<html> At 11:07 AM 6/6/2002 -0400, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite cite>At 10:32 AM 6/6/2002 -0400, Diane wrote: <blockquote type=cite cite>At 12:28 AM 6/6/2002 -0700, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite cite>economics 101:     U.S. Report On Human Trafficking  <a href="http://news.findlaw.com/ap/a/w/1152/6-5-2002/20020605084503_17.html">http://news.findlaw.com/ap/a/w/1152/6-5-2002/20020605084503_17.html</a></blockquote> Human trafficking is increasing and one has to go beyond simple 101 supply and demand to attempt to understand why.  Additional and more advanced intermediate level influences include: 1) What factors are behind supply and demand and how are they changing? 2) How is market structure changing? 3) Understanding the trends to normalize certain kinds of human buying and selling. 4) Corporate globalization displaces workers everywhere. 5) Eroding borders increase all trade flows. 6) Media conglomerates can more easily influence demand. 7) Post-Fordism production trends.</blockquote> A usual smorgasbord of liberal blood-letting.  Slavery has been one of the key pre-modern institutions, widely spread in the Middle East and Africa well before American took advantage of it.  It was curbed by the European powers and later the influence of Soviet communism - but in the post-cold war era marked by the return to localism and tribalism, even this traditional institution crawled from under its rock.   wojtek</blockquote> I have no problem taking this analysis beyond "liberal" blood-letting and postmodern slavery.  In fact, this is what I mostly do, and in that vein, it is an important meaning of the word "radical" -- getting to the roots of something like say oppression.  How about some radical analysis for a change? [in a nutshell] 1) Socio-economic order under emerging capitalism Divisions within production and social reproduction. Freed of labor duties:  landed men, clergymen, elite men. Paid labor:  non-landed men, non-elite men. Unpaid labor: slaves, women, children. Upshot:  Class, race/ethnic, and gender oppression. 2) Socio-economic order under feudalism Divisions within production and social reproduction. Freed of labor duties:  landed men, clergymen, elite men Paid labor:  non-landed men, non-elite men Unpaid labor: women, children Upshot:  Class and gender oppression. 3) Socio-economic order as hunters and gatherers (Mesolithic period) Divisions within production emerge as new techniques are discovered:  large animal/plough agriculture, weaving, etc.. Separations between men and women emerge as men are pushed outward to plough and women inward to do everything else. Upshot:  Gender oppression emerges as men control the food supply (resources). 4)  Earliest hominids. No divisions within production and social reproduction. No human oppression. The most fundamental divisions humans have ever concocted for humans are based on sex, and gender oppression is the tap root of all other forms of human oppression.  Relating to what you mention in your post above, what kind of "influence" did Soviet communism have on eliminating oppression if in just a few short years during the post cold-war era so easily patriarchal/slave institutions could (re)emerge? Radical upshot:  If gender oppression is not eliminated no oppression will be eliminated. Diane </html>