On a more concrete or detailed level, much of the data
is not gathered by the UN but through the national
stastistical offices. So the quality of the data is in
doubt when the conuntry's bureau of statistics in
Benin has a reputation for rigging stuff. Statistics
from the the transition economies are fairly reliable
because these countries had highly qualified people in
place. UN statistics are better or at least used to be
before the big restructuring. Some of the old stock of
UN statisticians studied with Tinbergen, and people
like Kalecki, Myrdal and others were UN
economist-statisticians. But the big restructuring
beginning with the end of the cold war killed off any
reliable statistics on the poor, women, and other
essential developmental programs because it attacked
anything to do with development and emphasized the
role of private capital in developemntal processes,
hence, the rise of microcredit, fdi, tncs etc....
An area which which everyone should be aware of the
poor quality of trade statistics in the developing
world.
The point I want to make is again much of the
statistics are nationally generated; back in the good
old days the qulaity was a bit better because UN
statisticians tried to systemetize the data and the
data collection process and provide assitance to
national bureaus as needed.
by the way Kalecki was serving in the new york office
in the 1950's as senior UN official, but with macarthy
having influence in the un administration, the un
demoted to a lower level. this to my knowledge is the
only demotion in UN history.
One area of concern
--- Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Jim Devine:
> >Don't you think that the UN statistics indicating a
> rise in mortality in
> >Russia are valid, at least as ballpark estimates?
> why do you accept these
> >statistics -- which make a newly capitalist country
> look horrible -- and
> >not others, that might indicate that it's possible
> for workers to win
> >longer life-spans under capitalism if they fight
> hard enough and they're
> >lucky? Is it because you agree with the political
> conclusions that jump out
> >of the one set of statistics (that the transition
> to capitalism is a bad
> >thing) and not those of the other (that capitalism
> might allow some
> >reforms)? If so, that's totally fallacious.
>
> This is not about whether one should use or not use
> the enemy's statistics.
> It is about using them in a reductionist way like
> Doug and Brad do. If
> somebody asked me if South Korea was making progress
> or not making
> progress, the last place I'd look is the HDI report.
> I'd look at Marty
> Hart-Landsburg's books.
>
> I have been studying Latin America closely since
> 1974 when I was involved
> in a faction fight in the Fourth International over
> guerrilla warfare. As a
> reporter for the anti-Mandel faction, I worked
> closely with Argentine
> Trotskyists and learned a lot about the problems of
> the country through
> discussions with them and reading their documents.
> In the early 1980s I got
> involved with the Committee in Solidarity with the
> People of El Salvador
> first and then with Nicaragua solidarity
> organizations from 1987 onwards.
> Through a combination of studying, organizing and
> publishing a newsletter
> for a city-wide coalition, I learned much about the
> region. If somebody
> asked me how Central America was faring, I wouldn't
> dream of extrapolating
> a column from a UN spreadsheet and saying, "Things
> are looking better." (In
> fact, GDP was on the rise all through the Somoza
> era. But the social impact
> of the economic changes wrought through the
> introduction of large-scale
> cattle-ranching was what produced the Sandinista
> revolution.)
>
> There is an implicit logic in Brad and Doug
> relentless touting of these
> figures. If you take some god-forsaken third world
> country that is
> experiencing something like a 10 percent growth rate
> over some defined
> time-span, you might conclude that--ceteris
> parebis--the country would
> eventually reach first world levels. This is a
> reformist illusion. It is at
> odds with a Marxist understanding of how capitalism
> operates in places like
> Argentina, South Korea, etc. I can understand why
> Brad would argue along
> these lines. He is an outspoken neoliberal. Why Doug
> argues along the same
> lines (while holding out for some vague classless
> "humane regime") is
> another story altogether and a depressing one at
> that.
>
> Louis Proyect
> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
>
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