Jim says:
>Yoshie, I agree. I think that the main message is that racism (and
>sexism) are in the interest of white (male) workers only in the
>short-term. In the long-term such institutional forms of oppression
>undermine the collective interests of the working class, which
>includes the white (male) workers.
I looked into the article Bill Burgess posted in the "health &
inequality" thread:
***** Relation between income inequality and mortality:
empirical demonstration
Michael Wolfson, George Kaplan, John Lynch, Nancy Ross, Eric Backlund
Institutions and Social Statistics Branch, Statistics Canada, Ottawa,
Canada K1A 0T6
Michael C Wolfson,
director general
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-2029, United States
George Kaplan,
professor and chair of epidemiology
John Lynch,
assistant professor
Social and Economic Studies Division, Statistics Canada
Nancy Ross
analyst
Federal Building #3, US Bureau of the Census, Washington DC
20233-8700, United States
Eric Backlund,
mathematical statistician
Correspondence to: M Wolfson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Abstract
Objective: To assess the extent to which observed associations at
population level between income inequality and mortality are
statistical artefacts.
Design: Indirect "what if" simulation by using observed risks of
mortality at individual level as a function of income to construct
hypothetical state level mortality specific for age and sex as if the
statistical artefact argument were 100% correct.
Setting Data: from the 1990 census for the 50 US states plus
Washington, DC, were used for population distributions by age, sex,
state, and income range; data disaggregated by age, sex, and state
from the Centers for disease Control and Prevention were used for
mortality; and regressions from the national longitudinal mortality
study were used for the individual level relation between income and
risk of mortality.
Results: Hypothetical mortality, while correlated with inequality (as
implied by the logic of the statistical artefact argument), showed a
weaker association with states' levels of income inequality than the
observed mortality.
Conclusions: The observed associations in the United States at the
state level between income inequality and mortality cannot be
entirely or substantially explained as statistical artefacts of an
underlying individual level relation between income and mortality.
There remains an important association between income inequality and
mortality at state level over and above anything that could be
accounted for by any statistical artefact. This result reinforces
the need to consider a broad range of factors, including the social
milieu, as fundamental determinants of health.
[The full article is available at
<http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7215/953/DC1>.] *****
Since racism widens income inequality further than the absence of
racism would, the above article confirms once again that racism is
not in the interest of white workers.
>(I see this as the message of Michael Reich's RACIAL INEQUALITY
>(1981), a book I helped him produce.) It's the standard problem of
>"economism," one that's encouraged by high unemployment rates,
>especially if they persist: unemployment encourages those who have
>jobs ("insiders") to build institutional walls to protect themselves
>from the fate of falling into the reserve army.
I think Reich's work is excellent. Over on LBO-talk, I made the
following argument:
***** Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 04:08:34 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: BK on Identity
<snip>
>Class is very much defined relationally and the surplus extraction is
>rooted in that relationship. Race and gender can manifest themselves
>in direct relationships but race and gender are also deployed in
>_intergroup struggle_ over power and resources of various kinds.
>So segregation, exclusion, discrimination still have a zero-sum
>quality - whites' forced monopoly over jobs, credit, housing, come
>at the expense of blacks.
_If_ white workers can gain jobs, credit, housing, etc. _only_ at the
expense of black & other discriminated-against workers, yes, but
_even under capitalism_ economy (whether one sees it nationally or
internationally) does not have to be seen as a zero-sum game (since
capitalism is a dynamic process of M-C-M', dependent upon the
expanded reproduction worldwide), to say nothing of what can be
achieved under socialism. The problem is ideological in the sense
that many white workers assume that economy can be only a zero-sum
game because it doesn't occur to many that they can & should fight &
extract more (more jobs, more housing, more wages, more benefits,
more vacations, etc.) from capital -- hence the prevalence of racist
protectionism. Of course, the extraction of "more!" faces a severe
limit under capitalism (e.g., when rises in real wages outpace
increases in productivity for too long, capital faces a crisis, so
naturally it tries to roll back whatever gains workers have made --
neoliberalism is a good example of this rollback) -- therefore it is
necessary to abolish capitalism in order to abolish racism, sexism,
etc. _completely_.
<snip> *****
What do you think?
>(BTW, orthodox labor economics blames unemployment partly on the
>power of "insiders" (except tenured professors, of course). I think
>they have causation reversed.)
Don't liberal critics of "white privilege" end up echoing orthodox
labor economics?
Yoshie
