Wheat is the new gold. As poor countries brace for shortages, it’s boom time for Kansas farmers. “It feels like Christmas in August,” admitted Darrell Hanavan, of the Colorado Wheat Administrative Committee, noting that the harvest just completed in his state seems to have been the most bountiful for 25 years. The dollar value for the crop is almost sure to set a record. The US Department of Agriculture expects US exports to surge by 36 per cent this year. The futures prices of wheat on the Chicago commodities exchanges are spiking at heights that even a few weeks...
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In 1648 the first modern diplomatic congress established a new political order in Europe, based for the first time on the principle of “national sovereignty.” This principle drew a sharp dividing line between foreign and domestic affairs. Each “national sovereign” was given free rein within the internationally recognized borders of his state. No outsider had any right to interfere. Recognized borders were inviolable. The “sovereign” was originally simply a prince; later the term was applied to any effective government. National sovereignty facilitated the undisturbed development of separate national capitalisms – British, French, German, American, and so on. Interstate boundaries...
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After decades of uneasy existence as part of Serbia the newly independent state of Kosovo has emerged with its inevitable new anthem and new flag. But there are real political concerns best not forgotten in the ballyhoo and hopes for a brighter future. One man interviewed by the BBC’s Mark Madell described how during the war he fled his village with many relatives under attack by Serbian troops. He had to leave his aunt behind and she was burnt to death. He said: “Kosovo is rich in minerals and rich in farming land, is rich in all other aspects....
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Further to our previous posting , this is a follow up on-the-spot analysis of the Chinese effect on the Zambian working class by an African socialist . The recent visit by the Chinese president Hu Jintao was hailed as a great economic milestone in the New Deal administration of MMD (Movement for Multiparty Democracy) president Levy Mwanawasa. Toying with Marxist revolutionary political ideology is now a thing of the past in Africa—ever since the dawn of political pluralism and economic liberalism. Thus the phrase Chinese neo-colonialism may seem like a contradiction in terms in the sense that bilateral trade...
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Recent events on the world stage, not least the latest meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations, seem to suggest that the noose is fast tightening around the neck of world capitalism. The vociferous pronouncements of the “Green” parties and groups, the massive demonstrations against the wars in the Middle East, the pitched battles between protesters and security forces at the meeting grounds of the G8 summits and World Trade Organization gatherings, and the latest bold attacks on George Bush, the chief representative of the international capitalist clique by his fellow national presidents, point to what appears...
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Saturday in Argentina marked the end of the two-day FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) summit. The summit ended with the leaders of 34 nations unable to agree on when to restart talks that will create a trade zone from Alaska to Chile. While supporters for the “free” trade zone think it will create more jobs for Latin Americans and open up new markets in the US, the proponents of the FTAA think that it will only serve enslave Latin Americans. While the leaders of the 38 countries sat at their summit and argued over the pros and...
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From the Western Socialist, #1, 1968 From mythological archives comes the legend of the phoenix, a bird of rare and unseemly attainments. After a lengthy and variegated existence, a pervasive act of its own volition caused it to be consumed in fire, and eventually to rise in callow newness from its ashes. Modern Japan has a close affinity with that fabulous bird. Playing a reckless role in the attack on Pearl Harbor, it suffered in consequence the fiery ordeal at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and then, in rapid strides proceeded to rise from apparent disaster to take its place among...
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The Road to Serfdom. By Friedrich A. Hayek, University of Chicago Press, 1944 (250 pp.; $2.75). Full Employment in a Free Society. By William H. Beveridge. W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1945. (429pp; $3,75). Both these books are dedicated to the “socialists of all parties.” Hayek wants to discourage them, Beveridge tries to offer encouragement. Both writers speak in the name of science and deal with the reality of, and the need for, capitalistic planning. But what appears to Hayek as the road to serfdom seems to Beveridge the highway to a free society. Russia and Germany...
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