Peter Grimes: THE HORSEMEN AND THE KILLING FIELDS #2of3

>>> INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION AND THE BIOSPHERE <<<


 The "industrialization" of agriculture was, as the term itself implies, the
transfer of technologies originally developed for application to urban
manufacturing facilities to the growing of plants.  Abundant research has
established that the motivation for the development of machinery to 
production was
to better control labor and reduce the number of employees where possible
(e.g.--Braverman, 1974; Marglin, 1974; Stone, 1974).  As was true of 
agriculture
later, the result was a substitution of fossil fuels for solar (human) 
energy.
Again as with agriculture, the economic results were spectacular.  Maddison
(1995:36) has calculated that, in the United States, the value in constant 
1990
dollars of just machinery and equipment alone per worker traces a path like 
that
found in agriculture: while in 1820 the value was 281, in 1870 it had 
quadrupled
to 1,367; 1890=4,115; 1913=6,932; 1950=15,150; 1973=26,259; and 1992=39,636
(Figure 3).  The clever application of machinery to an ever-expanding range 
of
human activities has been geometric, and today it has been given an added 
boost by
the microprocessor.  Additional data Maddison provides demonstrates that 
this
sequence of jumps in worker productivity found in the US is  typical 
throughout
the world-economy, although the values are predictably smaller in the 
periphery
(Figure 4) (Maddison, 1995:249).  Once again, machinery powered by fossil 
fuels
are both faster and more reliable than human workers powered by the foods 
grown in
the sun.  Yet once again there are unpleasant consequences not popularly
understood.
 From 1930 to 1990, the global production of fossil fuels rose from 1.38 
billion
barrels of oil equivalent to 7.34; of which the United States produced 46% 
in the
first year and 20% in the 2nd (Figure 5; data from Etemad and Luciani, 
1991; the
United Nations, Energy Statistics Yearbooks).  Inside the US in 1987, 36% 
of its
consumption was for industrial production and another 37% for transportation
(mostly also connected with the requirements of production) (Gibbons, et. 
al.,
1990:94).  The upward burst of fossil fuel production after 1935 both 
globally and
inside the US parallels the history of the application of fossil fuels to
agriculture and industry documented here for the US alone.
 Among the unwelcome by-products added to the biosphere by recent industrial
production technologies have been excessive heat, resource exhaustion, acid 
rain,
environmental estrogens, CFCs (which cause Ozone depletion), and greenhouse
warming.
 We will take these in turn:

 Entropy and Heat

 The simplest and most elemental spin-off of any material transformation is 
heat.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics requires that all material transformations 
involve
energy, and the greater either the speed of those transformations or their 
degree,
the greater the energy involved.  Energy, in turn, ultimately degrades into 
its
lowest form--heat.  It is this that, along with the heat absorption and low
reflectivity of many roads and building materials, accounts for why most 
large
cities average 10 degrees (f) warmer than the surrounding country-side.  
This
simple fact is the ultimate brake on industrial production.  If there were 
no
economic barriers to the conversion of Earth's available materials into 
machines,
tools, and the energy to run them sufficient to supply today's global 
population
at the living standard that was typical of the core in the early 1970's, the
energy required for this massive transformation of matter would by itself 
generate
enough heat that the atmosphere would become an oven that would cook us all 
to
death (Commoner, 1977; Georgescu-Rogen, 1971).
 A second, less often articulated implication of the thermodynamics of 
production
is the dispersion of mineral resources.  Iron ore, for example, is initially
concentrated in a mining site.  After purification and further 
concentration in a
steel mill, it becomes a component in commodities that are distributed 
globally.
When those goods are discarded by their end users, they eventually rust, 
leaving
behind a small area of iron oxide that returns to the soil.  The net effect 
of
this process is that resources initially found in abundant and concentrated
pockets become dispersed in a way that makes them impossible to easily 
reclaim in
future.  The overall volume remains the same, but its geographical 
re-distribution
fundamentally changes its accessibility to future generations.

 Acid Rain

 Acid rain results from the burning of coal with a high sulfur content.  
This
coal, being more abundant and cheaper than the alternatives, is the fuel of 
choice
for power plants throughout the world (particularly China).  When burned, 
the
exhaust contains sulfur dioxide (SO2) which quickly combines with water in 
the
atmosphere to create sulfuric acid (H2SO4).  The rain downwind raises the 
acidity
of soils and streams, killing trees, bacteria, and insects.  Damage from 
acid rain
has been well documented in the North-East of the US and Canada, the Smokey
Mountains of the South-Eastern US, and the Black Forest of Germany.


 Environmental Estrogens

 The production and use of plastics and certain electrical components has 
entailed
the use of certain chemicals (e.g.--PCBs) that are "loose cannons" in the
ecosystem.  They are collectively called "environmental estrogens"--because 
they
mimic natural estrogens and thereby may potentially interfere with the 
sexual
evolution of a large number of different species (e.g.--mature male 
Alligators in
Florida with immature testes unable to generate viable sperm, accelerated 
rates of
sexual maturation of human female children (USA TODAY, 4/08/97:1)).  Some 
have
speculated that these chemicals may even be playing a role in the observed
disappearance of frogs and amphibians (Blaustein and Wake, 1995).

 Ozone Depletion

 More commonly known and now actually regulated are the effects of
chloroflourocarbons (CFC's) on the Ozone layer.  Used until recently as 
coolants
in refrigerators and air conditioners, solvents for cleaning electrical
components, and propellants for spray cans, CFC's were quite abundant in the
1960's and '70's.  After use, they eventually float up into the 
stratosphere,
several miles up and well above the cloud layer.  At that high level, 
ultra-violet
light (very high-energy photons just beyond the blue-purple part of the 
visible
range) from the sun floods in directly.  Photons with these energies can 
easily
strip electrons from atoms and break apart molecules, so they are extremely
dangerous to life.  Any human exposed naked to such light would quickly 
burn to
death from the radiation.  Under normal conditions, Oxygen (O2) hit by UV 
light
splits in two (O1) and then re-combines into O3--Ozone (the same thing 
happens
when lightening strikes, giving air its distinctive "fresh" smell after a 
summer
thunderstorm--a fact taken advantage of by car manufacturers who spray their
products with Ozone to give them that "new car" smell).  Ozone has the 
capacity to
absorb UV light and re-emit the absorbed energy in a more benign lower 
frequency
form.  CFC's interfere with this process by preferentially attracting the 
Oxygen
atoms split by UV, thus preventing their re-combination into Ozone.  Hence 
the
Ozone hole first noticed above the Antarctic and now also perceptible as 
patches
of depletion in the northern hemisphere.
 The removal of the protection of Ozone has allowed a dramatic increase of 
UV
light proceeding unimpeded to the ground, especially in the portions of the
Southern Hemisphere nearest the pole: Southern Australia, Chile, Argentina, 
and
New Zealand.  The effects have been observed in a myriad of forms, as an 
upsurge
in skin cancer, cataracts, and blindness of sheep in New Zealand and 
Kangaroos in
south Australia.  As with estrogens, some have speculated that excessive UV 
may be
playing an additional role in the disappearance of the amphibians, by 
sterilizing
their eggs.  Cases of melanoma have been proliferating in the US and Canada 
as
well, and followers of newspaper weather sections have doubtless noticed 
that most
now feature a UV index as a routine part of their forecast.  During the 
summer of
1995, the staff of the Baltimore Aquarium rescued a blind sea turtle from 
the
coast of Delaware, puzzled by the fact that he had cataracts while yet a 
juvenile
of only 15 years.  A less well known outcome of increased UV radiation at 
ground
level is a probable increase in mutations, especially among viruses, whose 
only
protection from the air is a thin jacket of protein.  The long-term results 
of
such mutations are unpredictable.
 The UN-sponsored international agreement on regulation and eventual 
elimination
of CFC's (The Montreal Protocols reached in 1987) is one of the few true 
success
stories of cooperation on a global level to address a global problem.  Even 
so, it
may take up to 50 years for the Ozone layer to fully recover.

 >>>GLOBAL WARMING<<<

Planetary Thermodynamics

 Global warming from the introduction of greenhouse gasses is another 
result of
current technology found within both production and consumption.  CFC's and
methane (the latter largely from cattle) are each potent greenhouse gases, 
CFC's
all the more so because they are very stable and very effective at blocking
infra-red (heat) radiation heading back out into space.  However, the most
abundant greenhouse gas is Carbon Dioxide (CO2), a direct product of fossil 
fuels.
All automobiles, planes, and ships burning hydrocarbons emit CO2, along 
with all
coal or oil-fired electric generators.  Hence almost all of the machinery 
used in
production contributes to CO2 emissions.
 An extreme outcome of heat entrapment from CO2 and other greenhouse gasses 
can be
found on our nearest planetary neighbor Venus, whose proximity to the sun 
and
heavily carbonized atmosphere sustains a surface temperature above the 
melting
point of lead (over 700 degrees f).  Here on Earth, if it were not for 
naturally
occurring levels of atmospheric CO2, the surface temperature would be below
freezing (0of), liquid water would not exist, and life impossible.  But it 
is a
delicate balance.  Too much warming and life (as we know it now) would die.
 That temperature varies with the abundance of CO2 is also clear from the 
fossil
record and Antarctic ice cores.  Those same ice cores reveal that levels of
atmospheric CO2 have risen 27% during the period 1800-1990, from 280ppm to 
355ppm
(Figure 6).  Within the past 2 years (1994-1996), the Intergovernmental 
Panel on
Climate Change (representing scientists from almost every country) has 
confirmed
that global warming is already underway.  What remains unknown is how far 
the
process will go.  Adding to the difficulties of prediction is the question 
of the
missing carbon: calculated emissions of CO2 have outpaced observed levels 
since
reliable data on the former have been available (1950).  Where is the 
missing
carbon going?  Several answers have been proposed, including root systems 
and
ocean absorption.  Whatever the specific cause of these natural carbon 
"sinks",
it's likely that they will eventually fill up, in which case levels would 
catch up
quickly with emissions, accelerating and intensifying the entire process.

Rising Sea Levels

 It has already been observed that glacial ice-packs are retreating while 
plants
and butterflies have been documented moving higher up mountains and further 
north
(Peters and Lovejoy, 1990).  Melting ice suggests rising sea levels, which
satellite data now confirms.  The retreat of the last ice sheets, which at 
their
maximum 25,000 years ago stretched out across most of Europe, Russia, and 
North
America in the north and equivalently in the south, raised sea levels over 
300
feet.  The remaining ice, if fully melted, would add another 250 feet.  
While we
are yet far from that point, a rise of only one or two feet would 
permanently
flood the current arable land around the Nile, and has been estimated to be 
able
to cut agricultural production globally by as much as 20%.  Further, rising 
sea
levels pose the potential for flooding important ports and coastal cities, 
as well
as pacific island states.


Disease

 The zones supporting different forms of plant life also support connected
bacteria, fungi, and viri.  As warming allow these to move north, diseases
typically associated with the tropics (e.g.--Malaria, Dengue Fever) will 
follow
into the areas now occupied by the countries in the temperate core.13 
Exacerbating
this concern is the evolutionary mechanism of virulence.  Diseases require 
hosts,
and the tendency is for evolution to select for those diseases that can 
reside
inside their hosts without killing them for long periods of time, long 
enough at
least for them to survive until contact with a new host is possible.  This
evolutionary mandate is strongest where the host population is lowest.
Conversely, an abundant supply of densly populated hosts removes that 
mandate,
allowing for the transient flourishing of exceptionally virulent diseases 
that can
kill quickly while still assured of transmission to new hosts.  Just as the 
swine
flu pandemic of 1918 is now suspected of having evolved under the unusually 
high
concentrations of people in the trenches of WWI, so the extraordinary 
population
densities in cities throughout the globe today make ideal breeding grounds 
for
novel forms of extremely virulent diseases.  When combined with the 
typically
irresponsible use of antibiotics, such diseases may be also be expected to 
be
immune to normal antibiotics (e.g.--the resurgence of immune tuberculosis 
among
the urban poor, the recent identification of a form of Staph bacterium in 
Tokyo
that is likewise immune to treatment).  Finally, the influx of UV light 
from the
depleted Ozone layer can be expected to accelerate rates of mutation among 
all
micro-organisms, particularly viri.  (For more detail on all of the above, 
see
McMichael, 1993.)

Desertification

 Warming implies a general movement toward the poles of the climates 
appropriate
for the major food crops (wheat, rice, and maize).  Unfortunately, at least 
in
North America, the soils north of the (now global) "breadbasket" of the 
great
plains are less fertile, implying a loss in yield with migration north.  
(Further,
movement toward the poles implies increasing exposure to UV radiation.)  For
plants not under human cultivation, the polar shift in climate may outrun 
their
ability to migrate, leading to their extinction (along with whatever other 
life
forms depend upon them).  The areas left behind are predicted to become 
prone to
desertification.  Indeed, portions of the US state of Nebraska have rolling 
green
hills that are actually sand dunes covered with grass.  During the dust 
bowl era
of the 1930's, the grasses died and the dunes moved with the wind as they 
reverted
to desert.  Current satellite data indicates that the same process has begun
again.  Pressures toward desertification are likely to grow, expanding 
deserts
everywhere.

Severe Weather

 The fundamental force powering all wind is heat, specifically the 
difference in
heat between the equator and the poles.  Hot, humid air rises high above the
tropics and is blown toward the nearest pole.  Along the way it cools, 
releasing
its heat as rain.  Storms are thus simply heat engines engaged in the 
impossible
task of equalizing the temperature difference between the equator and the 
poles.
The rotation of the Earth sets some of these storms to spinning like 
pinwheels,
generating hurricanes (as they are called in the Atlantic) and cyclones or
typhoons (their Asian equivalents).  Sophisticated climate models run on
supercomputers predict more frequent storms having higher windspeeds with
increased warming, implying corresponding increases in deaths and 
infrastructural
damage.  In reality, the past two hurricane seasons in the Atlantic have 
been the
most active of any on record over the past 20 years.  Because the global
population is growing, and most of that population lives near rivers and
seacoasts, the mortality figures could become truly staggering, as well as 
the
cost of repair (already a demand on the budget of the United States, and 
well
outside the means of governments in the periphery).  Adding to the 
difficulties of
prediction here is that overall warming is still consistent with local 
COOLING in
certain areas for brief periods, leading to wild oscillations in annual
temperatures and precipitation (Karl, et. al, 1997).  More recent models 
have even
suggested that the temperature difference between the poles and equator may
decrease, implying a reduction in storm severity (Karl, et. al, 1997).  
Clearly
atmospheric science has much more refinement ahead before it can reliably 
guide
our expectations.
 At the worst extreme, more far-fetched but still plausible results of 
sufficient
warming could include a complete polar melt-down with sea levels shifted 
upwards
the full 250 feet.  The consequent redistribution of mass from the poles 
(as ice)
to the equator (as water) would potentially slow down the Earth's rate of 
spin,
like an ice skater extending her arms while spinning.  A change in the spin 
rate
could alter plate tectonics even as the ocean cooled dramatically from the 
polar
infusion.  The former could stimulate major earthquakes and volcanic 
eruptions
even as the latter caused hurricane force winds.
 But setting aside these nightmare scenarios, even the changes observed so 
far
have serious implications for the viability of mechanized agriculture and
automated industry, each powered by the fossil fuels shown already to be so
destructive to the biosphere.



>>>THE GLOBAL REORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION<<<
AND
>>>THE FISCAL CRISIS OF THE CORE STATES<<<


 Automation in the contemporary core is pervasive.  Almost every act of
consumption involves a machine at some stage, from cash registers to 
automated
teller machines, while small computers are included in an ever-broader 
array of
end-use commodities such as radios, ovens, and clocks.  These examples are 
but
echos of the real revolution experienced in production starting in the 
1970's
(exemplified by the figures on productivity provided above).
 The hallmark of the relations of production characterizing capitalism is 
the
structured antagonism between capital and labor.  Precisely because capital 
needs
labor to create commodities, it must solicit labor's cooperation and even 
support.
Yet of course market competition continually encourages capital to reduce 
labor
costs even while raising worker output.  Labor, in its turn, can fight 
against
these negative pressures from capital by slowdowns, strikes, etc.  Until 
recently,
the weapons available to capital to maintain its control were limited: the 
direct
supervision of assembly; the importation of strike-breakers; and the 
employment of
state-sponsored violence.  Now, at last, during this century scientific
investigation has yielded technologies that have enormously enhanced the 
power of
capital against labor.  These are, first, an infrastructure of 
telecommunications
that allows for the remote control of multiple production sites, and, 
second, the
development of semi-intelligent machines that can potentially fulfill the 
ultimate
dream of capital of removing labor altogether.  But an important cost of 
each of
these developments has been an increase in the consumption of fossil fuels.
 The motivation for the very first factories (in the 18th C.) was not to 
increase
output/worker directly, but to do so indirectly by gathering all of the 
laborers
together under the same supervised roof (Marglin, 1974).  That extension of 
the
control of capital over labor was expanded considerably in the late 19th 
and early
20th C.  In the steel industry, for example, one of the many methods 
created to
divide laborers under the guise of "efficiency" was the imposition by 
management
of artificial distinctions between workers of equal skill in the form of 
differing
job titles and wages assigned to separate locations in the same assembly 
line
(Stone, 1974).  The early decades of the 20th C. also saw Taylor's 
time-motion
studies, which complemented and informed the perfection of the assembly line
(Braverman, 1974).  Each of these successive reorganizations of production 
were
explained in their day as "technical" improvements in efficiency, although 
the
actual changes in output/worker were probably less dramatic than the 
extension of
the political and social control of capital over labor.
 In contrast with these earlier reorganizations of the shop floor, the 
successive
and cumulative inventions of the vacuum tube (1920's), computer (1940's), 
and
semi-conductor (1950's) truly revolutionized production in a technical way. 
 By
endowing machines with the capacity to make "choices" (however crude), 
information
technology has at last allowed machines to become genuine robot-workers, 
thereby
enabling them to seize the bottom rung of the "job ladder."  In the United 
States,
this has been the rung traditionally held by the unskilled or new immigrant
(Aronowitz, 1973).  Their expulsion from the formal "Monopoly Sector" 
workforces
of the core by the proliferation of robot technology has trapped them for 
the
indefinite future in the informal sector.  We can only expect that future
technical change will eventually enable robots to climb ever higher rungs 
of the
job ladder, thereby expelling ever more "skilled" workers into the informal 
sector
as their decision-making powers improve.
 The revolutionary effects of the micro-chip started emerging as robots on 
the
shop floor in the '70's and early '80's, and their impact was felt first by 
the
working class.  But by the mid-1980's the new technology had crept up to the
levels of middle management, even as it spilled out of the most monopolized 
parts
of the private sector into the offices of government.  Specifically, the
"personal" computer quickly transcended its initial role as a smart 
typewriter to
encompass scheduling, accounting, statistics and scientific computation,
blue-prints for product design, movie animation and special effects, etc.  
These
multiple uses allowed for the combination of many different jobs onto one
desk-top, which in turn allowed for the elimination of an equivalent number 
of now
"redundant" personnel and positions.
 Insofar as these high-wage blue-collar and mid-range white-collar workers 
had
been the core tax base of the welfare state, the dramatic contraction of 
their
numbers during the micro-chip revolution (as manifested both by automation 
and
relocation abroad of production facilities) eviscerated that base, 
exacerbating
the growing fiscal crisis of the United States government at all levels 
predicted
and elaborated by James O'Conner as early as 1973 (O'Connor, 1973).  At 
that time
he argued that the diminution of employment in the monopoly ("formal") 
sector was
already threatening the supply of tax revenue, and history since has clearly
vindicated his expectations: higher taxes on the shrinking number of 
high-wage
workers in the monopoly and state sectors; combined with a contraction of
employment in those sectors; and diminishing services available from the 
state
have all coalesced to create an angry attitude toward the state, 
particularly
within the ranks of the white males previously granted privileged entree 
into the
monopoly and state sectors.  By the late 1970's in the U.S. the implicit 
social
contract (of a balance between wages, profits, and social services) among 
capital,
labor unions, and the state reigning since WWII began to unravel.  Starting 
with
the tax revolt in California organized by Howard Jarvis in a popular 
referendum in
1978 and ratified nationally by the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the
hostility of the downsized working classes and small business owners toward
government and taxes has been skillfully manipulated by the right to 
cultivate
anti-government feelings strong enough to enthusiastically support the 
dismantling
of the post-war welfare state.
 Just as the United States led the technical transformation of agriculture 
among
the countries of the core, so it has also led the contraction of the 
welfare state
among those same countries.  Within the limits imposed by their respective
histories of class struggle, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and even 
France
have been compelled to follow suit during the '80's and '90's by 
constricting
welfare outlays and tightening tax codes.  In every case, these policies 
were
trying to cope with the same global problem: the collective evacuation of
employment within each of the local monopoly sectors arising from 
automation and
out-sourcing.  The global reorganization of production enabled by
telecommunications and the micro-processor offered possibilities of higher 
profits
from automation and factory re-location to the semi-periphery that were 
eagerly
sought by monopoly firms in all of the nations of the core.
 From an historically more detached perspective, the popularity of the 
revolt
against the post-war welfare state can be understood as having been the 
political
manifestation throughout the core of secular changes in technology and labor
market structure apparent since the oil crisis of 1973 (Mandel, 1978; Kotz,
McDonough, and Reich, 1994; McMichael, 1996).  Put another way, the social
structure of accumulation prevailing since Bretton Woods--the social 
contract
between capital and labor within the core and the financial institutions
"regulating" relations between the core and periphery--fell apart during the
1970's.  Real wages throughout the core have stayed at roughly the same 
level
since the middle of that decade, unemployment has swelled until workers 
have been
compelled to take jobs offering 1/3 their former wages, and the resultant 
fiscal
crisis stalled out the welfare state during the late '70's. On the 
international
level of global trade, in response to shrinking core markets, the debt 
crisis of
the semi-periphery (whose export earnings depend entirely on core markets) 
became
so bad that it compelled a serious re-examination of the viability of the 
World
Bank Group in the early 1980's (McMichael, 1996; Suter, 1986).  There were
transient exeptions: the "Asian Tigers" of the semiperiphery were the
beneficiaries of monopoly sector investment (the destinations for the 
flight of
manufacturing and investment leaving the core).  However, the rest of the
Semiperiphery and all of the periphery were less fortunate.  Most of the 
former
were saddled by debt--among whom some (e.g.--Mexico, Brazil) precipitated 
the debt
crisis of the early 1980's.  Among the latter, Latin America and much of 
Asia
struggled hard just to stay in place, while in Africa the economic situation
actually deteriorated by every measure (see Terlouw, 1992).
 The collapse of the USSR and its Eastern European satellites can also be
understood within this broader context of global disarray as a reflection 
of their
secular digestion by the capitalist world-economy (Chase-Dunn, 1982).  
Since WWII,
a growing dependence on sales to the capitalist world for state revenue had
gradually integrated the "Socialist Camp" into a role equivalent to the
semi-periphery.  For example, since the late 1970's Poland and Hungary had 
fully
entered into the membership of the World Bank (Payer, 1982).  The collapse 
of '89
can be understood as yet one more expression of the global depression and
dis/reorganization afflicting the semiperiphery of the world-economy from 
1973 to
1996 (the year of the official end of the "Uruguay Round" of the GATT and 
its
conversion into the WTO).


Class Polarization and Ethnic Cleansing

 What the planet's peoples have experienced over the last 20 years is the 
largest
re-structuring of the mechanisms of accumulation to have occurred since the 
Great
Depression of the 1930's.  The  global mobility of capital combined with its
command of armies of robots--both enabled by the  micro-chip revolution--has
finally broken the barriers to the equalization of wages between core and
periphery by pitting their workforces directly together.  Because the 
previous
regime of unequal wages had sustained the high wages of the core and--via 
their
taxes--the welfare state, the elimination of that core-periphery wage 
inequality
has both threatened to eliminate that state and at the same time cast the 
lot of
the workers of the core into the same pit as that of their brethren in the
periphery.  The long-term political results are as yet unpredictable.
 In the periphery, the collapse of the patronage income derived from the 
alliance
fears of the cold war (money spent on buying the allegiance of states in the
periphery) combined with the tightening of loan restrictions from the World 
Bank
have reduced access to capital and blocked the ability of local ruling 
elites to
compensate supporters with state contracts.  In the semiperiphery (outside 
the
favored group of 'tigers' in Asia), the collapse of cold war spending by the
states of the core combined with limitations on the effective demand from 
markets
in the core (again due to the contracting income of the working classes) 
have also
reduced growth, which again has limited the ability of the governments to 
reward
supporters.  Finally, in the core the contraction of the welfare state has 
cut off
benefits to the powerless even as it is rooted in the dropping life-style 
among
the previously privileged.  Throughout the globe, the gap between rich and 
poor
has increased (World Bank, 1992).  One result has been the re-emergence of 
the far
right among the displaced white exiles from the monopoly sector in the 
core, along
with the pervasive spread of nihilism among the urban young (whose 
non-politics of
hopelessness, self-loathing, and body-piercing could go right, left, or 
simply
erode into anarchy).
 In many parts of the world, classes overlap with ethnic 
categories--occupations
(hence incomes) have become historically and regionally associated with 
peoples
sharing similar cultures and backgrounds.  The United States abounds with
examples: Mexican immigrants provide the bulk of labor for large corporate 
farms,
blacks and exiles from Central America provide the lowest wage unskilled 
work in
hotels and restaurants along the east coast and factories in the mid-west
(Georgakas and Surkin, 1975), motel chains have become increasingly owned by
people from the Indian subcontinent, and many small shops in the ghettos of 
both
coasts are now owned by Koreans (Bonacich, 1994).
 On a global scale and in historical perspective, social scientists have
documented how certain ethnic groups who had already adapted to the role of
small-scale retailers were deliberately encouraged and sometimes even 
relocated by
colonial powers to be ethnic buffers between the general population and the 
rulers
at the top (Bonacich, 1994; Portes and Walton, 1981; Wallerstein, 1979).  
Specific
examples of such "middleman minorities" are the Jews in Europe, the Indians 
in
Africa and the Caribbean, the Chinese in South-East Asia, and Korean 
shop-keepers
in the US today.  Individuals from these national/ethnic backgrounds had 
already
evolved into the niche of small-scale lenders and shop-keepers before 
European
colonization.  But their respective aptitudes were encouraged and 
facilitated by
the colonial powers in the 19th C.  With the help of these powers, Indians 
were
settled in Africa and the northern coast of Latin America, Chinese were
accelerated in their colonization of Malaysia and Indonesia, and the 
refugees from
Jewish pogroms in Europe fled to New York.
 Other racial and ethnic gradations have evolved quite independently of such
outside "help."  Latin and Central Americans assign low status to anyone 
defined
as descended from the indigenous (pre-conquest) population, Europeans 
discriminate
against southern Europeans in general and "gypsies" in particular, Russians 
loathe
equally Jews and people from the south (e.g. Georgians, Kazaks), and Indians
assume that those with darker skin are from the caste of untouchables.
 This global overlap between class and "race" (always socially defined)
exacerbates the political dangers of our era.  In a time of generalised
contraction of state expenditures, the falling living standards of those 
dependent
upon those expenditures pits competing constituencies against eachother.  
Insofar
as these competing groups are often associated with different ethnicities, 
the
political temptation to convert this competition into ethnic hatred is 
great.
Within the countries of the core, the flight of capital, the defeat of 
labor, and
the resultant fiscal crisis has fueled the rise of neo-fascism among the 
working
class youth of France, Germany, England, and the United States.  Their 
ideological
response to the elimination of a saftey net is to attack "foreigners" with 
darker
skins.  Among the countries of Africa, the withdrawal of patronage income 
from the
cold war has sometimes led to the collapse of the state altogether as 
ethnic peace
could no longer be purchased with outside income: Ethiopia, Somalia, Rwanda,
Burundi, Zaire, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone.14  Throughout the periphery 
other
states face the same challenges, but may yet avoid similar disasters.  
Yugoslavia
has demonstrated that even the semiperiphery is not immune.  But even where 
total
anarchic collapse has been avoided, major re-structuring has been required 
as
states scramble to catch up with the new mobility of capital--e.g--the 
bail-out of
Mexico following NAFTA, and a similar IMF-sponsored rescue package for 
Thailand.
 Put most simply, the entire international hierarchy of core, 
semiperiphery, and
periphery prevailing since the earliest days of colonialism is being 
re-structured
by the new mobility of capital enabled by the micro-chip, leading to a 
conversion
of the stratification between nations into a stratification within nations.
Accordingly, we are living in a time when the traditional hostility between
nations is being replaced by a class/ethnic hostility within them.  Global 
war is
being augmented by civil war, and that ethnically based.  All of this
re-structuring is made possible by the micro-chip, which is in turn 
dependent upon
an industrial base fueled by fossil fuels, which in their turn power global
warming, which in its turn must ultimately contract global food supply and 
drive
food prices up.  Unless global surplus value is re-distributed into higher 
wages
to support higher food costs, the necessary result must be sharper 
conflicts and
greater killing.



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