Re: economics as religion
Could anyone offer a good book that deals with microeconomic behaviour say of individuals to noneconomic wants (religion, group solidarity, and the like)? I would prefer a less technical/modelling approach and more of a truly interdisciplinary treatment, bringing to bear insights from anthropology, sociology, politics, and of course microeconomics. Thanks. Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx
Re: Re: the gospel of buddha
This is leading nowhere...I am talking about spirituality as people practice it in other parts of the world, including Tamil Nadu and Kerala. I abhor new ageism in CA, Deepak Chopra and the like. If deep introspection is a result of someone saying you are immature you have just missed the bus, no make it a boat:) The point is there is something deeper than materialist foundations of society. Contrary to Ravi's claim religion is not well defined, if it were the boundaries would be clear cut. They are not--see in your own state whether people identify themselves on the basis of religion. Secularism is not a panacea, as you point out in the NPR case. Besides in the larger scheme of things (say the cosmic world), what indeed is this bloody planet! Yes, it is lot of opinion, that is why I say it is not going anywhere. Cheers, Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Fri, 8 Jun 2001, ravi narayan wrote: Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 12:21:13 -0400 From: ravi narayan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12995] Re: the gospel of buddha Anthony DCosta wrote: I wish I could. But we make a living while we grade:) Why be dismayed with spirituality? Coming from the Indian south I would have thought Ravi would have had a better grasp of spirituality in general or has the pace of alienation for him been faster being here than normal? well, i was born on the cusp of the ascent of enlightenment snobbery in india (or at least educated upper class india), so the alienating substituion of the religion of rationalism for the religion of hinduism was accomplished at the start ;-). On a more serious note and to repeat myself, I am not religious myself (I went to Catholic School, so there!) but I do respect people's spirituality (I think Yoshie said it right). the problem i have with the term spirituality is that it has been so well appropriated by new age literature that it is difficult to pin anything down that i can argue against. you say a deep sort of introspection (that people do not carry out due to, among other things, capitalist modernism), but that doesnt help me much - i try to introspect deeply. when someone on a list calls me immature ;-) i reflect on that for a bit of time and analyze my words and actions. does that make me spiritual? at least i never thought of my actions as spiritual. religion on the other hand is very well defined. i can see what it is about and what it holds against modernity (not of capitalism, in my mind, but the modernity of science and technology). if the left is to mean those who fight for the underdog and help provide alternate viewpoints, then the left did, imho, a great job of countering the negative effects of certain aspects of religion, but in departing from the particular (such as countering religion's views against homosexuality or women's rights) and attempting to create an idealogy, an idealogy that attempts/attempted to join hands with and gain from the ascendance of science and rationality, the left (or at least one version of the left) has created what has become nothing but a fashionable pose for the 20th century intellectual and card carrying NPR member. from you initial response, i expected a kierkegaardian defense of religion in the face of tim[?]'s rationalist/platonist/???ist critique of your post. imagine then my justifiable dismay to see you take refuge [as i see it] ;-) under that serpentine term spirituality which in my mind conjures up nothing but deepak chopra conning the well-to-do in princeton or equivalent town, with recycled vedanta and shallow insights! i know... all of the above is just a lot of opinion. --ravi
Re: Re: Krueger heading to IMF
One of Krueger's early work was on rent-seeking activities. She used the Indian auto industry as a case study. She might be surprised to find that RSAs hasn't gone away even if the competitive environment has changed in favor of more firms and deregulation in India. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Fri, 8 Jun 2001, Peter Dorman wrote: Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 11:59:08 -0700 From: Peter Dorman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:13012] Re: Krueger heading to IMF Krueger is *very* hard-line, more so than Fischer. Rogoff is a former chess grandmaster, a very talented player who gave it up to be an economist. As an ex-chessie myself, I get an inferiority complex just thinking about it. Peter Ian Murray wrote: [I've seen this woman on multiple TV programs speaking for an extended period of time, one with Michael Boskin. Not one molecule of humility in her cortex or her speech. It may have had something to do with the all male roundtable she was on.groupthink and all that.] http://www.nytimes.com June 8, 2001 I.M.F. Names Official By JOSEPH KAHN WASHINGTON, June 7 - The International Monetary Fund announced today that it had named Anne O. Krueger, a Stanford University economist and a strong proponent of global free trade, to serve as its No. 2 official, responsible for carrying out the fund's role as the world's financial firefighter. Ms. Krueger, 67, will replace Stanley Fischer, who during his seven years as deputy managing director, devised a series of financial rescue efforts for developing nations. The position is traditionally filled by an American who has the support of the White House. Until today's announcement, Ms. Krueger had been President Bush's choice for a seat on his Council of Economic Advisers. The choice suggests that the Bush administration does not intend to try to radically reinvent the way the I.M.F. works. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill and his top deputy for international matters, John Taylor, have in the past criticized the fund's bailouts. Ms. Krueger, who served in the Reagan administration as chief economist at the World Bank, the I.M.F.'s sister agency, has echoed Mr. O'Neill's calls for better early warning of impending financial crises to prevent the need for multibillion-dollar rescue packages. But she has also defended the fund's rescue efforts in Asia in the late 1990's. Horst Köhler, managing director of the I.M.F., had recommended naming Timothy Geithner, who served as under secretary of the Treasury for international affairs in the Clinton administration, to the No. 2 post, fund officials said. But Bush administration officials rejected that choice, the officials said, because Mr. Geithner was viewed as too closely associated with policies of the Clinton team. The I.M.F. instead named Mr. Geithner as director of the policy development and review department, succeeding Jack Boorman. He had been considered for that position before Mr. Fischer announced his intention to resign. Toward the end of the Clinton presidency, Mr. Geithner worked closely with Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers to shape recommendations for I.M.F. policies. Last year, he managed the American role in the contentious and prolonged process of selecting a new managing director. The I.M.F. announced two other appointments today. Kenneth S. Rogoff of Harvard University was selected to be chief economist, succeeding Michael Mussa. Mr. Rogoff worked at the fund in the early 1980's and has also worked at the Federal Reserve. Gerd Häusler, former chairman of Dresdner Bank's investment banking arm, was appointed to head a new capital markets department. Mr. Häusler, a German, is expected to help the fund monitor stock, bond and currency markets and to provide more coordination between the fund and private financial companies.
on WTO and MAI, India's position
http://www.economictimes.com/today/08econ08.htm Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: the gospel of buddha
Yes, this is indeed a long debate. But since when did the left have a monopoly on clarity? Surely the sheep, and their being asleep in eonic times are not signs of it:) As for CA, I have never been there, well almost. A couple of nights at a LA hotel during a conference, an alumni dinner in Santa Clara, and flying out to Asia, almost as an act of escapism. While the immigrant population probably carry on their religious practices (the first generation or so), it is still very decontextualized from its social settings. I have very little patience for New Ageism and the appropriation of Eastern systems by the stars of Hollywood. But hey, this is a free country! Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Wed, 6 Jun 2001, Carrol Cox wrote: Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 10:04:05 -0500 From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12865] Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: the gospel of buddha Anthony D'Costa wrote: May be I wasn't clear enough: there is one thing as organized religion and then there is spirituality. I meant the Spirituality, not organized religion, is the evil. The left (when we get a left) must _of course_ include all religious leftists, even among the leadership. But the core of the left always has been and always will be materialist. Spirituality (in _all_ of its forms) leads to confused thinking and confused feeling. This is a long debate and I'm not going to carry it on now. I have other immediate interests. But I don't think that this banal appeal to spirituality should be allowed to pass without at least an indication that it can't be taken for granted. Carrol
Re: Re: Re: the gospel of buddha
I wish I could. But we make a living while we grade:) Why be dismayed with spirituality? Coming from the Indian south I would have thought Ravi would have had a better grasp of spirituality in general or has the pace of alienation for him been faster being here than normal? On a more serious note and to repeat myself, I am not religious myself (I went to Catholic School, so there!) but I do respect people's spirituality (I think Yoshie said it right). It's introspection of a deeper sort, something I think people are forgetting to do because of well, fill in the blanks...capitalist modernity to begin with or being compelled to do because of the imperatives imposed by capitalism. I think the left has a difficulty with religion or spirituality because of its association with feudalism (pre-capitalist whatever). And liberal thinking on the subject (rightly) separating church and state reinforces that propensity. Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Wed, 6 Jun 2001, ravi narayan wrote: Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 13:29:21 -0400 From: ravi narayan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12889] Re: Re: the gospel of buddha Carrol Cox wrote: Anthony D'Costa wrote: May be I wasn't clear enough: there is one thing as organized religion and then there is spirituality. I meant the Spirituality, not organized religion, is the evil. The left (when we get a left) must _of course_ include all religious leftists, even among the leadership. But the core of the left always has been and always will be materialist. Spirituality (in _all_ of its forms) leads to confused thinking and confused feeling. This is a long debate and I'm not going to carry it on now. I have other immediate interests. But I don't think that this banal appeal to spirituality should be allowed to pass without at least an indication that it can't be taken for granted. and i am glad you did. i was hoping prof. d'costa would stick to the stronger claim in his post (w.r.t respect for religion) and call tim[?] on the unqualified platonist claims in his message, and i was dismayed by the introduction of this term spirituality. this is a long debate and i am not going to carry it on now. in my case thats because i am not smart enough to carry it on, but i will toss in a stanley fish or PKF style claim that all this spirituality, rationality, whatever is just another religion or an epistemological equivalent. also, people arent stupid, and i dont think they are brainwashed by religion - perhaps they evaluate its benefits and choose it over what (as anthony d'costa called it) the left has to offer, or what science and rationality have to offer, based on the situation at hand (pray hard but eat the pill any way). --ravi
Re: Double standard
I agree with the double standards. But the dilemma is quite apparent, we still have nation states and hegemons and in an era of globalization organized labor in playing out its traditional role become partners of the bourgeoisie. Of course what is fair trade itself is highly problematic. I remember when writing on the steel industry I read various reports on costs of production and the Trigger Price Mechanism (Carter adm). First, there was no way they could compute the costs (proprietary information), second, they failed to account for the technology-based cost effciciency of the Japanese in the 1970s (US industry avoided major spending for a long time, very understandable from a capitalists' point of view), and third, the West Europeans got away scott free with exports to the US because their costs were higher than the Japanese! We all know what the governments of Europe were doing with their smoke stacks. The US continues to use 301 and Super 301 to badger other economies, violating the WTO rules blatantly. More double standards... Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Wed, 6 Jun 2001, Louis Proyect wrote: Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 13:44:23 -0400 From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12890] Double standard NY Times, June 6, 2001 Bush Moves Against Steel Imports By JOSEPH KAHN WASHINGTON, June 5 - President Bush took the first steps today toward imposing broad restrictions on imported steel, handing a victory to American steel companies and unions that have long urged the government to grant relief from foreign competition. The president's action, which initiates a challenge to imports and could result in higher tariffs on foreign-made steel within months, goes beyond any protections that the Clinton administration offered the industry and is certain to raise tensions with trading partners. Administration officials said the decision came after a detailed study of the steel industry's woes. They described the once mighty steel sector - with only a fifth as many workers as in 1980 - as hobbled by an unending glut of imports from South Korea, Taiwan, China, Brazil, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and many other nations that often produce steel for less than their American competitors. I've told the world we're going to have an active, internationalist foreign policy with U.S. interests at its heart, Mr. Bush said this afternoon during a meeting with senators. And it's in our nation's interest that if there are unfair trade practices in the steel industry we address them in a very aggressive way, which this administration will do. Full: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/06/business/06STEE.html Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: RE: the gospel of buddha
Who is a good buddha? Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Tue, 5 Jun 2001, ravi narayan wrote: Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 18:20:59 -0400 From: ravi narayan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12810] Re: RE: the gospel of buddha Max Sawicky wrote: The world is full of evil and sorrow, because it is full of lust. Men go astray because they think that delusion is better than truth. Rather than truth they follow error, which is pleasant to look at in the beginning but in the end causes anxiety, tribulation, and misery. --The Gospel of Buddha, Chapter 12 sounds like most religious claims (lust bad, truth good, etc). i am guessing the good buddha then goes on to claim that the one true path to this things called truth is his path? --ravi
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: the gospel of buddha
I do not think pen-l is a great place for discussing Buddhism. While I am deeply irreligious, I have great respect for those who are. Ravi's commentary is simply at best immature and at worst inflammatory. The left does not have much too offer to those who are often poor and religious, except their self righteousness. Sorry to be in this mood, I am grading. Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Tue, 5 Jun 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 19:15:33 EDT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12817] Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: the gospel of buddha In a message dated 6/5/2001 6:50:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Anthony DCosta wrote: Who is a good buddha? no, no, not a good buddha. the good buddha, as in the main man himself, siddharth, gautama, you know, the dude with the piled-on- top-in-a-bun hairdo and the funky toga robe thingummy, who turned to existentialist despair upon confronting the real world and came up with some interesting thoughts in response. Better watch out, this description fits Marx as well as it does Gautama. I am no Buddhist, but I can tell you guys have no feeling for the subject. You will have to do better than that if you want the left to mean something for the future. John Landon [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website on eonic effect http://eonix.8m.com http://www.eonica.net
Re: Re: RE: the gospel of buddha
What Ravi needs is moksha!:) While I couldn't make out heads or tails about eonic effects, I certainly do not see John cracking a joke on Buddha. If you saw one, I guess I missed it. I do not think you intended disrespect but then the road to hell is often paved with good intentions! Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Tue, 5 Jun 2001, ravi narayan wrote: Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 20:27:27 -0400 From: ravi narayan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12829] Re: RE: the gospel of buddha Anthony DCosta wrote: I do not think pen-l is a great place for discussing Buddhism. While I am deeply irreligious, I have great respect for those who are. Ravi's commentary is simply at best immature and at worst inflammatory. The left does not have much too offer to those who are often poor and religious, except their self righteousness. ouch! immature! the left (whatever that is)! self righteous! the left!!! inflammatory? that i wouldnt want to be. hence, my apologies (and this i say seriously) for anyone who was offended at my attempt at humour in response to a question that i thought was itself an attempt at humour. john landon: i do not know much of marx but i do think buddha was a neat dude who came up with some interesting thoughts in response to existentialist despair. we should all check him out, when we get a chance, and return to examine his truth claims (but as anthony d'costa points out, preferably not on this list). apologies if you were offended by my post (or perhaps by the quoted dude in this post). perhaps i should add that while i am sorry for any pain my post might have caused to the faithful, i hope most will not take anthony d'costa's [what i consider invalid] line of reasoning that leads him to suggest that i intend particular disrespect to religion (judging by his comments about the left and self-righteousness i guess he takes my post as a classic left attack on religion) or even that i am irreligious, or even that i agree that this religion vs non-religion dichotomy is meaningful. --ravi
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A reply to Ellen Meiksins Wood
Upper middle class would be an overstatement. There are carpenters, maids, and the like who also fly. When I came to the US, I saved the airfare from my first job as rural dev consultant, it took me about two years. Remember also in 1959, Ravi may not:), the Indian rupee was overvalued, airfare probably was cheap for those who could raise the cash. But within 30% for sure. Unfortunately we can't blame people for being born into privilege. What she writes and how she does it is another issue. Even in India, what I would consider austere (internationally renowned) marxist academics in top state schools, exercise the luxury of smoking relatively expensive Indian cigarettes every day, perhaps equivalent to the daily wage of a rural landless worker. Can we sanction this academic/Spivak for their indulgence? Besides, women always dress better then men, certainly in India, and if expensive garments mean fine silks and cotton, so be they. In the world of synthetics, there's nothing better than promoting fine, comfortable clothing, not to mention the many landless rural workers who make a living weaving in India. Both the govt of India and many state governments have actively promoted the handloom industry, especially the marxist-inspired West Bengal state. There is a certain pride among Bengali women (Spivak is one) wearing silk sarees woven in the villages of Bengal (Shantipur in West Bengal and Tangail in Bangladesh, to name two villages). Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Fri, 25 May 2001, ravi narayan wrote: Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 17:22:42 -0400 From: ravi narayan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:1] Re: Re: Re: Re: A reply to Ellen Meiksins Wood Brad DeLong wrote: In 1959 in India--when Gayatri Chakravorty graduated from the University of Calcutta with a First in English--80 percent of Indian women over 15 could not read. Her family was not rich by first-world standards (she went to graduate school at Cornell on borrowed money), and thus it was not super-rich by Indian standards. certainly not super rich, but if you can afford even the flight ticket from india to the US you are already in the upper middle class (and i use the term loosely - my bet would be top 30%). --ravi
Re: Development Question for Brad
Here is my own take, off the cuff... Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Wed, 9 May 2001, Michael Pollak wrote: Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 15:01:42 -0400 (EDT) From: Michael Pollak [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:11321] Development Question for Brad If, for the purposes of argument, we assume all the growth data are accurate and properly indicative, and restrict ourselves to the last 20 years, the neoliberal argument seems to fare much better if one takes China and India as the rule, and Africa and Latin America as the exception, where the anti side seems to fare better if one takes Africa and Latin America as the rule, and China and India as the exception. In the former case, marketization seems to have dramatically improved the rate of growth in living standards over the previous 20 years; in the latter case, improvement on average looks closer to flat, with several dramatic cases of reversal; and overall, several people have argued, rates of growth are much less than they were during the years 1950-1970. So in the first case, the neoliberal approach looks to have succeeded, and the latter, failed. Both areas contain roughly the same amount of population. In India's case, as for any other country, marketization has been going on since colonial times. While markets were regulated during the post-independent period in India, marketization continued. As for growth rates, slow rates set in by the mid 1960s in India for many reasons--wars, famine, political upheavals, and the general exhaustion of capital-goods based industrialization. The 1980s witnessed considerable growth as limited reforms were initiated but then they created their own problems--balance of payments crisis due to a surge in (consumer) imports. The 1990s also show better rates of growth. But I think it would be difficult to attribute this higher rate of growth to neoliberal policies alone, since initial conditions are extremely important in economic trajectory. This is true for China as well. Do you think that's a fair starting point? Because then I have few questions about exceptionality of China and India. They are obviously exceptional in terms of their size, which it seems would give them some advantages other third world countries can't replicate. This is true, numbers seem to skew everything. Relatedly I recall once a meeting with a Brazilian industrialist (1987) who commented that if Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande de Sul, and Parana states broke away from the rest of Brazil it would be one of the most developed countries! But on top of that, when compared with Africa and Latin America, both countries seem to have *not* taken the route specified by the BW institutions. Neither had a fully convertible currency in the beginning (I think) and China still doesn't today. India does not still have fully convertible currency (only the current account). The East Asia crisis immediately rolled back whatever plans it had. Neither have done much privatizing. (India has privatized all of one firm, within the last year, and it has been a complete disaster.) True. Privatization is politically difficult in India. Besides, most state firms' net worth is close to zero! Who wants to buy these assets? It's the plum assets that are being sought (akin to a distress sale). Both are notorious havens for software piracy which seems to have done them much good. While piracy at the individual level may be common my own research suggests that software piracy is limited in India. NASSCOM (the National Software and Services Companies), the industry lobby has been aggressively pursuing copyright infringments (I also oversaw a poli sci PhD thesis on copyrights and patents in India) because it is under pressure from the US and because it too play the game with its own software developments. Both have and still do exercise at times a heavy hand over foreign investment. Today this is less true for India. Even marxist states (social democrats in practice) now have industrial policies that favor foreign investments. India has not been successful like China in attracting FDI. In short, while both approaches are inconsistent and unique, their development models look more like Korea's pre-1997 model than like the IMF model. And neither country (I think) has ever gone through a structural adjustment program. India has gone through several SAPs, 1960s, 1980s, 1990s. But these SAPs were
on Kerala
For all those admirers from afar of the Kerala model see the following: http://csf.colorado.edu/bcas/kerala/kerther1.htm also same as above...kerala/ker-omv.htm Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx
Re: Re: Japan
It's not the cleverness of bureaucrats that makes states effective but rather the relationship the state has with various social groups, particularly the bourgeoisie. Certainly we cannot assume this relationship to remain immutable. Besides, Japanese capital is transnational enough that pure nationalistic monetary policies may either be not supported nor be effective. Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, Charles Brown wrote: Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 09:22:01 -0400 From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:9957] Re: Japan Maybe big recessions ( depressions even) are inevitable with capitalism , and so , no amount of clever monetary policy can avoid that. That theory would be consistent with the empirical facts regarding Japan. Charles [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/20/01 09:29PM [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote, though with oddly broken lines in the original: it seems to me that the following solution to Japan's woes (banks stuck with bad debts, monetary policy ineffective, depression) may be possible. Please tell me why it wouldn't work. Without raising taxes, the government could buy out the banks' bad loans in return for reforms of accounting, etc., that are aimed at preventing future bubble economies. This would solve the monetary problem at the same time it provides fiscal stimulus, moderating depression. Japan has been unable to appropriate the serious sums necessary to socialize all that bad debt. Or, put another way, the Japanese ruling class has been unable to use the state to bail out Japanese capitalism. Compare it with the SL/bank bailout in the U.S., in which something like $200 billion - no one can say exactly how much, really - was spent with almost no public debate (and little in the way of reforms). And what's with the Bank of Japan taking so long to ease in the early 1980s? And that VAT increase in 1996? What's with the Japanese state? I thought their bureaucrats were so clever. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Re: Japan
Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, Jim Devine wrote: Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 13:58:19 -0700 From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:9963] Re: Re: Re: Japan Anthony wrote: It's not the cleverness of bureaucrats that makes states effective but rather the relationship the state has with various social groups, particularly the bourgeoisie. Jim wrote: right. I'd say the big difference between various bureaucracies around the world concerns whether they have an effective civil service (so there's a certain amount of self-perpetuation, as in England) or it's totally a matter of political-party appointments (somewhat like in corporations, where the top rules), where there are degrees in-between. Anthony wrote: Certainly we cannot assume this relationship to remain immutable. Besides, Japanese capital is transnational enough that pure nationalistic monetary policies may either be not supported nor be effective. Jim wrote: yeah. Some people argue that the relative decline of Britain during the last century was due not to the incompetence of the bureaucrats as much as the international focus of the true ruling class. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine Wrt Japan I think we can see a similar development. The Japanese state incubated the bourgeoisie, the latter became powerful with successful accumulation, the successes themselves created their own contradictions (current a/c surplus and the like), and the clever bureaucrats don't really know what to do, notwithstanding the external Anglo-Am pressures for transparency. The question then is: does success breed its own failure? Anthony
NBR'S JAPAN FORUM Economic Stagnation: Institutional Patterns (fwd)
FYI Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx -- Forwarded message -- Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 09:56:07 -0800 From: John O. Haley [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Japan-U.S. Discussion Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: NBR'S JAPAN FORUM Economic Stagnation: Institutional Patterns (link) Dear Eric--Following is a copy of a letter I have sent today to the Wall Street Journal in response to Michael Porter's op ed piece of yesterday: "Michael E. Porter (WSJ, 21 March 2001) adds the critical element of competition to the on-going discussion of Japan's decade of economic stagnation. He misses, however, two important aspects of the failure of competition in postwar Japan . One helps to explain the cause of Japan's economic doldrums; the other a major impediment to any politically acceptable cure. The first is relatively simple. Whatever may be said about the anticompetitive features of postwar industrial policies under the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI, currently the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry or METI), they did not deter new entry or effective inter-firm rivalry within Japan's leading manufacturing industries. New entry was in fact a prevailing characteristic of the automobile, consumer electronics, integrated steel, machine tool, pharmaceutical, and other manufacturing industries between 1950 and 1975. The result was the emergence of internationally competitive producers of tremendous wealth. In stark contrast licensing controls rigidly enforced by the Ministry of Finance during the same period to prevent new entry--domestic or foreign--stifled competition and retarded innovation throughout Japan's highly segmented financial services industry. The consequences, as Professor Porter points out, have been devastating. A failure of competition also hinders any cure. In this instance, however, the problem is not a consequence of government policy. Nor is it isolated to financial services. In a word, Japan has no market for experienced workers. No single institutional feature of postwar Japan has been more influential on the patterns of political, economic and social life than the pattern of entry level hiring coupled with a central personnel office staffed by senior career manager with full responsibility for the recruitment, training, assignment and promotion of career staff. Aside from universities no large or even middling public or private organization departs from this organizational pattern. Nothing like it exists in the United States, to my knowledge, except for the armed services and perhaps the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The prevalence of this organizational pattern means that nearly all Japanese who work in public and private organizations with more than a few managerial employees began their careers as generalists in their early twenties. Because no lateral hiring exists except for marginal positions, corresponding legal and social protections have developed to ensure against termination without significant cause. For a half century career workers thus knew with reasonable certainty as they entered the managerial workforce that they would remain with one employer for the duration of their careers--that is, until retirement thirty or so years hence. Their economic future has thus been irreversibly tied to their employer's success. This pattern of employment and organization helps to explain many if not most of the more prominent characteristics of postwar patterns of worker and organizational behavior, such as institutional loyalty, firm rivalry and corresponding protective we-they and insider-outsider attitudes, as well as emphasis on collective employee welfare with concomitant controls that may suppress individual employee interests. The pattern also means, however, that no market--at least among public and private organizations of any size--developed for experienced workers. Without lateral hiring, there has been no demand for mid career managers no matter how skilled. Without such demand, there can be no market. And without a market, terminated middle aged workers have no place to go. Any effort to restructure or reform the Japanese economy involving large scale loss of employment for workers between the ages of 30 and 55 is therefore apt to have extremely high economic and social costs. Thousands of workers in their prime could face the bleak prospect of no job and an inadequate economic safety net. Economic reform thus involves
Re: Japan
Dear Friends: This discussion of Japan is interesting and pertinent for the paper I am writing. The abstract is appended below. I am interested in how neo-liberalism is being internalized in Japan, knowing fully well that Japanese social system is very different from the Anglo-Am one. As my abstract suggests internalization of transnationalization is related to embourgeoisment (there are various mechanisms by which this might take place in different institutional settings) but with the Japanese case still does not seem to fit this picture. Any leads? Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx The Internalization of "Failed States" Transnationalization, State and Embourgeoisment Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor, Comparative International Development University of Washington 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Fax: (253) 692-5718 To be presented at "The Global Constitution of 'Failed States': The Consequences of New Imperialism?", University of Sussex, 18-20, April, 2001. Abstract That states in the developing world have been over-extended is beyond a shadow of doubt. Not only did they inherit economic and social structures of colonial rule but they were also expected to reproduce liberal states that could guarantee political democracy and foster economic development. However, the logic of the market was not accepted by most late developers. Governments in their quest to meet a wide array of demands for diverse communities in post-colonial societies had to get involved with national economic management. The Cold War was no help either, compelling poverty-stricken states to spend money on defense that they did not have and subjecting countries to adopt policies that could not be institutionally supported. The intensification of global economic interconnectedness since the 1970s has been another source of pressure on the state. Transnational corporations, global financial institutions imposing structural adjustment programs, rapid technological change, and the hyper-mobility of finance capital have eroded the influence of states. It is evident that the onslaught on post-colonial states has a very strong external component. This paper, consistent with the basic tenet of the global constitution of failed states, explores the myriad ways by which the ideology of failed states is "internalized" by a growing middle class. The external pressures emanating from the transnationalization of economic activities are mediated through this class, relegating the state to the dustbin of history. By linking transnationalization of economic production and embourgeoisment this paper brings the state back into the discussion, failed or not. In fact the working of the internalization process suggests states to remain important, if not central, to the two processes of transnationalization and embourgeoisment. The story though familiar is not widely recognized. Many post-colonial states have successfully altered the entrenched colonial structure of production and trade and consequently created a viable domestic bourgeoisie. The rise of a middle class with its attendant consumerism, not coincidentally pushed by transnationalization processes of production, trade, capital flows, migration, travel, among others, is argued to drive the internalization process. As regulatory states, often handicapped by patronage politics, are increasingly seen as fetters to growth and consumption, vociferous calls are made for a diminished role of the state. In tandem external pressures for the withdrawal of the state mount as embourgeoisment promises new markets, access to which is critical in the context of global excess capacity. To capture lucrative markets foreign direct investment and technology transfers become critical assets. With transnationalization some segments of the local bourgeoisie join the transnational networks and begin to erode the ideological basis for state intervention. The mantra of a liberal economic order is echoed internally, thus contributing to the externally-generated failed constitution of the state. The aim of this project is to bring out this internalization process of a globally-induced constitution of failed states. I briefly examine some of the more successful states, such as Japan and Korea, which are being forced to undertake the Anglo-American variety of economic restructuring. In both cases internalization has to do with the
Re: Re: Japan
My question below: Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Wed, 21 Mar 2001, Jim Devine wrote: Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:11:11 -0800 From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:9300] Re: Japan At 04:36 PM 3/21/01 -0500, you wrote: Ellen Frank wrote: First, most of the Japanese banks are insolvent by US standards So the government should buy their worst loans and hive off the less-bad stuff and sell it to vultures. They could do it without disturbing the class structure significantly. How can a capitalist class sustain itself over the long term if it's not accumulating any capital? I don't think this proposed change "disturbs the class structure" as much as it goes against individual capitalists' particularistic self-interests. It's the latter that most often dominates capitalist politics. It's true that they unite and suppress individual differences and factional conflicts when they feel threatened by working-class power, while it's true that they all share the interest of maintaining capitalist power privilege. But the latter isn't threatened and the former isn't happening. So they squabble amongst themselves. [This isn't really any different from the standard pluralist interpretation of politics, except that they leave the assumption that there's no threat from workers implicit.] I would guess (note the verb) that there's a deadlock between those neoliberals (at the Bank of Japan?) who want to remodel the entire financial system in the US mould and those who are trying to preserve individual positions... But what brings about this actual "neo-liberal" transformation (at the BOJ say), given that BOJ and the entire kereitsu system pretty much rejected the neo-liberal, Anglo-Am model? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Buck Fush
I might add that a good proportion of Malaylis who work abroad are not highly educated, especially many Muslims from Kerala working in the Middle East. OTOH Malaylis are on the average better educated than most other Indian ethnic groups. One could hypothesize that the low growth in Kerala has been precisely due to those political forces (the CPM and the general left politics) that promoted a more a egalitarian development. But also note the lack of direct British rule in the region and the matrilineal society that is part of the southern region as important historical factors, in addition to the not so great agriculture (limited land with the beautiful western ghats (banks), tropical forests, and a long coastline. Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. wrote: Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:59:23 -0500 From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:7533] Re: Re: Re: Buck Fush Michael, Yes, Kerala does a very good job of educating its young girls. There is a new quite good book about Kerala called, _Kerala: The Development Experience_ edited by Govind Payatal, London: Zed Books, 2000. The big negative, as has been noted on this list before, is that Kerala has had quite slow per capita GDP growth leading to a lot of outmigration. The state is now the recipient of considerable inflows of income from its well-educated populace working abroad. Barkley Rosser -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:55 PM Subject: [PEN-L:7497] Re: Re: Buck Fush Doesn't kerala do a better job of educating young girls? Isn't that very important? But then, I have read about family planning being important for empowering women vis a vis their husbands. On Mon, Jan 29, 2001 at 08:49:44PM -0500, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Maggie says: I think what we need to do is support pro-CHOICE, which is not the same as pro-abortion, though abortion is a very important part of choice. Well, the question is, though, if the "international family planning organizations" have had a measurable impact of expanding women's choices in poor nations. I don't think Kerala has a lower birth rate than the rest of India because the former has more "international family planning organizations" than the latter. Charity never solves any problem, even if it's truly charitable (and it often isn't). Yoshie -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Keralan growth
The outmigration of Malaylis is higher than most other ethnic communities. What I am saying that Keralites leave Kerala and work in other parts of India more than say migrate abroad. For example, school teachers, petty officers in government/corporations, nurses (also in the US/Middle East), etc. Certainly economic conditions at home (Kerala) has a bearing on this, including education. At some level the causes are the same: more education, less opportunities, so outmigrate (destination of your choice). Yashwant Sinha, the Indian finance minister said in Davos, in the context of global inequality, that 38% of doctors in the US are of Indian orgin and 34% of NASA scientists (I can't verify this, but the numbers are high). As to Doug's point: the degree of frustration correlates with higher level of education (a la the UN official). But such frustration need not be expressed by migration by lower income groups since their education levels are also lower. And this is pretty much the case with the rest of India, nothing particular about Kerala itself. Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Jim Devine wrote: Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:26:12 -0800 From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:7543] Re: Re: Keralan growth I wrote: also, doesn't per capita GDP growth in essence measure only growth of market-oriented production and would thus miss the growth of goods and services that aren't distributed through markets? Aren't measures of literacy, life expectancy, etc. better measures of what we on pen-l value than is GDP? Isn't that why heterodox economists have developed alternative "progress indicators" to replace GDP as measures of success? Doug writes: True, but as a Kerala native who left to work for the UN once told me, if you combine high levels of social development with low levels of economic development, you get people with high but frustrated expectations, which they express by leaving. Something similar happened in Eastern Europe and the FSU, too, I'd say. to quibble, shouldn't we separate "economic development" from "growth of per capita GDP"? I guess what you're saying is that if development is serving the collective but doesn't promote individual monetary prosperity (which is measured by GDP-type measures), that some individuals will be frustrated and leave. I'd agree that this is a problem, but don't lots of educated folks leave _all_ parts of India, i.e., including those that haven't had Kerala-type development? (Some startlingly large percentage of U.S. medical doctors come from India.) Is there any reason to believe that people abandon Kerala more than they do other places in India? inquiring minds want to know, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
call for papers (fwd)
FYI. Please Circulate. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx -- Forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 17:10:48 + (GMT Standard Time) From: Branwen Gruffydd Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: call for papers Centre for Global Political Economy Arts E University of Sussex Brighton East Sussex BN1 9SJ England. www.cgpe.org 7th December 2000 Dear RIPE reader, Knowing of your research interests in international political economy we would like to invite you to a conference sponsored by the Review of International Political Economy to be held at the University of Sussex on 18th to 20th April of 2001. We are seeking to draw together international political economists with those working broadly in the field of development studies. The title and theme of the conference is "The Global Constitution of 'Failed States' : the consequences of a new imperialism ?" and we strongly welcome your participation and contribution to the conference. Whilst fuller details of the conference can be found at the web address www.cgpe.org, we also set out below a 'Call for Papers' for your information which gives an introduction to the kinds of issues that the conference seeks to address. We anticipate high calibre contributions to the conference attracting participants and invited contributors from around the world. Clearly the question of the future of the state, the forms it will take and the implications for international regulation and global governance are issues which are high on the agenda of many public and private international organisations, as well on the agenda of governmental agencies of different kinds. We expect the scholarship and analysis presented at the conference to make an important contribution to the proper understanding of current global transformations. We do hope that you can participate in the conference, either as a contributor or as a delegate, and that you can register your interest by visiting the website at www.cgpe.org Yours sincerely Alison Ayers Branwen Gruffydd Jones Dr. Ronen Palan Dr. Julian Saurin Prof. Kees van der Pijl Centre for Global Political Economy University of Sussex CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS The Centre for Global Political Economy, at the University of Sussex invites you to submit Papers and to Participate in the forthcoming Conference on The Global Constitution of 'Failed States' : the consequences of a new imperialism? Organised by the British International Studies Association (BISA) International Relations and Global Development Working Group sponsored by the Review of International Political Economy. The conference is to be held at the University
Re: Re: Japanese infrastructure question again
On Mon, 18 Dec 2000, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 22:27:42 -0500 From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:6385] Re: Japanese infrastructure question again Anthony said: As for whether corruption has had its predatory effects, it is amply clear that Japan is not an economy we can club with Zaire. The economic effects of, if you will, corruption is considerably greater than zero. The sheer physical infrastructure will indicate that, not to mention the entire manufacturing productive base. Right, but the synergy of patronage politics and export-led industrial growth has already come to an end, it seems to me. Kakuei Tanaka was the last of his kind. But there is no necessary relationship between patronage politics and export-led growth. Patronage politics could be part of _any_ development strategy. Tanaka was Japanese prime minister between 1972 and 74. He was forced to resign in 1974 because of financial malfeasance. He was later tried for accepting over $2 million in bribes from Lockheed and was convicted in 1983. $2 million bribe is peanuts with what goes on in the bribery sphere. Besides what will $2 million do when taken out of the total productive investment. And what if the $2 million actually led to more investments in physical infrastructure? However, he remained powerful as a "king-maker" until 1987 when Noboru Takeshita won control of the LDP faction Tanaka had led. In the age of global neoliberalism, I think that patronage, too, has become an obstacle for accumulation, as well as social democracy in Western Europe, the New Deal/Great Society in the USA, Peronist-style populism military dictatorship in Latin America, etc. Yoshie True but this sounds like the "end of history" conclusion--remove patronage and you will have social (liberal?) democracy. Patronage is socially generated, you can't simply wish it away. Cheers, Anthony D'Costa
Re: Query onTrade
Reagarding intra-firm trade there is some data put out by UN's World Investment Report. This comes out every year, I haven't had a chance to look at the most recent report (I will soon though, it's used for my class). Over-specialization (depending on products and process used) can lead to the typical problem of declining terms of trade, misallocation of resources, lock-in effects, that is difficult to diversify out from the low-end, and in some high value added activities, the income effect while favorable is often detrimental to income distribution, since other sectors are growing much more slowly. Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Tue, 19 Dec 2000, ALI KADRI wrote: Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 00:45:01 -0800 (PST) From: ALI KADRI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:6387] Query onTrade I am presently researching Trade issues. I recall Bill Tabb in a monthly review article mentioning that the increase in global trade is due to inter-company trade. Maybe my memory is not all that clear on that but are there data and measurement sources for this. Evidently all trade has been inter firm trade, what has changed is the fact that much of it is in intermediate products- Charles Andrews correctly mentioned it. But how can the welfare effect to the developing countries be measured, account taken of data problems. I have of course measurement problems, the least of which are data sources, double counting, nature of production process, income effect of trade vs. liberalization effect. There is evidence, and that is the major point, of corrosion (supplanting national industries and in free capital regimes the resource cum capital transfer is a bottomless hole), in the national economy resulting from an over-emphasis on specialization and comparative advantage, can these be gauged in any concrete way. Basically should an increase in exports become translated in income growth. There has been cases ( indeed the majority of cases between 1960 qnd 1980) of higher growth in incomes with lower exports some twenty years back. Some of the all too well known results are as follows: Science and scale based products, e. transistors, valves data processors, are high growth export products. One can add garments to this as well. The year 1990 represents a break point for most products except scale and science based which seem grow steadily without a break in the series (maybe there is a slight change in the slope after 1996 WTO effect), but this is too early to measure. the growth rate in the shares of world trade follows the descending order science based, scale based, specialized supplier, labor intensive resource intensive, primary commodities at the bottom. I appreciate comments or references on this --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: michael, the reason the japanese spend so much on infrastructural projects, mostly wasted money, bridges to underpopulated islands and so on is that the construction industry is a major contributor to the liberal democratic party (which is not liberal or democratic or really a party but a coalition of the corrupt in service to the rich and even more powerful. wk tabb __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/
on global industrial policy (regulation)
WASHINGTON PRESSES LENDERS TO DENY FOREIGN PRODUCERS. The US administration is pressing international lending agencies, including its won Export-Import Bank, to halt any loan that might increase global steel output, reports the Financial Times (p.6), noting that US Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta late last week urged US Ex-Im Bank President James Harmon to deny a loan to China's Benxi Iron and Steel Company, which was seeking financing for a project that would add about 1.5 million metric tons of new hot-rolled steel capacity. The US administration, under pressure from the domestic steel industry and steelworkers' union, has called for an end to international development bank financing of steel projects, the story says. The US argues that any additional steel capacity would contribute to a global glut that has driven steel prices to historic lows. US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers last month urged World Bank President James Wolfensohn to declare a moratorium on lending to any project that would substantially increase steel production capacity, notes the story. The issue was a priority for the outgoing administration, he said. -- I might add that in the 1970s several US banks were lending money for steel projects abroad, while most steel companies were divesting from steel. NACLA in the 1980s had a great issue on this topic. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx
Re: Re: Re: Japanese infrastructure question again
Let us not use the term "corrupt" in a loose way. Political parties by nature are corrupt if there are various limits to how they raise funding for an election process that is geared toward maximizing one vote-one person formula (of course I can't say that was Bush's strategy:). Further asymmetrical bases of power can be and are generally abused by the dominant groups (see politics in India). However, Japanese politics must be contextualized in its highly illiberal forms of social organization. Corruption when loosely used implicitly carries the "liberal" value of politics without the money part. Each individual is expected to exercise his/her vote with full information. Likewise political parties are expected to play the "apolitical" role by not capturing the state or receiving kickbacks. This is a highly idealized form of politics. This does not mean that some sanitization of politics in general should not be pursued but how to do it is another story. Japanese politics is rooted in more feudal-like social relations (not necessarily undesirable ones), especially those that adhere to more reciprocal, mutual debt-based obligations. LDP gets its funding from the construction industry (we of course don't have to go to Tokyo to understand the nature of the construction industry--NYC will be a good place to start) but it also gets its vote from a diminished yet politically influential agricultural sector. Protecting Japanese agri may also be seen as a form of corruption since everyone knows Japanese output can't compete with most others. But we all know that the function of the state is circumscribed by politics and power and in this case patronage politics. Corruption is misnomer for something that is deeper than simply paybacks. As for whether corruption has had its predatory effects, it is amply clear that Japan is not an economy we can club with Zaire. The economic effects of, if you will, corruption is considerably greater than zero. The sheer physical infrastructure will indicate that, not to mention the entire manufacturing productive base. Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Mon, 18 Dec 2000, Michael Perelman wrote: Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 09:51:18 -0800 From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:6354] Re: Re: Japanese infrastructure question again Thanks, Bill. I realize that the LDP is corrupt and to a large extent rural based. Do you think that most of the investment is really wasted and unproductive? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: michael, the reason the japanese spend so much on infrastructural projects, mostly wasted money, bridges to underpopulated islands and so on is that the construction industry is a major contributor to the liberal democratic party (which is not liberal or democratic or really a party but a coalition of the corrupt in service to the rich and even more powerful. wk tabb -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Japan's Debt
I think this view is somewhat correct. If public spending is significantly focused on physical infrastructure than Japan's infrastructure is "overdeveloped". I recall a NYT article talking about spending vouchers being distributed as part of public spending, some of which could be used for pachinko parlors and on prostitutes. OTOH more spending on education and research I do not think diseconomies have set in. There is a big debate going on about Japanese education system and its attempts institutionally to move away from the "catch-up" model. Questions of immigration is also looming large. Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, Jim Devine wrote: Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 14:16:35 -0800 From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:6083] Re: Re: Re: Japan's Debt At 01:45 PM 12/12/00 -0800, you wrote: One consideration regarding Japan is that, so far as I understand, Japan's deficit has been used for massive public works spending, which could mean greater productivity in the future. on the other hand, I've heard that they've actually encountered diminishing returns to public works investment, something rarely seen in the U.S. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
H-ASIA: CFP Seminar on Globalisation and India's Environment, Bombay,Feb. 2001 (fwd)
FYI Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx Call for papers: Seminar on Globalisation and India's Environment, Bombay, February 15-16, 2001 From: Shekhar Krishnan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dear Friends, Attached is the note on the seminar we are planning on Globalisation, Liberalisation and India's Environment on February 15-16, 2001. I would appreciate your participation. Please let me know if you are interested, and whether you can present a paper, act as discussant, or participate in some other way. I would also appreciate your suggestions for others who can be invited. Please feel free to bounce this to others. A formal invitation follows. With best regards, Carol Upadhya Department of Sociology, SNDT Women's University, Mumbai [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ UGC National Seminar on Globalisation, Liberalisation and India's Environment: Emerging Trends and Debates Post-Graduate Department of Sociology S.N.D.T. Women's University Churchgate Campus, Mumbai 400 020 [EMAIL PROTECTED] February 15-16, 2001 Globalisation and liberalisation are being heavily promoted by international institutions such as the World Bank and by many liberal economists as the route to economic development, especially for 'developing' countries. But these policies, which include freer international trade, increased foreign investment, deregulation, and structural adjustment, have come in for sharp criticism from a broad spectrum of non-governmental organisations and social movements, as displayed so vividly in Seattle. While opposition to globalisation has been voiced by diverse social movements, some of the most prominent critics have been environmentalists, such that the debate on globalisation has come to be closely linked with environmental issues -- a conjuncture that has thrown up new questions, issues, and research agendas. In India, liberalisation and globalisation have been among the most significant and contested developments of the last decade. The apparent inevitability of globalisation and of a more market-oriented, open economy has added a new dimension to the debate on environment and development. Many activists and intellectuals argue that globalisation, in addition to aggravating poverty and inequality, can only accelerate the process of environmental degradation in the country, posing a threat to the livelihoods of the majority of the people and to the long-term development and ecological integrity of the country. According to them, liberalisation policies have promoted privatisation and commercial exploitation of the country's natural resources, investment in polluting industries by foreign capital, growth of export-oriented agriculture at the expense of sustainable food production, and loosening of environmental protection regulations. Activists have also highlighted issues such as the adverse impact of the new IPR regime on biodiversity and agriculture, and the ecological destruction caused by export oriented industries as well as by World Bank funded projects. This pattern of development, they claim, will only benefit a privileged few and the corporate sector (multinational and national), while doing immense harm to India's ecological base and to the poor by restructuring the distribution and utilisation of natural resources. On the other hand, support for the new economic policy has come from unexpected quarters, and several activists and intellectuals argue that liberalisation, because of the accompanying technological changes and economic growth, will in the long run provide better livelihoods for people as well as greater environmental protection. The purpose of the seminar is to examine closely some of the issues that have arisen about environmental change in India in the context of globalisation. It will provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of recent research, advocacy work and other initiatives by academics, activists, journalists and others on a wide range of topics, with the aim of generating constructive debate. Some of the broad themes that could be addressed at this seminar include: 1) Agriculture, rural livelihoods and food security. How have the GATT and WTO agreements and recent changes in economic policy affected Indian agriculture, food security, the livelihoods of farmers and agricultural workers, and the rural environment (soil, water)? What has been the impact on rural ecological systems of the import of agricultural products, increasing
Re: economists
Depending how you are defining "left", we hired two political economists this past year. Of course ours is not a "major economics" school, we are an interdisciplinary liberal studies program. The job announcement attracted a large pool of "left" leaning economists for sure. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Wed, 8 Nov 2000, Doug Henwood wrote: Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 12:52:02 -0500 From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:4102] economists When's the last time a major U.S. economics department hired a seriously left-of-center economist? Where in general do younger left economists find employment (if at all)? Doug
Was Eurocentrism
There's another aspect to this notion of Eurocentrism. While I would tend to side with Brenner's thesis about the importance of class relations in the emergence of capitalism in Europe (Wallerstein is also Eurocentric in that respect but relies on mercantile trade as the driving force), there is something to be said about imperialism. Nationalist marxists from former colonies, and Baran et al. have argued about the truncation of social formation in the colonies to generate the twilight zone (semi-feudal, semi-capitalist systems). However, the side that I want to bring up and which gets lost in the "Eurocentric" focused debates (but many have dismissed, such as Landes) is that there were alternative "systems" to the European version of capitalism at that time with the kinds of technical and institutional ingredients vital to the birth of capitalism present as well. These include a sophiscated class of merchants undertaking risky long distance trade from the west coast of India to the now Middle East and easterly to South East Asia. Additionally, double entry book keeping was quite common at that time as well. This means in the absence of European colonialism and imperialism, vibrant capitalism could have been possible. So in effect the two sides of this debate is that Brenner's explanation for the rise of Europe has great merit but so does the argument made by other marxists from the "periphery" (see also David Washbrook). Where Brenner and others seem to differ is on the explanation for the rise of Europe. I do not think Brenner's analysis suggests a "provincial" view (as being Eurocentric suggests). Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx
Re: Re: Re: query
I recently came across HDR 1999, p. 67, that refers to global concentration ratios of the top 10 firms, 1998: commercial seed: 32% of $23b, 35% for pharma., vet medicine 60%, computers almost 70%, pesticides 85% and telecomm. more than 86%. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Fri, 28 Jul 2000, Doug Henwood wrote: Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 17:21:34 -0400 From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:22235] Re: Re: query Michael Perelman wrote: Interesting question. Wouldn't that be very difficult to track over time now with all the spin offs and strategic combinations? Rudy Fichtenbaum wrote: Can anyone point me in the direction of some data on the growing concentration of capital in the U.S.? I would also like some data on the number of mergers. What do you mean by "concentration of capital"? Of ownership? Share of product markets? On the latter, see an article in the current Harvard Business Review http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/products/hbr/julaug00/R00405.html, which reports no increasing concentration of market share: The Dubious Logic of Global Megamergers by Pankaj Ghemawat and Fariborz Ghadar The almost universal belief among executives today is that bigger is better: companies are entering into huge, pricey cross-border mergers at an unprecedented rate. Common wisdom is that industries will become more concentrated as they become more global. This idea has persistently dominated business -- from Karl Marx's "one capitalist kills many" theory to the more recent "one, two, or three shall dominate" logic put forth by business practitioners. In this article, the authors debunk the myth of increased concentration; the perceived links between the globalization of an industry and the concentration of that industry are weak. Empirical research shows that global -- or globalizing -- industries have actually been marked by steady decreases in concentration since World War II. The authors present the biases that managers often have about consolidation and offer alternative strategies to pursuing the big MA deal. There are better, more profitable ways of dealing with globalization than relentless expansion, they say. Those strategies include buying up cast-off assets from merging rivals; focusing more on domestic or regional growth rather than on global expansion; taking advantage of merging rivals' weakened market position during integration and launching an aggressive marketing campaign; and building alliances with other companies rather than buying them up. In an era that is witnessing technological discontinuities, managers shouldn't focus on size as a goal; instead, they should focus on the development of new business models that help them compete. -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer Village Station - PO Box 953 New York NY 10014-0704 USA +1-212-741-9852 voice +1-212-807-9152 fax email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: query
yes. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Tue, 15 Aug 100 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Date: Tue, 15 Aug 100 13:01:07 -0700 (PDT) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:632] Re: Re: Re: Re: query Human Development Report? I recently came across HDR 1999, p. 67, that refers to global concentration ratios of the top 10 firms, 1998: commercial seed: 32% of $23b, 35% for pharma., vet medicine 60%, computers almost 70%, pesticides 85% and telecomm. more than 86%. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Fri, 28 Jul 2000, Doug Henwood wrote: Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 17:21:34 -0400 From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:22235] Re: Re: query Michael Perelman wrote: Interesting question. Wouldn't that be very difficult to track over time now with all the spin offs and strategic combinations? Rudy Fichtenbaum wrote: Can anyone point me in the direction of some data on the growing concentration of capital in the U.S.? I would also like some data on the number of mergers. What do you mean by "concentration of capital"? Of ownership? Share of product markets? On the latter, see an article in the current Harvard Business Review http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/products/hbr/julaug00/R00405.html, which reports no increasing concentration of market share: The Dubious Logic of Global Megamergers by Pankaj Ghemawat and Fariborz Ghadar The almost universal belief among executives today is that bigger is better: companies are entering into huge, pricey cross-border mergers at an unprecedented rate. Common wisdom is that industries will become more concentrated as they become more global. This idea has persistently dominated business -- from Karl Marx's "one capitalist kills many" theory to the more recent "one, two, or three shall dominate" logic put forth by business practitioners. In this article, the authors debunk the myth of increased concentration; the perceived links between the globalization of an industry and the concentration of that industry are weak. Empirical research shows that global -- or globalizing -- industries have actually been marked by steady decreases in concentration since World War II. The authors present the biases that managers often have about consolidation and offer alternative strategies to pursuing the big MA deal. There are better, more profitable ways of dealing with globalization than relentless expansion, they say. Those strategies include buying up cast-off assets from merging rivals; focusing more on domestic or regional growth rather than on global expansion; taking advantage of merging rivals' weakened market position during integration and launching an aggressive marketing campaign; and building alliances with other companies rather than buying them up. In an era that is witnessing technological discontinuities, managers shouldn't focus on size as a goal; instead, they should focus on the development of new business models that help them compete. -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer Village Station - PO Box 953 New York NY 10014-0704 USA +1-212-741-9852 voice +1-212-807-9152 fax email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: query
It's even more offensive when one doesn't read one's mail carefully. I can't be responsible for that:) Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Tue, 15 Aug 2000, Carrol Cox wrote: Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 16:31:38 -0500 From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:635] Re: query Anthony DCosta wrote: yes. 7 kb of text with one new word -- and one couldn't even find the question being answered. This is offensive. Carrol
Paul Sweezy
A piece that appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly (from Mumbai). EPWCommentary July 22-28, 2000 Calcutta Diary AM Paul Sweezy is 90. To celebrate the event, Monthly Review has issued a special number in which eminences from all over have gone into raptures while describing Sweezys contributions to the social sciences. The contributors range from John Kenneth Galbraith and Shigeto Tsuru to Noam Chomsky and Robert Heilbroner, with a surprise in the form of Pete Seeger thrown in the middle. Seeger claims to have been Sweezys student at Harvard and is a devotee ever since. Most of the eminences, as is obvious, were not Marxists. Some of them hold beliefs which are miles distant from Sweezys own yet they thought it their duty to pay homage to Sweezys integrity and his indifference to the honours that could have been his if only he had agreed to compromise with the establishment even for a brief while. His faith in Marxism has withstood each and every buffeting over the past half a century and more. He treated with scorn the McCarthyite attempts in the late forties to scare him into conformity. Sweezy could not be cowed down, the annals of his career since then constitute a wondrous story of tenacity, fearlessness and loyalty to ones creed. A man like him generates inspiration in others. As a sequel to developments in the last decade, Marxian economics and sociology appear to have been rendered irrelevant. It is possible to hypothesise further and express doubts about the viability of economic science itself as it has evolved over the past two and a half centuries. It is not Marxian economics alone which, in todays context, would seem to be hopelessly obsolete. Even supposedly more respectable branches of economics would turn out to be equally out of gear with contemporary reality. Traditional macroeconomics, routinely taught in the classrooms for decades on end, would now be considered as of little use, and this judgment will also cover the general theory of state intervention adumbrated by John Maynard Keynes. The entire corpus of classical political economy will be treated as a lot of garbage, with the sole exception of the doctrine of comparative costs. Much of microeconomics too will come under deep suspicion. For instance, the assumed equilibrium under conditions of perfect competition will be brushed aside as of no consequence in todays world. This is in fact somewhat bizarre, for the pretenders started out by extolling the reign of the free market liberated from all categories of regulation. It is imperfect competition and the rule of monopoly which are currently the core of economic reality. Monopoly, it is vigorously maintained, is not socially inequitous, it does not reflect exploitation and coercing the helpless innocent members of the community. Such infamy of monopoly must be discarded. On the contrary, monopoly is the embodiment of efficiency. A unit which establishes itself as of superior efficiency compared to other units will monopolise the market, and we should all sing hallelujahs to it. The suggestion that it is total control over a factor of production which facilitates the growth of monopoly, and any inherent efficiency has nothing to do with it, will be treated with contempt. Efficiency, defined in a sectarian manner, is taken to be the principal architect of monopoly. The textbook lesson of how monopoly equilibrium is to the left of competitive equilibrium is to be considered as sterile wisdom. For whatever the short-term difficulties, capital accumulation facilitated by the growth of monopoly will assure the future of economic progress. This is new economics, if it is to be regarded as economics at all. Economic analysis as inspired by the classical texts will not be reconcilable with this format of reasoning. Even the assumption of super-excellence of free market activities is negated with the advent of monopoly, though a major sleight of hand is involved. Free market activism is the beginning, but the system ends up with monopoly of the most aggressive order. Paul Sweezy throughout his career has belonged to a microscopic minority. Even when the Soviet Union was in a high and mighty state and in a position to mount effective opposition to the more outrageous postures of the United States, Sweezy, in his nook of the Monthly Review, was still a minority specimen. For him, the daze of globalisation is not therefore an additional source of alarm. He could have slipped into the academic establishment and adorned a chair at Harvard or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, if only he would sign some sort of a note of contrition for his erstwhile wayward ways. He did not do so and refused to deviate from his tenets. Such individuals are a rare commodity and, in honouring Sweezy, his admirers are honouring a person whose loyalty to his ideology is non pareil. He has stuck to his faith and, through
Re: Re: The Rise and Future Demise of World-SystemsAnalysis
Wallerstein writes, irrespective of what others write. He doesn't listen--to paraphrase some of his students (who are my friends) and colleagues! Cheers, Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx
Re: Re: Re: Re: The Rise and Future Demise ofWorld-Systems Analysis
Military dictatorships in Singapore and Hong Kong? Malaysians are doing relatively better in both Malaysia and Singapore. So are the Indians. I don't think the IMF programs per se brought them to the core status. If that was the case then everybody would want the IMF medicine willingly! It is the mix of state-society relations, particular institutional contexts, some historical accidents, and the like. One need not resort to "systemic" explanation to explain the growth and development of East/South East Asia, although no one saying that macro-structural shifts should not be at the background. In fact it is in this area where WSP has miserably failed because details don't fit the larger plot line. Local wages expressed in dollar terms is quite meaningless. A $1.65 an hour wage will be quite high in many countries because of what it can actually purchase. Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Thu, 13 Jul 2000, Mine Aysen Doyran wrote: Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 16:30:19 -0400 From: Mine Aysen Doyran [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21575] Re: Re: Re: "The Rise and Future Demise ofWorld-Systems Analysis" From today's perspective, Rostow looks much better: Italy, France, and Japan have joined the core. Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, the Hong Kong SEZ, Spain, and Ireland are joining the core, and there appear to be a bunch more lined up behind them... Thanks to military dictatorships and IMF programs who have brought the Tigers to the level of the core. If T, SK, SP, HK relatively did better, it happened so by peripheralizing other countries in the region'; ie by hiring Malaysians, mostly women and children, as cheap labor in garment/maquiladora industries in the Pacific Rim, at $1.65 per hourly wage rates or so, and by mostly keeping them non-unionized and without any job security. There is a *small* world system there, characterized by inter-regional differences and inequalities. So the relevance of IW, and the difficulty with Rostow. --- Mine Aysen Doyran PhD Student Department of Political Science SUNY at Albany Nelson A. Rockefeller College 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102 Albany, NY 1 NetZero Free Internet Access and Email_ Download Now http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html Request a CDROM 1-800-333-3633 ___
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crisis of capitalism
Labor-intensive manufacturing, I should add. Services though increasingly tradeable is still problematic across national borders. Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Doug Henwood wrote: Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 11:55:07 -0400 From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21331] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crisis of capitalism Anthony D'Costa wrote: labor-intensive activities are low wage by definition Software writing? Bond trading? Psychotherapy? Fine woodworking? Doug
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crisis of capitalism
I am sorry I brought this up but I need not to be reminded of the world-system thinking. It's an old story (when I was in grad school), I attended two PEWS conference with Immanuel and others present, and Terry Hopkins had offered me an assistantship in the early 1980s to join the program. I know a good number of Immanuel's students, including some leading Turkish scholars. I agree that the "global" aspect was brought in more forcefully but it does not have the monopoly of talking about capitalism either in "class" terms or in terms of internationalization of capital. It was precisely treating "space" (core/semiperiphery/ and the periphery) as "class" processes that became problematic. Besides, while nation states seems to become less important, as underscored by world-system, we live with nationalisms, nation-states, identities, rules, policies, etc. Yes, it was good starting point against the modernization perspective (not necessarily the NC school) but got soon exhausted in explaining lots of details of the world economic dynamics. Where it truly fails (and here I am talking more like an anthropologist) is in the agency aspects of human behaviour. Its concern with macro structures shoves a lot of interesting details under the carpet. Differences are explained away rather lazily. Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Mine Aysen Doyran wrote: Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 15:25:08 -0400 From: Mine Aysen Doyran [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21334] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crisis of capitalism Incorrect charecterization. In fact, world system people are ridiculed by closet neo-classical economists who, for instance, argue that third world societies have remained underdeveloped, and will remain so, not because they were colonized by the West, but because they were _inherently_ backward: Tribal, uncivilized, culturally ill people. So the same people thought that capitalism would bring civilization to those societies and modernize them in ways to catch up the west. This was the position defended by, for example, Bernstein (See his support for colonialism in Morroco), Rostow type anti-communist manifesto preachers, and recently by Harvard/Kennedy school backed CIA advisors Samuel Huntington. Accordingly, WS theory questioned this one sided modernization perspective, applying Marx's analysis of class relations to a global level. First, one needs to understand the WS theory before challenging it. Whether you like it or not, its BIG contribution to Marxism is that 1) capitalism is not a nation or inter-state system; it is a world system 2) economic expansion of the "core" (which is starting point of modern world economy, at least according to Wallerstein, if not to Frank) first depended on the creation and integration of peripheral areas as agricultural exporters through "slavery and coerced cash crop production", before the full manifestation of wage labor and industrial revolution in Britain 3) and that this expansionism was necessary for primitive accumulation of surplus labor necessary to develop capitalism in the core (wage labor system) 4) and that _before_ becoming fully integrated into the world system, peripheral areas meant for European capitalists sources of cheap labor, *not* unproductive labor force as apologetic reifiers of wage labor assume, but the labor force drawn into sugar and cotton plantations at low immediate cost by force. See for this Polish marxist Withold Kula/Wallerstein debate. Whereas Kula argues that second serfdom (18th cent) in Poland was the natural result of Poland's historical and structural failure to generate capitalism of the kind West had, Wallerstein argues that second serfdom was the result of Poland's peripheral status in the European world economy-- a position that was precisely the result of its integration into capitalism *not* of its isolation. Then he goes on explaining the conditions under which different zones of the world economy have specialized in different agricultural regimes at different times. He shows how wage and other forms of labor stand at the "cornerstone" of capitalism as "dual mode of involvement", not as reified oppositions. Furthermore, _class_ is at the center of world system analysis. Core, semi-periphery, and periphery refer to positions in the economic system_: International division of labor. World economy is by "definition capitalist in
Re: RE: On Mark to Rod, was Re: Re: re: energy
Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Thu, 29 Jun 2000, Max Sawicky wrote: Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 11:51:23 -0400 From: Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:20946] RE: On Mark to Rod, was Re: Re: re: energy HE: . . . We intellectuals have to join the organizations of these committed workers and help them write a consistent programme how to avoid ecological catastrophe by a world wide proletarian revolution, and establish a minority dictatorship which will carry out this programme with Stalinist methods. You will be surprised how many liberals with support such a proletarian-based movement once it is big enough. . . . [mbs] When it's big enough, will we have a choice? HE: . . . Therefore my advice is: join any proletarian communist party, whether it be the Worker's World Party (my personal favorite at the moment), the CPUSA, the SWP, etc., whatever, . . . [mbs] WWP does great banners, but my favorite is the Naxalbari (CPI-M). They came into villages and cut off landlords heads. It is not CPI-M, it is CPI-ML (marxists leninists). CPI-M is the ruling party of the state of West Bengal, now for two decades. Naxalbari, a village in north Bengal is the site of adhibasis (ancient peoples) or tribals. It is not surprising, given the massive exploitation that took place, that tools for cultivation would be used for annhilating the class enemy. HE: . . . Or use your computer skills to write the software for a computer-based planned economy, . . . [mbs] I've already done this. Unfortunately we will have to limit ourselves to the production of nuts and apples. HE: . . Whatever you do, think big. Stop diddling around. Word. mbs
Some World Bank News
This summary is prepared by the External Affairs Department of the World Bank. All material is taken directly from published and copyright wire service stories and newspaper articles. For more news go to http://www.worldbank.org/news To subscribe or unsubscribe go to http://www.worldbank.org/devnews WORLD BANK REGRETS REPORT AUTHOR'S DEPARTURE. Ravi Kanbur, the author of the World Bank's annual World Development Report has left following a fierce internal row over the report's content, reports the Financial Times (p.7). Kanbur, a former academic at Cornell University in the US, left after a dispute over the appropriate role of free markets in developing countries. Bank staff said Kanbur's emphasis on income redistribution brought him into conflict with other World Bank economists, who argued that the promotion of growth through market liberalization was the most effective weapon in combating poverty. A paper entitled "Growth Is Good" produced earlier this year by David Dollar was seen as a direct challenge to Kanbur's views. Separately, the Guardian (UK, p.14) notes that World Bank chief spokeswoman Caroline Anstey, said in a statement that Kanbur had repeatedly been given an assurance that the World Development Report would be objective and analytical, but that "he himself felt at odds with some other voices in the Bank over the emphasis." Noting that influential government departments, including the US Treasury and the UK's Department for International Development, also wanted a focus on economic growth, the FT says development campaigners consulted on the report earlier this year reacted with dismay to the news. The resignation marked "the ultimate triumph for the Neanderthal forces within the World Bank," said OXFAM Senior Policy Adviser Kevin Watkins. "Ravi tried to bring distribution to the heart of the debate on development," Watkins noted. "His departure is a clear signal to developing country governments that they should go for growth above all else. It is a denial of all the thinking introduced by [World Bank President] James Wolfensohn over the last few years." The Guardian also quotes Alex Wilks of the Bretton Woods Project as saying: "Coming soon after Joe Stiglitz departed as chief economist, this is a major blow for an institution trying to position itself as a 'knowledge bank' and a 'listening bank'. It raises questions of who really calls the shots and what evidence or opinions about the impacts of globalization they are trying to suppress." A former Bank employee who had worked closely with Kanbur also said: "I suspect Ravi is very concerned about letting down organizations and groups involved in the consultation process. He's taken the consultation exercise extremely seriously. If there's pressure on him to weaken his message, he would be very unhappy." But the Bank denied that Kanbur's departure reflected a climbdown in response to external pressure, the FT says. "The final report will reflect the World Bank's views, not simply those of the US Treasury," a Bank spokesperson said. The report did not mark a return to the free-market "Washington consensus" and would not be toned down from the draft version circulated earlier this year, she added. "The World Development Report will continue to reflect the main themes of the draft, following consultation with policymakers, NGOs and others." A Bank official also denied that the institution was being leant on by US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, notes the Guardian. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5612 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx
Re: Re: Wall St. J.: Monopoly the coming thing
I think the relationship between competition and concentration should be seen in dialectical terms. One leads to the other in a dynamic context, showing considerable variability among sectors under study. A useful, accessible chapter, albeit for a different topic, is from Rhy Jenkins (1987) Transnational Corporations and Uneven Development, New York: Methuen Co. Anthony D'Costa U of Washington, Tacoma On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, Jim Devine wrote: Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2000 10:18:42 -0700 From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:20055] Re: Wall St. J.: Monopoly the coming thing At 08:32 AM 6/9/00 -0700, you wrote: Jim Devine has, both in the latest go round with Tom Walker, and at other times, asserted his belief that competition is much stronger now than in, say, the 1950s. Each time I read that I noted my disagreement to myself but passed on the thread. As I think of how the airlines, banking, farming, etc. have consolidated since the 1950s I disagree with Jim each time he makes his assertion. I'd say that between the 1950s or 1960s and the present day, there's been an increase in competition if one looks at the US economy _as a whole_, especially if you bring in the role of international competition that has increasingly hit goods-producing industries. But just as Marx pointed out, this increase in competition is spurring the drive to concentrate and centralize power, i.e., the creation of new monopolies and oligopolies, this time on a _global_ scale (as seen with Daimler-Chrysler, etc.) This process can be seen on the micro-level in airlines. Back in the "bad old days" of the 1960s, that industry was organized by a government-sponsored cartel called the Civil Aeronautics Board (that was established to create the airline system). It was abolished in the late 1970s (under the Democrats, BTW), resulting in a period of intense competition. This in turn led to the consolidation of new, private, monopolies (in new forms, like the hub city system or cheating in the electronic booking system). The story of the airline industry preceded what's happening in general (even though the fallacy of composition indicates that one cannot automatically generalize from one industry to the entire economy). Banking follows the pattern of airlines with different timing. Competition was until very recently restricted by bans on interstate banking and (in many US states) bans on branch banking. As a result, we saw lots of local monopolies or oligopolies in banking, which some people interpreted as competition because they saw a large number of banks. The recent trend has been toward breaking down these "anti-competitive" bans (partly by people figuring how to get around them and partly by legislation). This (along with the SL/banking crisis of the 1980s and the rise of competition from other sectors of finance) in turn is encouraging massive bank mergers. (Can you say "Bank of America"?) So we are seeing the replacement of local monopolies and oligopolies with a national oligopoly of banks, each of which will have much more political influence than they have had in the past and will be deemed "too big to fail" by their friends at the Fed. As for agriculture, the general trend for the longest time has been that of the concentration and centralization of power, grinding the small farmers out of the market (or dominating them as subcontractors). But would you say that the behavior of the market for wheat or other agricultural commodities is describable in terms of monopoly or oligopoly? (BTW, I don't see competition as necessarily a good thing for consumers or workers, just as I don't see monopoly as necessarily a bad thing. As Yoshie pointed out, the existence of monopoly/oligopoly in product markets allowed organized labor to get a chunk of the "monopoly rents." On top of that, I'd say that the general rule is that competition and monopoly co-exist as part of a dynamic process, so that we shouldn't go too far with the competition vs. monopoly dichotomy.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Fullbright moves to the left (fwd)
On Thu, 1 Jun 2000, Michael Perelman wrote: Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2000 11:10:04 -0700 From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:19795] Re: Fullbright moves to the left (fwd) I did not think that they moved to the left either. I just found the response entertaining. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: thanks for the info. btw, economics does not look "as" controversial as other social sciences such as political science, sociology, history etc... so that might be the reason that they have awards for econ people.. still econ is considered to be non-political.. in any case, I don't think that fullbright moves to the left (as an institution.). i am not talking about award winners here. they might be leftish individually. for them to look leftish (at least in rhetoric), US citizenship requirement should be removed for people applying from the US. I should not be exported to my country to apply.. merci, Mine Eugenia Iankova passed along your message about the Fulbright organization being leery of accepting any leftish people. I had to chuckle because I consider myself "leftish" and I not only went on a Fulbright to China in 1996-96, I am now working for them. So far my politics have not been an issue. Shall I send you an application? We've got a lot of awards for economists. Regards, Judy Pehrson Director of External Relations -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 By the way there are many types of Fulbright awards. There are teaching awards for US citizens, research awards for US residents as well, and there are dissertation awards for US students. There are similar awards for candidates from abroad from their home countries. I was a recipient of a Faculty Research award in 1991, carrying out field work in India and Japan for 5 months, I am not a US citizen. I doubt politics should matter really unless you are thinking of overthrowing the Fulbright institution itself. Besides what is left and center and right are not all that crystal clear either. Cheers, Anthony Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5612 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx
Re: Political Economy of Protectionism (fwd)
This is not about regulation theory. RT is about capitalist governance (thus far) and thus specifically about capitalist institutions, their evolution, their practicality, and their design for a better future. Industrial policy is only a small aspect of it. Naturally there are all sorts of people using RT, marxists and non-marxists, policy-makers and academics. Aside from the macroeconomic takes by RT, such as Aglietta, Boyer, and the like, there are others who are more micro oriented, especially examining the sectoral dynamics, such as the auto, engineering, health etc. Best, Pyke, Penrose, Hollingsworth, Streeck come to mind. Cheers, Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5612 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't know if this helps to requested info on regulation theory.. Mine Although I have not read it, the paper abstracted below seems very interesting. I plan to obtain it soon. Some of you may also find it interesting. Cheers, McKeever "The Political Economy of Protectionism and Industrial Policy" BY: HADI SALEHI ESFAHANI University of Illinois MUNIR MAHMUD Pennsylvania State University Dept. of Economics Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection: http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=150730 Paper ID: Working Paper No. 98-0111 Date: June 1998 Contact: HADI SALEHI ESFAHANI Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: University of Illinois 210DKH 1206 South Sixth Street Urbana, IL 61801 USA Phone: (217)333-2681 Fax: (217)333-1398 Co-Auth: MUNIR MAHMUD Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: Pennsylvania State University Dept. of Economics 609 Kern Building University Park, PA 16802-3306 USA Paper Requests: Contact Illinois Research and Reference Center, 128 Library, 1408 West Gregory Drive, Urbana IL 61801 USA. Fax:(217)244-0398; Phone:(217)333-1958. Basic fee is $10. http://www.library.uiuc.edu/library/irrc/default.htm ABSTRACT: This paper develops a model of trade and industrial policy where the politicians in charge of the government can direct the rents generated by their policies toward their political or economic objectives through different channels: lobbying, taxation, regulation, and tariff and quota allocation. Different mechanisms are distinguished by their point of rent extraction and differences in resource waste for each dollar of transfer. In conjunction with industrial policy, specific asset formation is also endogenized. We show that many characteristics of the model's equilibria transcend specific channels of rent extraction that prevail. The parameters that represent the effectiveness of rent transfer through various channels play a mediating role. The results show that the relationships between these parameters and policy outcomes may be different from those based on single-channel models. We show that under reasonable conditions, a variety of parameter changes induce a positive relationship between the restrictiveness of policies toward domestic and foreign competition. This helps explain a number of important empirical regularities such as the positive association of protection with import penetration and output-capital ratio. The model also offers a guide for empirical research on the role of lobbying and other rent extraction mechanisms in policy-making. JEL Classification: F13, L52 _
Re: Madrick on Sen and the IMF/WB protests
Here's something of related interest. See http://www.gdnet.org II. GDN2000 Conference in Tokyo, Mark Your Calendars --- Another result of Lyn's trip to Japan is that we can now announce some preliminary details concerning the GDN2000 conference in Tokyo. - Location: Takanawa Prince Hotel, Tokyo - Dates: December 11 - 13, 2000 - Working Title: Beyond Economics: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Development - Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Nobel laureates Amartya Sen on Culture and Development, Douglas North on Institutions and Development - Program Highlights: announcement of the first winners of the Global Development Awards; introduce the GDN constitution, refine the GDN's Global Products - Sub-topics for the Conference: Escaping Poverty, Institutional Foundations of Development, Gender and Development, Knowledge Marketplace In April we will post more information about the conference on the GDN web site and create a feedback mechanism to gather reactions to the Draft Agenda. We will also be seeking feedback on the working title. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5612 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Thu, 13 Apr 2000, Jim Devine wrote: Today's NY TIMES business section has an interesting article by Jeffrey Madrick (editor of CHALLENGE magazine) on the need for democracy and its positive effects on economic development that sheds a favorable light on the protests against the IMF/Word Bank. It's not on their web-site yet. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Diamonds and colonialism (fwd)
I wouldn't say it's the best paper but certainly the best in the US. Its editorial stance is another matter altogether. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5612 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx On Thu, 6 Apr 2000, Louis Proyect wrote: I really wonder why New York Times and bourgeois sources like this suddenly rediscover Africa's heritage of colonalism!! Overall, it does not seem to me more than an "orientalist" sympaty of reconstructing the "other": we killed the folks, and let's do something to compansate it. o!!.. Mine The NY Times is much more complex. There are continual battles going on over how to report, either in the interests of the truth or in the interests of the State Department. Raymond Bonner was an honest reporter who dared to question the Reaganite line on Central America. Finally he was purged. I think everybody should read the NY Times on a daily basis, either in print or on the web. It is the best newspaper in the world, regardless of its editorial stance. Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
