World of Possible Transitions [notes]

World of Possible Transitions
Mega-Cities vs. Agrarian-Based Localization
by By Marcel Idels
FOOTNOTES:

1. Dorner, Peter, Latin American Land Reforms: In Theory and Practice, University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. Page 3, p. 6 (Korea, Japan), p. 7 (Us interference), p. 21 (benefits of reform went to nonreform sector), p. 34 (violent resistance by elite). "If no government can come to power which can win the support or acquiescence of the countryside, then little basis exists for political stability." P.5.
The Nicaraguan reforms stimulated output despite the US war and might have become a working model of poverty reduction through land reform and social investment. Chile, Ecuador (19 ?? , 2000 and 2003?), Brazil (1964, 2003?), Colombia (1948, 1989, 1998-200?) and Peru (Fujimori/Montesinos, 1989-200?) are the most obvious and well documented examples of major US interventions and hostility to change.
In its publication, "The Struggle for Agrarian Reform and Social Changes in Rural Areas," under "The Historical Reality, Section 2." they state: "In the countries of the Third World, with rare exception, it cannot be said that there were true agrarian reforms that helped peasants to get out of poverty. The absence of agrarian reform is due to two factors: The dependent, colonial capitalist model that developed the large properties with exportation of primary products and the political power of rural oligarchies, large landowners, united with the local and foreign bourgeoisie."
Section 3. The Agrarian Problem says: "In all countries where agrarian reform has not been implemented, grave agrarian problems persist, manifested in the existence of large landed properties, the high concentration of lands in the hands of a minority and the use of land only for exploitation and profit... These problems are the cause of the high levels of poverty, the enormous social inequality, the chronic and economically dependent underdevelopment and the general lack of perspectives for workers in general."
Section 4 shows how this has become worse in the last ten years because of the further adoption of neo-liberal policies.
"Peasants Speak, The Via Campesina: Consolidating an International Peasant and Farm Movement," Annette-Aurelie Desmarais, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 29, January 2002.

2. www.jimhightower.com; The Hightower Lowdown, October 2002.
Rebelion. "Who Rules the World," James Petras, Rebellion. Data are presented showing that 48 percent of the largest companies and banks are US-based; 90 percent of the top ten companies and 70 percent of the top 50 companies are from the US.

3. A. Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Argentina are the extreme example of rapidly rising public and commercial debt that eats into tax revenues and investment capital.
B. Economist, August 17, 2002, p. 57. In Brazil, the net pubic debt reached $288 billion on August 8, 2002. This equaled two-thirds of the Brazilian GDP up from 30 percent in 1994.
C. Ecologist, Vol 32, No 6, July 2002, p.39. Argentina's foreign debt doubled in the 1990s to $145 billion and the annual interest on the debt reached $19 billion... government deficit was due to ever greater debt payments.
D. Covert Action Quarterly, No.72, Spring 2002. The foreign debt of Argentina went from $7.5 billion in 1976 to $143 billion in 2001... the interest owed between 1992 and 2001 amounted to $83.2 billion.
E. Toussaint, Eric, "El aslabonm mas de debil de la cadena mundial de la dueda," Terra America Latina, February 3, 2002, p.1. Terra
F. In Ecuador almost all of the money earned by the (German and Oxy financed) nearly completed OCP pipeline will go to pay this poor country's foreign debt.
In Colombia 89 percent of government revenues go to debt payments.

4. A. "World of Possibilities," May 2002, BlueGreenEarth Archive A. Urbanization is rarely discussed as a direct consequence of other policies, it is just accepted (or promoted) as a given and as a generally positive development. But people who live and work in third world megacities are well aware of the impending cataclysm that increased and premature urbanization is certain to unleash even before the sea level rises of global warming can strike the death blow for most coastal cities. Globalization is urbanization and urbanization means higher per capita energy use for transportation, food, water, and electricity.
Rural people grow, find or make many of the fuels, foods and products that they consume. Perpetual large investments (roads, sewers, water systems, energy infrastructure) using energy and resource intensive materials and processes are required for urban areas to function. Most large cities everywhere in the world are not functional or sustainable.
Infrastructures are failing in New York City, Bombay and Maracaibo among hundreds of poorly designed or maintained cities. Millions of additional poor people crowding into these crumbling cities will create unmanageable problems and suffering. Where will all the farmers bankrupted by the WTO go? Wars, displacement, refugee camps, emigration, death and cities - all of these will increase and billions of people will be uprooted and oppressed. Why are world leaders encouraging massive urbanization? No one can answer this question.
B. Colburn, Forrest D. 2002, Latin America at the End of Politics, Princeton University Press. "Latin America's cities - and the region's capitals in particular- increasingly pose a paradox. These sprawling cities are political, decision-making, financial, corporate, media and cultural centers [virtual power monopolies]. For the well educated and ambitious, there is no recourse but to live in the capital.
Yet at the same time growth -and the haphazard nature of the growth- has made living in the prominent cities unbearable. The cities are overpopulated for their infrastructure, unmanageable and even insalubrious...polls suggest that 60 percent of the residents of Sao Paulo would like to leave the city (page 19)."
C. Bogotá, Colombia has been touted for its clean air program and no car days while its four million slum inhabitants eek out a crime and poverty-wracked existence and the smog grows daily. The number of cars has doubled in the last six years.
D. In The Economist, May 11, 2002, we learn that despite having the worst air in China or the world Taiyuan is going to have clean air through market incentives (page 75).
E. See also: Globalisation is Urbanization, Helena Norberg-Hodge, The Ecologist, Vol. 29, May/June, 1999.
F. Idels, Marcel; World of Possibilities: The Imperative of Agrarian Based Localization, bluegreenearth.com, July 2002, pages 1-4 deal extensively with the oppression in rural areas and the threat of mega cities. Five pages of footnotes address this crisis too. For documentation of the exodus from rural areas because of state sponsored violence in Colombia see: Andes on Fires, bluegreenearth.com, March 2002 or Nadir and "Colombia and the New Latin America: Key to the Lies, Email EcoSolidarity. Also "CIA Cocaine Death Squads," A-Infos.
G. Cities are growing at a rate of around 1 million people every week. Half the Earth's population will soon live in congested, urban regions mainly in the poor, developing countries of the South. The world's megacities take up just 2 percent of the Earth's land surface, yet they account for roughly 75 percent of industrial wood use, 60 percent of human water use, and nearly 80 percent of all human produced carbon emissions.
The explosion and growth of megacities worldwide is unsustainable, unprecedented and ecologically disastrous for human civilization. Sustainable urban development requires realistic limits on any given region's natural carrying capacity, hard-core conservation and recycling of local finite natural resources, the promotion of limitless decentralized alternative energy sources, and a radical shift into environmental, economic and social development alternatives that promote healthy and advanced living arrangements and environments for future urban dwellers worldwide for the 21st century. Steve Jones, Projected Coastal Megacities; jpeg. See also Megacities 2000; Megacities Foundation, Netherlands; megacities. Megacities.
Anyone who imagines that cities are good for the ecology or who thinks that even the greenest urban proposals would vastly improve urban impacts should contact us for a clarification of the bigger picture and discussion of definitions. Also please send articles on the benefits of cities to Email EcoSolidarity.

5. "World Social Forum" by Cristina Feijoo and Lucio Salas Orońo, ZNet Espanol March 12, 2002.
The World Social Forum is taking place in Porto Alegre, capital of the State of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). The political process that made this encounter possible was the following: the Worker's Party (PT, Partido de los Trabajadores) won the elections in this City. Whether these historical considerations are worth mentioning or not, the fact is that in the last 3 years Rio Grande do Sul has adopted a different course of productive and cultural organization to that of the rest of Brazil. The comparative results are incredible: Rio Grande is the only State that has opposed the widespread privatization programmes implemented in the rest of Brazil; it has been able to maintain the rate of infant mortality at 15 per thousand (against an average of 37 per thousand in the rest of Brazil); life expectancy for men and women is 5 years higher than in the rest of the country; illiteracy rates stand at 7% against 15%; per capita income is US $4,500 (against US $ 3,500); they have the lowest unemployment rate in the country and "only" 2 million (20%) of gaúchos (Rio Grande's native people) live below the poverty line (against almost 50% in the rest of the country). These advances are the result of a broadly proclaimed policy - with some publicised insistence - aimed at achieving universal rights; decentralized social assistance; massive literacy programmes; family protection and support to rural families; support for first-time workers; local systems of production; incentives to small companies; and agrarian reforms.

6. The examples of Porto Alegre, Nicaragua and Cuba show how people free from persecution with secure land tenure can produce abundance and spread positive and productive optimism throughout the society and economy.

7. A. Earth Charter
B. Earth First! Journal, Litha June/July, 2002, Earth Charter: Transition to New World?, by Marcel Idels. Some of the following is from the original uncut version. Principle 3 of the 1992 Rio Declaration states, 'The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet development and environmental needs of present and future generations.' This statement captures the heart of the Earth Charter vision. It was approved over the objections of the US. The following prioritization of the Earth Charter supports the vision of civil society and what most people in the world want for a new way of living.
The current draft of the Earth Charter was presented in Rio de Janeiro in 1997. The Preamble to the Earth Charter identifies the parameters by which the world must address critical issues:
1. Urgency: We stand at a critical moment, a time when humanity must choose its future...it is imperative, that we declare our responsibility to...future generations...production and consumption are causing environmental devastation...the foundations of global security are threatened...these trends are perilous. We urgently need basic values of an ethical foundation for the emerging world community...a global partnership to care for the earth or risk destruction of ourselves and... When basic needs are met, development is about being more, not having [consuming] more.
2. Respect for the Earth and the health of all ecological systems requires major changes in our ways of living that reduce damage to the environment and support all people and future generations.
3. Caution: [From section II.6] Prevent harm as the best method of environmental protection and when knowledge is limited, apply a precautionary approach.
We affirm the Earth Charter as the Principles for a sustainable way of life and a standard by which the conduct of ALL individuals, organizations, businesses, governments and transnational institutions are to be guided and assessed [judged]. - Earth Charter Preamble: The right to own, manage and use natural resources comes with a duty to prevent environmental harm and to protect the rights of people who might be affected by this activity. Promote the Common Good. Democratic societies are just, participatory, sustainable and peaceful. Communities at all levels must ensure human rights, social and economic justice and respect for ecological systems. The needs of future generations determine our actions and ways of living today.
Place the burden of proof on those who argue that a proposed activity will not cause significant harm. Decision-making must address the cumulative longterm and indirect consequences of human activities. Prevent all pollution and allow no build-up of radioactive, toxic or other hazardous substances. Avoid military activity damaging to the environment.
Adopt patterns of production, consumption and reproduction that safeguard Earth's regenerative capacities, human rights and community well being. Rely on renewable energy. Internalize the full environmental and social costs of goods and services in prices. Provide universal health care. Advance the study of ecological sustainability with special attention to developing countries. Preserve traditional knowledge. Vital information, including genetic information, shall remain in the public domain.
Economic activities and institutions shall promote human development in an equitable and sustainable manner, through an equitable distribution of income within and among nations. Relieve developing nations of international debt and ensure that all trade supports sustainable resource use, environmental protection and progressive labor standards, Hold corporations accountable for the consequences of their activities.
(14.-16). Educate people on sustainability. Prevent cruelty to animals. Promote a culture of tolerance, nonviolence and peace. Demilitarize national security systems to the level of a nonprovocative defense posture, and convert military resources to ecological restoration [and development aid to the most needy regions].
C. Food First, "Toward an Agroecological Alternative for the Peasantry", and many groundbreaking research studies that support the benefits of localization and agrarian reforms. See: New Oxfam Campaign Contradicts Demands for WTO Reform, April 12, 2002; Why Should We Care About Agriculture in Cuba? 2002; Policy Think Tank Releases New Report on Cuba's Successful Organic Farms, February 6, 2002; International Seminar on the Negative Impacts of World Bank Market-Based Land Reform Policy, April 2001. Susag Case Study
D. www.ifg.org "Another World is Possible," 2002. International Forum on Globalization (IFG) represents over 60 organizations in 25 countries, the IFG associates come together out of shard concern that the world's corporate and political leadership is undertaking a restructuring... that is happening at tremendous speed, with little public disclosure of the profound consequences. "IFG Special Report: Does Globalization Help the Poor?," by Debi Barker and Jerry Mander with articles by Walden Bello, John Cavanaugh, Michael Chossudovsky, Victoria Tauli-Corpus, Martin Khor, Vandana Shiva: "We advocate the following principles:
*Revitalization of local communities by promoting maximum self-reliance, economic and political control, and environmental sustainability.
*Establishment of economic enterprises and accompanying institutions that enhance people's abilities to exercise democratic control over all decisions that affect them, while promoting meaningful and sustainable livelihoods for all.
*Replacement of economic policies based on such concepts as "comparative advantage," which have destroyed local economies through emphasizing regional specialization and environmentally disastrous global transport activity. We urge emphasis on the use of local resources for local production and consumption to produce a better balance between local commerce and long-distance trade.
*Abandonment of the paradigm of unlimited economic growth-which is blind to ecological limits and seeks to maximize consumption and material output.
*Recognition of the rights and sovereignty of indigenous peoples.
*Encouragement of biodiversity, cultural diversity, and diversity of social, economic, and political forms.
*Development of autonomous, regional and local cycles of production and consumption based primarily on renewable resources of energy and raw materials, and recycling all types of wastes, thus preserving natural resources for future generations, as well as the wisdom and beauty of nature. We believe that the creation of a more equitable economic order will require new international agreements that place the needs of people, local economies and the natural world ahead of the interest of corporations. It is possible, necessary, and in the long run, far more viable to seek such paths rather than a globalized economic system doomed to fail." (from web archive, "About IFG.")."
Also see their new book: Alternatives to Economic Globalization, 2002.
E. "Peasants Speak, The Via Campesina: Consolidating an International Peasant and Farm Movement," Annette-Aurelie Desmarais, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 29, January 2002."What really unites us is a fundamental commitment to humanism, because the antithesis of this is individualism and materialism... what also unites us are great aspirations. We are all convinced that the current structures of economic, political and social power are unjust and exclusionary... and we aspire to a better world." - Operational Secretariat, Rafael Alegria, 2000.
They believe that corporate globalization is "leading to the destruction of biodiversity and subsequent loss of cultural diversity, further degradation of the environment, increased disparity, and greater impoverishment in the countryside..." sustained by human rights abuses and increased violence - to intimidate peasants. The concept of Food Sovereignty is discussed and the stereotype of a romantic and anti-modern return to the past is deconstructed. Via Campesina hopes to combine aspects of traditional or local knowledge with appropriate technology.
F. Ecosolidarity Andes and 100's of millions of people around the world believe that programs like the IAPE are the only "new" idea in more than 20 years. Unification behind the IAPE; bringing together the issues of the drug war, economic alternatives, rejection of US militarism and ecological protections; and solidarity with Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador (others soon to join the "New South America") is the only path to power for environmentalists, human rights advocates and other social justice groups. Support for this program and explaining why Americans should adopt it is the only path for the US Democratic Party, if they want to present honest alternatives and regain the faith and participation of the 60-68 percent of US citizens who have rejected voting and representative democracy.
G. Excerpts from the Porto Alegre II Statements: A Call of Social Movements: Resistance to Neoliberalism, War and Militarism: For Peace and Social Justice:
"In the face of continuing deterioration in the living conditions of people, we, social movements from around the world, have come together. We are diverse - women and men, adults and youth. We are a global solidarity movement, united in our determination to fight against the concentration of wealth, the proliferation of poverty and inequalities, and the destruction of our Earth... We are resistance to a system based on sexism, racism and violence, which privileges the interests of capital and patriarchy over the needs and aspirations of people. It is essential to preserve biodiversity. People have the right to safe and permanent food free from genetically modified organisms. Food sovereignty at the local, national and regional level is a basic human right; in this regard, democratic land reforms and peasant access to land are fundamental requirements."

8. A. Porto Alegre II Statements: "In Argentina the financial and economic crisis caused by the IMF precipitated a social and political crisis, spontaneous protests of the middle and working classes, failure of governments and new alliances between different social groups. With the force of Cacerolazos, piquetes, Asembleas and Piqueteros, the popular mobilization has demanded basic rights of food, jobs and housing.
"We demand the unconditional cancellation of the debt of southern countries and the reparation of historical, social, and ecological debts."
B. "Conflict and Transition to Sustainability," Idels, Marcel; December 2002. Brazil and other countries should form a debt cartel and negotiate a general and full default. Banks would be nationalized with currency controls and reserves and deposit releases would be prioritized for key imports, the poor and the lower middle class - not for the wealthy. The mistakes of Argentina are instructive.
The national budget would be redirected to educational programs that compliment a transition to a mixed economic structure focused on agrarian reform and localization. The national budget would be used to fill in the gaps resulting from the main decision makers who would be the participatory budgeting councils of municipalities and farming regions.

9. A. Taxes on International Trade and Finance: "Another world is possible," Peter Rosset, New Internationalist, 342, Jan / Feb 2002
"If we want to create viable small-farm economies based on sustainable technologies, then the steps are more or less clear. We need trade policies that don't damage local farm economies - and that means at the very least removing food crops from World Trade Organization purview. We need genuine land reform, and we need an end to visible and hidden subsidies for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, together with a renewed emphasis on supporting and upscaling successful cases of sustainable small-farm agriculture."
B. Value Added Taxes (VAT) for fossil fuels would be similar to those used throughout Europe and much of the world. A tax is applied at each phase of production or marketing (when value is added). Although the rest the article "The Eco-Economic Revolution," is sadly flawed, Lester R. Brown begins it well with a discussion of externalities and how the market gives bad signals and information when the prices of products like petroleum do not reflect their full costs to society and the environment, The Futurist, March 2002, page 23. The People-Decided International Social Investment Fund for Sustainable Development replaces WTO, IMF, World Bank, and bans or taxes of the activities of Multi-National Corporations.
Governmental budgets at the state and national level would be reduced and most governmental resources and personnel will be re-oriented toward regional planning and coordination between communities and regional needs. The armed forces will be reduced and most soldiers will perform educational and labor projects in the most needy regions.
The priorities of all planning should be the reduction of pollution, reduced impact on the environment and sustainability, and the restructuring of local and regional economies toward localization (import substitution) and of making the best longrun use of local resources and opportunities.
C. In an ideal world the funding for these economic development programs would be easy. Sources include: the UN which could eliminate much of its bureaucracy and give the money directly to communities ($5 to 10 billion); the combined foreign aid funding by the OECD ($60-80 billion) and the budgets of the extinct World Bank ($20-25 billion) and the IMF ($15-20 billion) would be enough to fund a worldwide Ecological Rural Development program; half the world's spending on military forces would suffice ($900 billion per year); a one percent tax on world trade would raise $250 to 300 billion a year. The Tobin tax can raise $50 to 80 billion per year and even small VAT taxes on fossil fuels could raise $50 to 100 billion per year.
Initial estimates for the first five years of a fully funded IAPE program range from $900 to 1200 billion per year. Money is not the problem it is the issue of control and of independence that worries many economic and political leaders. After 10 years of the program the costs should quickly drop to a quarter of the initial levels - by this time the use of fossil fuels and the volume of world trade will have declined as well.
It is hoped that this program will overcome concerns of the left (for social justice), the right (small government, local rights and a market economy) and the greens (sustainability and ecological respect). It is hard to imagine a program that better balances these concerns. How to phase in such a program in order to reduce instability without going so slow as to douse people's expectations is an important area of study.

10. A. Of course, there is an obvious reason why the US is so strongly opposed to the Kyoto Treaty, a UN enforced Earth Charter, The International Criminal Court or any slowing of the global economy: the US is completely unsustainable spiritually, economically (except by military force) and ecologically. Why the world makes so little outrage over the excesses of the US will be one of the great debates of the future - if there is one. The US will suffer the most of the wealthy countries because it is built on an empire and requires trillions of dollars to flow through it every year. The US makes most of its foreign exchange income from tiny fees on money transfers and stock sales - banking services. And weapons sales.
Just restricting US arms exports would probably cause an economic depression in the US. Or imagine that the US gave its whole weapons industry to Brazil along with its majority share of world arms exports. Brazil would soon be as wealthy a nation as the US and as powerful too. For the world to tolerate high levels of US arms sales is like an old lady giving guns to her would-be mugger. Stupid.
B. "The reality is that power and wealth in this world are very, very unequally shared, and that far too many people are condemned to lives of extreme poverty and degradation... the perception, among many, is that this is the fault of... the people who attend this gathering (WEC)." Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN, 2001.
C. Penalties for spending more than one percent of GDP on the military could be a point of intense negotiation over the timeline for reductions, the level of fines and what would be counted as military. Many will want to count all armed forces (including police and private security), the industries that supply the armed forces, and the pensions of all these individuals as part of the military budget.
A Ban on weapons sales worldwide would hurt the US which has always been the largest arms dealer - nearly half of the world trade in weapons is by the US. Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Colombia, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Gulf states are among the largest recipients. This has to end. The US has refused to sign or blocked tentative international agreements on small arms trade.

11. A. Organic foods are popular and any increase in food prices would be modest with government programs assisting the poor. If production and export subsidies are eliminated then an abundance of food could be produced organically on the remaining land even if yields were lower.
B. Coward's Stand: Cap in Hand?, by Ros Coward, The Ecologist, vol. 32, no. 2, March 2002, page 9. How consumers and many legislatures across Europe support a new agriculture.
C. Ending agricultural production and export subsidies in OECD is long overdue. Europe has moved in that direction by changing much of its agricultural subsidies to direct payments - welfare for farmers. The US said that it would do the same, but for domestic political reasons Bush reversed himself and signed a "monstrous" increase in production and export subsidies. This coupled with his sudden turn to protectionism over steel earned Bush the title "The Great Anti-Globalizer" from The Economist of London. This sacrifice of face and substance with the WTO paid off for Bush as the rightwing - thanks partly to farm belt votes - won all branches of government in the 2002 "off-year" elections for the US Congress - the first time in 50 years for a rightwing complete takeover.
D. Alternatives to Economic Globalization, IFG, p. 110, 165.

12. Debates at the Earth Summit, 2002 And in the www.ifg.org publication, "Another World is Possible," have ideas on enforcement for the Earth Charter, legally binding agreements.

13. A. "World of Possibilities," www.Bluegreenearth.com, July 2002.
B. International Action to Control the US-Corporate Endangerment of the World see:
Salzman essay "Call to stop the U.S. government's drive for global domination "
"I previously advocated such unified "break away" action for Latin America (see Letter to Fox), which would qualify on all three counts: a population of over half a billion people, enormous natural resources, and a widespread desire among the bulk of the population to halt U.S.-led destruction of their national patrimonies and the dignity of their shared Latin American cultures and lives. If a high degree of unification were achieved among the nations of Latin America, with pacts of mutual aid and strengthened economic relations, and the strong sense of polarization between the U.S. and Latin America continues to develop, then the U.S. would be strongly inhibited from attacking any one of the Latin American nations, because the result would be to further isolate it and to strengthen the unity of the entire bloc opposing its dominance. Moreover, with such a development among the Latin American nations, there would be a strong incentive for nations in other continents, who also suffer from U.S. dominance, to affiliate themselves with the group and to enter into treaties of mutual aid with Latin American nations, and with one another."
The danger exists at two levels, national and international. Within Mexico there are many forces of the status quo; big businessmen, drug cartels, multimillionaires, political groups who desire above all to recover political power and who want the initiatives of your administration to be a disaster, and other retrograde interests. The traditional political system in Mexico will not help to fight these forces; on the contrary, this system is a suffocating jungle in which, if you lack a non-traditional strategy, you will be gobbled up. However, there now exists in Mexico a different force, a different progressive force that was born from the new understanding and awakening that took place with the earthquake of 1985, when it became evident that the government, that is to say the PRI government, was incapable of facing and resolving real problems. This force grew and gradually matured so as to confront and resolve real problems, and finally, on July 2, 2000, the day came when, with explosive power, the scream Enough! resounded.
... The combined natural resources of the Latinamerican countries are immense: resources of energy, agriculture and livestock, water, forests, resources of biodiversity, minerals, industries, cultural resources and above all human resources: there is the spirit, ability, energy and generosity of the people. The myth that development of the so-called "Third World" depends on the "aid" of the "First World" is false.
C. Globalization = global warming. Higher incomes from the golden promises of Globalization will mean more consumption and the release of more global warming gases. Global warming threatens rural areas with increased weather and crop yield variability. That is why Agroecological and organic farming techniques are so important in order to preserve diversity of seed varieties and a balanced and conserving polyculture that will be adaptable and resistant to climatic variability.
Global warming severely threatens urban areas with water shortages, food shortages, increased disease, floods and rising sea waters that will destroy sewer systems, aquifers and structures. Some newer climate models predict temperature increase in the range of 14-19 degrees. This will be catastrophic for all life.
D. In "The Struggle for Socialism Today," March 2002 rebelion:
"Petras further develops his analysis of the new imperialism - this new phase of capitalism - US neo-mercantilist empire. "In Latin America, the EU is proposing an integration and free trade agreement with MERCOSUR - the regional trade organization including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. While the gap in military power between the U.S. and the EU widens, the integrated market of the European Union and its overseas linkages provide a formidable challenge to neo-mercantile empire building."

14. A. Feeding People In The 21st Century: An Organic Farmer Responds To The Father of the 'Green Revolution', Shepherd Bliss, D.Min., studied at the University of Chicago Divinity School, served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam era, and currently owns an organic farm in Northern California. Published May 31 2002. "The Slow Food Movement that began in Europe is also now spreading around the world. This movement defends the growing, preparing and eating of nutritious food as integral to diverse, healthy, independent cultures. Food not only feeds individuals; its growing and preparation nurtures families, communities, and cultures.
Credible alternatives to Borlaug's 'Green Revolution' are outlined by Frances Moore Lappe (author of Diet for a Small Planet, 1971) and her daughter Anna Lappe in their new book Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet. They visited Belo Horizonte, Brazil, a city of 2.5 million. Its citizens, under the leadership of the Worker's Party, decided that good food was a human right, rather than a matter of wealth. It is the only city in the capitalist world to make food security a right of citizenship. Belo Horizonte offers a model for communities to solve hunger on a local level. It focuses on programs such as community and school gardens, fresh food delivery to poorer neighborhoods, and linking hospitals, restaurants, and other big buyers to local organic growers.
Don't be fooled by the term 'Green Revolution.' It harms people, plants, animals, and the environment in order to enhance the profits of a few. Humanity and nature are currently on a collision course, which the 'Green Revolution' hastens. We need to work to restore natural harmony and the balance of nature, rather than extract more of its gifts for human consumption. Everything that's labeled "green" and all "revolutions" are not necessarily helpful for people or nature.
B. From Peacework, June 2002 - p. 21 a story on Cuba from Siri Colon who went there.
"This is my second time in Cuba and being here reinforces my re-evaluation of the word poverty. I've come to agree with this statement that being poor is a relative and moral term rather than a quantifiable term. The other day I heard a Cuban speaking about the extreme poverty in Honduras. She said how lucky she feels to live without need in Cuba.
'Well. in Cuba, we don't have much but we have a house, food, and a job.'
"I immediately concurred. I understood, I told her that what she speaks of when she says poverty, has more to do with the soul than material wealth. Poverty is when people hopelessly witness exaggerated wealth that they do not have access to. Poverty is when a people have little power to change their circumstances. Poverty, I thought, is also complacency. In contrast, the immeasurable wealth I saw in Cuba was one of family, community, pride and a joi de vivre evident in the way that they carried themselves in their daily interactions."
C. "Lessons from the Green Revolution," Tikkun, Vol. 15, No. 2, page 55.

15. A. Porto Alegre 2002: A Tale of Two Forums, James Petras, February 2002, Rebelion. "The radicals see the mobilizations as leading to the creation of new organizations of popular power, based on the mass organization of urban neighborhoods, workers, unemployed peasants, and class based women, Indian and black movements. Their orientation is to create new class based international movements, like Via Campesina, which seek to implement radical transformations of property rights and social relations of production. "The reformists, referring to "civil society" are disinterested in "state power"; they are content to pressure the existing imperialist powers to secure greater regulation, limitations on speculative capital (Tobin tax). Radicals point to the need for a new state power, based on representative grassroots assemblies and social movements capable of socializing the means of production and democratizing social relations -- totally displacing the current corporate elite and their benefactors.
"In the discussion of "alternatives", the official organizers emphasized "reformed" imperialism and "regulated" capitalism, while the radical social movements opened a debate and put on the table a discussion of socialism.
"There is little space and place for reformist politics. The new imperialism is polarizing the world in a way that fits the analysis of the radicals. The scope and depth of U.S. militarization cannot be confronted by sporadic protests by networks of NGO without organized popular support. The radical social movements building powerful local, national and regional anti-capitalist movements and engaging in direct action at the sites of state power are far more effective than the international globe-trotting NGO'ers."
B. ICCI-RIMI Boletin, a monthly publication of the Institute for Indigenous Sciences and Cultures, Year III, No. 28, July 2001; Native Web, waccom email.
"Globalization has become 'strong discourse' used to justify and legitimize power structures that respond to the interests of the big transnational corporations, finance capital and governments of the industrialized countries. In reality, the globalized world is a predatory one with its central idea of accumulation. Accumulation implies that there will never be enough and that given the system's existing power relations, need will always be used for its strategic purposes. The concept of accumulation inherent in capitalism's epistemological matrix is a form of black hole that negates any possibility of sustainability or respect for other people and nature."
C. Bankruptcy (Porto Alegre Statement, 2001 World Social Forum)
"The nonsustainability and bankruptcy of the ruling world order is fully evident. The need for alternatives has never been stronger. We commit ourselves, and call on all citizens and governments, to join us in working towards a vision of sustainable peace in which divergent views and interests coexist in a manner that reinforces a common good and builds a world of justice and peace where basic needs are met and human rights and dignity are respected.
We commit ourselves, and call on all citizens and governments to ensure that:
1. There is a collective acknowledgment of the uselessness of destruction and violence and a profound shift in direction in the struggle to find solutions to the crisis in which we find ourselves.
2. These solutions are people centered and build on that which already exists.
3. We must change our thinking and break free from a preoccupation with economic and material prosperity, illustrated by patterns of overproduction and overconsumption.
4. Build and strengthen sustainable links that support the process of organising civil society groups and global solidarity networks at all levels.
5. Ensure that these networks become sustainable civil movements that can build connections and relationships with current decision makers at all levels in order to influence the changes proposed below.
6. Transform the United Nations to ensure that the General Assembly becomes a global parliament with elected representatives.
7. Abolish the United Nations Security Council so that all nations meet as equals within a reformed General Assembly.
8. Redirect military spending to prioritise the conversion and reallocation of military resources to alleviate poverty and environmental degradation.
9. Suspend the arms trade by working towards a moratorium on the import and manufacture of arms and in the interim legislate and implement rigorous controls on arms transfers.
10. Transform the WTO's trade rules and dispute settlement procedures towards the needs of sustainable development and in support of its mandate.
11. Cancel the global debt."
D. Rubin, Jeffery, interviewed by Dan Malakoff, April 4, 2002. This Boston University professor studied social movements in Brazil's south, especially Porto Alegre.
E. Feijo, Cristina and Lucio Salas Orono; Latin American Report on the World Social Forum, March 12, 2002. Details of the many successes of Rio Grande do Sul. Z-Mag
F. A. Ultimately the UN may play an important role, but even the Alternative World Social Forum is not the center of change. Change is happening everywhere and spontaneously - at the seams. Look at the seams on your shirt made in some other country's sweatshop. Maybe change isn't about what is said and done in the centers, it's about the seams, the in-between spaces with their hidden strength. Some say the rising energy in Argentina is a revolt from the seams - a revolt that will spread along the weak links to the next seam. Demonstrators aren't calling for a change of the political guard, but have instead adopted the sweeping slogan, "Get rid of them all."
G. How will Society enact change through their numbers ? In some parts of Argentina, the piqueteros have created quasi-liberated zones, where their ability to mobilize is far more influential than anything the local government is able to do. In General Mosconi, formerly a rich oil town in the far north, which now suffers with a more than 40% unemployment rate, the movement has taken things into its own hands and is running over 300 different projects, including bakeries, organic gardens, clinics, and water purification. What is extraordinary is that these radical actions, practiced by some of the most excluded and impoverished people in Argentina
H. Many remain unimpressed, still waiting for a new top-down ideology to chart the course against global capitalism. The new proletariat is the two billion peasants who still have a type of revolutionary energy to improve their lives where they live. In considering the importance (or not) of the working class it is well to observe that most people in the world are not (post)industrial workers, but peasants. The relationship to the land is most important, and the categories of discourse associated with Marx and other 19th-century radicals are still relevant, especially the emphasis on capitalism's origins as an agricultural revolution. Camatte, advocated movements based on community rather than on class. The concept of community is frustratingly vague when applied to contemporary Western societies, but is easier to see in relation to that greater part of the world where capital has still not completely penetrated the traditional societies, and social formations whose roots predate capitalism are still the norm. In his essay on the Russian Revolution, Camatte emphasized the populist, peasant-based dimension rather than the class-struggle dialectic of bourgeoisie vs. proletariat. He made the case that the workers' councils were in a sense extensions of the peasant commune, because many of the insurrectionary workers in the rapidly industrializing Russia of that time were recent migrants from the countryside ( like much of Latin America today), where communal social forms prevailed.
Today, in non-Western societies, urbanization and industrialization continue to grow and capital makes further inroads through the same means by which it became established in the West: enclosures and the uprooting of people from their means of subsistence on the land. But there is still at least a trace of communitarian dimension in workers' lives. People in many parts of Africa and Asia, for example, who have become workers in cities still have family, food, and other resources in their native villages in the countryside.
If peasant-based socialism were to take hold on a large scale, many areas of the world could be pulled out of the global market. But as long as capital remains securely in power in its metropolitan strongholds, this scenario probably won't work. Surely there has to be a way to accomplish it without domination and coercion of our fellow human beings, or insult to the rest of nature. The "small is beautiful" idea is appealing. "Appropriate" technologies, city gardens (horticulture), and, wherever possible, the revival of artisanal rather than industrial production are possibilities. The sheer size of the earth's human population, however, might make these solutions difficult to implement.
I. "The struggle for Socialism today," James Petras, March 3, 2002. "Bourgeois electoral campaigns have served as a facade to legitimate the power and decisions of non-elected elites from the IMF, the World Bank and the local functionaries serving the local capitalist and financial ruling class. As a result the elected political leaders pursue regressive politics: concentrating land at the expense of the landless workers and small producers; eroding the democratic rights of the people by ruling by decree and supporting anti-labor legislation, and imposing macro-economic policy ("neoliberalism") that destroys the domestic market, undermines national public control and ownership of strategic productive, raw material and financial sectors. In contrast to the failures of electoral politics, the politics of direct action embraced by the socio-political movements in Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina and elsewhere have been successful in realizing significant social and political changes. The Landless Workers Movement in Brazil via its land occupation policy has settled over 250,000 families.
The CONAIE in Ecuador have toppled two presidents and now control the current President, Gutierrez.. In Argentina the combined forces of the unemployed workers' movements, (Piqueteros), the neighborhood organizations (Cacerolas), and young activists have forced the non-payment of the foreign debt, the toppled 5 presidents and created a national mass popular movement against the whole established bourgeois political class. The contrast between the practical accomplishments of socio-political movements engaged in mass direct action and the impotence, corruption and co-optation of the electoral left is striking.
The electoral process has no impact on the policies of the elected officials. Repeatedly during electoral campaigns the bourgeois and left candidates promise to create jobs, to attack "neoliberalism" and to create a more equitable economic system. However, when the politicians take office they deepen and extend privatization, impose new structural adjustment policies and heighten repression against popular movements."

16. A. Throughout the tropics and third world countries, higher productivity with fewer imported or manufactured inputs is common for small farms especially in Latin America. And small farm labor-intensive techniques make better utilization of cheap inputs (labor and land) and require fewer of the expensive inputs of capital and machinery.
B. Rosset, Peter M., "Toward an Agroecological Alternative for the Peasantry," Institute for Development Policy (Food First), 1997. "The monoculture/large farm trap is also an underlying cause of low productivity in the tropics, in that large farms almost always display much lower productivity per unit area than smaller farms." Small farmer stability is food security for all."
C. New Internationalist, 342, January/February 2002, "Another world is possible / Food and Farming." Peter Rosset takes us on a quick world tour of sustainable food production, and finds alternative methods are not just viable, but reaping the benefits.
"We live in a contradictory moment of human history. On the one hand we find the world's farmers and farmworkers under more pressure than ever, from free trade and neoliberal budget slashing and from privatization policies of all kinds. On the other we increasingly have real and significant examples that a different vision of rural spaces - based on principles of social justice and ecological sustainability - can actually work, and can work better than agribusiness-as-usual. land reform can yield improvements in land productivity and employ many people. Large farmers tend to plant monocultures because they are the simplest to manage with heavy machinery. Small farmers on the other hand, especially in the Third World, are much more likely to plant crop mixtures - intercropping - where the empty space between the rows is occupied by other crops. They usually combine or rotate crops and livestock, with manure serving to replenish soil fertility.
Such integrated farming systems produce far more per unit area than do monocultures. Though the yield per unit area of one crop - maize, for example - may be lower on a small farm than on a large monoculture, the total production per unit area, often composed of more than a dozen crops and various animal products, can be far, far higher. It is the commitment that family members have to their farm, and the complexity and integrated nature of small farms, that guarantee their advantage."
This holds true whether we are talking about an industrial country like the United States, or any country in the Third World.
D. Government and international policies that favor rich (corporate) farmers (in OECD and Third World countries) are combined with death squads and rural oppression in many poor agricultural countries. This effectively denies small farmers a livelihood and anything resembling real democracy. The majority are ignored and the classic model of industrial development is followed: Rural neglect and the extraction of surplus from the agricultural sector to feed the industrial sector.
E. Brooks, Jonathan and Carmel Cahil, "Why Agricultural Trade Liberalisation Matters," OECD Observer, October, 2001. "OECD Farmer's incomes still rely too heavily on subsidies, which distort markets, put exporters from developing countries at a disadvantage and cost taxpayers $330 billion a year. On average more than a third of farm receipts come from government programmes [subsidies]... agricultural support in the OECD accounts for 1.3 percent of GDP, yet agriculture accounts for less than five percent of GDP. The value of support [to OECD farmers- mostly large corporations] is more than five times higher than official spending on overseas development assistance [foreign aid] and twice the value of the agricultural exports from all developing countries combined (page 1 of web archive)."
F. Whitaker, Morris D. and Dale Colyer, Agricultural & Economic Survival: The Role of Agriculture in Ecuador's Development, Westview Press, Boulder, 1990. "First, the macroeconomic and sectoral policies need to be modified in order to provide equal incentives throughout the economy (see Chapter 2). Such policies have resulted in greater imports of raw materials and capital goods for industry and of foodstuffs while dampening incentives for increasing and diversifying agricultural production (page 67)."
G. Another subsidy to OECD agriculture is the illegal and low paid immigrant farm sector labor - 20 to 30 million workers and tens of billions in labor savings each year.
H. www.foodfirst.org/progs/global/ge/agalternative.html
I. Economic Research Service/USDA, "Agriculture in the WTO/WRS-98/December 1998. Most developing country agriculture sectors receive very little government support and in many cases are taxed not subsidized. Due in part to exchange rate over-valuation, budgetary constraints and the lack of administrative infrastructure to provide subsidies." OECD countries have high subsidies. Why? And why not the poor?
J. Norberg-Hodge, Helena, Ecologist Vol. 29, No 3, May 1999. "Urbanization is a result of economic forces - subsidized by governments around the world...not just rural areas - increasingly small and medium sized towns are dying too."
K. Green Economics: newint
L. cla.calpoly.edu (Review of “Natural Capitalism” by Paul Hawkin)
"Known as "the ecological city," Curitiba is located in the Southeastern Brazilian state of Parana and has a population of about 4 million people--the size of Houston or Philadelphia. There, "responsible government in partnership with vital entrepenurship has succeeded better than most cities in the U.S." They have implemented "hundreds of multipurpose, cheap, fast, simple homegrown, people-centered initiatives...treating all its citizens--most of all its children--not as burden but as most precious resource.
"Teasing apart the strands of the intricate web of Curitiban innovation reveals the basic principles of Natural Capitalism at work in a particularly inspiring way."(307) Resources are used frugally. New technologies are adopted. Broken loops are reclosed. Toxicity is designed out, health in. Design works with nature, not against it. The scale of solutions matches the scale of problems. "The existence of Curitba holds out the promise that it will be first of a string of cities that redefine the nature of urban life."(308)
Chapter 15, the final chapter of the book, entitled, "Once Upon a Planet," leads right to where we sit today. {I think Hawken hides more than re reveals, but at least he works at it.]

17. A. Berry, Wendell, In the Presence of Fear, Oriononline.org and numerous articles in the Atlantic, Progressive and Utne Reader (August 2002).
B. Hines, Collin, Localization: A Global Manifesto, London, 2001.
C. "The Case for Localization," Helena Norberg-Hodge, Earth Island Journal, Spring 2002.
D. "The Idea of a Local Economy," Wendell Berry, The Ecologist, Vol. 31, No 9, 2001. See also, "Relocalization," Collin Hines, The Ecologist, February 2001
E. There are many writers who touch on the issues surrounding a new blend of small market economics and collective structures.
See:
1. The Ecology of Commerce, Paul Hawken, HarperCollins, New York, NY, 1993.
2. When Corporations Rule the World, David C Korten, Kumarian Press, West Hartford, CT, 1995.
3. Alternatives Magazine, Vol 21, No 4, Oct/Nov 1995, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON.
4. For the Common Good, Herman E Daly and John B Cobb Jr, Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1989.
5. 'Ecological Footprints and Appropriated Carrying Capacity', William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel, from Investing in Natural Capital, Eds. Jansson, Hammer, Folke and Costanza, Island Press, Washington, DC, 1994.
6. From 'An agenda to tame corporations, reclaim citizen sovereignty and restore economic sanity', a speech by David Korten of the People Centered Development Forum, 3 Sept 1995.
7. The Unconscious Civilization, John Ralston Saul, Anansi Press, Concord, ON, 1995.

18. Welton, Neva and Linda Wolf, Global Uprising, New Society, British Columbia, Canada, 2001. "Capitalism a Pathology of the Market Economy" by David Korten, page 103. This former Ford Foundation official says that corporate globalization is "Market tyranny... extending its reach across the planet like a cancer, colonizing ever more of the planet's living spaces, destroying livelihoods displacing people, rendering democracy impotent and feeding on life in an insatiable quest for money." Global Uprising also has succinct articles by Vandana Shiva, Starhawk, Naomi Klien, Shannon Service, Global Exchange and 55 others.

19. A. Colburn, Forrest D. 2002, Latin America at the End of Politics. Princeton University Press. He cites the Latinbarometrica polling data showing how few people in most of Latin America even believe in the concept of democracy.
B. In the US, corporations get subsidies for everything: export and foreign advertising subsidies for tobacco; gold-plated military contracts; free insurance for nuclear power plants and free nuclear waste disposal; troops, banks and the IMF to rescue their poor or corrupt foreign investments; and even mortgage interest deductions (tax write-offs) for their executives 100 million dollar homes.
C. "A Better World is Possible: Alternatives to Economic Globalization," IIFG.org; P, 142, 165.

20. A. In September, 2001, two former Indian Prime Ministers, Singh and Gowda, joined with political parties, trade unions, farmer's organizations, tribals, people's movements and grassroots workers to launch the Indian People's Movement against the WTO... The poor are being sacrificed for a repeat of the cruel free market experiment that created the famine of 1942 and is now doing the same in the 21st Century.
B. "India Will Not Behave: India's Most Unreasonable Author," Arundhati Roy, Whole Earth, Winter, 2001, page 28. "Something akin to an undeclared civil war is being waged on its subjects in the name of 'development'."
C. Protectionism has been used by all countries extensively - it is the key to success of Japan, Korea, Taiwan and France. Protection of agriculture has been debated forever and the US still subsidises and protects its farmers massively.
D. "Self Imposed Sanctions: The Indian Population Needs More Trade Barriers to Prevent Free Trade Starvation," Vandana Shiva, President of the Delhi-based Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, The Ecologist, Vol. 31, No. 9, Nov. 2001. "The area under traditional grains has declined by 18 percent, whilst the area under non-food cash crops such as cotton and sugar cane has increased by 25 percent. In three years food production has shrunk by 12.8 million tons to 196 million tons, Central and state governments are dismantling the people's food security system through trade and globalization policies. Other threats include increasing costs of inputs, particularly due to price deregulation [floating currency?], and falling farm prices caused by the withdrawl of government procurement. The situation has been exacerbated by WTO-induced dumping of imported products from rich and poor countries, itself made worse by the removal of import restrictions (quantitative Restrictions/quotas).
"In essence the fundamental change required in the world food system involves putting people and nature, not trade, at the center of food and agriculture policy."
E. Alternatives to Economic Globalization, IFG, p. 179 describes how tariffs are good and needed for import substitution.
F. For a discussion of Green Economics see: newint

21. "Conflict and Transition to Sustainability," December 2002, Marcel Idels, Email Ecosolidarity. Extensive analysis of regional integration that Lula and Chavez support. One of Chavez's first acts was to grant Cuba a preferential trade arrangement for petroleum in order to help out a friend, a friendly neighbor and encourage trade and mutual support between the two countries.

22. A. Fernando Funes, Luis García, Martin Bourque, Nilda Pérez and Peter Rosset, "Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance: Transforming food production in Cuba", Food First Books 2002. Cuba was able to resist adversity by turning inwards toward self-reliance, substituting organic farming techniques for the no-longer-available imported farm chemicals. Today Cuba produces more food than ever before, with a fraction of the pesticides it once imported, providing an inspiring national case study from which we can all learn. They organized the First National Conference on Organic Agriculture, held in May at the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences (INCA), with the participation of more than 100 Cuban delegates and 60 from abroad, and founded the Formative Group of the Cuban Organic Farming Association (ACAO).
Its principle objectives were:
• to develop a national consciousness of the need for an agricultural system in harmony with both humans and nature, while producing sufficient, affordable, and healthy food in an economically viable manner
• to develop local agroecological projects, and promote the education and training of the people involved in this new paradigm of rural development.
B. "Brasil: El MST Mantiene Su Decision de Llegar a Una Revolucion Agraria." March 27, 2002, El Movimiento de los Trabajadores Sin Tierra, MST.
C. www.foodfirst.org
D. www.earthcharter.org.

23. A. Alternatives to Economic Globalization, IFG.org, 2002.
B. ) Z-mag
"Not satisfied with the above, the economic and political elites have made an alliance with transnational elites to apply policies to undermine the labor, social, economic, cultural and political rights that Colombians have won over centuries of struggle and organization. To apply these policies, elites have used successive governments, committed to neoliberalism, who have passed laws that have destroyed the safety net of social security, public health, education, social housing, food security, minimum wages and pay equity and thrown over 4 million out of work.
"Another form of open theft against the Colombian people is the internal and external public debt, whose service costs more than 40% of national revenues each year, transferring wealth from the public purse to economic consortia by privatization, subsidizing banks, entrenching corruption as an ethical norm."

24. A. The Ecology of Commerce, Paul Hawken. He covers basics well though as The New Internationalist points out in their critique of (co-writen with Amory Lovins) B. Guide to Green Economics " Economics in Seven Days," newint
C. cla.calpoly.edu

25. The history or anthropology of humans is largely one of advanced technologies be it horse, wheel, siege machine, bow, longbow, gunpowder, nukes or "Predator" technologies subsuming or obliterating other cultures. Even the most benign-seeming assistance can harm: an "appropriate" technology (cheap and hand reproducible) device for grinding cassava was introduced by development workers in parts of Brazil and other South American countries in the 1970's. It saved time and made more labor available theoretically, but the women had been in charge of this activity previously and now their value was reduced since the men operated the machine.

26. Food First

27. This is part of a reorientation of priorities, see: Transitions in Conflict, Marcel Idels, ecosolidarity@hotmail.com

28. Almost every country in the world except the US has high gasoline and diesel taxes to discourage the use/importation of these products. In Europe the price is two to three times the cost in the US. Since the 1980's US consumers have been buying larger and larger vehicles that get less gas mileage. They don't care since gas is cheap and they are rich. It actually costs about half as much to operate a large car in the US today as it did in 1970. President Carter started subsides for renewable energy but they have been reduced. Bush is all about oil, nuclear and grabbing up countries that have oil.

29. Whitaker, Morris D. and Dale Colyer, Agricultural & Economic Survival: The Role of Agriculture in Ecuador's Development, Westview Press, Boulder, 1990. "First, the macroeconomic and sectoral policies need to be modified in order to provide equal incentives throughout the economy (see Chapter 2). Such policies have resulted in greater imports of raw materials and capital goods for industry and of foodstuffs while dampening incentives for increasing and diversifying agricultural production (page 67)."

30. Never considered directly in most economics texts, I raised this point many times in graduate school and though recognized the discovery went unreported. Obviously, if everyone had a fairly low income then the demand for golf clubs, golf courses and Jacuzzis is higher than in the current US.

31. Das Capital, Karl Marx et al.

32. A. Dorner, Peter, Latin American Land Reforms: In Theory and Practice, University of Wisconsin Press, 1992.
B. Colburn, Forrest D. 2002, Latin America at the End of Politics. Princeton University Press.
C. Everything by James Petras supports this, see: rebelion.

33. A. Malakoff, Dan, The Brazilian Agrarian Movement: Interview with Boston University Professor Jeffery Rubin, April 4, 2002. Participating Budgeting in Brazil.
B. Utne, Lief, Brazilian Dream, Utne Reader, September-Oct., 2002, pp. 26-28.
C. "Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre," Adalmir Marquette, Indictor SA, Vol 17, No 4, 2002.
"Participatory Budgeting (PB) is an institutional innovation that is capable of empowering large segments of the population, particularly, poor sectors of society that traditionally never had an active role in the definition of state policies. The empowerment of the poor is possible because the PB is an institutional mechanism that goes well beyond liberal democracy. Porto Alegre's experience shows that it is possible for the large majority of the population to control the state, implementing a developmental and distributive economic policy that contradicts the neo-liberal paradigm.
"The strengthening of the social groups outside the traditional political and economic elites opens up the possibility of a new political coalition between poor community associations and the more traditional leftist movements, such as the unions. The PB in Puerto Alegre also shows that the leftist movement has an humanitarian alternative to the liberal approach implemented in a number of developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s. It demonstrates that, even in a capitalist system, it is possible to implement redistributive and socialist policies that enhance economic growth under the control of the majority of the population and the working class."
D. "Assessing and Strengthening the Sustainability of Community Development Organizations," WN, World Neighbors, 2001. Not exactly about PB but gives interesting techniques for village assessment.

34. A. Z-mag.
B. HUNGARY - 1986 abandoned central planning: Budapest Hotels
C. Mexican Agriculture and policies - migration.ucdavis.edu
Agriculture is the largest single sector of employment in Mexico: some six to seven million Mexicans, about 25 percent of the labor force, are employed in agriculture. Agriculture, however, generated just five percent of Mexican GDP in 1996, so incomes in Mexican agriculture are just one-third of Mexico's $3,700 GDP per capita.
In 1960, Mexico had about 35 million residents, and half were rural residents-- defined as those living in communities of 2,500 or less. In 1996, Mexico had 93 million residents, and 24 million, or 26 percent, were classified as rural. Six Mexican states included almost half of all rural Mexicans in 1995--Veracruz, 2.8 million, 42 percent of Veracruz residents were rural; Chiapas, two million, 56 percent, Oaxaca; 1.8 million, 56 percent; Morelos, 1.7 million, 14 percent; and Guanajuato and Campeche, 1.5 million each, and each 33 percent rural residents.
Education levels and housing conditions are lower in rural areas. In 1994, about 62 percent of the 14 million rural residents 15 and older had not completed grade school, compared to 26 percent of the 43 million urban residents 15 and older. About 2.5 percent of rural residents had completed high school, compared to 18 percent of urban residents. About 62 percent of rural homes had electricity in 1995, compared to 86 percent of urban homes, 31 percent had sewage facilities compared to 75 percent, and 79 percent of rural homes had electricity compared to 93 percent.
February 27, 1992 was a turning point for Mexican agriculture. On that day, Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917, which permitted large private land holdings to be redistributed to communal ejidos for peasants, was amended to end land redistribution and to permit the rental or sale of ejido or communal land. Since 1992, both foreigners and corporations have been permitted to buy farm land in Mexico.
A new book, "The Transformation of Rural Mexico: Reforming the Ejido Sector" from the Center for US-Mexican Studies, explores the effects of ending Mexico's 77-year experiment with communal land, arguably the most important economic reform in Mexico in recent years. Its major conclusion is that Article 27 reform signals evolution, not revolution in the Mexican countryside. Neither the hopes of supporters of reform nor the fears of opponents have been realized: "few of the initial expectations concerning reform of the ejido sector have been realized." (p18).
The four-part, 18-chapter book includes sections on macro perspectives, political and social factors affecting ejidos in particular states and commodities, the likely impacts of ejido reform on migration, urbanization, and other trends, and the environmental implications of ejido reform. Among the notable contributions is that of David Myhre who criticizes the withdrawal of farm credit, and the manner in which the subsidized credit still available is channeled to large farmers. The rural financial system failed just when the need for credit to restructure was highest. Wayne Cornelius has an interesting chapter based on a January 1995 visit to an emigration community in Jalisco, concluding that ejido reforms "are likely to be neither a stimulus to additional migration...nor a viable alternative to emigration." (p230).
The 27,000 ejidos in Mexico in the early 1990s included half of Mexico's arable land and provided homes for about three million farmers or ejidatarios. With their families, some 15 million Mexicans--one sixth of the population--were directly affiliated with ejidos. Ejido farmers and their heirs retained the right to the land only as long as they actively worked and lived on it, which anchored many rural Mexicans to the land.
Ejidos internalized rural population growth, resulting in ever-smaller plots as the rural population increased. The ejido system clearly failed to prevent rural poverty, and increasingly was unable to produce enough food for Mexico. However, land for the peasants had been a rallying cry of the Mexican revolution and preserved rural peace, so there was a tension between those who wanted to maintain the status quo and those who wanted to abolish the system.
Corn played a special role in the debate over ejido reform. Fifteen million Mexicans depend at least in part on corn production. Most are dry-land farmers, meaning that, if there is insufficient rain, they get a small crop. Until 1994, the government offered to buy at about twice the world price all corn produced and delivered to Conasupo offices. In 1994, the Procampo program substituted cash payments to land owners of about $100 an hectare for delivered corn. The hope was that farmers would use the cash payments to invest in irrigation and other improvements necessary to switch to other crops.
Some hoped that corn farmers would quickly switch to labor-intensive fruits and vegetables that could be exported to the US. But producing high-profit and high-risk fruits and vegetables requires more than labor. It also requires seeds suited to local lands, inputs such as water, fertilizers and pesticides, and a capacity to quickly cool and ship harvested crops long distances. In many cases, dryland corn farmers did not have the capital or expertise to produce fruits and vegetables for export markets.
C. db.uwaterloo.ca In 1934, at age 39, Cárdenas became one of Mexico's youngest presidents.

35. Local victories and dual power heightened class consciousness and improved working conditions, but also provoked violent reaction from the ruling classes. The failure of the WSM in Bolivia and Chile to move from local power to state power led to bourgeoisie repression via military coups: counter power or dual power is an unstable and temporary situation, which inevitably is resolved by the question of state power.
The context for the growth of WSM movements varies from country to country and under specific conditions. In Yugoslavia, WSM began with the workers' anti-fascist war, and culminated in the massive occupation of factories under the Yugoslav Communist Party. In Chile, WSM was a result of both government policy and direct intervention of workers to prevent capitalist lockouts and sabotage. In Bolivia, WSM grew out of a popular anti-oligarchical insurrection. Only in Yugoslavia did WSM consolidate power over 3 decades, and that is largely because the state power was in the hands of a non-Stalinist Communist Party. WSM, in order to consolidate and operate needs to move from the local to the national, from the factory to the state, from the employed industrial workers to the unemployed, the youth, women, ethnic minorities.
Argentina's growing WSM movement, particularly in the occupied factories and in the enterprises organized by the unemployed workers' movements the MTD have opened a wide-ranging debate on the structure, trajectory and politics of the movement. In the debate at the Foro Social Mundial on "Emprendimentos Productivos, Propuestas Obreras Desocupacion y el Cierra de Empresas" it became clear from the interventions of workers from Grissinoppoli and Bruckman, that the workers' takeover was the result of necessity not ideology: the workers had not been paid for several months and when paid their pay was reduced; the owner was emptying the factory and dismantling machinery, etc. In other words, the worker takeover was a desperate act to save their jobs. Once the factories were organized, then the more political workers in general assemblies proposed that the workers organize production and sales without the capitalists. Eventually, the move toward a WSM factory attracted economists and professionals who offered technical advise on how to operate the factory. In the course of these developments, as Ivana from Grissinoppoli stated, "we are learning every day...the struggle is long...but we are learning to jump over the obstacles because we listen and we understand each other". The struggle and the practice of self-management is creating the class consciousness as much after the factory occupations as before.
Argentina’s WSM movement organized two national events, a march on August 24, 2002 involving over 3,000 workers and delegates from the occupied factories supported by dissident trade union leaders demanding workers' control over all the productive units which are bankrupt, are not meeting their payroll, firing workers, or selling off machinery and equipment.
The WSM movement however, is in the midst of a major debate over several issues:
1) the form of the occupied enterprise cooperative or worker self-managed?
2) the alliances, should it include politicians from the traditional parties or no parties (autonomy) or only Left parties (and which ones)?
3) the perspective should the focus be exclusively local, regional, sectoral or national?
Previous historical experiences provide us with some guidelines.
First alliances with traditional parties have served to co-opt leaders, to isolate WSM from the larger struggle and to bureaucratize the internal structure. The most successful alliances are horizontal alliances, networks of workers and popular classes organized in assemblies and with a class perspective toward transforming state power.
Second, while cooperatives have improved their members' living standards, they have usually found a niche in the capitalist system. At a time when close to 60% of the population is below the poverty line and 4 million children of the 8 million below the poverty line ,are suffering from malnutrition and related illnesses, the political need is to go beyond "islands" of success to basic changes in the socio-economic structure a transformation from savage capitalism to a worker self-managed socialism.
Thirdly, while the autonomy of the unemployed and WSM movements is positive insofar as it rejects state tutelage and party control, it would be an error to reject allying with Left parties and other social movements that share common goals and tactics of direct action. The example of Bolivia with its highly class-conscious but isolated mining sector is an example of how autonomy carried to its extreme, is self-defeating

36. Neoliberalism is voodoo economics and the economics of ENRON. Sell off all your valuable assets and hope that the economy grows enough before it goes into recession and then you have no way to raise revenue.

37. The number one export from the US is pollution which the US avoids importing by producing much of what it consumes in other countries and raising dollars for trade through its domination of banking, stock markets, bonds and rich financiers.

38. An often over-looked threat from trade and corporate globalization is invasive alien pest organisms. See: The Nature Conservancy, Summer 2002, Vol. 52, No 2, p. 88, "Nature's Space Invaders." "Ecologists now rank invaders [non-native organisms] second only to habitat loss as threats to biodiversity. Among imperiled species in the US 49 percent are threatened by invasive alien species... Human activities [trade] are introducing new species at thousands of times the natural pace."

39. Alternatives to Economic Globalization, IFG, p. 110, 165.

40. More trade and longer distances means that more ships will sink and leak oil. More crashes and accidents will happen and the more that substandard ships and airplanes will be pressed into service for big profits.

41. May not be obvious to people who live in the short term and enjoy taking from others - like the US.

42. Personal trade and travel is not the issue it is the massive subsidized industrialization of trade that matters. Fair trade is great but it will never be more than a 2 or 3 percentage points of the current volume of trade.

43. A. Walden Bello believes that the world requires a radical shift towards a decentralised, pluralistic system of economic governance allowing countries to follow development strategies appropriate to their needs and circumstances. This 'deglobalization' means radically reducing the powers and roles of the existing TNC-driven WTO and Bretton Woods institutions. And requires the formation of new institutions helping to devolve the greater part of production, trade and economic decisionmaking to national and local level.

44. There are few examples because they are forced out by the rich and hyper-competitive capitalists. It makes common sense and was the basis of early economic and market theory.

45. A. Malakoff, Dan, The Brazilian Agrarian Movement: Interview with Boston University Professor Jeffery Rubin, April 4, 2002. Participating Budgeting in Brazil.
B. "Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre," Adalmir Marquette, Indictor SA, Vol 17, No 4, 2002. "The strengthening of the social groups outside the traditional political and economic elites opens up the possibility of a new political coalition between poor community associations and the more traditional leftist movements, such as the unions. The PB in Puerto Alegre also shows that the leftist movement has an humanitarian alternative to the liberal approach implemented in a number of developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s. It demonstrates that, even in a capitalist system, it is possible to implement redistributive and socialist policies that enhance economic growth under the control of the majority of the population and the working class."
C. www.zmag.org/interznet.htm, Cristina Feijjoo and Lucio Salas Orono, March 12, 2002.

46. A. Transitions in Conflict, Marcel Idels Email, December 2002.
B. Z-mag.

47. A. "Politics Without Politicians: An Update on the Argentine Assemblies" by Lisa Garrigues, June 04, 2002, Argentina Now - email.
"Neighbors in Argentina Continue to Weave a New Solidarity": The Argentine Neighborhood Assemblies, born in early January 2002 from the December cacerolazos, are almost a half a year old. Despite repeated rumours that the assemblies are "dying out", the opposite seems to be true. Though the individual assemblies are smaller in attendance than they were in January, and some are still beset by problems in organizing and finding common aims to work on, these 200 plus groups of neighbors continue to be an important force making "politics without politicians" in Buenos Aires and other major cities of this country, where poverty, unemployment and an unpopular bank freeze have magnified the struggles of every day life.
One assembly is actively participating in the administration of a local hospital, another is working with the streetside recyclers to help them maintain their source of income in the face of city government threats to turn over the recycling to private business, and others have continually showed up en masse to support the efforts and actions of their neighbors. Three weeks ago two pot-banging assemblies showed up to help a retired couple get their savings back in, and assemblies in Pompeya and San Telmo have gathered in large numbers to support workers who took over factories in those neighborhoods. Julio Tamae of the Pompeya assembly says new participants are showing up every week at the meetings in his barrio. Another resident of Pompeya, Hernan Gonzales, says: "The assemblies continue to be the red line that is drawn before repressive government policies, the line that says 'Here, and no further'."
The profuse and enthusiastic chaos of the early "interbarriales", the inter-neighborhood assemblies, has been replaced by a structured delegate voting system in which each assembly sends two delegates to the interbarrial with a mandate to vote on particular issues from the neighborhood assembly. This was done because some assembly members felt the assemblies were being taken over by organized left wing political parties, and they wanted to restrict voting to people who were actually participants in the assemblies. Proposals currently being discussed include the organization of an interneighborhood press committee and actions against the raising of prices by the private utility companies.
La Trama
Despite the threats, and the onset of winter chill, assembly members are still meeting on streetcorners and inside buildings, continuing their experiment in solidarity, organization and direct democracy. Last weekend, the assembly of Palermo organized an event called La Trama ("The Weaving") which consisted of music, dance, encounters and other cultural events in which local businesses and neighbors participated. Here is what one asambleista, Eduardo Coiro, had to say about La Trama: "Yesterday, I lived the closing event of La Trama, a beautiful and powerful experience that went beyond listening to ideas and proposals. I heard the sounds of soul and communion in each participant, each drumbeat, each fire juggling, each dance to bossa nova, afro, folklore or rock. I watched people thoroughly enjoying themselves, living with the intensity of those drumbeats that echo in your chest, the rythms of a shared heartbeat. I felt a strange pride in knowing that among the originators of this assembly, born the 17th of January, there were friends with whom I had banged on pots in front of Congress, with whom I had demonstrated against the Supreme Court.
Today they, these doers and sustainers, are a part of the collective miracle that is La Trama and that speaks of how in the neighborhood assembly we have managed to overcome internal differences in an activity that was real, shared and open to everyone.
(It) was overflowing with people, it was a fountain, a force full of impact. There were kids dancing with their moms and dads, all ages, all stories, lots of different political ideologies. Everyone of us on the same ground, one made of dreams and hope.
In this profound wound that is Argentina, it is not easy to get organized, go out onto the street, and recognize in each one of us the seed of what is human and equal despite our differences. We have to overcome the prejudice and terror that has destroyed time and again the collective body, the continual crises that have left us without bread or illusions, that have stripped us of words, of the capacity to love, of the capacity of the direct and transparent human encounter. We have been forced to retreat into immobility, into the defense of our own entrenched solitude, into a culture of desperation. I see no remedy that is more healing than the collective action of the people, whether it be a roadblock, an assembly, a cacerolazo, or this indefinable collective creation of La Trama, a beautiful experience of initiation into political life for whole families." Hasta La Victoria Siempre - Eduardo Coiro. For more news and article on Argentina, see Argentina Now and Argentina Indymedia
B. The Power of the Piqueteros by Argentina Arde and Andrew Stern artactivism@gn.apc.org . In May, 2002 in Argentina, the piqueteros, or literally, picketers, joined the cacerolazos (Street demonstrations with pot banging, singing and small fires). The piqueteros are Argentina's militant movement of unemployed workers, who launched this social rebellion five years ago. Born out of frustration with the corruption and constant political compromises of official unions and the failure of all political parties to represent them, the piqueteros (the term refers to their common tactic of road blockades) grew out of the excluded and impoverished communities in the provinces. They are predominantly unemployed workers who have been organizing autonomously in their suburban barrios, the neighborhood districts which are key to many Argentineans sense of place and identity.
Demanding jobs, food, education, and health care, they began taking direct action in the mid 1990s, blocking highways across the country. The action of blocking the flow of commodities was seen as the key way to disrupt economic activity; as they were unemployed, the option to strike was no longer available to them, but by blocking roads they could still have an enormously disruptive effect on the economic system. One of them explained, "We see that the way capitalism operates is through the circulation of goods. Obstructing the highways is the way to hurt the capitalist the most. Therefore, we who have nothing -our way to make them pay the costs and show that we will not give up and die for their ambitions, is to create difficulties by obstructing the large routes of distribution." "We block the streets. We make that part of the streets ours. We use wood, tires, and petrol to burn," adds Alejandro enthusiastically. He is a young piquetero who sports the red and black bandanna of the MTD (Unemployed Worker's Movement) around his neck and carries the three foot wooden club that has become one of the symbols of this movement. "We do it like this because it is the only way they acknowledge us. If we stood protesting on the sidewalk, they would trample all over us."
These tactics have proved extraordinarily successful. Whole families take part in the blockades, setting up collective kitchens and tents in the middle of the street. Many of the participants are young, and over 60% are women.

48. Bolivarian Circles: Accused of being hoodlums for leftist president Hugo Chavez, these organizations of the poor residents of the hillside slums that ring the capital Caracas, are mostly women and children who clean the alleys and slap some paint on community centers.

49. In the immortal words of Victor Hugo, 'an invasion of armies can be resisted; but not an idea whose time has come.'

IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE POOR AND THE EARTH, WE SALUTE THE DETERMINATION OF HUGO CHAVEZ AND THE BOLIVARIAN CIRCLES IN VENEZUELA; THE PIQUETEROS OF ARGENTINA; THE HEROIC STRUGGLE OF CAMPESINO & INDIGENOUS REBELS IN ECUADOR & THE MARVELOUS YOUTH OF THE FARC-EP & ELN ...IN THE MOUNTAINS OF COLOMBIA - "We wage war to conquer peace with social justice." - Ejercito Liberation National (ELN)
LIST OF RESOURCES:
Argentina Now
Food First Food sovereignty activists and research.
Camp Ecuador Ecuadorian action camp against the OCP pipeline and organizers for the ACLA (FTAA) protests in Quito in October 2002.
Rebelion Excellent left perspective analysis of Latin America and US imperialism around the world.
Conaie Website of the main Ecuadorian Indigenous organization.
Anncol Colombian independent news with statements from the FARC-EP and ELN guerrilla groups.
Z-Mag Economic discussion forum with SES economic plan proposed by the Colombian and regional organization known as COLACOT.
Argentina Indymedia

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