On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:06:33 -0600 "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> writes:
> I have no strong opinion on this, but perhaps Joanna's point would be
> less
> vulnerable if she were to use a weaker term than "deprivation."
> Clearly the
> U.S. population is not as "well off" as in the'60s; there's been
> relative
> deprivation or austerity or _________. Is something like that true
> (or apt
> to become true) of some of the nations Doug names?
>
> Some proportion of the Chinese population was probably better fed
> and had
> better medical care before "the change" (for lack of a better or
> more
> precise term) than is the case now. How large that portion is I
> wouldn't
> know.
Well, China is an interesting case. As I recall, it was said that the initial market reforms under Deng did benefit much of the peasantry in terms of leading to higher incomes. That was balanced, however, by the removal of many of the social protections (the "iron rice bowl") that had been created under Mao. Later on, the main beneficiaries of the reforms seemed to be mainly the urban populations, or rather certain strata of the urban populations, rather than the peasantry. And over time, the reforms resulted in a sharp increase in economic ineqaulities within China, including ever increasing differentials in terms of income and general standard of living between rural and urban populations, increasing inequalities between different classes and strata, etc. Certain groups like the newly reconsituted capitalist class and middle class professionals greatly benefited from the reforms, other groups (like the rural poor) greatly suffered from those same reforms.
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math
>
> Carrol
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org
> [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of 123hop at comcast.net
> Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 1:33 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] NYT's hearts Iran's new austerity measures
>
> Countries participate in the world market in different ways. Perhaps
> I'm
> being thick and misreading "participate in world market" as a
> euphemism for
> the neoliberal globalization project.
>
> It just seems like the participation of some countries....say
> Eastern
> Europe...means sudden immiseration and a drop in life expectancy. I
> dunno.
>
> Joanna
>
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