[PEN-L:7933] Re: WTO -- an issue that should interest us
This so-called top down approach on services negotiation is not new. US officials have been actively pushing that for a couple of years and informally promoting it for almost a decade. What is new is the momentum. Becasue of the Asian Crises and its global contagion, the US market has taken on the role of market of last resort, which gives US trade negotiators new leverage. The US has for some years taken the broad system approach in trade negotiation rather than the micro, sector by sector, case by case approach which tended to allow weaker economies loopeholes and special exemptions. The US also hopes that a broad top-down approach will defuse potential domestic opposition in all economies in the sense that governments can neutralized special interest opposition by arguing for the overall greater good. According to Stiglitz of the World Bank, the thinking about competition policy has gone through three stages of thinking since the mid-197Os. The first suggested a much more circumscribed role for government. The contestability doctrine, for instance, argued that so long as there was potential competition, there did not have to be actual competition. If any firm charged a price higher-than-average cost, a new entrant would enter and steal its customers. Airlines were given as the classic example. There might be only one airline flying a given route, but if it charged more than average cost, a potential competitor would enter the market. The ''Chicago'' school (Posner) not only argued that market dominance was not a problem so long as there was potential competition, it also suggested that restrictive practices (such as vertical restraints) were efticiency enhancing and would not survive otherwise. The second stage overturned these doctrines. It suggested that competition may be more fragile. Theory and evidence cast doubt on the contestability doctrine. If there are even epsilon sunk costs, it has been shown that an incumbent can maintain his monopoly position, and furthermore, resources may be wasted in the attempt to preempt entry (Stiglitz 1981). The long periods during which airline prices in markets with limited actual competition remain substantially above average costs serve to corroborate these theoretical views (Borenstein 1992). Similarly, a vast literature has shown that vertical restraints may not only effectively reduce competition, they may even reduce economic efficiency (Rey and Stiglitz 1995). Today the contestability doctrine cannot be regarded as grounds for government to ignore its responsibilities to ensure a competitive environment. But it has become increasingly clear that there is more scope for actual competition than regulators (and economists) had previously recognized. This was the third stage. There are large parts of the telecommunications and electricity generating industry in which competition is viable. There is still an important role for government: making sure that the remaining elements of monopoly or near monopoly (such as the last mile of telephone service) are not leveraged. And indeed, in the United States, courts were convinced that the variety of devices by which those in control of the last mile might be able to do so were so vast and complicated that regulation itself could not adequately cope with the problem, and structural separation was required. There is another important change: The remarkable reduction in transportation costs and other barriers to trade has led to larger markets. As the size of the market has increased, even when there are some increasing returns, there are more viable competitors. Thus, as countries open up their economies to competition ftom abroad, the ability of large domestic firms to exercise market power may be circumscribed, and the role of government competition authorities may be lessened. So globalization changes the doctrines behind competiton valis in the domestic contxt. Yet the US may push these doctrine as standards for WTO rules. In May 1999, President Clinton and Prime Minster Obuchi of Japan unveiled new measures under the U.S.-Japan Enhanced Initiative on Deregulation and Competition Policy. Launched in June 1997, this initiative created a bilateral process to address regulatory and anti-competitive barriers for both foreign and domestic firms in Japan. Since then, both the United States and Japan have agreed on new measures to substantially deregulate Japan's telecommunications, housing, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, distribution, financial services and energy sectors. The two sides have also agreed to address competition policy and transparency issues. Japan has committed to specific new measures to more effectively introduce competition into its $130 billion telecommunications sector by: Ensuring that interconnection rates -- the rates charged competitors of NTT to access the majority of Japanese customers -- are set below retail rates; Defining measures that will make NTT DoCoMo's (cellular service
[PEN-L:7932] World's largest on-line globalization archive
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 03:05:10 -0400 Subject: World's largest on-line globalization archive World's largest on-line archive of news, documents and discussion of globalization issues, starting with the MAI and expanding from there, can be found at http://mai.flora.org/homepage.htm http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/ As of 10 Jun 1999 11:20:56 -0400 there were 12016 articles posted to that searchable archive. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:7931] WTO -- an issue that should interest us
[from Sid Shniad] Date: Wed, 09 Jun 1999 From: Ellen Gould <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: U.S. bombshell re WTO The U.S. has just dropped a bombshell into discussions leading up to this fall's World Trade Organization negotiations in Seattle. U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky announced on June 1 that the U.S. wants a "top-down" approach in negotiations on eliminating barriers to trade in services - meaning that rather than countries negotiating on areas they all can agree they want liberalized, all services will be put on the table at once, including health and education. That leaves countries who object in the weak position of having to ask for exemptions for services they want protected, and, as with the MAI, potentially having to "trade off" these sectors in a final agreement. This means that all the dangers people identified in the MAI for Canada's health and education system will reemerge in the WTO talks on liberalizing services. Canada could not "discriminate" against foreign, private providers of these services. There has been no response as yet by the Canadian government to this aggressive move by the U.S. to massively expand what is up for grabs at the WTO negotiations. Contact your local member of parliament to insist that there be an immediate and public rejection of the U.S. plan to include all services in the WTO negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services. Canada must demand that only sectors which countries have agreed to put foward should be the subject of negotiations - a "bottom-up" approach. Get in touch with health care and education service providers and alert them to what is happening. Their jobs and the public character of the Canadian system is at stake. The arguments regarding the threat from the MAI and this American move at the WTO are essentially the same. Critiques of this kind regarding the MAI can still be found on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' Web site at: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/index.html "Barshefsky said the U.S. will push for new and improved liberalization commitments in sectors such as finance, telecommunications, distribution, audiovisual, construction, education, health, travel and tourism, and professional services." BARSHEFSKY REVEALS U.S. PUSH TO BROADEN WTO SERVICES TALKS ___ Date: June 4, 1999 - Inside US Trade - U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky this week said the U.S. is hoping to significantly broaden commitments to be made in the upcoming World Trade Organization services negotiations by changing the negotiating format. In a June 1 speech before the World Services Congress in Washington, Barshefsky said the U.S. is hoping to move away from the so-called "request-offer" approach used to negotiate the Uruguay Round's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Under this approach, members were required to apply new GATS rules only to service sectors they agreed to put forward during those negotiations. Instead, the U.S. is hoping to create a structure for the services talks to be launched late this year that more closely resembles the Uruguay Round's tariff negotiations for goods, she said. These talks applied generally to all goods except for those that were specifically exempted. "We need to look at whether we can come up with a more efficient negotiating structure than the request-offer process of the Uruguay Round," Barshefsky said. Specifically, Barshefsky said the concepts used to negotiate tariffs for goods could be employed in the services talks. In addition to the request-offer approach, previous tariff negotiations have used the zero-for-zero approach, in which WTO members agree to eliminate all tariffs in a sector, and the formula approach, in which members agree to reduce tariffs by certain amounts depending on their current levels. For services, these latter two approaches could involve negotiators agreeing to eliminate all barriers to trade in a certain service sector, or agreeing to a formula under which these barriers are reduced to certain negotiated levels. Barshefsky indicated that applying these other approaches in the services talks could quicken the pace of services liberalization because it would allow members to seek liberalization in areas without having to wait for members to put forward those areas. "We have to decide what combination of negotiating structures will work best in the services sector," she said. With this idea in mind, Barshefsky said the U.S. will push for new and improved liberalization commitments in sectors such as finance, telecommunications, distribution, audiovisual, construction, education, health, travel and tourism, and professional services. In her prepared remarks, Barshefsky noted that the GATS negotiations created a set of services rules, but only set "some" precedents for market access. "Even for WTO members trade [in services] is highly restricted,"
[PEN-L:7930] Re: Antidote
I have started my travels and can only browse e-mail. I asked people to stop the provocations. I noticed that Doug threatened to boot those who are trying to start flame wars. I will follow his policy. Max Sawicky wrote: > After studying works of Mao Tse-Tung, > report immediately to this web site: > > http://www.hampsterdance.com/ -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:7929] Re: Antidote
Virus alert! Capitalist worm on the loose. Max Sawicky wrote: > After studying works of Mao Tse-Tung, > report immediately to this web site: >
[PEN-L:7928] G7: DROP THE DEBT OR STAND ASIDE
Sunday Journal, Washington, DC June 13, 1999 Robert Naiman, Preamble Center G7: DROP THE DEBT OR STAND ASIDE NATO's war in Yugoslavia, in addition to causing needless death and destruction, swept many urgent issues under the rug. One issue whose resolution is long overdue is the crushing external debt burden of poor countries, which forces them to divert resources from lifesaving expenditures on health care to service external debts. At its upcoming summit the G7 club of rich countries has the opportunity to take decisive action. It's long been obvious that the external debts of the poorest countries are unpayable. The Jubilee 2000 movement has called for debt cancellation by the year 2000, invoking the Biblical concept of a Jubilee to cancel debts and free slaves. The G7 could end the crisis because the rich countries -- particularly the United States -- run the International Monetary Fund, which dictates policy on the debt issue. Don't expect real action from the G7, because their IMF is at the heart of the problem. The IMF refuses the central demand of Jubilee 2000, to deal with the debt issue once and for all. On the contrary, the bottom line for the IMF is that things can only change in order to remain the same: the only allowable "reforms" are those that preserve and enhance the IMF's power to micromanage the economic policies of poor countries. Michel Camdessus, the head of the IMF, said as much at the semiannual meetings of the IMF in April. Camdessus noted that while some wanted to "deepen" the debt relief currently provided to poor countries by the IMF and the World Bank, he wanted to "broaden" it to include more countries. This broadening would increase the power of the IMF. The current program allows the IMF to control the economic policies of the countries that participate, by imposing so-called "structural adjustment" policies. These policies force governments to cut spending on basic health care and education and have been widely criticized for worsening poverty. To make matters worse, even the IMF and the World Bank admitted in a recent staff report that the current debt relief program -- the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative -- doesn't actually help poor countries. Even after participating in the program, and enduring years of brutal IMF policies, these countries don't actually see their debt payments reduced. They just get a paper reduction of the debt that could never be paid anyway. The "debt relief" provided is actually relief provided to the IMF and the World Bank, which instead of writing off bad loans, make the taxpayers of the G7 countries pay off those loans. American taxpayers absorb the biggest share of the cost. Most of the "reforms" being proposed by the Clinton Administration and their allies in Congress would be worse than insufficient; they would actually make poor people in poor countries worse off than they are today, by extending the IMF's power. Fortunately there is a way out, which is to remove the IMF from the process of debt relief. In a recent report condemning the G7 for offering "crumbs" to the poorest countries, the Jubilee 2000 Coalition in Britain wrote, "Using the debt relief carrot to impose the structural adjustment policies of the IMF, which many believe increase poverty, is unacceptable to Jubilee 2000 campaigners... The intended purpose of debt relief is to benefit the poor. If the IMF refuses to minimize costs and maximize benefits to the poor, it should no longer be a gatekeeper for debt relief." Two Congressional initiatives seek to end the IMF's control of the debt issue. The HOPE for Africa Act, sponsored by Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. calls for the IMF to cancel the debt of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Jackson's bill counters the corporate-backed African Growth and Opportunity Act being considered by the House. The corporate "free trade" bill doesn't even deal with the debt issue. Now Representative Cynthia McKinney will propose a bill that would further increase pressure on the IMF, by barring any U.S. contributions to the IMF until the IMF has cancelled the debts of the poorest countries. Meanwhile, the people and governments of the poor countries are getting increasingly restive. Recently Zimbabwe threatened to cut off its dealings with the IMF and the World Bank. If the G7 fails to act, they may find matters taken out of their hands. --- Robert Naiman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Preamble Center 1737 21st NW Washington, DC 20009 phone: 202-265-3263 fax: 202-265-3647 http://www.preamble.org/ ---
[PEN-L:7926] Re: Beware of Worm
McAffee has a fix for this virus. Just make sure the file you use matches your operating system. mbs
[PEN-L:7925] Antidote
After studying works of Mao Tse-Tung, report immediately to this web site: http://www.hampsterdance.com/
[PEN-L:7924] Recent US Arms Exports
*Resist* newsletter that arrived in postal mail the other day includes story that mentions recent US 'small' arms sales to Albania, Bosnia, and Macedonia...any listers with more info on this stuff?...Michael Hoover
[PEN-L:7927] "you've got mail" (movie review)
Being one of those strange creatures called parents, I saw the hit movie "You've got Mail!" about one year after normal people did. It stars Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, America's Cutest People (TM). Hanks is a top exec (due to nepotism) in a ravenous Borders-style bookstore chain that sets up a branch near Ryan's little cute independent bookstore-boutique. Of course, given the inevitability of capitalism's rise to swallow the entire world and to end history forever and ever (amen), Hanks' megastore wins in the battle of competition. But Ryan also benefits, since she can finally write that book she wanted to write and besides (in the main plot) ends up in a romance with Hanks. (I'm sorry if I gave away the surprise ending, but it would have been a surprise if they _hadn't_ ended up together.) At the same time, Hanks gains one of Ryan's laid-off employees, who helps raise his store's employees above the ignorant level which they are presumed to be at. (This assumption is inaccurate: since there are large numbers of underemployed liberal arts majors out there, the employees at mega-bookstores are usually not ignorant of books.) So here we see the "mutually-beneficial transaction" so fabled in song and economics textbook. And note that neither Ryan nor Hanks end up like Hank's father (played by Dabney Coleman) whose main slogan seems to be "it's lonely at the top" and suffers for his extreme avarice by suffering from expensive divorces. The main plot was less interesting to me than one of the characters, Ryan's initial boyfriend (played by Greg Kinnear). Kinnear's character, whose last name is Navasky (or something like that), seems to be partly based on Victor Navasky, the publisher of the left-liberal weekly magazine, THE NATION. Victor N. is an expert on the McCarthy era and especially the Alger Hiss case, while the fictional Navasky is an expert on the Rosenbergs. Interestingly, whereas Victor wrote an article once defending megabookstore chains against small independent bookstores, the fictional Navasky journalistically defends the independents against the chain. (The public protest against Hanks' chain has no effect, because you can't fight city hall or capitalist accumulation, at least in the movies.) Of course, like most good fictional characters, the movie's Navasky is a composite: he also defends typewriters against wordprocessors, like Alexander Cockburn once did. This exemplifies the character's main political belief, which involves the opposition to new technology rather than to capitalism. In the end, the Kinnear/Navasky's role is to lampoon the left, as when he says something like that someone "doesn't have normal politics, since he's not an anarchist or a socialist." Leftists are all this insular, aren't they? Beyond that, there's not much to say about the movie except that it's fluff. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
[PEN-L:7913] Re: technocracy
Jim Devine wrote: > >Michael Keaney wrote: >More generally, this demarcation of intellectuals >and the masses is not very helpful.< > >I was pointing to the demarcation as being in Galbraith, not one that I was >applying. However, let's apply it. No, I apologise if I gave that impression. In fact, it's an interesting example of the kind of problem with Galbraith's work identified by Left critics such as Doug Dowd, wherein Galbraith identifies a serious problem, expertly dissects it, and then proposes some anodyne solution and we all live happily ever after. (I think this is an unfair depiction of his entire corpus, but there is some truth in it, mostly concerning his earlier work.) In this case, there is an ever-developing division of labour, with a resultant problem of coordination. Greater technological complexity and organisational size requires, therefore, a new cadre of knowledge and coordination specialists whose job it is, basically, to hold the organisation together. Therefore power, to a large degree, rests not with top management (largely figureheads, although they take the chop - in theory - when things go bad), nor the "sovereign" consumer a la neoclassical theory (this myth debunked in the analysis of the "revised sequence"), and not "the workers". Rather, it is the technostructure, Galbraith's name for this new cadre which acts as both the organisational glue and the guide for future action. Because this new cadre requires a level of skills previously unnecessary, a university education is essential to equip them with the requisite skills. Thus they are not only dependent upon the educational and scientific estate for their own professional development, but become as much a part of it themselves. In other words, the liberal values of science and education are transmitted to the corporate (and state) sectors by this process of education and enculturation. So we can all sleep safely knowing that the pecuniary interest is being undermined from within. As he admitted two decades later, this was a somewhat forlorn hope. Cheers, Michael Michael Keaney Department of Economics Glasgow Caledonian University 70 Cowcaddens Road Glasgow G4 0BA Scotland, U.K.
[PEN-L:7916] Re: Re: Re: Galbraith: schizophrenic apologist?
>>> "Michael Keaney" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 06/11/99 06:24AM >>> Charles Brown wrote: > >Charles: I don't know if you meant this, but Marxism does not pose an >uncrossable demarcation between intellectuals and the masses. Engels, Marx, >Lenin and Mao were all intellectuals connecting with the masses . I didn't mean this at all. I am concerned, however, with a tendency among some to denigrate intellectuals per se, as if getting one's hands dirty is proof of one's moral superiority. (( Charles: This is an old and even common sense dynamic. We all recognize that in the long term of history education has been associated with elitism. By and large, in the long term there was little book learning among the working masses ( mostly peasants in the long run). Certainly Marxist revolution aims to democratize education, but that is a long process (as you say below, sometimes painfully slow) and meanwhile, it is good if we intellectuals are sensitive to the elitism that has been associated with predominantly mental labor through the ages. This is one of the big, longterm revolutions that Marxism aims for: ending the antagonism between predominantly mental and predominantly physical labor. >In general, Marxism notes the ancient antagonism between predominantly >mental labor and predominantly physical labor which arose with class >society and seeks to reduce and resolve this antagonism. The goal of >working class and mass socialist consciousness is exactly redistributing >mental or intellectual labor more equally. How much of this is derived from the mind/body dualism demarcated by Descartes and subsequently the mainstream of Western thought? Charles: I would say the mind/body dualism reflects this anatagonism, but the antagonism arises about 7000 years ago with the origin of classes and the state etc. The division of labor between predominantly physical (peasansts and the like) and predominantly mental labor (priests and the like) is reflected in the more recent philosophical theoretical division of mind and body. This is also reflected in idealism and materialism in philosophy. Engels calls the latter the main question of philosophy. >Does a division of labor require that there be rulers and ruled ? Doesn't >Marxism seek to retain the division of labor in communism while abolishing >ruling classes ? There remains the problem of coordination of labour in problem-solving, be that the eradication of poverty, the development of eco-friendly technologies and their application, or responses to natural disasters. Especially in the case of the latter, responses need to be rapid, which will not facilitate a full and inclusive discussion of all possible courses of action. Thus trust will need to be placed in those whose expertise is most suited to coordinating efforts at relief. What remains essential in this, and in any like situation, is that those doing the coordinating are accountable to everyone for their decisions, directions, and actions. ( Charles: Agree with this. The eradication of poverty in the basic sense is very doable today. No one need starve or be deprived of fundamentals. That is one thing capitalist production has given us. Galbraith's affluently producing society AND with redistribution of the wealth. The division of labor in communism will include specialization including coordinator specialization. The coordinator function can rotate and need not include ruling class power as in class society. Seems that individuals would learn a wide variety of jobs to overcome the monotony. This variety would include jobs of different specialty and generality, including overview, or supervisory (literally overseeing) functions. Someone who looks at the "big picture" of things. This remains a specialty , but not the exlcusive or permanent ownership of an elite. As Lenin says, the average person will do management functions. ( None of this will happen overnight, of course, as there will have to be a long period of transition. As Lenin recognised, this is as much a cultural process as it is material. Daniel Singer's "Whose Millenium?" charts these problems extensively in the closing chapters. The process is further complicated by capitalism's vested interests who see no gain in reconstituting society, some of whom going to great lengths to frustrate and sabotage any such transition. This poses tremendous problems for the democratically-minded who do not make a similar division between means and ends analogous to that of mind and body. For how is democratic discourse preserved and nurtured in a climate such as that faced by the Bolsheviks and Mao? Charles: Indeed. (( My own view is that class conflict is a war of attrition, a slow, sometimes painfully slow, process of struggle and change. I am not convinced that revolution is the answer, for it obscures important continuities between pre-and post-revolutionary soci
[PEN-L:7912] Re: Re: Re: Re: Galbraith: schizophrenic apologist?
Rod Hay wrote: >Galbraith came from a agricultural setting but hardly from the backwoods. He >grew up in a rich agricultural area in south western Ontario, about 30 >minutes drive from Detroit. Please forgive my poor knowledge of Canadian geography, and the implication of my evocative phraseology. The implication of this, however, is that coming from a rich area Galbraith's family was itself rich. I am not sure this was the case, as I recall reading on more than one occasion that his background was not one of material splendor. I suppose that in 1908 (his year of birth) it took slightly longer to get from south western Ontario to Detroit? ;-) I will consult "A Life in Our Times" over the weekend. Michael
[PEN-L:7911] Re: Re: Re: Galbraith: schizophrenic apologist?
Charles Brown wrote: > >Charles: I don't know if you meant this, but Marxism does not pose an >uncrossable demarcation between intellectuals and the masses. Engels, Marx, >Lenin and Mao were all intellectuals connecting with the masses . I didn't mean this at all. I am concerned, however, with a tendency among some to denigrate intellectuals per se, as if getting one's hands dirty is proof of one's moral superiority. >In general, Marxism notes the ancient antagonism between predominantly >mental labor and predominantly physical labor which arose with class >society and seeks to reduce and resolve this antagonism. The goal of >working class and mass socialist consciousness is exactly redistributing >mental or intellectual labor more equally. How much of this is derived from the mind/body dualism demarcated by Descartes and subsequently the mainstream of Western thought? >Does a division of labor require that there be rulers and ruled ? Doesn't >Marxism seek to retain the division of labor in communism while abolishing >ruling classes ? There remains the problem of coordination of labour in problem-solving, be that the eradication of poverty, the development of eco-friendly technologies and their application, or responses to natural disasters. Especially in the case of the latter, responses need to be rapid, which will not facilitate a full and inclusive discussion of all possible courses of action. Thus trust will need to be placed in those whose expertise is most suited to coordinating efforts at relief. What remains essential in this, and in any like situation, is that those doing the coordinating are accountable to everyone for their decisions, directions, and actions. None of this will happen overnight, of course, as there will have to be a long period of transition. As Lenin recognised, this is as much a cultural process as it is material. Daniel Singer's "Whose Millenium?" charts these problems extensively in the closing chapters. The process is further complicated by capitalism's vested interests who see no gain in reconstituting society, some of whom going to great lengths to frustrate and sabotage any such transition. This poses tremendous problems for the democratically-minded who do not make a similar division between means and ends analogous to that of mind and body. For how is democratic discourse preserved and nurtured in a climate such as that faced by the Bolsheviks and Mao? My own view is that class conflict is a war of attrition, a slow, sometimes painfully slow, process of struggle and change. I am not convinced that revolution is the answer, for it obscures important continuities between pre-and post-revolutionary society, and does not allow for the necessary enculturation and education of the masses, especially if a vanguard sees the opportunity to seize power (like the Bolsheviks) without prior preparation of the masses whose sovereignty they are supposedly instating. Then there is also the enculturation and education of the leadership, which depends upon their connectedness to the masses. Again, this is an aspect of the Bolsheviks' situation which mitigated against them, and perhaps even set the scene for the later demonization and extermination of sections of the masses (e.g. "kulaks") by Stalin. I'm not sure if any of this answers your questions above, but I appreciate the opportunity to work some of these things out. Cheers, Michael
[PEN-L:7915] Re: Re: Homogenizing Americans
Not just factory workers but intellectual workers as well. The recent blatant ethnic profiling on Chinese American scientists in the sensationalized espionage scandal has created a reverse brain drain of Asian scientists back to Asia that will sure result in more systemic transfer of American scientific and tecnical information through the relocation of brains, unless Congress can devise some way to erase the memory of emigrating scientists. China, Hong Kong, Singapore, all trying to move toward a high tech economy, are stepping up recruitment of Asian American scientists and engineers who have been suddenly denied security clearance in the jobs in America. India is doing the same. As we all know, in many fields, the denial of security clearance is the equivalence of expulsion. Speaking of unintended consequences Henry C.K. Liu Mathew Forstater wrote: > not just the u.s. corporation. organized labor also was very active in this area. > gompers used this exact phrase and spoke about the importance of workers becoming > "americanized." he also listed some groups that he believed were incapable of > "americanization," e.g. blacks, asians, etc., justifying exclusion from union > membership, etc. labor historian herbert hill argues convincingly that adopting > racist ideologies was part of the "americanization" process itself. mat > > Michael Perelman wrote: > > > It might be worthwhile to remember how vigorously the U.S. corporation worked to > > "americanize" their workers. It was at the core of welfare capitalism. > > -- > > > > Michael Perelman > > Economics Department > > California State University > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Chico, CA 95929 > > 530-898-5321 > > fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:7922] Off-List Request
Pen-Friends, It would make my day if a kind heart could email me: "The Business of Crime and the Crimes of Business: Globalization and the Criminalization of Economic Activity" by Michel Chossudovsky in the Fall 1996 Covert Action Quarterly. I gave my copy away Thanks in advance. Seth Sandronsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
[PEN-L:7914] Re: Homogenizing Americans
not just the u.s. corporation. organized labor also was very active in this area. gompers used this exact phrase and spoke about the importance of workers becoming "americanized." he also listed some groups that he believed were incapable of "americanization," e.g. blacks, asians, etc., justifying exclusion from union membership, etc. labor historian herbert hill argues convincingly that adopting racist ideologies was part of the "americanization" process itself. mat Michael Perelman wrote: > It might be worthwhile to remember how vigorously the U.S. corporation worked to > "americanize" their workers. It was at the core of welfare capitalism. > -- > > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Chico, CA 95929 > 530-898-5321 > fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:7923] Re: Law of Value & Information
Rob Schaap wrote: >all depend entirely on IP protection in concert with unfettered access to >global markets . . . >Waddya reckon? Could it be possible that the law of value has been repealed? "It is self-evident that the contradictory nature of capitalist society, which is leading the latter to an inevitable debacle, will ultimately cause the collapse of the 'normal' capitalist law, the law of value also. (Bukharin, Economic Theory of the Leisure Class, p. 159)" Aside from the self-evidence of the inevitable debacle and collapse, one might also question the self-evidence of the assumption that capitalism could only be "destroyed by the flames of the communist revolution." In other words, a third possibility, neither eternal capitalism nor socialist revolution but the "realization" of a mode of distribution, above and beyond the capitalist mode of production, which takes the development of the capitalist mode of production as its starting point but then proceeds to dismantle the very productiveness of that mode of production. Such a mode of distribution would be "degenerate" from the standpoint of production and of society -- but isn't this what's happening? regards, Tom Walker www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7918] Progressive Response Vol.3, No. 21
The Progressive Response 10 June 1999 Vol. 3, No. 21 Editor: Tom Barry The Progressive Response (PR) is a weekly service of Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in PR. Table of Contents I. Updates and Out-Takes *** DYNAMICS OF U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS *** By John Gershman *** CAPITAL FLOWS AND EXCHANGE RATE POLICY *** By Ellen Frank, Emmanuel College II. Comments *** CHINESE FRIENDS *** *** INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER: THINK ABOUT IT *** I. Updates and Out-Takes *** DYNAMICS OF U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS *** By John Gershman (Ed. Note: The following analysis of U.S.-China relations by John Gershman of the Institute for Development Research points the way to a more reasonable and principled approach to U.S.-China relations-an approach not dominated by unwarranted fears of a Chinese military threat and not held hostage to those conservative and progressive nationalists who would deny China membership in the WTO and normal trading status with the United States. This analysis is excerpted from a forthcoming FPIF report, "Still the Pacific Century? U.S. Policy in the Asia-Pacific.") It is ironic that China's ability to play a key role in preventing the Asian and global economic crisis from worsening is because its economy is not an open, liberalized one in the image the U.S. has been trying to export elsewhere. China's lack of foreign exchange convertibility has prevented extensive speculative attacks on its currency. But that does not mean all is well. China is also in the midst of a massive economic transformation: it has allowed the first bank to fail since 1949 and is the process of privatizing large sections of its economy, including enterprises previously managed by the military. The financial sector, both state banks and the provincial and municipal fund-raising and investment institutions known as ITICs, are also in serious trouble. It has also begun a restructuring of the non-bank financial institutions. Managing this transformation, at a time when overall and export growth rates are slowing and the political effects of the dramatic inequality that has accompanied rapid growth is becoming more salient, are massive challenges. The social and ecological costs of China's transformation since 1979 have been immense. Growing inequality within urban areas and between urban and rural areas suggests that significant grievances and unrest lie just below the surface. There are regular reports of demonstrations, particularly in rural areas, relating to corrupt local officials, floods, and high taxes. After the flooding of the Yangtze in mid-1998, there were 130 reports of rural rebellion in four provinces, including attacking and occupying government offices. The tension between neoliberal internationalists and strategic traders is apparent in the negotiations over China's accession to the WTO. The framework agreement negotiated as of May 1999 involved some special benefits for United States companies to the exclusion of other WTO members, such as a delayed reduction of U.S. quotas for Chinese textile exports. The Clinton administration originally planning for one big vote in the summer of 1999, on renewal of China's Normal Trade Relations (NTR, formerly known as most-favored nation (MFN)) and congressional approval of China's entry into the WTO. Revelations of illegal campaign contributions by members of the Chinese military and nuclear espionage by China, the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, and subsequent anti-U.S. demonstrations supported by the Chinese government have combined to cool relations and have administered the coup de grace to the 'strategic partnership' launched with great fanfare by China and the U.S. in October 1997. That partnership was in reality stillborn, but recent events have demolished any illusion that U.S.-Chinese relations had developed in a broader partnership. This is not to say that relations will be bad -- in fact they will probably remain quite stable. The administration is now facing the results of allowing commercial interests to so dominate other concerns in shaping policy, that building a domestic constituency for China's admission into the WTO is difficult. A combination of the failure to reach a quick agreement with the U.S. and the bombing of the Chinese Embassy has strengthened certain forces within China opposed to such significant Chinese concessions. Congressional support for renewal of NTR, let alone China's entry into the WTO, will be difficult, but legislators looking at b
[PEN-L:7920] Beware of Worm
Louis Proyect posted this warning to his list Fast-spreading 'worm' deletes Word, PowerPoint files By Ann Harrison A fast-spreading Internet worm, which propagates via e-mail and destroys files on a user's local hard drive, has hit companies in three countries, an antivirus company said today. The worm, which is known as W32/ExplorerZip.worm, was discovered yesterday by the Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team at Network Associates Inc. (NAI) in Santa Clara, Calif. Wes Wasson, director of security product marketing at NAI, said the worm is similar to the Melissa virus in that it is spreading quickly. But he said the worm has a much more destructive payload, more akin to the Chernobyl virus. The worm attempts to invoke Messaging Application Programming Interface e-mail applications such as Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or Microsoft Exchange. Users are infected when they open e-mail attachments that appear to be a reply from someone they sent mail to. The messages have the same subject line as the original message. The body of the message reads: "I received your e-mail and shall send you a reply ASAP. Till then, take a look at the attached zipped docs." A file named zipped_files.exe, which contains the worm, is attached. "It looks very legitimate. That's what makes it so scary," Wasson said. The virus originated in Israel and has already been reported in France, Germany and the U.S., he said. Users who run the attachment are presented with a fake error message that reads: "Cannot open file: it does not appear to be a valid archive. If this file is part of a ZIP format backup set, insert the last disk of the backup set and try again. Please press F1 for help." The worm's payload searches the user's local hard drive for the following file types and then deletes them: ..c ..cpp ..asm ..doc ..xls ..ppt In addition, when a user clicks on the attached file, the worm deposits a file called explore.exe and modifies the registry file WIN.INI. Once the worm infects a PC, any mail that comes into the user's mailbox will automatically receive a reply with the virus attached. Wasson said there was no evidence that the worm affected non-Microsoft e-mail systems. NAI's enterprise antivirus products have been updated to defeat the worm. "What a company wants to do is to provide protection on Exchange servers so that once it's discovered at a company, its doesn't get down to the desktop level,'' Wasson advised. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:7921] Clark College: Amended/Applicable "Freedom From Fear"
Dear Folks, Freedom of Speech is meaningless without the courage to use/demand it and without the courage to fight for it; the same can be said for Freedom of Association, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Creed, Freedom From any Form of Discrimination. Further, when anyone keeps secret, that which by remaining secret causes harm to another, that person has not only compromised and debased himself or herself, that person becomes directly complicit in the inevitable harms that occur to others. The same can be said for Toadying, Currying Favor, aiding in cover-ups, ratifying lies, insider fixing of jobs or committee assignments or engaging in any kind of backroom cabalism and fixing outside of oversight and checks-and-balances. We all have a stake in the credibility, integrity, efficiency and name of this institution at which we work. This is an agency of the government of the State of Washington, it is not a country club, feudal estate or playground for predatory, manipulative and calculating machiavellians and megalomaniacs. The answer is not apathy. Nor is the answer participating in rigged committees that are structured to yield only confortable and sanitized conclusions that threaten no vested interests, point no fingers except in comfortable directions, etc. The answer is to quietly document any perceived problems, injustices, crimes or cover-ups and pass them on to the ultimate owners/employers of all of us--The People of The State of Washington. We had an accreditation report, from a committee very favorable to and disposed toward Dr. Hasart that noted some serious, foundational deficiencies; deficiencies that led directly back to the Clark Administration and the Board of Trustees. At a recent meeting of the Clark Board, at the 3 o' clock meeting at Gaiser, only four faculty showed up. One clark Board member noted being somewhat distressed by the poor turnout but did not take it further to consider that perhaps the low turn out was a message--mass apathy and or mass non-belief that anything substantive would be fairly heard or acted upon given the past history of the Clark Board in summarily ratifying all sorts of machinations that led to the non-pass on the accreditation visit (Contrary to Dr. Hasart's assertions of "Passing With Flying Colors", when the Accreditation Team has to return and when they note no Stategic Plan or Vision among other fundamental issues, only someone not in touch with the fundamentals of education and/or disingenuous and/or a out-and-out liar would see the Accreditation Team Conclusions as "Passing With Flying Colors" in my opinion and in the opinion of many others on campus who have expressed that view privately. Look What Bill Clinton put this country through. Look what his lies and cover-ups produced. Look at the monumental waste of resources and damaged reputations that occurrred as a result of Clinton thinking he was smarter than everyone else and could lie and cover-up with impunity. Lies and cover-ups inevitably lead far beyond and damage, the persons engaging in the original lies and cover-ups. Anyone who witnesses or who has credible second-hand evidence of wrongdoing, especially at a State institution, as in the case of Julie Heck and many others on campus, has a moral and even legal duty to expose it immediately. For those afraid of being marginalized and demonized, well, as someone to whom that has been done, I can say that the pluses outweigh the negatives as those for whom one justifiably has contempt stay away from you and don't pollute your space and you don't have to suffer the pain of being somewhat courteous to predatory phonies; it's win-win. There is simply too much at stake. Jim Craven -Original Message- From: Craven, Jim Sent: Monday, June 07, 1999 10:18 AM To: Campus Master List; '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: "Freedom From Fear" This is a reissue from the past to provoke thought about the present. -Original Message- From: James Michael Craven [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 3:16 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: "Freedom From Fear" The following was written and delivered by Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Price for Peace and the 1990 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and an imprisoned leader of the Human Rights Movement in Burma (Myanmar). Food for Thought! Freedom from Fear by Aung San Suu Kyi It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four 'a-gati', the four kinds of corruption. 'Chanda-gati', corruption induced by desire, is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the sake of those one loves. 'Dosa-gati' is taking the wrong path to spite those against whom one bears ill will, and 'moga- gati' is aberration due to
[PEN-L:7919] FW: Makah whale hunt - analysis
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, June 10, 1999 9:48 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Makah whale hunt - analysis :-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:Forwarded message:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-: Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 09:48:25 -0700 From: MICHELE WRIGHT <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Thoughts on the Makah Whaling Issue X-Comment: Nevada Indian Environmental Coalition Being Frank is a column produced regularly by Billy Frank, Jr., chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. Frank, an elder of the Nisqually Indian Tribe, has been an acknowledged tribal leader for more than 30 years. He has received many acknowledgments, including the Albert Schweitzer National Humanitarian Of The Year Award and similar honors from the United Nations and other esteemed local, national and international organizations. He is natural resources spokesman for the treaty Indian tribes in western Washington. Being Frank is produced regularly for your full or partial use. "BEING FRANK" Everyone Should Celebrate The Makah Whale Hunt By Billy Frank, Jr., Chairman Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission Special Note: Many of you have heard my words over the years. I hope you have learned to trust what I say, because I have always spoken the truth. I speak for the salmon, and try to build bridges of understanding between the Indian and non-Indian people. These bridges must be built if we are to live together peacefully and work toward common objectives. The taking of a gray whale by the Makah Nation has resulted in death threats to tribal members. We cannot take these threats lightly, and we ask that you don't either. These threats are signs of rising sickness in mainstream society that cannot be ignored. The Makah whale hunt was a good thing, I promise you. This "Being Frank" column is my effort to help you understand why this is so. I ask you to try very hard to understand, and to make a genuine effort to help diffuse the many misrepresentations that some opponents of the hunt have instigated. Ignorance is the breeding ground of hatred and prejudice. Please help us eliminate this ignorance by speaking the truth to your children, to your relatives and to your neighbors. Please stand up for the truth and help make the bridge between our different worlds one that stands on solid ground. Olympia, WA 5/21/99 - Whoever you are, you should join the Makah Tribe in celebrating its harvest of a gray whale. You should celebrate this return of a sacred practice to some of the most culturally connected people in the world. You should celebrate the return of justice and vitality to a tribe that has been repressed over this past century, and celebrate the recovery of gray whale populations to the historic levels needed to sustain harvest. You should understand that life begets life, and that the spirit of the whale lives on in the Makah people. It lives in the rejoicing of the elders, the strength of the warriors and the rekindled excitement of the children. It lives on because that is the way the Creator intended it to be. It is hypocritical to condemn the Makahs for taking the whale, as some members of the mainstream society have done. The Makahs did not take the whale simply because they had the treaty-protected right to do so. That right has always existed. The tribe made a conscious and very painful choice to forgo its sacred tradition over the years because non-Indian commercial harvesters devastated whale populations. Just this year, many gray whales have died and washed up on the shores of this state. These whales may have been poisoned by the wastes of mainstream society. If so, you know the Indian did not do this. The Makahs are the Whale People, and they chose not to hunt through the years because of their love and respect for the whale. They chose not to hunt all these years because they, like other tribes, have always striven to be caretakers of the natural world. Those who do not understand the Makah will question the logic of hunting an animal that means so much to them. Yet the principle is the same for all species of fish and wildlife. Non-Indians have always tried to force their way of life on the Indian. Yet we have lived here for thousands of years, in harmony with nature. Many non-Indian ways are strange to us. They permit their chil their children dine on meat without teaching them to be grateful to the animals that died to feed them. Even vegetarians can be hypocritical. Agricultural practices kill more of nature's creatures through habitat destruction than fishing and hunting ever will. Televised scenes of the whale harvest disturbed some people, but it is the same as harvesting a salmon, deer or elk. This whale gave itself to the Makah, and the Makah respect that whale in ways many non-Indians do not understand. What people saw on television was the living culture and legacy of this land that long preceded today's concrete and asphalt world. The harvest o
[PEN-L:7917] technostructure
(title was: Re: [PEN-L:7913] Re: technocracy) Michael Keaney paraphrases Galbraith's NEW INDUSTRIAL STATE and related works: >In this case, there is an ever-developing division of labour, with a resultant problem of coordination. Greater technological complexity and organisational size requires, therefore, a new cadre of knowledge and coordination specialists whose job it is, basically, to hold the organisation together. Therefore power, to a large degree, rests not with top management (largely figureheads, although they take the chop - in theory - when things go bad), nor the "sovereign" consumer a la neoclassical theory (this myth debunked in the analysis of the "revised sequence"), and not "the workers". Rather, it is the technostructure, Galbraith's name for this new cadre which acts as both the organisational glue and the guide for future action. Because this new cadre requires a level of skills previously unnecessary, a university education is essential to equip them with the requisite skills. Thus they are not only dependent upon the educational and scientific estate for their own professional development, but become as much a part of it themselves. In other words, the liberal values of science and education are transmitted to the corporate (and state) sectors by this process of education and enculturation. So we can all sleep safely knowing that the pecuniary interest is being undermined from within.< As Michael notes, this was "a somewhat forlorn hope." One thing that should be noted is that there's been a big revolution in corporate management during the last two decades (or so). Increased international competition, deregulation of some industries (like airlines or trucking), antitrust (against AT&T), and changes in technology (which rendered Western Union's monopoly laughable) all undermined the oligopoly positions that allowed the existence of the huge corporate bureaucracies that Galbraith assumed. (Galbraith's image of the industrial structure of US capitalism was very similar to that of Baran and Sweezy, which is similarly obsolete.) Further, the corporate debt problems of the 1980s and the "taxpayer revolt" encouraged the downsizing of middle management, the move to more contingent contracting, and out-sourcing. This has meant that the traditional owners have reasserted their power, and have made the top management "take the chop" more often. Unlike the long-term outlook of the technostructure (which might be bad or good, BTW), at least in the US the focus has shifted to quarter-by-quarter bottom-lineism. The fluctuations of the value of the corporation's stocks and bonds has become the paramount concern of the top management, especially since many rake in the bucks based on stock option plans. Like Baran & Sweezy's MONOPOLY CAPITAL, Galbraith's most famous work seems a pretty accurate description of the way US capitalism looked between roughly 1954 (three years before Baran published THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GROWTH) and 1969 (three years after B & S published MONOPOLY CAPITAL). But these books turned out to be more descriptions than actual theories, since they didn't deal with the periods before and after that range very well. I would say that the "knowledge economy" is pretty important these days. This seems to agree with Galbraith, but the way knowledge grants power is more and more through the market and through the power of ownership through the market (as with Rob Schaap's excellent message) than through bureaucratic hierarchies (as with Galbraith). Bill Gates has his knowledge-based power because he owns Microsoft, not because he's a bureaucratic "player." And the MS bureaucracy is notorious for its reliance on temporary employees. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
[PEN-L:7903] Re: Comparing regimes
i'm taking a break from the lists so i can do some work. outstanding abuse can be fwd/d. Angela --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ps. a gratuitous citation: 'Critical Notes on the Article "The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian" ' Marx, _Vorwarts!_ No.63, August 7 1844 "The state will never discover the source of social evils in the "state and the organization of society", as the Prussian expects of his King. Wherever there are political parties each party will attribute every defect of society to the fact that its rival is at the helm of the state instead of itself. Even the radical and revolutionary politicians look for the causes of evil not in the nature of the state but in a specific form of the state which they would like to replace with another form of the state. >From a political point of view, the state and the organization of society are not two different things. The state is the organization of society. In so far as the state acknowledges the existence of social grievances, it locates their origins either in the laws of nature over which no human agency has control, or in private life, which is independent of the state, or else in malfunctions of the administration which is dependent on it. Thus England finds poverty to be based on the law of nature according to which the population must always outgrow the available means of subsistence. From another point of view, it explains pauperism as the consequence of the bad will of the poor, just as the King of Prussia explains it in terms of the unchristian feelings of the rich and the Convention explains it in terms of the counter-revolutionary and suspect attitudes of the proprietors. Hence England punishes the poor, the Kings of Prussia exhorts the rich and the Convention heheads the proprietors. Lastly, all states seek the cause in fortuitous or intentional defects in the administration and hence the cure is sought in administrative measures. Why? Because the administration is the organizing agency of the state. The contradiction between the vocation and the good intentions of the administration on the one hand and the means and powers at its disposal on the other cannot be eliminated by the state, except by abolishing itself; for the state is based on this contradiction. It is based on the contradiction between public and private life, between universal and particular interests. For this reason, the state must confine itself to formal, negative activities, since the scope of its own power comes to an end at the very point where civil life and work begin. Indeed, when we consider the consequences arising from the asocial nature of civil life, of private property, of trade, of industry, of the mutual plundering that goes on between the various groups in civil life, it becomes clear that the law of nature governing the administration is impotence. For, the fragmentation, the depravity, and the slavery of civil society is the natural foundation of the modern state, just as the civil society of slavery was the natural foundation of the state in antiquity. The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery. The state and slavery in antiquity -- frank and open classical antitheses -- were not more closely welded together than the modern state and the cut-throat world of modern business -- sanctimonious Christian antithesis. If the modern state desired to abolish the impotence of its administration, it would have to abolish contemporary private life. And to abolish private life, it would have to abolish itself, since it exists only as the antithesis of private life. However, no living person believes the defects of his existence to be based on the principle, the essential nature of his own life; they must instead be grounded in circumstances outside his own life. Suicide is contrary to nature. Hence, the state cannot believe in the intrinsic impotence of its administration -- i.e., of itself. It can only perceive formal, contingent defects in it and try to remedy them. If these modification are inadequate, well, that just shows that social ills are natural imperfections, independent of man, they are a law of God, or else, the will of private individuals is too degenerate to meet the good intentions of the administration halfway. And how perverse individuals are! They grumble about the government when it places limits on freedom and yet demand that the government should prevent the inevitable consequences of that freedom! The more powerful a state and hence the more political a nation, the less inclined it is to explain the general principle governing social ills and to seek out their causes by looking at the principle of the state -- i.e., at the actual organization of society of which the state is the active, self-conscious and official expression."
[PEN-L:7902] Re: Re: race & ethnicity
from below:"the continuing force of the nation-state ... seeking to promote accumulation processes within the national economy at the same time ... to constitute the integrity of the nation and define the form and character of the national labour market." liberals may whine about the nationalism of others, and leninists might even think nationalism is all they have left to cling to in their new add-a-dash-of-blue-to-the-red politics; but, guess what, it's (still) about the class struggle. Angela --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Globalisation of labour and the continuing force of the nation-state: Asian nationalism, citizenship and state-orchestrated labour market segmentation" Stuart Rosewarne Political Economy/Department of Economics The University of Sydney New South Wales, Australia paper for presentation to the conference: Globalization from Below: Contingency, Conflict, Contestation in Historical Perspective Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 5-8 February 1998 Abstract: The global orientation of the East Asian and Southeast Asian economies and particularly the increasing internationalisation of capital is generally held to have underpinned the sustained and rapid economic development of these economies. One school of economic thought, best exemplified by the World Bank, has contended that it has been the liberalisation of capital, initially commodity capital and subsequently industrial and money capital, that has provided the momentum for maintaining the pace of development, and this thesis has served to justify the push for further liberalisation of commodity and capital markets across Asia. This is an argument that has not gone unchallenged for many institutionalist and leftists scholars have stressed the continuing force of state intervention or direction, both in terms of securing a particular national accumulation programme as well as shaping the globalisation of the national economy. However, this more critical intervention is largely missing from the recent efforts among economists to document and conceptualise another aspect of the process of economies globalising, namely the increasing migration of labour. Evidence indicates an increasing mobility of labour, especially of overseas contract labour, across Asia, and the dominant explanation for this apparent internationalisation of labour markets is informed by the same neoclassical method that endorses the liberalisation of commodity and capital markets. Development, this perspective contends, impels the increasing mobility of labour, as labour shortages prompt employers to recruit overseas labour and employment opportunities encourage workers to migrate in search of higher paid work. Moreover, according to this thesis, it follows that the further liberalisation of labour markets will advance the economic welfare of labour in particular as well as underwrite continuing sustained development more generally (World Development Report 1995). The thesis appears to have won wide currency among many nation-states and the prominent international political economy institutions serving the Asia-Pacific region. This paper presents a critique of this perspective. It analyses the ever-increasing mobility of Asian labour and, especially since the 1980s, the increasing circulation of labour within Asia to highlight the concentration of overseas workers in the lowest paid and socially devalued occupations. Taking issue with the dominant vision that this globalisation of labour phenomenon represents a freeing up of labour markets, the paper locates the evident international labour market segmentation in the context of the continuing international force of the nation. Asian nationalism, in its variant forms, and the integral role of the different states in constituting the nation and defining citizenship, structures labour markets to overtly and covertly restrict the rights of both documented and clandestine migrant labour, engendering the emergence of international segmented labour markets. In considering this incipient and more pervasive commodification of international wage labour, the paper will explore the different ways in which migrant labours under-class status is being resisted. The global orientation of the East Asian and Southeast economies and particularly the increasing internationalisation of capital is generally held to have underpinned the sustained and rapid economic development of these economies. One school of economic thought, best exemplified by the World Bank, has contended that it has been the liberalisation of capital, initially commodity capital and subsequently industrial and money capital, that has provided the momentum for maintaining the pace of development, and this thesis has served to justify the push for further liberalisation of commodity and capital markets across Asia. This is an argument that has not gone unchallenged. Critics have stressed the continuing force of state intervention or direction, both in te
