Economic-union

Russian banking is 'inventing' a new Russian social process for individual and small group entrepreneurial pioneering and providing people with new pathways for economic growth. Every decisive step in the history of economic development ha been the result of deliberate decisions to open up space and enable people to pioneer. This deliberate incubation of the free enterprise of ordinary people has always worked to produce great results. This is not nostalgic, not romantic, not greed. It is the simple principle of applying "opportunity" to the great driving hunger of millions of people to transcend their inadequate past

A far better description of the actual situation in Russia than what is available in the U.S. or Russian Press, or other alternative sources. Opened my eyes to what I should be aware of.

I found this book provided a clear description of possibilities for collaboration and cooperation with Banks in America. Our methods and practices differ but Dr. van de Waal-Palms explains the common denominators.

Nate Shaw was the father of my Uncle Oscar Turner's best friend. His real name was Nate Cobb and the family of the son, Lorraine, is prominent in the Middletown, Ohio ghetto.

The author has done a masterful job of illustrating how greatness was thrust upon him. Nate never set out to become a hero, only to protect his own dignity and provide for his children.

I do not believe that there is a better book for teaching about the lies of 20th century sharecroppers. Theirs is an overlooked legacy.

I am hoping that by entering a review here, I can see other reviews that I can use to write a book review on this title. Its due tomorrow! Yikes!

Ted Rosengarten is a masterful writer. All God's Dangers is an amazing undertaking that brings Nate Shaw's story to life. After a few pages, it's almost as if you can hear Nate talking. A must read for anyone interested in history and anyone who wants to learn how a book should be written. And Rosengarten's Tombee, if it can be found, is another must read.

Having read several books on the move to EMU, this is definitely one of the most thoughtful and incisive (and by far the best written!!). Clearly the French perspective on the EMS and EMU is absolutely crucial to understanding why European monetary integration happened at all. Well done! This book enters into impressive detail about the French perspective but places the development of French policy clearly in the context of wider European developments so that the non-specialist can follow the text and learn about monetary integration more generally.

This is a well-balanced, thoughtful study of French policy on European monetary integration. For those looking to understand EMU go no further!

This is a detailed yet highly readable account of the reasons why the French sought European monetary integration. I recommend it all those interested in why the French embraced EMU.

Review of The Rotten Heart of Europe: the dirty war for Europe's money, by Bernard Connolly, Faber & Faber, 1995, £17.50.

THIS BRILLIANT book is a devastating exposure of the pretensions of those who want to rule Europe. It shows that the attempts to achieve monetary and economic union, and consequently political union, are bad for us. They will not bring monetary stability, economic growth or political harmony. Instead they will destabilise currencies, reduce growth and promote hatred between the nations of Europe.

Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is supposed to build on the experience of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Britain's membership of the ERM forced us into a disastrous and quite unnecessary recession. After two years of suffering, Major said in July 1992 that Britain would soon be the leader of the ERM. Two months later, we were well out of it, and ERM had bermbed, as Jacques Clouseau, Major's mentor, would say.

ERM constrained British Government policy on non-monetary matters too. The Government appeased Spain over the fishing dispute to keep Spain happy about the sterling/peseta rate. So the Common Fisheries Policy, so damaging to Britain's fishing industry, is not an isolated EU aberration: it stems from the whole logic of economic and monetary union.

The ERM was described as the Eternal Recession Mechanism; EMU is likely to be Even More Useless. The ERM kept the poor countries poor; it did not help them to converge; it certainly did not help them to meet the Maastricht criteria. Spain's experience of ERM was catastrophic: 22% unemployed. The ERM forced Denmark into recession: unemployment doubled to 12%, the budget was slashed, and investment, output and wages all fell. In the ERM, Ireland's unemployment soared from 11% to 23%. ERM subordinated nations' economic interests to minorities' foreign policy goals: ruling class interests dominated working class interests. Some still claim that ERM and EMU could control capital, but actually they were and are attacks on the working class.

A 1992 report by the Monetary Committee, which advises the EU's Council of Ministers, admitted that ERM did not stabilise prices or money and did not reduce inflation. Perhaps it was after all just a tool for moving countries towards political union.

The book also depicts the present dangerous struggle between the French and German ruling classes for control over the proposed institutions of a single European state. Germany is determined to keep the Deutschmark and the Bundesbank: it wants EMU so that it can assimilate other countries into an expanded Deutschmark zone. France wants a new currency and wants to get its hands on the Bundesbank; it pushed for the Maastricht Treaty, which would destroy the Deutschmark. Who would control Europe's currency? Who would control the proposed new European Central Bank? Germany or France?

As Wilhelm Nolling, a Bundesbank Council member, said: "We should be under no illusion - the present controversy over the new European monetary order is about power, influence and the pursuit of national interests."

They are already fighting about the 1996 InterGovernmental Conference. Germany wants the economic criteria for EMU met as soon as possible: it insists that economic convergence must precede monetary union. France wants the earliest possible date for monetary union, believing that monetary union would produce economic convergence. Both are wrong of course: convergence cannot and will not be achieved, either way.

EMU's implications are universally unpopular. The workers of France, Italy and Belgium are striking against the EU's schemes. The Austrian Government fell in October, unable to pass the EU-required budget.

We can see both from ERM's effects, and from the effects of the attempted imposition of the Maastricht criteria, how damaging membership of EMU would be. It would cause, as intended, a permanent lowering of wages, a permanently higher level of unemployment, and massive cuts in public spending.

Connolly sums up: "My central thesis is that the ERM and EMU are not only inefficient but also undemocratic: a danger not only to our wealth but to our freedoms and ultimately, our peace. The villains of the story - some more culpable than others - are bureaucrats and self-aggrandizing politicians. The ERM is a mechanism for subordinating the economic welfare, democratic rights and national freedom of citizens of the European countries to the will of political and bureaucratic elites whose power-lust, cynicism and delusions underlie the actions of the vast majority of those who now strive to create a European superstate. The ERM has been their chosen instrument, and they have used it cleverly."

Bernard Connolly was fired by the European bureaucrats after this book came out. If you read this book you will understand why. This book has all the detail you could ask for. It is an incredible expose of the events leding up to European Monetary Union.

If you support the European Community, reading this book will change your mind -- if you dare read it.

Excellent work. The reality at the core of all the pomp-and-circumstance surrounding EMU. Read it and be wiser.

Interested in buying this book, or the one on meatpackers by Roger Horowitz? See the symposium on Halpern and Horowitz's work in the journal _Labor History_ 40:2 (1999). They have also jointly authored a collection of oral history interviews -- all available from Amazon

This is one of the best labor history books I've read: it is scholarly, no doubt about that, but SO, SO "readable." Almost like a novel at points. It's important, too, because it sheds much light on the way in which blacks and whites managed to unite around common interests. It also makes wonderful use of oral histories, so that the characters really come to life.

Rick B Halpern is a renowned commentator on the American Meatpacking Industry, and in this meticolusly researched book he chronicles the results of years of inquiry into what Chicago proletarians in hushed tones refer to as 'the big slaughterhouse.' Don't be put off by the picture of the Cow being killed on the front - there's plenty more meat inside and it's not covered in blood and guts. I was particularly impressed by his use of oral history. Too many modern historians ignore this valuable resource, but Halpern is a man on a mission and no lack of written records is going to get in his way. Overall, I found this book was a valuable contribution to an underresearched area and I believe should be read by anyone interested in modern Northern American Labour history.

When the "founding fathers" wrote the constitution, it brought about great change. Today great change is needed...so what else ought we do but change the constitution? Jackson makes that notion convincingly clear. As i read this book, I kept thinking "I wish I had this book in college." In college, the dynamics of social and political thought were always about programs and policies....it was the bandaid solution. This book lays out the treatment and, most importantly, the diagnosis! Where have we been as a nation? The answer to that question is the real diagnosis....it is the diagnosis no one wants to hear, that Jackson has exposed. But we must acknowledge the diagnosis so we can identify the proper treatment and know how to apply it. How do we heal? The answer to that question is the treatment -- changing the constitution is so fundamental that it is largely ignored by politicos and scholars. Perhaps it is ignored because the constitution has been held as an immovable object. But, as Jackson explains, the constitution can be changed, and any changes (or amendments) become as rock solid as the constitution itself. Jackson has laid out a strategy that has rarely (in part and never in toto) been suggested for our nation -- a new idea -- that fact alone makes this book a MUST HAVE. Jackson has also laid out a strategy that will yield a prognosis for the nation that is desireable to all -- that fact makes this book a MUST DO!

This book is must reading for anyone who desires to understand how politicial idealogy has developed in the US. Additionally, the book offers a clear agenda for moving the United States towards a more perfect union. I predict that we will see the issues raised in this book edvident in the next presidential election.

Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.in his newest book " A More Perfect Union" has proven that he is so much more than the beneficiary of great civil, social, political and theolological pedigree. In this his, chef doeuvre, along with contributor Frank Watkins, he provides the reader with a sweeping commentary of not merely race but racism in all of its legislative origin.

Imagine not stumbling upon the word racism until 1936 and finding no rise of the African American experience. Preposterous. Is it not? But truth. Congressman Jackson not only reveals why we must be outraged, not in the riotous form, but further demonstrates, in this important piece how we must engage our outrage by "economic reform."

Reader do not be discouraged by the book's smallprint or numerous pages. This plethora of information only lends itself to the extensive research and detail the author and his contributor insisted upon. Welcome these pages as they are wealthy. FINALLY there exists an "inclusive textbook" which it resembles and rally for it soon to be.

The reader will delight in a discovery of previously undocumented
yet factual pieces of African-American history "as American as apple pie." Congressman Jackson Jackson exhibits how African-Americans significantly shaped America and its politics. Furthermore, he examines how each American President, past and present viewed(s)and dealt(s) with the race problem and provides the reader with deriviations of words such as Jim Crow, locates and defines for his reader new political buzz words and delves into how "A More Perfect Union" can be achieved through Equal Opportunity, Human Rights,Full Employment, Universal and Comprehensive Health Care, Affordable Housing, Quality Public Education, Fair Taxes, Foreign Policy, Politics, and Moral Responsibility. Congressman Jackson actually dissects each of the above-mentioned and provides VIABLE solutions to their achievement.

Congressman Jackson and his contributor Frank Watkins must be applauded for preaching more than just "high sounding benevolent social rhetoric" as some of his counterparts. A section of the book is semi-autobiograhical and gives the reader perspective into his personal experiences and his subsequent growth. In it he reveals his humanity and there is substantial evidence that he has not taken his political responsibility lightly.

Readers add this book to your shelf only after reading and re-reading. It must "court" your dictionary and your other reference material. This book will invite you to consult it time and time again. It is indeed reference-WORTHY. Although it is a lofty, thought-provoking, brave and maybe even an unpopular undertaking, it is brillantly and perfectly executed. As Lincoln stated "the hen is the wisest of all animal creation because she never cacles until the egg is laid". Congressman Jackson is no hen but an egg he has laid-and "A More Perfect Union" is clearly Faberge'. We recognize if we never did before, Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. as one of our most heady, intellectual statesmen of the 21st century. A must Read!!! BRAVO!!!!

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I have looked through a lot of books on the former Soviet Union and its collapse. Very often, Western authors show clear misunderstanding of the process and how it evolved. I was pleasantly surprised to find a very good analysis in this book. Being a Russian citizen, I discover that it truthfully depicts the history of my country and gives a very thorough picture of what has happened in it before, during, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The authors go to great lengths in order to convey their knowledge to the reader and I very much appreciate their work and effort.

review by illinois reader missed the main points of the book in my opinion. 1-gorbachev tried to reform system thru democratizing(he succeeded)the system and retaining some aspects of socialism(he failed) 2-Democatization allowed the option for a return to capitalism,formerly outlawed,to be considered as an option. 3-The elite opposed early moves toward perostroika because they feared loss of priveleges when decentralization was attempted 4-The elite then embraced the move to capitalism, despite the opposition of 60+percent of the citizenry,hence the title "Revolution From Above" 5-The USSR did not collapse because it was moribund,but because the elite felt that they could enrich themselves more under capitalism than they already had under the soviets. 6-Socialism may not be dead because it failed in the USSR.The author considers that as a first attempt from which future generation can learn. 7-This is well documented academic work well written and with an unconventional view point.

Kotz and Weir start this book with a long detour through Soviet economic history, which is worthy on its own in explaining an often mythologized subject, but really pays off when it explains how the Soviet Union had a very distinct class structure that laid the grounds for the current era. With intelligent sociological analysis they show how the coordinators and bureaucrats who inhabited an allegedly "socialist" system did so for predominantly personal gain, and how they eventually sought and found even more gain in ending that system altogether. Crucial reading for understanding class conflict in Russia today.

The establishment of numerous satellite states in Eastern Europe after World War II gave the socialist movement numerous problems because socialists hold that it is necessary for the working class to take power by means of revolution in order to actually achieve socialism. In these Eastern European nations, the Red Army installed new regimes that were completely subservient to the orders of Moscow - involving trials and murders of all dissidents and the development of a military industrial complex on the lines of Western capitalism.

"State Capitalism In Russia" (originally written as "The Nature Of Stalinist Russia") deals with exceptional clarity with the argument of Trotsky that Russia was still a workers' state because the property was nationalised.

Cliff was simple and forceful in his argument that a complete counterrevolution had occurred in Russia during the 1920s when Stalin rose to power. He shows using available government statistics that whilst most resources up to Stalin's triumph in the 1920s were devoted to improving the living standards of the Russian masses, from the time of the Five-Year Plans, all these resources were transferred into the hands of the bureaucracy. This bureaucracy accumulated vast resources through exploitation of the Russian working class, in the process building a military-industrial complex that aimed directly to compete with market capitalist nations in the West for production of the most powerful weapons. Stalin saw this as the only way to protect the USSR, but in fact the only way a socialist regime could have survived was via the overthrow of the Western ruling classes and seizure of their vast internationally accumulated profits.

Cliff shows clearly how much better off for wages the Russian masses were under Lenin than under either the Tsar or Stalin and, as a prerequisite for this, how much higher a proportion of production was devoted to consumer rather than capital goods under Lenin.

At the same time, Cliff clearly shows how oriented Russian laws were to protecting the power of the bureaucratic ruling class. A perfect example is the exceptionally regressive turnover tax system that increased the prices of the necessities of the working class massively.

Marxism advocated the use of steeply progressive taxes on income and inheritance and abolishing all indirect taxation: Cliff shows how hypocritical the Soviet government has had to be to disguise blatant capitalism as "socialism."

Cliff is similarly clear about how his theory of state capitalism explains what had actually occurred in Eastern Europe since 1945: new ruling classes had been established on the Soviet model by parties merely calling themselves "Communist": workers had no control over the means of production.

Cliff's theory of state capitalism explains the Soviet ruling class' actions in the years after World War II very well because understanding the bureaucracy as a capitalist ruling class explains their desire to compete with the West. Cliff is also very clear (and events in the Eastern bloc showed this again and again) that only a genuine workers' revolution could produce a genuine socialist system where the needs of the masses take precedence over the enrichment of a tiny minority who parasitise workers' labour.

The capitalist nature of Stalinist Russia had been known to anarchists and non-Leninist Marxists ever since the failure of the revolution to spread to Western Europe. Had it spread, there is little doubt that the means used by the Cheka to crush Lenin's opponents would have been unnecessary because the loss of power by the imperialist nations' ruling classes would eliminate the vast aid given to counterrevolutionary armies within an undeveloped workers' state and would transfer vast wealth to the workers of undeveloped nations.

Whilst the nature of Lenin's Russia is questionable, that of the Stalinist USSR is clear: state capitalism. Besides understanding the USSR as capitalist, one must also understand that the revolutions in Vietnam, China, and Cuba were in no way workers' revolutions. They were led by small peasant guerilla armies who established states modelled on Stalinist Russia.

A landmark work that needs to be reissued even though it is (hopefully) still available on the web if you look.

Cliff's book clearly shows that Soviet Russia was not socialist. Workers there had no control over society or their own lives. What existed was a form of state capitalism. Cliff explains that only a new revolution could bring socialism.This book is vital to understand the way forward for the working class movement since the fall of so called Communism.It throws aside the pessimism of much of the left.It places workers self activity at the heart of socialism.

Tony Cliff's book "State Capitalism in Russia" first published in 1947.. When the stalinizm in "golden age" after the II. War... He shows why we must describe stalinst Russia as "state capitalist" country.. And also he shows the alternative: Socialism from below..

Reviewer Everitt's remarks capture the book's essential value. Several points however merit emphasis. First, Horne's book brings out the symbiotic relation between the studios' desire for non-independent company unions, on one hand, and organized crime's desire for corrupt unions, on the other. By taking in one another's washing during the tumultuous events of '45 - '47, these two representatives of private capital maintained an alliance that defeated efforts by the Conference of Studio Unions to emerge as an independent union of movie-making employees. Horne the historian is detailed about this sinister and under-reported alliance. Second, by using abundant primary sources, the author debunks the nurtured image of CSU as a communist-led movement, a scare tactic still in its infancy following the anti-fascist WWII and, as the book shows, a tactic used to increasing effect by the corporate-owned press of the day. Belated communist support for CSU strikers was willfully twisted by these flacks into communist domination. Third, the inability of the CSU to cross racial and gender lines of the day is emphasized. This had the unfortunate effect of reducing potential for attracting outside allies, especially among aggrieved African-Americans and women's groups, though it's hardly surprising that prejudices within the union would reflect those of the larger society from which it sprang. It's fascinating to follow this dark underside of the Hollywood dream factory, though I did find time shifts in the narrative confusing at times. Nonetheless, Horne has focused his word-camera on a worthy and neglected real life drama.

Amazingly, this is the first comprehensive work written on a key event in American labor history -- an event that was headline news in the mid 1940's, and that among many other things set the stage for the passage of Taft-Hartley and propelled Ronald Reagan into politics. While countless historians have left no stone unturned in examining the Hollywood Blacklist, the story of the Hollywood studio strikes has long been relegated to footnotes and chapters in more general works. With this work Gerald Horne has shined a relentless light of painstaking scholarship on what may well be the most neglected event in American labor history. The footnotes alone are worth the price of the book and will no doubt entice many readers to follow these myriad paths deeper into the hidden corners of Hollywood history.

This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in Hollywood history, labor history, the Hollywood Blacklist, American radical history, and the history of organized crime in America. It should especially be read by anyone who earns their living as a worker in the film and television industry or is a member of IATSE and wishes to know the true story of their union's dark history.

I bought this baby as the background for an advanced level international econ paper on the fluctuations of the Euro, and it is wicked good. It hands out the basic knowledge like the Rams hand out touchdown balls, and even though it was written before the Euro's current problems, you can easily piece together the reasons behind the malaise.

The only caveat is that if you're really into the mathematical and graphical side of economics -- this puppy ain't for you. If you look at the overload of math that Krugman's International Economics textbook gives you, this pales in comparison. I wish it had more of that, if only so that on those nights I can't sleep, I have one more resource to use. But that's what I have my girlfriend's stories for.

Anyway, go buy it. It's good.

I have read 2 other books about the Euro and this one is by far the best. It offers an unbiased view of the Euro unlike most other books. It is very easy to read, informative, well organized... I could go on and on. If you want to learn about the Euro if you are a student or businessman, get this book.

This is an excellent introductory book. It is very easy to read and is very concise. It is written from a general rather than a particualar nationalist view as are several other books on the EURO. It also has a large listing of web sites where other interesting information is available.