Bosnia 3
Pen-ners (cont'd) The next point that should be made is, even if we should ignore international treaties and decide to break up Yugoslavia on ethnic grounds, what should be the borders? The borders of the republics (states) of Yugoslavia post 1945 were established by Tito *without respect to ethnic distributions and not based on any prior historical borders*. I.e., the borders were politically established and without any respect or consideration of the distribution of the Serb population. Indeed, the Serbs believe, and I think with some justification, that the borders were established specifically to fragment the Serbs in order to restrict their political power in the old Yugoslavia. Whether or not this was the case, there is no historical reasons for the specific borders. What it did do was leave 1/3 or Serbs outside of Serbia, some 700,000 in Croatia and one and a half million in Bosnia. Bosnia, of course, had no prior political existance as indeed the present name (Bosnia and Herzigovina) attests. Certainly, in the political federation of the original Yugoslavia after WW1 (The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), Bosnia was not mentioned and the Bosnians (never mind the Macedonians or Albanians) were not even recognized as a separate ethnic group.So, to recognize the postwar boundaries of the states of Yugoslavia as having some particular inviolate meaning is nonsense of which even the US state department should be ashamed. But let me come back to the fatal day when Bosnia declared its unilateral independence (over the objection of the Serbs who had refused to take part in the phony referendum organized by the Muslim-Croat coalition. First, my information (from a "usually reliable source" with the CBC who had contacts in the German Foreign Office) is that even Izetbegovic was reluctant to call the referendum knowing what the result would be. But he succomed to the pressure of Genser who pressured Izetbegovic *over the contrary advice of his own staff*. The staff knew what would happen and advised him but Genser "was completely blind to advice". Why? I am told he was from, or had family from the east and was not rational when dealing with what he considered to be the old "communist" regimes. Whether this was the case or not, he persisted and Izetbegovic gave in. This was incredibly tragic because _ an agreement had already been reached for a multi-ethnic federation of Serbs, Croats and Muslims_. ***It was the American ambassador that convinced Izetbegovic to scrap the agreement and go for it all ***. I shall quote from the New York Times, August 29, 1993. "Almost a year and a half ago, the United States opposed a partition of Bosnia and Herzegovin that had been agreed to by leaders of the republic's Serbs, Croats and Muslims. The idea as to stave off a civil war. Now, thens of thousands of deaths later, the United States is urging the leaders of the three Bosnian factions to accept a partition agreement similar to the one Washington opposed in 1992. *** "Our view was that we might be able to head off a Serbvian power grab by internationalizing the problem" said Warren Zimmermann, who was then the American Ambassador to Yugoslavia. "Our hope was the Serbs would hold off if it was clear Bosnia had the recognition of Western countries. It turned out we were wrong." *** On Feb. 23, 1992, in Lisbon, the three Bosnian leaders (Izetbegovic, Karadzic and Boban) endorsed a proposal that the republic be a confed- eration divided into three ethnic reions. Mr. Izetbegovic's acceptance of partition, which would have denied him and his Muslim party a dominant role in the republic, shocked not only his supporters at at home, but also United states policy makers. "We were vey surprised at what he had agreed to," said a senior State Department officieal responsible for Yugoslave policy who spoke on condition of anonymity. The impact of Mr. Izetbegovic's decision was all the greater in Washington because the Bush Administration had begun to immerse itself in the Yugoslav crisis and, in a reversal, __ to favor recognition of the successor republics __ (emphasis added) "The embassy was for recgnition of Bosnia and Herzebovina from some time in February on," Mr. Zimmermann said of his policy recommendation from Belgrade. (Unquote) The question? Who is the aggressor? Or perhaps you don't trust the NYT. How about the Washinton Times? (Stfan Halper) Septermber 7, 1993 "Three weeks in Serbia, Montenegro, Kraijina and Bosnia introduced me to the face of American policy in those tortured Balkan lands. It has been a n utter 86 by(.1) has been an utter failure: misguided and arrogant, at odds with history, oblivious to tradition. It is the ugly American writ large, only this time the State Department's seventh floor wizards and their pathetic embassy have done more than mismanage Washington's strategic interests. They have demonstrated that diplomats do, after all, influence w
Bosnia
Pen-ners Since my response to Nathan elicitated not only a considerable response, and several requests for elaboration, but also unsolicited responses for additional information and at response to a private communication that was not posted to this network, I am goaded (prompted, flattered) to respond at length. But, before you hit the key, I will respond like "hire-purchase" agreements, in installments. (My dog needs to go for a walk before I can finish this post otherwise). First, my comment that western countries (the US in particular should avoid intervention in Bosnia since they have done enough damage already. Some people rejected this view. Let me first quote from Sean Gervasi "Germany, US, and the Yugoslav Crisis" _Covert Action_ Winer 1992-93. Yugoslavia has for some time been the target of a covert policy waged by the West and its allies, primarily Germany, the United States, Britain, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, as well as by Iran, to divide Yugoslavia into its ethnic components, dismantle it, and eventually recolonize it." (p. 41) If you still have any doubt, read the article and the US state department documents that support it and then tell me that the US and Germany did not have the dismemberment of Yugoslavia *on ethnic lines at the expense of Serbia* long before the crisis arrived. Secondly, the actions of Germany and the US (supported by the EC after being blackmailed by Germany) are in contravention of the 1975 Helsinki agreement that guaranteed the post-war national boundaries of Europe (not the ethnic boundaries of sub-national units). The US and Germany apparently see themselves as above international agreement and treaty -- depending on their convenience. Thirdly, the Yugoslav constittution proved the *obligation* of the Yugoslav army to protect the unity and territoriality of Yugoslavia. Therefore, it had the constitutional obligation to prevent the breakaway of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia despite the international interference of the US and Germany. When it did so the US, Germany and the UN (under US/German domination) objected and in the case of Bosnia forced the Yugoslav army to withdraw -- leaving the irregulars and the militias of the right-wing neo-fascists to represent Serbian interests and prevent incursions on Serbian interests and properties. Then, under the pressures from north America and Europe and on the basis of highly biased reports (I will go into that in my nest post) the UN intervened -- led first by Canada. All you doubters should read General McKenzie's biographical account of that period. (It is called _Peacemaker_). The first "atrocity" committed in the subsequent period was, in his account, the ambush of the peaceful withdrawel of Yugoslav troups by the Bosnian (Muslim) army. Nor was this the first atrocity practiced on the Serbs -- ethnic clensing had already been practiced in Croatia against the resident Serb population, long before whatever happened in Bosnia (This is not an apology for subsequent Serb atrocities -- it is merely to point out that the press accounts that Serbs are responsibly, and solely responsible, for atrocities or even the initiators of atrocities is factually wrong. As a final point in this first post, why did the US army fight the South when it declared unilateral independence? Obviously, if the UN had been in existence, Britain would have sent in its Navy to defeat the North since it had no right to defend the integrity of the US. MY god I hate hypocrisy! If you want more? Paul Phillips
Re: Do We Care?
Quite the contrary. So far the US blunderings have always favored Pakistan, and implicitly the Moslem Kashmiris. And look what happened to the Pundits, the Hindu Kashmiris? They have been made refugees in their own homeland. The US is primarily interested in pushing for the NPT hence the recent announcement to supply Pakistan with F16s despite the Pressler amendment. The US concern for human rights is a false one and based on principles that smack of ignorance and wishful thinking. Consider the US interest in pursuing such human rights by wanting to attach the clause of banning products made by child labor in developing countries. All said and done the NPT is to ensure that other countries do not emerge as competitors in the aerospace/armaments industry and that developing countries do not have the advantage of low wage goods. Ironically, much of the left, liberal or otherwise, US or otherwise, in their zeal for human rights, forget that these policies condemn developing countries to their underdeveloped status and push the already marginalized segments (children and their families) to further immiserization. Perhaps we should re-assess what we mean by nationalism, international socialism, and the left's vision of the unfolding world economy. Anthony D'Costa On Thu, 14 Apr 1994, Tavis Barr wrote: > > > On Thu, 14 Apr 1994, Anthony D'Costa wrote: > > > Tavis Barr wants to know if more can be known about Kashmir. Of course > > it can. All you have to do is read the Indian publications. The larger > > issue is do you want to internationalize the Kashmir issue without > > considering the ramifications of it for the different communities in the > > country? So far the US, Clinton more specifically, has simply blundered, > > especially with such inexperienced low level staff like Robin Raphael. > > I don't have trouble finding info since I get a lot of stuff about Kashmir > over NY Transfer. My beef was with the level of US media reporting. > True, I'm sure the chauvinism of the US media might paint things in an > anti-Islamic light (especially since the US seems to be putting itself on > India's side by not supporting the call for a plebiscite), but I always > think it helps when people know about atrocities in other countries. > > Cheerio, > Tavis > >
IBM
R COMPARATIVE DISADVANTAGE GLENDALE -- International Business Machines Corp., as part of its goal to cut over 30,000 jobs this year, laid off 800 New York workers...from its Large Scale Computing Division. IBM announced last July that it would trim its worforce from 256,000 to 225,000 by 1994. The plan has resulted in the first IBM layoffs since the company was founded in 1914... "It's something that we must do to stay competitive," [spokesman Stephen Cole] said. -- Glen Falls Post-Star ***** WASHINGTON -- The chairman and chief executive of the International Business Machines Corporation, Louis V. Gerstner Jr., has earned $7.71 million in salary, bonuses and other cash compensation since he joined I.B.M. in March [1993]. Mr. Gerstner, 52, also received stock options that could be worth up to $38.2 million, I.B.M. said in its annual proxy statement filed...with the Securities and Exchange Commission... He is to receive a total of $8.5 million for his first 12 months of service, a spokesman for I.B.M. said. -- The New York Times Sid Shniad
Re: China and Russia
The TVE sector now employs over 100 million in China and the data from the Statistical Yearbook of China indicate that TVEs now account for approx 38% of Gross Value of Industrial Output and 25% of exports. Within the TVE sector, the collectively owned TVEs account for 80% of GVIO and approx 67% of employment. Studies by Putterman and others find no significant productivity differences between collective and private TVEs. So, that is a bit of raw data. As many have suggested, the collectively owned sector is therefore very interesting. The question has been raised as to the sense in which these entterprises are really collective. My reading on the subject indicates that there is in fact a wide variation in the way that collective ownership rights are exercised. In some cases it does appear though that the township and village governments which own them do finance an array of social services from the profits of TVEs and that employment practices sometimes involve hiring one member from each household in order to equalise household incomes. In other cases, TVEs appear to be no more than private ents in disguise. What the balance is between these two extremes is seems impossible to tell at this point. However, it seems to me that TVEs do represent something different and indeed this has puzzled many neoclassical economists who have argued that well defined private property rights are needed for efficiency and growth; the Chinese TVE sector provides one example where this is not true but where economic success has been accompanied by vaguely defined collective ownership. It is true that TVEs are much more market oriented than state owned ents although should not obscure the fact that local govts actively support TVEs through various credit, tax measures; its just that localk govts have less resources at their disposal to engage in this type of activity than the central govt does. The display of cadre-entrepreneurship which characterises much of the collective TVE sector raises the question of what box we should put TVEs in; it seems to me that the answer to this depends at least in part on whether market socialism is seen as a useful and legitimate box. If officials in collectively owned ents display classic entrepreneurship skills by responding to market signals and exploiting new market opportunites (domestically or abroad) does this mean that it shows that market socialism can work (and negates the Austrian critique of socialism which argued that entrepreneurship requires private property) or that they are state capitalists? Paul Bowles
Re: Futurework messages
Dear Sally, As someone who has no immediate interest in the subject, but an interest nonetheless, I have been simply extracting these pieces from my VAX email system and archiving them for later perusal. Thank you for posting them! Cheers, Steve Keen
Re: Do We Care?
On Thu, 14 Apr 1994, Anthony D'Costa wrote: > Tavis Barr wants to know if more can be known about Kashmir. Of course > it can. All you have to do is read the Indian publications. The larger > issue is do you want to internationalize the Kashmir issue without > considering the ramifications of it for the different communities in the > country? So far the US, Clinton more specifically, has simply blundered, > especially with such inexperienced low level staff like Robin Raphael. I don't have trouble finding info since I get a lot of stuff about Kashmir over NY Transfer. My beef was with the level of US media reporting. True, I'm sure the chauvinism of the US media might paint things in an anti-Islamic light (especially since the US seems to be putting itself on India's side by not supporting the call for a plebiscite), but I always think it helps when people know about atrocities in other countries. Cheerio, Tavis
Re: fed policies
I don't think the big issue these days is that of the conflict between industrial and banking capital (as Doug Henwood points out). Instead, it's more of a matter of what's good for the U.S. economy versus what's good for the world profitability of capitalist enterprises. Among big capital, is there really a distinction between industrial and finance capital any more? I had gotten the impression that even among those conglomerates which do not include banks, that profits are driven by finance rather than production. Am I just being muddle-headed? Thanks. Michael
Bosnia
(3 to 4 pages) Having flamed Paul Phillips in a recent message I would like to add some more moderate comments. I do think, despite my disagreements with him, that his remarks were very well- informed and should be thought about seriously. 1) I agree that we must be cautious as progressives about knee jerk support for whoever claims to be the "most oppressed." Even if they are, that does not mean what they propose to do is acceptable. I personally like the suggestion of "what does Amnesty International have to say?" although they do not always have full or complete information or analyses. 2) Paul is right that the breakup of Yugoslavia is a genuine tragedy. This is a humpty-dumpty who fell off the wall and cannot be put back together. It was probably inevitable that Bosnia was going to "get it" once this happened because of its volatile ethnic balance. It can be argued that Bosnia-Herzegovina was ALWAYS the reason for there to be a Yugoslavia. I remind everyone that it was conflicts and arguments over its status that led a Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip on June 4, 1914 to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, thereby triggering that global tragedy known as World War I. The postwar creation of Yugoslavia was designed to surround Bosnia with a multi-ethnic state that could contain it. 3) Fingers can be pointed in various directions about the source of the breakup. Thoughtless external supporters of the various secessions, especially the Germans, are partly to blame. But I continue to hold (here Paul and I disagree, I believe) that it was the moves by Milosevic in Serbia, that triggered the actual secessions. 4) The secession of Croatia was an especial problem. Their government renamed streets in Zagreb (the capital) after Ustasha Nazis and other behaviors that generated legitimate concern by the large Serb minority which suffered greatly under that awful regime. The Croats did not guarantee Serb rights. However I question whether this justified the destruction of Vukovar and the Serb military actions in Croatia which followed. 5) What was true of Croatia was most definitely NOT true of Bosnia- Herzegovina. Its initial government was multi-ethnic and clearly supported minority rights for all groups. However, emboldened by their victory in Croatia, the Serb forces repeated their behaviors in Bosnia, only in a much worse way. Muslim villages were "cleansed." Territory now under Serb control is much larger than what they inhabited. These were war crimes and they were utterly without any justification, and still are. Although these were "local militias" they were actively supported by the Belgrade regime. Although he now poses as diplomat and "moderate" dealmaker, the guiding force behind all of this since 1987 has been the Serb leader, Slobodan Milosevic. I remind everyone that Adolf Hitler did not PERSONALLY kill a single Jew, not that I have ever heard of. But he was responsible for what happened then, just as is Milosevic now. Barkley Rosser James Madison University
Re: Economists for a California Single-Payer Plan?
Elaine--Following is a forwarded message. It must have been sent to me by mistake. Gil --- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 06 Apr 1994 14:08:26 -0700 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sally Lerner) Subject:Re: Economists for a California Single-Payer Plan? To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Elaine - Go get 'em! I've been really busy, but with classes over will have a bit more time to keep in touch. More soon. Sally (These penners sure natter on about some silly things - hope you can get them to focus.) >Beware of the problems in the Clinton plan re Single payer. >While organized labor and other groups are quite keen to >assure that single payer will be possible under the >Clinton plan (that is, states can opt to introduce their >own state wide single payer program) the last time I >read the Clinton plan proposal -- it actually made it >prohibitive in practice because it said that any state >wish to go single payer could not change the financing >formula of the Clinton plan. > >Let me explain. For single payer to work it needs to >capture all of the moneys that currently go into the >health care system. There are two sources of funds right >now public (through our taxes, which pay for medicaid/medicare) >and through private contributions (which include premiums, >co-pays, and basically all the payments paid by individuals >and corporations). The public money in the system accounts >for 40% of the funds and the private share is 60%. So the >funding issue (for every plan) is that if we want to start >with the same number of dollars as we currently have in the >system (just under 1 trillion national) how do we capture >the 60% that folks currently pay privately. Clinton's view >is an employer mandate (which I would argue becomes another >payroll tax which further tilts the system towards reducing >employment). The single payer advocates mostly argue for >separating funding the health care system from employment >by funding the system with taxes more or less equivalent >to the amount that people already pay. Further it will be >a graduated tax (and therefore much more progressive). > >Anyway, as I understand it (this may have changed as many of >the single payer advocates are very much aware of this problem) >the Clinton plan precludes (explicitly) a more progressive >funding formula. In other words, he's keen to hobble any >chance of a single payer system, while posing that he would >permit it. > >For those of you outside of the US -- the single payer system >was Canada's compromise between socialized medicine (the right >way to go) and the ad hoc mess of medicine for profit. > >Elaine Bernard
China and Russia
Response to Joseph Medley: The source was a recent article in that capitalist rag, _The Economist_, I do not offhand have the exact date. It only compared the total growth rates of the identified three categories, central state owned, fully private, and TVE's. I note that you do not disagree that the latter has grown the most rapidly overall. I completely agree with your further comments. It is very important what is the nature of the TVE's. I made no generalizations about them other than to say that they were "a curious intermediate form, a sort of local market socialism" which even that may be inaccurate in general. I do not have data on that. I do think, as several have noted, that the Chinese system is not something we have ever seen. Also it is changing rapidly right before our eyes. The most dynamic sector in all this is the TVE's and thus the nature of their evolution is profoundly critical and significant to the general future of the Chinese economic system. Barkley Rosser James Madison University
Political importance of the LTV
I among others have been lambasted for hogging net time to debate the apparently esoteric question of the labour theory of value. I do not think that it is politically esoteric at all. Let me try and explain how Allin and I came to be posting this stuff. 1) Over the last 5 years or so he and I have been working on proposals for an alternative socialist economic policy. We did this in response initially to the book by Nove 'Economics of Feasible Socialism', which we thought was very politically damaging. In Britain at least it provided an ideological cover to former left wing politicians who now came to accept that in Thatchers words 'there was no alternative' to market economics. We set our selves the intellectual task of trying to construct a coherent alternative system of economic calculation and economic regulation to that provided by the market. Allin is an economist and I am a computer scientist and the key elements that we came up with were an economic mechanism that used the labour theory of value to calculate peoples rewards for work and used computer networks operating in natural units to integrate the different sectors of the economy. The labour theory of value was at the heart of classical socialist proposals for running the economy, it was neglected under soviet socialism, and we believe that only by reviving it can both the practical and moral foundations be laid for a new socialist movement. 2) During the last election in Britain I helped the local communist candidate with his leafleting. I though however that they were quite unable to put forward any practical proposals and that their assesment of what was really going on in the economy was right off the mark. For instance, they argued that the reason why welfare rights were under attack was because the capitalists could no longer afford the concessions that they had formerly made. This is a common sort of vulgar leftist argument, but to refute it one needs actual economic data. Along with another computer scientist who has some interest in economics we obtained computer disks from the Central Statistical Office of the UK goverments national income figures for the last 20 years. We reprocessed these to construct a database of the economy in marxian economic categories. From this it was easy to demonstrate that the capitalist class was simply rolling in it. Exploitation, measured as the rate of surplus value had more than doubled since the Tories came to power. However when we submited these results to a left wing economics journal we had them bounced back on the grounds that you can not measure labour value ratios like the rate of exploitation by using monetary statistics. To justify our practical statistical work we then had to prove that the labour theory of value was empirically accurate, which we did with Allin's help by obtaining the UK i/o tables and solving them to obtain the price/value correlation coefficient. Hence the concern with the labour theory of value arose from very practical political considerations. If the LTV is just treated as a scholastic exercise it is pointless. The point is to apply it concretely to understanding the contemporary economy and to change that economy. Paul Cockshott ,WPS, PO Box 1125, Glasgow, G44 5UF Phone: 041 637 2927 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: fed policies
I don't think the big issue these days is that of the conflict between industrial and banking capital (as Doug Henwood points out). Instead, it's more of a matter of what's good for the U.S. economy versus what's good for the world profitability of capitalist enterprises. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine BITNET: jndf@lmuacadINTERNET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA 310/338-2948 (off); 310/202-6546 (hm); FAX: 310/338-1950 if bitnet address fails, try [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Chinese Capitalism?
Mark Selden is absolutely correct to reject the "aha! market ergo capitalism" view (which Marx also rejected, but that's a different point). Marketization doesn't make capitalism, while statization doesn't make socialism (else ancient Egypt was socialist). into "state capitalism" of the sort that's been practiced in the middle east (e.g., Algeria, Egypt) and much of the third world. The difference between this state capitalism and the old system (the USSR mode of production? bureaucratic socialism, BS?) is in the labor-power market. The old system didn't have the capitalist separation of labor from the means of production and its most obvious symptom, the reserve army of labor. (Hidden unemployment doesn't have the same disciplining effects on labor as does overt unemployment.) The rapid growth of the reserve army pushes even village-owned enterprises to act like capitalists (as someone pointed out, I forget who). State capitalism differs from US-style capitalism mostly in the degree of state ownership. But the state can act as a collective capitalist, even in the US (cf. the Tennessee Valley Authority). On the socialism vs. capitalism vs. bureaucratic socialism, "boxes": these are meant only a theoretical tools, which we hope will be useful in empirical analysis and more concrete theory. *No* country fits in a "box" exactly (though these days more and more countries fit in the capitalist box). But the boxes help us understand the world (at least if the theory is half-decent). The problem comes in when we stop relating the theory to the empirical world and simply deal with abstractions. Or when we think that "facts speak for themselves" and no theory at all is necessary. Whoops! there I go again, preaching to the converted! well, maybe there are some people out there in e-land who needed my little lecture. (Part of the problem of being an academic is I tend to lecture even when it's inappropriate. Sorry.) in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine BITNET: jndf@lmuacadINTERNET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA 310/338-2948 (off); 310/202-6546 (hm); FAX: 310/338-1950 if bitnet address fails, try [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: free speech
On Thu, 14 Apr 1994 09:43:26 -0700 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: >Yelling "fire!" in a crowded theather as unprotected speech >was justified by the "clear and present danger" rule. >Herb Gutman taught me in 1955 that free speech doesn't mean >much unless there IS "clear and present danger" -- politically >speaking. A perspicuous argument in favor of yelling fire in theaters... > >I later learned in life that the US doesn't need thought control, >because we have thought contraception. No thought is permitted to >appear in the first place, hence no need for thought control. Are you contracepted, or a special exception? --Alan G. Isaac
Re: Futurework messages
Thanks to Sally Lerner for the Futurework postings. I hope we can all discuss this -- maybe relevance and theory can satisfy everybody.
free speech
Yelling "fire!" in a crowded theather as unprotected speech was justified by the "clear and present danger" rule. Herb Gutman taught me in 1955 that free speech doesn't mean much unless there IS "clear and present danger" -- politically speaking. I later learned in life that the US doesn't need thought control, because we have thought contraception. No thought is permitted to appear in the first place, hence no need for thought control. Jim O'Connor
Re: Do We Care?
Tavis Barr wants to know if more can be known about Kashmir. Of course it can. All you have to do is read the Indian publications. The larger issue is do you want to internationalize the Kashmir issue without considering the ramifications of it for the different communities in the country? So far the US, Clinton more specifically, has simply blundered, especially with such inexperienced low level staff like Robin Raphael. Anthony D'Costa
Re: Pen-L on Internet
FROM: MAYHEW " ANNE " SMC This is a response to Sally Lerner and a request to all others: 1) Sally, would you resend the long messages about the conference on education and income distribution in Canada. That is, send it to me as I inadvertently wiped it out in the process of trying to download to WP. 2) To Sally and everyone else, a request: A graduate student and I have been trying to figure out how to think about how new jobs are created. Both political and scholarly focus on the need for new jobs in this country and elsewhere has been on the skills of workers. Proposals for retraining, for improved education, and for reforms that will provide greater incentives to workers are based on the assumption that chronic unemployment is a consequence of a lack of appropriate skill and prepreation. On the demand side the focus has been primarily macroeconomic. Job creation is analyzed as a consequence of variation in macroeconomic variables. Our question is very microeconomic but not one that can be answered by standard microeconomics. What we are wondering about is how new jobs are created. What do we know about how this has happened in the past? What is the process whereby household/community/volunteer labor becomes paid labor in an increasingly commercial society? What do we know about the way in which bureaucratic organizations--in both the public and private sectors--create new job classifications. Our interest is not so much in classifying jobs by pay or skill level as in understanding the processes at a very micro level that lead to the creation of a new job, meaning a new kind of job. While it is easy enough to understand that increased sales will cause employers to add workers in an existing category, it is not so obvious how wholly new categories of paid work are created. Yet such job creation is required if present patterns of income distribution (that is entitlemenet through work) are to continue. There must be literature that deals with this but we do not know much about it. Can anyone out there help us. Thanks-- Anne Mayhew [EMAIL PROTECTED]
REPLY TO: Re: fed policies
Dear Wagman, One, the recovery does not appear to have run its course -- period. Two, lower interest rates are the only policy variable that can possible be credited with spurring renewed growth. While short-term rates had been declining for some time -- they did not hit 3% until the end of 1992. Long-term rates did not bottom out until the summer of 1993. Many investors and home-buyers and car buyers waited until rates hit bottom, and home since bought, invested and refinanced. Even state and local governments have benefited greatly from refunding their outstanding debt. Home-owner refinance had added $25 billion to people's spending power by the end of 1992, and that number surely doubled in 1993. Business investment in equipment was one of the fastest growing sectors in the economy in 1992 and 1993. Housing was another fast growing sector. All these sectors, consumer spending, equipment investment, and housing are interest sensitive and grew rapidly in response to lower rates. State and local spending also added significantly. The trade deficit, commercial real estate, and the federal government were the drags on the economy. If not for the lower-rates, the trade balance would have likely be exacerbated by an even stronger dollar. It is hard not to see the recovery as proof that monetary policy/ credit policy can be a strong policy tool. It would have been more effective if it has been used more decisively, but it even so it did work. One more important implication of the lower rate policy is that it is likely to have positive repercussion on income distribution by lowering the yields on financial securities, and lowering the costs of indebtedness. Randall
Re: Russia and China
Barkley Rosser writes: I note that the most dynamic sector in the Chinese economy >recently has been Town and Village Enterprises (TVE's) which >are technically owned by local units of government but which >behave in vigorously market-oriented ways. The old centralized >command sector utterly stagnant. The totally capitalist SEZ's >dominated by outside (often ethnically Chinese) are not growing >as rapidly as this sector. > Thus the Chinese system as it is currently evolving is indeed >a curious intermediate form, a sort of "local market socialism". >Barkley Rosser >JMU Were facts so simply facts. On the TVEs, check your citation for us. Check the dates (e.g., to which period is it referring, e.g., TVEs in the 80s often arose in response to local demand generated by higher agricultural incomes and then fed off an internal multiplier effect which has since dissipated or been displaced by imports; many TVEs in the 90s are a different breed), check the level of aggregation (whole country or by region/province), and check what is growing (employment, number of firms, value of output). These and other factors are important because it matters which TVEs are growing where. For example, BusinessWeek (5/17/93) reported that Changan village (resident population 30,000) in Guangdong province formed TVEs to convert its agricultural land into factory space, which it rents to approximately 700 foreign and joint-venture (including TVE participation) firms who employ over 100,000 wage laborers from the rest of China. It's a $40M business that relies on foreign I and the wage labor of displaced peasants. The numbers I've seen recently suggest to me that the the most rapid growth of the TVEs is in precisely those areas where foreign-funded firms are locating. (BTW, most FFF growth is now _outside_ the SEZs.) Frequently the TVEs do subcontract work for the foreign firms (they generally pay lower wages and offer poorer working conditions, i.e., they are more oppressive)(recall the recent pen-l discussions concerning Nike, few overseas plants but many overseas suppliers) or are otherwise directly or indirectly (e.g., they provide services to FFF employees) linked to the foreign sector. TVEs encompass many different forms of organization including many commodity purchasing (labor-power), commodity selling, non-democratically operated, profit making ones. Just because these are "technically" publically owned, I wouldn't want to jump to the conclusion that they are socialist. I think China has a "mixed" economy that may go any of a number of directions. In this context policy (and careful class analsis) matters. Joseph E. Medley Economics University of Southern Maine Portland, Maine 04103 (207)-780-4293
Re: fed policies
A couple of brief comments on Paul's posting. 1) Classic populist critiques of the Fed overestimate the central bank's independence and underestimate the degree to which it follows the credit markets. Bond ghouls have been baying for a tighter policy for some time before AG finally acted on Feb 4. 2) This makes schemes to "democratize the Fed" - subject of a forthcoming article by me in The Nation - extremely problematic. Would anyone argue that the British economy, whose central bank is under government control, is healthier than the German one, whose central bank is notoriously independent? 3) Financial players would deny that we are all that far from potential output. Today's Financial Times has a chart showing the US at or near potential GDP, while the other G7 countries are well below that point. Also, full employment is now being defined as around 6.5% unemployment, i.e., right here. Tomorrow's capacity utilization figures are awaited with great anticipation; the present level is thought on Wall Street to be the inflation threshhold, and any significant rise will be thought of as dangerous. 4) "Industrial" capital appears to have no significant beef with "financial" capital - there's no pressure for stimulus at all (except from small biz, which wants tax cuts). Not to be too vulgar Marxist about it, but I think that this is because Fortune 500 execs have most of their wealth in financial assets, and prefer to see the expansion of financial values rather than real markets. And since they've been very successful at transferring the costs of the financial ascendancy to workers, through downsizing, outsourcing, and the rest, they feel no need to change the strategy. 5) Institutional investors are well along the process of organizing themselves to exert controlling interest over large public corporations - much more so than "bank" control theories of the 1970s would allow for. If we are now in the early phases of a long bear market - and we may be, but who knows? - it will be interesting to see how these investors/managers respond. Ironically, the leading edge of this organized shareholder class are the managers of public pension funds - i.e., funds held in the name of public sector workers! Doug Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Left Business Observer 212-874-4020 (voice) 212-874-3137 (fax) On Wed, 13 Apr 1994, paul burkett wrote: > In the latest NATION, Jeff Faux (Economic Policy Institute) argues that > the recent tightening of federal reserve policies means that the Clinton eco- > nomic strategy is defunct. His basic argument is that Clinton traded in his > campaign promises for expanded public investment (and other short-term stimu- > lus) for the lower interest rates that budget tightening and accommodative > federal reserve policies would bring, with the latter expected to keep the > 'recovery' moving. But, despite all attempts to kiss up to the fed chair, Mr. > Greenspan has not cooperated since he really represents the interests of bond- > holders who are inflation and wage-push hypochondriacs. > The wider political-economic implications of all this would seem to be > that there has been a swing within capital toward increased power of financial > capital relative to industrial capital (to the extent that the interests of the > latter might favor a less tight policy), or is it perhaps true that industrial > capital is less interested in domestic credit (and overall effective demand) > conditions, so that its own interests as per monetary policy now appear as > "more financial" than used to be the case? > Several questions arise from the above (for brevity I won't try to detail > the connections, unless those interested in fed policies want to discuss > this more): (1) with tight monetary and fiscal policy, are we headed for an > earlier end to the weak 'recovery,' perhaps followed by a more-than-otherwise > serious recession? (I can't remember the last time the economy was subjected > to a serious federal-fiscal contraction like the one--if I'm not mistaken-- > which would result if current budgetary plans are actually carried out during > a period of long-run slack. Was it the fiscal tightening and recollapse > back in 1937 when this last occurred?); (2) What if Greenspan (ala Scrooge > on Christmas Morning) suddenly had a change of heart and switched to a much > more expansionary policy? If there has really been a shift in the balance of > capitalist power and interests toward maintaining and increasing the value of > financial (fictitious capital) assets, what would be the response of 'the > market'? Would a robustly expansionary policy initiate capital flight on a > large scale (including a flight from dollar-denominated assets globally), > and what would be the implications of this? (3) In connection with (2), > would a more expansionary monetary and/or fiscal policy require some form of > capital controls in order to be successf
Re: Competition with a fabulous prize
OK, I'll try your puzzle. This would be the 2nd Norwegian sentence I've ever seen, after your Marx quotation! I think that Anglo-American cultural imperialists should write in Norwegian on pen-l.! Not sure about the second word, but the rest seems fairly obvious. Keeping my fingers crossed, Walter
Chinese vs. Russian state enterprises
Jim Devine recently conveyed the gist of an interesting argument by Wei Li contrasting the behavior of Chinese and Russian enterprises under different strategies of price decontrol: the Chinese decontrolled only at the margins (and kept planned orders and prices on the bulk of productive activity), while the Russians decontrolled everything. The Chinese approach succeeded in avoiding the kind of cascading decline in production that has afflicted Russian state enterprises (as described so well by Leijonhufwud in the New Left Review article cited by Mike Lebowitz). The point is that in a tightly integrated and monopolistic industrial sector, it is folly to decontrol everything and let enterprises operate atomistically -- but there are gains to be made in allowing enterprise autonomy in the context of decontrolled prices at the margins. I would only add that this argument was not advanced to explain the generally superior performance of the Chinese over the Russian economy (which has much to do with agriculture and small enterprises). Rather, it was intended to explain only the superior performance of Chinese large state enterprises. Admittedly, this is the least dynamic sector of the Chinese economy -- but it's doing a whole lot better than its Russian counterpart!
RE: Chinese Capitalism?
These comments address issues of China and capitalism in response to interesting posts by Michael, Barkley and Joseph. As Barkley noted, the most dynamic sector of the Chinese economy is the township and village enterprises (TVEs) which in a matter of a decade have not only come to dominate the rural economy but also account for a very substantial share of industrial production and exports. He describes them as "technically owned by local units of government but which behave in vigorously market-oriented ways." Two caveats. First is that the ownership is not "technical" but substantive as well. Second, the patterns of ownership and control are changing with immense rapidity and certainly and importantly include foreign investment/ownership/joint enterprise of all kinds with the TVEs. So we have an amalgam of state and capital, including both domestic capital and foreign capital, at the levels of ownership, labor relations, and wheeling and dealing in the market. Many world system analysts, and many Marxists as well, Bill Hinton for example, seem content to conclude "aha! market ergo capitalism" and history may prove them correct if what we are seeing is transitional not only to full incorporation in the global economy but to unfettered capitalist ownership forms. For me, such a perspective blurs most of what is most interesting, most dynamic, and most theoretically uncomfortable. What is clear is that both the most dynamic sectors of the Chinese economy and the lion's share of that economy in 1994 is "owned" by collective and state agencies and that the forms of ownership and operation are changing rapidly, including both dynamic growth of private sector in general and of foreign (principally "Chinese" capital from HK, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and North America. Interestingly, the areas that are most widely heralded as the advanced cutting edge of capitalism, the coastal regions, specifically Fujian and Guangdong, are the regions where this collective or village sector is strongest. In many poorer areas, collectives have largely collapsed and my sense is that small private enterprises have greater momentum. I have briefly addressed a few issues concerning the ownership and operation of mixed enterprise forms, and not touched on the issues that most concern me in thinking about the socialism/capitalism issue. Those concern the mastery and the welfare of the immediate producers, whether farmers, factory workers, traders or others, and the possibility of "genuine" forms of cooperation and welfare emerging within such a system. . . issues that I hope others will move to the fore in future discussions.
Competition with a fabulous prize
> What about of write in spanish? Jeg synes dere ango-amerikanske kulturimperialister skulle skrive paa norsk paa pen-l! :-) :-) Competition with a prize: I offer to host the first penner who decodes the above, if he/she wants to visit Trondheim (but Scandinavian penners are not allowed to participate!) chauvinistically yours, --- | Trond Andresen ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) | | Department of Engineering Cybernetics | | The Norwegian Institute of Technology | | N-7034 Trondheim, NORWAY| | | | phone +47 73 59 43 58 | | fax +47 73 59 43 99 | ---
Re: WE CAN DO BETTER (correction)
Date sent: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 04:54:43 -0700 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (M+ de Lourdes Mendicuti) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Re: WE CAN DO BETTER (correction) > > > > > I have just been reviewing the pen-l list. I see many names who have never > > posted. I see people from all over the world. > > > > I read about horrific things occuring around us. > > > > Most of us would like to see the left given a bigger voice in so far as > > economics and economic affairs are concerned. > > > > In short, I think that we can make a better use of pen-l. What do you think? > > -- > > Michael Perelman > > Economics Department > > California State University > > Chico, CA 95929 > > > > Tel. 916-898-5321 > > 916-898-6141 messages > > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > $$$ > > > > > What about to write in spanish? > > MA. DE LOURDES MENDICUTI NAVARRO. > DEPTO. TEORIA ECONOMICA > U. DE BARCELONA > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Very good idea, indeed! Markus Sovala Bitnet: sovala@finuh University of Helsinki Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Economics Phone:+358-0-1918909 PL 54 (Snellmaninkatu 14) Fax: +358-0-1918877 FIN-00014 Helsingin yliopisto Home: +358-0-3952251 Finland
Re: WE CAN DO BETTER (correction)
> > > > > I have just been reviewing the pen-l list. I see many names who have never > > posted. I see people from all over the world. > > > > I read about horrific things occuring around us. > > > > Most of us would like to see the left given a bigger voice in so far as > > economics and economic affairs are concerned. > > > > In short, I think that we can make a better use of pen-l. What do you think? > > -- > > Michael Perelman > > Economics Department > > California State University > > Chico, CA 95929 > > > > Tel. 916-898-5321 > > 916-898-6141 messages > > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > $$$ > > > > > What about to write in spanish? > > MA. DE LOURDES MENDICUTI NAVARRO. > DEPTO. TEORIA ECONOMICA > U. DE BARCELONA > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
Re: WE CAN DO BETTER
> > I have just been reviewing the pen-l list. I see many names who have never > posted. I see people from all over the world. > > I read about horrific things occuring around us. > > Most of us would like to see the left given a bigger voice in so far as > economics and economic affairs are concerned. > > In short, I think that we can make a better use of pen-l. What do you think? > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA 95929 > > Tel. 916-898-5321 > 916-898-6141 messages > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] > $$$ What about of write in spanish? MA. DE LOURDES MENDICUTI NAVARRO. DEPTO. TEORIA ECONOMICA U. DE BARCELONA E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
i need some anecdotal evidence
Dear Femeconers and Penners: most of you know by now that i am writing two proposals for fipse (fund for the improvement of post secondary ed). one is on mentoring for women phd candidates. this is going well. i have 14 letters of intent from potential mentors and letters from grad. students at 10 schools. also letters from famous people who support the idea including graduate programs at princeton and nyu and hopefully michigan's letter will come in today. the second proposal is for undergraduate economics education at four historically black universities. in this project the staff at fipse has asked me to defend the contention that while it is clearly important for economics to have better racial representation (i.e., more african american, hispanic american, practitioners) is it necessarily better for the individuals who actually go to grad. school to try to become those practitioners? or, in the language of the staff "are they acting like kamakazee's for their race?" does anyone have any anecdotal evidence on this point? a lit. search revealed no comparative stats. on black/white placement rates upon completion of the phd. so, i pose the following question: of all the african american graduate students in economics ***YOU HAVE KNOWN*** have any failed to find employment as economists? comparing the african american graduate students in economics with the european american grad. students in economics, have you observed any significant differences in job offers and/or ultimate placement immediately after grad. school? this information can be in any field related to economics or public policy or even business. please reply as soon as possible so i can incorporate into text. thanks in advance. susan
Re: Stigler & 93% LTV
Dear Ajit, the following from Ch. 1 of the book by Kurz and myself can be useful to you. While Smith had a clear understanding of the tendency for the rate of profits to uniformity in competitive conditions, he had failed to provide a consistent and logically sound solution to the problem of how the level of the rate of profits was determined. It was this problem which was a main focus of Ricardo. In terms of economic method Ricardo expresses full agreement with Adam Smith. In chapter IV of On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation, the first edition of which was published in 1817, he praises Smith for having "most ably treated" all that concerns the question of natural versus market prices. Ricardo's discussion of the issue is essentially a lucid summary of Smith's argument with perhaps a single, but important difference. This concerns the greater emphasis given to the decisions of profit-seeking capital owners in general and of the members of the "monied class", i.e. financial capitalists, in particular. Ricardo starts out quite conventionally: "Whilst every man is free to employ his capital where he pleases, he will naturally seek for it that employment which is most advantageous; he will naturally be dissatisfied with a profit of 10 per cent., if by removing his capital he can obtain a profit of 15 per cent. This restless desire on the part of all the employers of stock, to quit a less profitable for a more advantageous business, has a strong tendency to equalize the rate of profits of all, or to fix them in such proportions, as may in the estimation of the parties, compensate for any advantage which one may have, or may appear to have over the other" (Works, I, pp. 88-9). Ricardo adds that it is "perhaps very difficult to trace the steps by which this change is effected" (ibid., p. 89). What can be said, though, is that the adjustment process does not require capitalists absolutely to change their business. Relative changes in the employment of capital will do. It is in this context that Ricardo draws the attention to the role of monied men and bankers. These are possessed of "a circulating capital [i.e. liquid funds] of a large amount", and since "There is perhaps no manufacturer, however rich, who limits his business to the extent that his own funds alone will allow: he has always some portion of this floating capital, increasing or diminishing according to the activity of the demand for his commodities" (ibid., p. 89). Because of this "floating capital", Ricardo surmises, profit rate deviations are reduced more rapidly: "we must confess that the principle which apportions capital to each trade in the precise amount that is required, is more active than is generally supposed" (ibid., p. 90). Ricardo summarizes the argument: "It is then the desire, which every capitalist has, of diverting his funds from a less to a more profitable employment, that prevents the market price of commodities from continuing for any length of time either much above, or much below their natural price. It is this competition which so adjusts the exchangeable value of commodities, that after paying the wages for the labour necessary to their production, and all other expenses required to put the capital employed in its original state of efficiency, the remaining value or overplus will in each trade be in proportion to the value of the capital employed" (ibid., p. 91). On the premise that the argument holds good, and on the further premise that a general analysis of market prices would be impossible anyway, it appears to be perfectly sensible to set aside altogether the "temporary effects" produced by "accidental causes", and to focus on "the laws which regulate natural prices, natural wages and natural profits, effects totally independent of these accidental causes" (ibid., p. 92). Ricardo criticized Smith's explanation of these normal levels of prices and the distributive variables as erroneous. Since in Ricardo's view the problem of income distribution "is the principal problem in Political Economy" (Works I, p. 6), his main concern was with elaborating a coherent theory of the rate of profits, based on the concept of surplus: "Profits come out of the surplus produce" (Ricardo, Works II, pp. 130-1; similarly I, p. 95). The development of Ricardo's thoughts on the matter can be divided into four steps (cf. Sraffa, 1951, pp. xxxi-xxxiii; see also Garegnani, 1984, and De Vivo, 1987). These steps reflect Ricardo's consecutive attempts to simplify the problem of distribution. The first step consisted in eliminating the problem of the rent of land in terms of the theory of extensive rent developed in Ricardo's Essay on the Influence of a low Price of Corn on the Profits of Stock, published in 1815 (see Works IV). This allowed him to focus attention on marginal, i.e. no-rent, land: "By getting rid of rent, which we may do on the corn produced with the capital last emp
MTV--- a reply to Hugo and Ajit
A brief reply to the comments of Hugo Radice and Ajit Sinha. I'm not certain if they had seen my response to Jim Devine on the question of the equality *by definition* of total abstract labour and total concrete labour. (I think I may be having the same problem that Ajit complained about--- my use of the "reply" mechanism has sent at least one pen-intended message into cyberlimbo.) Hugo comments: "Thanks to Jim Devine for noting Mike Lebowitz' proposal of "equality" between total abstract and concrete labour. Surely a mistake here? You can't aggregate concrete labours in any socially meaningful sense - that's why the concept of abstract labour is so important." I certainly agree that one cannot aggregate concrete labours for matters relating to the value of any particular commodities--- which is why the concept of abstract labour is critical. However, abstract labour doesn't drop from the sky (or from someone's brain); at any given point there is a total of this abstract homogeneous social labour which is the common element in commodities. I think it is obvious that this total is composed of all the different types of concrete labour (differing both with respect to degrees of skill and to the types of use-values they produce) contained in commodities at a given point; and, further, each *unit* of of this abstract labour (ie., the "standard" unit or the "socially average unit") has the same composition of skill and type as the total of concrete labour. (Again, "the total labour-power of society . counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labour-power, although composed of innumerable individual units of labour power.") From the above, it would follow,too, that value would correspond to the concrete labour in a commodity *only* where that particular commodity is produced by the standard (or socially average) labour--- ie., where it has that average composition of labour. I confess that I am thinking some of this out right now and that I asserted the equality of total abstract and concrete labour in order to see if it generated a response. My question to Jim, Hugo and Ajit is --- if the total abstract social labour is *not* the total concrete labour, what is it and where does it come from? In responding to Hugo, I've also answered some of Ajit's points. He makes the following statement, though: "In all these exercises, abstract labor does not mean anything more than simple unskilled labor, and as simple unskilled labor they are added up together." I think I've made it clear above that I think abstract labour is not simply reducing degrees of skill to a common level of unskilled labour but also involves the reduction of different kinds of actual concrete labour to one homogeneous labour in general (which preserves within it all the particular types). Ajit also poses the following question: "Secondly, when you say aggregate labor, is it aggregate of (v+s) only or (c+v+s) as Marx does? Of course, Dumenil et al take only (v+s). Are you totally convienced that c should be discarded? If so why?" I'm not going to touch that one at all at this time! It opens up a rather new subject. Ajit has promised a critique of Dumenil, Foley,etc when he returns from NYC, and I'm sure the issue will be introduced then. This is a subject (constant capital) that Michael Perelman is certain to want to discuss,too. I'll only note (to give Ajit a local target) that, yes, I agree with Dumenil, etc on this. in solidarity, mike Mike Lebowitz, Economics Dept.,Simon Fraser University Burnaby,B.C., Canada V5A 1S6 Office: (604) 291-3508 or 291-4669 Home: (604) 255-0382 Lasqueti Island refuge: Lasqueti Island, B.C. Canada V0R 2J0 (604) 333-8810 e-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bosnia and the U.S. Left
On Wed, 13 Apr 1994, Walter Daum wrote: > Cross-posted from pen-l, where Ajit Sinha's message first appeared. > > To Ajit Sinha: > > The problem is, you assume that the oppressed groups are monolithic and that > "listening carefully" to what they say will provide one answer. > [...] > > Whose voice do you hear from Bosnia these days? Probably mostly the Izetbegovic > government's. Are there working-class organizations? Non-religious groups? Can > you rely on the U.S. media to decide for you who is the voice of the oppressed? > > Walter Daum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > If not the U.S. media, what about Amnesty International? -Hank-
From the Onion Fields (struggle)
I intended to post the following to PEN-L as an example of email activism. I think I forgot, but it is short so here it is (again?) - Sam Lanfranco [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Lucas Rosenberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: URGENT Justice in onion fields URGENT ACTION FOR JUSTICE IN THE ONION FIELDS Please support the UFW in their current struggle to improve wages and working and living conditions for thousands of workers who pick onions here in the Rio Grande Valley and throughout the country. The text below is currently being distributed in the form of a postcard which can be addressed to onion growers and distributors so that consumers and other citizens can show their concern and solidarity. Please help by researching names and addresses of onion growers and distributors in your area and copying this text so that more consumers can show their support. One of the largest onion-growing conglomerates, with operations both in the US and Mexico, is Griffin & Brand. If you are not aware of any other onion growers in your area, please send postcards and letters to Othal Brand (also mayor of McAllen, TX). The address is: Othal Brand Griffin & Brand PO Box 1840 McAllen, TX 78505-1840 !! VIVA LA CAUSA !! Cesar, tu memoria vive en la lucha... SAMPLE TEXT OF POSTCARD / LETTER - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dear __, You have been paying farmworkers 50-60 cents per onion sack weighing approximately 70-80 lbs. As consumers we pay up to 89 cents/lb for onions. Workers receive less than 1 cent/lb of what we pay for onions at the market. The rest of the food industry, from the grower to the grocer, lives well in comparison to the men, women and children who harvest the onions. Also you have been requiring workers to harvest onions in a 6- gallon container, which weighs about 35-40 pounds when full. Using this heavy container increases the risk of disabling back problems common among farm workers. We urge you to quit this practice now and allow workers to use the smaller 5-gallon container. Exploitation of farmworkers is unacceptable to us. We stand with the farm workers in their effort to raise onion wages to $1.25 a sack and to use the 5-gallon harvesting container. We urge you to be socially responsible in your business practice. Signed ___ Address __ City/ZIP _
