Economic-union Books

This is a subject very attractive to some readers. How do you, as a European interest group, get money out of the EU, aka. "Brussels". The author describes in detail many instances of lobbying, by a variety of lobbyists. You can see how a European federal apparatus has developed, that affects many aspects of people's lives.

There is also an analysis of interest groups at the national level. For example, those from Portugal or Greece often support protectionist policies for agriculture and small enterprises. Reflecting a common economic makeup of their countries. While Irish groups tend to favour a more open market, and greater free trade, as Ireland has benefited tremendously from these trends.

The competition between interest groups is also explained. Often leading to intense lobbying of bureaucrats and federal politicians.

The book is also interesting as a comparison with the US federal system and the lobbying that goes on at that level. Many similarities emerge.

We are constantly reminded these days of the overwhelmingly global nature of capital. Not only can we see multi-national corporations all over the world trying to quench their werewolf hunger for profit by exploiting human communities, human labor, and the environment. We can also look around us and see many different types of people that probably wouldn't find themselves here in the U.S. if it weren't for the ever-new boundaries and needs produced by the expansion of capital.

THE MAYA OF MORGANTON by Leon Fink describes one unlikely community and its struggle against the unfair labor practices of Case Farms poultry processing plant in Morganton, N.C. This community is almost completely composed of indigenous highland Guatemalan Mayans, mainly of the Q'anjob'al, Aguacateco (split between the two main ethnic groups, the Awakateko and Chalchiteko), K'iche', and Mam ethnicities. There were also a handful of Mexican workers that took an active part in the strikes and unionizing campaigns.

Throughout the whole book, Fink allows 100-odd workers, strike leaders, and community members to "speak for themselves" through extensive interviews. It gives the feel of a fluid dialogue between the author and participants, and allows for complexities in the telling of the story straight from the mouths of those involved.

The first sign of wildcat worker resistance to conditions at the plant was in May 1993, "when approximately 100 workers stood up in the plant cafeteria and refused to work unless the company addressed a list of alleged abuses--including unpaid hours, the lack of bathroom breaks, poor working materials, and unauthorized company deductions for safety equipment like smocks and gloves, as well as inadequate pay."

But it wasn't until two years later, in 1995, that organized labor got involved. After a dramatic unionization drive and vote, the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) won the right to represent the workers. Throughout the approximately six years of labor struggle that the book covers, management never respected the workers' decision and took all of the typical steps, from stalling recognition of the union to stymying and breaking off contract talks with the workers.

One aspect of the workers' experience was not unique to them and is a recurring theme in American labor history--the speed-up. In citing a study done by the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, Fink shows that the most frequent complaint of workers, "concerned the `dangerously high speed' of the production line. Combined with the rigidity of work assignments (there was no rotation of jobs at the plant), the line speed only exacerbated repetitive motion injuries frequently reported in most poultry-processing plants."

It brings to my mind something very important to Marxist-Humanist theory and history, the automation of the "continuous miner" that miners in West Virginia fought so hard against in the 1950s, when the question of "what kind of labor should man do?" was raised by the miners. The fact that today this same type of automation permeates capitalist production everywhere would seem completely overwhelming if it weren't for the repeated struggles of rank-and-file workers at the point of production.

But interestingly, the unique thing about this book is that its subject matter--or better put, Subject, with a capital "S"--is not the typical rank-and-file worker one might envision. To be sure, many of the miners who initiated the wildcat strikes against automation in the '50s were European immigrants.

But in capital's latest stages of globalization in which its hand reaches out blindly across borders to find cheaper and cheaper labor, it has encountered and in many ways uprooted, indigenous peoples from Central America. Many of these people still have a very strong tie to traditional culture, language, and communal ways.

This is, I believe, Fink's focus throughout the book: the interplay between the traditional cultures, and the way in which globalization has eroded or strengthened certain aspects of them. "How the dead helped to organize the living" is a phrase Fink uses to reconcile the phenomenon of a rich and sometimes tragic Mayan history of struggle and repression with a small diaspora in North Carolina fighting a Southern boss at a poultry plant.

To do this, he gives some interesting historical and sociological analysis of Morganton, and the workers' home communities in Guatemala in order to properly situate the events of the book. This meant delving considerably into the social turmoil and civil war that plagued Guatemala throughout the 1980s and '90s.

THE MAYA OF MORGANTON helped remind me that while capitalist globalization is busy redrawing borders and repressing human communities on a global scale, it also calls into existence new Subjects of revolt. The complex, multi-dimensional character of an indigenous Mayan community fighting the boss in North Carolina, USA is something that a whole new generation of radical internationalist activists can look to as we try to build a movement against capital and for true human development.

For those who do not know much about financial markets and their regulation this is an excellent place to start. Dr. Avgouleas is clear without being simplistic and sophisticated without being unduly complex. It is the kind of book that the reasonably intelligent reader with no prior knowledge could read with ease. The most pernickety of law professors will find more than enough to ponder. Dr. Avgouleas tells his readers at the beginning of each chapter and each section of the chapter what he will be dealing with so that the reader can decide whether he needs to read that chapter.


The book covers the arguments for and against regulation of financial markets and in particular the author examines in detail the difficult question of insider trading, and market abuse through actions such as pumping and dumping, washed sales, matched orders and other forms of price manipulation. This book is well researched and although the author's preferences are known he presents contrary arguments fairly. He examines the European Union's as well as the United Kingdom's regime for controlling market abuse.

The weakness of the book is that he could have gone focussed on the United States a bit more and have a better index. It is the kind of book that you need to read with your note book because trying to find what you read in the index may prove quite a challenge.

Despite these short comings I strongly recommend it to anyone who is lost and is looking for a beacon. You will find a safe haven.It will serve as an excellent reference text (keep your note books at hand) because he refers to the work of many if not all the leading writers on the subject he covers.

Even though the coverage of the United States could have been better, readers in the United States would benefit immensely from reading this text. Much of the underlying premises and arguments in favour of market regulation were developed in the United States and the author recognises this by extensive reference to works by leading American academics and important cases decided by the United States Supreme Court.

For those, like me, who wish to have a good basic understanding of this area by reading one text - this is the book for you.


Bryan Sykes
Jamaica

If one agrees that not everything about the Soviet Union was pre-ordained, then the collectivization was the crucial turning point. The brutality involved and the millions of deaths from the resulting famine was the greatest single atrocity of the Soviet regime, far outnumbering the victims of the purges. Not only did collectivization bring to fruition all the worst features of the Soviet regime such as gross brutality, callous indifference in the name of progress, the most fanatical and intolerant one-party culture, and the worst sort of bureaucratic mediocrity, it also burdened the Soviet Union with a crippled agricultural sector that it was never able to cure. And yet, at the time Americans knew little about it. The way that New York Times journalist Walter Duranty helped to euphemize the famine has become infamous.

But the problem was larger, much larger than the blindness of a few socialist intellectuals and the corruption of one spectacular journalist, as David Engerman points out in his important new book. One might imagine liberals and technocrats and socialists failing to appreciate the cruel truth. But what can we say about the attitude of Hoover's State Department? These people also showed little concern. Yet these people were so hostile to Communism they ensured that the United States was one of the few countries in the world that refused to recognize the Soviet Union. The problem, as Engerman details, arose from several key western prejudices, even if he does not fully recognize their complete importance. Americans were enthusiasts for progress and modernization. Many of them by the twenties were believers in a planned economy and this belief only increased with the Great Depression. The key problem for Russia and the later Soviet Union was that the overwhelming peasant population did not fit American plans for modernization, (or that of their rulers). For decades many Americans believed in a "national character" view of Russians that condemned them as "savage, hopeless, and helpless." There were exceptions, such as the first American translator of Tolstoy who uncritically supported czarism. And there were the supporters of American intervention in 1917 who deluded themselves into thinking that the Russian peasantry had swept aside Czarism in a wave of instinctive patriotism. But once the Soviets fell, the belief that the peasants had become lawless, anarchistic and hopeless was widespread. Wilson's Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, believed that the Russians needed a strong firm hand from a right-wing dictator.

As the twenties progressed this chauvinist attitude was replaced by the more hopeful, universalistic attitudes as Russian Studies became professionalised and institutionalized in the nation's universities. But the view of the Russian peasant as hopelessly backward and "Asiatic" did not go away. There was a natural sympathy from many Americans towards the technocratic, modernizing plans of the Soviet state. In one of the most interesting chapters, there is a long discussion of how Duranty, Louis Fischer, Eugene Lyons and William Henry Chamberlin viewed the Soviet famines. Engerman shows how Lyons and Chamberlin, who became heroes on the American right for revealing the famine's existence, showed the same anti-peasant prejudices that Duranty and Fischer did. Based on dozens of sets of private papers, and including a helpful biographical essay, Engerman points out the weaknesses of both particularism, with its enormous condescension towards people of other countries, and of universalism, which tends to believe that people are identical, and especially identical with Americans. It is with his quotations of Herzen in his introduction that Engerman strikes the wrong note. "To sacrifice others, and to be self-sacrificing on their behalf, is too easy a virtue." Later on Engerman quotes Herzen's comparison of modern ideologies and panaceas to the great idol Moloch to which children were sacrificed by being burned alive. But it is not quite fair to say that Russophiles were asking Russians to make sacrifices they themselves were not going to make. After all, in their dreams of progress, they were assuming that the Russians would become "modern" and "progressive," like Americans themselves. There would therefore be no need for Americans to sacrifice for what they had already achieved. More important, the reason that contempt for the Russian peasantry crossed ideological lines was because they were not capitalist farmers. Had they been capitalist farmers with capitalist property their dispossession would have caused more outrage. But they weren't, so it didn't. More to the point, capitalist agricultural modernization going back to Robert Young and the proponents of enclosure argues that peasants hamper economic progress. Dispossessing them in one way or another has been a hallmark of capitalist growth for centuries, (never more so than in the past half-century as E.H. Hobsbawm's "The Age of Extremes" points out). Engerman's failure to really appreciate this is a weakness. He also fails to realize that in order to provide a more humane alternative of economic growth for the Soviet Union, an economic theory based on respecting peasants would have had to exist. And given the lack of experience in the United States for such a sympathy, that was not going to happen.

Although a book about any subject dealing with issues as complex as a multi-national currency can be a ponderous read, Overturf holds your attention by guiding the reader toward a pointed conclusion at each chapter's end.

His final synopsis is a lesson in skillful writing of a subject that will affect every country in the global village of international trade. This book is for those serious followers of government policy, politics and paper money.

This book is largely devoted to an analysis of Old Rus' coins from the 9th to the 11th centuries. The first three chapters deal with the monetary systems of Western Europe, the Khazars, and the Volga Bulgars. The next two chapters deal with the Rus monetary systems of Kiev and Novgorod, with an appendix on Varangian runes found on Muslim coins. Then there are chapters on the iconography and epigraphy of Old Rus' coins, and classification of Old Rus' coins. Finally, there are illustrative tables, with enhanced pictures of Old Rus' coins, identifying each coin.

This book is extremely informative on its subject, and is comprehensive in its reach. Unfortunately, it is written in a very turgid, academic style. So, it makes an outstanding resource, but not a good read.

The author uses a unique view point to combine the various aspects of social impacts that the railroads had on American culture. A great many topics are covered from sweeping social behavioral norms, to the logistics of ticketing, to luggage design. The social and cultural viewpoint dominates the normal railroad book themes of business, economy, technology, and governmental regulation. All of these topics are covered but only as they influenced, dictated, or were demanded by the social trends. A major point made is that much of American urban culture today is an unintended consequence of how the railroad industry evolved. Railroads originally seen as the instrument for growing a community's wealth, end up being the instrument of draining both the wealth and population to the major cities. A second major theme is how the railroads enabled and even forced a transient society for people at all income levels. The local communities on which the country's original culture was founded are lost forever.

The writing style is straight forward and interspersed with a good deal of backup information and supporting stories. Not exactly enjoyment reading, but certainly not boring. There was a great deal of duplication of information from chapter to chapter often using the same phrasing. Once, the same quote is used twice on one page. A better editor could have helped the author present the same information in 2/3 the space.

From a railroad perspective there are a few minor oversights, such as giving credit to the Northern Pacific as the pioneer of promoting rail travel for vacations. I believe more research would show they were only attempting to duplicate the Great Northern's success with the "See America First - Glacier National Park" campaign. Such minor oversights in the examples do not invalidate or even lessen the points being made by the author.

As a reference work its organization is not ideal for finding information, but this is a consequence of the social viewpoint. It does have a fairly complete index. As a reference the strong point is the chapter notes (footnotes) and the notes on the sources. I will be using these frequently. However, it does not include a traditional bibliography listing all the references together sorted by title or author.

In summary, I recommend this book for both the casual and serious student of history and railroads. It could even be used as a basis for a class. I am pretty certain hard core "train" fanatics will not like it. This book will be an eye opener for many, and probably should be a required read for anyone trying to get a complete understanding of the cultural transformation that occurred around the turn of the 20th century. I intend to add a copy of this book to my personal library.

Obviously, I liked the book. Drucker describes the pension fund industry and it's growing importance in the capital markets. But remember this is just a new edition of the 1976 classic "The unseen revolution" by Harper & Row (with a new preface)...

This is an impressive study, but it should be allowed to go out of print. Barendt has done a second edition (2005), which supersedes this one.

This is a minute (though never tedious) chronology and phenomenology of the Reform Movement in Russia after communism. It is an exquisite obituary of the Russia that could have been and an indictment of the Russia that is and was. Dozens of detailed and thought provoking tables and graphs support observations that are never trite (though often familiar). It is a good tome of historiography. But it lacks a historiosophic element. It offers no exegesis, either explicit or implicit (through the ordering of events, for instance). In other words, it is not out to prove a thesis or a theory and it provides no paradigmatic platform. In the absence of these crucial elements of good history-writing - the book is reduced to the meticulous annals of the rise and fall of a dream. These shortcomings are somewhat ameliorated in Chapter 6 'The Dynamics of Political Change' where the author endeavours to present a coherent framework of trend analysis. Still, despite the profusion of economic content in the book, the author seems to me to be more at ease with matters political. Thus, the 'economy' in 'political economy' never enjoys the closure it deserves. Moreover, many things are disregarded or glossed over. A Russian paranoid would probably have read a lot into these omissions. The all-pervasive, pernicious and deleterious criminality of Russia merits only a perfunctory mention in the book. Arguably, the annals of Russian crime post Soviet times would make an adequate history of Russia itself as well. To relegate it to the footnotes is a curious choice, to use an understatement. Another neglected factor is the foreign experts. Perhaps understandably so, as Mr. Tikhomirov is the Deputy Director of the Contemporary Europe Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. But these experts were always a part of the problem and never its solution. But it is a rewarding and eye-opening read, replete with well-researched data and academic acumen. Writing about Russia requires the eloquence of Churchill and the erudition of a Gibbon. As long as these two gentlemen are indisposed - I recommend to buy Mr. Tikhomirov's opus. Sam Vaknin, author of 'After the Rain - How the West Lost the East'