Wojtek,
it is your definition of progress which requires serious reconsideration me thinks.
what was being described in the article was the ways in which certain 'cultural traits' were inconsistent with capitalism, in particular the claim that they were resistant or inimical to being productive and efficient workers _for capitalism_. becoming a celebrant of the smooth insertion of people into capitalist forms of work or production is I think to miss the whole point of marxism as a critique of capitalism.
moreover, there are ways of explaining poverty that have little to do with those who are impoverished. that you want to locate explanations of poverty _in_ those who are impoverished, and whether this explanation proceeds through biological or culturalist definitions makes little difference here, then you explicitly reverse the order of explanation which is central to any leftist, let alone marxist, understanding of poverty and inequality.
I am surprised that you even want to go there.
below is a post from www.ainfos.ca/ on one way such discipline is being forced on those from the prescribed list of the indolent and delinquent.
Angela --- rcollins at netlink.com.au
________________________________________________
JUNIOR HIGH STUDENTS FORCED TO GO TO NATIONAL GUARD BOOT CAMP BECAUSE THEY ARE LATINO
LOS ANGELES, California, USA, October 20, 1998 (U.S. Congressional Press Release) - Hundreds of 11 to 13 year old students living in working class neighborhoods of Los Angeles are being targeted for a program which requires students to attend a military-style boot camp at Camp San Luis Obispo called Angel Gate Academy when they would ordinarily be on vacation. Under the program, anyone with brown skin has been classified as an "at risk youth" and their parents, many who are immigrants from countries with military and police terrorism against civilians, are being told that attendance is "mandatory" even though the program was officially described as "voluntary" by its sponsor, U.S. Congressman Julian Dixon (Democrat-South L.A.). To blunt criticism, the program is being sold as remedial math and science classes. None of the participants was sentenced to the boot camp by a judge and none have broken any law as with a boot camp in Arizona where negligence recently killed some of the young prisoners who were California residents. However, they are being compelled to participate in military-style regimentation, drill and behavioral conditioning exercises which are designed to discourage individuality and encourage them to enlist in the military when they get older. During this four-week "emersion" program, students are watched and told what to do 24-hours per day in a manner resembling military recruits or prisoners, even though they are highly impressionable and emotionally immature pre-teenagers, most of whom have never been away from their families before. The presumption of the program is that Latino pre-teenagers will become "juvenile delinquents" if they don't receive military-style indoctrination.
The boot camp is funded by $4.2 Million from the Defense Department budget and is administered by California National Guard troops who are neither qualified teachers nor given any background screening to protect the children from the possibility of abuse or neglect. Julian Dixon has used his position on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on National Security to sell this program as an essential contribution to "national security." Fiscal Year 1999 will be the SIXTH consecutive year this program has been forced upon Latino youth in Los Angeles. Local community organizers have repeatedly voiced their outrage at the tactics being used to coerce students into going to boot camp, but they have been largely ignored by the Los Angeles Unified School District and the California National Guard which are implementing the program.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This program closely parallels the use of corporate funding to establish High School Police Academy magnet schools at High Schools in the City's Latino and African American neighborhoods. Like the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany, it suggests a conscious effort by the government to pre-determine the values and behavior of working class youth at an early age so they will grow up to be the gung ho "loyal party members", police and military troops of the future. Like the Hitler Youth, it is the government's preferred alternative to funding adequate public education and giving people the chance to have a job which pays a living wage when they grow up.