Arthur MacEwan

Globalization and Stagnation

It is relatively clear that globalization, the international spread of capitalist exchange and production relationships, is a very destructive and painful process. The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will provide some very stark examples over the next several years. In Mexico, peasants are likely to suffer final extinction as a class, as they are driven off the land by competition from large-scale U.S. grain producers. In the United States, many workers with relatively low-level and task-specific skills—such as broom makers in Alabama, glass makers in West Virginia, and workers connected to auto production throughout the country—will lose their jobs or see their wages dramatically reduced.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Latin America: Why Not Default?

Why do the governments of debtor nations generally continue to meet their payment schedules with the banks? Why do the people of the debtor nations accept the austerity programs imposed upon them so that the debts can be paid?This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Current Crisis in Latin America and the International Economy

An economic crisis is a period of change, a historical turning point. The old institutions that gave structure to economic relations can no longer function, severe disruptions of production and exchange occur, and social conflicts become intense. In such circumstances, there are ever-present dangers of political reaction and retrogression, but there are also opportunities for progressive change. In the underdeveloped world—plagued as it is by instability, dependency, and inequality—economic crises are not rare. Indeed, one might go so far as to assert that the condition of underdevelopment is a condition of perpetually recurring crises. Accordingly, we see among the underdeveloped nations focal points of both revolutionary progress and reaction.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

New Light on Dependency and Dependant Development

In stressing the way imperialism has perverted economic life in the poor parts of the world, Marxists have often argued that economic development would not take place in the capitalist periphery. Paul Baran, in laying the foundations for much modern Marxist analysis of development and underdevelopment, pointed out that imperialism created a class structure which blocked the development process in the periphery. He argued that the domination of society in the poor parts of the world by an alliance between local elites and international capital assured that the economic surplus would not be used to promote accumulation in those areas; instead, the surplus would either be squandered unproductively (by the local elites) or directed abroad and used to further accumulation in the already advanced capitalist nations. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Notes on U.S. Foreign Investment and Latin America

Capitalist firms invest outside their own countries for the same reasons that they invest at home—to obtain profits. Nonetheless, not all investments are the same. There are different ways that firms make their profits, different types of investments, focusing on different sorts of activities and having different sorts of long-run implications. The purpose of these notes is to examine some of the aggregate trends in U.S. foreign investment—changes in the ways that investors based in the United States are obtaining profits from international operations—in order to establish some basis for beginning to understand ways in which that investment might have its impacts on recipient countries, particularly countries in Latin America and elsewhere in the so-called developing world. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The State of the States: Fiscal Crisis in the 1990s

Our first purpose is to tell the story of the development of the fiscal crisis of the states and to examine why it has taken on a new economic and political importance. Then, on the basis of that analysis, we argue that progressive forces have an opportunity now to affect both immediate responses to the crisis and the longer run economic role of government. Our examination of the fiscal crisis of the states leads to some particular proposals for a progressive response — a response based on principles of democracy and equality.

Interdependence and Instability: Do the Levels of Output in the Advanced Capitalist Countries Increasingly Move Up and Down Together?

This paper examines the hypothesis that the degree of synchronization of movements of output in the advanced capitalist countries increased in the 1970s relative to earlier years. Two types of statistical tests are employed: one set of tests focuses on the relations between pairs of economies, measuring the frequency of their joint upward or downward movement; the other set of tests, based on multiple regression analysis, examines relations among several economies. The tests offer considerable-but not unqualified-support for the basic hypothesis, and they also provide some insights on possible causes of increased synchronization. The paper notes that, while increased synchronization is one aspect of growing international interdependence, synchronization is affected differently by different aspects of the economic ties among nations. The paper concludes with the suggestion that there is a connection between the synchronization phenomenon and the nature of the current economic crisis.

Inflation, Recession and Crisis, or, Would You Buy a New Car From This Man?:

question for a few days after Nixon’s August 15th announcement of the new policies. A larger number of radicals, while recognizing that the apocalypse of capitalism is not at hand, viewed the events of 1971 as the signal for a coming depression in America and accordingly predicted rapid and general failure for Nixon’s program. On the other hand, as the economy, in spite of continuing problems, moves away from the spectre of crisis, most of the left settles down to an essentially reformist position. In this case that reformism consists of repeating the attacks made by labor bureaucrats and liberal muckrakers on the pro-business bias of the Nixon program.

Power Concedes Nothing Without A Demand

Review of Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina and the Fate of the Black Schools in the South by David S. Cecelski. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Banishing the Mexican Revolution

Review of Distorted Development: Mexico in the World Economy by David Barkin; State and Capital in Mexico: Development Policy Since 1940 by James M. Cypher. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.