BLS Daily Report
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, DAILY REPORT, MAY 24, 2002: The economy snapped back from last year's recession, growing at an annual rate of 5.6 percent during the first quarter, the strongest performance in nearly 2 years. The latest reading on the first-quarter gross domestic product, which measures the total output of goods and services produced within the United States -- showed that the economy grew a little less briskly than the 5.8 percent rate estimated a month ago, the Commerce Department reports today. Even so, the revised first-quarter performance was remarkable, given that the economy actually shrank at a 1.3 percent rate in the third quarter of 2001. GDP grew at a below-par 1.7 percent rate in the fourth quarter (Jeannine Aversa, Associated Press, http://www.nandotimes.com/business/story/412347p-3285934c.html). Sales of new homes in the United States increased 1.0 percent in April, the Commerce Department said today, as low mortgage rates kept luring buyers. New single-family homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 915,000 units last month, a climb from the upwardly revised pace of 906,000 units in March. April home sales exceeded the expectations of analysts polled by Reuters, who had forecast a pace of 882,000 units (Reuters, http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2002-05-24-new-homes.htm). Companies ordered more equipment in April, but the increase wasn't enough to signal a decisive -- and greatly anticipated -- end to the long drought in business investment. Government data showed a 1.9 percent gain in orders for nondefense capital goods, one proxy for capital spending.. The advance suggested the painful decline in business spending last year has started to reverse itself. But the increase wasn't enough to erase a 3.1 percent drop in March, and volatility in orders data in recent months has made it hard to identify a clearly positive trend. Economists are focusing on capital spending because they believe business investment must pick up sharply before a full-fledged recovery takes hold (The Wall Street Journal, page A2). New claims filed with state agencies for unemployment benefits dropped 9,000 to a total of 416,000 during the week ending May 18, according to the Employment and Training Administration of the Department of Labor. Extended benefits were available in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington during the week ending May 4 (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). application/ms-tnef
BLS Daily Report
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2002: About 6,000 U.S. workers die on the job each year, according to a new report from the AFL-CIO, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, says The Washington Post (page F1). Worldwide, about 5,000 workers die of work-related causes each day, according to a report released last week by the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency based in Geneva. Both in the United States and abroad, the riskiest jobs are in construction, where workers fall off scaffolds or get objects dropped on their heads, and in agriculture, where workers get run over by threshing machines, suffer heat exhaustion, or inhale pesticides. Each year 170,000 farm workers and 55,000 construction workers are killed on the job, the ILO reports. In the United States, immigrants are at particular risk, dying at higher rates while working than the native-born population. According to BLS statistics, the annual workplace death rate for foreign-born Hispanic workers is 5.6 per 100,000 workers, compared with 4.3 for the native-born population. For workers here and abroad, automobile crashes, sometimes caused by fatigue, are a particular hazard. The ILO recommends that workers get at least 6 or 7 hours of rest each night and try to ensure they have at least 11 hours of down time in the interval between leaving work at night and starting again in the morning. In the U.S. in 2000, highway accidents caused 1,363 worker deaths, according to BLS. (Fatal accidents involving workers commuting to or from their jobs were not included in this tally). Scott Richardson, a BLS economist who tracks workplace fatalities, says variations in workplace fatalities are often caused by the mix of industries in each state. He said that Alaska, Wyoming and Montana have a higher ratio of more perilous jobs. It's very difficult to compare rates state-by-state because of the different industries, because it includes states with safe industries and states with high-risk industries, Richardson said. He said that fishing in the icy waters of Alaska and mining and agriculture jobs found in Wyoming and Montana are more dangerous than, say, the desk jobs found in the District or Northern Virginia. Comparisons should be made with great caution, Richardson says. It is estimated 2 million workers worldwide die each year from job-related accidents and diseases, and in 80 percent of the cases, the fatalities could have been prevented, the International Labor Organization says. Although work-related fatal accidents decreased in wealthier nations between 1990 and 2000 and slightly increased in poor countries during that period, work-related deaths overall have been on the rise. One reason the number of worker deaths grew over the past decade is that work-related cancer cases and circulatory disorders such as hypertension have increased. Also, previous ILO statistics did not count the number of work-related communicable diseases, such as hepatitis, the report says. The biggest workplace killer, the ILO found, is cancer, which causes about 640,000 -- or 32 percent -- of job-related deaths. Asbestos alone claims some 100,000 lives annually. The second major cause of on-the-job fatalities is circulatory disease (23 percent), followed by fatal accidents (19 percent) and communicable disease (17 percent) (Daily Labor Report, page A-7). The economy grew more slowly in the first quarter of 2002 than initially estimated, the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce says, issuing a revised growth estimate of 5.6 percent, following a preliminary estimate of 5.8 percent (Daily Labor Report, page D-1; Bloomberg News, The New York Times, May 25, page B2; The Wall Street Journal, page A2). Consumer confidence nudged up, shoppers opened their pocketbooks wider and sales of previously owned homes jumped, suggesting that the nation's economic recovery remains on track. The Conference Board reports today that its Consumer Confidence Index rose to 109.8 in May, up from a revised 108.5 in April. Another report released by the Commerce Department showed that consumers increased their spending by 0.5 percent in April, on top of a 0.3 percent advance the month before. In a third report, sales of existing homes shot up to a rate of 5.79 million in April, a 7 percent increase over March's level, according to the National Association of Realtors. April's performance marked the third highest monthly sales pace on record (Jeannine Aversa, Associated Press, http://www.nypost.com/apstories/business/V4200.htm). European Union workers have failed to close the gap with the United States when it comes to productivity, as most workers in the 15 EU-member states are 20 percent less efficient, the European Commission said in a new report on the competitiveness of industry in the 15 member states. In addition, the European Commission said European workers in general have 2 years less education than
Malawi
The Times (London), May 29, 2002 IMF accused of causing food crisis in Malawi The International Monetary Fund has denied allegations that it was partially responsible for the gathering famine in Malawi. The Washington-based institution has been blamed for putting pressure on President Muluzi to sell off maize reserves to save money on storage and to repay foreign debts at the very moment when the harvest failed. Aleke Banda, Malawi's Agriculture Minister, and Western aid agencies, including the Save the Children Fund, have claimed that the IMF and Western donors pushed Malawi into selling the reserves. The row has thrown a spotlight on to the seemingly irreconcilable goals of sound financial discipline required by the IMF among developing countries in exchange for financial assistance and the need to maintain expensive food surpluses to avert sudden food crises. Malawi sold off virtually all its stock of 167,000 tonnes of maize, the staple diet for most of the 11 million inhabitants in the impoverished Central African country, in August 2000. This was after unprecedented floods earlier in the year had ravaged production.The floods, followed by drought, left Malawi with a shortfall of about 600,000 tonnes and made the hardest-hit of the six Southern African countries -along with Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho -that are struggling to cope with their worst food emergency in almost five decades. Food shortages in Malawi are now so severe that farmers are sleeping in their fields to protect their withering crops from thieves. People caught stealing maize are said to have had their hands and ears chopped off, a sign of mounting violence and social disintegration unprecedented in the former British colony. Members [of the WTO Secretariat] pointed out that Malawi's agricultural policies aimed at food security and rural development. They questioned the impact of communal land ownership on agricultural development and planned reforms in the sector, mainly in land tenure. http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tp189_e.htm Accordingly, the government's strategy to further enhance the role of the private sector in agriculture rests crucially on the accelerated divestiture of its assets. To this end, the government will prepare a time-bound program for the commercialization and privatization of ADMARC by end-March 1999, and begin implementing the process shortly thereafter. Beginning with the 1999/2000 crop season, the government will no longer be involved in direct procurement, import, or sale of maize, and ADMARC will operate on purely commercial terms. http://www.essentialaction.org/labor_report/malawi.html The Times (London), February 2, 2002, Saturday Blair's great African sell-off Privatisation of Attlee's aid agency hits 'poorest of the poor' TONY BLAIR'S new mission to heal the scar of Africa risks being undermined by his Government's plan to sell off the British organisation that has pioneered investment in the Third World. MPs, aid organisations and environmental groups have expressed alarm at the manner in which the former Commonwealth Development Corporation, which has been renamed CDC Capital Partners, has been diverted from its founding principles. Measures taken to prepare CDC for partial privatisation have seen the scrapping of loans for African agricultural projects, as well as the closure of offices in some of the continent's most deprived countries, including Uganda, Malawi and Ivory Coast. . . The CDC was set up 50 years ago by Clement Attlee's postwar Labour Government. In 1997 the Prime Minister announced plans to sell off up to 60 per cent of CDC, in a partial privatisation that Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, said would release funds for more aid projects. Since then CDC has sought to rid itself of its long-term agricultural investments, which have average returns of 6 to 8 per cent. Mr Gillespie hopes to attract new private capital by channelling funds instead into telecommunications, shopping malls, banks and energy firms, which can offer rates of return of 25 per cent. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Talks by Issam Nassar and Yoav Peled On-line
Here's a link to a talk given by Issam Nassar, a Palestinian historian, and Yoav Peled, an Israeli political scientist, at Columbia not long ago. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/vforum/02/israel_palestine/index.html
Re: Re: Clueless 2
Clueless 2 CB: Briefly, the CPUSA from the 1920's to about 1950 orso held that Black people in the US had the right to self-determination in theLeninist sense. They had the right to secede from the U.S. if they sochose. If you are familiar with the Leninistapproach to this, it implies not that the people in question are a nation, but that they have the right to choose to be one. Black people in the U.S. neverdecided to exercise that right to a separate nation. Then in the 50's the CPUSAchanged its assessment, because a large part of the Black population hadmigrated out of the South, and there was no longer the territorial/populationcompactness for a quot;landquot;. Here Melvin P. criticizes the CPUSA for the changedassessment. I don't know whether thatmeans he thinks that Black Americans still constitute a nation for purposes ofthe self-determination question. Most Marxists in the U.S. today do not hold that Blackpeople constitute a separate nation today, in direct answer to your question. CB Reply Any Marxist in history who has held that “Black people constitute a separate nation,” misunderstands what a nation is. What Comrade Charles alludes to is a bourgeois separatist conception of the Negro National Colonial Question, that is alive and well within the tiny radical black intelligencia. He states the position of the CPUSA as “a large part of the Black population had migrated out of the South, and there was no longer the territorial/population compactness for a "land.” In other words: 1. The Black population migrated from the South; and 2. Because the black skin people are the nation, 3. Their dispersal dissolved the nation. As a result, “Most Marxists in the US today do not hold that Black people constitute a separate nation today, in direct answer to your question.” In other words the Black people once constituted a separate nation but migration destroyed the nation, which was colonized as the result of its defeat during the Civil War in America. The other meaning of what Comrade Charles state is: the black people of the slaveholding area developed as a nation separate from the white people who lived across the tracks, and the black people once had the right to self determination but not the white people who live adjacent to them. It is not correct to call this proposition a bourgeois separatist tendency or theory. What is the nation that developed in the south and was colonized by Wall Street imperialism as the result of its defeat during the Civil War in America? The nation or national formation that evolved in the South of the United States of North America, is a historically evolved stable community of Colored people – black slaves, along with the historically developed Anglo-American people, who lived in the old slave holding area of the South – the Black Belt, and the economically dependent area of the Southern USNA – border regions. This nation, which evolved from the specifics of slavery, is a historically evolved stable community of black skin and white skin people formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life and psychological makeup manifested in a common culture. This is the classical Marxist definition of a nation written by Stalin, edited by Lenin and propagated by the Third Communist International. In place of a Marxist disclose of the meaning of a “common land” Comrade Charles smuggle I the historical CPUSA conception called “theterritorial/population compactness for a quot;landquot;. Our Comrade faces an impossible situation and places land in quotes (“land”), because of the absurdity of the proposition. He has no way of this absurd situation without resorting to the Marxist presentation of the national colonial question and this means consulting the classic, “Marxism and the National Question” and reading the section on the meaning of a “common land” as the basis for a development from pre-capitalist to capitalist production relations. Let us return to the Comintern document again. “Is the Southern region, thickly populated by Negroes to be looked upon as a colony, or as an “integral part of the national economy of the United States,” where presumably a revolutionary situation cannot arise independent of the general revolutionary development in the United States? “In the interest of the utmost clarity of ideas on this question, the Negro question in the United States must be viewed from the standpoint of its peculiarity, namely as the question of an oppressed nation, which is in a peculiar and extraordinary distressing situation of national oppression not only in view of the prominent racial distinction (marked difference in the color of skin, etc.) but above all, because of considerable social antagonism (remnants of slavery). This introduces in the American Negro Question an important, peculiar trait, which is absent from the national question of other oppressed people. Furthermore, it is necessary to face clearly the
Re: Re: Text file Clueless on national question
Brother U clueless . . . concerning the presentation of the national colonial question as it applies to the African American people. Below is your exchange: In relation to the post someone made about Negroes in the USA being a 'nation' and using the old 4 part definition of Stalin's (common language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up ). I have never seen this applied to Black Americans in that way before. What "common economic life" do they have that's different from other citizens? (I mean that would justify a claim to a separate state). A separate language? territory? even the cultural differences I would have read as those of an ethnic minority which would give rise to claims to equality but not to a separate nation. Not that equality would occur without a revolution but that's the point isn't it that Blacks need to fight to overthrow the US ruling class alongside white workers not for a separate state. Is this a common understanding in the US left (this is a post from Australia) or am I missing something? ^ CB: Briefly, the CPUSA from the 1920's to about 1950 or so held that Black people in the US had the right to self-determination in the Leninist sense. They had the right to secede from the U.S. if they so chose. If you are familiar with the Leninist approach to this, it implies not that the people in question are a nation , but that they have the right to chose to be one. Black people in the U.S. never decided to exercise that right to a separate nation. Then in the 50's the CPUSA changed its assessment , because a large part of the Black population had migrated out of the South , and there was no longer the territorial/population compactness for a "land". Here Melvin P. criticizes the CPUSA for the changed assessment. I don't know whether that means he thinks that Black Americans still constitute a nation for purposes of the self-determination question. Most Marxists in the U.S. today do not hold that Black people constitute a separate nation today, in direct answer to your question. My criticism of the position of the CPUSA is not that they simply changed their position. My criticism is that their position on the so-called Negro Question was always wrong and their assessment of American history and the working class movement is wrong. You speak as if I have asserted that black people constitute a nation when repeatedly I have stated the very opposite. The African American people are not a nation. The theoretical problem involves overcoming racial concepts, which exist in the ideological sphere and unraveling material categories. Class for instance is a historically evolved material category, that arise on the basis of the division of labor in human society and is "evolved" as an expression of the development of the productive forces. The African American people are not a race, but a historically evolved people. The African American people are not a nation but a historically evolved people. As I explore the response to this question I become convinced we are dealing with imperial bribery and a profound fetish, wherein the historical social intercourse between the peoples and classes of the imperial centers of capital and their material relationship with the colonial masses and class structures, appear as a category called race. The historical position of the CPUSA was forced on them by the prestige of Lenin and the Third International. It is necessary to examine a passage from the 1930 document of the Comintern on the Negro Question to unravel the fetish. The document states: "Is the Southern region, thickly populated by Negroes to be looked upon as a colony, or as an "integral part of the national economy of the United States," where presumably a revolutionary situation cannot arise independent of the general revolutionary development in the United States? "In the interest of the utmost clarity of ideas on this question, the Negro question in the United States must be viewed from the standpoint of its peculiarity, namely as the question of an oppressed nation, which is in a peculiar and extraordinary distressing situation of national oppression not only in view of the prominent racial distinction (marked difference in the color of skin, etc.) but above all, because of considerable social antagonism (remnants of slavery). This introduces in the American Negro Question an important, peculiar trait, which is absent from the national question of other oppressed people. Furthermore, it is necessary to face clearly the inevitable distinction between the position of the Negro in the South and in the North, owing to the fact that at least three-fourths of the entire Negro population in the United States (12,000,000) live in the compact masses in the South, most of them being peasants and agricultural laborers in a state of s! emi-serfdom, settled in the "Black Belt" and constituting the majority of the population, whereas the Negroes in the northern
Re: Re: Text File Re: Clueless 2
Clueless 2
CB: Briefly, the CPUSA from the 1920's to about 1950 or so held that Black people in the US had the right to self-determination in the Leninist sense. They had the right to secede from the U.S. if they so chose. If you are familiar with the Leninist approach to this, it implies not that the people in question are a nation, but that they have the right to choose to be one. Black people in the U.S. never decided to exercise that right to a separate nation. Then in the 50's the CPUSA changed its assessment, because a large part of the Black population had migrated out of the South, and there was no longer the territorial/population compactness for a "land".
Here Melvin P. criticizes the CPUSA for the changed assessment. I don't know whether that means he thinks that Black Americans still constitute a nation for purposes of the self-determination question.
Most Marxists in the U.S. today do not hold that Black people constitute a separate nation today, in direct answer to your question.
CB
Reply
Any Marxist in history who has held that "Black people constitute a separate nation," misunderstands what a nation is. What Comrade Charles alludes to is a bourgeois separatist conception of the Negro National Colonial Question, that is alive and well within the tiny radical black intelligencia.
He states the position of the CPUSA as "a large part of the Black population had migrated out of the South, and there was no longer the territorial/population compactness for a "land"."
In other words: 1. The Black population migrated from the South; and 2. Because the black skin people are the nation, 3. Their dispersal dissolved the nation. As a result, "Most Marxists in the U.S. today do not hold that Black people constitute a separate nation today, in direct answer to your question."
In other words the Black people once constituted a separate nation but migration destroyed the nation, which was colonized as the result of its defeat during the Civil War in America. The other meaning of what Comrade Charles state is: the black people of the slaveholding area developed as a nation separate from the white people who lived across the tracks, and the black people once had the right to self determination but not the white people who live adjacent to them.
Is it not correct to call this proposition a bourgeois separatist tendency or theory. What is the nation that developed in the south and was colonized by Wall Street imperialism as the result of its defeat during the Civil War in America?
The nation or national formation that evolved in the South of the United States of North America, is a historically evolved stable community of Colored people - black slaves, along with the historically developed Anglo-American people, who lived in the old slave holding area of the South - the Black Belt, and the economically dependent area of the Southern USNA - border regions.
This nation, which evolved from the specifics of slavery, is a historically evolved stable community of black skin and white skin people formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life and psychological makeup manifested in a common culture. This is the classical Marxist definition of a nation written by Stalin, edited by Lenin and propagated by the Third Communist International.
In place of a Marxist disclose of the meaning of a "common land" Comrade Charles smuggles in the historical CPUSA conception called "the territorial/population compactness for a "land". Our Comrade faces an impossible situation and places land in quotes ("land"), because of the absurdity of the proposition. He has no way out of this absurd situation without resorting to the Marxist presentation of the national colonial question and this means consulting the classic, "Marxism and the National Question" and reading the section on the meaning of a "common land" as the basis for a development from pre-capitalist to capitalist production relations.
Let us return to the Comintern document again.
"Is the Southern region, thickly populated by Negroes to be looked upon as a colony, or as an "integral part of the national economy of the United States," where presumably a revolutionary situation cannot arise independent of the general revolutionary development in the United States?
"In the interest of the utmost clarity of ideas on this question, the Negro question in the United States must be viewed from the standpoint of its peculiarity, namely as the question of an oppressed nation, which is in a peculiar and extraordinary distressing situation of national oppression not only in view of the prominent racial distinction (marked difference in the color of skin, etc.) but above all, because of considerable social antagonism (remnants of slavery). This introduces in the American Negro Question an important, peculiar trait, which is absent from the national question of other oppressed people. Furthermore, it is necessary to face clearly the inevitable
Re: Re:Text File Race
CB: What type of thing does Marx mean when he refers to a "Negro"CB: What type of thing does Marx mean when he refers to a "Negro" ? A national colonial group ? Or does he mean a group whose skin is "branded" or whose skin is a brand ? A group defined by its land, language, history ? Or a physical characteristic, a phenotype ? Is not Marx using the concept of race when he refers to Negroes ? ^^^ Further Marx says, "Where the capitalist outlook prevails, as on American plantations, this entire surplus value is regarded as profit . . ." Capital Volume 3 page 804. Marx has a way with words. Comrade Charles please try and follow the logic or rather dialectic of the economic development that produced on the one hand a historically evolved people, not a race - (stop pause and consider), CB: Here's what occurs to me when I consider: What type of group is Marx referring to when he refers to a "Negro" ? Obviously, he _is_ referring to a race, contra your comment here. Lets stop here. Lets dwell on this some. Please focus your discussion on this point for a while, then lets move on to your other discussion. Right now I am focusing on your answer to this question. Charles Brown Reply. I cannot believe you asked what you ask: “CB: What type of thing does Marx mean when he refers to a "Negro" ? A national colonial group ? Or does he mean a group whose skin is "branded" or whose skin is a brand ? A group defined by its land, language, history ? Or a physical characteristic, a phenotype? The folly of racial theory has not bounds. You seek to prove the impossible and miss the elementary. Marx is referring to a class of slaves whose origins are traceable to continental Africa. Specifically, he is referring to the black slaves on the plantations of the American south. You must study Lenin and Stalin writings. One of your misunderstanding is what is meant by the words national-colonial question, which as such did not emerge as such until during and after the first Imperialist War. Marx could not have meant a “national-colonial group” because this configuration in history occurs after his death. Communist speak of the Leninist conception of the national colonial question because Lenin’s name is associated with the evolution of a new theory markedly different than the presentation popularized by the bankrupt leaders of the Second International. This is one of the reasons the Third Communist International was formed. The reason Marx words are quoted is to present the analysis of what made slavery in the South a unique system of capitalist production. The reason understanding a form of capitalist production is important is because any group of human beings drawn into the vortex of capitalist production will evolve with a specific framework referred to as national development. National development is markedly different than that of the estates under feudal social and economic relations. National development took place in the slaveholding areas of the South, but the Negro People evolved as a unique people prior to the emergence of the national formation and its attempt to win political authority and complete its development. Your obsession with race blinds you and most of our comrades to the logic of American history and prevents disclosing the essence of the Negro National Colonial Question. The Negro National Colonial question did not exist at the time of Marx. The social motion of the African American people of the United States has always reflected the level of development of the productive forces, the productive relations and the political maneuvering of the ruling class to keep the two united. The political maneuvering and the social response of the African American people to the material conditions of society has kept them at the center of the country’s history. The formation of the African American people is unique to history. Racial theory prevents the disclosure of this unique development and has prevented at every important juncture of history, the independent political assertion of the most proletarian sector of the Negro people. The word Negro is Spanish for black. The black people who constituted the human chattel driving slave production of commodities for the world market began to coalesce into a people as the result of the harshness of slavery. What began as various pre-capitalist groups of black people from continental Africa was weld together into a people with a common language – English, and psychological make-up. The internal unity that held the African American people together as a people was not a common land in the sense of the historical evolution of a people and their transformation on the basis of passing from feudal social and economic relations to capitalist social and economic relations. That is to say the historic evolution of the towns as centers of commerce and their interactive
RE: Re: Re:Text File Race
Harry Chang is very good on this. See his Toward a Marxist Theory of Racism (two essays by Harry Chang), edited by Paul Liem and Eric Montague in Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 17, No. 3, Fall, 1985, pp. 34-45. (Special Issue: The Political Economy of Race and Class, Gary Dymski, ed.). -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 2:25 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:26427] Re: Re:Text File Race CB: What type of thing does Marx mean when he refers to a NegroCB: What type of thing does Marx mean when he refers to a Negro ? A national colonial group ? Or does he mean a group whose skin is branded or whose skin is a brand ? A group defined by its land, language, history ? Or a physical characteristic, a phenotype ? Is not Marx using the concept of race when he refers to Negroes ? ^^^
Re:Text File Capitalist Slavery/Race
CB: You have not been persuasive. Obviously you jest. Comrade, you first asked me to define the content of the Marxist analysis of the African American national colonial question concerning Booker T. Washington and Dr. Dubois and I answered this question concretely and destroyed your racial analysis with a very clear dichotomy of these two men as representative of the bourgeoisie or capital. I am prepared to answer every single question you posed concerning the Marxist proletariat approach to the African American National Colonial Question. Search the web for a level of Marxism such as I inherited. I state for the record that prior to the early 1970s and the formation of the Communist League and our publication of the first edition of the Negro National Colonial Question that no segment of the Marxist movement in the history of America formulated the amalgamation of the various people of African, European and "Native" heritage into a new people - the African American people, as the result of the passing from patriarchal forms of economic to the capitalist mode of production, as the genesis of the "African American National Colonial Question." Here is the presentation of the African American National Colonial Question - again, from the standpoint of its development in the Marxist movement reconsolidated by the Third Communist International, after the mechanization of and in this new period. Let us begin at the beginning with Marx. "In the second type of colonies - plantations- where commercial speculation figure from the start and production is intended for the world market, the capitalist mode of production exist, although only in a formal sense, since the slavery of Negroes precludes free wage laborers, which is the basis of capitalist production. But the business in which slaves are used is conducted by capitalist (italicized capitalist in original)." Theory of Surplus Value Volume 2. Further Marx says, "Where the capitalist outlook prevails, as on American plantations, this entire surplus value is regarded as profit . . ." Capital Volume 3 page 804. Marx has a way with words. Comrade Charles please try and follow the logic or rather dialectic of the economic development that produced on the one hand a historically evolved people, not a race - (stop pause and consider), and then - (the historically evolved people is now in back of us), a historically evolved economic unit that cannot be classified as feudal economic organization of production. What is peculiar in "American" development is our specific capitalist development, not racial development. This peculiar development calls for - nay demands, an indigenousness and militant Marxism, although the various Marxist amongst the Native Bands would approach this matter from a different vantage point. Indeed, the intellectual sectors of the various Native Bands - who are Marxist or simply rigorous intellectuals, would approach the matter from the actual development of the process called by Marx, the primitive accumulation of capital or the historic process that separated the producer from the land as the fundamental attribute of an emerging mode of production. For the Native bands primitive accumulation of capital meant annihilation. The survived never forgets "his" annihilation even when he or she survives as part of the peoples who did the annihilation. For the black, primitive accumulation of capital meant slavery as it was transformed from a system riveted to! the production of use-values to a unity of the labor process called the production of exchange values. For the Irish the potato famine and the people removal from the land in favor of wool or rather sheep describes the primitive accumulation of capital. Here at one blow, Marx clearly sets forth the character of capitalist slavery in North America in distinction to the slavery in some other areas in the Americas. Marx says: "It is however, clear that in any given economic formation of society, where not the exchange value but the use value of the product predominated, the surplus labor will be limited by a given set of wants, which may be greater or less, and that here no boundless thirst for surplus labor arises from the nature of production itself. Hence in antiquity, overwork become horrible only when the object is to obtain exchange value in its specific independent money-form; in the production of gold and silver. Compulsory working to death is here the recognized form of over-work." (Capital Volume 1). Marx further explain slavery under capitalism: "But as soon as people, whose production still moves within the lower form of slave labor, corvee labor. Etc. arte dawn into the whirlpool of an international market dominated by the capitalist mode of production, the sale of their products for export becoming the principle interest, the civilized horrors of overwork are grafted on the barbaric horrors of slaver, serfdom, etc. hence the Negro labor is the Southern states of
RE: Charles and Race Theory 2
Both 'purely' natural (biological) and social theories of race are wrong (though if they are the only available the social is certainly preferable, imo). The reason why the purely social theory is incomplete is because of the physiognomic rule -- physiognomic traits are biologically inherited. For Chang, the concept if reification helps to sort this out. It is the assignment of social meaning to otherwise arbitrary physiognomic traits that explains race. It is also the social construction of discrete categories out of what is essentially a continuum. -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 3:33 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:26414] Charles and Race Theory 2 Charles and Race Theory 2 by Waistline2 27 May 2002 16:00 UTC Melvin, The shortest answer to all you say in these many, many posts is that race is a historical category. Basically, my answers will focus on that. You are wrong when you assert, argue, assume, insist, write at length, that race is only a biological and not a historical category. It is a historical category masquerading as a biological category. Charles CB
Re: The Death of Reconstruction [H-South]
Heather Cox Richardson. The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865-1901. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2001. xvi + 312 pp. Notes index. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-674-00637-2. It is really exciting and wonderful to read in your review an attempt to unravel the class factors of Reconstruction, outside the ideological stink of race. I am an African American and most certainly live the reality of the color factor in our collective history. More than that I am also a Yankee and industrial worker, who has labored amongst the highest paid workers ad the thin labor aristocracy - which is not a bad word in my opinion, but a material reality that cannot be wished away. I am also an old school communist at age 49 and recently retired from DaimlerChrysler after 30 years. I wanted to do something else in life - like work in a Casino or something - and read books. Race and concepts of race obscure the obvious and magnify the absurd. You point out how under Reconstruction the various bourgeois democratic governments enacted class policy directed against the former slave holding class and favorable to the freed peoples - a term I really like, and small farmers. Others tend to paint Reconstruction as a fantasy in harmonious racial relations devoid of class content. This is my objection. People of various hue can and will sooner or later live in peace as far as that goes, but class factors tend to divide more fundamentally than the assertions by the theorist of "an authentic Marxist conception of race." Great review. Eric Foner - indeed. The "unfinished revolution" concept is very old indeed and I first encountered it perhaps 30 years ago in James Allen 1936 Reconstruction, a book somewhere in the mountain of books in the basement of my second wife home. If memory serves me correct, this generation of authors - who did the best they could, proceeded from a standpoint of concrete feudal economic relations in the South, rather than feudal-like social relations housing the economic logic of a form of capitalist slavery - latifundia. On another note, I do have a somewhat different point of view concerning the role of Booker T. Washington and his Up From Slavery. Part of my attitude and outlook probably has much to do with being a Yankee, and never having lived behind the Cotton Curtain of the period of the 1890s. Nevertheless, I view Washington as an intellectual extension of Sambo, from the novel "Uncle Toms Cabin." Ouch. Melvin P.
RE: Re:Text File Capitalist Slavery/Race
Chang, following Marx, also uses the Gemeinschaft vs. Gesellschaft distinction to demonstrate that a race or a racial group cannot be a class in the strictly economic-relational sense of classes. While, in the U.S. prior to the Civil War it was true that all slaves were Black and all plantation-slave owners were white, it was not true that all Blacks were slaves or that all whites were plantation-slave owners. In other words, the class polarization is not directly translatable into the racial polarization and the racial dichotomy is not directly translatable into the class distinction.
RE: RE: Re:Text File Capitalist Slavery/Race
I should have added that Chang goes on to argue that though the below is true, it is also true that there is *some* kind of relation between race and class. The role of theory is to go beyond that common-sense observation to identify the *character* of that relation. In addition to the concepts of Gemeinschaft vs. Gesellschaft and reification, Chang uses the concept of objectification to try to sort out the issues. -Original Message- From: Forstater, Mathew Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 3:10 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:26432] RE: Re:Text File Capitalist Slavery/Race Chang, following Marx, also uses the Gemeinschaft vs. Gesellschaft distinction to demonstrate that a race or a racial group cannot be a class in the strictly economic-relational sense of classes. While, in the U.S. prior to the Civil War it was true that all slaves were Black and all plantation-slave owners were white, it was not true that all Blacks were slaves or that all whites were plantation-slave owners. In other words, the class polarization is not directly translatable into the racial polarization and the racial dichotomy is not directly translatable into the class distinction.
Re: PK on the potential second dip
As the inhouse double-dipper of PEN-L, let me send some supporting evidence for my fellow double-dipper Krugman's this statement: Foreign purchases of U.S. stocks, foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies, are way off. Sabri +++ Top Financial News 05/29 15:23 Dollar Reaches 14-Month Low vs Euro; U.S. Rebound Seen Slowing By Mark Tannenbaum New York, May 29 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell to a 14-month low against the euro as a slowing U.S. economic recovery prompted some investors to seek higher returns in Europe. There are better places in the world to park your money than in the U.S., given the country's low interest rates and concern stocks may fail to rally in months ahead, said Dori Levanoni, head of currency research at First Quadrant in Pasadena, California. The firm, which has $2 billion in foreign exchange under management, is betting the euro and nine other currencies will gain against the dollar in the next few months, he said. The dollar sank to 93.62 cents per euro, from 92.86 late yesterday and touched its weakest level since March 9, 2001. It slipped for a seventh day in nine against the yen, falling to 124.34 yen from 124.57. The dollar has shed 4 percent against the euro and 3.3 percent against the yen in May. The currency's losses quickened after the dollar fell past the 93.30 level that had been its weakest point in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The dollar may weaken to 96 cents per euro, where it sank to in January 2001, some analysts said. Government and industry reports yesterday dimmed the outlook for the U.S. rebound, said analysts. An index of consumer confidence rose less than projected this month and other data showed Americans spent less than forecast in April. Concern that consumer spending may fade helped spark declines in U.S. stocks and erode demand for dollars. Major indexes extended losses today. The government also said Friday that the economy grew less quickly in the first quarter than previously announced. Money Flows The money flows into North America have slowed considerably because of signs the recovery is losing steam, said Stuart Wigfall, who helps oversee $1 billion at Fuji Investment Management Co. Europe Ltd. in London. That damped demand for the dollar, and may drive it to $1 per euro in coming months, he said. Foreigners sold a net $16.9 billion of U.S. Treasury securities the first two months of the year, according to the most recent Treasury Department data. They also added $2.1 billion in U.S. stocks in February, the smallest amount since dumping a net $11.5 billion worth in September. The world's biggest economy will probably expand at a 3.1 percent clip this quarter, according to the latest Blue Chip Economic Indicators' consensus forecast. That compares with 5.6 percent growth in the first three months of the year and would bring U.S. growth closer to Europe's. The 12-nation euro region will likely accelerate to a 2.8 percent rate of growth in the second quarter, after an estimated 2 percent rate in the first, the European Commission forecasts. Fed vs. ECB Doubts about the resilience of U.S. growth are pushing out expectations for when the Federal Reserve will raise its 1.75 percent interest-rate target. Rates are higher in most other developed economies, lifting returns on deposits in those currencies. Canada's benchmark rate is 2.25 percent, the U.K.'s is 4 percent, and the euro region's is 3.25 percent. The rate on the Euribor interest-rate futures contract for June slipped 1 basis point today to 3.54 percent, or 29 basis points above the central bank's key rate. That indicates some traders expect the European Central Bank to lift its benchmark rate next month. Fed fund futures, meanwhile, show traders are pricing in almost a 60 percent chance of a rate increase in August. Euro Boost Royal Bank of Scotland Financial Markets, a unit of the second-biggest U.K. bank, predicts a dollar decline to 97 cents in December, on the view that investors will not be as enamored of U.S. assets as they were in recent years. That would put the dollar at its weakest since March 2000. We've just got to have some adjustment in the dollar to reflect that, said Robert Blake, senior economist at the bank. A dropping dollar helped push the price of gold to the highest in 4 1/2 years, by making the metal, which is priced in the U.S. currency, cheaper for buyers using other currencies. Gold for August delivery rose $1.30 to $326.80 an ounce, the highest closing price for a most-active contract since October 1997. The euro also got a boost from reports suggesting a pickup in Europe's economy, analysts said. French business confidence rose to an 11-month high this month, a report showed. The Ifo index of German business confidence had its first gain in seven months, according to a report yesterday. The common European currency gained for a fifth day in six against the yen, climbing to 116.34 yen per euro from 115.65
Charles and Race Theory 2
Charles and Race Theory 2 by Waistline2 29 May 2002 03:08 UTC On Marxline you wrote Melvin, The shortest answer to all you say in these many, many posts is that race is a historical category. Basically, my answers will focus on that. You are wrong when you assert, argue, assume, insist, write at length, that race is only a biological and not a historical category. It is a historical category masquerading as a biological category. You are absolutely wrong. I assert that race is an ideological category existing in the superstructure without a material reality. ^^^ CB: It is a historical category , and an ideological category, reflecting a fundamental aspect of the capitalist relations of production, especially in the U.S. for our focus. There have never been relations of production in the U.S. that were not only a division of labor between wage-laborers and capitalists, but a further division of labor based on race. The division of labor in capitalism always has the complexity of specially oppressed laborers, and race is one of the main bases for markering categories of specially oppressed workers. I would argue that in his discussion in Chapter Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm) when he says Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, SLAVERY, degradation, exploitation (emphasis added -CB), he points to the tendency to produce specially oppressed labor in capitalist accumulation. The capitalists are constantly looking for markers and artificial bases for superexploiting workers, and race remains a favorite to this day. The sense in which there is no such thing as race is in biology. I suppose this is what you refer to when you say there is no such thing as race, and perhaps when you say there is no material reality underpinning race. For example, sex is a valid biological category. It has a related historical category , gender. Race has a different analysis because it is not a valid biological category. The differences in ranges of traits within the modern biological concept of race, advocated by Carleton Coon, and 1960's and 1970's encyclopedias with the Negroid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, etc., are greater within these races than between them. They fall apart as good empirical generalizations with respect to groupings of physical characteristics of human groups. There are no sub-species (if that is not a self contradictory term). However, the bogus biological usage of race did not prevent the European's from imparting the chief momenta to the primitive accumulation of capital for all capitalism based on specially oppressing and exploiting certain groups of laborers based on race, skin color, hair texture and facial features, roughly ,not scientifically, and historically speaking. For discussion of these historical facts see Marx at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm; also see Aptheker, Dubois, Marable, Foner even. And capitalism has not purged the taint since, to make a long story short , that long story being history, and the persistence being in , of course, changing form, CIRCULAR CHANGING, quantitative,not qualitative change. We might so humbly say that the working class has even won victories on the issue, like the US Civil War. When I say working class, I mean they were victories for the white workers too. This is history, making history, making race an historical object or whatever. Race is a historical object shaped by class struggle, with victories for us and victories for them. And like that historical category class, we aim to abolish race in the rev. But we can't wish it away before it is gone. ^^^ Comrade, what I write at length about is a summation of the development of the African American people on the one hand and the political reality that shape the current history of America. ^^^ CB: A summation of the development of the African American people without acknowledging that there is a historical materialist reality to race is like being up the creek without a paddle. Why Coleman Young said just a few years ago Racism do exist . There is a large amount of empirical data demonstrating the social and historical material reality of race. For example, the recent census showed significant segregation in residence based on race, in general, and in the Southeast Michigan area. ^^^ In everything I write the approach is the changes in the means of production - quantitative expansions, what creates the framework for the assertions of the African American people. You speak of race but cannot define race because it is not a historical category. The words historical category means a material relationship that developed over along period of time, i.e.,
Re: Charles and Race Theory 2
- Original Message - From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] You are absolutely wrong. I assert that race is an ideological category existing in the superstructure without a material reality. === Amen. Ian
Racism and race are Marxist concepts
Racism and race are Marxist concepts by Waistline2 29 May 2002 02:19 UTC Melvin P. There is no such thing as racially oppressed labor, as a material category. CB: There exists and has existed specially oppressed labor based on racial categories for centuries. The category specially ,racially oppressed labor reflects this stone cold material and historically materialist fact. Slaves existed. Last hired , first fired, exists; ergo specially oppressed labor based on race exists. ^ What you express is a bourgeois ideological category and rationale to explain colonial entrapment and the consequent brutal political oppression of non-sovereign peoples and their exploitation through imperial capitalist relations. CB: The bourgeois ideological category reflects an actually existing category of the division of labor. ^ -clip- I do recognized that you and I represent a historic pole within the specific framework of the communist/Marxist movement, while many revolutionaries lack any conception of the complexity of the national-question in respects to our people. You state that you would argue that slavery was integral to the primitive accumulation of capitalism, and this is the historic position of the right-wing of the CPUSA. The material quoted by Marx makes clear the character of slavery in the South. That is the secret. CB: No. I get the idea that slavery was integral to the primitive accumulation of capitalism from Marx ( Steal this idea !). It is not my idea or the CPUSA's rightwing's. It is Marx's idea. Quote: The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre. It begins with the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in England's Anti-Jacobin War, and is still going on in the opium wars against China, c. The different momenta of primitive accumulation distribute themselves now, more or less in chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England. In England at the end of the 17th century, they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing the colonies, the national debt, the modern mode of taxation, and the protectionist system. These methods depend in part on brute force, e.g., the colonial system. But, they all employ the power of the State, the concentrated and organised force of society, to hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power. et al. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm ^ The primitive accumulation of capital has nothing to do with the character of slavery in the South. The historic position of the CPUSA - and I am by no means a hater or baiter of the Party whose glories struggles I embrace as a part of my own, is that feudal economic relations existed in the South. Consequently, slavery was a form of primitive accumulation of capital. This makes no sense to anyone that examines what Marx means by the primitive accumulation of capital. ^ CB: The South starts in what, 1619 ? Go to the above link for Marx's discussion of slavery in the primitive accumulation of capital, Africa as a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, i.e. race. Aptheker does not categorize slavery as a form of feudalism. Please give reference to CPUSA analysis of feudalism existing in the South. In general, the Party follows Marx on these issues, and Marx has slavery as part of capitalism. Sharecropping might have been closer to feudalism, but nobody thinks there was actual feudalism in the South. ^^^ An aspect of the historic contention that split the party on the Negro Question is the position later adopted by the party that the movement in the South is a continuation of the bourgeois democratic revolution and democracy as an abstraction and their program called for the complete elimination of the remnants of feudal economic relations. Not feudal-like social relations, but feudal economic relations. This is the theoretical underpinning of James Allen's 1936 book Reconstruction. (I hope I am not challenged on this because I have not seen the book in twenty-five years but know I have it in the basement of my second wife home. Communist will given away any and everything except their good books and ink pens. ) ^ CB: I very much doubt what you say
Matsushita China unit to double output
The Economic Times Tuesday, May 28, 2002 Matsushita China unit to double output REUTERS TOKYO: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, maker of Panasonic goods, said on Tuesday, it aims to more than double its output over the next three years in China, which it called the new benchmark for competitiveness in manufacturing. Matsushita, the world's second-largest consumer electronics maker, has targeted 450 billion yen ($3.6 bn) in revenues from Chinese operations in the business year to next March, and hopes to boost that to one trillion yen by 2005/06. If you can't win in China, you can't win globally. China will provide the benchmark, Toshio Sugiura, a Beijing-based director and board member at Matsushita, said. He cited examples such as DVD players and microwave ovens where his company had targeted the low-price, high-volume sectors of the Chinese market, competing head-on with local manufacturers. Developing local RD, design and procurement operations, aided by the extensive deployment of Taiwanese employees, would be key to cutting costs and succeeding in China, as would cooperative relations with other firms, he said. In April, Matsushita announced a deal with TCL International Holdings, a consumer electronics maker and China's largest TV manufacturer, to explore areas of cooperation including selling Matsushita products via TCL's sales network in China. MANUFACTURING ANGST Sugiura reiterated Matsushita's position, however, that it had no intention of selling TCL products in Japan, unlike Sanyo Electric Co, Japan's third-largest consumer electronics maker, whose alliance with China's Haier Group includes distribution of the appliance giant's goods in Japan. Japanese firms have been rushing to shift manufacturing operations to China, drawn by its low labour costs and recent entry into the World Trade Organisation. While this has fuelled angst in Japan about a hollowing out of its industrial base and a massive loss of manufacturing jobs, Sugiura said it would be more constructive to accept reality and find a new role for Japan. Globally, this is the way the tide is going, he said. Nothing will be resolved by simply being afraid of a hollowing out. It would be easier to envision a future scenario by accepting there will be a hollowing out and rethinking (the roles of) Japan and China. Making profits in China has proved a challenge for many foreign manufacturers, however, and Sugiura declined to reveal his company's profits in China in the last business year. He said Matsushita hoped to boost profits in China by 2.5 times this year and to achieve a 10 per cent profit margin by 2005/06. He also acknowledged there was political risk to operations in China, including possible fall-out from China-Japan diplomatic spats, and argued for a diversified global manufacturing strategy that maintained sites in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Matsushita's shares ended 1.42 per cent higher on Tuesday at 1,780 yen, outdistancing a virtually unchanged finish in the Tokyo Stock Exchange's electrical machinery index. Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.
Euro redux
The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com Euro hits new high as rebound gains speed Eric Pfanner International Herald Tribune Thursday, May 30, 2002 But concern mounts over possibility of rise in interest rates LONDON A series of upbeat reports show that the European economy is gaining strength, helping to lift the euro to a 14-month high against the dollar Wednesday and sparking concern over looming interest-rate increases. France said Wednesday that business confidence rose more than expected this month, following similar reports from Germany, Italy and Belgium. France and Germany earlier reported steady, if unspectacular, gains in economic growth for the first quarter, setting the stage for a similar report on the 12-nation single-currency zone on Thursday, after weakness in the fourth quarter of last year. Though Europe's biggest economies are hardly clones, they appear to have sidestepped the phantom menace of recession. In Germany, exports of BMWs are booming, even if buyers remain scarce at home. In France, however, cars are flying off dealers' lots, giving a lift to the domestic industry. In Britain, where home prices are soaring, consumers are splurging on all sorts of goods, though manufacturers are down in the dumps. Inflation, meanwhile, appears to be moderating for now - though the longer-term outlook for prices could be the critical variable that determines the strength and sustainability of the European rebound. The euro-zone economy may be headed for a sweet spot in the business cycle where GDP growth is quite strong but inflation is low, said Michael Taylor, economist at Merrill Lynch. That appealing blend is drawing investors into the euro, which rose Wednesday to 93.56 U.S. cents in New York. The fledgling currency, whose trajectory has been mostly downward in the first 3½ years of its existence, is enjoying one of its first sustained rallies against the dollar. Though the U.S. economy surged ahead at an annual rate of 5.6 percent in the first quarter - far outpacing the expected 1.2 percent annual rate for the euro zone - investors are concerned that U.S. growth, aided by special factors, may not be sustainable at anything approaching that level. Some analysts say the currency markets may have gotten ahead of the game. While Europe is recovering from a cyclical downturn, the structural factors that impede its competitiveness against the United States - such as more rigid labor markets and higher taxation - remain solidly in place. A generous wage agreement reached recently with German workers could kindle Europe-wide inflation, forcing the European Central Bank to raise interest rates, thereby snuffing out the renaissance before it really catches on. With key economies stagnant, profits still at risk, inflation rising and tighter money likely, there are no sources of economic recovery in sight, said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. But that is where the rising euro should help. Though it could eventually make European goods more expensive in markets such as the United States, exports have been holding up well for now. The problem has been sluggish consumer spending in the biggest euro-zone economy, Germany. A stronger euro would increase purchasing power there. And by cutting import prices, it could keep inflation in check despite the 4 percent pay raises recently won by the IG Metall union. Taylor at Merrill Lynch predicts that inflation in the euro zone will fall below the ECB's 2 percent target this summer. In that case the bank could exercise restraint over monetary policy, keeping interest rates near the emergency lows to which they were pushed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Most economists say the ECB and the Bank of England, both of which meet next week, will keep borrowing costs unchanged for at least another month. After that, the guessing gets trickier. Audrey Childe-Freeman, economist at CIBC in London, thinks the ECB will hold off until September. They can afford to wait a little longer, she said. There is risk that if they move too early, it could have a real negative effect on growth. But economists at Morgan Stanley expect the bank to raise its main rate by a quarter point July 4, as a sort of warning shot. In the wake of the IG Metall settlement, the bond market - based on the difference in yield for a standard French 10-year note and a comparable inflation-indexed note - assumes that inflation will rise above the bank's 2 percent limit. In other words, the bond market is telling the ECB that it does not trust the bank to keep its promise to keep inflation to 2 percent over the medium to long term, the economists write. Still, Morgan Stanley expects future rate increases to be modest, not enough to choke off an economic recovery. The ECB president, Wim Duisenberg, has taken a more hawkish tone in recent comments on inflation. Excessive wage increases will increase costs and create inflationary pressures, he said
METU/ERC International Conference in Economics-VI
Following conference announcement may be of interest to some of you on the list. Kindly let me know (at [EMAIL PROTECTED]) if you are interested in attending the conference and have a paper on the themes of political economy/marxian economics that you would like to present. Regards Erdogan BAKIR Department of Economics/University of Utah erc/metu METU INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN ECONOMICS/VI September 11-14, 2002 CALL FOR PAPERS AND PRELIMINARY LIST OF INVITED SPEAKERS CONFERENCE WEB SITE www.erc.metu.edu.tr SCHEDULE June 15, 2002 Abstracts must be received July 1, 2002 Authors will be informed of acceptance of abstracts for presentation August 1, 2002 Pre-registration August 1, 2002 Accepted papers must be received. Accepted papers will only be included in the final programme if presenting authors have registered by this date THE CBRT YOUNG ECONOMIST AWARD An award (2000 US Dollar) will be given by the Central Bank of Republic of Turkey (CBRT) to the best paper presented by young economists. THE ISE BEST FINANCE PAPER AWARD Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) will give an award (5000 US Dollar) to the best unpublished finance paper presented in the conference. CONTACT Please send abstracts and inquiries to: Economic Research Center Middle East Technical University 06531 Ankara Turkey Fax : +90 312 210 1244 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For continued information on the conference, please visit Web site; http://www.erc.metu.edu.tr **PRELIMINARY LIST OF INVITED SPEAKERS *** INVITED SESSION: FINANCIAL CRISES IN EMERGING MARKETS: ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES Organised by: IDEAs (International Development Economics Associates) Gerald Epstein (University of Massachusettes, Amherst, USA) http://www.umass.edu/economics/Staff/epstein.html Jayati Ghosh (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) Arturo O'Connell (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina) http://www.unibo.edu.ar/img/pdf/cvoconel.pdf Chandru Sandrasekhar (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) Jomo Sundaram (University of Malaya, Malaysia) Erinç Yeldan (Bilkent University, Turkey) http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~yeldane/ POLITICAL ECONOMICS Christopher Arthur (University of Sussex, UK) Al Campbell (University of Utah, USA) http://www.econ.utah.edu/faculty_staff.html Guglielmo Carchedi (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Hans Ehrbar (University of Utah, USA) http://www.econ.utah.edu/faculty_staff.html Ben Fine (SOAS, London University, UK) http://www2.soas.ac.uk/Economics/staff/bfine/finehome.html John Milios (National Technical University of Athens,Greece) Dimitris Milonakis (University of Crete, Greece) Simon Mohun (Queen Mary, University of London, UK) http://www.econ.qmw.ac.uk/staff/mohun.htm Geert Reuten (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) http://www.fee.uva.nl/ae/ARG/ INVITED SESSION: GLOBAL CRISIS AND GLOBALISATION Alan Freeman (University of Greenwich, UK) http://www.gre.ac.uk/~fa03/ Jayati Ghosh (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) Boris Kagarlitsky (Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia) http://www.tni.org/fellows/kagarlitsky.htm William I. Robinson (University of California-Santa Barbara, USA) Sungur Savran (Istanbul University, Turkey) MACROECONOMICS, MONEY, FINANCE AND BANKING Phillipe Bachetta (University of Lousanne, Switzerland) http://www.hec.unil.ch/pbacchetta/ Asli Demirgüç-Kunt (The World Bank, USA) http://www.worldbank.org/research/bios/dkunt.htm Ilan Goldfajn (TBC) (Central Bank of Brazil, Brazil) http://www.econ.puc-rio.br/goldfajn/ Maximilian J. B. Hall (Loughborough University, UK) http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ec/Staff%20Details/Readers/Hall.htm Eduard H. Hochreiter (Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Austria) http://www.suerf.com/Hochreiter/ Philip Lane (University of Dublin, Ireland) http://www.economics.tcd.ie/plane Ronald MacDonald (University of Strathclyde, UK) http://www.economics.strath.ac.uk/Staff/ronniem.html Gülçin Özkan (University of York, UK) http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/econ/res/indiv/gozkan.htm Adam Posen (Institute for International Economics, USA) http://www.iie.com/publications/author_bio.cfm?author_id=9 Carmen M. Reinhart (University of Maryland and the IMF, USA) http://www.puaf.umd.edu/faculty/papers/reinhart/reinhart.htm Lucio Sarno (University of Warwick, UK) http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~bssqw/LS/index.htm Peter Sinclair (Bank of England, UK) http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/ccbs/ Andrés Velasco (Harvard University, USA) http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~.AVelasco.Academic.Ksg/ ECONOMETRICS Karim Abadir (University of York, UK) http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~kma4/abadir.htm Badi Baltagi (Texas AM University, USA) http://econweb.tamu.edu/baltagi/default.htm Fabio Canova (TBC) (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Italy) http://www.econ.upf.es/main.html Jesus Gonzalo (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain)
