Category Archives: Politics

History Politics

The “old neoliberals” – and yes, they made just as much of a mess

September 22, 2009 – 8:51 am

Have just been meeting “Les Physiocrats”, who believed in a “government of nature” – i.e. laissez faire, leaving everything to the market and being very hostile to any state intervention. Their leader was Francois Quesnay (1694-1774), who wrote the article on grains in The Encyclopedia.

In the reigns of both Louis XV and XVI there were regular food crisis, and the traditional method of trying to control these was by preventing the movement of grain across international frontiers, and also between provinces. In 1763/4 Louis XV authorised the transport of wheat between provinces, but fear of riots and dissent meant nothing happened until 1768.

In Burgundy, the rural parts of the province produced far more food than it needed, but it was swallowed up by the Lyon market, and in the spring of 1770 food riots and unrest started in Dijon.

In 1774, at the start of Louis XVI reign, a new controller of finances, Turgot, imbued with the ideas of the Physiocrats, had proclaimed on September 13 completely free internal trade in cereals. This gave free reign to speculators, hoarders and traders. Prices rose brutally – in spring in Dijon the price of wheat doubled, maize followed.

Thus started what was known at the time as The War of the Flours. On April 12 there was little grain in the market and prices were extremely high. No one doubted famine would follow. A grain merchant, Fauvernay, was roughed up in the market.

On the 18th a crowd of mostly women gathered, and grew through the morning. One of them donned “un bel habit rouge, une canne [walking stick] a pomme d’or a la main” in the manner of Nicolas Carre, the miller of l’Ouche, who was much detested. With the support of the provincial administration, he had adopted a technique promoted by the Physiocrats to produce white flour, which could only be afforded by the rich. The crowd chased him fown the street, but he found a house of refuge with another miller, so the crowd’s anger was redirected towards a parliamentary councillor, Jean-

Charles Filsjean de Sainte-Colombe, who was thought to speculate with Carre. He hid in the cellar as the crowd surged through his house, and – so the story goes – was dug out of his hiding place, a pile of manure. He was to survive however, until the Revolution, when he met a nasty end.

Soldiers were called in from Auxonne to restore order, and the parliament at Dijon pronounced severe penalties for the rioters. Some of the “sediteuses” were taken before the parliament on July 29,1775.

In 1776 Turgot was dismissed by the king but the principle of “liberty of grains” was not abandoned. More hunger and more unrest in Burgundy, and in 1784 the Quartermaster of Burgundy, Amelot de Chaillou, tried to set up a municipal flour shop, to ensure sufficient grain, but the notables object and the project was abandoned.

By 1789 there was trouble over grain across Burgundy – at Charolles, Tournus, Saulieu, Auxois, Autun, Beune, Sens, Dijon, Auxerre — carts were stopped, stores raided.
From “Jours sans pain, jours de colere” by Jean Bart in Pays de Bourgogne, No 222, June 2009, pp. 3-10.

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Books Feminism Women's history

Learning from a feminist utopia

September 20, 2009 – 4:13 pm

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, published in 1915, created a new sub-genre, the feminist utopia. There’s something delightfully ironic about the creation, for there’s no doubt her world, an all-female one getting along very nicely thank you, would have horrified the original creator of the form, Sir Thomas More, and indeed it initially horrified her three main characters, men of her own time, who in best traditional style, set out to explore this unknown, mysterious land.

The narrator is Vandyke, clearly the most sensible and level-headed of the three; it’s a marker of the age of the text, and its liberal origins, that he’s trained in sociology. The character who is a symbol of the “typical” man of his age, and the one who fails utterly to cope with a society where women aren’t automatically his prey, is Terry, who supplies the aircraft and the funds for the expedition into this hidden land, sealed off by a volcanic eruption some two millennia previously.

The atypical man, the one who finds himself at home in Herland,
is Jeff, the expedition doctor and science lover, the sensitive, poetic type not entirely at home in his own society.

It’s a society that’s constantly striving to perfect itself: “Moadine told him. ‘We have no laws over a hundred years old, and most of them are under twenty’.” The society is a democracy, if rather too fond of the decisions of the elders for modern tastes.

It’s developed what Vandyke finds is an entirely acceptable science, from astronomy to physiology, but where it has really excelled is agriculture, turning its limited environment into a veritable Garden of Eden (no accident that surely), in which every tree produces a crop and lives in managed harmony with is environment. In terms of another modern genre, they’ve terraformed it perfectly.

There’s only one thing it relies on from the time before the women were left – by combination of conflict and natural disaster – on their own to cope: a few huge old buildings, including the now largely redundant fortress.

As the author surely had no choice – and really as in science fiction today the science isn’t really the point – she skips over the essential development of virgin birth. It happens, and the women, understandably enough, come to revere it, putting motherhood at the centre of their society (although later, when they understand the limits of population growth controlling it by social pressure). But there’s little focus on heredity, and no desire for personal glory in it.

If there’s one main criticism of the nature of Herland today it is that as a society it is rather too perfect, impossibly so (even the men are forced to admire the practicality and suitability of the dress – although Perkins Gilmann’s concern with this, at the start of the 20th century, is understandable enough).

The 21st-century world is rather less sanguine about the perfectibility of human nature and indeed the possibility of perfection at all – Ursula Le Guin’s utopia/dystopia The Dispossessed in being a case in point.

Yet Perkins Gilmann can be excused in this: she wrote in a more innocent age – before the horrors of two world wars – and more importantly, she wrote at a time when women were barely allowed, and by most, thought possible of much practical constructive effort at all (although then as now, women on average worked harder and longer than their menfolk with the double burden of home and employment).

She was facing a huge mountain of public disbelief, and any flaw in the world of Herland would have been a fissure of opportunity for the enemies of feminism.

Although long neglected, Herland is indeed one of the founding texts of feminism, and anyone who’s interested in being a feminist should read it – but don’t worry, it is mercifully short and to the point, not at all flowerily “literary”. Its author is non-nonsense, getting on with the job, writing for purpose, not ego, just as her characters, and so often women generally, do.

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Feminism

Debate over prostitution law: New Zealand or Swedish models

September 7, 2009 – 10:02 pm

A very fair report in the Morning Star offers an introduction to the debate now going on in the Green Party regarding laws about sex work.

The current policy is for complete decriminalisation, along the New Zealand model, which, as I’ve previously written, has been shown to be an effective and sensible one.

That’s also backed by the Women’s Institute, and (which I neglected to say at the conference fringe in Hove) the Royal College of Nurses (as I reported in an account of a parliamentary lobby last year).

I’m not going to rehearse all of the arguments here – although I will make the point that whenever you read anything about this issue, do ask very carefully about the evidence and how it was collected. Many surveys quoted draw for their samples on street workers, workers seeking aid for drug addiction, and other groups that are clearly unrepresentative of workers as a whole.

I can also point you to some further reading, most notably the full report on the New Zealand law completed after it had been in force for five years. (And a short summary.)

There’s also:

* Lara’s account of why I am a sex worker. As for many, it is a financial/life balance decision.

* A critique of some of the figures often quoted for trafficking of women into sex work.

* An account of a meeting where some sex workers spoke about their work.

* An some interesting figures on public opinion: “59% of people agreed that “prostitution is a perfectly reasonable choice that women should be free to make”.

Not in any way a comprehensive list, just a small collection of useful resources for anyone looking into the issue.

And it is perhaps also useful for me to note for any non-party members reading this, that policy in the Green Party is made democratically – it can only be changed by winning a vote on the floor of conference. It is true, of course, to say that influential figures can have an impact on that, but so can good arguments and decent evidence. And as yet there’s not even been a motion put, or even a formal review process instituted. This is purely a discussion.

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Politics

‘Growth has been used as a substitute for equality’

September 6, 2009 – 10:06 pm

Fascinating presentation from Kate Pickard of The Equality Trust at the Green Party conference today (also co-author of The Spirit Level).

The basic thesis is simple: Almost everyone benefits from equality. Usually the benefits are greatest among the poor but extend to the majority of the population.

So she presented us with figures on death rates for working age men
Among the lowest social class in England and Wales death rate it is 7.8; in Sweden 4.8, the far more equal society. But the disparity also occurs in the top social class: England 5.3, Sweden 3.7.

Literacy scores are also higher for everyone in more equal countries.

Why are we so sensitive to inequality?
For health it is really important how people interact with others. Ill health is associated with low social status, weak social affiliations and being stressed in early life.

In less equal societies there is evidence of more status competition – longer working hours, greater debts, family life more stressed.
And they consume more….

When people told they are inferior do worse in tests – and no doubt in their jobs (women maths tests, lower caste children in Indian tests).

More equal societies are more innovative. Inequality plotted against patents per head – inland Sweden Japan high, Singapore, US low.

Then the speaker said something I think is very significant and well worth further consideration: Economic growth is a substitute for equality. We need equality as a substitute for growth – improves the quality of life for all of us.

In response to a questioner, she said: “broadly it doesn’t mater how you get to greater equality”

But in Britain today, to reduce inequality the focus needed to be at the top. “We used to think those people were doing something clever for us; now we know better.”

The Equality Trust is backing Compass call for high pay commission.

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Feminism

Quotas – has their time come?

September 5, 2009 – 10:56 pm

It’s the end of day three at Green Party Conference in Hove, and this is my first blog post – disgraceful, although in my own defence, I have been running around madly chairing, proposing motions, speaking at sessions, doing hustings, and being intercepted on my way to the loo by people wanting to talk about the management of email lists… (and I have been tweeting).

But there was one session in particular that I am determined to record, which was yesterday’s “The man-made economic crisis: time to give women a go?” That attempt at provocation didn’t really work – I think it would be fair to say all of the 20-odd attendees broadly agreed with the premise, but nonetheless we had an excellent discussion.

I was in the chair, so I didn’t have time to make detailed notes, but there was one observation from our excellent speaker — Rowena Lewis, acting director of the Fawcett Societ — that really struck out.

She pointed us to the Society’s report from last year calling for boardroom quotas to improve the representation of women (which is also Green Party policy).

When the report came out last year, she said, it was greeted with scorn, with the pounding of fists on tables accompanied by words such as “never”, “impossible”. But in the past few months, she said, there had been a shift in the reaction. Not quite acceptance, but acknowledgements that this might just be a possibility, might even be a good idea, and certainly the only way to beat the 220 years that at current rates it will take to achieve boardroom gender equality. (And that’s if the trend of the last year, which has seen women’s representation reduced, isn’t continued.) “The government is now toying with the idea of ‘aspirational targets’, whatever that might mean,” she said.

She also shared the memorable phrase from Norway, which I hadn’t previously heard. It forced firms to have 40% women on their boards, and the hierarchy were surprised to find that contrary to claims of a shortage of suitable candidates, “the waters were well stocked with women”. And in the UK, organisations by the score were collecting long lists of eminently suitable women, Rowena said.

We admired her work, and I think it would be fair to say she was impressed by the Green Party. “I am really pleased to see one of the major parties taking such a progressive stand on women in the boardroom,” she said.

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Books Environmental politics

Think again about those cute little veggies…

August 17, 2009 – 10:06 pm

…for, as I’ve been reading in Fresh: A Perishable History, there’s quite a story behind their journey to your plate.

They are “too perishable to spend long in transit, yet too expensive to produce in the countries that consume them. The United States imports most of its supplies from Central and South America (Guatemala and Peru count among the major producers), while Europe counts on its former African colonies. A few Southeast Asian countries export baby vegetables to both the East and the West.”

Growing them requires a huge amount of dedicated, careful labour. “The haricot vert, for example, must be protected against wind and hail, watched and pruned so that it does not grow crooked, and harvested at precisely the right time. Even a 24 hour delay and the bean grows too big and fat.”

So, author Susanne Freidberg explains: “Some of the highest-value crops are produced in some of the most unlikely places – places that would not seem the logical choice if delivering freshness were the sole priority. Burkina Faso, for example… it’s stuck in the middle of West Africa’s drought-prone Sahel and is one of the poorest nations on earth. Refrigeration is scarce, as are paved roads.

“As a former colony of France, though, Burkina Faso has both direct flights to Paris and nearly a 100-year history of growing food to French tastes. Growing haricot vert for French colonials used to be a form of forced labour. Since the early 1970s it has been the country’s most important ‘non-traditional’ export crop produced by small farmers around a scattering of donor-funded irrigation projects. When all goes well, it’s a much more profitable crop than cotton, the country’s biggest foreign-exchange earner.

“Yet things often don’t go well. …some of the major production zones are several hours from the airport in Ouagadougou, the capital city. The country’s green bean merchants targeted these regions not just because they had irrigation but also, paradoxically, because they were remote. Close to the city, farmers can grow cabbages and tomatoes for the urban market. ‘It’s difficult to find people who’ll work as hard as the haricot vert requires,’ said one trader. ‘So I go farther out to find quality.’ …If a truck breaks down, or a plane arrives a few hours late, the beans wither. At that point, they are worth less than the cardboard cartons they travel in. It’s not uncommon for severaltons of produce to perish on the runways. Farmers usually bear the brunt of the losses…”
(pp.193-5)

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