thanks for the reply, and the essay, i'll get back to reading it more closely; but for now, some general provocations:
> I don't know what Adam has to say (though I like his hint at a
balance-of-forces analysis), but I would address this less, now, at
the level of worker-capital class struggle than do you, Angela, and
more in terms of the struggles within the circulation of K.<
i'm not at all sure that there's such an easy distinction. surely any conflicts over the flows of capital (of the surplus) are already premised on (even in the barest sense) a global assessment of the conditions of exploitation that obtain in particular places? and i honestly don't think that it is possible to distinguish a nationally produced surplus from a global one. i guess this is where i would begin, and which informs the points below.
> But yes, of course, displaced modes of class struggle intervene as
always, particularly around the kinds of alliances that workers'
organisations make -- in either implicit or explicit territorial and
sectoral ways -- with different kinds of capitals. (Again, not
"capitalists," as definitive, but around different moments in the
circulation process.) (Here the nation-state is not merely the
exec.com. of the bourgeoisie, but quite a contested terrain, over all
manner of particular policies, tariffs, tax regimes, investment
location decisions, infrastructure provision, interventions in labour
markets, etc, etc.)<
i wouldn't quite put it in these terms, yet (to be a little more provocative) i'd say that these strategies are not first and foremost an alliance with different kinds of capital, but rather the organisation of the labour movement of one place against that of another. in order to establish these kinds of regimes of controls on capital flows, what is presumed first up is a competition with other workers, those who stand outside the terrain in which such regimes are constituted (here, national). (in both SA and here, the benefits or redistributions to (mostly 'white' workers) was always premised on the hyper-exploitation of the surrounding region, as well as certain largely well-managed internal exclusions (apartheid and the 'white australia policy'). and, this is why controls on immigration will always be the corollary of these financial controls, whether in terms of a strict relationship between demographics and the labour market, or in terms of creating a distinct pool of cheapened, informal and/or undocumented labour which has no call on the national apportionment/redistribution of this (global) surplus.
> capital controls do indeed represent some kind of renewed effort at
nation-state sovereignty at a time of unwarranted interference from global
financiers.<
isn't that a kind of fiscal version of socialism in one country? <grin>
> Hey, there's lots of SV coming out of our working class here in
South Africa (a relatively open economy), particularly from our
"Minerals-Energy Complex" (the theme of an excellent 1996 Ben
Fine/Zav Rustomjee book). <
but this has never been simply the SA working class has it? aren't many of these workers from the region? we could mention apartheid as acting like an internal migration policy; but what is the status of workers from surrounding countries who still work in SA? are they something like 'guest workers', or is this still a generalised situation for even most black workers who are ostensible citizens of SA?
> the debate here is largely between neoliberals like
former workerist and now trade/industry minister Alec Erwin (also
UNCTAD president) and his Sussex/Cape Town allies, who merely
seek more international revenues through minerals beneficiation
schemes and more harbour-oriented transport infrastructure, and
those who would argue for an active internal industrial policy
orientation to fill in the economy's vast gaps (capital goods
Department 1 industries and basic-needs Department 2 goods) on
behalf of workers (including those who would then get jobs) and,
yes (for some alliance-makers in the unions), of domestic-based
capital. <
by the former you mean a shift from taxation to subsidisation (as well as a restructure of the exporting mechanisms)? so, an export-led recovery coupled with enticements to global investment? this assumes greater not less discipline of the labour force, including of course, agreements to restrain wages. and, by the latter, you mean import-substitution and/or an expansion of what we used to call here in post-war years 'the milk bar economy'? what i could never quite understand about these arguments was what's wrong with imports? the other thing i could never understand is that those (not you here perhaps) who talk about the need to enhance local manufacture, as well as advocating buying local, are (and to me it seems paradoxically) arguing from countries which have since colonisation been dominated by export production -- and hence arguing for the continued right of our countries to export but for limitations on imports from elsewhere.
btw, what's kism?
below an abstract from a paper by Stuart Rosewarne that others might have seen already.
cheers, Angela _________
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"Globalization of Labour and the Continuing Force of the Nation-State: Asian Nationalism, Citizenship and State-Orchestrated Labour Market Segmentation"
Stuart Rosewarne (Dept. of Economics, U. of Sydney, NSW, Australia) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----
The global orientation of the East Asian and Southeast Asian economies and particularly the increasing internationalisation of capital is generally held to have underpinned the sustained and rapid economic development of these economies. One school of economic thought, best exemplified by the World Bank, has contended that it has been the liberalisation of capital, initially commodity capital and subsequently industrial and money capital, that has provided the momentum for maintaining the pace of development, and this thesis has served to justify the push for further liberalisation of commodity and capital markets across Asia. This is an argument that has not gone unchallenged for many institutionalist and leftists scholars have stressed the continuing force of state intervention or direction, both in terms of securing a particular national accumulation programme as well as shaping the globalisation of the national economy. However, this more critical intervention is largely missing from the recent efforts among economists to document and conceptualise another aspect of the process of economies globalising, namely the increasing migration of labour. Evidence indicates an increasing mobility of labour, especially of overseas contract labour, across Asia, and the dominant explanation for this apparent internationalisation of labour markets is informed by the same neoclassical method that endorses the liberalisation of commodity and capital markets. Development, this perspective contends, impels the increasing mobility of labour, as labour shortages prompt employers to recruit overseas labour and employment opportunities encourage workers to migrate in search of higher paid work. Moreover, according to this thesis, it follows that the further liberalisation of labour markets will advance the economic welfare of labour in particular as well as underwrite continuing sustained development more generally (World Development Report 1995). The thesis appears to have won wide currency among many nation-states and the prominent international political economy institutions serving the Asia-Pacific region. This paper presents a critique of this perspective. It analyses the ever-increasing mobility of Asian labour and, especially since the 1980s, the increasing circulation of labour within Asia to highlight the concentration of overseas workers in the lowest paid and socially devalued occupations. Taking issue with the dominant vision that this globalisation of labour phenomenon represents a freeing up of labour markets, the paper locates the evident international labour market segmentation in the context of the continuing international force of the nation. Asian nationalism, in its variant forms, and the integral role of the different states in constituting the nation and defining citizenship, structures labour markets to overtly and covertly restrict the rights of both "documented" and "clandestine" migrant labour, engendering the emergence of international segmented labour markets. In considering this incipient and more pervasive commodification of international wage labour, the paper will explore the different ways in which migrant labour's under-class status is being resisted.