URPE

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

For the people

(From the Peoples Weekly World)

By Arthur Perlo

If we think about economists at all, we usually think about Alan Greenspan, telling us that we need higher unemployment for the good of the country. No wonder economics is called the dismal science!

So it was a welcome change to attend the annual summer conference of the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE). This national organization of economics teachers, professionals and amateurs brings together people with a wide range of views, all challenging orthodox capitalist economics. Here is a conference sampling:

Bob Pollen, of the Political Economy Research Institute, described how big banks and financial institutions dominate the world economy, resulting in a redistribution of wealth from workers to capitalists. Their power allows these institutions to dictate policy to cities, states, and national governments. But, he said, with people like the URPE economists and the mass demonstrations in Seattle and Washington against the WTO and IMF, we can think about reinventing the IMF to regulate international finance and focus on employment, equality and the environment.

Barbara Garson described her upcoming book, in which she deposits her savings in a small local bank and follows her money as it is invested around the world. Some of us remember Garson as the author of the play, MacBird, a bitterly funny attack on the Vietnam war.

Mexican economists Francisco Aguayo and Carlos Salas showed the devastating effects of NAFTA * the typical Mexican working class family lives on $8/day, about half the minimum sustainable income.

NAFTA accelerated a trend that started in 1982, when a financial crisis forced Mexico to open up its economy to domination by U.S. finance and industry.

Since then, living standards have fallen as the country has shifted from protecting independent industry to become an adjunct of the U.S. economy. Maquiladoras are now spreading from the border region to southern Mexico, where wages are even lower.

Minqui Li, a Chinese economist at UMass, discussed state-owned factories in China. He argued that instead of continued privatization, it would be better to increase workers' living standards. This would increase consumer demand, making it possible for the factories to increase production and become more efficient.

Back in the U.S., Dean Baker of the Economic Policy Institute presented evidence of a "double bubble." The first bubble is the U.S. stock market, whose prices should fall by 50 percent. The second bubble is the U.S. dollar itself, propped up by massive inflows of capital from abroad * he anticipates a fall of 20 percent. Baker emphasized that it is impossible to predict when these bubbles will burst.

Living wage jobs campaigns, the topic of another session, will be featured in a future People Before Profits column.

Bill Weida of Colorado College gave a horrifying picture of the new factory farming, where tens of thousands of chickens, cattle or hogs are crowded together, pumped full of food, water and antibiotics, and sent to market. Weida claims these farms are profitable only because they are directly and indirectly subsidized by the communities where they locate.

One hog farm in Idaho uses more water than a city of 50,000 people and produces more waste than the entire human population of the state. It's enough to make you a vegetarian.

There were some weaknesses in the conference. There was not enough attention on how the global and national economic issues affect the conditions of the working class in the United States.

The sessions on the global economy were full of useful facts and analysis, but tended to ignore the political and military role of U.S. imperialism in creating and enforcing the problems being described. Finally, despite a strong affirmative action policy, African American and Latino attendance at the conference was almost non-existent. The workshop on "The Digital Divide and Institutional Racism," at which I presented a paper along with URPE Director Germai Medhanie, was the only session directly dealing with any aspect of racism in the United States.

Despite any problems, URPE provides an important center for disseminating radical economic thought, and the conference brought together people from a variety of institutions. The work they do is important, providing resources for the labor and other peoples' movements. URPE can be reached at 37 Howe St., New Haven CT 06511, or at www.urpe.org.