Bulletin
N° 228
Subject: ON THE
ECONOMIC "NECESSITY" OF WAR AND THE HUMAN NECESSITY OF PEACE & JUSTICE:
FROM THE CENTER FOR THE ADVANCED STUDY OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AND
SOCIAL
MOVEMENTS,
GRENOBLE
,
FRANCE
.
9 April 2006
Grenoble
,
France
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
Our International Conference at l'Université de Savoie in Chambéry last week on
"The History of Pacifist Movements in
America
and
France
"
was a great success. Thirty-five presentations in the three-day period,
between
April 5 & 7, brought a rich variety of testimonies and analyses on
pacifist
movements since the 17th Century.
On this theme of War and War Resistance, we heard many reports,
representing a
variety of epistemologies. Repeatedly, speakers evoked the economic
context of
wars, essential for understanding the evidence of the repeated
existential
impulse to reclaim a failing sense of humanity in the face of massive
violence.
At the end of the second day of our conference, we joined in solidarity
with non-violent
striking students living in the occupied Amphitheater 11 on the Chambéry campus for a
piano concert by Tatiana Baklanova-Feeley and revolutionary
songs by Claude
Vinci. Again on Friday evening, toward the end of our conference,
we
listened to protest songs by American novelist and songwriter, Lawrence
McGuire.
The conference ended an hour later, after we brought in chairs to form
a circle
at the front of the amphitheater, so we
could examine
together our different approaches to war resistance, and try to come to
terms
with our various interpretations of the causes of war and obstacles to
war
resistance.
Throughout the conference the pacifist paintings of American artist, Joanna
Learner, were on display in the Amphitheater lobby.
Meanwhile, CEIMSA has received much mail on the subject of war
and war
resistance. Below are four items we share with you on this important
and timely
subject.
Item A. is an excerpt for
Anthony Wilden's book, The Rules are
No Game, The Strategy of
Communication (1987), in which he discusses, among other things,
the
economic theory of the early 20th-century Russian economist, N.D.
Kondratieff.
Item B. is a grim reminder by
Seymour Hersh, in his current article in The
New Yorker, that the pro-war forces in
Washington
,
D.C.
are
unfolding new
plans for more killings in the
Middle
East
.
Item C., from CounterPunch Internet site, is a series of devastating indictments against the
United States
government,
for crimes against humanity within the
United States
.
(Of particular interest is the 47-minute Internet video tape
investigating the
Twin
Towers
assault on September 11,
2001.)
And finally, item D. in
response to
requests from non-French participants at last week's conference on
non-violent
movements, we have reproduce a series of Internet addresses which offer
descriptive and analytical English language texts on the French
student
movement and growing national strikes against the regressive
neo-liberal labor legislation which was
passed by the French Parliament
at the beginning of this year.
Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Université de Grenoble-3
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/
________________________
A.
from Anthony Wilden
The Rules are No Game
The
Kondratieff
Wave, as Manifested in the Economic History of the United States
In the diagram an idealized K-wave is
superimposed over actual
US
wholesale prices since the 1780s. The pattern of the K-wave is as
follows: (1)
a 20-to-30-year period of rising prosperity and prices ending in a
major war
(e.g. the period 1843-64); (2) then a period of about ten years
consisting of a
brief 'primary recession' after the war, a short recovery, and then a
slowly
declining 'plateau' (e.g. 1864-74); and finally (3) a long decline in
prosperity and prices (the 'secondary depression') ending in another
war (e.g.
the Spanish-American War of 1898). Kondratieff, who first published his
findings in the 1920s (he died soon after, purged by Stalin), argued
that the
'peak' wars, bigger and more violent than the 'trough' wars, in
contrast,
smaller and cheaper, help the system to recover from its long decline.
(The
three longest and worst depressions in the US all came 8 to 10 years
after the
peak, in 1825-29, 1874-79, and 1929-33, each followed by a further
period of
deflation.) In US economic history the peak wars are the Revolutionary
and
Napoleonic Wars (1789-1815), the Civil War (1861-65), World War One
(1914-1918), and the escalated Vietnam War(1965-74). The trough wars
are the
Mexican War (1846-48), the Spanish-American and Philippine Wars
(1898-1906),
and World War Two (1941-45) --the latter coming a little early than the
pattern
strictly suggests. ...
This pattern suggests that war is an essential component of the
long-term
business cycle under capitalism, state and private.
The idea of a supposedly rational economic system being dependent
on
destruction goes against common sense. Such a system must surely be
inhuman
--unless, of course, you have been taught that human beings are born
evil, born
sinners. Major and minor scientists and certian religions have done much to make Original Sin popular, but there's no
good
evidence that the problem of imperial war is an individual, genetic, or
'sociobiological' matter. In contrast, the
evidence against
the modern economic system --both capitalist and state-capitalist-- is
simply
damning.
See, also : http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_02/chapmand062902.html
________________________
B.
from Ronald Creagh :
9 April 2006
http://raforum.apinc.org/article.php3?id_article=564
The Bush Administration,
while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing
a
nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran
and
intensified planning for a possible major air attack, according
to
Seymour M. Hersh.
See : The Iran Plans
by
Seymour
M. Hersh
________________________
C.
from Alexander Cockburn :
8 April 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/
See : 911TrueStory.com
________________________
D.
from : Didier & Marielle Giraud :
"liber terre"
Subject: : LeMonde-et LaResistance, Un article remarquablement
lucide de l'International
Herald Tribune
Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006
http://raforum.apinc.org/article.php3?id_article=2994
A
propos du CPE : Un
article remarquablement lucide de l'International Herald Tribune.
Cet
article m'a été communiqué par "Le Monde et
la Résistance
".
Si
cette réflexion s'étendait au monde entier, l'espoir
prendrait corps de voir un jour pas trop lointain, la
"mondialisation" financière jugulée et la mondialisation
des Droits
de l'Homme triompher.
Georges-Henri Clopeau
"Capitalism
under fire"
by William Pfaff
International Herald Tribune, Paris, 30 mars 2006.
Les
manifestations
d'étudiants, de salariés et d'aspirants-salariés,
suivis par
la Gauche
française et les syndicats qui ont
pris le train en marche, constituent une forme de révolte
spontanée contre
quelque chose dont je soupçonne que peu de ceux qui y
participent ont pris la
pleine mesure.
Le but du mouvement est,
ostensiblement,
l'obtention du retrait d'un détail secondaire de la politique de
l'emploi du
gouvernement français, mais il a acquis une signification
radicalement
différente.
Les
foules qui descendent dans la rue remettent en question un certain type
d'économie capitaliste qu'une grande partie, voire une
majorité de la société
française considère comme une menace pour la norme
nationale en matière de
justice et par-dessus tout pour l'«?égalité?»
- ce
concept radical que
la France
est pratiquement le seul pays à ériger en cause
nationale, la valeur centrale
de sa devise républicaine «?liberté,
égalité,
fraternité?».
Il
est certain que le Premier ministre Dominique de Villepin était
loin de se
douter des conséquences lorsqu'il a introduit ce qui lui
apparaissait comme une
initiative pour l'emploi, modeste mais constructive, dont le but
était
d'alléger les difficultés structurelles qui pesaient sur
la création d'emplois.
Il
a soulevé par inadvertance ce que de nombreux Français
perçoivent comme une
question fondamentale concernant l'avenir de leur nation, tout comme il
y a
deux ans ils ont perçu, au delà du
référendum sur la constitution européenne,
des questions dérangeantes sur la nature de l'Union
Européenne de demain et le
type de capitalisme qui prévaudra à l'avenir en Europe.
Ils
ne sont pas les seuls à s'en inquiéter. Un débat
similaire, concernant les «?modèles?»
de capitalisme se poursuit de façon persistante
en Allemagne, qui est désormais le théâtre de
troubles sociaux ainsi qu'au sein
même de
la Commission
Européenne
,
qui depuis l'élargissement de l'Union à 25 s'est
éloignée du traditionnel
modèle «?social?» européen. Même
l'Angleterre, mardi dernier, a vu se dérouler
la plus importante grève depuis les années 1920 - pour
défendre les retraites.
Les
Français, bien entendu, sont opposés au «?capitalisme sauvage?»?[1] depuis le jour où cette bête brute a
commencé à hanter
la Grande-Bretagne
et
ses fabriques diaboliques au XIXe siècle avant de traverser
l'Atlantique pour
se trouver une nouvelle tanière.
Un
récent sondage d'opinion sur le système de libre
entreprise et de libre
concurrence montre que 74% des Chinois déclarent penser que
c'est le meilleur
de tous les systèmes économiques, contre seulement 36%
des Français, suivis de
près par les Allemands.
La question essentielle est celle-ci?: de quel
capitalisme s'agit-il?? Depuis les années 1970, deux changements
radicaux ont
affecté le modèle dominant (américain) de
capitalisme?:
Premièrement,
la version du capitalisme d'actionnaires, revue et corrigée par
le New Deal
(aux États-Unis), qui avait cours en Occident depuis la fin de
la Deuxième Guerre
Mondiale a été remplacé par un nouveau type
d'entreprises, dont le but et la
responsabilités ont changé.
D'après
l'ancien modèle, les entreprises avaient le devoir de garantir
le bien-être de
leurs employés, de même qu'elles avaient des devoirs
vis-à-vis de la société
(dont elles s'acquittaient principalement, mais pas exclusivement?; sous forme de charges et d' impôts).
Ce
modèle a été remplacé par un autre, selon
lequel les chefs d'entreprise doivent
créer de la «?valeur?»
à court terme pour les
actionnaires, ce que mesurent les cotations en bourses et les
dividendes.
Cette
politique a eu comme résultat concret une pression constante
visant à réduire
les salaires et les avantages sociaux des travailleurs (ce qui a
conduit
parfois à des vols de retraite et autres délits graves),
et l'émergence d'un
lobbying politique et de campagnes en faveur de l'allègement des
charges des
entreprises et de leurs contributions aux finances nationales et
à l'intérêt
public.
En
résumé, le système des pays
développés a été remanié depuis les
années 1960,
enlevant aux travailleurs et au financement de l'État des
ressources qui vont
maintenant aux actionnaires et aux dirigeants des entreprises.
Bien
que cette réflexion puisse être perçue comme
incendiaire, elle m'apparaît comme
une simple constatation. On reproche aujourd'hui aux Européens
qui résistent
aux «?réformes?»
d'empêcher, par leurs choix
politiques, les chefs d'entreprise de délocaliser les emplois et
d'en réduire
le nombre, afin de «?valoriser?» l'entreprise.
(Récemment, l'International
Herald Tribune titrait?: «?Wall Street
applaudit la
fusion annoncée d'AT&T et de Bellsouth.
10 000
emplois seront supprimés?»).
J'ai
baptisé ce phénomène «?capitalisme de
PDG.?» puisque les chefs d'entreprise
exercent un contrôle effectif sur leurs directoires et sont
également les
principaux bénéficiaires du système, soumis
à la seule critique des conseillers
en investissements financiers, qui s'intéressent aux moyens
d'augmenter les
dividendes et non à la défense des travailleurs ou
à celle de l'intérêt public.
(John Bogle, le conseiller en
investissements bien
connu désormais à la retraite a récemment repris
mon argument à son compte dans
son livre, The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism («?La lutte pour l'âme du
capitalisme?»)
Deuxièmement, la mondialisation, dont une des
conséquences primordiales
a été de faire entrer les travailleurs des
sociétés développées en compétition
avec ceux des pays les plus pauvres du monde, a amené des
changements radicaux.
Je ne vais pas m'avancer plus loin sur ce terrain, qui
est, je
m'en rends bien compte, extrêmement complexe?; je me
contenterai de citer l'économiste classique David Ricardo et sa
«?loi d'airain
des salaires?», qui veut que lorsqu'il existe une
compétition salariale et que
les ressources humaines sont illimitées, les salaires baissent
à un niveau
situé juste au dessus de la simple survie. Jamais auparavant les
ressources
humaines n'avaient été en quantité
illimitée. Elles le sont désormais grâce à
la mondialisation - et ce n'est qu'un début.
Il
me semble que ces troubles sociaux en Europe soulignent
l'incompréhension dont
font preuve les politiques et les chefs d'entreprise face aux
conséquences
humaines d'un capitalisme qui considère les travailleurs comme
une matière
première et qui élargit au monde entier la concurrence
des prix de cette
matière première. Dans une perspective à plus long
terme, les conséquences
politiques de cet état de faits iront peut-être plus
loin que ne le soupçonnent les étudiants français,
pourtant politisés. Leur
prise de position qui peut sembler rétrograde ou même luddiste?[ 2]
pourrait s'avérer prophétique.
William Pfaff
----------------------------------------------------
Version
originale en anglais
Capitalism under fire
by William Pfaff
THURSDAY, MARCH 30,
2006
PARIS
The
demonstrations by French students, workers and would- be workers, with
unions
and the French left riding on their bandwagon, have amounted to a
spontaneous
revolt in France against something that I suspect few of the
participants fully
appreciate.
The
protests'
ostensible purpose is to force withdrawal of a minor change in this
French
government's employment policy, but they have taken on a radically
different
significance.
The
crowds in the
street contest a certain form of capitalist economy that a large part,
if not the
majority, of French society regards as a danger to national standards
of
justice and, above all, to "equality" - that radical notion of which
France is nearly alone in proclaiming as a national cause, the central
value in
its republican motto of "liberty, equality, fraternity."
Prime
Minister
Dominique de Villepin undoubtedly had
little notion
of the consequences when he launched what seemed to him a small but
constructive employment initiative, intended to loosen current
structural
inhibitions to job-creation.
He
inadvertently
opened what many of the French see as a central question to their
national
future, just as two years ago they saw in the European constitutional
referendum disturbing questions about the future nature of the European
Union
and about the model of capitalism that would prevail in
Europe
's future.
They
are not
alone in this concern. A kindred debate about "models" of capitalism
has been a persistent factor in
Germany
,
now suffering labor unrest, and in the
European
Commission itself, which since EU expansion to 25 members, has tipped
away from
the traditional European "social" model. Even in
Britain
last Tuesday there was the biggest strike since the 1920s, on the
question of
pensions.
The
French, of
course, have been against "capitalisme sauvage" ever since that rough beast loomed amid
the
satanic mills of
Britain
in the 19th century, subsequently making its trans-Atlantic journey to
establish another lair.
A
recent
international opinion poll on the free-enterprise and free-market
system, found
that 74 percent of the Chinese say they think it the best system of
all,
compared to only 36 percent of the French. (The Germans were not far
off the
French.)
The
essential
question is, what capitalism are we talking
about?
Since the 1970s, two fundamental changes have been made in the leading
(American) model of capitalism.
The
first is that
the "stakeholder," post-New Deal reformed version of capitalism (in
America
)
that prevailed in the West after World War II was replaced by a new
model of
corporate purpose and responsibility.
The
earlier model
said that corporations had a duty to ensure the well- being of
employees, and
an obligation to the community (chiefly but not exclusively fulfilled
through corporate
tax payments).
That
model has
been replaced by one in which corporation managers are responsible for
creating
short-term "value" for owners, as measured by stock valuation and
quarterly dividends.
The
practical
result has been constant pressure to reduce wages and worker benefits
(leading
in some cases to theft of pensions and other crimes), and political
lobbying
and public persuasion to lower the corporate tax contribution to
government
finance and the public interest.
In
short, the
system in the advanced countries has been rejigged since the 1960s to take wealth from workers, and from the funding of
government, and transfer it to stockholders and corporate executives.
While
that may
seem an incendiary comment, it seems to me a simple factual
observation. The
criticism currently made of Europeans who resist "reform" is that
their policies block managers from downsizing and outsourcing jobs, in
order to
add "value" to the corporation. (A recent headline in the International
Herald Tribune read: "AT&T- BellSouth deal gets
Wall St.
applause. Merger would lead to 10,000 job cuts.")
I
once called this "CEO capitalism," since corporate chiefs today
effectively control their boards of directors and are also the biggest
benefactors of the system, subject only to critical attention from
investment-fund managers, themselves interested in maximizing
dividends, not in
defending workers or the public interest. (The well-known American fund
manager, John Bogle, now retired, has
taken up my
argument and advances it in his recent book, "The Battle for the Soul
of
Capitalism.")
The
second change
that has taken place is globalization. The crucial effect of this for
society
in the advanced countries is that it puts labor into
competition with the poorest countries on earth.
We
need go no
further with what I realize is a very complex matter, other than to
note the
classical economist David Ricardo's "iron law of wages," which says
that in conditions of wage competition and unlimited labor supply, wages will fall to just above subsistence.
There
never
before has been unlimited labor. There is
now, thanks
to globalization - and the process has only begun.
It
seems to me
that this European unrest signals a serious gap in political and
corporate
understanding of the human consequences of a capitalist model that
considers labor a commodity and extends
price competition for that
commodity to the entire world.
In
the longer term, there may be more serious political implications in
this than
even
France
's
politicized students suspect. What seems the reactionary or even Luddite position might prove prophetic.
And here are some more English
language sources on
the Student Movement in
France
:
http://libcom.org/blog/68-french-universities-on-strike/04/02/2006
http://legalsoapbox.freeadvice.com/c16270_What_The_French_Job_Riots_Mean_to_America.htm
http://www.dawn.com/2006/03/24/int8.htm
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1734333,00.html
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=8483
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9942
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/world/topics/workersmovements/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502178_pf.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,1747053,00.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-france5apr05,0,7453068.story?coll=la-headlines-world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4877892.stm
*********************
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Université de Grenoble-3
Grenoble
,
France
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/