[PEN-L:12893] Re: Re: Brenner Book
Thanks, Jim. Your response is very helpful in thinking through the course. Not having read the entire issue I am in no position to see the parallels you draw with nc micro. But your take does strike me as strange, after all Brenner is presumably taking a macro-structural position but your interpretation suggests the micro-foundations of macro-structural outcomes. Is this what Brenner does or intends to? In any case since most students don't know the micro principles it's a moot point. I am attracted to it because it has a plot, it has a large sweep, and if Brenner does not include other stuff, that's all right since they could be introduced at appropriate junctures with complementary readings as you suggest. Yes, the details could be overwhelming but I want those details but I agree with you on the more difficult stuff, like exchange determination and the like might go overhead. I can understand the competition from other capitalist economies, but how is US hegemony (other than the fiscal crisis and the overextended state arguments) responsible for capitalist (US) crisis. is there something systemic here that I am missing? What would be a good piece to fill this gap? Thanks . Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Comparative International Development University of Washington 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA Phone: (253) 692-4462 Fax : (253) 692-5612 On Thu, 21 Oct 1999, Jim Devine wrote: At 02:12 PM 10/19/99 -0700, you wrote: I am exploring the possibility of using the Brenner book (special issue of NLR: The Economics of Global Turbulence) for a class broadly titled "Contemporary Issues in International Political Economy". I have taught two versions of it: 1) a standard political science approach that had the Cold War as a significant parameter, 2) the globalization of economic activities (Dicken, Harley Shaiken, etc). This time I want to use Brenner to talk about capitalist crisis and thought that Brenner's book might do it. I plan to cover the book in 10 weeks, which means I will be working in various economic concepts along with the chapters. The reason is not far too seek: the students have little or no background in economics and economic reasoning. Since Jim D and others read the stuff and posted several critiques, would this be workable for a 10 week class? Can you suggest some pedagogical tips if I were to use this book? The book's basic theoretical framework (as it shows up in the NLR version) is very much the Marginal Cost/Average Cost model of introductory microeconomics (without any of the graphs or numerical examples and different vocabulary), which is why I have thought very seriously of using it for my US Econ. History course in the Fall of 2000. (Why not use something they've already learned, using it as a force for good rather than evil?) It's true that class struggle is important to Brenner's story -- almost entirely class struggle by the capitalists against the workers -- but that's relatively easy to understand, as is the idea that high profit rates promote economic growth. More difficult are the concepts of international exchange rates, their impact, and their determination, which are central to Brenner's story. The students might be overwhelmed by the wealth of historical detail and all the numbers. Others will like those details. If I use the book, I would complement it with more political economy (like my own 1994 article in RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, along with a lot of basics on the original Bretton Woods system and its breakdown). While the competition between the US, Japan, and W. Germany in international markets was crucial to the period that Brenner discusses, more is needed on the role of US hegemony (relative to other rich countries and to the "third world") during the period that Brenner discusses. I interpret his book as not only helping us to understand the hard times suffered during the last 25 years (Brenner's point) but also the break-down of the nation-state-centered "model" of economic growth (i.e., globalization). He doesn't deal with the latter question much if at all. Nor does he consider the "race to the bottom" as wages, public benefits, and environmental standards are moving down to harmonize with the lowest common denominator -- and the world-macroeconomic impact of that race. It's important to remember that the book is almost entirely a criticism of the "high wages squeeze profits and slow economic growth" theory (and its more sophisticated variants). That focus implies that lots of questions are not addressed which might be of interest. If I use his book, I would also set up a table to allow students to translate Brenner's vocabulary to the standard economics one (and back). What he calls "deflation," economists call "disinflation"; what he calls "hyperinflation," economists call "high inflation rates"; etc. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:12894] Re: Re: Re: Re: WTO North vs South strategies
At 07:28 24/10/99 +0200, you wrote: On 23 Oct 99, at 23:59, Chris Burford wrote: ... there are various politicised charities in the UK who want a bigger type of reform than just annulment of the debt. Nor are they any longer restricting themselves to calling for advantageous trade deals. Oxfam Int'l's people endorsed the IMF's turn to poverty reduction last month. The progressive South groups rejected it wholeheartedly (see below). Who are you going to support, Chris? I am not trying to persuade you not to campaign as effectively as you can, but I cannot see that third world countries have much leverage. What do you think progressives in first world countries should do? Get with the programme? --- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 22:02:32 -0200 From: "wb50years" [EMAIL PROTECTED] (by way of Marcos Arruda [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Subject: Opposed to IMF Sign-on Letter - Dear Activists/Friends, We are sending this letter out to gather more sign-ons! Please circulate this to all networks you have access to! Please send your sign-on to my email address. This letter is to be the cornerstone of a major IMF campaign internationally. Focus on the Global South (Thailand) and Freedom From Debt Coalition (Philippines) are spearheading a major effort on this campaign Thank you for your support and for circulating it far and wide! In Solidarity, Njoki Njoroge Njehû 50 Years Is Enough Network = === 8 October 1999 TO: Leaders of the G-7 Countries International Monetary Fund Executive Directors International Monetary Fund Management We, representatives of civil society organizations gathered in Taegu, South Korea to consider strategies to counter the damage done by unregulated capital flows and the programs of the Before commenting on the document I want to comment on the approach. As a matter of principle, living in London, I would start out with an assumption that I should support Oxfam or a similar organisation like World Development Movement which is London based. (I am a fee-paying member of WDM.) That principle is the principle of the primacy of practice over theory. What can be done is related to where you are. Things can be done in Bangkok which cannot be done in London. Things can be done in London which cannot be done in Bangkok. It is not possible to distinguish between reformatory initiatives and reformist ones unless they are judged in relation to the political possibilities and the balance of forces. In the British context WDM is pretty shrewd at that, and beat the Government over the Pergau Dam. In a spirit of internationalism we must recognise that progresssive people are in different places and have to come to things from different angles. If this forms a sort of international united front in which people like those from Thailand are advanced elements and people from countries like Britain and the USA are only middling elements, then so be it. This is ultimately about changing things, not about a morality contest. We have a problem about how we use the internet for international solidarity because it can create the illusion that we are all in one club. That is an idealist illusion and we need to relate our contributions to where we come from. Many mailing software programmes do not identify the country in the address name. This is why I sign my posts as coming from London. So my starting point would be to read the assessment of the WDM, but I welcome the opportunity for international exchange like this and would want to draw to its attention the viewpoints of the more radical Southern campaigners. Chris Burford London
[PEN-L:12897] Re: Re: Re: Re: Women and the Taliban
At 08:53 AM 10/24/1999 -0400, you wrote: Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction" (1844): 'Religious suffering is at once the *expression* of real suffering and the *protest* against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the *opium of the people*.' _Capital, vol. 1 (1867) The religious reflex of the real world can...only...finally vanish, when the practical relations of everyday life offer to man but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellowmen and to Nature.' "Critique of the Gotha Programme" (1875): 'Everyone should be able to attend to his religious as well as his bodily needs without the police sticking their noses in. But the workers' party ought at any rate in this connection to have expressed its awareness of the fact that bourgeois "freedom of conscience" is nothing but the toleration of all possible kinds of *religious freedom of conscience*, and that for its part it endeavours rather to liberate the conscience from the witchery of religion.' Michael Hoover so who was it who first said that religion was the opiate of the people? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
[PEN-L:12907] Re: RE: RE: The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 19
Walter Daum's post on the Klan in New York City, included below for reference, is the most pithy compact political statement I've read on the net in the past year. -- tallpaul editor: The Internet Anti-Fascist "It's not a question of supporting the Klan's rights, but of denying the mayor's right to decide who can march, where and when."
[PEN-L:12905] Re: Re: Know Your Yids
BN: Shahak is a heroic figure, but I think you're misinterpreting him a bit. . . . Is your characterization based on having read the work I cited? If not, on what? . . . mbs: No, it's based on a supposition that he couldn't have made the error you did in your paraphrase of his work. "Misinterpret" was not the right word. I haven't read IS in a long time, nor the work you cite. So I'm not interested in arguing about what IS said. BN: I'm really lost as to what you are arguing here and what relevance it has to the point at hand. Evidently. THIS was my point: We're got some excess conflation here. From Judaism the religion to Israel the state. BN . . . Almost all religious Jews in Israel are orthodox. Reform and Conservative Judiasm scarcely exist in Israel. They have no political power and no legal recognition. In the United States the situation is the opposite: Reform is the largest, followed by Conservative, then Orthodox. The Reform and Conservative traditions arose in the West and reflect influences of the Enlightenment and modernized Christianity. mbs: Besides rehashing some of what I said, this seems to suggest some implied backwardness in Israel founded on their lack of reform and conservative traditions, and the predominance of orthodoxy. But: high proportion (maybe 50%?) are not observant but secular. A true fact, but irrelevant. Not to my point. If one takes a jaundiced view of religion, the extent of secularism in Israel offsets the absence of reform and conservative traditions. Religion is not the root of the issue. As I said: Privilege for Jews in Israel does not stem from their religious commitment, but from their nominal religious identification. . . . My reading is that for the secular originators of Zionism, Judaism was more a marker than a matter of faith -- a symbol useful for nationalistic purposes. Cooptation of the orthodox by the Zionist right wing was as much opportunistic as anything else. Among other things, Jewish fundamentalism of a certain type supplies a rationale for annexation of territory "from the Nile to the Euphrates" which is lacking in law. BN: What is the significance of the above? The founders were secular, but used religion for nationalist purposes. So? Suppose you found out that Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson didn't really believe in God. The significance of this fact would be... Religious nationalism has been encouraged in Israel by the state, with predictable consequences. Whether the founders really believed in the kosher laws is irrelevant. mbs: To me it is relevant because it goes to your tendentious linkage of orthodox Judaism to Israel the State, in a thread that proposed a preferred bashing order of religions and references to "Jewish theocrats" in U.S. zionism. I interpret Devine as making a similar point (to mine). Get my drift? Ciao, mbs
[PEN-L:12903] South African nukes
Before the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, it was pretty much known that the R of SA had nuclear weapons. Was this knowledge accurate? what is Mandela's attitude toward these nukes, if they exist? what is the SA state's attitude? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
[PEN-L:12902] Re: Re: Re: Brenner Book
At 11:37 PM 10/23/1999 -0700, Anthony D'Costa wrote: Thanks, Jim. Your response is very helpful in thinking through the course. Not having read the entire issue I am in no position to see the parallels you draw with nc micro. I was talking about the theoretical stuff at the beginning about the importance of fixed capital. Brenner's basic point is that the existence of fixed capital messes up the standard story about disequilibrium adjustment. Overinvestment may lead to exit in the long run, but in the reasonable short term, it implies depressed profits. But your take does strike me as strange, after all Brenner is presumably taking a macro-structural position but your interpretation suggests the micro-foundations of macro-structural outcomes. Is this what Brenner does or intends to? I can't get my mind around this question at this point, so I can't answer it. In any case since most students don't know the micro principles it's a moot point. I am attracted to it because it has a plot, it has a large sweep, and if Brenner does not include other stuff, that's all right since they could be introduced at appropriate junctures with complementary readings as you suggest. right. Yes, the details could be overwhelming but I want those details but I agree with you on the more difficult stuff, like exchange determination and the like might go overhead. I can understand the competition from other capitalist economies, but how is US hegemony (other than the fiscal crisis and the overextended state arguments) responsible for capitalist (US) crisis. is there something systemic here that I am missing? What would be a good piece to fill this gap? I can't answer for Brenner. For me, the initial stage of US hegemony (after WW2) was linked intimately with the Cold War. This meant that the US was willing to accept the rise of Japan, W. Germany, S. Korea, as competitors. Also that hegemony was linked to high world aggregate demand, especially during the Vietnam war period. This (a) gave a jump-start to the rising competition and (b) put a floor on wages, so that the US couldn't deal with the rising competition by cutting them enough to restore profitability. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
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[PEN-L:12900] Business Week confirms the labor theory of value
Berman, Dennis. 1999. What's a Worker Worth? Business Week (11 October): p. F 4. What's the true measure of Man? Before you wax philosophical, glean some practical wisdom from Jac Fitz-enz. His company, Saratoga Institute, devises systems for measuring human capital -- in other words, how much economic value employees contribute to their businesses. One of his favorite formulas is what he calls the "human capital return on investment," which calculates dollar-for-dollar profits against pay and benefits. On average, companies of fewer than 500 employees sock away $1.68 in profits for each dollar in pay and benefits. "All assets other than people are inert," argues Fitz-enz. "They don't add any value until they're leveraged by a human being." -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:12899] Re: Know Your Yids
At 02:43 PM 10/22/99 -0400, you wrote: BN: . . . Shahak convincingly argues that racism and a pre-Enlightenment world view are endemic to orthodox Judaism as it is practiced in Israel today. Note that there is no separation of religion and state in Israel, so that this is a matter of no small social consequence. For example, the vast majority of land in Israel is reserved for use by Jews only. . . . Shahak is a heroic figure, but I think you're misinterpreting him a bit. Is your characterization based on having read the work I cited? If not, on what? Perhaps we can get him to intervene, (like Marshall McLuhan in "Annie Hall") I'm really lost as to what you are arguing here and what relevance it has to the point at hand. You don't really claim any expertise on Judaism in Israel, which is fine, BTW being Jewish does not make you an authority, but then you proceed to argue by analogy that something that's true some Jews in the U.S. (e.g. you) is also true about Jews in Israel. But if you had read Shahak's work, you would know that a recurring theme for him is that Jews in the U.S. falsely assume that Jews in Israel are like them -- for example, he asserts that Judaism as it exists in Israel never experienced the Jewish Enlightenment. It's your business whether or not you want to read Shahak, but it's not cricket for you to claim that I'm misinterpreting him when you haven't read his work. I recommend the book to you, it's short. We're got some excess conflation here. From Judaism the religion to Israel the state. Jews in Israel who are religiously observant tend to be orthodox, but a Almost all religious Jews in Israel are orthodox. Reform and Conservative Judiasm scarcely exist in Israel. They have no political power and no legal recognition. In the United States the situation is the opposite: Reform is the largest, followed by Conservative, then Orthodox. The Reform and Conservative traditions arose in the West and reflect influences of the Enlightenment and modernized Christianity. Note that for the orthodox structure in Israel, Reform and Conservative Judaism is not real Judaism. Reform Judaism is not recognized by the state of Israel as real Judaism, whereas orthodox Judaism is recognized as real Judiasm. Recall that a person converted to Judaism by an orthodox Rabbi is eligible to claim Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return; but a person converted to Judaism by a Reform Rabbi is not recognized as a Jew by the Israeli state and thus is not eligible to claim Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. This is a matter of considerable friction, as evidenced by the decision of the Jewish community in San Francisco a few years back to redirect its giving away from Israel. (To the the credit of said community, there were other issues, such as frustration over the intransigence of the Israeli government in its negotiations with the Palestinians.) high proportion (maybe 50%?) are not observant but secular. A true fact, but irrelevant. There is no middle ground analagous to conservative and reform traditions in the U.S. Of the Israeli orthodox Jews, a subset have theocratic ambitions. A meaningless statement. Not clear what you mean by "theocratic ambitions." "a subset" implies, "not all do" (although not in the mathematical sense of the term.) so? Israel is a country in which discrimination against non-Jews is codified in law, and in which the Jewish religion (orthodox version) has significant powers codified in law. The Ashkenazi and Sephardic Chief Rabbis are government officials. And so on. Israel is not a theocracy, but it is not a secular state either. Privilege for Jews in Israel does not stem from their religious commitment, but from their nominal religious identification. Very big difference. My identification is Jewish, but the only time you'll catch me in a synagogue is for well-catered weddings and bar mitzvahs. Founders of Israel were secular Jews and strongly opposed by the orthodox of pre-WWII. Until recently, an orthodox sect gathers once a year in Brooklyn and burned the Israeli flag; maybe they still do -- I haven't paid attention lately. My reading is that for the secular originators of Zionism, Judaism was more a marker than a matter of faith -- a symbol useful for nationalistic purposes. Cooptation of the orthodox by the Zionist right wing was as much opportunistic as anything else. Among other things, Jewish fundamentalism of a certain type supplies a rationale for annexation of territory "from the Nile to the Euphrates" which is lacking in law. What is the significance of the above? The founders were secular, but used religion for nationalist purposes. So? Suppose you found out that Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson didn't really believe in God. The significance of this fact would be... Religious nationalism has been encouraged in Israel by the state, with predictable consequences. Whether the founders really believed in the
[PEN-L:12898] Re: Re: Re: Women and the Taliban
I thought it was Charles Kingsley, the minister and author of Water Babies, who originally said that religion was the opiate of the people but I may be mistaken. Cheers, Ken Hanly Jim Devine wrote: I wrote: As Hitler allegedly asked (or was it Stalin?), how many battalions does the Pope have? Fight the power, not the people's faith. Yoshie writes: It is hoped that, in the process of fighting the power, people will also drop any religious faith. I agree that the abolition of religious faith -- including atheism -- would be a good thing, but it's more of a symptom than a cause. (Some of the worst folk have been secular or nonreligious. For example, Jabotinsky, a leader of "revisionist" Zionism -- i.e., right-wing Zionism -- and quite a terrorist, was secular. A lot of tyrants profess religion but are irreligious in practice.) Some hairy old German guy said that religion was the opiate of the masses (quoting others, including Kant, I believe). But he broke with the hard-core atheism of the Young Hegelians (who seem to have viewed religion as a basic cause of the world's manifest imperfection) to point to the societal basis of religious faith. He then argued the need to change that society rather than to try to convert the world to atheism. I guess that all this fits with what Yoshie says, but it's good to clarify the Left's attitude toward religion. After all, much of the Left has religion of one sort or another. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
[PEN-L:12896] Re: Re: Re: Women and the Taliban
Yoshie writes: It is hoped that, in the process of fighting the power, people will also drop any religious faith. Some hairy old German guy said that religion was the opiate of the masses (quoting others, including Kant, I believe). But he broke with the hard-core atheism of the Young Hegelians (who seem to have viewed religion as a basic cause of the world's manifest imperfection) to point to the societal basis of religious faith. He then argued the need to change that society rather than to try to convert the world to atheism. Jim Devine "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction" (1844): 'Religious suffering is at once the *expression* of real suffering and the *protest* against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the *opium of the people*.' _Capital, vol. 1 (1867) The religious reflex of the real world can...only...finally vanish, when the practical relations of everyday life offer to man but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellowmen and to Nature.' "Critique of the Gotha Programme" (1875): 'Everyone should be able to attend to his religious as well as his bodily needs without the police sticking their noses in. But the workers' party ought at any rate in this connection to have expressed its awareness of the fact that bourgeois "freedom of conscience" is nothing but the toleration of all possible kinds of *religious freedom of conscience*, and that for its part it endeavours rather to liberate the conscience from the witchery of religion.' Michael Hoover
[PEN-L:12895] North vs South strategies - Taegu declaration
The declaration from Taegu which Patrick forwarded, is very much a declaration from a conference drafted in such a way as to win the largest possible number of signatures without going into detail that not all could sign up to. So the call for the immediate resignation of Camdessus and his staff. I do not say that is wrong, but who is to replace them? The European Parliament managed to succeed in getting the European Commission to resign and a new one appointed with assurances about the management of malpractice. What I suspect is implicit here is an assumption that the workings of international finance capital are merely a policy of a number of nasty people on world organisations. That is not a marxist approach. Even if the most oppressed can only call for the destruction of the proto world government, the question has to be posed, would they be less oppressed and exploited without the IMF altogether? I cannot see that. An anarchist solution may seem at first sight more revolutionary, but the problem is to bring capital under social control, not to abolish any organisation that might try to control it. Remember there is a coalition of class forces behind something like the Taegu declaration. That will include national bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideology. But getting Camdessus personally off their backs is not a scientific approach to political strategy. That is why the road to global revolution has to be through reforms. Otherwise we leave the field even freer for giant multi-national corporations. Chris Burford London 8 October 1999 TO: Leaders of the G-7 Countries International Monetary Fund Executive Directors International Monetary Fund Management We, representatives of civil society organizations gathered in Taegu, South Korea to consider strategies to counter the damage done by unregulated capital flows and the programs of the international financial institutions, take note of the International Monetary Fund's recent announcement that its structural adjustment programs will henceforth adopt a focus on "poverty reduction" and will be designed in conjunction with the World Bank, through a new facility to be known as the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility. We welcome the IMF's acknowledgment, implicit in this news, that its programs have had a negative impact on impoverished peoples in the countries where it has imposed structural adjustment. We note, however, that this acknowledgment comes very late: organizations like ours have been pointing out the devastation caused by the IMF for over 15 years. We are alarmed, also, that despite the apparent admission of its incompetence in designing economic programs that will promote the welfare of the greatest part of countries' populations, this announcement indicates the following: (1) that the IMF does not intend to withdraw from its involvement with impoverished countries, but that, on the contrary, it will now expand its mandate by designing and implementing poverty reduction programs; (2) that the IMF has taken no steps to acknowledge the impact of its policy impositions in the countries of East Asia forced to accept "bailout" packages in 1997 and 1998; and (3) the World Bank has apparently been chosen as the guarantor of the rights of the impoverished, although we know that its structural adjustment programs differ hardly at all from the IMF's in terms or impact, and despite the confirmation of this in a recent internal Bank report that finds the institutions paid no heed to the impact of its own structural adjustment loans on the poor populations they effect. Recognizing the disastrous impact of the IMF around the world, we make the following demands: 1. That the IMF immediately cease imposing structural adjustment- style conditions in conjunction with any of its loans or programs. 2. That consequently the proposal for the new Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (as successor to the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility) be immediately withdrawn as irrelevant. 3. That the assets of the ESAF/PRGF be used to cancel the debts the countries defined by the World Bank as heavily indebted poor countries owed the IMF, and that any remaining funds be used to cancel the debts owed the IMF by the additional countries appearing on Jubilee 2000 U.K.'s list of 52 countries in need of debt cancellation. 4. That the IMF structural adjustment/stabilization programs imposed on the East Asian economies in the aftermath of the Asian financial crises be immediately discontinued. 5. That Michel Camdessus, the IMF's Managing Director for over ten years, and his top staff, including Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer, express a new spirit of accountability at the IMF by immediately resigning. 6. That moves to amend the IMF's Articles of Agreement to require member countries to liberalize their capital accounts be explicitly abandoned as incompatible with
[PEN-L:12891] Re: Re: Re: WTO North vs South strategies
On 23 Oct 99, at 23:59, Chris Burford wrote: ... there are various politicised charities in the UK who want a bigger type of reform than just annulment of the debt. Nor are they any longer restricting themselves to calling for advantageous trade deals. Oxfam Int'l's people endorsed the IMF's turn to poverty reduction last month. The progressive South groups rejected it wholeheartedly (see below). Who are you going to support, Chris? I am not trying to persuade you not to campaign as effectively as you can, but I cannot see that third world countries have much leverage. What do you think progressives in first world countries should do? Get with the programme? --- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 22:02:32 -0200 From: "wb50years" [EMAIL PROTECTED] (by way of Marcos Arruda [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Subject:Opposed to IMF Sign-on Letter - Dear Activists/Friends, We are sending this letter out to gather more sign-ons! Please circulate this to all networks you have access to! Please send your sign-on to my email address. This letter is to be the cornerstone of a major IMF campaign internationally. Focus on the Global South (Thailand) and Freedom From Debt Coalition (Philippines) are spearheading a major effort on this campaign Thank you for your support and for circulating it far and wide! In Solidarity, Njoki Njoroge Njehû 50 Years Is Enough Network = === 8 October 1999 TO: Leaders of the G-7 Countries International Monetary Fund Executive Directors International Monetary Fund Management We, representatives of civil society organizations gathered in Taegu, South Korea to consider strategies to counter the damage done by unregulated capital flows and the programs of the international financial institutions, take note of the International Monetary Fund's recent announcement that its structural adjustment programs will henceforth adopt a focus on "poverty reduction" and will be designed in conjunction with the World Bank, through a new facility to be known as the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility. We welcome the IMF's acknowledgment, implicit in this news, that its programs have had a negative impact on impoverished peoples in the countries where it has imposed structural adjustment. We note, however, that this acknowledgment comes very late: organizations like ours have been pointing out the devastation caused by the IMF for over 15 years. We are alarmed, also, that despite the apparent admission of its incompetence in designing economic programs that will promote the welfare of the greatest part of countries' populations, this announcement indicates the following: (1) that the IMF does not intend to withdraw from its involvement with impoverished countries, but that, on the contrary, it will now expand its mandate by designing and implementing poverty reduction programs; (2) that the IMF has taken no steps to acknowledge the impact of its policy impositions in the countries of East Asia forced to accept "bailout" packages in 1997 and 1998; and (3) the World Bank has apparently been chosen as the guarantor of the rights of the impoverished, although we know that its structural adjustment programs differ hardly at all from the IMF's in terms or impact, and despite the confirmation of this in a recent internal Bank report that finds the institutions paid no heed to the impact of its own structural adjustment loans on the poor populations they effect. Recognizing the disastrous impact of the IMF around the world, we make the following demands: 1. That the IMF immediately cease imposing structural adjustment- style conditions in conjunction with any of its loans or programs. 2. That consequently the proposal for the new Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (as successor to the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility) be immediately withdrawn as irrelevant. 3. That the assets of the ESAF/PRGF be used to cancel the debts the countries defined by the World Bank as heavily indebted poor countries owed the IMF, and that any remaining funds be used to cancel the debts owed the IMF by the additional countries appearing on Jubilee 2000 U.K.'s list of 52 countries in need of debt cancellation. 4. That the IMF structural adjustment/stabilization programs imposed on the East Asian economies in the aftermath of the Asian financial crises be immediately discontinued. 5. That Michel Camdessus, the IMF's Managing Director for over ten years, and his top staff, including Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer, express a new spirit of accountability at the IMF by immediately resigning. 6. That moves to amend the IMF's Articles of Agreement to require member countries to liberalize their capital accounts be explicitly abandoned as
[PEN-L:12890] Re: Re: WTO North vs South strategies
At 19:29 23/10/99 +, Patrick wrote: From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] What are the openings in the North therefore for reform of the international systems even if Patrick and his allies would denounce them as timid and reformist? Of the top of my head I can think of two: the consumer movement in the North, and the interests of capital. 3: The coming crash? How inevitable and how big do you think that is going to be? My hunch is that the periphery is bearing the burden of the crisis and the centre does not need to contract much. Also service industries are still commodities and can go on circulating. There is such intense belief in the new means of communication that people will go on struggling to circulate goods and services even if capital is devalued by 50%. That is my hunch. Any credit crisis will be temporary. The dollar will still remain as the international reserve currency - world money. The kind of dramatic power shift between state and financial capital that seventy years ago led to the semi-dissolution of JP Morgan's empire? What effect are you describing, and why should a power shift between state and financial capital in its own right be beneficial since the state will represent the dominant class interests behind it? If those remain finance capital then the state will merely shore its position up. Are you describing anything more than something like the enhanced role of the state in Japan's bank restructuring over the last year or so? Why would that lead to the end of the rudimentary institutions of global governance? ... Therefore all the demands for boycotting the institutions of global governance rather than reforming them, will merely add to the balance of forces by which they are reformed. Chris, in your world-view, is there anything that doesn't, dialectically to be sure, lead to ever-concentrating "finance capital," and thus a world state, and thus gradualist socialism? There are many contradictions in the world. I have argued an analysis of the balance of forces. Why is your analysis different? Is there a counterfactual to be found here? A counterfactual is a replay of past history assuming only slight changes, like if the butterfly had not flapped its wings, in order to discuss the underlying forces (like if Hitler had been a succesful landscape painter). What period of history are you seeking to re-run and why? Rather than regretting the different perspective of progressives in the North and the South it would therefore be better to argue, including fiercely at times, about what the likely development of the reform agenda will be, and how different consituencies can be brought it to shape it in different ways. Ok, you've seen my JWSR paper on these various agenda options. Sorry, you will need to refocus me. JWSR stands for? Date? What's the next level of debate then? The SA left is going ahead in concrete ways on debt repudiation, defunding the IMF/WB, no new WTO round, capital controls, and a new "Africa Consensus" on people-centred development. Your team? I have no team, in the sense that perhaps you do have one or are influential in one. But there are various politicised charities in the UK who want a bigger type of reform than just annulment of the debt. Nor are they any longer restricting themselves to calling for advantageous trade deals. My own view is that radical reform has to develop opportunities presented by less radical reform. I am not trying to persuade you not to campaign as effectively as you can, but I cannot see that third world countries have much leverage. What do you think progressives in first world countries should do? There is no social base in the UK for withdrawal from the IMF and World Bank. Are you suggesting that in the USA left wingers should unite with isolationist Republicans to pull the US out of these institutions? That would surely leave capitalism even more laissez faire than it is. Why would that be in the interests of the people of the world. You write as if the problem was policies of the IMF. These are not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is the inherently uneven workings of the world capitalist system. That will remain even if the IMF is abolished. Chris Burford London
