Book Description
Exploring the challenge of rehabilitating countries after civil wars, this study finds that attempting to transform war-shattered states into liberal democracies with market economies can backfire badly. Roland Paris contends that the rapid introduction of democracy and capitalism in the absence of effective institutions can increase rather than decrease the danger of renewed fighting. A more effective approach to post-conflict peacebuilding would be to introduce political and economic reform in a gradual and controlled manner.
Customer Reviews:
Provocative but off the mark.......2007-06-21
This is a provocative and useful book. Besides making a case that the attempt to impose a liberal political and economic order on states recovering from civil war often fails and is sometimes a disaster, Paris provides a nice introduction to several of the most important recent attempts at international post-conflict reconstruction.
But Paris' argument is oversimplified, and sometimes just plain wrong. He paints the international effort as ideologically unified around a liberal order, when in fact those carrying out the economic program (neoliberalism) scarcely talk to those carrying out the political reforms and reconstruction. In fact, the complaint that the two work at cross purposes -- with World Bank and IMF reformers insisting on economic austerity ("fiscal stability"), liberalization, and privatization policies that undermine efforts to provide people with a "peace payoff" -- has become common among those who work and write in this area.
Paris also worries that, in failing to address the poverty and inequality that lay at the root of civil conflicts, the international community has laid the groundwork for future conflicts even in success cases like El Salvador. In fact, the evidence is that political reforms that incorporate dissident elites into the political system satisfied the central "root cause" of civil war. There is lots of inequality and poverty around the world, but it rarely leads to civil war without a political leadership determined to mobilize people against what they see as a repressive and exclusionary regime.
Finally, Paris proposes an alternative model that would have the international community playing a more directive role, taking over the civil administration of countries recovering from civil conflict until institutions are strong enough to manage democracy and economic liberalization. But he ignores the fact that most civil conflicts leave governments standing that are strong enough -- and determined enough -- to resist international meddling. Even in Cambodia, where the UN was given sweeping powers to oversee the civil administration, the Hun Sen government was determined to maintain control and there was not much UNTAC could do to stop it. The illusion that "we" can just step in and impose our agenda is widespread in this country and accounts for the notion that the United States could (and, for some, still can) bring peace and democracy to Iraq if we could just commit enough time and troops to the effort. Paris should ground his recommendations in the real world and not in American fantasies of omnipotence.
This Book Deserves More Attention.......2006-07-21
It is stunning that so little attention has been given to reviewing this book yet. This volume is one that advances preconditions for successful democratic nation building, based upon a series of recent case studies (such as Angola, Rwanda, Cambodia, Liberia, Bosnia, Croatia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Namibia, and Mozambique). This is one of a series of works (such as The RAND volume, America's Role in Nation-Building;Fukuyama's State-Building; etc.) that address what it takes to create new democratic states that will ensure.
Roland Paris addresses an issue that initially seems far afield--peacebuilding. However, his analysis ends up very much on the mark for better understanding democratic nation building. For Paris, peacebuilding represents ". . .postconflict missions". . .with ". . .the goal of preventing a recurrence of violence" (Paris, 2004: 2). What does this have to do with nation building? As he explains (2004: 5):
Peacebuilding missions in the 1990s were guided by a
generally unstated but widely accepted theory of conflict
management: the notion that promoting "liberalization" in
countries that had recently experienced civil war would
help to create the conditions for a stable and lasting
peace. In the political realm, liberalization means
democratization, or the promotion of periodic and genuine
elections, constitutional limitations on the exercise of
government power, and respect for basic civil
liberties. . . .
On the economic side, liberalization refers, according to Paris, to the movement toward a market economy model. His study of a series of postconflict situations finds this liberal economic democracy model a common end goal of peacebuilders. In effect, what he terms peacebuilding looks very much like what others call democratic nation building.
Paris argues that the most promising strategy is IBL---Institutionalization Before Liberalization, that is, that peacebuilders should not immediately move toward economic and political liberalization. Rather, they should first (re)build institutions so that there is a stable base. Among the steps in this process are:
1. Wait until conditions are conducive for elections to
take place.
2. Design electoral systems to reward moderate parties
and candidates.
3. Work to develop a stable civil society.
4. Head off the emergence of "hate" speech.
5. Develop conflict-reducing economic policies.
6. In short, rebuild effective state institutions.
For Paris, there needs to be a two-step process: first, build institutions as a foundation; second, construct liberal structures on that foundation.
This means time and hard work. For successful democratic nation-building, patience is needed--and understanding thast the process must be carefully managed with uncertain outcomes. In short, this is a must read on the subject of what it takes to produce successful nation-building.
Book Description
In this revolutionary indictment of capitalism, Joel Kovel criticizes its unrelenting pressure to expand, and its destructiveness toward ecology. Kovel also criticizes existing ecological politics for their evasion of capital, and advances a vision of ecological production as the successor to capitalist production.
Customer Reviews:
full of "use value".......2007-06-02
Joel is driven my his heart but he has the power to convince through his logical argumentation. He is on point and will make you laugh, cry, riot,de-materialize and rethink capitalism every step of the way. If you need a pressing reminder as to why Marx's critique of capital is so critical this book is it.
Great passion and conviction -- terribly written.......2004-06-14
I completely agree with the political agenda of this book. I am glad it was written. Kovel is RIGHT ON TARGET.
But the book was dreadful to plow/bore through. Talk about OBTUSE VERBIAGE. There is still this awful tradition out there that if you wor dsomething so that it "sounds" brilliant -- it must be. I hate that tradition. We need plain language and simple articulation. This book is just the opposite. Here are but a couple of random examples to give you some idea: "Capital's invasion takes place across an ecosystemic manifold encompassing both culture and nature, with points of commodity formation arising everywhere" (p.55) -- got that? or "If 'entropy' is a logarithmic measure of the probabilistic disorder of a given physical system, the Second Law states that for such a system, whether it be the air in a room, a living body, or the earth as a whole, so long as neither energy nor matter is added to said system -- that is, so long as the system is 'closed' -- then its entropy will rise with time" (p.93) -- got that?
Look, there were many times in this book where I wrote "right on!" in the margins. There were also many times whene I wrote "blah blah blah"...I was going to assign this to my students of social theory -- I teach at a small liberal arts college. No way. Very few people can plow through this dense stuff.
Makes a powerful case.......2004-03-28
Anyone who considers themselves an environmentalist should read this book. Kovel makes the case the environmental destruction is inherent to the capitalist system and for the most part, reforms are little more than band-aids for a system that is, by its very nature, out of control.
Kovel focuses less on the environmental problems we face today (which you can find in any other book); and focuses more of the book lies in describing how the nuts and bolts of the capitalist economy works (which is what sets this book apart from all others).
He makes the case that actions like voluntarism, isolated cooperatives, bioregionalism, and so forth will eventually get rolled over by the immense power that capital has and are not long-term solutions.
My only problem with the book is that, while Kovel accurately describes the underlying environmental problem as having its root in capitalism itself, he doesn't present a coherent solution except an extremely vague "eco-socialism" (that's why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5). You can tell by this last chapter that he is groping for some sort of answer - going off in many directions.
If you want a cutting analysis of the problem human beings face today, get this book! If you want a revolutionary solution, this book is only a start.
Some background to a flawed but brilliant book.......2003-06-08
For Joel Kovel the revolution is only a matter of time. Marx was right: Capitalism cannot help but prepare the stew in which it will roast. But Old Whiskers got one thing wrong. The crucial antagonist of capital is not labor but nature. If Marx made a fetish of capital's propensity to generate too much wealth to be profitably re-invested, Kovel does the same in regard to planetary ecosystem crackup. Instead of periodic economic downturn catapulting the proletariat into History, it's the shattering of life-essential natural processes that's destined to set off socialist (make that ecosocialist) revolution.
Professor Kovel, who ran to the left of Ralph Nader for the Green Party nod in 2000, wastes no time making the case that capitalism, by its very nature, cannot help but destroy the integrity and well-being of what we call "nature." No need for yet another inventory of disturbances in the environment, our bodies, and our psychic balance (though Kovel does provide a lot of data in this regard). The enemy of nature is not oil or pesticides or factories or bulldozers but capital, "that ubiquitous, all-powerful and greatly misunderstood dynamo that drives our society."
While traditionally the marketplace is a means of exchanging goods for money so as to purchase other goods, under capitalism it becomes a way for those who already have money to accumulate more. Reversing the natural order, the merchant starts off with money and buys the product of someone else's labor, then turns around and sells it at a markup. As long as the laborer is poor and the buyer rich, the trader makes a profit.
What gives a commodity its value is not what we do with it, like using bricks to build houses or shoes to walk home in, but the price it commands in trade. In contrast to "use value"-- a quality that belongs to any given item intrinsically-- "exchange value" is an abstraction that must be expressed quantitatively. When you buy a pair of shoes (or better yet a thousand pairs) only to sell them for profit, their entire value is a number.
As the basis of economics becomes the trade itself and not the tangible thing exchanged, money is transformed into an all-consuming monster. No longer bound up with the limitations of actual land, people, and resources, it springs to life, an abstraction with a will of its own. "Pure quantity," says Kovel, "can swell infinitely without reference to the external world."
There lies the source of our ecological crisis.
Despite its reputation as the very acme of rational economic exchange, capitalism follows its own imperatives, quite apart from the needs of humans and ecosystems. In its compulsion to grow and multiply, capital "constantly tries to violate" whatever limit is set before it. Success means only one thing: surpassing yesterday's mark. No matter how big the beast gets, to cease growing further is to die. Yet the one thing we know for sure is that it can't grow forever. Sooner or later abstraction runs up against reality.
Does that mean capitalism is setting the stage for ecosocialist uprising? "If the argument that capital is incorrigibly ecodestructive and expansive proves to be true, then it is only a question of time before the issues raised here achieve explosive urgency." True enough, but that doesn't mean the Revolution is just over the horizon. What Kovel overlooks is the likelihood that worsening environmental conditions will exacerbate the scarcity that already pits us against each other. While the rich compete to survive as rich people, the poor compete to survive, period. If it's the money-driven struggle of all-against-all that's pushing us, inexorably, to the edge of the cliff, shouldn't we expect rising insecurity and the resulting intensification of this struggle to push us right over the edge? Precisely when, between now and doomsday, do the masses finally revolt?
As Kovel himself points out, capitalists are perfectly willing to perpetuate eco-destabilization as long as they can insulate themselves and perhaps even profit from the meltdown all around them. He cites an article in London's Guardian Weekly purporting to show a shift in elite opinion since the early 70s, when the Club of Rome called for "limits to growth." These days, digging our own grave is simply the ultimate business opportunity.
Taking Kovel to task in the September, 2002 issue of Monthly Review, John Bellamy Foster noted, "We should not underestimate capitalism's capacity to accumulate in the midst of the most blatant ecological destruction, to profit from environmental degradation... and to continue to destroy the earth to the point of no return-- both for human society and for most of the world's living species."
Times are tough? How about a liquidation sale? Like Marx before him, Kovel finds a silver lining where none exists. There's just no pulling the socialist rabbit out of the capitalist hat.
An Ecosocialist Manifesto.......2002-09-26
Joel Kovel's "The Enemy of Nature" offers a powerful and unflinching eco-Marxist critique of the capitalist system. Concluding that the path of accumulation must inevitably lead to a world wide ecological crisis, the author theorizes about the type of "ecosocialist" system that must supplant capitalism in order to ensure humanity's survival.
Kovel is part of a growing "Red/Green" movement that also includes the outstanding Marxist scholar James O'Connor. Kovel's arguments seem to build upon and indeed are closely aligned with many of the ideas in O'Connor's excellent book "Natural Causes," but I personally find Kovel's writing to be a bit more accessible than O'Connor's. Perhaps this pragmatism can be attributed to Kovel's political sensibilities, as he was a candidate for the Green Party Presidential nomination in 2000.
Kovel believes that various forms of so-called "Green economics" are doomed to failure because they do not address what he sees as the root problem driving the ecological crisis: namely, capital's need to continuously expand. He points out that whatever gains might be realized from the introduction of environmentally-friendly technology will be quickly outweighed by the expansion of the economy. For example, fuel cells might be less harmful than internal combustion engines, but if the technology merely enables the manufacture of hundreds of millions of new automobiles, the planet will ultimately be much worse off.
But Kovel acknowledges that the current Green movement is in fact helping to lay the groundwork for what is yet to come. The Green's emphasis on local democratic control of the means of production will help free labor from its bondage with capital, which is essential for socialism to succeed.
Of course, Kovel devotes a section to readers who may need to be reminded that really existing socialism as practiced in the Soviet Union and elsewhere was NOT what Marx intended. Kovel shows that these countries actually substituted the state for the market, in the end merely proving that markets were superior to centralized planning. The ruined environments left behind by the Communist states were testaments to a failed attempt at accumulation, in much the same way that the West is currently degrading the air, land and sea in its ongoing frenzy of accumulation.
Kovel speculates on how collapse might occur in the capitalist nations. He understands that a breakdown of the financial system could easily lead to fascism, or possibly "ecofascism", as capital seeks to hold on to power. But Kovel thinks it may be plausible that the pockets of production growing outside the bounds of capital may be strong enough to resist the counter-revolution. Indeed, Kovel points out that up to 20 percent of the world economy already exists in the "informal" sector, although most of this is comprised of criminal activity and much less of the positive kind (such as the Bruderhof communities of the U.S.).
This latter part of Kovel's analysis bears similarity to Nick Dyer-Witheford's "Cyber-Marx", although Kovel does not appear to be aware of this book nor is it referenced in his bibliography. In short, Dyer-Witheford theorizes that technophiles will appropriate the means of production in order to empower a society that eventually achieves autonomy by existing outside the bounds of capitalist control. Like Kovel, Dyer-Witheford envisions that the post-capitalist society will choose to apply its surplus value to the cause of freeing labor and restoring its ravaged social, physical and natural environments. In my view, the convergence of these two authors' thoughts -- albeit arrived at from different angles, but perhaps more compelling because of this -- bolsters both of their arguments and suggests that the possibility of radical change may not be as elusive as one might suppose.
I strongly recommend Kovel's book for anyone who may be concerned about the future of our society or for those who may be contemplating how a more humane world might come about.
Amazon.com
After nearly a decade of bull markets, Americans have come to equate free markets with democracy. Never one for mincing words, social critic Thomas Frank, editor of The Baffler and author of The Conquest of Cool, challenges this myth. With his acerbic wit and contempt for sophistry, he declares the New Economy a fraud. Frank scours business literature, management theory, and marketing and advertising to expose the elaborate fantasies that have inoculated business against opposition. This public relations campaign joins an almost mystical belief in markets, a contempt for government in any form, and an "ecstatic" confusion of markets with democracy. Frank traces the roots of this movement from the 1920s, and sees its culmination in market populism as a fusion of the rebellious '60s with the greedy '80s. The overarching irony is the swapping of roles--suddenly Wall Street is no longer full of stodgy moneygrubbers, but cool entrepreneurs "leaping on their trampolines, typing out a few last lines on the laptop before paragliding, riding their bicycles to work, listening to Steppenwolf while they traded." Meanwhile, "Americans traded their long tradition of electoral democracy for the democracy of the supermarket, where all brands are created equal and endowed by their creators with all sorts of extremeness and diversity." Frank's close reading of the salesmen of market populism nails such financial gurus as George Gilder, Joseph Nocera, Kevin Kelly, and Thomas Friedman. Their writings, he contends, have served to make "the world safe for billionaires" by winning the cultural and political battle--legitimizing the corporate culture and its demands for privatization, deregulation, and non-interference. Frank's incisive prose verges on brilliant at times, though his yen for repetition can be exasperating. In either case, his boisterous reminder that markets are fundamentally not democracies is worth repeating as the level of wealth polarization in America reaches heights not seen since the 1920s. --Lesley Reed
Book Description
In a book that has been raising hackles far and wide, the social critic Thomas Frank skewers one of the most sacred cows of the go-go '90s: the idea that the new free-market economy is good for everyone.
Frank's target is "market populism"--the widely held belief that markets are a more democratic form of organization than democratically elected governments. Refuting the idea that billionaire CEOs are looking out for the interests of the little guy, he argues that "the great euphoria of the late nineties was never as much about the return of good times as it was the giddy triumph of one America over another." Frank is a latter-day Mencken, as readers of his journal The Baffler and his book The Conquest of Cool know. With incisive analysis, passionate advocacy, and razor-sharp wit, he asks where we?re headed-and whether we're going to like it when we get there.
Customer Reviews:
revealing.......2007-01-06
although it seemed a bit repetetive at times, this book was right on. i guess it seemed that way to me because everything was so intertwined. Many thanks to pbs for bringing this author to my attention.
Very Worthwhile.......2006-08-14
If you want to know how the economy really works and who is really in charge, read this book. You don't need to agree with all of the author's conclusions, but the the facts and arguments presented are very compelling.
Solid thoughtful, nails our national policy failures in a big way.......2006-08-02
This is a very serious book, one that any candidate for President would do well to read, especially so the centrist candidates willing to announce that both the Democratic and Republican parties have sold the public into slavery to corporate fascism.
In summary, the author documents in detail how the Reagan Revolution, and especially the firing of the air traffic controllers and the wrongful use of military air traffic controllers as "union busting" scabs, eliminated the counter-vailing force of labor unions, at the same time that government deregulated and abdicated its responsibility for a social safety net, the media converted into advertising with a "news hole," and corporations lost all moral and social standards.
He deconstructs the "New Economy" in persuasive detail and caused me to re-evaluate some of my earlier readings, especially of Kevin Kelly and others in the WIRED generation who articulate with blind faith the democratic value of the network, but fail to see, as Robert Samuelson and this author would have us understand, that outsourcing is union busting, and the actual effect of the network has been to make it possible for corporations to outsource middle class jobs while importing poverty through illegal immigration. The net loser is the Nation, because one of its most important sources of national power, an educated engaged citizenry, is being sold short.
The author is brutally on target when he points out that corporations have achieved a slight of hand in disconnecting labor from the value of created wealth, claiming much more management value (to the point that CEOs make 400 to 1000 times what their workers make, up from 25 times long ago). He also points out that the democratization of the stock market is code for what Mark Lewis called, in "Liar's Poker," "exploding the client. The smart money rides the early surge and then sells out to the middle class dreamers, who end up losing 80-90% of their value over time.
I have a note in the flyleaf that this book is "quite extraordinary, almost breathtaking in scope, with a compelling array of well-ordered facts."
Overall, while many will not like the term "corporate fascism" and the author prefers to use "extreme capitalism" while others discuss immoral and predatory capitalism, or "class war" (see my review of Faux's "The Global Class War" and, somewhat less solid but still good, Pabast's "Armed Madhouse" (dispatches from the front lines of the global class war). The sorry reality is that Americans have been lulled to sleep like sheep for a slaughter, and do not seem to appreciate the fact that there has been a MASSIVE theft of public capital through what this author calls "the Wall Street tax" on America.
The greatest strength of the book is how the author documents the calculated and comprehensive manner in which Wall Street and the evangelical right came together to turn reality on its head, and persuade everyone including blue collar workers that it was okay to break the social contract with labor, and that what is good for Wall Street is good for America and its workers. In fact, as the author points out repeatedly, when workers get laid off, Wall Street stocks go up. His entire review reminds one of Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman's classic "Manufacturing Consent." Public relations has been used in a classic manner by American corporations, to include penetration of teen-age sub-cultures and the manipulation of teen-age desires. In Europe they consider public relations to be, according to this author, advanced corporate lying.
The author draws an excellent connection between the "blind faith" that keeps the corporate illusion of free trade on the table, and the "blind faith" that led Dick Cheney to depose George Bush and invade Iraq without regard to the policy process, accountability, or reality. America is in the grip of a very destructive combination of corporate ideology, religious ideology, and political ideology.
The author is properly and comprehensively critical of the media for failing to do its job. Journalists, a few exceptions aside, have become "filler." The author excels at picking Tom Friedman apart, and at mocking the Wall Street Journal for idiocy in print.
The book ends on a sobering note, where the author points out that reality has a way of unmasking ideological pretensions in a most painful manner. He specifically suggests that George Bush Junior (he does not mention Cheney) will go the way of Herbert Hoover in the history books. Reality--that's what one White House staffer is reported to have said had no relevance, because this White House "creates its own reality." Yes it does--a reality of greed and theft and immorality at the top, poverty and disease at the bottom, and a loss of American honor around the world.
First class thinking and writing. A really strong book.
Enlightening romp through a decade of idiocy.......2006-05-07
From John Perry Barlow to Virginia Postrel, from _Liberation Management_ to _Who Moved My Cheese?_, from dot-com millionaires to cult stud academics, Thomas Frank summarizes, contextualizes, and debunks a decade's worth of pro-business propaganda. The major theme, he argues, was the concept of "market populism", the notion that The Market was far more democratic than actual democracies, doing whatever their copious focus groups had determined the people wanted. Frank, a serious supporter of genuine democracy, skewers their absurd myths and provides some insight into the harm they did to working people.
The Democracy Bubble.......2006-01-17
If there were two overall themes guiding this book, I'd say it was these:
During the late 1990s, it was pretty obvious that a rising tide was not lifting all boats. And for a very long time now, conservative and many liberal economists, business owners, investors, business writers and assorted pundits have equated democracy with the ebbs and flows of the free market.
I've never read What's The Matter With Kansas or The Baffler before. My introducation to Frank came through this book with it's marathon chapters, sometimes repetative thesis', and thoroughly damning evidence of our nation's continuing problems with a form of tulip mania and the delusion that a janitor/schoolteacher/truck driver playing the stock market with a few shares has economic parity with someone like Warren Buffett.
The title itself is an interesting look at the subject matter here: free market economics has long been a dogma among Americans. We are told time and time again that collective bargaining, state investment, and regulations over wages will lead us down the path to destruction. Also, supposedly, if we allow the foxes to guard the henhouse, someday we can all be rich.
Frank points out that this isn't a new ideology but it has become more and less popular over time. The end of the 20th century resembled the beginning more than any other time; the middle class was slowly eroding and obscene wealth consoled obscene lack of wealth with idea that even if you're living in poverty, you can just make a couple of smart investments, spend wisely, and the idea of the American Dream will be fulfilled and you'll get wealthy.
This might all seem painfully obvious, but Frank deserves credit for actually documenting it.
Book Description
Contents
Preface
How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America A Critical Assessment
Introduction to the First Edition
Part 1 The Black Majority
Chapter 1 The Crisis of the Black Working Class
Chapter 2 The Black Poor
Chapter 3 Grounding with My Sisters
Chapter 4 Black Prisoners and Punishment in a Racist/Capitalist State
Part 2 The Black Elite
Chapter 5 Black Capitalism
Chapter 6 Black Brahmins
Chapter 7 The Ambiguous Politics of the Black Church
Chapter 8 The Destruction of Black Education
Part 3 A Question of Genocide
Chapter 9 The Meaning of Racist Violence in Late Capitalism
Chapter 10 Conclusion: Towards a Socialist America
Reviews
"Manning Marable examines developments in the political economy of racism in the United States and assesses shifts in the American Political terrain since the first edition....He is one of the most widely read Black progressive authors in the country."-Black Employment Journal
"The reissue of Manning Marable's How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America confirms that this is a classic work of political history and social criticism. Unfortunately, Marable's blistering insights into racial injustice and economic inequality remain depressingly relevant. But the good news is that Marable's prescient analysis-and his eloquent and self-critical preface to this new edition-will prove critical in helping us to think through and conquer the oppressive forces that remain."-Michael Eric Dyson, author of I May Not Get Therewith You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr.
"For those of us who came of political age in the 1980s, Manning Marable's How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America was one of our bibles. Published during the cold winter of Reaganism, he introduced a new generation of Black activists/thinkers to class and gender struggles within Black communities, the political economy of incarceration, the limitations of Black capitalism, and the nearly forgotten vision of what a socialist future might look like. Two decades later, Marable's urgent and hopeful voice is as relevant as ever."-Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Yo' Mama's DisFunktional!:
Customer Reviews:
Toward a Communist America ???.......2004-10-29
I don't know anyone would like to read this book unless they are Afrian Americans. In "How Capatalism Underdeveloped Black America," the author writes the only way to achieve economic, political and social development for Blacks is to overthrow Captalist system in United States. As the author said, since the country is dominated by racist, and sexist white Americans, a bloody revolution has to be acted. The first phase of the socialist revolution is voting for progressive and anticapitalist politicians. The second phase is creating a chaotic living condition in America so that government has to cooperate with revoluntists. After the success of the socialist reforms, and totally eliminated captalism in the nation. They are going to support other countries to achieve "equality", too. Our country is going to be working class based nation, with universal health care, volunteer military officers, and equal-paid wage.
Long Live Socialism !!!!!!!!!!.......2004-04-08
I read this book 1 year ago and has since then enhanced my knowledge of black society here in America. At the end of his book (Towards a Socialist America) Manning pulls all the punches and fortells that the only way blacks and quite possibly other oppressed ethnic groups can get out our situation is through working together and defeat the ruling elite that now has its foot on our backs !!!!!!!!!!! This book is a must read.
How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America.......2003-01-04
This at times slightly difficult to read book is very relevant even if the text of the book was published in 1983. Let me give you an idea of the discussion in the book below.
This January 2000 edition contains a new intro by the learned professor. He tries to correct in it a few observations and predictions he believes he got wrong in the original addition. He points out that spectacular growth of the prison-industrial complex since 1981 with an increase of the prison population from 500,000 in 1981 to almost 2 million today. He points out that as jobs with livable wages continue to disappear and with the stock market casino which drove the economy of the 90's getting wrecked, thousands more poor and even middle class whites along with blacks and other minorities will turn up in the prison system. One in five Americans, he writes, now has a criminal record.
In any case, this book is about how Capitalism is black Americans greatest enemy. Racism is an integral part of American capitalism, he stresses. Blacks enslaved because of their race created the wealth which gave this country its economic foundations. Blacks in the South, imprisoned justly or unjustly, provided an ultra-cheap source of labor in the convict-work system under conditions not too far from Nazi concentration camps. He writes that in the 1880's, the mortality rate for blacks in prison in Mississippi was 11 percent. In Arkansas it was 25 percent.
he notes that blacks and white workers combining their power could have made great gains. That they did not is perhaps he says why the standard of living has been so low in the South relative to the rest of the country. White workers apparently were more comfortably keeping blacks down to maintain their status in the white supremacist culture. One interesting thing the author notes about Southern whites is their widespread ownership of firearms. He quotes C. Vann Woodward as saying that Alabama Whites spent more combined on firearms than on farm equipment and tools combined. Firearms were a unique part of the Southern culture and whites carried them everywhere they went and never avoided a chance to use them. He gives interesting statistic that while the national homicide rate of 1926 was 10.1 per 1,000 in Jacksonville Florida it was 75.9, in Birmingham 58.8, Memphis 42.4, Nashville 29.2.
He writes extensively about the idea of "black capitalism" empowering black progress. He spends alot of time writing about Booker T. Washington. Washington is portrayed as an opportunist politically with some bad ideas though he did give covert aid to civil rights activists while he was preaching accomodation with white supremacy in public. Marable says that the black so-caleld conservatives of today like Thomas Sowell are not even fit to carry his mantle. The latter are simply vulgar apologists and obfuscators of the racist/capitalist order.
The problem with black capitalists, the author writes, is that they are capitalists. That means they have to maximize their short-term profit at whatever cost. The well being of the black race only being incidental. Moreover, he goes through laborious statistics showing that black capitalists have had their only substantial successes only when they had captive markets in all-black communities, segregated or otherwise and mostly in "human services" such as barbering and small retail stores. So the author shows that "black capitalism" which was a main platform for Marcus Garvey (who was influenced by Washington), and extended to Elijah Muhammed to the Nation of Islam of current times and was even supported by W.E.B. Dubois until the Great Depression--really does not work.
He writes that the "crises" of capitalism which began in the 70's has hit hard black families the most, of course. Unemployment went down dramatically for blacks in the 60's, he points out because of the government implementing affirmative action to try to eliminate discrimination in employment, migration of blacks from the south to the north to get higher pay jobs and the expanding capitalist economy. The unemployment of nonwhites was 6.4 percent in 1969 and the unemployment for nonwhite married men fell to 2.5 that year from 7.9 in 1962. However nonwhite unemployment was 14 percent by 1975 and unemployment for married nonwhites was 8.3.
He notes that workers losing their jobs because their industries couldn't compete in the U.S. market with foreign producers were awarded substantial amounts of their former pay for 18 months. In December 1980 almost 250,000 workers were obtaining funds for this program but a year later only 12,000 were able to use it. In January 1982, only 37 percent of the unemployed were getting any form of compensation. The umemployment rate reached 17.4 percent for blacks in late 81' though this did not, as no unemployment figures do, include the workers who have stopped actively looking for work for four weeks or more.
He notes the phenomenon of large numbers of workers unable to get employment during large parts of the year i.e. being underemployed and only getting part-time or temporary low wage work. Also he writes a little bit about the "lumpenproletariat"...
Chapter 9 is called "The meaning of racist violence in late capitalism"...IT includes citation (see the endnote) of Daryl Gate's speculation about blood not flowing through the veins of blacks as fast as "normal people," the comment being made in response to several chokehold deaths at the hands of LAPD of minorities.
Cogent & comprehensive analysis of race and class in America.......2000-09-05
How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America is an updated edition of Manning Marable's classic in black literature, and has received a new introduction and an update to the book's tables and charts to reflect the latest new data on Afro-American statistics. Marable's cogent and comprehensvie analysis of race and class in the United States down through the country's political and economic history to modern times continues to provide important food for though for a contemporary readership.
Exellent analysis of black history under capitalism........1999-03-14
A wonderful critique of how blacks have been victimized and belittled in this racist/sexist state. A must read for all races. A real eye opener. Still as valid as the day it was published.
Book Description
In the mid-1990s, at the height of academic discussion about the inevitability of capitalist globalization, J. K. Gibson-Graham presented a groundbreaking and controversial argument for envisioning alternative economies. This new edition includes an introduction in which the authors address critical responses to The End of Capitalism and outline the economic research and activism they have been engaged in since the book was first published.
“Paralyzing problems are banished by this dazzlingly lucid, creative, and practical rethinking of class and economic transformation.” —Meaghan Morris, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
“Profoundly imaginative.” —Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, City University of New York “Filled with insights, it is clearly written and well supported with good examples of actual, deconstructive practices.” —International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
J. K. Gibson-Graham is the pen name of Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham, feminist economic geographers who work, respectively, at the Australian National University in Canberra and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Book Description
After the devastation of World War II, Germany and Japan built national capitalist institutions that were remarkably successful in terms of national reconstruction and international competitiveness. Yet both "miracles" have since faltered, allowing U.S. capital and its institutional forms to establish global dominance. National varieties of capitalism are now under intense pressure to converge to the U.S. model. Kozo Yamamura and Wolfgang Streeck have gathered an international group of authors to examine the likelihood of convergence—to determine whether the global forces of Anglo-American capitalism will give rise to a single, homogeneous capitalist system. The chapters in this volume approach this question from five directions: international integration, technological innovation, labor relations and production systems, financial regimes and corporate governance, and domestic politics.
In their introduction, Yamamura and Streeck summarize the crises of performance and confidence that have beset German and Japanese capitalism and revived the question of competitive convergence. The editors ask whether the two countries, confronted with the political and economic exigencies of technological revolution and economic internationalization, must abandon their distinctive institutions and the competitive advantages these have yielded in the past, or whether they can adapt and retain such institutions, thereby preserving the social cohesion and economic competitiveness of their societies.
Customer Reviews:
Important book.......2005-08-16
Very interesting collection of essays, highly recommended if one wants to understand more on what is currently happening in Germany and Japan (i.e. important changes that will inject new dynamism in these two "fallen angels").
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Cosmopolitan Capitalists: Hong Kong and the Chinese Diaspora at the End of the Twentieth Century
Manufacturer: University of Washington Press
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ASIN: 0295978031 |
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The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?, Second Edition
Joel Kovel
Manufacturer: Zed Books
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Economic Policy & Development
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ASIN: 1842778714
Release Date: 2007-12-09 |
Book Description
Capitalism and its by-products -- imperialism, war, neoliberal globalization, racism, poverty and the destruction of community -- are all playing a part in the destruction of our ecosystem. Only now are we beginning to realize the depth of the crisis and the kind of transformation which will have to occur to ensure our survival. This second, thoroughly updated, edition of The Enemy of Nature speaks to this new environmental awareness. Joel Kovel argues against claims that we can achieve a better environment through the current Western "way of being". By suggesting a radical new way forward, an integration of "red" and "green" politics, Joel Kovel offers real hope and vision for a more sustainable future.
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The End of Organized Capitalism
Scott Lash , and
John Urry
Manufacturer: University of Wisconsin Press
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ASIN: 0299116743 |
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- Bringing Out the Best in People
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- Can Japan Compete?
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