occupational choices, networks, and transfers, arup mitra

(11): behaving in most rational way

(19): imp-- Harris-Todaro (rural poor will migrate) vs. Banerjee (m-class will migrate, b/c need resources for the move). Mitra's argument: from rural non-farm sector both the poor and middle-class migrate to urban areas.

(20): the semi-urban area

(21): declining land-man ratio pushes labour out

(21): industrial workers live in slums, too

(23): the push factor is very strong -- informal sector looks attractive, even when bad, b/c prospects in rural areas are worse

(24): strong preference to reside near work place in slum

(24): int--heavy dependence on kin/ethnic networks, to get job [implications for resistance? substantively different from other periods, strata?] here argument is yes--slum residents especially anxious to anchor themselves in the 'known'

(26, 79): consumption 'bias' against housing [silly to see this as anything but the effect of extreme poverty]

(27): supply of housing not kept pace

(28, 107-109): silly-- remit wages in order to keep kith and kin from entering the urban workforce [bizarre. and actually offers no evidence in the book. quite silly--classic prisoner's dilemma problem, this is, resolved in opposite direction]

(36): search for jobs is more urban-based, takes place once in city. for new migrants, job-search is conducted through networks

(38): against the 'overbunization' thesis--informal sector jobs as 'pull factors' [but push-pull are defined in relative terms. these are still terrible. people are being 'pushed out', in that sense]

(46): access to manufacturing jobs becomes available after a few years, when migrants develop their own access to information

(56, 139): imp-- longer-duration migrants are less likely to be in casual employment [but here there is the larger issue, with longitudinal conclusions--how do we know that everything about the waves of migration will be the same? the observations are not 'independent', in that sense, when extrapolating. you could well be measuring a different 'wave' wrt to ethnicity, something like that. the larger problem with 'mobility' framing is that, unless the job structure is changing or productivity increasing (for which no evidence is offered), mobility solves none of our problems]

(62): imp-- regular employment is more stable, but middling wages--self-employment is unstable, but yields higher earnings [not best interpreted as higher levels of stratification in the latter viz-a-viz the former]

(63): physical segmentation of the labour market

(65): imp--migration is rational, based on expectation of 'upward income mobility'. reduction of intensity of poverty [(1) clearly it would be rational even without expectation of upward mobility, given intensity of poverty in countryside; (2) no evidence of upward mobility in the data, really--since not clear what 'past' income refers to]

(67): int--relation of industry to informal sector can vary. on the one-hand, inverse model, where industry cuts workers, and they go to informal sector. on the other hand, proportional, where industry generates linkages that are served by informal sector.

(69): some support for idea that workers move from casual/informal to salaried employmemt

(72): kin/ethnic networks, again

(76-77): imp--evidence for upward mobility. [needs scrutiny--controlled for inflation? how long ago is "past"?]

(115): in sum--remittances sent w/ strong sense of reciprocation, capability of remitter, education, instability. household size hurts remittances.

(118): many reasons to stay at home (security of home, household responsibilites) for women, which is why they put a special premium on working close to home

(121): no occupational mobility in other studies [and given the problems in this study...]

(123): women more likely to work, after lived in city for a while

(128): confusion re: per capita consumption and salary

----

[1] implication for politics of this kind of migration. especially desperate --> especially tribal/clannish politics? as 'vote bank'?

[2] low-productivity and high-productivity = informal and formal. they seem synonymous, in this survey, but is there any reason that this is necessarily the case?

chile the great transformation

(2): fallacies

1. not due to dictatorial nature of Pinochet regime
2. return to democracy took mass protest, not thanks to economic growth
3. nationalization+state intervention were not obstacles to neoliberalism, but made it possible (redirection rather than reversal)
4. capitalist revolution, but not a bourgeois revolution (not a civic rebellion)--State 'gave birth' to civil society

(14): with Chile coup, 7 out of 11 countries in LA were under military governments

(17): weakness of social movements after Pinochet takeover, due to extreme repression

(18): 1983-1984 as turning points

(21): why protest began? [not insignificantly unconvincing, here]

(23): two trade union movements -- the radcial, and the more professional/strategic (copper workers, etc.)

(30): structural handicap in first part of dictatorship, where smaller portion of w-class formally employed, etc.

(32-33): imp--splits in middle-class because of the memory of Allende, when agitation got underway. no organization, point of unity amongst protestors

(35): from 'lions to foxes'

(36): communists, from broad front to popular rebellion (by 1979-1983)

(37): socialists became much more moderate/tamed

(39): mobilization for 'no' vote, 1988

(43): the 'underdevelopment of civil society'

(44): imp--neoliberal reforms mostly imposed by technocratic elites, supported by business [hmm]

(45): imp--State's autonomy was made possible by Allende reforms, since they weakened the power of the national business class (distinct from Uruguay and Argentina) [almost opposite the argument of the other reading!?]

(47-48): two periods [rather than three] -- (1) '73-'83 (reduction of tarriffs, end of state controls, privatizations); (2) '83-'90 (began with external debt crisis, etc.)

(48): gov't had to 'get prices wrong' in second period, to recover from the first

(50): good table of principal neoliberal reforms, and how they changed period to period

1. foreign trade
2. prices
3. privatization
4. fiscal policy
5. internal credit
6. external debt
7. labour markets
8. land market
9. social security

(53): Chile had comparative advantage of its resource endowments--so neoliberalism would result in export-economy based on this sector

(55): state socialized losses after the debt crisis, of course. neoliberalism in practice

(58): imp--the 'opening up' in late 70s was accompanied by very little productive investment--most went into consumpiton, etc.

(62): LR redistributed 60% of arable land

(64): reform of pension funds was attempt to liberate funds for accumulation

(65-67): the neoliberal state--highly interventionist in Chile, five features

(73): four forms of resource transfer

1. from State to large capital
2. from wages to profits
3. towards export sector
4. destruction of natural resources

(78): Allende couldn't retain support of small and medium companies, because of policy over labour. worker conflict over wages affected them adversely.

(80): int--the anti-Allende coalition was not motivated by a positive vision; held together by 'socialist threat' [some evidence for this in the other reading, but more a question, there, of competing positive visions rather than all negative]

(81): key--autonomy permits something grater than state 'reaction'--it permits capitalist revolution [this is key contrast to other reading]

(83-84): very odd claim -- C. boys appeal rooted in their creating something 'new', 'universalist' appeal

(85): need autonomy from the political right

(86): key--very different explanation of how 74-75 crisis mattered. here it weakens business, bringing technocrats to the front [in other reading, the mechanism is liquidity overseas]

(87): again--a technocratic elite 'autonomous from immediate class considerations'

(88-89): imp-- newcomers take commanding heights -- a new class being constituted by the policy shift

(94): technocratic elites' task made possible by total power being in Pinochet's hands

(95): imp--after '82, call to temper ideological policy. business coming back into picture [BUT when they come back in, in this story, they are a largely undifferentiated class]

(97): here you get an 'active' State, in the service of a 'pragmatic neoliberalism', but willing to 'get prices wrong' to serve business

(98): in sum--State autonomy explains 'radical transformation'

(99-100): again, story of political elite being outmanuevered by Pinochet and the technocrats in this exceptional period

(105): a new working class is born, of a different composition than the old one

(111-115): int. reflections on the informal sector

(121): creation of reserve army in late 70s--w/ unemployment, and whatnot

(124): capitalist recovery took place w/ heightened levels of inequality

(127): 'precarity' was not backward, but emphatically 'present'

(130): a 'weak' sense of continuity, across the two periods [what's the point of this? v. odd]

(132): nationalization was a clear prelude to 'successful' neoliberalism

(134): three points, critical

1. Allende weakened business class, which was critical to implementation of neoliberalism [in the other story, they are weakened more as a result of labor withdrawal, and international changes]
2. w/o copper nationalization, not possible to avoid fiscal crisis
3. extensive agrarian reform was critical to modernization of agriculture

(138): neoliberalism destroying its grave-digger in the 1980s (unions and left-wing parties)

--

[1] contrast w/ other reading, particularly the neoliberal period (different mechanisms are diong the explaining--in one, autonomy; in other, power of 'radical internationalists')

[2] this one is, of course, compatible with relative autonomy of State--it is just that the State is being brought to heel after 8-10 years of experimentation. whereas in the other the State depends upon the power of a new coalition.

[3] weakening of business class important to explaining neoliberal period? why weakened, in both accounts different story

[4] lessons for generalizing to other experiences (of course no a priori reason that this should be straightforward), given (1) claim of enabling (exceptional) autonomy; (2) land reform/nationalizations, etc.

capitalist coalitions, the state, and neoliberal economic restructuring

(526): state autonomy insufficient

(528): imp--ISI had created coalitions favoring (1) protection; (2) sectoral policies that shifted resources to industry (away from agriculture, trade(?), and finance). earlier argument was that State autonomy was important in repressing this segment; didn't think about the sectors of capital that would be interested in liberalization...

(529): FN--always the possibility of responding to the crisis by 'deepening' industrialization, as the BA regimes in Brazil and Argentina did in the 1960s

(530, 534): pace Haggard, authoritarian regimes have only large-scale capitalists/landowners affecting policy (small-scale are sidelined)

(531): pace Frieden, what matters is whether firms have liquid assets, or fixed assets. former favour market-oriented (banking, real estate, trade), latter favour sectoral (industrialists, landowners)

(532): pace Gourevitch, international- vs domestic- producers. uncompetitive domestic producers should favour protection; all others should favour liberalization.

(531): FN--thus attempting to disaggregate the 'dominant class' much more thoroughly than is typically done by Marxists

(535-): three periods

1. 1973-1975, gradual neoliberalism -- UP had split the ISI coalition, by polarizing things on class lines. gradualist coalition composition (pg. 536); labour's gone, which decreases protectionist coalition's leverage (pg. 537); diversified interests eased burden of adjustment for old protectionist coalition (pg. 538) [implications?]
2. 1975-1982, radical neoliberalism -- (1) radical deflation, and (2) reduction in protections. the power of this radical internationlist coalition was increased by (1) increasing role of private commercial banks, and (2) international liquidity, but also (3) weakness of other firms due to recession, privatizations, etc.
3. 1983-1988, pragmatic neoliberalism -- external economic shock was main catalyst, as well as intense business pressure after the debt crisis (pg. 548-550). commitment to radical neolibearlism had been thing. also the protests that were starting in '83-84 proved important.

(543): int point about accomodation between elites--gradualist coalition evidence of elite willingness to settle differences, to which underdevelopment has been attributed. bourgeoisie unwilling to play historic role. but then we got neoliberalism!

(546): between '74 and '78 Pinochet star rising, as well

(546): C. Boys were more than just technocrats

(547): Pinochet needed radical internationalists--why, exactly?

(550): recovery program--high exchange rates, some protection, reflationary monetary policy, low interest rates, debt relief, sectoral policies, etc.

(556): int. claim that States become more attentive to demands of factions, because neoliberalism gives capitalists control over investment [not sure if this is superior way to frame arg]

(556-557): argument summary

(558): Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay had less support from capitalist elites, so less 'success' in restructuring?

----

[1] int contrast to the fact that, in general, ISI was given its last legs by liquidity boom. here it is neoliberalism that becomes particularly radical as a result of liquidity boom (because previous alignments have already taken place)

rick fantasia, cultures of solidarity (1988)

- - - -

[1] ambiguity: the importance of the instances of 'cultures of solidarity' being chronicled, in the book.

(A) on the one hand, Fantasia is right to refute the argument that all Americans are entirely self-interested, and have no stake in the labour movement/unions. there isn't a lack of 'traditions of solidarity', i think we can agree with him--'solidarity' is very clearly prevalent in d-to-day existence, as practice, even in a weak labour movement (pg. 14)

all this is fine. together with the argument against survey/one-dimensional measurement of class consciousness (pg. 5, 6), that is the book's principal aim, and he carries it off well enough.

but let's be clearer than he is, also, that there are serious problems with setting this low a bar. because there is something very rotten about the American labour movement, when--instead of comparing it to (a) totally self-interested workers, you compare it to (b) other labour movements; (c) itself in the 30s (pg. 4); (d) where we would like it to be

he's alive to this, in the conclusion, and he says some general things in this regard. but it's not central to his case studies. the narrative, there, is always developed against the silly position that american workers are always selfish--he finds moments of solidarity and we're supposed to rejoice/say eureka--rather than in light of the conviction that there's something seriously wrong.

[(B) he pooh-poohs 'trade-union consciounsess'/class consciousness distinction, but it's not clear why. there is a real reason to be very critical of simply trade-union consciousness. he himself notes the limits of that understanding, in the course of his book]

[2] what this leads to is the more important, central problem with the book--the narratives he's giving us have nothing to offer, really, in the way of analytical or explanatory insight. the question that he's trying to answer is just not clear, at all; there's no real argument.

his task, as he understands it, is to look at how collective solidarity emerges--as 'praxis', rather than as a attitude/belief-system, what have you. that's fine, but it doesn't go very far at all. and it becomes quite tedious/unenlightening to read.

we really want, I would suggest, is some account of why movements emerge when and how they do. to the extent that he gives us an answer to this in his case studies, it's a very weak one--we get a story about individual triggers/contingency (pp. 234-235--'collective action was 'complex set of interactions...'; pg. 99--'spatial positioning' of workers re: foreman.) (there's also the argument that collective action begets more solidarity--but it would be difficult to make this into a coherent argument about larger shifts in the strength of labour. you just push the question back)

it may be that, partly, the things he's trying to explain are so insignificant/'small' (tens of workers on a wildcat for a few hours!?) that 'contingent'/trigger explanations are in fact sufficient, for them.

but then of course in that case we can't extrapolate, scale up, which is fatal. (unless we somehow believe that more significant waves of labour unrest are also 'contingent',) we can't really say anything about what we're really interested in-- emergence of social movements, etc.

it's also, however, a function of the fact that he just doesn't ask the question.

for that, I think you'll have to take seriously things that he, to his credit, hints at in his book (pg. 119, plant leaving--. there's a structural context for many of the things that triggered what he's noting in the book, in the 70s, when firms across the country were faced with profitability pressures, etc, and so resorted to strategies for ramping up productivity that provoked the kind of backlash we see bits and pieces of, here (pg. 123-124--mechanization, de-skilling at hospital). there's a whole book making this argument, of course. this is the direction we ought to be heading.

[3] the other 'big' question that this book raises, which I already mentioned, is the question of the 'exceptional' weakness of the American labour movement. to the extent that he's committed to an explanation, it's institutional (pg. 227--'structures of industrial relations' vs. Italy)--'Taft-Hartley' is responsible for the exceptional weakness of the American labour movement.

there's certainly something to this, but I would have liked much more, here. he's stressing the institutional facts partly because of his larger argument that 'cultures of solidarity' develop in context, and the context is 'business unionism'.

but the larger argument, if we step back from his aims, is a bit too path-dependent. as he himself notes in his conclusion, there are reasons to doubt that labour only operates within the institutional constraints set by the time--the 30s were not like that. why is it that labour can't find the strength to ignore Taft-Hartley? surely other factors matter, as well. historical-structural factors; political-strategic factors. [balance of 'class forces' vs. his slight voluntarism pg. 167]

[4] attack on rationality is misplaced -- 'feelings' are important, but 'feelings' are constructed on real ground; i.e., you won't be able to sustain optimism if the grounds for it don't exist.

[5] is micro-level assessment just off-limits? no, I don't think so--it's more the way he goes about trying to understand it. there are structural ways to do this, that would shed insight on larger cases.

globalization, social conflict, and economic growth, dani rodrik (1997)

(3, 5-6): in short-- LA vs. E. Asia is not an issue of State interventionism, ISI, what have you--it's a feature of how they deal with turbulence they confront, which is an issue of trade strategy/industrial policy. it's a question of how well you can adjust fiscal/monetary policy

(8): imp--adjustment will be easier where you have institutions of conflict management and smaller social cleavages.

(11): not whether you globalize, but how you globalize

-----

1. fiscal/monetary policy? not underlying competitiveness? export performance? again, this seems to be marred by the same assumptions as Sachs. it's plausible that devaluation will help, i guess, but it can't substitute for success in becoming internationally competitive, surely.

reviving the developmental state? myth of national bourgeoisie, vivek chibber

(227): three Marxist expectations for national bourgeoisie, which have been called into question

1. expand capitalist relations
2. abolish pre-capitalist relations (anti-feudal, etc.)
3. natural interest in opposing imperialism

(228): assumption that national bourgeoisie is natural force for development needs to be challenged

(230): n. bourgeoisie has been an obstacle to State capacity, which is what was needed for successful development

(237): actual power of State in State-led development was weak

(238) twin problems

1. fiscal drain--slack taken up by public sector, subsidies to inefficient private sector, etc.
2. external account drain--import of capital goods, failure of export-promotion programs (due to resistance from firms)

(241): key point--late-late development was very different form late development, in the role that the State would have to play (more than subsidization/protection, due to comparative severity of backwardness). this is one reason Marxists had trouble understanding.

(242): second reason: Theory of the State issue, as well--instrumentalists understood State entirely in service of capitalist class. but if you allow some independence, it becomes easier to understand the conflict between capitalists and the State. [hmm]

(244): remember, ISI was a massive transfer of resources to capitalists.

(244): co-option and repression lf labour--too often labour was complicit (you mean labour bureaucracy)

-----

1. small number of producers not sufficient to generate competition [same question as last week, which was well-answered: (1) don't want to waste resources; (2) mkt not big enough]

2. th. of the State point. really?

sunkel and griffith-jones, debt and development crisis in latin america

(31): US vs. Keynes at Bretton Woods -- ultimately former won out, which significantly reduced the scope of the international institutions that emerged

(32): 'conditionality' was part of US proposal

(33): ended up too small--only made a marginal contribution to funding of deficit countries

(34): ideally, would aid country w/ deficits

(35): Prebisch agreed that a transfer of financial resources to a country could help it, provided certain conditions were met

(36): imp--other agents stepped into the space not taken up by the IFIs. in 50s, foreign investors. in 60s, aid agencies. and in 70s, multinational banks.

(37): these flows in the 70s were themselves financed by massive influx of dollars into the US, of course

(37-38, see also 65): key--these private financial flows were very fickle, and always pro-cyclical -- dependent entirely on whether they saw a profit, or not (interest rates were also floating, which exacerbated the problems). this is in contrast, of course, to the way in which and reasons for which resources could have flown in, had the international system been better regulated/planned.

(39): convertibility to gold should have kept the holder of the reserve currency (i.e., the US) honest, since not maintaining a satisfactory payments position would cause a 'run on the dollar' (as it did during the Vietnam War--but then US got rid of the g. standard, of course)

(41): weakness of SDR--didn't become a substitute for gold and foreign exchange, but more of an afterthought

(42-43): with end of convertibility in 1970s, reserves skyrocketed.

(43): liquidity in 70s boomed. and, importantly, became a function of the market.

(45): Bretton Woods institutions, at their birth, reflected the dissatisfaction with laissez-faire after the G. Depression

(48): over post-war period, US foreign investment going more and more to 'developed countries', after being 50-50 after WWII

(49): in 60s, net transfer of 5.7 billion dollars out of LA

(50): Alliance for Progress as clear response to Cuban Revolution

(53,55): net flows during Alliance for Progress are in direction away from LA (private outflows exceed official inflows). despite this--in sum--it partly compensated these countries, in sharp contrast to the impact of private inflows in the 70s.

(58): after laissez-faire, there was protectionism at the periphery and at the center, remember

(61-62): financing to LA in 70s became much more private, multinational bank-centered, oligopolized. key--loans were taken to cover deficits, which were the result of the 'exhaustion of the ISI model', plus the jump in import prices.

(62): the petrodollars were recycled, not through a responsible international agency, but through these multinational banks

(62): IMF didn't help with this very much, at all. about 3.1 percent of CA deficit covered by them.

(65): critical--these private inflows were a colossal waste of resources, since they came in and were spent without a plan. a great increase in luxury consumption, armaments, and flight of capital.

(66-67): interesting story about the transition to less State intervention, in which all major actors seem involved [but the story is underdeveloped]

(71, 73): growth of Euro-currency market, from which Mexico and Brazil borrowed especially (but this is more than petro-dollar recycling, we're being reminded--the mkt starts in the mid-1960s). 50% of loans made, in late 1970s, were made to developing countries.

(73-75): imp--growth in lending driven, principally, by competition between multinational banks; not as much by changes in countries themselves (notes a few: expanded public investment, stagnation in official development assistance, loans w/ few strings viz-a-viz official assistance). borrower bore more risk, though

(77): by late-70s, burden is enormous (table)

(78): variable interest rates hurt LDCs severely--eventually, most borrowing was going toward paying off old debt

----------

1. causal story re: increase in 70s liquidity. ending of covertibility?

2. supporting agriculture at the center, after WWII? why, whom? (p. 58)

3. better developing the story told on pp. 66-67, about the transition to neoliberalism. surely there were major actors opposed, as well? (this relates to the 'discrediting' point, in Vivek--this can be an excuse that facilitates transition, but there have to be concrete interests behind the transition, as well)

4. birth of Euro-Dollar mkt in response to loopholes in regulations? larger shifts in economy? what's the best story, here? (not petro-dollars, I think that's quite right)