600M Asian Children in Poverty, Group Says

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Sandman
"How can we cope with this problem? Cotton prices are too low to keep our children in school, or to buy food and pay for health. Some farmers are already leaving. Another season like this will destroy our community."

Brahima Outtara, a small cotton farmer in Logokourani village, Leraba province, western Burkina Faso

LOTM - why isnt he afraid of big landowners grabbing his land when cotton prices increase? Perhaps there ARE no such landowners there, Burkina Faso having a different class structure (as well as more secure peasant tenure) than Mexico?


"When the price of cotton falls, everybody suffers. The farmers get less, I get less - and my family gets less. That is how simple it is."

Assita Konate, Malian agricultural labourer, Logokourani village

He already IS a laborer, not a farmer. But he knows that the wages of laborers is driven by the prices of the goods he produces "Factor demand is a DERIVED demand" Mr Konate is neither a neoclassical economist, nor a Marxist ideologue. He IS however empircially aware of how his wages vary.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Bosh
Chegitz: some of your arguements are getting so surreal that you have me really confused.

LotM disagrees with me, but he understands my point.

Yah, well i like early modern history, and your story is basically the standard story of enclosures. Wool prices up, so landowners seize former communal lands. Of course since wool is less labor intensive than grain, the displaced peasants dont even get absorbed as farm labor, and there is downward pressure on wages.

A. IIUC, the current view is that the situation was far more complex.
B. The downward pressure on wages was also driven by demographic pressures
C. It was only the communal land that was seized, or the land with communal rights. And NOT because that was the only suitable land, but because in the political-social situation of Tudor England, it simply wasnt possible for aristocrats and gentry to seize land that peasants held with stronger tenures. Which is relevant to our current situation. CG assumes that ALL peasant held land is equally vulnerable, and that states will NEVER defend peasant tenures ("the state is the executive committee of the ruling class") This is of course a gross and misleading simplification of pre-industrial states and their relations to various classes - in particular it misses the autonomy of the state, and its interest in limiting the power of landed classes. This is certainly true for Tudor England, and is likely true for many 3rd world countries today.

[Ramo]

Though I suppose you could argue that by making southern land less valuable, it made it less likely that the landowning class would engage in illegal land seizures.

Exactly.

That's a pretty damn bizarre argument. High wages are bad because it increases the incentive of the elite to coerce people into lower wages?

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Bosh
Chegitz: some of your arguements are getting so surreal that you have me really confused.

LotM disagrees with me, but he understands my point. It's not that hard. Simply put, peasants right now own marginal lands which aren't profitable enough to be worth the effort of seizing right now, so they can grow enough food for themselves and their local markets markets. Once it becomes profitable to use that land for cash crops in the first world, they will lose their land, because those with the power will steal it from them.

You seem to be saving that in increase in farm good prices IN AND OF ITSELF is a bad things for farmers. Which doesn't make any sense.

The problem is, the situation doesn't exist IN AND OF ITSELF, but within an existing social context and history which must be looked at in oreder to understand what the real world results of ending subsidies will be.

So would this event be a good thing or not for, say, a coffee farmer in Java?

Possibly, but not likely. The far more likely scenario is that it would be very good for the middle men who buy the coffee from the farmers and sell it to the 1st world. In the event that the farmers have their own marketting co-operative then it would be a good thing for the farmers in Java.

Real free trade isn't necessarily an optimal arraignment, but it's a hell of a lot better than what we have now.

Free trade has always screwed the people on the bottom. The reason Marx supported free trade is because it exaserbates the instability inherent in capitalism and theoretically leads to greater worker politicization and thence to socialism. This didn't happen. Making the world worse to hasten the arrival of socialism is immoral.

The opposite has happened here in Korea.

Because Korea was the opposite of a free trade regime, and instead was an extremely statist regime. It's hard to tell where the government begins and the chaibols end sometimes.

The ones that've had poverty increasing have either had huge political problems/instability,

Well that's the real world. You have to factor that in to your dreamy little dream that imagines that free trade will somehow benefit 3rd world proeducers.

have had their industries killed off by subsidized first world import or have had a hard time getting their goods to the 1st world.

They had to lower their barriers to such commodities because they were [i]froced[/o] to do so by the IMF and World Bank. The solution isn't to make things worse, but to allow the 3rd world to rerasie their trade barriers.

The ones that have had success in making imports a significant part of their GDP (again, like Korea) have done relatively well.

And those countries had high tarrif barriers and massive state help. The opposite of what you propose.

Those are all well and good, (Korea had a very nice land reform program that basically destroyed rural landlords as a class) but unless you have an economic base to support all that government programs can't be paid for.

That's a seperate problem, but opening your country to free trade won't solve it, as capital will not be stored in the local currency and banks, but will instead flee to secure currencies, thus ensuring that the 3rd world must take out more foreign loans and stay forever in debt. Honestly, did you ever study the third world?

So you're saying that the success of Korea's export industries has nothing to do with the increase of South Korea's standard of living?

If Korean labor hadn't fought for its rights, it would look more like China, with massive growth and profitablity and a desititute working class. Obviously Korean capital couldn't have retreated before labor if they hadn't built up their economy, which they did by raising barriers to foreign goods and creating a secure economy first.

That's stupid. That's like saying that having the wage of website developers going up would be a bad thing for you. How could getting money for your crops possibly be a bad thing?

Apples an oranges. No one can steal my mind, thus I cannot be alienated from my source of wealth. Peasants can have their land stolen once it becomes profitable to do so. For example, the U.S., time after time, shoved the Indians on to what were perceived as marginal lands, lands they saw no use for. Once we saw we could exploit that land, we drove the Indians off it, over, and over and over. Once that marginal land becomes valuable, the peasants will have it stolen from them.

And they don't need all those things now to be competitive? You're not making any sense.

Right now, most of their produce is not export oriented. You don't need all of those things because they are producing for small, local markets, as well as for subsistence. The land doesn't require intensive exploitation. Once it becomes possible to plant and sell cash crops, they will attempt to use every bit of land to its maximum capacity, which means trying to increase yields through energy and chemical intensive labor. At the same time, Western markets will demand particular types of crops, crops which require the same. Peasants which aren't driven off by force will be driven off by economics. This will also be an environmental catastrophe for the 3rd world, as all unfarmed land gets plowed under.

And this doesn't happen now?

It does, but not as much, because the land isn't worth that much right now. For example, certain oil wells aren't worth usin when the price of a barrel of oil is less than $30 a barrel, cuz it costs more to get the oil out of the ground. When the price goes up, it's worth exploiting. When the land becomes more valuable, it's worth stealing.

Right, but with the stregth of the WTO and the IMF, that's not a realistic option in the short term.

That's where 1st world activists should focus their efforts. We should not be trying to aid 3rd world capitalists. You know the definition of foreign aid right? Foreign aid is when you take money from poor people in a rich country and give it to rich people in a poor country. This is the same thing. You think you're trying to help the 3rd world, but you won't be.

That's like saying that the industrial revolution hasn't increased western standard of living since so much of the profits have gone to capitalists.

Because we fought and struggled for a piece of the pie. If we hadn't, the standard of living in the 1st world would still be the same as in the 19th Century. Read your ****in' history!

If nothing else, an increase in GDP gives the government a bigger tax base to use to fund social programs.

Theoretically yes. Practially, unlikely, since the IMF will impose lower tax rates and capital flight and corruption will reduce the amount of money available for taxing. If the profits of sales to the 1st world are never repatriated in the first place . . . .

An economy based on low-tech subsistence farming can't afford **** all in the way of social programs.

Cuba seems to manage, and with a smaller GDP than most desitute countries.

Again you're making the strange arguement that it's bad for people to have more money since that makes it more likely that people will steal from them.

No, I'm saying, they'll never get that money!

Next time you're threatened in da hood, rather than hiding, talk them to death.

Other that that, since I don't have the time a commie wannabe seems to have, let me reference one point.

"No, you're a tool because you buy the arguments of libertarians and right-wingers"
has to rank right up their with the most idiotic things you've written; and there's a lot to choose from.
Not only do you associate 2 groups most people see clearly as different, you shoot your "cause" in the foot by acknowledging that in your mind personal liberties are not to be held dear.
A case of "damned if I do, damned if I don't".

Go do something you can handle, like get another haircut.

[chequita guevara]

Sloww, hush. The grownups are talking.

[Ramo]

Apples an oranges. No one can steal my mind, thus I cannot be alienated from my source of wealth. Peasants can have their land stolen once it becomes profitable to do so. For example, the U.S., time after time, shoved the Indians on to what were perceived as marginal lands, lands they saw no use for. Once we saw we could exploit that land, we drove the Indians off it, over, and over and over. Once that marginal land becomes valuable, the peasants will have it stolen from them.

Some commie you are. Regardless of what people do, they'll be ****ed over by big bad omnipotent capital? What's the point of unionization, then? Cooperatives, worker militias, all of these institutions can't do a damn thing? So what exactly can help them?

And what about a place like Cuba? Aren't our sugar subsidies ****ing over their peasants? Are you saying that Castro would use the extra sugar exports to on something that doesn't help the people in any way?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ramo
Some commie you are.

You know what they call anarchists who propose market solutions to the problems of capitalism? Libertarians.

[Ramo]

It's not a "solution" I'm advocating. It's ending a stupid coporatist policy that does nothing but screw over the poor (just as workers would be better under a free capitalist labor market than if unions were crushed).

[Odin]

Farm subsidies:

Ramo:

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Odin
Farm subsidies:

Ramo:

Commies
Anarchists
Libertarians
neoliberal analysis that neglects class considerations
a social science that can integrate the sociological insights of Marx, with the economic insights of neo-classical economists
third way social democrats

[Az]

hands

[Ramo]

Calling economics or sociology (or a combination of the two) a science