At 06:57 PM 5/6/97 -0700, Anthony P. D'Costa wrote: >I am intrigued by some of the comments below, especially because of labor >shortage situations and because somehow the dependency idea that the >"periphery" is condemned to remain where they are is smuggled in. It does >not capture the learning process: that the periphery can produce its own >capitalists, engineers, and that they can be entrepreneurial. If I understand the dependency argument correctly, local nobility or "entrepreneurs" act as enforcers of the core interests in the peripheral countries (both as exporters of the products of cheap local labour, and importers of "luxury" hi-tech items manufactured by the core industry, including exotic weaponry). My own (mostly anecdotal) observations of Eastern European managerial elites is that they are more happy to be petty agents of foreign capital presiding over "privatisation" (translation: dismantling) of the state industry, than entrepreneurs willing to promote strong domestic economy. As I understand, the situation is not much different elsewhere (Latin America, South East Asia) where local entrepreneurs are more than eager to manage sweatshops that often violate even the pathetic local labour laws to benefit TNCs. It seems to me that the yuppie class popping up in the developing countries is the post modern version of local noble puppets that played a pivotal role in the 19th century indirect colonial rule. If anything, the emergence of the local managerial elites presiding over production for export supports my claim that the new world order is, in fact, the old world order the dependency theories were talking about, with some hi-tech window dressing --- snip--- >This makes no sense at least with respect to reality and harks back to the >technological dependence argument so popular among the US and Lat Am left. >Labor productivity is on the rise. Not quite sure what you mean by >"feudal exploitation." I think I mentioned that in my posting. "Capitalist exploitation" is based on improving labour productivity through technology to squeeze more from a unit of labour power (a standard marxist line). Technological innovation is neccessitated by the fact that demand for finite number of workers drives prices of labour up, thus making investment in new labour saving technology more rational than hiring more albour at a higher cost. "Feudal exploitation", by contrast, obtains when the abundance of cheap labour makes it more rational to employe more labour than to invest in labour saving technology. I call it "feudal" because the volume of human labour was the main factor under the human control affecting the output under the feudal system. Under that system, direct repression is the main mode of labour control, because the owners are unable to accomodate labour demand through productivity increase (for a discussion see Jeffrey Paige, _Agrarian Revolution: social movements and export agriculture in the underdeveloped world_, New York: Free Press, 1975). It would take a lot convincing to pursue this line >of thinking in late capitalism. Labor costs are also rising. That >consumer technology is unchanging (old changing) does not capture reality. >What is all this oligopolistic competition about if not creating new >products and processes? Gee, I always thought it was about capturing a market share, demand management, and planned obsolescence. How mean spirited and of little faith was I! How could I ever doubt that it was about bringing newer, bigger and better products to life? Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Is labor cost really the determining factor for >innovations? I would argue for the affirmative, quoting the anecdote that jet propulsion was invented in 100BC (seriously, a guy named Hero of Alexandria built a machine utilising jet propulsion) -- but the invention was not implemented for the next two thousand years beacuse the abundance of cheap (slave or serf) labour did not warrant the investment in labour-saving technology. More seriously, under the condition of marginal cost of labour being close to nil, pursuing labour saving technological innovations does not seem to be a rational strategy. Only when employers start competing for the same pool of workers, investiting in labour/saving/productivity enhancing technologies starts making sense. Of course, there might be other reasons to innovate, such as an altruistic desire of the well off to free the humankind from the drudgery of backbreaking manual labour so all the working people of the world can enjoy the benefits of fishing in the morning and reading poetry in the evening, or perhaps a specific form of the Oedipus complex among industrial managers manifesting itself in the my-innovation-is-bigger-than your-innovation behaviour -- but not being a philanthropist or a Freudian analyst, I do not know much about them. My argument is that as the availability of cheap labour under the new world order increases, that will make more rational for corporate managers to take advantage of that rathere than to invest in labour saving/productivity enchancing technology. I am not saying that innovation will cease althogether, all I'm saying is we will see less of it in the areas where it can be substituted with cheap labour. -- snip--- >Japan too has changed. If it has not and therefore a deviant >implies a teleological understanding of history. that cannot be accepted. I am not saying it has not. I am simply arguing against the standard modernisation theory line (also present in the so-called vulgar marxism) that industrialisation necessarily brings modernisation. Japan, especially the Meji restoration, is a clear example that it does not have to. To my understanding, Meji industrialisation strengthened rather than weakened feudal institutions (in a clear contrast to European development) -- that were only broken by the US occupation after W.W.II. Of course, the depenedency approach was a clear reaction to the modernisation theory and ideology popular among bourgeois academics. It argued that pre-modern social institutions can survive in the periphery, even though the core modernised. The feminists (cf. Heidi Hartmann, or Kathy Ferguson, _ A feminist case against bureaucracy,_ Philadelphia: Temple U Press, 1987) took that line even further, arguing that pre-modern institutions (such as patriarchy) have been strengthen by modern capitalism even within the "core" (my term, not theirs) countries. As similar line was proposed by the "internal colonisation" explanation of race relations in the US. The main thrust of this argument is that once we break the link between industrialisation and modernisation (meaning: the implemetation of "modern" institutions), there is nothing that prevents us from hypothesising that post-modern industry can take advantage of pre-modern social institutions -- such as indentured servitude -- if that is profitable. Of course, my preferred view point on the new world order and economic life under it to analyse social institutions (e.g. how the production is being organised in the developing countries) rather than watching trends in economic aggregates which, paraphrasin Plato, are but shadows cast on the wall of a cave populated by economists. regards, wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 ****** REDUCE MENTAL POLLUTION - LOBOTOMIZE PUNDITS! ****** +----------------------------------------------------------+ |There is no such thing as society, only the individuals | |who constitute it. -Margaret Thatcher | | | | | |There is no such thing as government or corporations,| |only the individuals who lust for power and money.| | -no apologies to Margaret Thatcher | +----------------------------------------------------------+ *********DROGI KURWA BUDUJA, A NIE MA DOKAD ISC************
