Comments on Part I of Solidarity Economics: Focusing on a Future for ALL

From a Member of the National Network to End the War Against Iraq:

The draft of the document is generally well written and being very wide-ranging is a good summary of the global problems we face. The key value of the document is the way it focuses on some of the problems that we face in building a global solidarity movement. The statement: "Without the unity of social movements and a vision that ties them all together corporate globablization will proceed unchecked," summarizes the theme well. When I read the phrase "the complexity of the world makes..." I misread it as: "the complexity of world markets." ... the capitalist system is now spread like a web around the globe... by my one minute action of buying shoes... determines hirings and firings of workers in multiple locales... the rise and fall of industrial empires. Capitalism leaves no market opportunity unturned.

- The draft is definetly asking the right questions and summarizes the problems and frustrations we face today as activists for progressive change. I like the term Solidarity Economics. Solidarity is the key word. It implies getting back to building relationships based on reciprocity, as opposed to hierarchical relationships based on domination and greed, It has great historical resonance. - www.endthewar.org -1- 888-end-a-war

TABLE OF CONTENTS


I. Appeal for Assistance

II. Footnotes (DRAFT) for main article.

III. Archives: MAIN ARTICLE: SOLIDARITY ECONOMICS


I. Appeal for Assistance:

We at Ecosolidarity Andes deeply believe that the main reason why global civil society and other resistance forces have not grown stronger an d taken the offensive to Bush-Blair-Anzar and the US-Eu Empire fascists is the complete lack of a socio-economic program that makes sense. By making sense we mean: a program that solves the many social, political, economic and environmental problems that the world faces. Socialism is a viable alternative and Solidarity Economics is a kind of decentralized "road-to-Socialism" that is drawn from the works of many international groups.

We have querried and begged thousands of individuals and groups to critique our program and no negative feedback has been received. We have also challehged people to identify a more appropriate and viable program and none have tried.

We have hundreds of pages of supporting footnotes and testimony to add to this work. We have a dozen articles in the works - both shorter versions of Solidarity Economics and strategies for its implementation. But we are broke after financing the research for two years and have suffered greivious loss of money, equipment and friends due to bad luck and possible government harrassment.

This project needs your support - both financial and labor. Please read on... take our challenge to critique or identify a better plan...

DO SOMETHING - While We Still Can!



Footnote (draft) Solidarity Economics – January 27, 04
(please help us complete and update these footnotes and the discipline of Solidarity Economics)


1). For information on our funding contact: ecosolidarity@yahoo.com.
2).A. Sergio Tischler, Presentacion del libro de John Holloway, p. 2-5; ADIOS EL ESTADO, Interview with Holloway by Jaime Leroux and Octavio Moreno, p. 6-11, La Guillatina, #50, Spring 2003. This is the debate on Changing the World without Taking the Power.
B. EUROPEAN SOCIAL FORUM: REVIVING THE SPIRIT OF SEATTLE,
DISPELLING THE GHOSTS OF GENOA; The hesitation to move forward - to even talk - is widespread among the peace and anti-capitalist movement in most countries: “There was scarcely any impulse emerging from the European Social Forum in Florence toward developing conceptual alternatives to neo-liberalism. Single-point approaches for modest reforms still coexist side by side with very generally conceived value orientations. There is still no real discussion among the points of view.” Peter Wahl works with World Economy Ecology and Development (WEED), a member coordinating group of ATTAC Germany.
C. The EZLN champions health- roofs - land - bread - work - education - culture - information - justice - independence - liberty - democracy - peace. My question is why not autonomy instead of independence, and in all categories - how do we secure these things; when do we secure them; who gets these things; and why no economics of how a system would secure these things?
3). A. Walden Bello, THE FUTURE IN THE BALANCE, Food First Books, May 2001; https://commerce12.pair.com/~pront011/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=FFB&Product_Code=0-935028-84-6
B. There are a number of critics of Bello: from South African, Patrick Bond; www.focusweb.org/publications/2003/deglobalization-sure.htm: "Is there a way to address de-globalization by departing from the dual-reformist notions of globalized regulation and utopian-localization strategies? Would it be so difficult for leaders like Bello to mention the prospects of revolution... takeover... total transformation of state power... expropriation of key local/national assets and an immediate rejigging of the economy to needs not previously met? Capital controls, default... import/export management?” Rather than a journalistic approach Bond says that he had hoped for more theoretical clarity such as found in the book by Robert Biel; THE NEW IMPERIALISM, Zed Books, 2000.

See also a critique of Bello’s book, Future in the Balance, by Victor Wallis, a teacher in General Education Dept. of UC Berkeley College of Music and the Co-managing editor of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism (Sept. 25) Wallis asks about agency: which sectors can bring about change? And how and against whom will they act? He says that Bello fails to address these issues and almost makes it sound as if they are not important. Wallis attacks Bello for ignoring the deeper complex issues and sidestepping them because to examine the real struggle would challenge the facile consensus appearance of Bello’s proposals. He says Bello also has an ambivalence of goals and uses concepts like "sustainable development" without defining them. http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1132/4_54/91659895/p3/article.jhtml?term=
And at: http://www.focusweb.org/publications/2002/what-alternative-to-globalisation.htm
C. For thirty pages of related footnotes and research on agrarian reform and localization see the footnotes to the Ecosolidarity Article: A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES; Idels at "http://www.bluegreenearth.us/archive/article/2002/possibilities_notes.html" www.bluegreenearth.us/archive/article/2002/possibilities_notes.html
D. www.fse-esf.org. - “The momentum of World Social Forum process also depends upon our collective ability to produce acute analyses, as well as concrete alternatives and action proposals during the meetings subscribing to this process.”
4). A. http://alainet.org/active/show_text.php3?key=4817; “Lack of revolutionary leadership caused problems.” See also: http://www.econoticiasbolivia.com/documentos/notadeldia/gasyerros.html
And: October 19, 2003; Socialist Appeal: “Bolivia: balance-sheet of the insurrection A revolutionary party was missing,” by Jorge Martin. In Spanish at: http://venezuela.elmilitante.org/index.asp?id=muestra&id_art=74
B. In Ecuador and Brazil some of the radical leadership (Gutierrez, PT and Lula) have betrayed the people and slid toward a shallow nationalist populism. A well-defined radical plan would make this kind of treachery more difficult.
C. Forbes daily email report, September, 2003: “The Left is deeply divided, wracked by infighting, and at best has been able to craft a sketchy and incomplete alternative to the neo-liberalism. But grassroots movements of workers, peasants and the poor have also proliferated and resistance among popular forces has been increasingly organized and directed towards the depredations of global capitalism in the region.”
D. Walden Bello, THE FUTURE IN THE BALANCE, Food First Books, May 2001; (https://commerce12.pair.com/~pront011/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=FFB&Product_Code=0-935028-84-6); p. 230. Bello observes that “Pluralism [diversity] is a source of strength... it can also be a source of fatal weakness, one which will prevent the emergence of a working unity of CSOs [NGOs or civil society organizations] globally.” There is also a section on NGOs - “Northern NGOs often focused on single issues, environmental or human rights... Southern NGOs are more comprehensive in their concerns [key issue along with funding]... Concerned almost equally with environment, social equity, development, national sovereignty and democracy.”
E. Porto Alegre 2002: A TALE OF TWO FORUMS, James Petras, February 2002, Rebelion. "The radicals see the mobilizations as leading to the creation of new organizations of popular power, based on the mass organization of urban neighborhoods, workers, unemployed peasants, and class based women, Indian and black movements. Their orientation is to create new class based international movements, like Via Campesina, which seek to implement radical transformations of property rights and social relations of production. The reformists, referring to "civil society" as disinterested in "state power" are content to pressure the existing imperialist powers to secure greater regulation, limitations on speculative capital (Tobin tax). Radicals point to the need for a new state power, based on representative grassroots assemblies and social movements capable of socializing the means of production and democratizing social relations -- totally displacing the current corporate elite and their benefactors. In the discussion of "alternatives", the official organizers emphasized "reformed" imperialism and "regulated" capitalism, while the radical social movements opened a debate and put on the table a discussion of socialism.”
5). A. http://www.rebelion.org/petras/english/031115petraseng.pdf; James Petras, “Latin America is the source of a majority of US energy needs and it is the only region that the US maintains a trade surplus with, therefore it is critical for the US to maintain control of the region, its resources and investments.” See also Petras at http://www.rebelion.org/petras/english/alca251002.htm; “neoliberalism has already allowed multinational corporations to remit US $1 trillion in profits, interest repayments and debt repayments from Latin America between 1990-2002. In the same period, US and European banks bought over 4000 ex-public banks, telecommunications, transportation, oil and mining, retail and other companies throughout Latin America.”
B. The collapse of the Miami FTAA marks the end of a free trade area for the Western Hemisphere. The US is increasingly protectionist and will have to make do with coercing its few client regimes in Colombia, Chile and Panama to join individual free trade agreements. Even this will engender hostility in these countries and throughout the region.
6). Wendell Berry, Orion Magazine, January, 2002
7). A. There are really only two viable economic programs available at this time. The first is to abandon the WTO, World Bank and IMF and re-institute the international regime of trade deals between countries that functioned from 1945-1984. With debt relief for poor countries and a doubling of foreign (non-tied) aid this system would function economically if not sustainably. The problem with this system is that the US would collapse since it is no longer able to compete against most of the world. The bubble would burst and collapse in the US could spread to the rest of the world. Late in the game a revolution would break out in the US when the people figured out through their haze of Prozac and illegal drugs that their government had lied and conned them so totally for decades.
B. A. Urbanization is rarely discussed as a direct consequence of other policies, it is just accepted (or promoted) as a given and as a generally positive development. But people who live and work in third world mega-cities are well aware of the impending cataclysm that increased and premature urbanization is certain to unleash even before the sea level rises of global warming can strike the death blow for most coastal cities. Globalization is urbanization and urbanization means higher per capita energy use for transportation, food, water, and electricity. The only thing slowing urbanization is that in Brazil and other regions the urban situation is so dire that displaced farmers sometimes remain in rural areas doing seasonal work and living in shacks.
C. A WORLD OF POSSIBLE TRANSITIONS, Marcel Idels, www.Bluegreenearth.com, 2002. http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2002/06/7146.php
D. UN Report on Slums: 46 percent of all people will live in urban slums by 2010.
E. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=2385; General description of the evils of globalization.
F. DEGLOBALIZATION: IDEAS FOR A NEW WORLD ECONOMY - Walden Bello, Zed Books; http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/
8). A. Not only is the US full of crazy and sick people but its contagious; the globalization scheme it forces on the world is driving people crazy everywhere. A recent WHO study revealed that the incidence of schizophrenia has increased 45 percent in developing nations since 1985. Women have twice the rate of depression as men. The very changes that have brought improved health and infrastructure to developing nations have also led to significant disruptions in cultural practices globalization seems to leave mental degradation in its wake. Adbusters Magazine, No. 36, July/August 2001, (pages 24-25).
B. Adbusters, No. 30, June/July, 2000, "Eco-Psychology," an interview with Theodore Roszak (pages 51-55).
C. Zerzan, John, RUNNING ON EMPTINESS: The Pathology of Civilization, Feral House, Los Angeles, 2002.
D. Earth First Journal, Litha, June/July, 2002, "Hate Civilized," a review of Derrick Jensen's THE CULTURE OF MAKE BELIEVE, and an interview where Jensen explores why, "If the destruction of the natural world isn't making us happy, then why are we doing it?" He also claims that most of the individuals in our culture are crazy, and the culture as a whole is crazy. He laments how if we weren't so crazy we could try to bring civilization down in a soft landing where we do things smart (Page 50).
E. Idels, Marcel, Book Review: Running on Emptiness. "Just as Freud predicted that the fullness of civilization would mean universal neurotic unhappiness, anti-civilization currents are growing in response to the psychic imiseration that envelops us. Thus symbolic life, essence of civilization, comes under fire (Zerzan)." Chapter one goes on to blame language, art and religion (even Shamans) -indeed the whole concept of culture -for the pathology of human relations during the last 10,000 years. Anarchist disregard for democracy is held back until the final page.
F. Two million US citizens are in the correctional system and millions of US seniors are in nursing homes or receiving substandard care at home.
9). A. Economic growth is necessary if you have population growth or else many people get poorer each year. Growth is needed to absorb the investments in new plants and machinery. Also increased productivity from technological improvements and product durability create overproduction problems for the capitalists.
B. BOOM AND THE BUBBLE, New York: Verso, 2002, captures the dynamics of global economic crisis. A review by Walden Bello; the Nation (New York) 21 October 2002. “Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz may be celebrity economists but it is a neo-Marxist economic historian, whose earlier work focused on the origins of capitalism in late feudal Europe, who has turned out the most compelling and comprehensive account of the crisis gripping contemporary global capitalism. UCLA Professor Robert Brenner's book The Boom and the Bubble is a solidly argued and empirically impeccable restatement of the centrality of overproduction in capitalism -- a problem that has preoccupied thinkers as diverse as Marx, Joseph Schumpeter, Joan Robinson, Ernest Mandel, Paul Baran, and Paul Sweezy.”
C. The Greens in the US and in Europe, the left in Latin America and even Walden Bello (p.92) don’t seem to grasp that growth is no longer possible unless we want to assure the destruction of the environment or unless the consumption of the rich countries is drastically reduced and they share technology with the poor countries.
10). A. Walden Bello, FUTURE IN THE BALANCE; has extensive documentation of what has gone wrong politically in Latin America.
B. Colburn, Forrest D., LATIN AMERICA AT THE END OF POLITICS, Princeton Univ. Press, 2002. Colburn examines the polling data done by Latinobarometro showing little faith in liberal democracy. Updates in the Economist, July 28, 2001, p.37 and August 17, 2002, p.29, do little to dispel this trend and the 2003 elections in Mexico, Brazil , Ecuador and Colombia illustrate both sides of the issue well ñ people want to vote and for a good candidate they sometimes do vote. But the ineffectiveness of the politicians makes them detest voting, while it also makes them want to be able to vote for something good. These paradoxes are evident in Brazil and Ecuador where the people voted in significant numbers only to see their hopes dashed. In Mexico in the Summer of 2003 there was one of the lowest voter turnouts in history and interviews conducted by Ecosolidarity found almost zero faith in any of the parties from all sides of the political spectrum. In Colombia in November, 2003, people rejected the rightwing referendum by 28 percent of them staying home and not voting, then two days later they came out in significant numbers to elect more leftist candidates than at any time in the country’s history.
11). Some of the alternative experiments that the US attacked: Vietnam (since 1945); Cuba (since 1959); Chile (since 1971); El Salvador (since 1976); Nicaragua (since 1979); and Venezuela and Colombia (since 1989). These were never military threats to the US . They were never even indirect economic threats to the US, unless somehow they had been able to unify. Officially the US military budget is 401 billion for 2003, but this leaves out numerous billions related to space, veterans affairs, the cost of financing previous defense budget borrowing and the police and private security contractors who roam the world protecting US corporations and military facilities. The actual total spent on US-related security is closer to $700 billion and this doesn’t count the 100s of billions spent by the US puppets in Europe and its other client regimes.
12). A. David Korten, WHEN CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD, Second Edition of the Modern Classic, April 2001; THE POST-CAPITALIST WORLD, 2002; http://www.pcdf.org/Living_Economies.htm . ‘Institutional Pathology: Most of the dysfunction of the suicide economy can be traced to the pathological institutional characteristics of publicly traded corporations ó specifically size, absentee ownership, and special limited liability protections. Healthy social function depends on eliminating such pathological institutions in favor of economies comprised of locally-based, human-scale, community oriented, fair-profit/nonprofit living enterprises.”
B. Meanwhile, urban slums in the Third World proliferate. According to the World Health Organization a fifth of the world's nearly six billion people live in extreme poverty, almost a third of all children are undernourished and half the planet's population lacks access to basic essential drugs. The global economy is working perfectly fine for some people. Like the world's 358 billionaires whose combined wealth now exceeds that of the world's poorest 2.5 billion people. And Forbes magazine tells us the number of non-Japanese, Asian multi-millionaires will double to 800,000 this year. The same article neglects to mention that 675 million Asians will continue to live in absolute poverty. The advice of economists has been treated as gospel when it should have been dismissed as self-serving cant. And today's standard free-market prescription for economic health - deregulated markets, lower taxes for the wealthy, privatization and government cut-backs - is simply more of the same. It's a bit like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We need a new vision of economics which puts people back at the center of the human economy and subsumes economics to the interests of the public good.
13). Much of US aid is tied-aid where the US gives money to a country under the condition that it uses the money to buy corn, tractors or other goods from the US.
14). A. Jonathan Brooks, P. 49, OECD OBSERVER, OCTOBER 26, 2001.
B. New York Times, Sept 13. “This round of WTO trade talks, begun two years ago in Qatar, was called to help developing countries and was expected to produce a big reduction in the $300 billion paid every year to farmers in the world's richest nations. Those subsidies, which have undermined the lives of millions of farmers in the world's poorest nations, have been deemed unfair by the World Bank.”
15). Robert Brenner; BOOM AND THE BUBBLE, New York: Verso, 2002.
16). Argentina is one example and Cuba is another. In 1973 the US strangled the Chilean economy when a moderate socialists, Allende, was elected and then overthrown and murdered in a US-backed coop. Similar attempts were made against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in 2002-2003. The main problem the US has with Chavez is that he passed the HydroCarbon Law that raised royalties on investments in the energy sector to 30 percent from 16.7 percent. Lula in Brazil is walking a thin line between antagonizing his people or the US bankers. There is hope that the ideas of the MST in Brazil will catch on and give enough people faith in a new kind of subsistence living with dignity, sharing and independence from the US-dominated global system.
17). A. International Forum on Globalization; www.ifg.org; Walden Bello at www.focusweb.org; George Monbiot, http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=2385; http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,7369,983684,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,985055,00.html; Ecosolidarity’s IAPE Global Program at , www.Bluegreenearth.com, 2002. World Possibilities; http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2002/06/7146.php
B. For a national reconstruction program in Argentina see: The following proposals to increase unemployment benefits, return depositors savings, and to overcome the [problems of economic collapse in Argentina are not wholly consistent with Solidarity Economics, but they do capture the need for radical restructuring and have some good ideas within them. ARGENTINA: AN ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL TO OVERCOME THE CRISIS, by Luis Becerra et al, Faculty of Economic Sciences Univ. Of Buenos Aires, http://www.monthlyreview.org/0402becerra.htm
“Capitalists must bear the cost of their own disaster. A just solution will only be reached in the context of a socialist transformation: Reduce the work week (to increase jobs); increase pensions and extend this increase to all old people even those without access to social security; total suspension of debt payments, levies on big fortunes; a 10 percent tax on assets of the largest 100 firms; A 30 percent tax on capital that has been p[laced abroad; unification of all pensions under a single system of social solidarity.”
18). A. “Imperialism and Resistance in Latin America”, James Petras, www.rebelion.org/petras/english/031115petraseng.pdf
B. Ralph Miliband; SOCIALISM FOR A SCEPTICAL SOCIETY (1994)
C. Robert Biel; THE NEW IMPERIALISM, Zed Books, 2000.
19). The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Colombia are to secure energy supplies and regional control (military bases); the now abandoned WTO and FTAA were to increase economic growth; and as Brenner and Bello discuss in footnotes 3, 9, 10, 15 China is being brought into the global capitalist consumer market.
20). Zapatismo sometimes calls for Land and Liberty; Democracy! Liberty! Justice!; Jobs and Dignity or see also footnote number 4.
21). A. Rural improvement policies are well known. The basis is agro-ecology. This technology makes the best use of natural and cultural attributes and is the only system likely to survive the vagaries of global warming and ecological collapse. Organic production techniques and agroecological approaches are now fully proven and reliable systems. The experiences in Brazil are consistent with other studies that show how poor farmers with secure land tenure and minimal support exhibit higher productivity with fewer purchased or imported inputs.
B. "ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE," (web-draft), 2002; www.ifg.org
Revitalization of local communities by promoting maximum self-reliance, economic and political control, and environmental sustainability. Development of autonomous, regional and local cycles of production and consumption based primarily on renewable resources of energy and raw materials, and recycling all types of wastes, thus preserving natural resources for future generations.
22). A. Instead of direct subsidies a government could instead tax things that impinge on these public goods, tax non-basic goods more or create structures such as help in marketing and transportation to facilitate provision of these goods.
B. Lester R. Brown, “The Eco-Economic Revolution,” sadly flawed but a good introduction to externalities that give markets bad information; The Futurist, March 2002, p. 23.
23).A. Locally derived and manufactured technologies (usually just knowledge) can improve the general welfare. Complex technologies imported from "expert" countries - a requiring their advice, repair and replacement - are almost always detrimental. They create dependence and often alter local adapted cultural practices and traditions. Low prices for locally produced goods are public Bads that can result from trade or from bad policies. High domestic prices are good and help local producers. The spin-off or multiplier effect is high when fair prices are paid for sustainable activities. Subsidized housing, education and health care can offset a high percentage of income going to food for the poor.
B. http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/socialism.html
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/future-for-socialism/
A related benefit, which Roemer goes into at some length, is reducing the level of profitable public Bads. Many public Bads, like pollution, go with increased profits, so, all else being equal, the more money you get from profits, the more of those public Bads you will be willing to tolerate.
C. The line between a public bad and an annoyance is slim: corporations, low prices for locally produced goods and a poor income distribution all seem like Bads because they affect most people negatively while benefiting the elite.
24). Revolutionary Worker presents a good general understanding of capitalist profit seeking from a Marxists perspective. They also posit interesting challenges to Market Socialism: These questions are found in an interesting article on capitalism, markets and socialism is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online; rwor.org; http://2changetheworld.info; http://rwor.org/a/v24/1161-1170/1166/lotta1.htm “You have to explain how the market can function according to market rules and yet not do the horrible things that the market does. Let's say market mechanisms are allowed to operate fairly freely in the consumer goods sector. Different enterprises are producing goods and winning or losing in the marketplace, based on what people buy. Will the managers of these enterprises be allowed to trim the work force if earnings decline? Will enterprises be allowed to go bankrupt if they do not make adequate profit? Will society allow the market to "freely" set prices for goods--including items essential to people's well-being? Will society allow production to shift to upscale goods that people with higher incomes demand--even if this comes at the expense of things that broader numbers of people need? If you don't want the market to do those things and you want it to act according to other rules, let's say safeguarding people's basic interests, then what is the market doing that keeps it a market?
25). A. A system of independently managed locally or regionally owned (controlled) enterprises maximizing profits at market prices would run into some of the same problems that market capitalism would. The values it would realize would be consumer preferences. But in the Solidarity model profits are not the main or only focus as the popular assemblies prioritize social equity, sustainability and self-reliance among many criteria. Competition exists and is reflected through prices, but measurements of the companies’ social contribution ñ or its performance under a Solidarity Index would also be calculated and subsidies would be determined by a variety of factors. Some of the performance of s Solidarity society assumes that through education and experience people learn to take pride in this new system and contribute out of pride and responsibility. This could take some time and experimentation.
B. For a historical discussion of Worker Self Management see: http://www.rebelion.org/petras/english/worker021002.htm
26). Trade: Growth and Energy Use: Increasing trade leads to increased energy use. To make any sense out of it investors want to utilize economies of scale and build bigger ships, ports and jets. All of these trade infrastructure investments require continuous inputs in the form of energy, personnel, maintenance and replacement. The costs of all this would show up in prices except governments often massively subsidize all aspects of trade, transport and travel. This is corporate socialism. Often powerful countries use trade and maintaining trade stability as excuses for military bases and resource wars. Trade is also bad because it usually is not fair. One seller is more desperate or ignorant than the other is. This is accentuated when powerful corporations or rich countries trade with the less powerful. The more trade and the farther it travels the more waste is produced. Nice Trade: There are wonderful attributes to trade (travel): variety, innovation, relaxation (escape), learning and changes in climate. Most of these could be accomplished close to where people live: 300 miles in most of the world. If you are starving and have some diamonds then by all means trade them for food. Not starving is a good thing, but obviously it would be better to grow your food. People will always trade and travel, but this can be regulated so that it is not destructive.
27). The idea of import substitution is often assisted by entrepreneurs who act to fill niches in the economic landscape. They expose information, connect markets and reveal needs in the local economy that can be filled by local businesses. The government at all levels can assist this buy its own purchasing power and through legislation. Items with high import substitution potential are usually in industries with high transportation costs, those with low economies of scale and with sufficient local demand for the output of the new factory. See http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/topprin/txt/comsysf/cs21.html;
28). The wealthier a capitalist society becomes the more waste it creates and the more people who work in useless jobs like advertising, lawyers and bureaucracies. http://www.gp.org/documents/globalgreenscharter01.html
29). The progress toward local self-reliance versus national self-reliance would depend on the country’s dependence on exports, its preference for rapid advancement toward sustainability, its relationship (cooperation, integration or conflict) with neighbors and the availability of prime farmlands.
30). The total corporate subsidies in the OECD are well over one trillion per year, the agricultural subsidies amount to over 300 billion and the defense budget, even narrowly defined is about 800 billion per year. In the US the space program, much of the research budgets and grants at the universities, the exemption of insurance requirements for nuclear power (and free waste disposal), the mortgage interest deduction, export credits, depletion allowances for capital goods and a host of other local, state and national spending ends up directly or indirectly in the pockets of the richest people and the biggest corporations on the planet.
31). In the US food has fallen to third or fourth position in the budget with transportation eating up more than food purchases and the number one budget being fast food and restaurant bills. Rent is usually in second or fourth place. Food should cost more - especially in the wealthy countries -- and then people would not spend so much on polluting consumer products and farmers would be protected from the ravages of weather and price uncertainties through higher incomes and more stability.
B. http://www.ifg.org/programs/IFA/ifa.htm#map
The Food and Agriculture Program was created to address these global concerns and to articulate the full range of consequences of the rapid global conversion to industrial agriculture, to develop international cooperative strategies to counter this dangerous trend, and to clearly articulate successful alternative models. The Food and Agriculture Program has issued a preliminary publication that consists of articles that dispute key popular arguments used to promote an industrial agricultural model. Key issues, such as global warming, trouble in the Middle East, trade conflicts, and cancer are linked to how we grow, process, market, consume, and dispose of food. And the impacts are global. Converting land in Mexico that once grew food for local consumption into mega-farms for vegetable exports affects the ecological and the social conditions around the planet
32) A. The Participatory Budget is the medium to decentralize power and promote an active civic participation materializes. In the Brazilian state of Grande do Sul decisions are no longer taken in the Ministry of Economy but in its 497 municipalities. In turn, civic participation in those grassroots' discussions has grown from 190,000 people that participated in the first assemblies 3 years ago to 380,000 in 2001, which represents an increase of exactly 100%. These assemblies are informed of the accounts and expenses incurred by the executive, which has created an understanding of how the supposedly complicated economy and finances work. Furthermore, a critical consciousness has grown, changes are naturally introduced in daily life and structures are being created to bring together State government and local assemblies through regional meetings. This practice has already been extended to about a hundred Brazilian cities and also to some isolated cities in the rest of the world, although in no other instance there is a State with 10-million people working together under these new rules.
B. Then there is the debt burden that keeps progressive governments from helping the poor: Brazil’s external debt is $216 billion (or some call this the social debt ñ the amount needed above the budget for social investments). The IMF signed a $30 billion loan with Brazil with most of it being disbursed in 2004. here has been almost no growth in per capita income in Latin America since 1980.
C. In 1998 Colombia paid $4.6 billion in debt services (interest and repayments). This was equivalent to three times the entire healthcare budget and more than the total spent on education. In 2001, this figure grew again by 30 percent with 86 percent of tax income used to pay debt services.
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34).
35). A. The key structure is to have vehicle licenses issued from each locality and tied to your land-ownership parcel. Each time that you cross a border checkpoint your vehicle is weighed and you are required to fill your fuel tank. The border that you are crossing into receives the funds including a tax per pound ( or? )of the vehicle. The tax per pound would be the same at all borders for all products. This encourages value adding to all trade products. The price of fuels would not be regulated other than a regular nationwide (unified) tax per gallon paid to the region it is sold from ( at 2003 prices probably on the order of 3 dollars per gallon tax and rising to 5 in a few years). You must be over 21 to own a vehicle and over 25 to own a truck over a certain weight.
B. A future study will examine sources and structures of government (national, regional and local) revenues and how to tax (sales, income, property, VAT, tariffs, product). Since land is restricted it seems that most private ownership below the size limits would not be taxed or not until it reached a high level of value. More of this aspect of the Solidarity Economics model needs to be addressed. Apparently real estate could be sold as long as the purchaser owned no other property and planned to live on the newly acquired land. The issues of incentives to produce or invest are also needed. Will there be a few rich people who get lucky or clever in business? How much paid in taxes and what would they spend money on? Perhaps they would buy government bonds at a guaranteed rate of return or save money for their offspring.
36). A. Capital Controls: Walden Bello, FUTURE IN THE BALANCE, p.148.
B. Surplus military hardware, weapons (F-16s?), machines, buildings and tools could also be sold, to afford the government revenue to purchase smaller numbers of more appropriate and lower-tech equipment. Also put military (and its new purchases: transports, armed freighters?) to work reducing costs (transport, shipping, repairs) for import substitution businesses.
C. Justin Podur’s article on Znet about the Chavez poverty programs has interesting footnotes related to currency controls and sources of government research: “The 10-month long currency controls have proven their efficacy. The Venezuelan finance ministry estimates foreign reserves will end 2003 at $20.7 billion - an increase of $9 billion, or roughly 30%, since mid-January. Venezuela’s economy is expected to contract 10%-11% in 2003, Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega has said. Nobrega said fourth-quarter GDP growth could be around 0%, as the economy begins to recover, and he said 2003 inflation will be around 25%.î
(1) Wilpert, 'Venezuela's Mission to Fight Poverty' http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=4497
(2) This phrase [delink] is Samir Amin's. He believes 'delinking' from the global economy offers poor countries a better chance at development than trying to survive its ravages.
(3) Julia Buxton, "Economic Policy and the Rise of Hugo Chavez", in Steve Ellner and Daniel Hellinger, eds., "Venezuelan Politics in the Chavez Era", Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003.
(4) Dow Jones Newswires, 12-06-02 "Venezuela Congress Approves VEB41.6 Tln Budget For 2003"
(5) For some more sources and figures, see www.bcv.org.ve/ - Venezuela's Central Bank www.mf.gov.ve/ - Venezuela's finance ministry.
37). Banks ñ Each region would have a Board of Supervisors to audit and collect information on all banks, transactions, credit needs, records and taxes. There are nine Board members with five directly elected by the people of the region and four elected by the workers of the community development financial institutions (banks and credit unions) in the region. Five votes or signatures would be needed for decisions and audit authentication.
38). A. Other businesses have failed to pay taxes for a spate of years and are therefore automatically excluded from the formal process of currency application. http://vheadline.com/section.asp?pageno=3&secid=48
B. Venezuela's IRS/SENIAT increased tax collection receipts to a record 89.2 % in 2003. This along with a 49% increase in non-traditional exports has helped improve the economy, the government's budget and pushed foreign currency reserves to $19.3 billion. WWW.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=11473.
C. Large tariffs on luxury imports and polluting technologies (cars) would also reduce capital outflows and currency stress. In the long run a fairer distribution of income and growing pride in Zone and local products will reduce the need for tariffs
39). A. STORM CLOUDS OVER LATIN AMERICA; William I. Robinson, from Focus on Global South, 2003; William I. Robinson is a sociologist at the University of California-Santa Barbara and a specialist on globalization and on Latin America. “Latin America is sliding headlong into a maelstrom. The neo-liberal project, so meticulously imposed on the region by transnational elites and their local counterparts over the past two decades, is collapsing as the region descends into economic and political turmoil.” His most recent book, GLOBAL CAPITALISM AND CENTRAL AMERICA: DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL CHANGE, will be published in 2003 by Verso Press.
http://www.focusweb.org/publications/2001/Porto%20Alegre%20Call%20for%20Mobilisation.htm
B. http://www.focusweb.org/publications/2002/Porto%20Alegre%20II-Call%20of%20social%20movements.htm
C. Foreign debt [in Latin America] climbed throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, from $230 billion in 1980 to $533 billion in 1994, to over $714 billion in 1997, to $793 billion in 1999, and then to over $1 trillion by the 21st century. Payment on this debt exacted a painful tribute on Latin American popular sectors and prevented any lasting recovering in the 1990s. Argentina's payment on the interest alone ate up 35.4 percent of export earnings in 1998. For Brazil, the figure was 26.7 percent; for Colombia, 19.7 percent; for Ecuador, 21.2 percent; for Nicaragua, 19.3 percent; for Peru, 23.7 percent; and for Venezuela,($22 billion) 15.3 percent (20% according to www.vheadline/com/section.asp?secid=48. ( one researcher claims that 86% of tax revenue in Colombia (2001) is used to pay debt services)
D. For another current and well-done article on Venezuela and the efforts of Chavez to stabilize the country while also assisting the poor see Justin Podur: http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=4544
In its anti-poverty fight, Chavez's economic team has had to grapple with a very difficult problem: what can a poor country manage to do in a neoliberal context? The poor countries are often saddled with large external debts the form of loans and interest payments made possible by lending institutions like the IMF. If they want to develop and reduce unemployment, speed economic improvement and reduce their indebtedness, they need capital and investment. These dynamics force governments into a 'race to the bottom', as they lower labor, health, and environmental standards (the very things 'development' is supposed to bring) in order to meet the conditions of investors and lenders
40). A. This section on Venezuela and the policies of the Chavez government was extracted in part from an early draft of the excellent article Venezuela's Mission To Fight Poverty by Gregory Wilpert: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=4497 ;
The introduction to this article has a description of the analysis used to show how Venezuela is the most unequal nation in the world. The footnotes for this conclusion are:
[1] The Gini Index goes from 0, meaning complete equality (all incomes the same), to 1, meaning complete inequality. Source: Francisco Rodriguez (2000), "Factor Shares and Resource Booms: Accounting for the Evolution of Venezuelan Inequality" in World Institute for Development Economics Research Paper http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/wp205.pdf
[3] Rodriguez: "If our calculations are correct, Venezuela today is one of the most unequal countries in the world, with its 1997 Gini [of 62.6] surpassing that of South Africa (62.3) and Brazil (61.8)." ibid., p.6
[4] OPEC Statistical Bulletin, 2001
[5] In 1985 dollars. Based on value of oil exports (IMF, International Financial Statistics Yearbook 1993), population (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, Venezuela: www.ine.gov.ve), and 1985 exchange rate (Banco Central de Venezuela: www.bcv.org.ve).
[6] According to the income-based poverty line used by the Poverty Project of the Catholic University Andres Bello (Matias Riutort, "El Costo de Eradicar la Pobreza" in Un Mal Posible de Superar, Vol. 1, UCAB, 1999)
[7] Kenneth Roberts, "Social Polarization and the Populist Resurgence in Venezuela," p.59, in Venezuelan Politics in the Chavez Era, edited by Steve Ellner and Daniel Hellinger (2002), Lynne Rienner Publishers.
[8] Instituto Nacional de Estadistica: www.ine.gov.ve
B.(http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=5653 ), the government has begun a program where it will invest US $836 million to find a secure food supply for the population but in particular the working class. The program also includes the establishment of government-subsidized supermarkets which ensure food supplies to the poor at a cheaper price. Venezuela imports 60 percent of its raw materials and most of its food. (http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=4068 ) The government has also begun the implementation of land reform which promises to have settled 100,000 people by the end of August. (http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR25505.shtml) More recently, the Chavez government has launched the Into the Neighborhood program. (http://www.workers.org/ww/2003/venez0724.php) This is a highly ambitious program which seeks to address the lack of quality education and health-care to the poor of Venezuela by sending doctors into the slums free of charge, and mobilizing 50,000 volunteers to eradicate illiteracy among 1 million people. The two projects have expert assistance and personnel from Cuba, universally recognized for its quality health and education programs.
41). See: Hernando de Soto (2000), The Mystery of Capital
42) http://www.economiasocial.mpd.gov.ve/sistema.html
43). Source: El Mundo, Nov. 4, 2003 (http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1087)
44). Source: Bulletin #56 (October, 2003) of the Finance Ministry (http://www.mf.gov.ve/acrobat/Boletin%20Finanzas%20Ed.%2056.pdf)
45). Based on a primary school-age pop ulation of 5 million (grades 1-6 or ages 6-13), according to statistics of the INE (National Institute of Statistics).
46). See: 3 Anos de la Quinta Republica (http://www.mpd.gov.ve/3%20A%D1OS/3AnosdelaVRepublica.pdf)
47). A. According to Alo Presidente, #168, of October 19, 2003.
B. The Vargas mudslides, which took place in December 1999, in which over 10,000 people died and over 150,000 became homeless.
C. At the National University and others, student elections in November 2003, saw the pro-Chavez Integration-Venezuela win the most seats to the student government.
48). A. CUTTING THE WIRE: THE STORY OF THE LANDLESS MOVEMENT IN BRAZIL; by Jan Rocha and Sue Bradford, 2002.
B. TO INHERIT THE EARTH, THE LANDLESS MOVEMENT AND THE STRUGGLE FOR A NEW BRAZIL, Angus Right and Wendy Wolford, 2003, Food First Books, Oakland, California.
49).
50).
53).
52).
53).
54). A. Dreams of a Livable Future; Paul Hawken, May-June Utne Reader, 2003, p.51.
B. When Corporations Rule the World, David C Korten, Kumarian Press, West Hartford, CT, 1995.
C. Alternatives Magazine, Vol 21, No 4, Oct/Nov 1995, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON.
D. For the Common Good, Herman E Daly and John B Cobb Jr, Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1989.
E. 'Ecological Footprints and Appropriated Carrying Capacity', William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel, from Investing in Natural Capital, Eds. Jansson, Hammer, Folke & Costanza, Island Press, WashingtonDC, 1994.
F. From 'An agenda to tame corporations, reclaim citizen sovereignty and restore economic sanity', a speech by David Korten of the People Centered Development Forum, 3 Sept 1995.
G. The Unconscious Civilization, John Ralston Saul, Anansi Press, Concord, ON, 1995.
H. When Corporations Rule the World, David C Korten, Kumarian Press, West Hartford, CT, 1995.
I. Walden Bello. Future in the Balance; p. 221- "Gramsci once described the bureaucracy as but an "outer trench behind which lay a powerful system of fortresses [corporations] and earthworks [WTO]." ... "TNCs are... fundamental threats to people, society, the environment, to everything we hold dear." See also p. 221-222, “Corporations are obsolete.”
55).
56).
DATA SETS AND QUESTIONS for ECONOMISTS / RESEARCHERS
1) Banking studies related to currency controls banking regulations, currency leaks
2) Recent data on country imports and exports: the details, destinations and origins.
3) Recent household surveys on consumption, purchases, production / incomes / job types of the middle lower class to the middle-middle class.
4) .ñ Analysis of the costs for retooling various industries for import substitution (ISE).
5) Studies of participatory budgeting, PT / Lula fiscal policies and policy recommendations.
6) National budget details (revenues and expenditures) of South American countries.
7) Analysis, critique and summary of the new Another World is Possible book by IFG.
8) Contacts of Economists interested in the new Latin America.91) Farm policy analysis and information on farmer and peasant organizations (orientations) in Ecuador, Argentina and Venezuela
10) The economic program of Lula and the PT.
11) Neighborhood surveys to determine consumption and savings behaviour (and what and where).
12) Studies on the yields and costs of urban gardens, chickens, fish ponds and more government retail stores of all kinds.

Miscellaneous Venezuelan Economic News:
A. http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id+2083)).
B. http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=13515
C. Posted: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue - Fedeagro snubs President Chavez Frias' agricultural plan: http //vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=13515; Federation of Agricultural Producers (Fedeagro) president, Jose Manuel Gonzalez says he knows nothing about President Hugo Chavez Frias' agricultural plan. "Agricultural producers have not been informed of the plan ... we haven't been consulted or asked to collaborate in the plan." Gonzalez is undoubtedly pointing to a Presidential announcement last Sunday urging the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) to immediately release $1 billion bolivares from the international reserves to develop agriculture in Venezuela. Fedeagro reports that the agriculture sector had a better Q1 than last year thanks to the efforts of the private sector, banking system ... and "to a lesser degree the State." Fedeagro, which is opposed to the president's land titles and integration of small farmers program calls the move "political demagogy" linked to gaining votes
D. Patrick J. O'Donoghue: Funds slotted to push sustainable development zones (vheadline.com). The government is pushing ahead with its plan to develop special zones of sustainable development. Minister Francisco Natera has announced that the government will invest 25 billion bolivars in reactivating and developing some of the zones in question. Ag and Lands Ministry (MAT) and the Planning Dept. Cordiplan will join a coordination plan aimed at generating jobs . The chosen zones are: South of Lake Maracaibo, Guanarito (Portuguesa), South of Guarico, Puerto Nutrias and Puente Paez in Barinas and Apure. The plan is part of the President’s electoral manifesto to create an Orinococ-Apure axis development zone to other countries via a waterways network vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=2558
E. Government examines reforms necessary to allow worker cooperatives - By Davis Coleman - Wed. Oct 1 - 2003 - Many of the factories under consideration for worker cooperatives were swiftly abandoned by opposition fat-cats who fled Venezuela after the failed April 2002 coup or simply went out of business as a result of the 2-month opposition sabotage last December-January 2003. F. Vheadline.com/section.asp?pageno=2&secid=48; Thursday, Oct 6 2003 - Chavez announced creation of indigenous "micro credit banks - Isla Sierra of Fondo de Desarrollo Microfinanciero (Fondemi) saying that 33 banks would be created with 10,000 million bolivars.
F. Venezuelan minimum wage rises to Bs.247,104 (Tues. Sept. 30, 2003)
p. 94 - why land reform means revolution [me ñ how Chavez , transition programs and the MST are great educational and recruiting tools but real change will require more ñ revolution or faster change toward restructuring.


Wendell Berry examines the decline of US small farmers from 32 million in 1920, 23 million in 1950 and 4.6 million in 1991 and concludes that the market had nothing to do with these changes. "This was a successful outcome of a deliberate national program. It is the result of great effort, and of principles rigorously applied... with help from universities and government experts, the tireless agitation of the agribusiness corporations (p.183, Ecologist, vol 29, no. 3, 1999)."
Governments that are serious about promoting food sovereignty have to take firm control of the seeds that their farmers need and eliminate any threats to their seed "capital." Strict bans on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and a ban on all non-regional food and agricultural imports protects small farmers, exchange rates and agricultural productivity (through peasant and cooperative security/stability and higher valued crops). Brazil must move immediately to demand that Argentina cease the use of GMO soy and other GMOs near its borders. A continental ban should be a high priority. Failure to immediately ban GMOís will mean continental contamination and the loss of a high-profit and market niche export product. The spread of GMOís threatens the ecology of the Amazon basin rainforests and the agricultural productivity of Brazil.

Economics
Agrarian Reform
Land Distribution
Rural Credit
Farm Credit
Marketing
Transport
Processing of farm Products
Manufacture of Farm Inputs
Manufacture of Farm and Rural Implements

Excerpts from Transition in Conflict
Page 7 - With only modest subsidies in the form of organic agricultural extension and training, biological pest control, modest credit subsidies, toll and equipment coops and marketing farmers can increase labor use, export earnings and create rural spin-offs and multiplier effects. These include community centers, environmental protection,

Annotated and Misc Footnotes to be added to Update:

1. Prices of some regulated products have bee decontrolled in Venezuela. Ven Am Cham economist Jose Gabriela - Official Gazette No. 37.718Whole chicken raised to 2000 ($1.25) bolivares (bs) from 1800 ($1.33), bs 3000 - $1.88 per kilo for chicken breast - hens raised to 2000 bs - eggs to bs 2600 (medium) and 2900 (;large).

2. To inherit the Earth, Angus Wright, Wendy Wooford, 2003. (The struggle of the MST in Brazil).

4 % of landowners control 50% of Brazils vast agricultural land, p. xv. by most measures brazil is most unequal in the world with top fifth receiving 34 xs as much as bottom fifth - Mexico has half the percentage of people I extreme poverty 15 vs. 33%. p xvi.
7 per 100,000 is the murder rate in New York City - Sao Paulo is 60 in 2001 - Rio is 49.
p. xvii 240 helipads in Sao - 10 in NYC


- posted by Resistance @ 12:54 PM