Category Archives: Global Labor

The Greek Tsunami?

imagesWith a tsunami its not the first wave that counts, it’s when the water recedes and then ever so slowly a second wave approaches that the alarm bell should sound. It looks like it’s a small inconsequential shift in the tides, but then the water rushes towards the beach and all is lost.

That’s one reason to keep a close eye on the Greek events. Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Greece are all thought to have unsustainable debt levels leading to the need to impose austerity that in turn is feared will trigger social unrest.

A flight to safety causes the dollar to increase in value and undercuts the US recovery.

We are not out of this financial crisis by a long shot.

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism points to the role of the investment bank everyone loves to hate in covering up the mess that was building up.

Goldman Helped Greece Disguise Deficit « naked capitalism.

Corporate speech and democracy

My colleague David Yosifon has an excellent Op-ed piece in the SF Chronicle today making the point that in the wake of the Citizens United US Supreme Court decision that corporations enjoy free speech rights these corporations have increased responsibility to insure that their speech reflects democratic input from all of their constituencies, including employees and shareholders.

I like his analysis because it gets beyond the idea of many on the left that somehow it is just plain wrong to allow corporations, which include unions many of which are organized as non profit corporations, free speech rights. Of course corporate personality has long been well established in American law all the way back to a case from Santa Clara County, in fact, dealing with the umbrella of equal protection spreading to corporations as “legal persons.”

The bottom line is that we live in society not just as individuals but through institutions, including unions, corporations, political parties. The goal should be to democratize fully those institutions rather than curtailing their ability to speak for us in the name of a utopian “individualism.”

As the Court itself held: “Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy—it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people—political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence.”

“Progressive” Economist Excuses Mass Murder, Again

A few years ago Cal State Chico “Marxist” economist Michael Perelman argued with me on his “Progressive Economists Network” that the Cambodian genocide, if it really happened at all, was really a side effect of the otherwise justifiable attempt by the Khmer Rouge to feed starving Cambodians.

He is at again – this time arguing the Rwandan genocide was really just a side effect of a civil war.  The real story can be found in the reports of Human Rights Watch as developed by the heroic Alison des Forges, who is nearly slandered by the specious article provided by Perelman.

What seems to stymie Perelman, like others of his political cohort like Mike Klonsky and Bill Ayers, is the naive notion that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Thus, any regime, whether that of Chavez in Venezuela, Ahmadenijad in Iran, Ortega in Nicaragua, or Hu Jintao in China, however brutal and authoritarian, is to be excused or defended as long as they indicate they are in opposition to US foreign policy.

The tougher job of establishing an independent and democratic foreign policy for the United States is ignored. Whether they know it or not, Perelman, Ayers, Klonsky, et al, are the flip side of the “new realism” that is in such fashion among certain human rights activists. These people argue that the US government can make genuine support for human rights an integral part of US foreign policy. Tell that to the Dalai Lama. My critique of that position can be found here.

In an era when Chavez admirer and stalinoid education professor Bill Ayers can be a guest at numerous college campuses perhaps it is not a surprise that Perelman is being “honored” by his campus, Cal State Chico, next month.

PEN-L: Rwanda: The Case for Humanitarian Intervention.

20 Years After the Wall Fell

009_berlin_wall_openThe Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago so today is as good a day as any to announce the publication of my new book, From “Che” to China: Labor and Authoritarianism in the New Global Economy.

Here is the back cover blurb:

From ‘Che’ to China: Labor and Authoritarianism in the New Global Economy argues that globalization is not a progressive force that is giving rise to a new democratic capitalism. In fact, authoritarianism, in part influenced by neo-stalinist regimes and their intellectual architects such as ‘Che’ Guevara, remains an important political force and the new global capitalism itself is contributing to its persistence. In particular, the labor organization is now seen by authoritarian regimes as a source of power and control over the general population. To realize the democratic potential in the globalization process, a new autonomous labor movement responsible to its rank and file members must emerge. This requires an intellectual break with the consensus view that capitalism can safely accommodate healthy trade unions in a stable world order.

As I argue in the book, formal stalinism has disappeared but it is being replaced by what I call “neo-Stalinism” as well as authoritarian forms of capitalism.

Some news on the academic front

images4I don’t talk too much here about my academic work but I do get asked about it from time to time so I thought I would update King Harvest readers. My general interest is in the impact of globalization on political and financial institutions. I am generally of the view that globalization is a very much more problematic process than is widely believed. I am also working closely with Jennifer Kuan at Stanford’s Institute of Economic Policy Research on institutional structures in our financial markets

First off, I have just put the finishing touches on a book, From Che to China: Labor and Authoritarianism in the New Global Economy. It will be issued by Vandeplas Publishing, an independent legal publisher, in the next month or so.  It argues that the decline in industrial relations institutions such as collective bargaining in the advanced economies emerges just as globalization is posing critical questions of industrial relations in many new parts of the world such as Asia and eastern Europe. Unfortunately, authoritarian forms of labor organization are now being seen increasingly rather than support for the traditional democratic trade union.  The book examines the question from several different angles and includes case studies as well as theoretical analysis.  And I also attempt to point to alternative approaches for labor organizations.  As soon as its up on Amazon I will let people know. Meanwhile you can read the chapter on Che Guevara here.

My work with Jennifer Kuan is progressing very nicely. We argue that the privatization of the NYSE through its 2006 IPO was actually damaging to the capital markets. The Old NYSE was actually a kind of socialistic entity – a mutual benefit corporation owned and governed by its members. That actually led to good things (for capitalism of course) and was quite stable. We made a preliminary argument in a law journal article we published in the Spring 2007 issue of the Duquesne Business Law Journal.  You can find a working paper version here.

Now we have actual data and have been presenting it at various conferences, including the ISNIE meetings at UC Berkeley and a conference sponsored by the Sloan Foundation in Chicago.  We presented a revised version again at IOFest at Berkeley a few days ago. We should have it in working paper shape soon and will post it to SSRN.  My SSRN page is here.

I have just recently finished another paper called Beyond Berle and Means: Private Equity and the New Capitalist Order which will appear as a book chapter in a collection called The Embedded Firm edited by Peer Zumbansen of York’s Osgoode Hall and Cynthia Williams of the University of Illinois (who just finished a two year visit at Osgoode).  A major British academic press is thought to be our publisher if all goes well.  The book grew out of one of the best conferences I have attended recently organized by Osgoode in February of 2008 (maybe it was great because I found out while I was up there that my wife was pregnant with our first child!).  I also presented the paper this summer in Paris at the SASE meetings (that’s Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics).  That was also a great event and our panel was very lively. An early version of the paper can be found here. A shorter and livelier version was published by Dissent magazine as well for whom I write occasionally. That piece led to some interesting reactions from European labor folks, some liked it while others were upset at my concern about what I called the “populist” nature of their attack on private equity.

Another project is a book on the Equal Rights Amendment just in the final stages and to be issued by an independent press called the Center for Socialist History in Berkeley. I co-authored that with the late Hal Draper – an earlier version was finished but never published. In light of the very wide gulf today between arguments about gender and class today I think it will make a very useful contribution to the debate.

That’s it for now. Feel free to visit my law school home page for occasional updates and of course I will report on significant items here from time to time.

My Op-ed on AFL-CIO President Trumka

The McClatchy Newspapers have picked up my op-ed on Richard Trumka, the new AFL-CIO President.  So far it’s run in the Providence (RI) Journal, Buffalo News, Sacramento Bee, the Pittsburgh Tribune and the Bellingham (WA) HeraldAFL CIO.

Here is the introduction:

America’s leading union federation, the AFL-CIO, just elevated longtime Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka to its presidency, replacing the plodding 75-year-old John Sweeney and providing hope that organized labor will finally get the breath of fresh air it has needed for many years.

To reverse labor’s slow descent into irrelevance will require a bold shift by Trumka, ironically perhaps, back to trade unionism’s first principles, including advocacy of “bread and butter” improvements in pay and working conditions and support for workers abroad.

Once before in its long history, American labor found itself socially isolated, facing intransigent employers, feckless politicians and a challenging combination of rapid technological change and a multi-ethnic immigrant workforce.

You can read the rest here.