASA member. The cost of joining the Section (for ASA members) is $10 for faculty and $5 for students. Some of us have been covering the membership cost for students, and faculty/departments might want to consider sponsoring a few of their own graduate students. If you need the appropriate forms, send me an e-mail (rk81@umail.umd.edu), and I will fax them to you. Thanks. Patricio Korzeniewicz PEWS Secretary/Treasurer Roberto Patricio KORZENIEWICZ Department of Sociology University of Maryland College Park MD 20742 United States Email:RK81@umail.umd.edu Phone:(301) 405-6398 From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Sep 11 07:59:28 1997 Thu, 11 Sep 1997 09:55:45 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 09:53:54 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Join the March!] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 15:30:30 -0400 (EDT) 10 Sep 1997 14:21:42 -0500 (CDT) by mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/mcfeeley.mc-1.21) 10 Sep 1997 14:18:04 -0500 (CDT) ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 12:17:36 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 12:10:39 -0700 From: Gerardo Otero Subject: Join the March! Sender: owner-lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu To: lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu, anthap1@oakland.edu Reply-to: otero@sfu.ca MARCH IN CYBERSPACE... It is public knowledge that representatives of the EZLN are marching from San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas to Me'xico City. The Zapatistas will arrive in the capital on September 12, for that reason, we call on "civil society" at international level, to join the march through cyberspace on the 12th supporting the following demands: _fulfillment of the San Andre's Accords on indigenous rights and culture. and _ The demilitarization of Mexico. On september 12, date that the Zapatistas will arrive in Mexico City, the Ministry of Public Security is planning to launch into action security mechanisms combined with military intelligence, and for that reason, we call on those who will support the cyberspace march, to also condemn the repressive systems that provoke a hostile environment that does not help in the establishment of peace. We request international "civil society" to remain alert about repressive mechanisms, since through very reliable sources, we know there will be agents dressed in civilian clothing yet armed, presenting a real danger to all the participants in this march due to the provocations they might cause. The cyberspace march hopes to be part of the activities the "civil society" will take on as part of opening civilian peaceful spaces where Mexicans can resolve their own problems. To all who wish to join us on this march through cyberspace for peace, we invite to send an e-mail message on September 12th,to the following addresses: jornada@condor.dgsca.unam.mx webadmon@op.presidencia.gob.mx chiapas@planet.com.mx or to the web page: http://planet.com.mx/~chiapas/marcha.html Zapatista March Welcoming Committee ________________________________________ translated by: NAP From cemck@cs1.presby.edu Thu Sep 11 13:07:59 1997 Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:07:55 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles McKelvey To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Conferences in Cuba I have been asked to forward to various lists announcements concerning two conferences in Cuba. (1) "Cuba en la politica de la nueva administracion norteamericana," sponsored by El Centro de Estudios Sobre los Estados Unidos, to be held in Havana October 15-17, 1997. (2) "La mujer in los umbrales del siglo XXI," sponsored by La Facultad de Psicologia, Universidad de la Habana, to be held on November 3-7, 1997. For information concerning either of these conferences, contact Yasbel Ramirez, COPE, La Universidad de la Habana, e-mail: . Charles McKelvey Professor of Sociology Presbyterian College Clinton, SC 29325 cemck@cs1.presby.edu From chriscd@jhu.edu Fri Sep 12 09:23:38 1997 Fri, 12 Sep 1997 11:21:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 11:19:30 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: AfD National Convention Registration and Accommodations] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:28:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 16:19:24 -0400 (EDT) From: AFDMail@aol.com Subject: AfD National Convention Registration and Accommodations To: AFDMail@aol.com, edethman@trinity.edu, edis@iasate.edu, edmahood@infoserv.com, edmundo_norte@arcoakland.org, edsmith1@ix.netcom.com, ed_lipnick@compuserve.com, eghughes@midwest.net, egrieder@juno.com, egustafs@students.wisc.edu, ehart@igc.org, ehopkins@heartland.bradley.edu, ekl111@texas.net, elmegil@il.net, emerald@aztec.asu.edu, emf0551@is.nyu.edu, enj@arcsystems.com, epin@access.digex.net, erca_sez@juno.com, ereiam@barepower.net, erf8945@rachel.clark.net, ericwag@hooked.net, erik@N5UH.Tech.UH.EDU, erollins@esper.com, eroxin@uriacc.uri.edu, erturkt@woods.uml.edu, esb@maroon.tc.umn.edu, eschewgov@one800.net, esherril@irgate.tnrcc.state.tx.us, eudahi@wclynx.com, eugenecoyle@igc.apc.org, evan@vote.org, evergene@sirius.com, ewald@ctaz.net, ewaskell@tmn.com, ewhite@unm.edu, ewright@mhc.mtholyoke.edu, eyestorm@cachenet.com, e_moseley@harvard.edu, e_reed@acad.fandm.edu, fairbnks@is.nyu.edu, fian-os@oln.comlink.apc.org, fishebe-s@spmail4.ncook.k12.il.us, fjanlis@postoffice.ptd.net, fjanlis@ptd.net, flexer@idirect.com, Flip@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, flowerm@pdx.edu, fneff@cctr.umkc.edu, fnelson@calvin.linfield.edu, fran7371@uidaho.edu, franke@husc.harvard.edu, frank@marin.cc.ca.us, fredmcghee@mail.utexas.edu, fred@autobahn.org, frs@netva.com, fsccw@aurora.alaska.edu, fstv@freespeech.org, ftaylor@eagle.ibc.edu, funnygrl@netcom.com, 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jjones@ils.nwu.edu, jjones@ppd.ufl.edu, JJXS80A@prodigy.com, jkaplan@well.com, jkarns@ares.csd.net, jkirk@micron.net, jkk1@ix.netcom.com, j-landay@uiuc.edu, jlkadoch@ucdavis.edu, jlowry@mcn.org, jmabel@avoice.com, jmab@usa.net, jmacd@biddeford.com, jmcclure@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu, jmcd3@ix.netcom.com, jm@corpgov.net, jnewlin@lfp.com, JNN@juno.com, joel.west@juno.com, johnmac@msn.fullfeed.com, johnston_j@al.tch.harvard.edu, john.mccown@sierraclub.org, john.ratliff@tlc.state.tx.us, john.walsh@ummed.edu, jongley@bu.edu, jono@aloha.net, jopax@juno.com, joseph.ferguson@eng.sun.com, jo@bandera.win.net, jpconnor@cs.uml.epu, JPHANTOM@delphi.com, jporter@traverse.com, jratli00@counsel.com, jrc1039@okay.okstate.edu, jread@orion.math.uwaterloo.ca, jrensenb@polar.bowdoin.edu, jrl@highnrg.sbay.com, jrogers@asis.com, jrogers@ssc.wisc.edu, jrough@olympus.net, jsalter@fix.net, jshipman@ma.org, jsieg@american.edu, JSStrickland@maxwell.syr.edu, js@fuse.net, jtalbot@dted.state.mn.us, JTrout@hcfa.gov, jtrumpb@husc.harvard.edu, justirv@microweb.com, jvlanaha@capaccess.org, jwbarn@facstaff.wm.edu, jwgold@mail.wm.edu, jyerby@aloha.com, j.b.schor@kub.nl, kastoner@juno.com, kat@nando.net, kaylor@dolphin.upenn.edu, kce@filetek.com, kdd@indra.com, kearleyd@woods.uml.edu, kellycm@cetlink.net, ken@wubios.wustl.edu, kevinh@efn.org, kevin.graffagnino@ccmail.adp.wisc.edu, kevin_salmon@unc.edu, khashe@cu.denver.edu, khosmer@mail.coin.missouri.edu, kidlee@mcn.net, kimblej@spot.colorado.edu, kingar@worldnet.att.net, klaidman@hsc.usc.edu, kmacorp@compuserve.com, kmills@email.unc.edu, knudson@logan.cass.usu.edu, kokelly@email.unc.edu, konrad@online.no, kortge@gorge.net, kozuch@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu, krause@gonzaga.edu, kriley@bayou.uh.edu, krishrt@prodigy.com, kshulm@portland.caps.maine.edu, ksl@igc.apc.org, kthomson@civicnet.org, kugwydd@nauticom.net, kunkin@cinenet.net, kvinson@lawsun.law.fsu.edu, kwargo@flash.net THE SECOND ANNUAL ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY NATIONAL CONVENTION Thursday, October 30 - Sunday, November 2, 1997 (important pre-conference sessions on Wednesday, October 29), Mount Conference Center, Atchison, Kansas Join Alliance colleagues from around the country this Halloween to haunt corporate agribusiness and Declare Independence from Corporate Rule. We meet in the mid-America town of Atchison, Kansas, birthplace of Amelia Earhart 100 years ago. Last year we founded the Alliance in the Texas hill country where the 19th Century American Populist movement began to grow. This year we honor Kansas, where the Populists organized cooperatives, achieved massive self-education, and refused to concede to large corporations the economic and political power to which they had no democratic right and no democratic legitimacy. We will reaffirm those principles by celebrating our own Chautauqua and challenging corporate agribusiness as our political forebears did. BRING A COSTUME TO TRICK OR TREAT AT nearby corporation and for our Food Circle dinner and Halloween party. Confirmed speakers so far include Alliance founder Ronnie Dugger, co-chair Ruth Caplan, human rights leader and activist comedian Dick Gregory, and international organizer against NAFTA and the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) Tony Clarke of Canada, with many surprise guests expected. The four-day program begins with pre-conference dialogue Wednesday, Oct. 29, about Alliance constitutional issues and writing a Declaration of Independence from Corporate Rule. Come and speak up on questions that will determine our future! Convention goals: (1) set future strategies and actions; (2) launch alliances with others who share our vision, emphasizing multicultural links; (3) revitalize the issue networks (task forces) begun last year and add new ones as needed (e.g., on global democracy and trade, the corporate chartering and governance process, tobacco and international public health, biogenetics and biopiracy, and social security and the stock market); (4) establish our internal democratic governance policies and practices; and (5) explore future Alliance projects. Ideas: a world computer clearinghouse on alternative economics and human-sized economic forms; renewable energy sources and democratic public utilities; a permanent corporate education project that would publish essays, reports and booklets; and field work to build a nationwide Alliance movement. SEE BELOW FOR INFORMATION on transportation, housing and meals. REGISTER NOW on the form provided to get early-bird benefits. Then COME--and help build a populist people's movement to shape a democratic future for our own and future generations. Dear Folks, Here is our Registration Form and Accommodations Sheet for the Alliance for Democracy's 1997 Annual Convention. Please mail registration and checks to the Alliance for Democracy, P. O. Box 683, Lincoln, MA 01773 and contact Marie Smith our Registrar for reservations at the Mount Conference Center ONLY. All other accommodations should be contacted directly. Thanks, Laura Jennings-Cranford Northeast Regional Representative Alliance for Democracy REGISTRATION FORM FOR THE SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION FROM OCTOBER 29 TO NOVEMBER 2, 1997 OF THE ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY AT THE MOUNT CONFERENCE CENTER IN ATCHISON, KANSAS Please complete a separate form for each person attending the Convention. Name________________________________________________________________ Address______________________________________________________________ City ___________________________________State ______Zip ________________ Home phone _______________________ Work phone ________________________ Fax ___________________________E-Mail _________________________________ If member of Local Alliance, which one? ____________________________________ Date and Time of Arrival, airline/flight #, if known _____________________________ Date and Time of Departure, airline/flight #, if known ___________________________ Registration Fee Per Person (Type of Registration Per Person) PICK ONE. Earlybird (postmarked before October 1st, 1997) -- $150 _____________________ Regular (postmarked on or after October 1st, 1997 -- $175 ___________________ Part-Time -- Per Person Per Day -- $50 per Day X ___ Days = ________________ Will you have children with you who will need child care? _______Yes ________No If yes, please list their names and ages here, and attach a registration form for each child. ________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ACCOMMODATIONS (See Accommodations Sheet): Indicate nights required: ____ Wed. (optional), ____ Thurs., ____ Fri., ____ Sat. Indicate which accommodation:____________________________________________ __________ nights X ______________ rate = ______________________________ Indicate how many in room __________ Indicate Name(s) of Roommate(s) ________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ In calculating your transportation and meal needs for the Convention, please mark each transportation service and/or meal in the spaces provided, then calculate the total amount of your cost and write TOTAL in the space provided. LOCAL TRANSPORTATION: We will provide transportation (bus and van) between the Kansas City Airport and the Mount Conference Center according to the schedule below. Please indicate which schedule you prefer. You will want to plan your flights accordingly. If you are currently unsure about your travel arrangements, please complete the balance of this form anyway, then notify us later of your local transportation needs. Charter bus and van fare is due no later than October 8, 1997. We will do our very best to deal with your transportation needs. We will provide transportation to and from the Platte City Comfort Inn and the Conference Center at a fixed time for a small fee. However, we are requiring those staying at St. Joseph motels to provide their own transportation. One option is to consider renting a car at the Kansas City Airport. BUSES FROM: Kansas City Airport to Mount Conference Center -- Wednesday, October 29, 1997 Leave 2:30 PM -- Arrive 3:10 PM -- $10.00 $ ___________________________ Leave 4:30 PM -- Arrive 5:10 PM -- $10.00 $ ___________________________ FROM: Mount Conference Center to Kansas City Airport -- Sunday, November 2, 1997 Leave 2:00 PM -- Arrive 2:40 PM -- $10.00 $ ___________________________ ROUND TRIP -- $20 TOTAL -- TOTAL $ __________________________TOTAL Page 2 REGISTRATION FORM FOR THE SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION FROM OCTOBER 29 TO NOVEMBER 2, 1997 OF THE ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY AT THE MOUNT CONFERENCE CENTER IN ATCHISON, KANSAS MEALS AT MOUNT CONFERENCE CENTER Meals will be served buffet-style according to our Convention schedule. Conventional and vegetarian fare is available at each meal. Variations can be accommodated (vegan, low salt, low fat, etc.) if notice of them is received by October 1st, 1997. For those individuals attending the complete convention, the twelve meals (from Wednesday dinner through Sunday lunch) will cost $88.00. Participants not requiring overnight accommodations may also use this meal plan. PLEASE CHECK MEALS. Wednesday, 10/29 Dinner $9 Day Total $9 Thursday, 10/30 Breakfast $6 Lunch $7 Dinner $9 Day Total $22 Friday, 10/31 Breakfast $6 Lunch $7 Dinner $9 Day Total $22 Saturday, 11/1 Breakfast $6 Lunch $7 Dinner $9 Day Total $22 Sunday, 11/2 Breakfast $6 Lunch $7 Day Total $13 MEAL TOTAL FOR CONVENTION IS $88.00 TOTAL $ _______________________ Total Meals for Convention -- $88 _______ OR Total Designated Meals $ _______ If you have any dietary restrictions, disabilities, or special circumstances you would like us to accommodate, please describe briefly and notify our registrar, Marie Smith at 816-523-1813 or by email at "marie@micro.com." _________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Please consider adding, if you can, to your convention payment $50.00, or some other sum, for a fund that is dedicated to helping those for whom the registration is a hardship. _____________________________________________________________ If you have not paid your 1997 dues as a member of the national Alliance, please add your contribution here. Membership contributions begin at $15, are suggested at $30, or more. ______________________________________________________ TOTAL DUE: Registration Fee ______________________________________________________ Accommodations Only at Mount Conference Center _________________________ Meals ______________________________________________________________ Local Transportation __________________________________________________ Donations to Assist Other Attendees ____________________________________ National Alliance Membership Contribution ________________________________ TOTAL DUE WITH REGISTRATION _____________________________________ Please make your check payable to "The Alliance '97 Convention" and send it with this registration form to the national office at the address below. (No credit cards, please.) For information, call our registrar, Marie Smith at 816-523-1813 or email at "marie@micro.com." Please let us know of your plans as soon as possible! The Alliance for Democracy P. O. Box 683 Lincoln, MA 01773 Telephone: 617-259-9395 Fax: 617-259-0404 Email: peoplesall@aol.com Page 3 ACCOMODATION INFORMATION FOR THE SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION FROM OCTOBER 29 TO NOVEMBER 2, 1997 OF THE ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY AT THE MOUNT CONFERENCE CENTER IN ATCHISON, KANSAS ACCOMMODATIONS AT THE MOUNT CONFERENCE CENTER: The Mount Conference Center, 710 South 9th, Atchison, KS 66002 -- 913-367-1162 or 800-467-1164. Dormitory -- 108 rooms. Each room has either 1 double bed and 1 single bed or 2 twin beds, and two rooms share one bath. Single occupancy is $34, double occupancy is $38, and triple occupancy is $43 per night. Rooms are available for people with disabilities. First come, first served. For reservations, please call Marie Smith at 816-523-1813 or email address is marie@micro.com. Please call Marie Smith in regard to any special needs or dietary requests. FOR OFFSITE ACCOMMODATIONS, MAKE RESERVATIONS DIRECTLY. Specify that you are with the Alliance for Democracy Convention. ACCOMMODATIONS IN ATCHISON NEAR THE MOUNT CONFERENCE CENTER Comfort Inn, 409 South 9th, Atchison, KS 66002, Adjacent to Mount Conference Center -- 913-367-7666. 25 rooms (each with 2 queen beds) -- $48 plus tax for 1 or 2 persons, $52 plus tax for 3 persons, $56 plus tax for 4 persons. 36 rooms (each with 1 queen bed) -- $48 plus tax for 1 or 2 persons. Atchison Motor Inn, 401 South 10th Street, Atchison, KS 66002 (Junction of Highways 73 and 59), One block from Conference Center -- 913-367-7000. 10 rooms (each with 2 queen beds) -- $40 plus tax for 1 or 2 persons, $4 for each additional person. 15 rooms (each with 1 queen bed) -- $34 plus tax for 1 person, $38 plus tax for 2 persons. Glick Mansion Bed and Breakfast, 503 North Second Street, Atchison, KS 66002 -- 913-367-9110. 4 guest rooms with private baths at $79 to $99 per night. MOTELS 20 MILES FROM THE MOUNT CONFERENCE CENTER Comfort Inn, Highway 92 & I-29, Platte City, MO 64079, 22 miles from Atchison; 6 miles from Kansas City Airport, Shuttle service available to and from airport. -- 816-858-5430. 40 rooms (each with 2 queen beds) -- $59.95 plus tax for 1 person, $69.95 plus tax for 2 persons, $76.95 plus tax for 3 persons, $83.95 plus tax for 4 persons. Motel 6, 4021 Frederick Avenue, St. Joseph, MO 64506, 20 miles from Atchison -- 816-232-2311. 97 rooms (each with 2 queen beds) -- $35.99 plus tax for 1 person, $41.99 plus tax for 2 persons, add $3 for each addition person. Super 8 Motel, 4024 Frederick Avenue, St. Joseph MO 64506, 20 miles from Atchison -- 816-364-3031. 18 rooms (each with 2 queen beds) -- $50 plus tax for 2 to 4 persons; 20 rooms (each with 1 queen bed) -- $45 plus tax for 1 person, $50 plus tax for 2 persons. Note -- St Joseph, MO motels are 20 miles from the conference center. It will be necessary that conferees staying at St. Joseph motels provide their own transportation. One option is to rent a car at the airport. By prearrangement, rental cars could be shared among delegates. There are several other motels in St. Joseph. For more information call Ben Kjelshus at 816-924-3003. CAMPING Camping is encouraged for those well-equipped for camping with a taste for some risk about the weather. Average temperatures in early November for northeast Kansas are: highs at 58 degrees and lows at 41 degrees. If needed we will provide transportation between the camp sites and the Mount Conference Center at fixed times for a small fee. Lake Warnock -- 3 miles from Mount Conference Center. Primitive camping. Also available 16 RV sites with electric outlets, $5 per day. Call Ben Kjelshus for map -- 816-924-3003. Lewis and Clark State Park -- A scenic area alongside the Missouri River. 5 miles from the Conference Center. 70 camping sites including 44 RV sites. Basic site is $6 per day; electric site is $12 per day; and sewer-electric site is $15 per day. Call Ben Kjelshus for brochure -- 816-924-3003. From timmons@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu Mon Sep 15 10:51:47 1997 Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 11:51:44 -0500 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: timmons@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu (J. Timmons Roberts) Subject: Re:Engaging the Public (SSS): What Activists and Citizens Can Learn From WST Re: Joya Misra's call for Southern Soc'l Soc. participation: >Rebecca Adams, president of the Southern Sociological >Society, created the theme because (as she states) "If we are >to have any impact on life outside of our discipline, we >must. . . find ways of inciting sociological thought among >nonsociologists. We must find ways of engaging >administrators, policy makers, members of the communities >we study, members of other disciplines, and other >professionals in sociological dialogue." Nice point and I agree. Do people like the idea of a PEWS conference on "What Activists and Citizens Need to know about World-Systems Theory" ?? The goal would be to translate our work into a handbook written in plain English, with case-studies of important cases. Just an idea. Timmons Roberts >From: CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU >To: W-S Network >Subject: call for papers >Message-ID: <970908.170142.EDT.CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU> >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT > >I'm writing to invite all world-system folk to submit papers >to the Southern Sociological Society meetings. More information >about the meetings is appended. The theme this year, >"Inciting Sociological Thought: Engaging Publics in >Dialogue," is an exciting one, and one I think is particularly >relevant for our scholarship, particularly given the "Whither >PEWS" discussions published in PEWS NEWS the last few years. > >Rebecca Adams, president of the Southern Sociological >Society, created the theme because (as she states) "If we are >to have any impact on life outside of our discipline, we >must. . . find ways of inciting sociological thought among >nonsociologists. We must find ways of engaging >administrators, policy makers, members of the communities >we study, members of other disciplines, and other >professionals in sociological dialogue." > >For further information about how to submit a paper, look in >The Southern Sociologist, or contact me, and I'll email the relevant >information. I'm on the program committee this year, so I will be >putting together many of the political soc and PEWS sessions -- >I really would like it if we were able to have several PEWS- >oriented session at this meeting. All you need to do is send in >the submission form and an abstract by October 15th! Please send >this to students and others who may be interested... > >Thanks! > >Joya Misra >cmsjoya@uga.cc.uga.edu > > >CALL FOR PAPERS > >SOUTHERN SOCIOLOGICAL SOCIETY >APRIL 2 - 5 1998, Atlanta, Georgia > >INCITING SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT: >ENGAGING PUBLICS IN DIALOGUE > >The 1998 Annual Meetings of the Southern Sociological >Society will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 2 - 5, at >the Radisson Hotel. The Theme for the meeting will be >Inciting Sociological Thought: Engaging Publics >in Dialogue. Submissions must be mailed directly to the >Program Chair by October 15, 1997, and must include 2 >copies of the Submission Form and of a short (under 150 >words) abstract. Also include in the mail a copy of the short >abstract on an MS-DOS disk (Wordperfect or ASCII format) >or a processing fee of $10.00 if you send a submission >without a disk. Mail submissions to: Rhonda Zingraff, >Program Chair, Department of Sociology & Social Work, >Meredith College, Raleigh, NC 27607-5298. Inquires about >submissions may be addressed to Rhonda Zingraff, Program >Chair, at the address above or by phone (919) 829-8564; by >FAX (919) 829-7487; or e-mail: zingraffr@meredith.edu. > -- ****************************************************************** Timmons Roberts Associate Professor Department of Sociology/Center for Latin American Studies Tulane University New Orleans LA 70118 tel: 504-865-5820/FAX 504-865-5544 timmons@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu ****************************************************************** disclaimer: the views above are those of the author and not of the institution. ****************************************************************** "So many ways to understand. One for every woman and man." -- Bruce Cockburn ****************************************************************** From chriscd@jhu.edu Mon Sep 15 12:11:32 1997 15 Sep 1997 14:05:44 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:03:27 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: wagar on antisystemic movements To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Warren Wagar has written a short essay about antisystemic movements that is relevant for those who are interested in progressive global praxis. Warren's essay was presented at the ASA PEWS section roundtable on global democracy at the Toronto meetings. The text is below. I invite WSN subscribers to join an e-seminar on the issues raised by Warren, and Warren has agreed to participate. Please contribute your thoughts over the next week or two. Your contributions will be archived on the WSN mail archive. Chris Chase-Dunn WSN facilitator ANTISYSTEMIC MOVEMENTS, REAL AND IMAGINARY, IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE by W. Warren Wagar History Binghamton University (this short paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Toronto on August 11, 1997 at a PEWS roundtable on global democracy) I have six points to raise. Point One. I like the expression "antisystemic movements," as expounded in the oft-quoted 1989 volume of that title co-authored by my Binghamton colleagues Giovanni Arrighi, Terry Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein. But I disagree with the way they use this expression. I think they are too generous, much too generous. Among the older antisystemic movements they list Social Democracy, Communism, trade unionism, and movements for national liberation; and they also speak of the "new" antisystemic social movements, which include the Peace, Green, and New Age movements, the women's movements, and the minority rights movements. Now, I submit that none of these was or is antisystemic except portions of the Social Democratic Second International in its pre-1914 heyday; and portions of the Leninist Third International in the period from 1919 to about 1923, together with various small Trotskyite movements in later years. "Antisystemic" should mean what it says: against the system, against the capitalist world-system with its globalized world-economy and its various sovereign nation- (or rather would-be sovereign, would-be nation-) states. (Actually, none of them is sovereign and very few, fewer than 10%, are one-nation-states.) Antisystemic should mean against thesystem--the whole system, lock, stock, and barrel, the world-system. Point Two. Most of the purported antisystemic movements were and are movements--whatever their ideological trappings--to wrest a share of power and wealth from the owners and managers of the world-system on behalf of the segmental interests they represent. This is true whether we are talking about Indians or Amerindians, women or gays, trade-union members or Untouchables. They all seek a piece of the action, but within the system. Within the system. For example, what do most Palestinians want? They want land, restitution, recognition. They want full membership in the United Nations, the authority to send and receive ambassadors, the right to print pretty postage stamps, and have their own national airline--perhaps PalAir? Is the movement for Palestinian independence antisystemic? Don't fool yourself. In the current world situation, and given all that the Palestinian people have endured since the mid-1940s, I strongly favor the creation and recognition of an independent Palestinian state. But such a state would not be, could not be,antisystemic--nor for that matter are the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah. The point is that the modern capitalist world-system is not intrinsically white, male, straight, and European. It did historically originate in a white, male, straight, European milieu (unless you're a disciple of Andre Gunder Frank), but now that it has been fairly launched, anybody can play. If the population of the world in the next century should suddenly be slashed to nothing but parthenogenetic Nigerian Lesbian Buddhists and gay Japanese Presbyterian clones, the capitalist world-system could nevertheless persist and flourish. Point Three. The rest of the so-called antisystemic movements today--now I'm thinking of the Greens, the Peace folks, and the New Agers--do not necessarily represent segmental interests and may have a genuinely global focus, but very few of them are really against the system as such. Rather, they just want the system to be composed of good people, with lofty spiritual values, and a vast desire to save the planet. Most of the members of these movements have no fundamental quarrel with the system as such, only with its wicked ways, which can be mended with a good healthy dose of mystical or pacifist or ecological fervor. The best proof that they have no fundamental quarrel with the system is that the system shows no fear of them and, by and large, lets them alone. Even world federalists are immune from surveillance, since their idea of world government is prosystemic. A world federal government, as they see it, would simply protect the nation-states and economic arrangements and cultural differences that already exist. Far from creating a new world civilization, it would help to stabilize and perpetuate the old one. Point Four. There is no possibility of global democracy in the world of 1997 or of any year or decade soon. The system has been on a winning streak since at least the mid-1920s, and moves inexorably from strength to strength. Nothing, not the Great Depression, not the second World War, not the breakup of the European colonial empires, not the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and its bloc, has done anything but strengthen it. And not one authentically antisystemic movement of any significance exists in the world today to oppose it. Point Five. The modern capitalist world-system will not enter into decline or attract significant opposition until and unless it begins to fail, and fail spectacularly: through such disasters as the wholesale declassement of its middle classes, a series of global environmental calamities resulting in the implosion of the world-economy, or an apocalyptically ruinous North-South total war. Point Six. Even then, antisystemic movements will prove ineffectual until and unless they develop a deep cosmopolitan socialist humanism transcending all segmental creeds and loyalties, and until and unless they collaborate on a global scale to oppose the force of the world-system with their own unrelenting force. The notion of a popular front of all kinds of disgruntled elements linked by no common thread except dissatisfaction with the status quo is a notion doomed to fail. We've been there, done that, and it doesn't deliver the goods. Seular socialist humanism--by which I mean rational faith in democracy, civil liberties, public stewardship of capital, and the unity and common destiny of humankind--must lead us out of the cultural anarchy and reaction of the now-expiring 20th century to a new commonsense global republic of working men and women. What drags us down is our desperate allegiance to segmental cultures long outgrown; what can lift us up is the flickering but persistent flame of reason. Without the psychic cohesion that only a common world-view can supply, all would-be oppositional movements are just whistling in the dark. This does not mean that segmental beliefs and loyalties must be abandoned, if and when they are compatible with secular socialist humanism. But such beliefs can never take precedence over our common world-view. We have to believe, and believe more powerfully and effectually than everybody else, in our common world-view, or the struggle is lost. So I am not speaking here of compromises or coalitions or half-measures. I am talking about a binding rational faith in human unity and destiny that demands and receives our paramount loyalty. W. Warren Wagar August 11, 1997 Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Civitas Mundi From SKSANDER@grove.iup.edu Mon Sep 15 12:37:05 1997 15 Sep 1997 14:36:59 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:36:59 -0500 (EST) From: s_sanderson Subject: Antisystemic movements To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Thanks to Chris for posting Warren Wagar's excellent paper on WSN. I was able to hear this paper presented, but it was useful to read the whole thing on my own. I agree with virtually every single thing Warren says in the paper. There is absolutely no chance of capitalism being done in by such little antisystemic movements as we have had to date. It is no accident that in his book A Short History of the Future Warren has socialism triumphing only after a massive global nuclear war. It will take that, or an ecological catastrophe (which seems to me more likely), to bring capitalism to its knees. Stephen Sanderson From langevin@accessone.com Mon Sep 15 13:49:07 1997 Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:48:46 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:45:04 -0700 To: chriscd@jhu.edu, WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK From: Mark Langevin Subject: Re: wagar on antisystemic movements In-Reply-To: <341D786F.1AB9@jhu.edu> I want to address point one of Wager's essay. I diverge with Wager over the conceptualization of systemic change and the notion of "anti-systemic" movement. Clearly Capitalism is the dominant organizing principle and dynamic around the globe, but the socialization of the production of goods and services and the establishment of public authority over private economic activities continues to grow and recede according to temporal politics. At this point it is difficult to gauge whether there is a sectoral trend toward the private commodification of all goods and services, or whether the current fade of industrial privatization around the world just hides the slow march toward increasing socialization of goods and services. For our debate I don't think the question of destroying capitalism is as interesting as changing the direction of capitalism(market scope and degree of public regulation) under global development. Also, Wager's conceputalization of anti-systemic movement implies intentionality, meaning that such movement's would by definition be the product of global thinkers, like those associated with this listserv. I can't go along with this conception, rather social movements "should" be accorded anti-systemic status when they push to restrict the reach of capitalism in ways meaningful to the participants of such movements. The question of intentionality is important here since most social movement participants do not seek to destroy capitalism, but there actions may indeed contribute to a larger social process which restricts, and may eventually replace capitalism. Thus, they are "anti" to the extent that they prevent the dynamic of capitalism and its human managers from proceeding on their own. At 02:03 PM 9/15/97 -0400, christopher chase-dunn wrote: >Warren Wagar has written a short essay about antisystemic movements that >is relevant for those who are interested in progressive global praxis. >Warren's essay was presented at the ASA PEWS section roundtable on >global democracy at the Toronto meetings. The text is below. > > I invite WSN subscribers to join an e-seminar on the issues raised by >Warren, and Warren has agreed to participate. Please contribute your >thoughts over the next week or two. Your contributions will be archived >on the WSN mail archive. > >Chris Chase-Dunn >WSN facilitator > >ANTISYSTEMIC MOVEMENTS, REAL AND IMAGINARY, IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE > > by > > W. Warren Wagar > > History > > Binghamton University > > (this short paper was presented at the annual meeting of >the American Sociological Association in Toronto on August >11, 1997 at a PEWS roundtable on global democracy) > > >I have six points to raise. > > Point One. I like the expression "antisystemic movements," as >expounded in the oft-quoted 1989 volume of that title co-authored by my >Binghamton colleagues Giovanni Arrighi, Terry Hopkins, and Immanuel >Wallerstein. But I disagree with the way they use this expression. I >think they are too generous, much too generous. Among the older >antisystemic movements they list Social Democracy, Communism, trade >unionism, and movements for national liberation; and they also speak of >the "new" antisystemic social movements, which include the Peace, Green, >and New Age movements, the women's movements, and the minority rights >movements. Now, I submit that none of these was or is antisystemic >except portions of the Social Democratic Second International in its >pre-1914 heyday; and portions of the Leninist Third International in the >period from 1919 to about 1923, together with various small Trotskyite >movements in later years. > "Antisystemic" should mean what it says: against the system, >against the capitalist world-system with its globalized world-economy >and its various sovereign nation- (or rather would-be sovereign, >would-be nation-) states. (Actually, none of them is sovereign and very >few, fewer than 10%, are one-nation-states.) Antisystemic should mean >against thesystem--the whole system, lock, stock, and barrel, the >world-system. > > Point Two. Most of the purported antisystemic movements were and >are movements--whatever their ideological trappings--to wrest a share of >power and wealth from the owners and managers of the world-system on >behalf of the segmental interests they represent. This is true whether >we are talking about Indians or Amerindians, women or gays, >trade-union members or Untouchables. They all seek a piece of the >action, but within the system. Within the system. For example, what do >most Palestinians want? They want land, restitution, recognition. They >want full membership in the United Nations, the authority to send and >receive ambassadors, the right to print pretty postage stamps, and have >their own national airline--perhaps PalAir? Is the movement for >Palestinian independence antisystemic? Don't fool yourself. In >the current world situation, and given all that the Palestinian people >have endured since the mid-1940s, I strongly favor the creation and >recognition of an independent Palestinian state. But such a state would >not be, could not be,antisystemic--nor for that matter are the PLO, >Hamas, and Hezbollah. The point is that the modern capitalist >world-system is not intrinsically white, male, straight, and European. >It did historically originate in a white, male, straight, European >milieu (unless you're a disciple of Andre Gunder Frank), but now that it >has been fairly launched, anybody can play. If the population of the >world in the next century should suddenly be slashed to nothing but >parthenogenetic Nigerian Lesbian Buddhists and gay Japanese Presbyterian >clones, the capitalist world-system could nevertheless persist and >flourish. > > Point Three. The rest of the so-called antisystemic movements >today--now I'm thinking of the Greens, the Peace folks, and the New >Agers--do not necessarily represent segmental interests and may have a >genuinely global focus, but very few of them are really against the >system as such. Rather, they just want the system to be composed of good >people, with lofty spiritual values, and a vast desire to save the >planet. Most of the members of these movements have no fundamental >quarrel with the system as such, only with its wicked ways, which can be >mended with a good healthy dose of mystical or pacifist or ecological >fervor. The best proof that they have no fundamental quarrel with the >system is that the system shows no fear of them and, by and large, lets >them alone. Even world federalists are immune from surveillance, since >their idea of world government is prosystemic. A world federal >government, as they see it, would simply protect the nation-states and >economic arrangements and cultural differences that already exist. Far >from creating a new world civilization, it would help to stabilize and >perpetuate the old one. > > Point Four. There is no possibility of global democracy in the >world of 1997 or of any year or decade soon. The system has been on a >winning streak since at least the mid-1920s, and moves inexorably from >strength to strength. Nothing, not the Great Depression, not the second >World War, not the breakup of the European colonial empires, not the >rise and fall of the Soviet Union and its bloc, has done anything but >strengthen it. And not one authentically antisystemic movement of any >significance exists in the world today to oppose it. > > Point Five. The modern capitalist world-system will not enter into >decline or attract significant opposition until and unless it begins to >fail, and fail spectacularly: through such disasters as the wholesale >declassement of its middle classes, a series of global environmental >calamities resulting in the implosion of the world-economy, or an >apocalyptically ruinous North-South total war. > > Point Six. Even then, antisystemic movements will prove ineffectual >until and unless they develop a deep cosmopolitan socialist humanism >transcending all segmental creeds and loyalties, and until and unless >they collaborate on a global scale to oppose the force of the >world-system with their own unrelenting force. The notion of a popular >front of all kinds of disgruntled elements linked by no common thread >except dissatisfaction with the status quo is a notion doomed to fail. > We've been there, done that, and it doesn't deliver the goods. >Seular socialist humanism--by which I mean rational faith in democracy, >civil liberties, public stewardship of capital, and the unity and common >destiny of humankind--must lead us out of the cultural anarchy and >reaction of the now-expiring 20th century to a new commonsense global >republic of working men and women. What drags us down is our desperate >allegiance to segmental cultures long outgrown; what can lift us up is >the flickering but persistent flame of reason. Without the psychic >cohesion that only a common world-view can supply, all would-be >oppositional movements are just whistling in the dark. This does not >mean that segmental beliefs and loyalties must be abandoned, if and when >they are compatible with secular socialist humanism. But such beliefs >can never take precedence over our common world-view. We have to >believe, and believe more powerfully and effectually than everybody >else, in our common world-view, or the struggle is lost. So I am not >speaking here of compromises or coalitions or half-measures. I am >talking about a binding rational faith in human unity and destiny >that demands and receives our paramount loyalty. > > W. Warren Wagar August 11, 1997 Toronto, Ontario, Canada, > Civitas Mundi > > From chriscd@jhu.edu Mon Sep 15 14:32:50 1997 Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:21:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:19:07 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Job Opening, Univ California] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 10:54:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:49:51 +0200 From: isa@sis.ucm.es (International Sociological Association) Subject: Job Opening, Univ California Apparently-to: chriscd@jhu.edu To: chriscd@jhu.edu Reply-to: isa@sis.ucm.es To: Members of the International Sociological Association JOB OPENING THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA anticipates an opening at the Assistant Professor level, for an appointment beginning July 1998. The position is in the department's program in Race, Ethnicity & Nation (REN). Subspecialties are open. We are interested in applicants whose scholarship and teaching focuses on major racial/ethnic groups in the United States and/or on issues of race, ethnicity, and nation from a comparative or global perspective. Potential for excellence in teaching and research is necessary, and a Ph.D. is normally required at the time of appointment. To apply, send curriculum vitae, letter of application, and arrange to have three letters of reference sent to: Chair, REN Search Committee Department of Sociology University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9430. The deadline for applications is November 15, 1997. The University is an EO/AA employer; applications from racial and ethnic minorities and women candidates are encouraged. REN is the department's innovative conceptualization of an older sub-field in sociology, Race and Ethnic Relations. Four aspects of our program are distinct. First, REN focuses both on the major racial/ethnic groups in the United States, and on issues of race, ethnicity, and nation globally. Second, REN combines long-standing structural approaches to race and ethnicity with a newer cultural approach. Third, REN emphasizes the intersection of race/ethnicity with gender, class, and sexuality, enlarging the earlier single-axis orientation. Fourth, REN draws upon a range of interdisciplinary scholarship, especially in ethnic studies, expanding the disciplinary boundaries of the older sub-field. From upf@upf.org Mon Sep 15 15:14:42 1997 From: upf@upf.org Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:28:12 -0500 (CDT) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:17:06 -0500 Reply-To: upf@upf.org To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: United Peoples Advocates and Global Virtual Assembly World Peace Conference A United Peoples Advocates and Global Virtual Assembly World Peace Conference is to be held November 7-8 at DreamHouse in Chicago IL USA and sponsored by the United Planetary Federation (a world peace organisation). This conference, with an attendance fee of only $20, is meant to help coordinate and facilitate the distillation and combination of efforts, information, and accomplishments of movements that support a viable peoples assembly. The UPF is an organisation that acts as a clearinghouse for any and all information concerning world peace. It is hoped that through continued input into the content, structure, and function of their web site (http://www.upf.org), it will become a unified peace foundation for the sharing of ideas that can used to facilitate a lasting world peace in the near future. One might think that another effort to support the development of a peoples assembly would seem redundant, but the UPF is working closely with any effort that supports world peace. In 1993, the UPF formed to bring the idea of unifying the world peace movement to the Internet via sub-nets such as Intellec. From 1994 to 1996, they developed a web site and posted messages to various newsgroups in an attempt to gather as many opinions as possible. In 1997, the UPF continues to post to newsgroups and mailing lists and will contribute its research and experience to the World Peace movement by organising a United Peoples Advocates and Global Virtual Assembly Conference at DreamHouse in Chicago. This conference is meant to help unify and distill the various movements that support the creation of a peoples assembly. For an entrance fee of only $20, there will be numerous activities and discussions planned for the conference that include a Dinner Dance - Cocktail Hour (Eating and Socialising); Panel Discussions about a Unified Planetary Assembly, Consensus, a Federal Democratic Republic, Global World Citizenship, Framing a World Constitution (Articles of Assembly), Peacemakers as Heroes, Corporate Honesty and Fairness, Unity, NGOs as viable and effective organisations, Unifying the World Peace Movement itself, and Assisting in the Coordination of Various Efforts to establish a viable peoples assembly; and finally Workshops on Equity and Development, Weaponry and Armed Forces, Peaceful International Institutions and Global Relations, Nonmilitary Technological Applications and Nonmilitary Economics (Changing tax spending away from fossil fuels, military, and toxic chemical agriculture), Environmental Degradation and Universal Acceptance of All Life, Non-violent Conflict Resolution (Ending Institutionalised Violence and Teaching Peaceful Resolutions), and Freedoms, Rights, and Responsibilities (Recognition of Basic Rules to Live By). While the United Nations itself seems too weak to bring about rapid change in terms of the elimination of global problems, there are movements toward creating a peoples assembly that will strengthen the existence of a viable globally governing empowerment and help pressure nation-states to fulfil their commitments, obligations, and responsibilities to a better future. Any and all forms of a peoples assembly must be truly representative and legitimately empowered by those involved. Not only is empowerment an issue, but funding is a valid concern and would not come substantially from the UN because of its already tight budget. Some of the funding might come from NGOs and the large metropolitan cities of the world as well as from national governments and international corporations. Because new sources of revenue are needed to boost the UN, these sources could also contribute a peoples assembly that would exist as a parallel assembly to the UN general assembly, not necessarily entirely within the UN’s walls. Although not necessarily a direct outgrowth of the present day UN, a peoples assembly might be a combination of efforts inside and outside of the UN, both physically and virtually. The main argument for a peoples assembly would be to accelerate the transition from a world of competition to one of cooperation. Although, logically, a peoples assembly would be the result of NGO involvement with both the UN and the world's largest metropolitan cities, it must also be the result of ideas and opinions of all the Earth’s people. This is exactly why a viable peoples assembly must not only include efforts both in and out of the UN, but also include both a virtual as well as a physical presence in the form of a Global Virtual Assembly. The UPF began to facilitate a GVA's existence with the cooperation of those on the world.gov mailing list when an election for a board to coordinate a virtual peoples assembly protocol was held. Ultimately, everyone would be able to input into the structure and function of a viable peoples assembly. That is why a variety of attendees and opinions are needed at the Conference in November which will represent the first step toward a viable Unified Planetary Assembly, in whatever form it will eventually take. The next step, which will be represented by a second conference next year, is to promote the idea of an Advisory Council as a viable “Third House”. Of course, these ideas are open to debate by anyone who wishes to contribute. Whoever wants to attend the conference is welcome to do so. Also welcome is anyone who wishes to speak at the conference in a formal fashion. In addition to the UPF, there are a number of NGOs working toward a viable peoples assembly including CAMDUN, Earth Council, Earth Action, and ACGC. The concept of a peoples assembly has been variously referred to as a “Global Peoples Assembly”, a “UN Peoples Assembly”, a “UN Citizens Assembly”, a “United Peoples Assembly”, and a “Peoples Advocates Council”. We must help to create a viable peoples assembly by definition that would exist as a direct outgrowth of the people on this planet. It would seem very logical for such a movement to include efforts that support both an evolution of the UN and a revolution of the people. Why can we not marry these two efforts to facilitate a viable overarching peoples assembly movement? With the increasing involvement of NGOs in the UN, one could say that a prototype of a peoples assembly already exists though its structure, yet it cannot be described as a truly democratically elected entity. It is for this reason that we must go beyond the present model to include any and all opinions. The time has come for the voices of all the Earth’s peoples to be heard. It is our hope that the Peace Conference in November at DreamHouse will help facilitate the eventual existence of a viable peoples assembly, with both physical and virtual components, by distilling and combining the findings of all the efforts that support a peoples assembly, in whatever final form it takes. For more information, write to UPF, PO Box 17470, Chicago IL 60617-0470, call 1.800.484.8027.6093 or send email to conference@upf.org. -- Your Friend in Peace, Glen Nuttall "Courageous People, United World, Committed Future" UPF http://upf.org upf@upf.org "Out of Respect for Diversity comes Recognition of Fundamental Freedoms, Individual Rights, and Legitimate Responsibilities" "In the common interest of a Lasting World Peace through a Unified Planetary Assembly" From gernot.kohler@sheridanc.on.ca Wed Sep 17 11:01:03 1997 Wed, 17 Sep 1997 13:00:46 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 13:00:46 -0400 (EDT) From: Gernot Kohler To: christopher chase-dunn Subject: Re: wagar on antisystemic movements In-Reply-To: <341D786F.1AB9@jhu.edu> This is a comment on purity versus success. Praxis for change implies the intent to win (tomorrow, or after tomorrow). Now my question to Professor Wagar: How are you going to win if your definition of authenticity is so narrow that you disqualify 98% of your possible allies? According to the perspective of historical materialism, change can only be brought about successfully if it is supported by the material interests of identifiable groups, classes and strata. If you disqualify groups with strong material change interests--e.g., feminism-- as being unauthentic and apply the same judgment to many other really existing change movements, how are you going to win? It looks like a trade-off between the purity of an idea and success in praxis (or practice), as debated by the left for the past 150 years or more. Regards, Gernot Kohler Oakville, Canada From akwebb@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Wed Sep 17 14:12:21 1997 Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 16:08:01 -0400 (EDT) From: "Adam K. Webb" Reply-To: "Adam K. Webb" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: value content of antisystemic movements In-Reply-To: <341D786F.1AB9@jhu.edu> I may approach these issues from a somewhat different angle, that of ideological hegemony and value conflict, but a major part of the definition "antisystemic" is sorely absent even in Wagar's analysis. I would agree wholeheartedly with the critique Wagar raises of new social movements and the liberal-nationalist uprisings of the nineteenth century, but not merely because such movements have failed fundamentally to challenge global capitalism (granted, a major dimension of the problem). The part sorely lacking is a challenge to the underlying values of modern liberal society, namely excessive attention to the individual at the expense of moral community. The underlying discourse and mental map remains one of liberating the individual from societal constraints, whether the constraints of capitalist exploitation or, implicitly, those of tradition. While challenging the _structural_ arrangements of contemporary capitalism, Wagar's vision of an alternative society evidently does not address the continuing hegemony of liberal capitalist individualism, albeit with the rough exploitative edges somewhat softened. On a _cultural_ and political-philosophical level, what is truly new about a dryly secular, liberal, global welfare state with little moral content beyond avoiding gross mistreatment of others? At the risk of sounding like the Gang of Four, the bedrock of capitalist thought can function very nicely even under public ownership and a welfare state. A partial repudiation of capitalism's abuses--albeit a repudiation more complete than the new social movements--may, in the very long run, amount to a hegemony-affirming refinement of liberal-capitalist thought, the highest form of unintended flattery. I note this because it seems to me that any current or future antisystemic effort must draw (selectively, granted) from the timeless bedrock of precapitalist values, adapting those values to modern conditions. Every major civilisation in world history presumably has some insights to offer into how to structure a genuine alternative to the present pathological aberration, built on an entirely different set of philosophical foundations eg. more emphasis on duty, the obligations of the intelligentsia to provide moral rather than merely technocratic leadership, etc. I do not idealise traditional society, and all civilisations have contained hegemonic and counter-hegemonic currents about the relationship of the individual to society, but by accepting the liberal definition of cultural "progress," current would-be revolutionaries are denying themselves a wealth of material that could guide their formulation of a compelling vision. On a practical level, I would ask Wagar also whether it would not be advantageous to tap into the concerns that movements of regional, "reactionary" resistance (Islamic revivalism being the strongest) have. A true antisystemic challenge, it would seem, must draw in such people who seem perpetually on the losing side of history, and synthesise their regional and defensive efforts into a coherent global alternative. If we see genuine antisystemic challenges as requiring a fundamental cultural-philosophical difference from the hegemonic liberal-capitalist current, it is no coincidence that developed Northern states--or even culturally converted Southern states such as Argentina and strata such as the Chinese upper-middle class--no longer generate such sentiments. In the long term, would-be revolutionaries who neglect the "reactionary" and celebrate its inexorable retreat may be shooting themselves in the foot, because they are opposing precisely the cultural raw material that represents the last alternative to a capitalist mental map. (Unfortunately I lack time to elaborate further at present, but I welcome comments to what I have said so far.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Adam K. Webb Department of Politics Princeton University Princeton NJ 08544 USA 609-258-9028 From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Sep 18 07:27:46 1997 18 Sep 1997 09:18:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 09:16:21 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: 1998 PEWS Conference at Northwestern To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu PEWS XXII: CALL FOR PAPERS The twenty-second annual conference of the Political Economy of the World-System (PEWS) section of the American Sociological Association will take place March 23-25, 1998 on the campus of Northwestern university situated in the Chicago suburb of Evanston. It is co-sponsored by the Center for International and Comparative Studies and the Department of Sociology. The organizers are Bruce Cumings, Michael Loriaux, and Georgi Derlugian. The theme of this conference is THE SHIFTING GEOPOLITICS OF THE MODERN WORLD-SYSTEM, 1945 - 2025. Researchers are invited to submit papers or abstracts on the following questions and topics for consideration by the organizers: >>>1. The core triad (Europe, USA, Japan): competitors or colluders? >>>2. Future world wars or world peace? Are world wars eliminated from the geopolitical cycle? World empire, global multilateralism, or world anarchy? >>>3. China and Russia: evolving roles of semiperipheral giants in the world-system. Adjunct competitors? Or possible allies against the core? >>>4. Withering away of the State or states? Which states? Is stateness declining in the strong states as well? What replaces statehood in the areas where state structures collapse? How do such stateless zones (presumably, much of Africa and Central Asia) affect the general morphology of the interstate system? >>>5. World antisystemic movements: do they exist? Will they exist? Are they new in style or content? We expect to be able to provide lodging and some meals for the participants who present papers. Selected papers will be published in the annual volume by Greenwood Press. The deadline for submissions is December 15, 1997. Please forward materials to: Georgi M. Derluguian, PEWS XXII coordinator, e-mail: GDerlug@nwu.edu Center for International and Comparative Studies (CICS) Northwestern University 618 Garrett Place Evanston, Illinois 60208 tel. (847) 467-2770 (CICS) (847) 491-2741 (Derluguian) fax.( 847) 467-1996 From chriscd@jhu.edu Fri Sep 19 07:18:52 1997 Fri, 19 Sep 1997 09:17:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 09:15:17 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: LASA'98 Call for Papers: Nov 1] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 17:26:26 -0400 (EDT) 17 Sep 1997 16:17:53 -0500 (CDT) by mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/mcfeeley.mc-1.21) 17 Sep 1997 16:08:27 -0500 (CDT) by camail1.harvard.edu (post.office MTA v2.0 0813 ID# 0-12719) Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 17:12:19 -0400 From: David Sangurima Subject: LASA'98 Call for Papers: Nov 1 Sender: owner-lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu To: laspaul@harvard.edu LALA-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Reply-to: sangu@harvard.edu [posted to LASPAU-L] CALL FOR PAPERS XXI INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS of the LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION http://www.pitt.edu/~lasa/ September 24-26, 1998, Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Chicago, Illinois= =20 Proposal deadline Nov 1 1997 SOCIAL JUSTICE: PAST EXPERIENCES AND FUTURE PROSPECTS Overall Theme of the Congress LASA President: Susan Eckstein, Boston University Program Chair: Timothy Wickham-Crowley, Georgetown University You are invited to submit a proposal for LASA98. Please choose the pr= oper form from the LASA web site http://www.pitt.edu/~lasa/ and indicate c= learly the track for which a panel, workshop, or paper should be considered.= Two hard copies of the proposal must be sent BY REGULAR OR EXPRESS MAIL t= o reach the LASA98 Program Office BY NOVEMBER 1.=20 Additional forms on the LASA Website, http://www.pitt.edu/~lasa/ may = be printed from the site and filled out, but they must be mailed in hard= copy by the deadline date. ENCLOSE A SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED POST CARD WITH= YOUR PROPOSAL IF YOU WISH CONFIRMATION OF THE RECEIPT OF THE PROPOSAL.= =20 Mail forms to:=20 LASA98 Department of Sociology Box 571037 Georgetown University WASHINGTON DC 20057-1037 Email inquiries may be sent to lasa98@gunet.georgetown.edu. NOTIFICAT= IONS TO PROPOSERS ARE SCHEDULED FOR MAILING BY APRIL 1, 1998. In keeping with the theme of the Congress, papers addressing the topi= c of social justice may be submitted for any of the tracks, not just Socia= l Justice. We are planning an edited volume on that subject; if you wis= h your paper to be considered for that volume, please send a separate statem= ent and an abstract to Timothy Wickham Crowley, Program Chair, at the above a= ddress. Program Tracks and Committee Members Members of the Committee are provided for information purposes only. = All correspondence must be directed to LASA98, the Program Office. Select= the most appropriate track for your proposal from the following list: =95Agrarian and Rural Issues: Cristobal Kay, Institute of Social St= udies,=20 The Hague =95Arts, Music, Culture and Mass Media: Isabel Arredondo, SUNY/Plat= tsburgh (film); George Yudice, NYU; =95Cities, Citizenship and Quality of Life: Diane Davis, New School= for=20 Social Research; Manuel Perlo Cohen, UNAM; =95Democratization: Evelyne Huber, University of North Carolina at = Chapel=20 Hill; =95Economic Issues and Development: Albert Fishlow, Council on Fore= ign=20 Relations; Gary Gereffi, Duke University; =95Environment: William Vickers, Florida International University =95Family, Community, Religion: Virginia Garrard-Burnett, UT at= =20 Austin (religion); =C1lida Metcalf, Trinity College (Texas) (= family) =95Gender and Sexuality: Matthew Gutmann, Brown University (as of F= all 1997); Patricia Fern=E1ndez-Kelly, Princeton University (as of Fall = 1997); =95History and Historical Processes: Brooke Larson, SUNY/Stony Broo= k =95Indigenous and Ethnic Groups and Issues: Le=F3n Zamosc, UC/San D= iego; Edward Telles, Ford Foundation/Brazil & UCLA =95International Relations: Dami=E1n Fern=E1ndez, Florida Internati= onal University =95Labor Studies and Class Relations: Ruth Collier, UC/Berkeley;= =20 John French, Duke University =95Latinas/os in the US: Manuel Pastor, UC/Santa Cruz; Mar=EDa de l= os=20 Angeles Torres, De Paul University =95Law, Jurisprudence and Crime: Jeremy Adelman, Princeton;=20 Migdalia Dejes=FAs Torres, CUNY/John Jay College; =95Literature: Sara Castro-Klar=E9n, John Hopkins University; Veron= ica=20 Salles-Reese, Georgetown University =95Politics and Public Policy: Marcelo Cavarozzi, FLACSO-Mexico;= =20 Robert Kaufman, Rutgers University =95Rethinking Latin American Studies--Transborder, Transnational:= =20 Gilbert Joseph and Patricia Pessar, Yale University =95Social Movements and Revolution: Eric Selbin, Southwestern Unive= rsity =95Social Justice: Timothy Wickham-Crowley, Georgetown University =95Technological and Scholarly Resources: Sandy Thatcher, Pennsylva= nia=20 State University Press GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR SESSION PROPOSALS AND INDIVIDUAL PAPER PROPO= SALS Sessions and papers may be in English, Spanish or Portuguese. Provide sessions and paper titles in the language in which they will be prese= nted. Indicate clearly the track for which the session or paper should be considered. Be sure to indicate surname(s) for indexing purposes. Ses= sion organizers must also list participants in the expected order of appea= rance. All addresses must be current and complete. Incomplete proposals will= not be accepted, and inclusion in the program of any given proposal cannot b= e guaranteed. To emphasize: EVERY BLANK ON THE FORMS MUST BE FILLED OUT= ; IF INFORMATION HAS TO BE LOOKED UP BY THE PROGRAM STAFF TO COMPLETE THE = FORM THE PROPOSAL WILL BE NULL AND VOID. TRAVEL AND JUNIOR LECTURER GRANTS Although LASA continues its commitment to fund as many non-U.S. parti= cipants as possible, and funds many more such participants than other area st= udies associations, funds are always in short supply. LASA expects to fund = fewer than 20 percent of the travel grant requests it receives. ACCEPTANCE = OF A PAPER OR PANEL OR AN INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE DOES NOT GUARANTEE FUN= DING. Thus, participants are strongly urged to seek other sources of funds = when applying through LASA. At any rate, no more than one participant per = panel can possibly be awarded travel funding. Junior Lectureship applicants= are required to fill out both sets of travel grant applications.=20 Failure to accurately fill out every blank on the form or to type or = print clearly, will invalidate a travel application. ALL PROPOSALS MUST BE RECEIVED BY THE DEADLINE OF NOVEMBER 1, 1997 From iminasia@mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp Fri Sep 19 20:49:15 1997 Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 11:52:17 +0900 From: Victor Woronov Reply-To: iminasia@mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Mr Wagar's essay I am not a sociologist and have not done my homework on the theory and definitions underlying your discussions, so I could easily be off base in what I have to say here. Nevertheless there is perhaps something worthwhile in my comments, despite their naivety. Reducing things to absolutes and voiding them of their complexity is always good for argument and can create reams of it, but is not necessarily the best way to truth. Saying that dissent is anit-systematic only when it 1) seeks an absolute flushing of the "host" system & 2) self-immolates, martyrizes itself, in the effort/ OR ,without doing so, be defined as not being an anti-system (not being "pure"), strikes me as seriously flawed. Further injesting today's common economic paradigm sub-language, Mr Wagar goes on to reduce dissent to a bid for market share which, one gets the inference, reduces opinon and beleif to functions of greed. Well, economics may indeed be an aspect of the underlying dynamics of social movements but is certainly far from their total definition. I would suggest that anti-systematic movements be allowed to include as much "realistic" thinking as any other. The acheivement of some form of recognition by anit-systematic movements usually a function of wrenching some domain of freedom , not just market share, may be acheived within a host system but does not equate with the packing up of intention and belief. Nor is it an end to the effects such movements will have within the host system. In fact, as opposed to a Waterloo (to parady Mr Wagar's conflict model), their very existence within the system may work as a slow poison, or a source of revolutionary change over a long time frame. That most of the members of these movements have no fundamental quarrel with the system as such" may even be absolutely true of many of the individuals in these movements, after all they're only humans not a string of absolutist or anti-systematic theory, but the ends sought by their movements are often such that their realization cannot fit into the capatilist world system without altering it so fundamentally that it needs another name (and indeed it could well change things more than the dissenters bargained for). To sum up, I think there is a flaw in the essay because, besides being an attempt at thinking about systems, it is also a vehicle of cynical commentary. This is acheived by applying an extreme theoretical model to ordinary lives, not in an attempt at definition and understanding, but as a measure of value and even perhaps existential validity, ie, anything short of an anti-system is a sell out. I suspect there is a confusion and/or misapplication of critical/theoretical contexts in Mr Wagar's essay. Victor Woronov From akwebb@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Fri Sep 19 21:58:27 1997 Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 23:57:52 -0400 (EDT) From: "Adam K. Webb" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: Wagar and Woronov In-Reply-To: <34233A5D.3C01A10D@mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp> There seem to be three different levels of movement "antisystemicness" (?) under discussion here. The most limited is that of Woronov, who sees antisystemic as entailing any modification to the dominant order, however accidental, haphazard, and gradual. Particularly noteworthy is his use of the phrase "wrenching some domain of freedom...within a host system." The term "freedom" illustrates the painfully obvious tendency of the "new social movements" to demand that the current order live up to its own proclaimed ideals. This is neither a material challenge nor, at the fundamental level, an ideological challenge, and thus is the most contained and unthreatening variety of activism. It is no accident that this variety of mobilisation and self-congratulatory "radicalism" has long been the sole activism remaining among the global elite and in the educational institutions that train that elite. The intermediate level of "antisystemicness" is that of Wagar's envisioned World Party, which fundamentally challenges the material arrangements of the hegemonic order. This set of demands goes well beyond asking that order to live up to its own rhetoric of individual liberation, and indeed beyond economic redistribution within the constraints of that system. Indeed, little could be more radical than a wholesale transformation of ownership and political structures. But my intent is to stress the third and highest level of antisystemic challenge, which also would carry through material transformation but goes even further to reject the evaluative yardstick and philosophical foundations that the hegemonic order would carry forward into a "socialist democratic world federation." All the historical perspective on the last five thousand-odd years afforded us by world-systems theory will come to nil if we also neglect the insights that flow from the "thick moralities" of precapitalist civilisations. We must judge contemporary capitalism based on the widest possible sampling of alternatives to it, for only that perspective can fully disengage us from its insidious influence. =============================================================================== Adam K. Webb Department of Politics Princeton University Princeton NJ 08544 USA 609-258-9028 From bill.schell@murraystate.edu Mon Sep 22 19:12:09 1997 Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 20:05:14 -0500 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: Bill Schell Subject: antisystems Adam K Webb seems to agree with Wagar (as have other contributors to this discussion) that the world system can only be undone by a massive global collapse which would cause untold human misery as always happens when revolutionary idealists find the power to sweep away everything and declare the year ZERO. Far better to encourage reform or evolution or subvertion of the system by drawing "selectively" on "timeless bedrock of precapitalist values" to subvert the capitalist world system. This sounds good to me, although I find Webb's selection of religious fundamentalism (he suggests Islamic, but it would seem to open the door to all such) rather chilling. The question then becomes: what are those bedrock values? The one thing that all so-called traditional values share is a concern for the COMMON GOOD and HARMONY (however they may be defined -- whose GOOD? whose HARMONY?) over the individual and individual rights. This is a slippery slope (as history teaches) but if it is to be pursued I think it might be worth while to look at by Howard Wiarda's __Corporatism and Comparative Politics__ (ME Sharpe, 1996). There he identifies a "modern neo-corporatism ... often called societal or open corporatism" which he says is already entrenched in "modern, industrial social-welfare-oriented countries" where interest groups are "directly incorporated into the decision-making machinery of the ... state on such issues as industrial policy, social welfare, pensions, and economic planning" through "formalized consultation between the state and its major societal interests." "Cooperation, consultation, negotiations, and compromise are the usual route to ... agreements, not coercion" in contrast to the "authoritarian corporatism of the past." p. 21 and passim. This Wiarda sees evolving to a sort of "neo-syndicalism" in which various interest groups actually come to efectively control those govt agencies that regulate issues vital to them -- for instance environmental groups dominate the EPA, farmers the Dept of Agriculture, the AARP able to propose and veto social security policies. The regulatory boards created as pillars of the world system by the EEC, NAFTA, WTO etc. also create the structure for corporatism to transcend nationalism and function at the international level. Just a thought. From akwebb@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Tue Sep 23 00:01:25 1997 Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 02:00:28 -0400 (EDT) From: "Adam K. Webb" Reply-To: "Adam K. Webb" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: GENUINE antisystems In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970922200514.0069702c@murraystate.edu> Civilisations indeed need goals. I doubt anyone sensibly would disagree with that per se, yet within recent historical memory those goals typically have not gone beyond increased consumption (however broadly defined) and liberation of the individual to pursue purely personal aims upon which the larger society must remain agnostic. Such a mentality-- which throughout most of human history most assuredly would have been judged a pathological negation of the social--pervades even mainstream Marxist thought. Marx himself--as much as one can glean since he almost never wrote directly about Communism--remained quite vague about the eventual moral flavouring of "hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon, etc." Such a murky vision gives rise to two critiques. First, it confuses means and ends by suggesting that technological advancement and universal prosperity will create unprecedented freedom to create the social anew, without indicating what the larger guiding values of that creation are to be. In other words, what is the point of mercilessly clearing out "the old curiosity shop" when one attaches little importance to what new wares will occupy the refinished space? Second and more central to my argument, however, is that it perpetuates the mercantile subjectivism that put us in our present historical pickle in the first place. It seems distressingly obvious that the "progressive" position on individual liberation could only emerge from liberal capitalist notions of consumer sovereignty, moral relativism, freedom from public moral projects, negation of the social anchor, etc. that have become so widely accepted that even would-be revolutionaries fail to identify them with a particular social system. Even such otherwise wholly admirable thinkers as Karl Polanyi succumb to this baggage when they throw around phrases such as "unprecedented freedom" to describe the future utopia. I fail to see how anyone can profess to be "antisystemic" when their ideological position represents an evolution, a refinement with the harsh competitive edges softened, of precisely the abhorrent social system they wish to overthrow, rather than a synthesis based on as broad a view as possible of how that social system contrasts with all other alternatives. I am not arguing a bandwaggon theory of history--that all previous civilisations have been different, so the present one is necessarily wrong--but I consider that the historical record does give rise to a burden of proof that very few "radicals" are treating with corresponding seriousness. Is my less than condemning view of "fundamentalisms" as "chilling" as suggested? I have heard much more vitriolic adjectives, although not that exact one until now. I have two levels of response. First, I do not quite have the Taliban, the Hindu-nationalist mosque-burners, or the North American fringe in mind (no movement of that sort strikes me as particularly thoughtful or universalisable), more something along the lines of Shariati, Mariategui, Gandhi, Nyerere, etc. (although each has shortcomings). I would use the word "moderate," but that has too much baggage; half the time it means writers such as An-Naim who bastardise a philosophical system not from any great effort at critical insight but in order to render it palatable according to a hegemonic yardstick. Of course any tradition is in need of reinterpretation to distinguish its underlying principles from the ways in which those principles were expressed under previous social formations, and to contribute to a new synthesis of global revolutionary relevance. Khomeini has little to say to Aymara-speaking peasants near Lake Titicaca, or to pork-eating shantytown dwellers in Chongqing; Shariati might. And every civilisation has multiple socially rooted philosophical currents engaged in timeless clashes with one another. I submit that one can match up the best corresponding currents across civilisations as part of the synthesising process. "Tradition" is never simply a vague "harmony," but different types of harmony, different models of individual excellence, different types of solidarity, giving us many options and many hard choices to confront. Such choices go well beyond the "optimising" that is all that is demanded of technocrats in the present unimaginative epoch. The notion that constructing an alternative social order is ever an easy task with unchallenged assumptions to guide it would receive well-deserved guffaws from the historical pantheon. My second level of response: what exactly is "chilling," and why does this "slippery slope" strike such terror in the hearts of sensible people? In other words, such apprehension demands an explicit justification in terms of "progressive" ultimate values, as well as an explication of how "progressive" ultimate values genuinely differ from the hegemonic ones. Any value system has a slippery slope, and the slope of individual liberation seems at least as well greased as any other--and filthier at the bottom by present indications. One has every right to condemn the Taliban if one sees fit, but at least do it as if one is trying to reason with people who do not buy into every assumption regarding humanity's inevitable march to the glorious anomic end-state. The most interesting critique of particular distasteful "traditional" practices, in my view, is to take the ultimate values they purport to uphold and examine whether in fact there is a necessary and sensible means-ends rationality. It may not occur to either "progressives" or "reactionaries" that the historic "sages" of any given social system might very well recognise the suitability of adaptations to modernity--not because modernity abhors principle and thus requires "pragmatism" (a horrible word and the slipperiest of all slopes), but because it opens up opportunities for a fuller and more direct realisation of the timeless ideals that they did their best to express under the constraining conditions of their era. Lastly, I want to respond to the suggestion about "neo-corporatism." That model, to put it bluntly, is all structure and no content. No doubt the orthodox Marxists on the list would condemn me for being insufficiently structural, but that is another matter. While I have a high opinion of Wiarda's scholarship on Latin America, somehow I have reservations about putting the WTO and the administrative organs of Swedish social democracy in quite the same category as the "corporatist" units of a mediaeval township. The former is a structure by which anomic individual units relate to each other for purely functional purposes; the latter is a collective identity that becomes a dimension of its members' being. One is a mode of interest representation and has no organic intensity whatsoever, the other a set of principles that inform modes of interest representation. No institution is ever, in itself, a philosophy. Means and ends, means and ends.... Regards, --AKW =============================================================================== Adam K. Webb Department of Politics Princeton University Princeton NJ 08544 USA 609-258-9028 http://www.princeton.edu/~akwebb From andrei@rsuh.ru Tue Sep 23 03:10:00 1997 From: "Andrey Korotayev" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 13:10:56 +0300 Subject: CFP: International Anthropological Conference, Moscow Reply-to: andrei@rsuh.ru > Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 03:05:47 MDT > Reply-to: listproc@csf.colorado.edu > From: Comm for a Sustainable Future > To: andrei@rsuh.ru > Subject: SUBSCRIBE WSN Andrey Korotayev > Welcome to list WSN (wsn@csf.colorado.edu). The system has recorded > your address as > > andrei@rsuh.ru > > and it is required that you send your postings from that address, unless > the list does not require subscription for posting. > > The list's owners are chriscd@jhu.edu . > > You should contact them if there are any problems. > > Please do not send requests to this list; instead direct them to: > > listproc@csf.colorado.edu > > > To get more information on how to use this service, please send the command > HELP in a line by itself in a mail message to listproc@csf.colorado.edu. > > To signoff from the list, email to listproc@csf.colorado.edu with the following request: > > signoff WSN > or > unsubscribe WSN > > Welcome to WSN, the world-systems network. We also have an electronic > archive at csf.colorado.edu called wsystems which contains > announcements, newsletters, biographical info about list members, > bibliographies, papers, and etc. Please use this resource and > contribute material of your own. For more information contact > Chase-Dunn [chriscd@jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu] or > Peter Grimes [p34d3611@jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu]. > > Messages to subscribers of the wsn list should be sent to > WSN@csf.colorado.edu > Messages to subscribe or unsubscribe to the list should be sent to > LISTSERV@csf.colorado.edu > > CALL FOR PAPERS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE "HUMAN DIMENSION IN THE CULTURES OF THE EAST AND THE WEST: INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH" Moscow, Russia 31 May - 3 June 1998 The Convenor: Gregory TKACHENKO, Director of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology Conference Secretary: Olga KHRISTOFOROVA, Russian State University for the Humanities 6 Miusskaya Ploshchad (Korpus 2, Etazh 2) Moscow 125267 RUSSIA FAX: +7 (095) 250 5109 (c/o Institute of Cultural Anthropology) EMAIL: andrei@rsuh.ru The Institute of Cultural Anthropology (Russian State University of Humanities, Moscow) is organizing in May/June 1998 International Conference "HUMAN DIMENSION IN TRADITIONAL CULTURES OF EAST AND WEST: INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH". The Institute of Cultural Anthropology (InCA) has been established in 1997 as a reserch and teaching institution within the framework of the Russian State University for the Humanities in order to coordinate the efforts of those scholars and teachers whose professional interests are connected with the study of the peoples and their activities (Cultural Anthropology, Linguistics, Museology, Religion Studies, Arts &c). Its aim is to provide conditions for the formation of a new education environment. One of the Conference objectives is to provide the possibility of the information exchange among the anthropologists, the coordination of the research projects and the discussion of the recent trends in Anthropology in order to optimize the research and teaching activities of the anthropological institutions. The Program Committee welcomes proposals on all topics but is particularly interested in proposals that address one of the following THEMES: 1) "Cultural Universals": - it is possible that notwithstanding all the diversity of the cultural codes any tradition has a limited set of the immanent terms ("cultural meanings", key concepts &c) which form its conceptual space: "ultimate contexts" of culture, moral values &c. Is there any sense in the attempts to define the list and contents of culture terms ("cultural meanings")? Could such attempts lead to the discovery of the foundations for the cultures typologization or to the discovery of their absence? 2) "Culturally Determined Behaviour Patterns": - in the past the reconsideration of the problem of the human agency and autonomy often led in the European tradition to the interpretation of the non-European cultural agents and selves as "quasi-" (- personality, - rationality, - subjectivity) &c. Is the multiculturalism possible in the environment of the remaining latent europocentrism of the studies in Cultural Anthropology? 3) "Symbolical Representation Systems": - what is the impact on the cultural message of the media of its translation? Historical systems of semiotic codes (from the knot writing to the WWW): contextual coherence, or contextual freedom? In addition to the three plenary sections we are planning to organize a few panels ("Teaching of Anthropology", "Socio- Cultural Evolution: Anthropological Approach", "Anthropology of South Arabia", "Pre-colonial Tropical African Anthropology: Genesis of the Complex Political Organization" &c). Any new panel proposals are strongly invited. Fax or e-mail proposals for panels (or single submissions) and a short vita for each participant to: Gregory TKACHENKO, Director Olga KHRISTOFOROVA, Learnt Secretary Institute of Cultural Anthropology (InCA) Russian State University for the Humanities 6 Miusskaya Ploshchad (Korpus 2, Etazh 2) Moscow 125267 RUSSIA FAX: +7 (095) 250 5109 (c/o Institute of Cultural Anthropology) EMAIL: andrei@rsuh.ru THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS IS 1 JANUARY 1997. From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Tue Sep 23 03:34:35 1997 Tue, 23 Sep 1997 16:27:36 +0700 (NOVST) 23 Sep 97 16:27:54 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu, PHILOFHI@YORKU.CA Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 16:27:30 -0600 (NSK) Subject: ultimate values & civilizations lestanskyj1@lion.uofs.edu Current discussion approached my recent professional interests and i feel a duty to response to this intellectual challenge. I wrote three books on philosophy and logics of values for global praxis and education but here i'll try only to present briefly some ideas and a metaphoric picture philosophically plausible global future. First two abstract theses: 1) civilizations (including societies and cultures) already have ultimate (superior) values. They are changing in history step by step but seem to rest different from each other FOREVER. Here Western liberal, individualistic values have the same status as values of any other civilizations 2) at the same time people from different civilizations encounter with each other and that's why they need also MINIMAL values (or Values of General Significance - VGS ) and correspondent norms without which contacts become troublesome. This list of VGS is well known: A. human life, health, dignity, non-violence, tolerance to cultural, religious, ethnic diversity, etc B. subordinate values of legacy (against non-legal violence), ecology (against pollution and other dangers for human life and health), etc Fully realizing the danger to be blamed for eurocentrism i maintain that since XVI-XVII Europe has the most developed value system, norms and traditions (though used mostly WITHIN Western Europe, later WITHIN the West) for this realm of minimal inter-civilization values. Recent anti-racist, minorities-support, PC, feminism and similar trends in USA and Canada have general humanistic basis and European cultural origin. A visible general project for global praxis includes a great variety of human regimes (the notion of Elias, Goudsblom, Spier) with their own irreducible value systems and superior values, but added by a general platform of minimal values (VGS), that fit requirements and constraints of encounters, exchange, global security, environment, resourses, etc. VGS must include possibility for anyone to 'move' between civilizations, i.e. the rights to leave (country, confession, culture) and minimal openness of other communities to accept new members (because pushed out marginals usually are troublesome for all sides and themselves) My metaphor for civilizations in global future is coexistance of various religious communities within a city: nobody hopes that his God will be accepted by those who believe in other Gods, but everybody respect minimal values and norms of their common city (f.e. not to kill and not to insult alien religious symbols). The main problem that is not solved by this system is social (within society) and global (among nations) justice that concern economic rights and access to planetary resourses. But I don't see any possibility to solve this problem until the global consensus of VGS based on human rights is achieved. Global economic as well as environmental struggle can be effective only on solid base of global legacy, global consensus of minimal values and global geopolitical security. Instead of revolutionary 'antisystemic movements' i suggest to focus on initiating of wide humanistic movement for the following value (not already minimal one but constructed on the base of the same paradigm of human rights, compare with Kant's categorical imperative and Rawl's theory of justice) : ######################################################################## Equal possibility for each person of current and future generations of the planet (including f.e. modern Central Africa, people of 21-22 centuries) for life, health, freedom, security, education, self-realization, having family, and guaranted minimal access to profits of utilizing planetary (especialy non-renewed) resourses. ####################################################################### Why cannot a city-humanity (first personalized by its intellectuals) start to think of security and possibilities of all citizens notwithstanding their confessions-civilization and date of birth? I'll be grateful for your comments. Nikolai PS I can send a more detailed resume of my last book on this issue (Values in the Problematic World: Philosophical Foundations and Social Applications of Constructive Axiology) to everyone who is interested. *********************************************************** 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 ozi@tig.com.au Tue Sep 23 04:43:28 1997 Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 20:42:31 +1000 (EST) To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: Jonathan Gadir Subject: Communicating WST to the public! Re: J. Timmons Roberts idea (9/15/97) of producing a simple World-Systems handbook: >Do people like the idea of a PEWS conference on "What Activists and Citizens >Need to know about World-Systems Theory" ?? The goal would be to translate >our work into a handbook written in plain English, with case-studies of >important cases. > >Just an idea. > Yes! A very good idea. More urgently though, it is time that one of the scholars in the world-systems field writes an accessible, mainstream book which aims to introduce the notion of the modern world-system to the wider reading public - and to communicate some of the basic insights that it gives us into our world to a general audience. For example, discoveries and new theories in physics are successfully brought to the general public through books by the likes of Paul Davies. David Suzuki's books explain the ecological crisis to people simply and powerfully. The same can (and must) be done with the world-systems perspective. Moreover, the best-seller status of John Ralston Saul's book "The Unconscious Civilization", reveals a very widespread disillusionment, a hunger for explanations, and a groping for some kind of alternative. The time is ripe for it. A mainstream work on the modern world-system would be published by a mainstream publisher and retail widely as any work of popular science. The author would have to be willing and able to give press, TV and radio interviews when the book is launched, and must have the ability to write and speak effectively to a non-academic audience. I'm also assuming that the author actually believes in some of what he/she is writing, and has some kind of commitment to an alternative world order. Perhaps W. Warren Wagar would be right for the job? The chance discovery of the world-systems perspective within the last year, has been to this humble undergraduate student, immensely important and was a major part of a significant transformation in my 'world-view'. I feel that laying bare the historical workings of the capitalist economy to a wider audience - ripping WST out from the obscure academic closet - would be the most useful thing a WS academic could do right now. If, that is, you're really serious about organizing for antisystemic alternatives. Who will take up the challenge? - Jonathan Gadir From SKSANDER@grove.iup.edu Tue Sep 23 07:37:33 1997 23 Sep 1997 09:37:24 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 09:37:24 -0500 (EST) From: s_sanderson To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Warren Wagar would indeed be an excellent choice as someone who could author a WST book accessible to the general public. Thomas Shannon's short intro to WST could be revised and made into an excellent book that the general lay public could read. It wouldn't even need all that much revision. Stephen Sanderson From pino@bis.bg Tue Sep 23 08:43:38 1997 Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 17:43:24 +0300 To: WSN@csf.colorado.edu From: madara Subject: In search of the Self at the corner of XXI century --=====================_875102402==_ Dear subscribers to wsn list here I propose you a fascinating idea for all who are involved in humanities. --=====================_875102402==_ x-mac-type="42494E41"; x-mac-creator="4D535744" 0M8R4KGxGuEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOwADAP7/CQAGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAAAAAQAAAAAAAAAA EAAAAgAAAAEAAAD+////AAAAAAAAAAD///////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 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/////////////////////////////////////////////wADAAAzAwAASwMAAAD+AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACdQECAAMAAAEDAAACAwAAJgMAAC0DAAAzAwAA /gAAAAAAAP4AATAqIAH+AAEwKiAB/gABMCogAf4AATAqIAEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAZOb3JtYWwAAgAAAAkAXQQAYQkIYxgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACIAQUDy/6EAIgAWRGVm YXVsdCBQYXJhZ3JhcGggRm9udAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADMAAAADADMDAAAAAP////8BAAQg//8B AAAAAAAzAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMAAEsDAAACAAADAAAzAwAAAwA5AAFWG0M6XFdJTldPUkRcV0lOVEVY VFzPy8jKLkRPQwFWFkM6XFdJTldPUkRcRk9MS0xPUi5ET0P/QEhQIERlc2tKZXQgNTIwIFByaW50 ZXIATFBUMToAREVTS0pFVEMASFAgRGVza0pldCA1MjAgUHJpbnRlcgAAAAAAAAAAAAAKAwAERAAc AAMWAAACABQAAAAAAAAAAQABACwBAgABACwBAQBEAV4BnQEAAH0BAAC5AbgB1gECAAIAAAAGAAAA SFAgRGVza0pldCA1MjAgUHJpbnRlcgAAAAAAAAAAAAAKAwAERAAcAAMWAAACABQAAAAAAAAAAQAB ACwBAgABACwBAQBEAV4BnQEAAH0BAAC5AbgB1gECAAIAAAAGAAAAAIABAAAAAAAAAAAACAAAgAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATAAVEpABAABUaW1lcyBOZXcgUm9tYW4ADFKQAQIAU3ltYm9sAAsikAEAAEFy aWFsAA0SkAEAAFRtcyBSbW4ADDKQAcgAR2VuZXZlACIABAACA4wYVgzQAgAAaAEAAAAAQlUZZkJV GWYAAAAAAgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEAIMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR BDkAAAAjxM4gxMjQxcrSztDAIM3AIMjN0dLI0tPSIM/OINTOy8rLztAAAAABVgFWAAAAAAAAAAAA ANDPEeChsRrhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADsAAwD+/wkABgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQAAAAEAAAAAAAAA AAAQAAACAAAAAQAAAP7///8AAAAAAAAAAP////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////8= --=====================_875102402==_-- From harlowc@cats.ucsc.edu Tue Sep 23 13:42:34 1997 Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 12:38:27 -0700 From: Christian Harlow Reply-To: harlowc@cats.ucsc.edu To: "socgrad@csf.colorado.edu" "PHILOFHI (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history)" Subject: Re: Explanation of RFD References: Hi all, I am currently in the process of researching statistical software packages. I am fairly familiar with SPSS but have decided to take a look at other packages as well before I make a recommendation to the PI of the grant that I am working with. What I am looking for is something that is easy to use, reliable, works well with other programs/spreadsheets etc..., something that runs on Win95 well yet is also still being made for Mac's (I have heard that SPSS has threatened to no longer produce the software for Macintosh). If you know of any listserv's or usenet discussions about this I would be most appreciattive also.... Best Christian Harlow From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Sep 23 15:11:20 1997 Tue, 23 Sep 1997 16:59:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 16:57:26 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: jobs in auckland To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:36:48 -0400 (EDT) (bing43.net107.binghamton.edu [128.226.107.43]) by mailhost.auckland.ac.nz 19 Sep 1997 15:36:15 +1200 (NZST) Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:21:58 -0400 From: Ravi Arvind Palat Subject: Please post on wsn To: chriscd@jhu.edu Reply-to: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz Organization: University of Auckland The University of Auckland New Zealand TWO LECTURESHIPS IN SOCIOLOGY (Sociological Research Methodologies - Social Theory) Department of Sociology (Vacancy UAC.894) Conditions of Appointment The Appointments 1. These positions are tenurable, and at Lecturer level (equivalent to North American Assistant Professorships). Qualifications 2. Applications are invited from well-qualified candidates (with a doctorate or equivalent) for two tenurable Lectureships in Sociology. The successful candidate for one post will teach sociological research methodologies to undergraduate and postgraduate students. For the second post we seek someone with strong teaching interests in social theory. Applicants are asked to indicate which research and teaching area(s) interest them, beyond those indicated. Responsibilities 3. The persons appointed will be responsible to the Vice-Chancellor through the Head of Department of Sociology and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts for such duties, including teaching, examining and research, as may be required by the Head of the Department. The successful applicants will be expected to contribute to teaching at undergraduate and graduate levels and undertake research. Salarv 4. Commencing salary will be determined in accordance with qualifications and experience within the scales for Lecturers. The present salary scale for a Lecturer is $NZ44,250 per annum rising to $NZ53,250 per annum by six annual increments. In normal circumstances a Lecturer whose services have proved satisfactory may apply for promotion to be given the status of a Senior Lecturer, salary maximum $NZ65,250, though this may be increased to $NZ71,250 at the University's discretion. Date for Taking up Duties 5. Those appointed will be expected to take up duties on a date to be arranged as soon as possible. General Conditions 6. The appointee will also be subject to the provisions of The University of Auckland Academic Staff Collective Employment Contract, a summary of which is given in the statement attached Closing Date for Applications 7. Applications in accordance with the Method of Application and quoting Vacancy UAC.894 should be forwarded as soon as possible, but not later than 10 November l997. Further information about this position may be obtained from the Head of the Department of Sociology, Professor Ian Carter, Telephone 64-9-373 7599 Extn 8615, Fax 64-9-373 7439; Email: i.carter@auckland.ac.nz The University has an EEO policy and welcomes applicants from all qualified persons W B NICOLL REGISTRAR The University of Auckland Private Bag 92019 Auckland NEW ZEALAND From akwebb@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Tue Sep 23 15:31:04 1997 Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 17:30:09 -0400 (EDT) From: "Adam K. Webb" Reply-To: "Adam K. Webb" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: tolerance or abdication? 1. The statement that Europe has had the most "developed" set of values regarding intercivilisation relations since the Enlightenment seems plausible, but I am not quite sure what it really says. Whichever civilisation has the most contact with others would only be expected to think most about the implications of that contact. Had Song China carried on a flourishing trade with the peoples of the Andean highlands and the Congo basin, perhaps its notions of how to relate to the world would have been correspondingly complex--and yet qualitatively different. In any case, I am not sure tolerance of the European liberal sort is a self-evident virtue. I strongly suspect few people anywhere six hundred years ago would have thought it anything other than an escape from hard debates, even though if pressed the "silent majority" would have had second thoughts about "slaughtering infidels." 2. Tolerance is very different from abdicating judgement and a synthesising project altogether. We have to draw a distinction between an open-minded attitude to intellectual contributions from multiple sources (good), and a failure to seek anything beyond relativistic coexistence (bad). I suppose there is an existential question here about whether the diversity of human social formations has merely aesthetic appeal per se, or whether the primary long-term aim is to offer insights for building a higher civilisation blending the best of all worlds. As all will realise, I take the latter position myself. 3. I have doubts about the Huntington-like argument regarding the enduring differences among civilisations, for it ignores two considerations. First, what about conflicts among different intellectual currents within civilisations, which might be translatable across cultures (eg. the ideals expressed in millennial peasant uprisings, or conflicts over the nature of elite social obligation, etc.)? Different languages do not necessarily mean different sets of issues; if we map the issue clusters across cultures, the multiple debates usually coalesce into universal clashes. Second, we are arriving tragically quickly at the point of global homogeneity, whether we like it or not. We are going to end up with a single world civilisation all too soon if we persist in a relativism-induced abdication of moral judgement, a world civilisation that takes what always have been considered the worst parts of human nature and holds them up for worship. Lack of judgement equates to accepting the current trend rather than redefining it. 4. There is a very solid case to be made for maximum local (probably closer to municipal than national) autonomy under the future scenario of global sovereignty. Under conditions of interdependence--which will hold under all likely regimes--I nevertheless fail to see how such space even can be provided without a larger systemic transformation, both structurally and ideologically (eg. a moral underpinning for that autonomy more solid than slogans of freedom, such as provision of experimental space that in the long run benefits the global civilisation-building project). 5. Lastly, a comment on mere coexistence. I fully appreciate the legitimate fears underpinning the hope that no one will try to convert others to one's own dogma. Yet this mentality implies two possibilities. Either the individual does not believe sufficiently in his or her own realised "good" to think it worth bringing to the community as a whole, or that personal "good" is considered too precious to share. Both scenarios strike me as a little unsuited to a true "world city." We must examine suitably critically the public-private boundaries that emerged from mercantile relationships and plague us still. Do individuals exist primarily as autonomous units or as intersections of public engagements? Public engagement requires believing something sufficiently strongly to take it beyond oneself. Regards, --AKW =============================================================================== Adam K. Webb Department of Politics Princeton University Princeton NJ 08544 USA 609-258-9028 http://www.princeton.edu/~akwebb From wwagar@binghamton.edu Tue Sep 23 15:34:18 1997 From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 17:34:07 -0400 (EDT) To: s_sanderson Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: <01INZ73B087S8WXBWB@grove.iup.edu> Dear Stephen, Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'll think about it. One problem is that somebody would have to explain some of the more arcane aspects of world-system theory to me first! I don't always get the point. But why not Shannon himself? Anyway, the need for a broader general dissemination of world-system theory and research is quite obvious. Every Marx needs his Engels. We could call our book--but we won't--WORLD-SYSTEM THEORY FOR DUMMIES. I will be commenting on the comments on my little essay about antisystemic movements in a few days. Cheers, Warren On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, s_sanderson wrote: > Warren Wagar would indeed be an excellent choice as someone who could author a > WST book accessible to the general public. Thomas Shannon's short intro to WST > could be revised and made into an excellent book that the general lay public > could read. It wouldn't even need all that much revision. > > Stephen Sanderson > > From phuakl@sit.edu.my Tue Sep 23 22:09:01 1997 24 Sep 97 12:12:52 +1100 From: "DR. PHUA KAI LIT" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 12:12:22 +0000 Subject: (Fwd) [sangkancil] Damage Control by Anwar (fwd) News from this part of the world-system (Malaysia and Singapore). P.S. Currently, regional financial markets and currency markets are in turmoil. We are also choking from hellish cross-border pollution (over 100 fires burning in Sumatra and Kalimantan. Aggravated by El Nino) ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- To: sangkancil@malaysia.net Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 20:51:02 Subject: [sangkancil] Damage Control by Anwar (fwd) From: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai) Reply-to: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai) ________________________________________________ This week's sponsors -The Asia Pacific Internet Company (APIC) Business Internet Services. Some talk. Some do. We talk and do! for instant info ________________________________________________ FORWARDED MAIL ------- From: pgdap@pc.jaring.my ("Balasundaram K.") Date: 22 Sep 97 Originally Posted On: jaring.general No change to currency trading, says Anwar (SINGAPORE NEW STRAITS TIMES 22.9.97) By Ravi Velloor, in Hongkong MALAYSIA hastened to assure the financial world yesterday that it had no intention to roll back its open currency system, a day after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad appeared set to ruffle regional markets again by suggesting that a ban on currency trading was in order. Speaking to reporters at the annual International Monetary Fund-World Bank talks, Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who has direct charge of the finance ministry, said that Kuala Lumpur had no plans in that direction. "There is absolutely no change insofar as the rules and regulations regarding foreign exchange trading in Malaysia," he said. "What Dr Mahathir meant was that there was an urgent need to study the adverse, negative implications due to excessive speculation on the currencies." He said he expected no negative reaction in the financial markets to the PM's remarks. He said that he had spoken to Dr Mahathir to clarify the matter, and added: "I am now saying clearly that there is absolutely no basis in suggesting that we are changing rules and regulations relating to the currency trading practice in Malaysia." Dr Mahathir had called for a ban on currency trading in a keynote address delivered here on Saturday, and in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Morning Post newspaper, he said Malaysia would ban currency trading since it brought the country no benefits. He was quoted as saying: "We have decided it cannot go on because there is no benefit to it. Why should we allow something which is damaging to us? Currency trading will be limited to financing trade." In the interview, he said that recent events in financial markets called for a re-examination of financial liberalisation in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) nations and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Yesterday, billionaire investor George Soros, the man Dr Mahathir has blamed frequently for much of Malaysia's troubles, slammed the Malaysian leader for his suggestion on banning currency trading and said he considered Dr Mahathir to be merely playing to the gallery. "It does not deserve serious consideration. Interfering with the convertibility of capital at a moment like this is a recipe for disaster. Dr Mahathir is a menace to his own country." The US-based financial guru, who had said before his trip to Hongkong that he felt beleaguered by the personal attacks directed at him from Malaysia and Thailand, went on the offensive against Dr Mahathir yesterday, referring to him as a "loose cannon". "Dr Mahathir is using me as a scapegoat to cover up his own failure. He is playing to a domestic audience." Mr Soros, 67, used the opportunity to return to a theme he had stressed earlier this year: that current global capitalism and its laissez-faire ideology was proving to be dangerously deficient and needed checking. "The capacity of the state to look after the welfare of its citizens has been severely impaired by the globalisation of the capitalist system which allows capital to escape taxation much more easily than labour," he said. "The laissez-faire idea that markets should be left to their own devices remains very influential. I consider it a dangerous idea. The instability of financial markets can cause serious economic and social dislocations." He also took a swipe at the concept of Asian values, saying that these were a "convenient pretext for resisting democratic aspirations". -________________________________________________ List Owner: M.G.G. Pillai Free Homepages on malaysia.net - send blank Check out the malaysia.net web site on List Postings to ________________________________________________ From phuakl@sit.edu.my Tue Sep 23 22:11:49 1997 24 Sep 97 12:15:50 +1100 From: "DR. PHUA KAI LIT" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 12:15:45 +0000 Subject: (Fwd) [sangkancil] Haze crosses the meltdown point (fwd) Mr Matin Khor is director of the Consumers' Association of Penang. He is also active in the Third World Network based in Penang, Malaysia. Graduated from Cambridge Univ with a degree in economics. ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- To: sangkancil@malaysia.net Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 20:32:43 Subject: [sangkancil] Haze crosses the meltdown point (fwd) From: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai) Reply-to: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai) ________________________________________________ This week's sponsors -The Asia Pacific Internet Company (APIC) Business Internet Services. Some talk. Some do. We talk and do! for instant info ________________________________________________ FORWARDED MAIL ------- From: cbk2205@pc.jaring.my ("CBK") Date: 22 Sep 97 Originally Posted On: jaring.members Monday, September 22, 1997 FOCUS: Earth Trends Haze crosses the meltdown point Malaysians are now haunted by indexes - measuring the financial and environmental health of the country. As the Air Pollution Index level shot through the graph at 600-plus last week, anxiety and alarm turned into anger and near-panic. Action should now be taken, to convince both the Indonesian authorities and our own local generators of pollution, to act now and for the long term. By Martin Khor MALAYSIANS these days can be forgiven for having an "index obsession." For indexes an dthreshold levels now seem to measure the daily fluctuations of our fortunes, economic and environmental. They also measure the degree of severity of the crises we seem to be going through. Was it only some weeks ago when we watched with bated breath as the ringgit fell through the then terrible barriers of RM2.60 and then RM2.70 to the US dollar? Last week, it once again breached RM3, a level that would have been unthinkable only two months ago. Then it was the share market, with the KLSE'S Composite Index: first going below the 1,000 mark, then breaking downwards through 800, giving a psychological sense of deep financial gloom. That gloomy feeling failed to lift last week, despite the meetings held by leaders with fund managers and in spite of the concrete actions such as the postponement of mega projects and the cuts in government spending, now being extended to state governments as well. But the preoccupation of the last many days has shifted from the economic to the environmental front as the haze failed to lift and instead thickened from a light mist to a heavy smog. Malaysians now have to keep track of a new set of numbers, the Air Pollutant Index, which three times a day tell us how bad the haze is. At one stage, crossing the 100 level to "unhealthy" was psychologically problematic enough. Then the move into the "very unhealthy" range of 200-300 was alarming for those staying in the affected areas. Then a few unfortunate towns (Nilai, Malacca, even Kuala Lumpur) crashed above the 300 threshold. And by the end of last week Kuching shot through the record charts to 405 and then way off beyond the graph paper to 600-plus. This 600-plus haze level is the environmental equivalent of the "meltdown" point that financia ljournalists have so loved to use when describing the Thai economic situation (and were tempted to use whenlooking at the plunging indexes at one stage in Malaysia). It has finally sunk home, that the haze is not going to automatically and conveniently lift by itself, just like previous years. We have entered a hazardous situation and in some areas an outright emergency. The wise sayings that nature was despoiled by man will in turn hit back at us, that the impact of our activities have exceeded the world's carrying capacity, that human health is intimately linked with the Earth's health, have become so clearly demonstrated to be true these few weeks. The public's mounting frustration is that so little seems to have been done as the haze problem mounted. Perhaps the way the haze persisted and then dramatically worsened caught the authorities by surprise. Perhaps they thought, complacently as it turned out, that the haze as in previous years would come and cause some inconvenience, and then it would fade away soon enough on cue. As it turned out, the feeling of complacency turned to helplessness as it was realised that the main factor lay in Indonesia's burning forests, and that our neighbour seemed to be lethargic in acting to put the fires out. President Suharto, for the first time, apologised for the inconvenience caused to neighbouring Asea ncountries. That was a little nice to hear, but there was no accompanying assurance of quick and effective action. The Indonesian Environment Minister Sarwono Kusumaatmadja has admitted that the fires are mainly caused by companies owning plantations and forests. They have taken the easy way of clearing their land by burning the trees. The fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra have been repeatedly happening as an almost -annual affair since 1982, so it is incomprehensible why the Indonesian authorities did not forsee or did not act in advance to stop this year's event. In 1983, a fire in Kalimantan destroyed 3.7 million hectares of forest. In 1991, smoke and ash spread over Malaysia, Singapore and the Malacca Straits. The 1997 episode was as predictable as rain. Why didn't the Indonesian authorities prevent it? Why didn't the other Asean governments not insist that Indonesia live up to its responsibility? Last week it was announced that 176 companies pinpointed as the culprits, had been warned tostop stash-and-burn practices and were asked to prove they were not involved in the fires or have their licences revoked. This is too little, too late. Could it be that the authorities were lenient and lethargic because some, of the companies owning large tracts of forests and lands are politically well-connected? Comparing the logging companies to the small traditional farmers, Emy Hafild, director of Indonesian environmental group Walhi, said: "They burn 1000 hectares at a time, while shifting cultivators burn only a hectare at a time." It is surely more than time for Indonesia's neighbours to insist that enough is enough. "Transboundary pollution" is a serious threat, when the people and ecology of a country suffer as innocent victims. At the same time, we cannot just blame Indonesia, as it is well known that a significant part of the air pollution is home generated. Action should be taken to enforce bans on open burning, to cut down traffic and industrial pollutants. This is also an opportunity to lay down tough policies to prevent further increases in air pollution in the country, and the factors should be tackled at source. Awareness of the persistence and dangers of air pollution, which is now so high, should not fade away as the fires eventually subside. Let there be an index for pollution awareness and another for effective action against pollution, sothat we can also measure whether our environmental prospects will become clearer or bleaker in future. -________________________________________________ List Owner: M.G.G. Pillai Free Homepages on malaysia.net - send blank Check out the malaysia.net web site on List Postings to ________________________________________________ From bill.schell@murraystate.edu Wed Sep 24 14:25:33 1997 Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 15:18:27 -0500 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: Bill Schell Subject: Re: GENUINE antisystems At 02:00 AM 9/23/97 -0400, Adam Webb wrote: Adam: within recent historical memory those goals >typically have not gone beyond increased consumption (however broadly >defined) and liberation of the individual to pursue purely personal aims >upon which the larger society must remain agnostic. Such a mentality-- >which throughout most of human history most assuredly would have been >judged a pathological negation of the social--pervades even mainstream >Marxist thought. Bill: Your interpretation of what Marxist thought is questionable -- no, rather from some parallel universe. Marx everwhere negates the importance of the individual and individual goals -- class, economic relations, mode of production leave to room for purely person aims. Those were the inventions of the bourgeois which he hoped to put aside. Nor did he conceive of rasing the workers' level of material well-being from subsistance as "consumerism" -- in fact, the neglect of consumer demand is a hall-mark of Marxist command economies. Adam: First, it confuses means and ends by suggesting that technological >advancement and universal prosperity will create unprecedented freedom to >create the social anew, without indicating what the larger guiding values >of that creation are to be. In other words, what is the point of >mercilessly clearing out "the old curiosity shop" when one attaches little >importance to what new wares will occupy the refinished space? Bill: That was the point of my post. Starting from the YEAR ZERO has historically been disasterous for the bulk of humankind -- whether it is to create the future from scratch or to wipe out the present in order to restore a rose-colored past as Adam seems to suggest. >Adam: It seems distressingly obvious that >the "progressive" position on individual liberation could only emerge >from liberal capitalist notions of consumer sovereignty, moral relativism, >freedom from public moral projects, negation of the social anchor, etc. >that have become so widely accepted that even would-be revolutionaries >fail to identify them with a particular social system. Even such >otherwise wholly admirable thinkers as Karl Polanyi succumb to this >baggage when they throw around phrases such as "unprecedented freedom" to >describe the future utopia. Bill: You equate freedom with license. But worse, you would impose the ONE definition of the COMMON GOOD on all. Nazis idealitically pursued their COMMON GOOD -- a world without Jews etc; Pol Pot, a world without cities. the KKK/Ayran Nations, a world without color. What would you forbid? Adam: I fail to see how anyone can profess to be "antisystemic" when >their ideological position represents an evolution, a refinement with the >harsh competitive edges softened, of precisely the abhorrent social system >they wish to overthrow, Bill: I don't want to overthrow anything. Gradualist reform is the only way to achieve what you identify as a "synthesis based on as broad a view >as possible of how that social system contrasts with all other >alternatives." Adam: Is my less than condemning view of "fundamentalisms" as "chilling" >as suggested? I have heard much more vitriolic adjectives, although not >that exact one until now. ... I would use the word "moderate," but that has >too much baggage ... in order to render it palatable according to a ..hegemonic yardstick. Of course any tradition is in need of reinterpretation >... to contribute to a new synthesis of global revolutionary relevance. Bill: Moderate fundamentalism and moderate revolution is as wacky as Marx the individualist consumer. Adam: My second level of response: what exactly is "chilling," and why >does this "slippery slope" strike such terror in the hearts of sensible >people? ... One has every right to >condemn the Taliban if one sees fit, but at least do it as if one is >trying to reason with people who do not buy into every assumption >regarding humanity's inevitable march to the glorious anomic end-state. > Bill: The trouble is when they win, everyone else looses and the game ends. Just like this message. From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Sep 25 08:19:06 1997 24 Sep 1997 14:44:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 14:42:14 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: Re: Communicating WST to the public! To: ozi@tig.com.au Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu References: <199709231042.UAA07314@tig.com.au> dear jonathan, i agree with your suggestion that someone should write a popular book for a general audience explaining the world-systems perspective. Thomas Richard Shannon's An Introduction to the World-Systems Perspective (Westview 1996) is such a book for undergraduates, but there is really nothing for a general audience. you do it. chris chase-dunn From akwebb@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Thu Sep 25 18:58:19 1997 Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 20:57:04 -0400 (EDT) From: "Adam K. Webb" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: response to Bill Schell In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970924151827.0068f5bc@murraystate.edu> On Wed, 24 Sep 1997, Bill Schell wrote: > > Bill: Your interpretation of what Marxist thought is questionable -- no, > rather from some parallel universe. Marx everwhere negates the importance > of the individual and individual goals -- class, economic relations, mode > of production leave to room for purely person aims. Those were the > inventions of the bourgeois which he hoped to put aside. Nor did he > conceive of rasing the workers' level of material well-being from > subsistance as "consumerism" -- in fact, the neglect of consumer demand is > a hall-mark of Marxist command economies. There are varying levels of "Marxist thought." I am referring not to the interpretation of Marxism by Soviet-style command economies, but to the definition of the highest stage of communism implicit in Marx's more "humanistic" writings. I do not deny that Marx is far more collectivist in orientation than most liberals, but there remain undeniable undertones of influence from precisely the liberal society that he was critiquing. The scientific materialist approach predisposed him to a mechanical and individual-based notion of fulfilment, since "society" could not exist with any transcendental reality independent of its component parts. Repeated use of the word "freedom" to describe the highest stage of human development betrays a continued influence from the thought of his time. In short, I submit that the model of fulfilment still remains very individualistic, albeit cooperative in its methods and universalised in its scope. More authentically and viscerally collectivist interpretations of Marxism, such as the Chinese under Mao, are such only because they tap into underlying, non-Marxist, traditional notions of social reality. The limited attention to consumption in "Marxist" economies says little if anything about the very long-term ideals of original Marxist thought. If you want more evidence of this troubling tendency within Marxist thought, ask any current Chinese Communist Party member about the moral content of the future society; any thought system lending itself so easily to that kind of essentially liberal and technocratic reinterpretation merits scepticism. > Bill: That [the follies of eliminating older values with no clear idea > of what is to replace them] was the point of my post. Starting from the > YEAR ZERO has historically been disasterous for the bulk of humankind -- > whether it is to create the future from scratch or to wipe out the > present in order to restore a rose-colored past as Adam seems to > suggest. My critique here was of Marxist faith in technological progress, and specifically Marxists' blithely optimistic view of the ability to recreate a sense of common decency after the socially disintegrating phase of capitalist development has passed. I mean that mainstream Marxist thought evidently attaches little importance to genuine values of solidarity, because it celebrates their demise as features of "backward" culture. That, I suspect, differs somewhat from your original point. I have no desire to start from year zero and "recreate" a rose-coloured past. Most of the world still has not wholly abandoned those values, so it amounts more to curtailing the cancerous spread of liberalism and achieving a new synthesis in which appropriate values are permitted to prevail in their logical spheres. I might point out that there has never been a widespread, "democratic" assessment of whether the anomic vision of society should be promoted--it is always imposed by a minority of people such as Kemal Ataturk, Carlos Salinas, and Deng Xiaoping, who under the guise of "joining the club" impose their perverse vision of human nature against the evidence of millennia. Liberals would be terrified of a frank global referendum on precisely the values they regard as universally desired. Why else are the most problem-free "Westernisations" being carried out under authoritarian or semi-authoritarian structures during the transitional generation(s) (China, Pahlavi Iran, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, Korea, Taiwan, etc.)? It is rather ironic for me to be accused of wholesale destructiveness simply because I wish to protect timeless aspirations and common decency against the homogenising onslaught, while others promote the "liberating" annihilation of the vast majority's values. The totalising vision of modern liberal capitalism goes far beyond any moral project of "traditional" society, which almost always has permitted a variety of functional interpretations of the hegemonic ideology to coexist in various spheres of society. Mercantile values, while contained throughout history and not permitted to invade other spheres of human life, still were generally accepted as playing a needed role in some arenas. Now liberal universalism, under which mercantile values hide, seeks not only to invade the public sphere, but to restructure all aspects of human interaction. No stone unturned.... > Bill: You equate freedom with license. But worse, you would impose the ONE > definition of the COMMON GOOD on all. Nazis idealitically pursued their > COMMON GOOD -- a world without Jews etc; Pol Pot, a world without cities. > the KKK/Ayran Nations, a world without color. What would you forbid? The valuable aspects of "freedom" can be put under other more concrete and historically acceptable headings. The questionable aspects that often have been equated to licence should be analysed with more care than they currently are. Do you decline to see any logic at all behind the historical consensus? If liberal autonomy is human nature, why is it so rarely seen as an ideal anywhere before the modern era, even in fringe uprisings? Every cry for social justice throughout most of human history has used wholly different modes of discourse, such as solidaristic egalitarianism, that you would find abominably constraining for the individual. Bill: I don't want to overthrow anything. Gradualist reform is the only > way to achieve what you identify as a "synthesis based on as broad a view > >as possible of how that social system contrasts with all other > >alternatives." If one wishes to retain the underlying assumptions of the hegemonic order, your position makes eminent sense. You never "gradually" change an entire social system's underpinning values, any more than you "gradually" convert a car from right- to left-hand drive. There are processes of hegemonic socialisation at work that would prevent that, as we both no doubt are aware. The liberal conversion of the world's peoples continues apace in the meantime, eventually foreclosing all forms of popular mobilisation except for a hegemony-refining warmed-over social democracy. > Bill: Moderate fundamentalism and moderate revolution is as wacky as Marx > the individualist consumer. Do you deny that there are multiple currents within what you call "fundamentalism"? Why do most Iranians regard the Afghan Taliban as atavistic and discrediting to the cause of Islamic revival? I cannot recall ever advocating a "moderate" revolution. If "moderate" means a minimum of unnecessary chaos, though, I suppose any sensible revolutionary would be a "moderate." Far wackier is the notion that humanity's choice rests between Michael Jackson and Pol Pot. > Bill: The trouble is when they win, everyone else looses and the game > ends. Just like this message. Liberalism is winning now, and soon there may very well be no "thick" cultural material left for future challenges to liberalism. But I suppose that sort of irreversible victory would elicit your celebration. Far better to create a global structure within which the several major value currents can coexist, each within the sphere whence it originated. Individual anomie might be the only workable social psychology for certain mercantile pursuits, but a world society made up exclusively of merchants and their fellow travellers seems to me at best misguided and at worse a tragic negation of longstanding human ideals. =============================================================================== Adam K. Webb Department of Politics Princeton University Princeton NJ 08544 USA 609-258-9028 http://www.princeton.edu/~akwebb From ehuber@csn.org Sat Sep 27 11:03:25 1997 for ; Sat, 27 Sep 1997 11:03:23 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 11:03:23 -0600 (MDT) To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: ehuber@csn.org (Eric Huber) Subject: Re: Communicating WST to the public! I have been trying to obtain a copy of Shannon's book. Bookstores don't seem to have it and the publisher says that it is out of print. Any suggestions? Thanks. Eric Huber >dear jonathan, i agree with your suggestion that someone should write a >popular book for a general audience explaining the world-systems >perspective. Thomas Richard Shannon's An Introduction to the >World-Systems Perspective (Westview 1996) is such a book for >undergraduates, but there is really nothing for a general audience. >you do it. >chris chase-dunn From aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu Sat Sep 27 12:13:08 1997 Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 14:10:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Wayne Austin To: Eric Huber Subject: Re: Communicating WST to the public! In-Reply-To: Eric, Check around in university bookstores. I bought my copy last semester and there was a whole stack of new ones. You should be able to find a used copy at a university bookstore at least. I am at University of Tennessee, and the book is standard for undergrad WST and development courses. Good luck. Peace, Andy From dassbach@mtu.edu Sat Sep 27 15:32:44 1997 for ; Sat, 27 Sep 1997 17:32:42 -0400 (EDT) for ; Sat, 27 Sep 1997 17:32:41 -0400 (EDT) for ; Sat, 27 Sep 1997 17:32:38 -0400 (EDT) From: "Carl H.A. Dassbach" To: Subject: Book Search Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 17:38:14 -0500 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_01BCCB6C.21C50DC0 A good place to find out of print books of all kinds is Advanced Book Engine (ABE). Their search engine searches the inventories of many used book dealers, lists the results and enables you to order books through e-mail. I have found many out of print older books through ABE. Shannon books may be here - I don't know - but this site is very useful and I recommend that everyone visit and bookmark it. http://www.abebooks.com/ Carl Dassbach ----------------------------------- Carl H.A. Dassbach DASSBACH@MTU.EDU Dept. of Social Sciences Fax (906)487-2468 Michigan Technological University Office (906)487-2115 Houghton, MI 49931 Home (906)482-8405 ------=_NextPart_000_01BCCB6C.21C50DC0 [InternetShortcut] URL=http://www.abebooks.com/ ------=_NextPart_000_01BCCB6C.21C50DC0-- From gernot.kohler@sheridanc.on.ca Sun Sep 28 12:48:36 1997 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 14:48:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 14:48:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Gernot Kohler To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: re: wagar on anti-systemic movements Here is another way of looking at the issues raised by Professor Wagar's online seminar paper. Instead of debating the issue of authenticity, one could try to itemize what exactly a global leftist movement or party should accomplish. "A global democratic republic of working men and women", says Wagar. This is a statement about political(-economic) constitution. We can, however, go beyond that and ask for specific economic, ecological, social, health etc. outcomes -- i.e., address outcomes instead of constitution. Let's say, ten wise men of wsn get together and lay the foundation for a world party. They write a comprehensive program for the world party. One section of that program is the "economic program". What could such an economic program look like? Here are some suggestions. Since the world party is purely hypothetical, we need to make some assumptions about the party, as well as about the program and the world economy, before we can write a meaningful economic program for the world party. A. ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE WORLD PARTY A1. THE WORLD PARTY IS GLOBAL IN SCOPE The world party aims at a presence in all countries, North, South, East, West, high-income and low-income countries. A2. THE WORLD PARTY IS DEMOCRATIC The world party promotes democracy in a formal-political sense of respect for human rights, elections, freedom of speech, etc. and a more substantive-economic sense of economic democracy. A3. THE WORLD PARTY IS LEFTIST The world party opposes politicians, policies, organizations and institutions which favour the interests of financial and business elites (global capital) over the interests of ordinary citizens, voters, workers and consumers. B. ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM B1. MASS APPEAL The economic program must have world-wide mass appeal, since it is supposed to support the party's efforts in winning elections, raising money, etc. B2. ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY While looking forward to a better future, the economic program must have a fair degree of credibility and economic feasibility. C. ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE WORLD ECONOMY C1. The world party opposes global neo-liberalism. C2. Global full employment is feasible. C3. The world economy has a tendency toward demand insufficiency (in a Keynesian sense). This implies for economic policy-makers that they must assign priority to the demand side over the supply side. D. ECONOMIC PROGRAM (proposed) for a world party: The world party fights for the following specific outcomes and demands: (1) implement economic human rights as per U.N. Declaration (2) pursue global full employment as a top goal (3) implement a global minimum wage of 3 U.S. dollars per hour (4) reduce global and national wage disparities by raising the lower incomes (5) provide basic needs for all (6) increase social security for all E. COMMENTS: "green" factions of the world party may want to add "green" demands; more leftist factions may want to add more leftist demands (e.g. workers to control investment). Since the outcomes are stated in factual terms, many different factions could wrap these demands in their own favourite philosophy and rhetoric. More centrist factions could add some qualifiers (e.g., global minimum wage of 3 dollars not tomorrow, but within thirty years, etc.). Hoping that this is still within the perimeter of the Wagar seminar, with regards, Gernot Kohler Oakville, Canada From aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu Sun Sep 28 13:42:54 1997 id PAA06988; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 15:42:44 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 15:40:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Wayne Austin To: Gernot Kohler Subject: re: wagar on anti-systemic movements In-Reply-To: Comrades, Interesting idea about the world party. One problem I see is the argument about demand-side policy. This argument apparently holds the assumption that economic growth is compatible with sustainability. While present poverty levels are due to distributional problems, it does not follow that we can meet a high level of affluence for everyone and maintain this over the long haul if the distribution problem is solved. If production tends towards demand insufficiency, then rather than gear policy towards increasing demand, i.e., consumption, we should gear policy towards reducing consumption. The upshot of this is that capitalism must be replaced if the goals outlined in this hypothetical program are to be realistic. If this is the task, and if the treadmill of production means ultimately overshoot, then global Keynesianism isn't an option. Andy From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Sun Sep 28 17:57:00 1997 28 Sep 1997 18:56:55 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 18:56:55 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: CFP: Midwest To: Network World-Systems Call for Papers Midwest Sociological Society April 2-5 in Kansas City As I announced at ASA PEWS section, I am organizing panels, papers, proposals for MWSS. Submissions have been thin thus far. Deadline is October 10. Papers on any aspect of WST are acceptable. A complete panel would be super, but even solo paper may find a home. I am willing to find chair and/or discussants. Someone want to tak the Wagar discussion on the road? Joane Nagel, current chair of MWSS, assures me that NONsociologists can waive the customary "iron cage" rule of joining the association. Please email me directly. Also Check out the MWSS home page: http://www.english.drake.edu/mss/homepage.html for further info on the meeting and the organization. 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 bill.schell@murraystate.edu Mon Sep 29 11:44:06 1997 Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 12:38:35 -0500 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: Bill Schell Subject: re: wagar on anti-systemic movements At 03:40 PM 9/28/97 -0400, you wrote: >Comrades, > >Interesting idea about the world party. One problem I see is the argument >about demand-side policy. This argument apparently holds the assumption >that economic growth is compatible with sustainability. While present >poverty levels are due to distributional problems, it does not follow that >we can meet a high level of affluence for everyone and maintain this over >the long haul if the distribution problem is solved. > >If production tends towards demand insufficiency, then rather than gear >policy towards increasing demand, i.e., consumption, we should gear policy >towards reducing consumption. The upshot of this is that capitalism must >be replaced if the goals outlined in this hypothetical program are to be >realistic. If this is the task, and if the treadmill of production means >ultimately overshoot, then global Keynesianism isn't an option. > It is probably true (who can ever be sure of these things) that current productive capacity is sufficient to house, clothe, and feed everyone on the planet at a comfortable level. In fact, I'd argue that over-production and under-utilization of productive capacity is the rule. Manufacturers seek to expand markets by lowering prices by reducing wages which creates a vicious cycle by further shinking consumer markets in the modern core (upon whose markets the industry of the periphery is dependent) while impeding at the periphery the growth of wages which is a prerequisite for the growth of regional-local markets that would reduce dependency upon exports. As to whether the consumerism that drives market demand is a good thing or not is a matter for debate and the positions taken will vary widely depending on where you are in the world. Those of us of the cyber-elite (that less than 2% of the world's population that possesses a computer) probably are readier to put and end to GROWTH than the those living hand-to-mouth for whom economic growth offers hope. In short, the problem is indeed one of distribution rather than production. Moreover, to have a realistic goal of full employment, we must first realize that such employment need be no more than 12-15 hours a week (no -- should be no more than 12-15 hours a week). But as communists and socialist discovered, human needs and wants are too complex to anticipate through planning and such planning strangles innovation and creativity that leads to such things as the tools we employ to have this debate. That is why THE MARKET (reified again) triumphed over command economies and cannot be done away with. But it can be tamed by using the very structural tools being created by this phase of the development of the capitalist world system. Any truly anti-systemic movement would disconnect the very levers that offer the only hope of putting the whole world on the deck of the Starship Enterprise -- shorthand for that vision of techologically sustainable growth governed by humanistic principles that (at the bottom) must be democratic and liberal because the latter provide the ground-rules for building consensus as notions of what constitutes the COMMON GOOD evolve and change. > > William Schell, Jr Voice: (502) 762-6572 Dept of History Fax: (502) 762-6587 Murray State University EMAIL bill.schell@Murraystate.edu Murray, KY 42071 From SKSANDER@grove.iup.edu Mon Sep 29 12:08:51 1997 29 Sep 1997 14:08:37 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:08:37 -0500 (EST) From: s_sanderson Subject: comrades! To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu After the massive events of 1989 in Eastern Europe and 1991 in the Soviet Union, I find it simply mind-boggling that any sane person would address anyone with the term "comrades." Stephen Sanderson From aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu Mon Sep 29 13:29:52 1997 Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:26:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Wayne Austin To: s_sanderson Subject: Re: comrades! In-Reply-To: <01IO7UC9JIFC8Y5ZZ0@grove.iup.edu> Comrades... and Professor Sanderson, According to my dictionary, "comrade" means "associate or companion in some activity." I thought that at least we were all associates. And, moreover, that we were companions in some sort of activity. Another dictionary of mine says that a "comrade" is "a person who shares closely in the activities, occupation, or interests of another," "a companion, associate, or friend." I hope we are all friends. As for the reference to the Soviet Union, I might remind Professor Sanderson that socialists and communists call one another "comrade" throughout the world. It might also be useful to note several other things, such as (1) I am a socialist, there are socialists on this list, and I think that it is appropriate to use this term of affection; (2) the Soviet Union, and other socialists countries, were and are vast improvements over conditions previously existing in Russia and elsewhere; (3) the socialist world system was far superior to most of the capitalist world system past, present, and future. I suppose I haven't a clue what Dr. Sanderson means about his reference to 1989 and 1991. Is this supposed to imply that the victory of capitalism in the former state socialist countries proves that socialism is not viable? Is the fall of communist regimes in these countries reckoned a good thing? If this is the implication, how so? The fall of the Soviet Union and fragmenting of the socialist world system has meant a marked decline in freedom and the standards of living for over one-third of world's population. It would seem that given the accomplishments of socialism--even deformed state socialism--this century, and particularly in light of the rapid decline in the welfare of hundreds of millions of people with the dismantling of the state socialist system worldwide, that "comrade" is still a quite honorable name. Your Comrade, Andy Austin From dredmond@gladstone.uoregon.edu Mon Sep 29 14:13:50 1997 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 13:13:45 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 13:13:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Dennis R Redmond To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: comrades! In-Reply-To: <01IO7UC9JIFC8Y5ZZ0@grove.iup.edu> On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, s_sanderson wrote: > After the massive events of 1989 in Eastern Europe and 1991 in the Soviet > Union, I find it simply mind-boggling that any sane person would address > anyone with the term "comrades." And after the Long Depression of 1990-1997, 20% unemployment in Eastern Europe, the biggest bank bailout of recorded history in Japan, the collapse of the US from the biggest creditor to the biggest debtor on the planet, environmental catastrophe and vicious wage-cutting and sado-monetarism pretty much everywhere, I find it simply mind-boggling that any sane person would not use "comrade" in an effort to show solidarity in the face of a globalized gangster capitalism which makes Stalin look like a choir boy. -- Dennis From wwagar@binghamton.edu Mon Sep 29 15:53:14 1997 From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 17:53:10 -0400 (EDT) To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: Antisystemic Movements I want to thank the participants in our debate on antisystemic movements and offer a few comments on your comments. To Stephen Sanderson: I appreciate your concurrence. To Mark Langevin: The so-called antisystemic movements do not "restrict" capitalism. They expand and strengthen it by addling the consciousness of millions of people previously ineligible for its so-called benefits. As in, "Hey, I'm gay [or Chinese or black or female], but I can get rich, too!" Marx hit the proverbial nail on the head when he wrote in the 1844 Manuscripts that "an enforced increase of wages would therefore be nothing but better remuneration for the slaves, and would have won, neither for the worker nor for labor, their human significance and worth." Even Proudhon's equality of wages would not transform the system. It would simply turn society into an "abstract capitalist." To Gernot Kohler: I am not disqualifying anybody and least of all feminists, so long as they're willing to come on board the revolution. But let's be sure they're actually ON board and that they know what it MEANS to be on board. Lenin screwed up, in many ways, but Tony Blair isn't even trying. Do you really want to argue that the Blairs of the world have "won" something for socialism just because they win elections? Were Theodore Roosevelt's "Square Deal" or Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" examples of "successful change" or were they simply engines for helping capitalism save itself? To Adam K. Webb: Yes, yes, three cheers for the moral community, but we need to build a new one, not shackle ourselves to the literally incredible and fratricidal creeds of earlier civilizations. Faith in what I call the unity and destiny of humankind is not modern capitalist anomic individualism. Revisit my sixth point. But it is also not a grab-bag of conflicting "thick moralities" from the precapitalist past. The precapitalist past was a bloody time. Most of it needs renouncing, not reviving. If men and women alive today do not possess, in the vision of a socialist humanist cosmopolis, the basis for a new and higher moral community than anything known in history hitherto, then we are damned indeed. I choose to believe, however, that men and women alive today do, or can, possess such a vision and that they are capable of living sociably and productively in a world without property, boundaries, or opiates. Of course I applaud your post of September 23 in which you inveigh against "relativistic coexistence" and speak of building "a higher civilisation blending the best of all worlds," but I fear we may differ on what constitutes "the best." To Victor Woronov: You and I may lack a common ground of discourse because you do not think dialectically and I do. The piecemeal reform of capitalism is, to me, a pipedream. There are always plenty of capitalists eager to fill our pipes. To Nikolai S. Rozov: I agree that we need a consensus on "values of general significance" and that without such a consensus there is little possibility of a just world order that can ensure the conservation and equitable sharing of the earth's resources. This is rather like Webb's "moral community." But I think we need a richer array of values than those you cite, an array that would include faith in the unity and common destiny of humankind and in the commandment, "Thou shalt not exploit thy fellow being." I also insist that this be a militant and maximal, not a passive and minimal, faith. We need a faith that will move mountains, because it is mountains that must be moved! And yes, it would demand tolerance and respect for human diversity of all kinds--but with one vast exception: it would withhold respect from faiths that are NOT tolerant of human diversity. This is where I part company with most of contemporary multiculturalism. Cultures that would enslave or destroy or marginalize dissenters and apostates cannot build Cosmopolis. To Bill Schell: Gradual reform receives another defender. I will let Webb speak for me here. Gradually transforming the world-system from a capitalist into a socialist order is very much like the gradual transformation of a car from right- to left-hand drive. To Gernot Kohler again: All the above was written before I came across your post of September 28, with its list of assumptions about the World Party and its economic program. I agree with those assumptions. Obviously the World Party would not exist simply to bring about a socialist world-government: it would have all kinds of programs and policies on all kinds of global issues, as delineated in part in my SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE. But I don't see any World Party accomplishing the goals you mention inside the capitalist world-system with its network of quasi-sovereign armed states and oligopolistic megacorporations. It is not in their interest to see most of these goals achieved, and they will not be achieved so long as the system remains intact. From rkmoore@iol.ie Mon Sep 29 18:47:30 1997 Tue, 30 Sep 1997 01:47:22 +0100 (IST) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 01:47:22 +0100 (IST) To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Re: comrades! 9/29/97, Dennis R Redmond wrote: >I find it >simply mind-boggling that any sane person would not use "comrade" in an >effort to show solidarity in the face of a globalized gangster capitalism >which makes Stalin look like a choir boy. How refreshing to hear sensible voices, candles in the wind of globalism. rkm From phuakl@sit.edu.my Mon Sep 29 21:05:22 1997 30 Sep 97 11:09:54 +1100 From: "DR. PHUA KAI LIT" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:09:39 +0000 Subject: (Fwd) (Fwd) [sangkancil] FEER: Spread of oil-plantations fue ( Article on the environmental disaster in SE Asia. ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- To: sangkancil@malaysia.net Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 04:48:08 Subject: [sangkancil] FEER: Spread of oil-plantations fue (fwd) From: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai) Reply-to: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai) ________________________________________________ This week's sponsors -The Asia Pacific Internet Company (APIC) Business Internet Services. Some talk. Some do. We talk and do! for instant info ________________________________________________ FORWARDED MAIL ------- From: tapol@gn.apc.org Date: 29 Sep 97 Originally To: Recipients of indonesia-act From: tapol (Tapol) Subject: FEER: Spread of oil-plantations fuels fires Where There's Smoke . . . Spread of Indonesian oil-palm plantations fuels the haze ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By Margot Cohen in Jakarta with Murray Hiebert in Kuala Lumpur ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Far Eastern Economic Review, October 2, 1997 P resident Suharto's unprecedented apology for the forest fires that are spewing smoke over neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore has drawn praise as a sign of Indonesia's readiness to tackle the annual "haze." In his September 16 speech to an Asean meeting, however, Suharto cited "obstacles that are not easy to overcome," particularly the long dry season and the vast terrain. But if the president had mentioned a few other factors, the apology might not have sounded so sweet: The strong winds of market demand and the smouldering coals of collusion are likely to keep the fires raging for many dry seasons to come. Satellite pictures have led the Suharto government to believe that most of the companies which start the fires are oil-palm plantations--now in the midst of frenzied expansion as international demand for palm oil surges. A number of rubber estates and tree plantations were also among 176 companies named by Forestry Minister Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo in midSeptember. These plantation owners are suspected of flouting a 1995 ban on burning forest to clear land. Suharto reiterated the ban on September 9, calling on the military to help enforce it. Companies were given until October 3 to prove they're not the culprits. Those failing to meet the deadline face revocation of their land-use licences and possible criminal prosecution. Yet the zeal to keep clearing land for plantations will be difficult to extinguish, industry analysts say--especially in the case of the oil palm. Last year, Indonesian exports of palm oil and palm-oil products were worth more than $1 billion, boosted by growing global consumption of palm-oil products, a 32% increase in the last five years. In fact, official encouragement of the palm-oil industry is partly responsible for the plantation boom. Government plans call for the production of 7.2 million tons of crude palm oil by 2000, with plantation area more than doubling to 5.5 million hectares. Setting fire to the forest and brush is the cheapest, quickest way to clear land for plantations. "If you do land-clearing in pioneer areas, where no roads are established, the only practical way to get rid of the debris is to burn it," says A.F.S. Budiman, executive director of the Rubber Association of Indonesia. Alternatives, like manual clearing, are much more labour-intensive, he maintains. And if a local official tries to enforce the ban? "You just bribe him," Budiman says flatly. "At the most, you promise to give him some shares. Then he'll just wash his hands of the matter. Who will know? It's such a big area." The land is allocated from areas deemed "conversion forest" that have usually been logged over by concessionaires. The remaining trees are cut and sold by the plantation before the brush and other debris are burned. Plantation development also serves the government's long-standing goal of relocating people from densely populated Java to the outer islands. Official incentives include low-cost financing for estates where 80% of the land belongs to smallholder transmigrants and 20% to the company. Some 35 companies are developing plantations in conjunction with transmigration. Private oil-palm plantations are dominated by Indonesian groups such as Sinar Mas, Salim, Raja Garuda Mas and Astra. But it's the smaller companies that are hardest to control, officials say. The "hot spots" that show up as red dots on the latest satellite photos indicate that more burning is now being done at night, as companies race to finish clearing land before inspection teams show up. According to official estimates, fire has so far swept through more than 80,000 hectares in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Irian Jaya, with the potential to spread to 300,000 hectares. That's nothing compared to a 1982-83 blaze that wiped out more than 3.6 million hectares. But this year's debilitating smoke was sufficient to spark the declaration of a national disaster in early September. The Indonesian government is also investigating reports from industry sources that 18 Malaysian joint ventures and five Singaporean joint ventures set fires on their Sumatran plantations. Malaysian companies should get no special treatment if they are proven guilty, says Law Hieng Ding, Malaysia's minister of science, technology and the environment. "Whenever they go overseas, they are advised to stick to the local laws of the country," he said during the Asean talks in Jakarta. "Whoever doesn't comply has to face the law." But Malaysia's own laws seem inadequate in controlling the worsening pollution caused by its decade of hectic economic growth. The government has admitted that emissions from vehicles and factories play a part in the haze hanging over Kuala Lumpur and other Malaysian cities. Three years ago, the Department of Environment drew up a Clean Air Action Plan that included steps to control vehicle emissions and a blueprint for a comprehensive public-transport system. The cabinet rejected the plan after it was opposed by several ministers who argued that the costs were too much for industries to bear. Malaysians are now paying the price. In Kuala Lumpur, where the Air Pollutant Index has repeatedly topped "unhealthy" levels in recent weeks, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad donned a surgical mask and urged the public to follow his example. An emergency was declared in the state of Sarawak on September 19 when the index breached the "extremely hazardous" level of 650. All government offices, schools and private businesses were ordered to close. Asean's management of the smog crisis reflects the grouping's gospel of regional self-reliance. Malaysia has pledged to dispatch 400 firefighters to Sumatra and Kalimantan. Singapore is contributing satellite data. Even Thailand, which is not directly affected by the smoke, is sending two fire-fighting planes. Indonesia and Malaysia will coordinate cloud-seeding operations. In taking the lead, Indonesia is moving with unusual transparency. The environment and forestry ministries are publicizing the names of suspected companies and putting out 30-second TV spots slamming corporate irresponsibility. Provincial governors and regents were warned that their efforts to enforce the ban on burning will be reported directly to the president. What most pleases non-governmental organizations is the government's new willingness to pin most of the blame on corporate culprits rather than on slash-and-burn farmers, as in previous years. "The fire is only a symptom of the takeover of people's land by big business," says Niel Hakinuddin of Plasma, a Kalimantan-based NGO that monitors green issues. In mid-September, for example, a group of villagers from the remote island of Siberut, off West Sumatra, arrived in Jakarta to protest. Back in 1994, Suharto had bowed to environmentalist pressure and ordered all commercial logging on Siberut to cease. Now, 70,000 hectares on the island are slated for two new oil-palm plantations. In July, villagers watched aghast as a Jakartabased firm burned the first 10 hectares. "We don't allow any burning in the forest," says Paulus Aman Beili Kunen Saumanuk, who argued with his 80-year-old father after he found out that the illiterate clan chief had sold rights to 500 hectares for 300,000 rupiah ($102). "It might destroy all the wood, the rattan and the plants we use for medicine." The best cure for the smog would be to scale back ambitious plantation targets and revise land-use policies, some analysts argue. Others hold out hope that the plantation companies will stop burning and turn to other methods of land-clearing. "We are not going to continue this expansion at the expense of the environment," insists Derom Bangun, vice-chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Producers' Association. That's a welcome assurance, but until it happens, Indonesia's neighbours should not hold their breath for a smog-free future. -________________________________________________ List Owner: M.G.G. Pillai Free Homepages on malaysia.net - send blank Check out the malaysia.net web site on List Postings to ________________________________________________ From phuakl@sit.edu.my Mon Sep 29 21:08:01 1997 30 Sep 97 11:12:53 +1100 From: "DR. PHUA KAI LIT" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:12:23 +0000 Subject: (Fwd) (Fwd) [sangkancil] Fog blanket threatens world climate ( Second article on SE Asia haze. ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- To: sangkancil@malaysia.net Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 04:45:15 Subject: [sangkancil] Fog blanket threatens world climate (fwd) From: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai) Reply-to: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai) ________________________________________________ This week's sponsors -The Asia Pacific Internet Company (APIC) Business Internet Services. Some talk. Some do. We talk and do! for instant info ________________________________________________ FORWARDED MAIL ------- From: tapol@gn.apc.org Date: 29 Sep 97 Originally To: Recipients of indonesia-act From: tapol (Tapol) Poison fog blanket threatens world climate John Vidal The Guardian, 27 September 1997 THE scale of one of the world's greatest manmade environmental catastrophes was becoming clear last night as poisonous fog blanketed up to 70 million people in six south-east Asian countries and scientists warned of long-term climate disruption. Many hundreds of deaths had been reported throughout the 100 square mile area, even before an Indonesian airliner crashed in the smog yesterday claiming 234 lives. In the past few days, the death toll from hunger in the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya alone has risen to more than 275. Satellite pictures showing that the uncontrollable fires have spread to one million hectares of deep peatlands, which may burn underground for decades, have rebounded round the world. With visibility down to fewer than 20 yards in many cities and cars having to use their headlights in the middle of the day, Indonesia has declared a national disaster and Malaysia a state of emergency. Although some rain fell yesterday in the region, dense smog has reached Thailand and the southern Philippines. Hoteliers as far north as the Thai resort island of Phuket, 900 miles from the nearest fires in south Sumatra or Kalimantan, say they are now enveloped by grimy smog. Antara, the official Indonesian news agency, reported that fires in Irian Jaya have swept into Papua New Guinea and burnt down a camp inhabited by 600 Indonesian political refugees. President Suharto of Indonesia yesterday ordered four million civil servants to join nearly 10,000 people already fighting the fires, although it is accepted that only heavy monsoon rains will eventually extinguish them. These are two months late and the World Meteorological Organisation has warned that the drought affecting the whole region may continue until next year. An international relief effort is getting under way. The World Bank yesterday offered emergency help as Japan, France, Finland, Germany and Canada sent teams of pollution experts and firefighters. The Indonesian air force and navy are preparing to help with cloud-seeding efforts to induce rain. The United Nations is sending an emergency evaluation team and 150,000 face masks for children. The price of surgical masks has soared everywhere in the region. There are plans to import four million from the United States to distribute to people in central Sumatra. The health emergency is growing. Although the winds changed last night temporarily relieving some areas, 15,000 Malaysians and 45,000 Indonesians, most of them children and elderly, have been treated for smog-related illnesses. Air pollution was yesterday double the legal safety limit in nine Thai provinces. The smog has triggered health alarms in Singapore and Brunei. The smog is adding to the heavy air pollution that already exists in most of the region's cities. Missionaries yesterday claimed that many deaths could have been avoided if fires in the area had not been allowed to burn out of control, preventing aircraft from bringing in relief. The long-term ecological implications are not well understood. In Geneva, the director-general of the Swissbased World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Claude Martin, described the situation as a "planetary disaster". Scientists warned that the effect on long-term global warming and immediate weather patterns throughout the world could be immense. The effect of the fire, especially if it takes hold in the peatlands, is to release a massive amount of carbon dioxide which causes global warming," said Richard Lindsay of the University of East London. "The long-term threat to climate worldwide and health is significant." The lowland tropical rain forests of Sumatra and Kalimantan are among the most biologically rich ecosystems on earth. The potential loss to science of whole species would be felt worldwide, while the haze would hit the health and economies of the whole region, he said. Much of the Indonesian forests lie on up to 10-20 metres of now burning peat. Clay Rubec, of the International Mire [Peatlands] Organisation, which advises governments on peatland fires said yesterday that more than one million hectares of peat swamp forest could be destroyed within six months. Peat fires burn deep underground for years and are almost impossible to control on a large scale. "This fire is a greater threat to human health than the Kuwaiti oil fires and harder to put out." Elephants, tigers and deer were potentially at risk but the effects would be felt throughout the food chain of the region because trees and plants would not pollinate. The air pollution could further complicate economic problems in the region, analysts warned yesterday. A whole range of industries from tourism to electronics and palm oil production, could be affected, said Liew Yin Sze, head of research at the Singapore investment house J M Sassoon. Mr Liew said the electronics industry, a crucial driver of the economies of Singapore and Malaysia, could also be hit. "You might see increased costs in clean-room industries like semiconductors," he said. An agricultural analyst with another investment house in Singapore said world palm oil prices could rise in 1998-99. Meanwhile, the Indonesian government has blamed 176 plantation companies for causing the fires, but has taken action against only one. British environment groups yesterday accused western consumers of contributing to the fires because of the consumption of tropical hardwoods. Tony Juniper, of Friends of the Earth, said: "The disaster unfolding is inextricably linked to the behaviour of countries in the developed world who consume vast quantities of wood." Last year the UK imported 201,650 cubic metres of tropical timbers from Indonesia. More than 1 million hectares of Indonesian forest are lost to logging every year. Meanwhile, everyday life is severely affected. 'It isn't simply the zest and joy of life that's denied by the sustained smog," said one mother in Kuala Lumpur. "It weakens you from all frontiers - lack of sunlight, eyes smarting all the time, skin itch, and the choking like it is a banshee from purgatory." -________________________________________________ List Owner: M.G.G. Pillai Free Homepages on malaysia.net - send blank Check out the malaysia.net web site on List Postings to ________________________________________________ From rragland@csir.co.za Mon Sep 29 23:51:35 1997 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:51:23 +0200 (SAT) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:52:34 +0200 From: Richard Ragland To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu, rkmoore@iol.ie Subject: Re: comrades! Although I have not been using the term "comrades" in my vocabulary, I do believe we, English speaking folk, need less formal ways to address one another and to express a deeper relationship than "Ladies and Gentlemen". Perhaps Saunderson could recommend to us what term he would use that, to his mind, is not "mindboggling". Rick From M.Procter@surrey.ac.uk Tue Sep 30 04:22:42 1997 Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:10:40 +0100 To: SKSANDER@grove.iup.edu From: Mike Procter Subject: Re: comrades! At 14:08 29/09/97 -0500, you wrote: >After the massive events of 1989 in Eastern Europe and 1991 in the Soviet >Union, I find it simply mind-boggling that any sane person would address anyone >with the term "comrades." > >Stephen Sanderson > > I suppose what I find most boggling is that enough comrades care about this person's views to think it worth while to respond to them. And no, I don't think I'm being inconsistent! _______________________________ Mike Procter Department of Sociology University of Surrey Guildford GU2 5XH UK voice 01483 300800 ext 2796 fax 01483 306290 From andrei@rsuh.ru Tue Sep 30 06:10:27 1997 From: "Andrey Korotayev" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 15:11:10 +0300 Subject: Re: comrades! Reply-to: andrei@rsuh.ru Dear colleagues, comrades, friends &c. I have been too busy with my research for many months and had no time to take part in the WSN discussions, but I could not avoid reacting to this: > Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:26:33 -0400 (EDT) > From: Andrew Wayne Austin > The fall of the Soviet Union and fragmenting of the socialist world system > has meant a marked decline in freedom for over > one-third of world's population. I know that this bizzare idea is shared by some people in the West, hence, as a part of the very one-third Genosse Austin is speaking about, I cannot avoid saying again and again that this is complete nonsense (of course, if we do not use any dialectical definitions of "freedom is slavery" type). You can ask any WSNers from East Europe, or the CIS - I would be very surprized if anybody agrees with our Genosse (incidentally, the equivalent of "comrade" in the GDR was Genosse/Parteigenosse, shared by the German communists [together with the notion of "Fuehrer"] with the nazis). Or, perhaps, Genosse thinks that he can evaluate the level of our freedom better than we ourselves? Yours, Andrey (Moscow, RUSSIA) From bill.schell@murraystate.edu Tue Sep 30 06:39:01 1997 Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:31:50 -0500 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: Bill Schell Subject: Re: comrades! Andrey wrote from Moscow ref: the use of comrades: >Or, perhaps, Genosse thinks that he can evaluate the level of our >freedom better than we ourselves? Thank you Andrey. The north american cyber-socialist elites have lived in comfort and safety so long that they cannot imagine the Stalinist world they praise and which they would force upon us in the name of bettering the human condition. Changing the world with a minimum of human misery is a good deal harder than changing a car from righthand to left hand drive. It is also so typical of this mind-set to see human affairs in mechanistic terms. To them, we are all just bits of machinery to be rearranged -- a view not unlike that of the gangester capitalist bosses they despise. From aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu Tue Sep 30 08:13:58 1997 Received: from dshm02.ns.utk.edu (DSHM02.NS.UTK.EDU [128.169.24.4]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.4/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) with ESMTP id IAA28130 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 08:13:55 -0600 (MDT) Received: from utkux4.cas.utk.edu by dshm02.ns.utk.edu with SMTP (8.8.5/utk.ns) id KAA12553; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:10:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:10:03 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Wayne Austin X-Sender: aaustin@utkux4.cas.utk.edu Reply-To: Andrew Wayne Austin To: Andrey Korotayev cc: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: Re: comrades! In-Reply-To: <199709301311.QAA15304@mail.rsuh.ru> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Korotayev and Schell, On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Andrey Korotayev quoted me: > > The fall of the Soviet Union and fragmenting of the socialist world system > > has meant a marked decline in freedom for over > > one-third of world's population. This is a mangled quote and left to appear as pristine reproduction. I actually wrote this: "The fall of the Soviet Union and fragmenting of the socialist world system has meant a marked decline in freedom and the standards of living for over one-third of world's population." The context is important because obviously I find the illusion of capitalist freedom to be just that: the illusion of choice. Undazzled by liberal ideals and unimpressed with the promise of sparklies, I have a different conception of freedom. > Genosse (incidentally, the equivalent of "comrade" in the GDR was > Genosse/Parteigenosse, shared by the German communists [together with > the notion of "Fuehrer"] with the nazis). Korotayev, what do Fuehrer and Nazis have to do with this discussion? Don't you think it is really cheap to employ the word "Genosse," used by Germans just so that you can later add an allusion to Hitler and the Nazi for the purpose of leaving an even darker cloud of totalitarianism hanging over my comments? Genosse Korotayev wants me to ask anybody who lived under Communist Party rule and I will find that they think they are much better off now. I will find that they all think like Korotayev. Well, I have talked to a lot of people from these countries, and I do hear some of them sounding very much like Korotayev. And those who wield Korotayev's form of argument make the same errors. Please take notice that Korotayev speaks for all people who once lived under Communist rule. He speaks for the monolithic "ourselves." His interests, and the interests of his comrades, evidently stand as the general interests. I suppose the fact that most people I talk to from these countries feel they were better off under the Communist party has simply to do with my choice of comrades. I am sure that the people with whom Genosse Korotayev stands have a different subjective impression of their lot. Either way, such subjectivist evaluations leave no ground upon which we may stand. > Or, perhaps, Genosse thinks that he can evaluate the level of our > freedom better than we ourselves? Imagine a slave turning to a person standing outside a fence and saying, "How dare you think you can evaluate the level of our freedom better than ourselves." The person outside the fence might say, "I am here, and you are there, and from where I stand, you look like a slave, and I don't think slavery is freedom." The slave would say, "But because you are there and I am here is precisely why you cannot judge our freedom. Just ask any of us here, and they will tell you that we are free. That's the problem with you people on the other side of the fence, you have enjoyed your cushy life for so long that you praise the system that released us from slavery, and you have no idea how difficult that was to try to make a go at some other lifeway. We are now much happier to return to slavery, thank you, and we would kindly ask you to refrain from passing such judgments in the future, they are mindboggling and obviously come from the rants of an insane man." Of course, in the story our outsider is a faux outsider because he is really inside the fence, too; he just gets to work in the big house on the hill, rather than in the fields. But his apparent privilege among the other slaves should not be confused with the wealth and power of his master. This false identity and division perpetuates the illusion for the slaves, and it perpetuates the division between slaves. It is a false ideology. This story reveals more than the form of argument we generally hear from left anticommunists. It reveals a contradiction in Korotayev's argument which is also representative of the larger contradiction in this mode of thinking. Genosse Korotayev supposes that it is just silly dialectical rationalization to suppose that people are free because they think they are. I agree completely. The slave in the story above is completely deluded, and is not free only because he thinks he is (indeed, he is probably less free because he thinks he is). Korotayev suggests a position I do not hold. In fact, I do not think it necessarily matters what a person thinks of themselves in such matters. Reality can be quite a different thing than the thing that appears in consciousness. I am not a liberal subjectivist; I do not suppose that preferences stand for material fact. But then Genosse Korotayev does exactly this! He adopts the very position he suggests I hold and he ridicules. By supposing I cannot judge his freedom from where I stand he is saying that he is free to believe he is free because he thinks he is. Not only this, but he is saying that all his comrades are free because he thinks they are. His subjectivity consumes those he reckons are like himself, and excludes those he thinks cannot possibly understand (but probably only those who disagree with him; Schell and others who advance the left anticommunist line probably have the vision to see that the once oppressed but now liberated are thinking freedom). But I have no basis to contradict him, lest I fall into the absurd position of thinking I am better able to judge his, er, I mean their freedom than he. As for Bill Schell, he takes my argument and slaps the "Stalinist" label on it. That works. Now I am "praising" the "Stalinist world." Stalin is a useful propaganda term because we can rely on the terrifying capitalist myths about his rule (the reality of Stalin is never good enough for anticommunists, you see) and in so doing forget about the hundreds of millions of courageous people who struggled for a better world, who sought an alternative to capitalism. This is typical anticommunist rhetoric. I can do no better that to quote Michael Parenti here: "Our fears that communism might someday take over most of the world blinds us to the fact that anti-communism already has." Schell contributes to the contradiction by standing with Korotayev against material reality to suppose that my physical position somehow renders me incapable for judging matters which are assumed for some reason to be entirely generated and evaluated by subjective preferencing. We are in the liberal zone here. I cannot argue with such extreme idealist relativism. If freedom is only a state of mind, and if physical position completely incapacitates judgment, then I suppose Korotayev and Schell have even less to say than I. Love, Andy From rkmoore@iol.ie Tue Sep 30 09:49:45 1997 Received: from mail.iol.ie (mail1.mail.iol.ie [194.125.2.192]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.4/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) with ESMTP id JAA04771 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 09:49:40 -0600 (MDT) Received: from [194.125.43.225] (dialup-011.wexford.iol.ie [194.125.43.235]) by mail.iol.ie Sendmail (v8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA26571 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 16:49:36 +0100 Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 16:49:36 +0100 X-Sender: rkmoore@gpo.iol.ie Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu (world-system network) From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Re: freedom and Eastern block 9/30/97, Andrew Wayne Austin wrote: >If freedom is only a state of mind, and if physical position completely >incapacitates judgment, then I suppose Korotayev and Schell have even less >to say than I. What I find structurally interesting about the post-Soviet experience is the variety and intensity of destabilization tactics (from devolution to mafia infiltration, from political funding to economic pressure) that have been employed, and the success of the media in attributing each episode to this and that sundry cause. What we are seeing is the systematic accomplishment by other means of what Napolean and Hitler both failed to achieve - the subjugation of the once Soviet realms to Western interests. Andrew's charming prose can perhaps make a case for decreased personal freedom being part of this picture, but why focus our attention on this most-difficult-to-settle minor aspect of the situation? Even if Russians and others _are_ experiencing increased freedom, in some meaningful sense, that doesn't change the fact that one-third of the world's people are having their societies destroyed, their economies put into chaos, and their assets robbed. All is being reduced, so to speak, to rubble so that tried-and-proven Third-World exploitive practices can be deployed in this vast new de-developed realm. rkm From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Sep 30 10:11:32 1997 Received: from jhuml1.hcf.jhu.edu (jhuml1.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.2.86]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.4/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) with ESMTP id KAA07037 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:11:27 -0600 (MDT) Received: from soc.jhu.edu.jhname.hcf.jhu.edu (chris.soc.jhu.edu) by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.1-7 #18666) id <01IO94BGPLM89FM8HC@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:07:11 EDT Received: from soc.jhu.edu.jhname.hcf.jhu.edu (chris.soc.jhu.edu) by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.1-7 #18666) with SMTP id <01IO94AAX18E99DMY5@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:02:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:00:08 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Radical Scholars & Chicago Labor Teach-in] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Message-id: <34312208.1520@jhu.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: MESSAGE/RFC822 Received: from jhuml1.hcf.jhu.edu (jhuml1.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.2.86]) by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id TAA10298 for ; Sat, 27 Sep 1997 19:28:02 -0400 Received: from mtigwc04.worldnet.att.net by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.1-7 #18666) id <01IO5CWNNSRK9FM8MW@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Sat, 27 Sep 1997 19:26:52 EDT Received: from mtigwc04.worldnet.att.net by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.1-7 #18666) with ESMTP id <01IO5CWHUJOU99DM7P@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Sat, 27 Sep 1997 19:26:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: from Carl ([12.66.120.121]) by mtigwc04.worldnet.att.net (post.office MTA v2.0 0613 ) with SMTP id AAA10349 for ; Sat, 27 Sep 1997 23:25:45 +0000 Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 23:25:45 +0000 From: Carl Davidson Subject: Radical Scholars & Chicago Labor Teach-in To: chriscd@jhu.edu Message-id: <19970927232543.AAA10349@Carl> MIME-version: 1.0 [C.R-DE353ED50390572E4] Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 8TH ANNUAL MIDWEST RADICAL SCHOLARS & ACTIVISTS CONFERENCE A TEACH-IN ON LABOR & NEW ALLIANCES Strategies for Workplace, School & Community in the 21st Century October 24-25, 1997 Roosevelt University, Chicago Conference begins Friday, 1pm and ends Saturday 10pm Keynote Plenary: Friday, 7pm Speakers: Abdul Alkalimat, William Adelman, Bill Ayres, Liane Casten, Carl Davidson, Bill Fletcher, Doug Gills, John Hagedorn, Manning Marable, Robert McChesney, Kim Moody, Bertell Ollman, Mike Parker, David Schweikart, Helen Slessarev, Pavlos Stavropoulos, Dan Swinney, Carole Travis, Gerry Zero and many more... MAJOR PANELS --Labor's Alliances: Learning from History --Radical Theory: Why Dialectics? Why Now? --Unfair Burdens: Working Women, Today's Inequities & The Tasks of Unions --The Media, Labor and Labor's Media --Democratic Schools in a Democratic Society --New Technology, Unions & Changes in Work --Socialism's Future: A Debate --Race, Nationality and Winning Alliances --Structural Reform, Mass Campaigns & New Alliances --Globalization, Neoliberalism and Labor Strategy --Independent Politics: Labor-Community Alliances --Welfare Reform, Income Policy & Trade Unions Also: Book & Literature Exhibits, Political Receptions, Videos, Cultural Events Roosevelt Co-Sponsor: School of Policy Studies Organizational Co-Sponsors: Committees of Correspondence, Democratic Socialists of America, Midwest Center for Labor Research Open University of the Left Help by Registering in advance $50 Sustainer $25 Regular $15 Student/Low income Make Checks to Networking for Democracy 3411 W Diversey, Chicago, IL 60647 Contributions are Tax Deductible Tel: 773-384-8827 Fax: 773-384-3904 From bill.schell@murraystate.edu Tue Sep 30 10:19:26 1997 Received: from mail.murraystate.edu ([204.148.122.250]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.4/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) with SMTP id KAA08371 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:19:22 -0600 (MDT) Received: from fh-6b-13.mursuky.edu (204.148.122.191) by mail.murraystate.edu (NPlex 1.3.152) for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; 30 Sep 1997 11:23:17 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19970930111210.0068f888@murraystate.edu> X-Sender: bill.schell@murraystate.edu Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:12:10 -0500 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: Bill Schell Subject: Re: comrades! In-Reply-To: References: <199709301311.QAA15304@mail.rsuh.ru> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:10 AM 9/30/97 -0400, Comrade Andy wrote: >I find the illusion of >capitalist freedom to be just that: the illusion of choice. Undazzled by >liberal ideals and unimpressed with the promise of sparklies, I have a >different conception of freedom. Comrade Andy seems to be a devotee of Rousseau and his __Contrat Social__. Man was born free yet everywhere he is in chains -- and then Rousseau goes on to justify those chains by asserting that freedom is "the total surrender of each individual with all his rights to the whole community." Under Comrade Andy (as under Rousseau) there is no balance or equilibrium of power -- there is only the all powerful state which is legitimate because it claims the authority of THE PEOPLE. Who determines the WILL OF THE PEOPLE -- why Comrade Andy and his ilk, of course. All the rest of us (those who do not think as he does -- in fact the majority of humanity) have a false consciousness and may therefore be put aside (see Comrade Andy's comments below) and may be FORCED TO BE FREE in accordance with Comrade Andy's view of what free is. [Comrade Andy on the FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS of the masses:] >...false identity and division perpetuates the illusion for the >slaves, and it perpetuates the division between slaves. It is a false >ideology. ... In fact, I do not think it necessarily matters what a >person thinks of themselves in such matters. Reality can be quite a >different thing than the thing that appears in consciousness. Comrade Andy is "not a liberal subjectivist; I do not suppose that preferences stand for material fact. " Yes, the terrible thing is that Comrade Andy (like Rousseau) values liberty above all else but he (like R) opens the door to terrible despotism by defining liberty as placing ones self under "the supreme direction of the general will" (in other words, behind the fence with the rest of the slaves). > > Comrade Andy protests that "Bill Schell, he takes my argument and slaps the "Stalinist" label on it. That works. Now I am "praising" the "Stalinist world." But Comrade Andy, I did not open that door -- you did by saying that this evils of (I presume) AMERIKA make Stalin look tame by comparison. Comrade Andy says that his freedom is only an illusion -- the freedom with which he expresses his opinions without fear of retribution is a great illusion indeed. Would that all the world had it. From dredmond@gladstone.uoregon.edu Tue Sep 30 17:06:58 1997 Received: from gladstone.uoregon.edu (gladstone.uoregon.edu [128.223.142.14]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.4/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) with ESMTP id RAA09097 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:06:56 -0600 (MDT) Received: from localhost (dredmond@localhost) by gladstone.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA19256 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 16:06:52 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 16:06:52 -0700 (PDT) From: Dennis R Redmond To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: comrades! In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970930073150.0068ed24@murraystate.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Bill Schell wrote: > Thank you Andrey. The north american cyber-socialist elites have lived > in comfort and safety so long that they cannot imagine the Stalinist world > they praise and which they would force upon us in the name of bettering the > human condition. Hardly. Most of us Leftists are underpaid university types with three jobs and student loans and who worry about global human rights, freedom of the press and environmental destruction as much as class exploitation. Andrei does, of course, have a point when he insists that conditions in 1995 are, on the whole, better for many Russian and Eastern Europeans than 1985. This is true: the old system was a horrid mess, spent most of its surplus on weaponry and persecuting decent people, and annihilated the environment, while racking up huge Western debts. Not so different from the Latin American military dictatorships, really. Today, cheap foreign imports and a flood of heretofore repressed new ideas and freedoms have made people's lives significantly easier. Plus, the European Union has been spending a lot of dough in the East, which has helped the transition along (yes, multinational socialism, co-financed by the Kohl Government!). From what I saw of Moscow in 1995, there was a blossoming consumer culture, people were driving cars around, and small Russian businesses were already starting to produce their own knock-off copies of Western goods. This is how Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore got rich, and noone in their right mind would not want to wish the same success to the Russians, who've suffered like no other people from the ravages of the 20th century. The problem is, the capitalist world-system is indeed cold, cruel and unforgiving. Not every semi-periphery (which is what Russia is today) gets to join the metropole. Taiwan made it; Argentina didn't. In many cases, the World Bank and IMF have pursued nastily contractionary policies to overindebted Third World countries, and market pressures have done horrible things to large parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia. Real wages have fallen and tiny elites have gotten fantastically wealthy from Rio de Janeiro to Bangkok; and marketized development often has an ecological price tag as horrendous as that exacted by COMECON, and has been accompanied by no less draconian Government repression. Somehow, we've got to find ways of democratizing the global economy, making it reward the people who really produce its wealth instead of rewarding greedy share-holders, and giving people a voice to make their own decisions about what gets produced and how it's manufactured -- something which automatically excludes Party elites, one-party states, and IMF sado-monetarism as much as Stalinism. -- Dennis From bill.schell@murraystate.edu Tue Sep 30 19:50:16 1997 Received: from mail.murraystate.edu ([204.148.122.250]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.4/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) with SMTP id TAA14243 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 19:50:13 -0600 (MDT) Received: from default (198.83.12.136) by mail.murraystate.edu (NPlex 1.3.152) for wsn@csf.colorado.edu; 30 Sep 1997 20:54:09 -0500 Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19971001014442.006652c8@murraystate.edu> X-Sender: bill.schell@murraystate.edu (Unverified) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 20:44:42 -0500 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: Bill Schell Subject: Re: comrades! Dennis wrote: > Most of us Leftists are underpaid university types with three jobs >and student loans and who worry about global human rights, freedom >of the press and environmental destruction as much as >class exploitation. Bill: Been there, done that. But even when I was working 40 hrs weekly as a grounds keeper, holding a TA, teaching a night class, working on my PhD and finishing my last year as a Sgt in the National Guard, I was still in FAT CITY compared to most of the people on this planet. Dennis: >Not every semi-periphery (which is what Russia is today) gets >to join the metropole. Taiwan made it; Argentina didn't. Bill: True enough and its worthwhile to stop and wonder why Argentina, with abundant natural wealth that attracted multi-millions in foreign investment, could not make the jump to self-sustaining economic growth, while Taiwan, with virtually no natural wealth, could. At the beginning of the 20th century there was an expression "rich as an Argentine," but by mid-century it was already being said that Argentina was a country with a great future behind it. Why? Dennis:>Real wages have fallen and tiny elites have gotten fantastically wealthy from >Rio de Janeiro to Bangkok; and marketized development often has an >ecological price tag as horrendous as that exacted by COMECON, and has >been accompanied by no less draconian Government repression. Bill: True enough, but in countries that make the transition to sustained economic growth, ecological concerns are more like to be seriously addressed (though never seriously enough) and the nation where repression is most draconian is China where a Communist party clings to power in the setting of (a now officially) capitalist economy. > Dennis: >Somehow, we've got to find ways of democratizing the global economy, >making it reward the people who really produce its wealth instead of >rewarding greedy share-holders, and giving people a voice to make their >own decisions about what gets produced and how it's manufactured > Bill: Absolutely, although in today's go-go stockmarket a greater percentage people own stocks than ever before. And those who want to change the system by using the system have organized socially responsible investment funds (there are quite a few actually) and though nay-sayers note that such funds consistently under-perform the market as a whole, the same may be said of MOST investment funds. Socially responsible investment, on the whole, offers very good returns. This is something to consider when and if you get a chance to make these choices for youself. William Schell, Jr Voice: (502) 762-6572 Dept of History Fax: (502) 762-6587 Murray State University EMAIL bill.schell@Murraystate.edu Murray, KY 42071