ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Ravi Arvind PalatSubscribe to Ravi Arvind Palat

Egypt: Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Heaping irony upon irony, three weeks after protesters cheered the military for ousting Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi, the new strongman, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called on people to take to the streets in a show of support for him to defeat “violence and potential terrorism”.

Flailing Eagle, Crouching Tigers

The combination of 'runaway shops', the low rate of domestic savings in the US, tax cuts, and the spectacular increase in military spending, has led to an explosion of both the US budget deficit and its current account deficit. These deficits have been sustained largely by the repatriation of savings and export earnings of east Asian economies - the Asian 'tigers'. However, greater regional integration in east and south-east Asia and the growth of consumption is likely to lead to a significant decline in the cash inflows that would fundamentally undermine the material foundations of American dominance. If US actions aggravated the impact of the 1997-98 economic crisis and led to greater cooperation among the Asian 'tiger' economies, this cooperation is now potentially poised to undermine the American eagle.

Barbarians at the Gate?

When the reigning orthodoxy has used the Asian economic crisis of 1997-98 to retrospectively indict administratively guided industrialisation strategies, this article argues that it was the very success of 'developmental states' that rendered national industrial plans increasingly incoherent. It demonstrates that the progressive cross-border expansion of production and procurement networks eroded the competence of regulatory mechanisms and led to an uncoordinated expansion of production. At the same time, the accelerated transfer of manufacturing operations to low-wage areas did not correspondingly expand markets. The resulting crisis has exposed fissures in the social bases of support that ruling elites had been able to paper over during years of rapid economic growth. In this context, the reforms imposed by the IMF have led to a transfer of corporate assets in the ailing economies to overseas investors and further constrained policy options for governments. Most notably, this analysis indicates that the economic crisis is merely the surface manifestation of a much deeper crisis: the collapse of the political coalitions that had made the developmental state feasible. Hence, no economic or financial 'fix' is likely to provide a tourniquet and the region is likely to face prolonged instability.

Movement towards Workers Democracy-Solidarity in Poland

majority of the primary commodities. Thus any built-in tendency of the multi-commodity stockpile to entail persistent transfer of real income from imposing to exporting nations may bring net loss to less developed countries as well. This would resut in the withdrawal of participation even by less developed countries, thus leading to the collapse of the system.

Movement towards Workers Democracy-Solidarity in Poland

Solidarity in Poland Amrita Chhachhi Ravi Arvind Palat Paul Kurien THE struggle by the working class in Poland, of which there have been three earlier manifestations (1956, 1970-71 and 1976), is located in problems which originate in the specific form in which production is organised. The control exercised by the bureaucracy over production, distribution and consumption puts fetters on rapid economic progress. It is in the context of the background of the battle at the shopfloor and factory level, between the drive to increase production and the workers' resistance to it, that one can situate the emergence of Solidarity; and the imposition of martial law represents the culmination of the experiences gained currently and over the three earlier cycles of struggle.

Movement towards Workers Democracy-Solidarity in Poland

Solidarity in Poland Amrita Chhachhi Ravi Arvind Palat Paul Kurian The struggle by the working class in Poland, of which there have been three earlier manifesto' tions (1956, 1970-71 and 1976), is located in problems which originate in the specific form in which pro- duction is organised. The control exercised by the bureaucracy over production, distribution and con- sumption puts fetters on rapid economic progress. It is in the context of the background of the battle at the shopfloor and factory level, between the drive to increase production and the workers' resistance to it, that one can situate the emergence of Solidarity;and the imposition of martial law represents the culmination of the experiences gained currently and over the three earlier cycles of struggle.

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