Corporate Class Solidarity, Former IBM Workers Claim HealthAffects; Airlines Exempt from Domestic Partner Ord.
Barron's Online -- April 13, 1998 Ties Among Corporate Directors: The Missing Link to CEOs' Fatter Pay By GENE EPSTEIN Some corporate CEOs are paid too much. We all know that. But in an era where just about everything else has been downsized at least once, why have the paychecks of even mediocre corporate bosses been enlarged time and time again? For a number of them, the reason harks back to a buzz phrase popularized by certain muckrakers of yore: "interlocking directorates." It turns out that when an executive of company A serves on the board of company B, and when an executive of company B serves on the board of company A, the CEOs of both reap a special benefit. According to the findings of Kevin Hallock, an economics professor at the University of Illinois, their compensation runs 14%-17% higher than it otherwise would. With those in charge of fully 123 of the very largest publicly traded companies blessed in this way, the virus of crony capitalism seems to have infected some of those stocks we love to hold. I would gladly divulge exactly which stocks and which CEOs (I was even planning to run their photos) if it weren't for the unfortunate fact that Hallock's research is drawn from 1992 data. Since a lot of those interlocks could have been unlocked since then, it would be unkind to smear some unlucky corporate captain who had suddenly gone straight. Moreover, our economist's case should be regarded as strictly circumstantial, based as it is merely on an examination of who sits on what board and which CEOs earn what sums. Because he couldn't spy on the meetings where the final decisions were made, and doesn't even know who served on the compensation committees that served up the recommendations, we can only speculate as to what kinds of smoking guns we'd find if we really could be a fly on the wall. No doubt, a lot of different kinds. Hallock points out that even where the reciprocity doesn't involve the chief executives themselves, there might still be a subtle conspiracy among the subordinates to boost their chiefs' pay. Take a situation in which a senior VP from company X serves on company Z's board and a senior VP from company Z serves on company X's. The two might have powerful incentives to link up and boost the fortunes of their respective masters. When the top dog benefits, the lesser hounds eat better, too, not to mention the fact that they probably each hope to someday sit in his chair. At the least, they can earn points by providing information to their boss that might help him elicit higher pay. Among the 123 firms he isolated, Hallock found that the CEOs' interlock-related premium ran 14%. But then he asked: Would the premium be even higher for those firms that displayed prima facie evidence of a cronyism born of true intimacy? Among 69 of the 123, the interlock between firms was associated with a business relationship, usually of the supplier/customer sort. However, among the other 54, there was no business relationship, a sure sign that something special had to have occurred for the interlock to have formed. Maybe two CEOs play golf together or work out in the same health club or were boys together in B-school or slept in the same bunkhouse way back when at summer camp. Out of this past or present association, one of them starts serving on the board of the other's firm... . In any case, Hallock found that, for these 54 corporations, the interlock-related premium did go up, to 17%. As for why the information dates back to 1992, our economist began the research in early '94, when he was a graduate student, and a staggering amount of time and effort was required to pull the information together. Working alone, he began with lists of the Forbes 500 that are assembled according to four criteria: sales, profits, assets and market value. After eliminating overlaps among these categories, he came up with 773 companies. He then had to match the names of the people who served on their boards with those of their past and present officers. In the end, he found that reliable information was available for 602 of the companies on the list (9,804 director seats in all, held by 7,519 individuals). Out of these 602, 123, or about one-fifth, turned out to be interlocked in the sense that current or former employees were mutually serving on the boards of paired firms. Hallock then found the "return to interlock" by first controlling for all the other factors that affect the differences in CEO compensation: size (large corporations pay better), industry (financial firms pay more, regulated companies less), CEO age (older ones get more), and stock performance (the better the shares have been doing, the better the CEO normally does). Compensation was defined as salary and bonus, plus fringe benefits such as savings-plan contributions and companysupplied insurance. Data on the bestowal of stock options were too
Re: Fed lowers margin requirements
Doug, Your pal over at Grant's is famous for two things: being a genius and being wrong about the markets consistently for the past five years. Live and learn, Doug, the truth is what the bourgeoisie makes it. peace
MAI April 28, 1998 Agenda, Reuters (fwd)
Forwarded message: >From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Apr 12 01:00:49 1998 Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: MAI April 28, 1998 Agenda, Reuters (fwd) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 17:59:46 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Status: X-UID: 531 > Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 03:08:00 -0400 (EDT) > From: Consumer Unity & Trust Society <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [mai] Response to the article 'MAI is dead, Long live the MAI' > > > ** Reuters article on the status of the MAI.** > > OECD investment pact "not dead," just convalescing > > 08:37 a.m. Mar 26, 1998 Eastern > > PARIS, March 26 (Reuters) - An OECD treaty on investment liberalisation > is not dead even if an initially hoped-for deal by end-April is no > longer on the cards, OECD Deputy Secretary General Joanna Shelton > said on Thursday. > > "Contrary to reports saying otherwise, the MAI treaty is not dead. > MAI remains very much alive at the OECD," Shelton told reporters. > > "Yes, there is a time problem. This is simply proving more complex > than thought at the beginning. Every agreement is toughest at the > end," she said. > > U.S., French and other key players said after talks in mid-February > the treaty -- called the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) > -- was far from acceptable and the U.S. team at the talks said they > saw no deal by the end-April deadline. > > Since then, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development > has been going to considerable lengths to keep the momentum going > and saying the project will survive, even if it has taken a knock. > > Rather than go for broad political agreement on the treaty at the > annual ministerial meeting on April 27-28, the OECD's Paris-based > secretariat is now limiting its ambitions to securing a renewed > political mandate. > > Shelton told a news briefing the treaty might have stalled but that > representatives of the 29 OECD countries as well as the European > Commission made it clear at a meeting here last week there was a > unanimous political will for it. > > The April 27-28 meeting was expected to back this up with a fresh > negotiating mandate. > > While bilateral agreements exist between many OECD states on fair > treatment of investors, the OECD treaty is a first attempt to create > an extensive, multilateral pact obliging countries to treat foreign > investors in the same way as they treat their own. > > Among other things, the treaty could affect national rules on > foreign ownership restriction, notably in the domain of corporate > privatisation, as well as the way governments hand out subsidies. > > One of the main snags in the talks is the insistence by France and > several other major players that the U.S. repeal trade sanctions > legislation such as the Helms-Burton Act against Cuba on the > grounds that the U.S. cannot have laws which also hit at other > countries doing business with Havana. > > Shelton stressed that the Helms-Burton conflict was being dealt > with elsewhere than at the OECD -- mainly between the European > Commission in Brussels and Washington -- but she conceded that a > deal on this issue was crucial. > > ``It is very important that it is resolved so that the political > atmosphere on MAI can be positive,'' she said. > > U.S. negotiators said in February that they could not live with > the treaty as it was shaping up and noted that they had problems > with exceptions being negotiated from the rule of non-discrimination. > > Those included a waiver clause to protect European government > actions linked to European Union integration. > > France is also insisting along with Canada that cultural material, > for the large part cinema, be exempted from the investment > liberalisation treaty, as it was from free trade rules at the World > Trade Organisation in Geneva. > > Other OECD officials at the briefing said Frans Engering, who is > standing down after three years chairing MAI treaty talks in Paris, > had produced new proposals last week in an attempt to generate a > consensus on protection of the environment and labour standards. > > One of the officials said four key proposals had been put on the > table, including an important new provision which would legally > oblige signatory states not to compete for inward investment by > lowering labour or environment standards. > > ((Brian Love, Paris newsroom, +33 1 4221 5452, fax +33 1 4236 1072, > paris.newsroom+reuters.com)) > > Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited > > Yours sincerely, > > Raghav Narsalay, Policy Analysist > Consumer Unity & Trust Society, > Centre for International Trade, Economics & Environment, > D-218, Bhaskar Marg, Bani Park, Jaipur 302 016, India > Ph: 91.141.202 940/205 802 (W), 213 581/210 280 (H) > Fx: 91.141.202 968/203
Australian Update #1
G'day Penners, Believe it or not, Oz is actually an interesting place to be just now. Some things remain the same (whilst most people you meet are far from openly racist, the political culture of the place still oppresses Aboriginees much more than occurs in Canada or the US) and some things are new (explicitly government-authored union-busting has arrived on our shores). Both sides in our primarily two-party system (the governing Liberal/National coalition, to the economically neo-classical & socially conservative right, and the 'soc-dem' Labor Party, who share the economics if not the social agenda) are well into election mode. PM John Howard has the option to call an election any time this year. Current weight of opinion favours August, as the September quarter figures are expected to show some nasty trends (our economy does not share SE Asian fundamentals but it does share the geography). Anyway, if interest on the list maintains, you'll be hearing of the central characters quite a lot - here they are as I see 'em (the central issues and amateur analyses will be introduced next time 'round): The Coalition Government has a big majority but the necessary swing remains tantalisingly attainable in very volatile times. PM John Howard: the one rightist of working class origins, the most socially conservative of 'em all, and a life-long economic rationalist of the old Phillips Curve stripe. Genuinely can't see the contradiction between his economics and his 'family values' 'vision'. Treasurer Peter Costello: Hardly 40 years old and an insufferably arrogant lawyer who made his name at the bar by thrashing unions. Probably the most blinkered economic rationalist of 'em all, and favoured for the succession. Minister for Sacking Workers and Thrashing Unions, Peter Reith: Born-to-rule type, Costello's main rival for the succession - but that all depends on how smoothly he puts the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) - of which much more later - to the sword. Leader of the Opposition is Kim Beazley, a well-educated, politically bred, big, messy, jovial, technocratic populist with the sort of amorphous politics any American or Brit socdem watcher would recognise. 'A nice fella'. The MUA's John Coombs: The bloke who leads the historically strong MUA, the target of the government's union-busting strategy (details of which come in the next post). Patricks Stevedores: The corporate instrument selected for the destruction of the MUA. Corrigan is the CEO. Wik: The issue over which the government has been taking some big hits over the last year - both from the radical right (Pauline Hanson's mob) and the 'left', ie. the 'small l' Liberals. It's to do with land rights and the 'politics of the bush' (rural constituencies may be decisive in the election, and the leading issue there is between traditional land identification of Aboriginees and pastoral lease-holders who are trying to squeeze de facto free-hold rights out of the fight). More soon. Cheers, Rob.
Class and indigenous roots of the Guatemalan revolution
Capitalist Guatemala's oppression of the Indian majority population has many similarities with Peru's. The Spanish invaders conquered Mayan Indians in Guatemala and Incas in Peru. Afterwards they introduced a feudal system whose trappings lingered on long after the introduction of capitalist property relations in the 19th century. Rural latifundios incorporated the worst features of feudalism and capitalism. The Indian or meztiso peasants could only find seasonal work and the landed gentry found all sorts of ways to cheat them out of a fair wage. The state intervened on behalf of the big agrarian bourgeoisie to make sure that this modern version of serfdom stayed intact. The bourgeois revolution promises free soil and free labor. In Guatemala, such a revolution never really took place. The introduction of coffee cultivation in 19th century Guatemala laid the foundations for the semi-feudal oppression of the Mayan Indians. In 1860, there were no coffee exports. 13 years later, the coffee bourgeoisie was exporting 15 million pounds a year. In order to free up land for coffee production, the communal lands of the Indian had to be stolen. This was done in 1877 when the Liberal regime of Juan Rufino Barrios abolished communal ownership of the land. Barrios also subdivided the Mayans into 3 groups. One were 'colonos,' who contracted to live and work on the plantations. The second were 'jornaledos habilitados,' who had to work as indentured servants to pay off debts to the plantation owner. The third became 'jornaledos no habilitados,' who promised to work for a number of years without any advance. There were white overlords in each department where Indians lived, who processed requests for forced labor, in which the Indian had to work from a week to a month each year. This system gave way to a form of debt-bondage in 1894, which the state officially recognized. In 1934, the state abolished the debt-bondage system, but a set of "Vagrancy Laws" took its place. These laws compelled Indians to work 150 days a year if they cultivated less than one and five-sixteenth 'manzanas' of land, 100 days a year if they cultivated more. There were other ways to trick the Indian into forced labor. Anthropologist Ruth Bunzel reported that during periods of labor shortage, the cops would throw large numbers of Indians into jail for petty offenses and impose heavy fines that they could only work off by picking coffee on the plantation. She wrote, "When partway drunk, an Indian will sell his soul for more liquor: upon this the finca [plantation] system is based." Between October and January, "...every few days the bell in Chichicastenango is tolled to commemorate the passing of some citizen who has 'died in the finca.' The bodies are not brought back...So effectual are the familiar devices of colonial exploitation, alcoholism, easy credit, debt indebture, and liability for debts to the third generation, that once caught in the system, escape is difficult." In the 1940s an emerging class of urban professionals and merchants sought to modernize Guatemala and break the dependency on coffee exports. They were a nationalist formation that had much in common with other such parties in Latin America, such as the APRA in Peru or the Peronistas in Argentina. Their goal was not socialism, but modernization and industrialization within a national framework. The working-class movement in Guatemala, including the Communist Party, identified and worked with this movement. Jacobo Arbenz, the candidate of this movement, came to power in 1954. One of his primary goals was radical land reform. This put him on a collision course with the United Fruit Company which owned millions of acres of untilled land in Guatemala that it held in reserve for future banana plantings. The land-hungry campesino had deep hopes that they would receive titles to land, which would allow them to grow their own food and produce a surplus for the market. It was also the hope of Arbenz's reformers that such a class of petty producers would form the basis of capitalist development through internal markets and trade with other Central American nations. The United States would permit no such development. It was not only opposed to Communism, it was opposed to radical bourgeois nationalism. The prerogatives of US corporations came first, even if this meant joining forces with a semi-feudal oligarchy in Guatemala. The CIA conspired with Guatemalan officers to overthrow Arbenz and they were successful. The Mayan Indians were only a secondary player in the 1954 revolution. This no doubt explains the ease with which it was overthrown. Arbenz's Ladino reformers were anxious to eradicate the oppression of the Indian, but were not willing to go the full route and raise up the Indian as equal partners in the national revolutionary process. The weakness of Arbenz's social base therefore led to his isolation and eventual defeat. The overthrow of Arbenz led to a deepening of the agr
Re: Enough already
G'day Michael, >I don't think that we are making much headway here. Max and Nathan approve >of >the Dem's strategy. Others don't. In Oz, the law requires that we vote (a good idea, I think - imagine how different US history might have been) - anyway, it has been some time since I've voted with passion, but I feel that, just as tuberculosis is much 'better' than lung cancer (at least whilst effective antibiotics pertain) so is voting day still important in politics. But politics is a poor and hopeless thing indeed if it be confined to a choice between diseases once every three or four years... >Recall what Chao en Lai said about the French Rev.: "It's too early to tell." Did Mao pinch that once? I seem to remember him telling an American journalist something like this in the '60s ... Cheers, Rob.
'punter'
G'day Penners, >> Speaking of jargon, Dennis, what's a "punter"? > >A Wall Street professional, a.k.a. stock broker (that restrained, sober >term for silicon highway robbery). Any etymological-minded political >economists out there know if this was originally a Victorian >word or what? Appears in both English and Australian literature, going back towards the turn of the century (and still the term of choice here), as another word for racetrack gambler. In Britain it now refers to anyone who might pay for a service - perhaps implying that *caveat emptor* is insufficient in the purchase of services and information, as, by definition, you can't examine the commodity prior to purchase, and any purchase constitutes a gamble. Implying the exchange of information and services should be regulated rather than deregulated. If this inference is not there, it should be. Cheers, Rob.
Re: PJ's critique: US vs. Europe
.. . . > Fine, anyone who has ever spent a month in Europe can dig PJ's meaning, > but so what? If our guardian angel waved her remote tuner and magically > produced a parliamentary system, given the nutbar of obsessions stalking > our fractured so-called society there would be more single-issue parties > than the UN has countries, and our MPs would arrive for work each day just > as drunk or Prozacked-out as required to stay sane. > What's more, I can't imagine that a period of rational shake-out and > coalescence could occur soon enough to forestall a total meltdown. > > That's my nightmare and I'm sticking to it. Does anyone have a happier > vision of an American parliament? Sure. If we think progressive ideologies in suitably pure distillate form would truly be compelling, then we ought to look forward to a setting where some minorities parties could form and propound such ideologies. At the start, as you say, we'd have a tower of babble, but we ought to evolve from there. mbs == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: US vs. Europe (was: Democrats, labor leaders and NAFTA/IMF)
> The answer as to why class politics did not emerge in the US with > an electoral manifestaion as opposed to > Europe is SIMPLE. (Skocpol's analysis is so beside the point it is I think this is a good point, though your confidence in its veracity is a little breath-taking. I would note that for the same reasons, we have not had fascism in the U.S. Second, for all the shortcomings of the system, there was a significant change in structure--mostly for the better--between 1935 and 1950 which laid the basis for our welfare state, which we didn't previously have. So there has been some evolution, if not as much as in Europe. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Australian Update #1
> G'day Penners, > > Believe it or not, Oz is actually an interesting place to be just now. No doubt. One thing I'm hearing more about from my dear friends at the Heritage Foundation is the great experiment in privatization of social insurance in Australia enacted by your blessed social democrats. Wonder if you'd care to elaborate on this. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: US vs. Europe (was: Democrats, labor leaders and NAFTA/IMF)
>From Jim D. (no slouch himself in the word-count department), > Max writes: >I'd say what caused it to break down was, among otherthings, > that the Democrats promoted the interests of blacks without due attention > to working class interests in general.< > > Do you have any evidence of this? It's pretty clear the Dems (like the > GOPs) have never responded too "working class interests in general" but > have always responded to campaign contributions (which includes those of > the AFL-CIO) and to any groupings which can pressure the party. So it must > be that you're talking about the Dems promoting the interests of blacks > without due attention to the interest of whites? or are you? if so, do you > have evidence? I should qualify by saying that by promoting the interests of blacks, I mean a relatively legalistic, middle-class approach to civil rights. Forthright efforts to help working class blacks ended when the community action phase of the War on Poverty was shut down, around 1969 (the infamous Edith Green amendment) mostly at the demands of white ethnic city machine politicians. After that, the money kept flowing, but it was distributed in the form of transfer payments rather than for economic and social (really political) development. Tom Edsall has discussed the inception of trends in regressive tax policy in Congress in the early 1970's. Then there was of course the Carter Presidency, which launched Reaganomics (capital gains tax relief, deregulation, a slow-down in social spending, and Paul Volcker). You are right to question this (if not other) points I raised, since it was among the more speculative. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: DNC fund-raising
> My god, way back in the mid-1980's _Ron Brown_ was the DNC chair, before > the DLC took over the Democratic Party from the alliance of Cold War > Keynesians (like Humphrey and Mondale) and Dixiecrats. The DLC doesn't control the party. It doesn't even control its own members. The DLC meets a couple of times a year for the purpose of talking to itself and bringing funders together with politicians. There is a national apparatus controlled by the White House and a gaggle of rentiers, bigfoot attorneys, etc. As many have said, it has no mass base. It has mailing lists. There are campaign committees for the House and SEnate which are mostly shells for the national apparatus, but which have some input from House and Senate members. Then there are state parties and local clubs which are mostly disconnected and subject to the whims of elected officials. Below the level of the national party, there is basically an atomized universe of groups, personalities, constituencies, etc. The lack of unity in the party serves the weasels at the top, who thrive in the resulting vacuum. By contrast, the extent of coordination among Republicans is striking. At the same time, however, the relatively unified GOP apparatus is shot through with major ideological conflicts. The lack of ideology on the Dem side dovetails with the anarchy below the top and the control of the party franchise, such as it is, by the few. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: EPI Environmental Economist
> In a message dated 98-04-10 17:10:37 EDT, max writes: > > << Feel free > to regale him with your pet nostrums of vegetarian > leninism ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). > >> > ah, but can we regale him with vegetarian stalinism? inquiring minds want to > know. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] By all means, let a hundred cabbages bloom. MBS
Re: Enough already
> I don't think that we are making much headway here. Max and Nathan approve of the > Dem's strategy. Others don't. The proof: I challenge anybody to show that I have said anywhere that "I approve of the Dem's strategy." First of all, there is no "Dem's strategy." There is no "Dem's," and there is no strategy. There are diverse groupings of Dems, none of whom have any strategy, as far as I can see. Nor do I think EPI has a strategy, for that matter. You could say I think positive, incremental, reformist proposals from Dems should be supported, and that in the absence of any left alternative, Dems should be voted for in preference to Republicans, but that an alternative politics based on direct action and independent political organizing needs to be pursued. To me these are all complementary activities. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: US vs. Europe (was: Democrats, labor leaders and NAFTA/IMF)
> . . . > Agreed, California might be more ethnically diverse than any other state in > the US, but that does not explain why class politics did not develop in, > say, Massachussetts, Wisconsin or Kentucky. The point I am making is that > while the US as a whole migh be diverse, individual regions or states are > less so. So to support your claim of the effect of diversity on class > politics you would have to show me some correlation between ethnolinguistic > heterogeneity in cities and states and the development of class-based > politics in those regions. I am not saying such correlation does not > exist, all I am saying it must be demonstrated using the appriopriate unit > of analysis. An abiding feature of U.S. politics cutting against the grain of class is SECTIONAL rivalry, which rivalry was obviously due in great part to slavery and the disparate economies implied by the rural South versus the industrial North. So race was crucial but to some extent was manifested in sectional conflict. The democratic party in the South was viewed as a defender of regional interests, which in turn were based on racial considerations, among others, and loyalty to the Dems was a major obstacle to the development of class politics. Your point about the diversity of Europe is well-taken, but maybe the difference is that within nation-states, there was relative homogeneity, whereas the significance of this would not follow in the U.S. because are states are constitutionally subordinate to the national government. I was thinking about your point about the Jews in Germany and East (now 'Central') Europe. My impression is that German Jews tended to concentrate in the professional and petit-bourgeois classes, so they would not present an issue for working class unity. Poland was obviously a different story. Maybe Poland's Jews, while poor, tended not to work in large establishments where working class organizing would have flourished most. I don't know. > . . . > two factors, certain arbitrariness of the national borders (hence German > minority in France, Romanian minority in Hungary, Swedish minority in > Finland, etc.) as well as the presence of ethnic group without a state (cf. > Basque minority, Roma people, Jews before WWII, Ukrainians, etc.). That My bet is that social-democratic or labor movements in these countries largely proceeded in neglect of these minorities, so the phenomenon of 'national socialism' (small n, small s) could have prevailed. > If your logic were correct, we should not see the emergence of the Labour > Party in the UK torn by the ethnic strife, or the strong labor movements > and parties in ethnically divided Spain, or in Germany. Did these labor movements incorporate minorities in their period of inception and growth? > . . . > - geographical expansion of the empire (or rather how that expansion was > played out by the elites, Russia might provide a good counterfactual here); U.S. expansion was clearly an outlet for all sorts of social pressures, though we are still left with the question of why the end of this expansion did not precipitate more class politics. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
PJ's critique: US vs. Europe
PJM writes: > The answer as to why class politics did not emerge in the US with > an electoral manifestation as opposed to > Europe is SIMPLE. (Skocpol's analysis is so beside the point it is > embarrassing.) It is the difference in the electoral systems. He then proceeds with a cogent explanation centering on the absence of ideologically-based parties and the accumulation of government mechanisms now ranged against their future development. Fine, anyone who has ever spent a month in Europe can dig PJ's meaning, but so what? If our guardian angel waved her remote tuner and magically produced a parliamentary system, given the nutbar of obsessions stalking our fractured so-called society there would be more single-issue parties than the UN has countries, and our MPs would arrive for work each day just as drunk or Prozacked-out as required to stay sane. What's more, I can't imagine that a period of rational shake-out and coalescence could occur soon enough to forestall a total meltdown. That's my nightmare and I'm sticking to it. Does anyone have a happier vision of an American parliament? valis
Re: US vs. Europe (was: Democrats, labor leaders and NAFTA/IMF)
The answer as to why class politics did not emerge in the US with an electoral manifestaion as opposed to Europe is SIMPLE. (Skocpol's analysis is so beside the point it is embarassing.) It is the difference in the electoral systems. Ideological political parties are produced by electoral systems that have more parties and hence real party competition. Party competition results in parties that are ideologically defined and relatively responsive to their base (again ideologically defined). The transition from mass movement to politcal party(s) is natural under such circumstances because the parties to a great degree actually represent the interests of the movement. On top of that, the ability of a party once in goverment to actually enact legislative reform strengthens the relationship between party and movememt. Structurally, the US is completely different. We don't have ideological parties because of the structure of the electoral system (Single member districts, strong executive, divided government and federal separation of powers, blah, blah.). The effectiveness of movements/parties is further short circuited by the procedural obstacles to legislative reform (that again are uniquely American). For instance, even if you did have the Socialist Party (USA) taking a majority of seats in the House, the Federal government is structured to make passing laws of any sort - and especially reform legislation -difficult. The great example of this, is that the primary financial backer (ie the AFL) of the "majority party" (the DP) was unable to get its prime legislative goal (ie labor law reform) through the Congress for 40 years (!). There is not another democratic political system on the planet (except perhaps Japan) where such a statement in even imaginable (or, more properly, makes logical sense) . The arguments about the Democratic Party so far are somewhat pointless, (like arguing about the tactile qualities of a cloud) because it is not really a party. Both the DP and GOP are loose electoral coalitions that are not accountable to a platform and with weak central organs of control. This of course makes politicians vulnerable to both movement pressure from below and money pressure from above, and money in more efficient at this by orders of magnitude.
Building a mass organization -- one more try -- forwarded from Z mag
I'm forwarding the following article by Michael Albert. It strikes me that in these times any new idea about building a mass left organization is worth considering. Any comments? Organization to Liberate Society? (May issue of Z magazine) By Michael Albert How big is the choir? How many more people have left values and hopes though they are not able to act on them? How many people with just a little explanation and prodding would be in this camp and on the road to activism? These are fair questions, it seems to me, to which no one has compelling answers. I recently heard about a web site that wants to find out. It is called Organization to Liberate Society or OLS for short (and you can find it at: http://www.olsols.org). They want to tally the choir, and help grow and mobilize it. You enter the site and read: "Are you tired of the rich getting richer and everyone else paying for it? Of the government being an appendage of the Fortune 500? Of not being able to have an effect on health care, education, your job, the economy, laws, and our culture? Of so much hypocrisy, injustice and just plain commercial rot? So are we. And as many as we are, as angry at injustice as we are, and as good-hearted as we are, if we can just get together we can make a big difference..." The next thing you read is: "Imagine an organization with a million members that grows at an accelerating rate. It has a program that stems from the needs and insights of its membership and it pursues its goals with vigor, creativity, and determination. It has an inclusive, participatory, democratic structure evolving in accord with its agenda and principles. And, finally, it's values and aims are congenial to anyone concerned about creating a truly humane society. Would you rejoice that such an institution existed? Would you lend it some of your energies? If you would join when it was large and effective, would you join just a little earlier, to help create this type organization?" OLS is for people who are "tired of national political organizations that are forced by their conditions to spend nearly all their time trying to determine or refine a program and structure, but which are too small for these to actually matter much, and (b) tired of having no way to know the size of the total community of people with broadly progressive values in the U.S., much less to reach it in a timely and effective manner." The OLS idea is to recruit, recruit, recruit until there are a million members, and only then to settle on national program. "The defining features of political organizations are generally their principles, structure, and program," reports the OLS web site. "OLS has five defining principles which the organization pledges to act on. OLS begins with virtually no internal structure -- only a membership list and this web site. What it becomes will be up to the people who make it real. Existing members promote and otherwise argue on behalf of OLS's principles and enlist new OLS members, creating local organizations and local program as they choose, until we are one million members strong. Then OLS will be large enough to decide on a more complex and ambitious national program and to develop needed supporting organizational structure." The site includes ideas about how to recruit, how to form local chapters, etc. and it has forms with which to sign up online. OLSs principles as stated on the site: A society is more liberated to the extent that fewer people are denied human rights or opportunities or in any way oppressed due to race, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual preference, property ownership, wealth, income, or statist authoritarianism and exclusion. Reducing and ultimately removing such hierarchies of reward, circumstance, status, or power would improve society. A society is more liberated to the degree that it fosters solidarity such that its citizens, by the actions they must take to survive and fulfill themselves, come to care about, promote, and benefit from one another's well being, rather than getting ahead only at one another's expense. A society is more liberated to the degree that its citizens enjoy comparably rewarding and demanding life experiences and equal incomes, assuming comparable effort and sacrifice on their parts to contribute to the social good. A society is more liberated to the extent that its citizens are able to democratically influence decisions proportionately as they are affected by those decisions and have the circumstances, knowledge, and information required for this level of participation. A society is more liberated to the exten
Re: DNC fund-raising
-Original Message- From: john gulick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >The DNC, while chagrined that it cannot compete w/the RNC, happily >announced that it raised $ 12 million towards its war chest, helping >to eradicate some of its 1996 campaign debt. (Corporate givers listed) >And the DNC (_not_ the DLC, but might as well be) was _gloating_ about >this. Those numbers are actually tiny compared to the overall spending by business on the Dems. In the 1995-96 election cycle, business contributed $259 million to the Democrats, far more than the $53 million spent by labor unions. (All this courtesy of the Center for Responsive Politics at http://www.crp.org/ with their in-depth breakdowns). So this means that Dems are all elected by business money and Labor has little role in the party? Again, like other reductionist analysis, this ignores the complications of the divided fight between business and labor. As the Center for Reponsive Politics notes, business PACS and contributors focus their money on incumbents of whichever party. Where stark differences between the party exist is when people first run for office before they have power. In the first year that the typical Democrat gets elected, the Center for Responsive Politics notes: "Among Democrats, PAC dollars from labor unions far outweighed all other sources." Once elected, business gives incumbent Democrats more money than labor, but it is labor unions that are usually the decisive factor in any Democrat winning office in the first place. (Interestingly, labor gives incumbent Democrats less on average than they give to insurgent newcomers.) Even Bernie Sanders receives $50,000 in business contributions each election cycle now that he's an incumbent. Business had traditionally given half its money to incumbent Democrats when they controlled Congress, but after 1994, this changed dramatically. According to the Center: "Beginning immediately after election day 1994, and continuing right through to election day 1996, business PACs gave solid majorities of their campaign dollars two dollars out of every three to Republican candidates. By the time the election cycle was over, Republicans had captured 70% of the business PAC dollars nearly a 20% jump over 1994, while Democrats declined by an equal margin." >My god, way back in the mid-1980's _Ron Brown_ was the DNC chair, before >the DLC took over the Democratic Party from the alliance of Cold War >Keynesians (like Humphrey and Mondale) and Dixiecrats. Ron Brown was head of the DNC from 1988 to 1992 and helped usher in the Clinton Presidency with his fundraising prowess. That's how he qualfied for the Commerce Department gig. It was Mondale and allies like Tony Coehlo who in the early 1980s who perfected the art of shaking down business to support incumbent Democrats in the modern PAC era, just as it was people like Lyndon Johnson back in the 1930s who shook down independent oil money to support New Deal candidates (See Caro's THE PATH TO POWER). If you want to argue that Democrats have always been a slave of business, you might be able to argue the case consistently, but any argument that Democrats are more conservative or more beholden to business than in the past just does not hold up to scrutiny. --Nathan Newman
Re: DNC fund-raising
On Sat, April 11, 1998 at 00:30:00 (+) john gulick writes: >... >and an investment baking company No doubt involved in shaky croissant loans to the third world. Bill
Obligations may press, but...
I know you'll appreciate being apprised of this sterling speculative scholarship ASAP. Lately I've been exploring some of the Net's storefronts and back streets; I doubt you'd find better than this. As you peruse this latest version of the world's longest-running soap, ask yourself how the wholesome goals of a socialist society can compete with its like, for this is the sort of jaw-dropping distillate that really catches and massages the imagination of all too many. The capitalist mystification of reality pays dividends all around. Out with those credit cards, Genossen! valis _ The Untold Story of the Secret War for Global Supremacy Between Two Rival Jewish Factions The Esther Option Is there an ongoing plot by religious Jews to use Monica Lewinsky to unseat President Bill Clinton and replace him with Vice President Al Gore? In the Bible it was Mordecai who said to Esther, "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14-15) Do Zionist Jews hold Monica Lewinsky up and acclaim her as their new "Queen Esther?" In fact, Orthodox Rabbis and other right-wing Jews in Israel and the U.S. are privately acclaiming Monica Lewinsky to be the "Salvation of Israel." Meanwhile, Monica Lewinsky, herself a Jew, and her attorney, William Ginsburg, also a Jew, have expressed to the Israeli media Monica's unerring love and devotion for the nation of Israel. Monica's attorney even suggested that Monica would soon leave the U.S.A. and go to live in Israel. The Jerusalem Report magazine, published by prominent Jewish interests, reported that Monica is considered by many in Israel to be a heroine. She is said to have the thanks and gratitude of the people of Israel for her sacrifices for the Jewish State. The Jerusalem Report says that Monica will be rewarded with a lucrative job once she is living in Israel. A major New York publisher (owned by wealthy Jews) has offerred Monica the incredible sum of $5 million dollars for a book deal. In January, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to the United States on an official state visit, only to be snubbed and insulted by President Bill Clinton. The Clinton White House is demanding that Israel give up land to the Palestinians as a peace concession, but the hard-core, right-wing faction in Israel--which Netanyahu represents--solidly refuses. Does this untenable situation have any bearing on the sexual revelations made public about the Monica Lewinsky affair? Is it a coincidence that, after being snubbed by the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately met with Clinton opponent, evangelist Jerry Falwell? Is it by chance that the very next day after Netanyahu flew back to Israel, the Monica Lewinsky revelations were unexpectedly unleashed by major media? Did the Israeli Mossad (intelligence agency) have a hand in this? Is this what Hillary Clinton was referring to when she complained on television of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against her husband and mentioned Jerry Falwell by name as part of the conspiracy? A powerful group of fanatical, right-wing Rabbis placed a curse of death on the late Israeli Prime Minister Rabin just before he was assassinated. Reportedly, Israel's Shin Bet (Secret Service) then carried out their decree and arranged for the murder of Rabin. Has this same cabal of Talmudic Jewish Rabbis placed a curse on Bill Clinton for his destruction? Have the Rabbis performed kabalistic, voodoo type rituals to cast a spell on the President? Why is there a historic struggle now going on in the media, with the left-wing Jewish controlled faction (CBS News, CNN, Time Magazine, and others) going head-to-head with the right-wing Jewish-controlled faction (Newsweek magazine, ABC News, The Washington Post newspaper and others)? Which faction has been rigging the opinion polls to favor the President? Whose side is Attorney-General Janet Reno on? Why did Reno do an about face and endorse Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's probe into the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair? Does Reno's action signal that the jig is up for the scandal-ridden, adulterous Clinton and his tarnished administration? Has Vice President Al Gore been chosen by Israel's Netanyahu and the right-wing Jewish faction to replace Clinton as President of the United States? If and when Gore does take office, will the new President prove more loyal to their cause? Will a prophetic chain of events then lead to the appearance of antichrist in a rebuilt, g
DNC fund-raising
I know that our anointed facilitator wants to end this discussion, but I could not help noticing that the following item appeared in today's _NYT_. The DNC, while chagrined that it cannot compete w/the RNC, happily announced that it raised $ 12 million towards its war chest, helping to eradicate some of its 1996 campaign debt. The 9 biggest soft-money donors included Miramax Films (no doubt rewarding the Dems for their stance on culture industry protectionism and GATT), an "independent educational consultant," a financial holding company, a corporate finance law firm, the president of Slim-Fast, a securities lawyer, and an investment baking company. Oh, also the NEA and the "Machinists Nonpartisan Political League." And the DNC (_not_ the DLC, but might as well be) was _gloating_ about this. Of course there are some progressive Dems in the House, given the way that districting works. Just as there are authoritarian populists and religious right-wingers and libertarians among the House GOP. But finance K and transnational productive K for the most part pull the strings in both parties, especially in the Senate, our House of Lords. And except on the local level neither party really exists as an "institution" per se save recruiting and promoting millionaires to run for office. My god, way back in the mid-1980's _Ron Brown_ was the DNC chair, before the DLC took over the Democratic Party from the alliance of Cold War Keynesians (like Humphrey and Mondale) and Dixiecrats. John Gulick > > > > > >
sierra club
In today's _NYT_ there is a full-page ad run by the faction of the Sierra Club which wants the Sierra Club to endorse immigration restrictions. Obviously anyone and everyone on this list knows how bogus and malevolent (whether consciously racist or not) their arguments connecting immigration levels to environmental degradation are. I simply wanted to draw attention to those among the undersigned: Lester Brown, Dave Foreman, George Kennan, George Sessions, Gaylord Nelson, E.O. Wilson, Doug La Follette. Of course there was not one word in the ad about the class dimensions of resource consumption (capitalist consumption vs. labor consumption, rich consumption vs. poor consumption). And of course to the extent that they will rebut the neo-Malthusians in the Sierra Club the liberals in the Sierra Club will mention only the voracious appetite of upper- income Americans for profligate consumption (or they might not even get this specific, focusing on the "American way of life"), not the "grow or die" accumulation dynamics of U.S. capitalism. John Gulick
Re: EPI Environmental Economist
In a message dated 98-04-10 17:10:37 EDT, max writes: << Feel free to regale him with your pet nostrums of vegetarian leninism ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). >> ah, but can we regale him with vegetarian stalinism? inquiring minds want to know. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
