Volume 54, Number 8 | January 2003
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Volume 54, Number 8 | January 2003 |
» Newsletter » A Note from the Associate
Editor » About
MONTHLY REVIEW’S December
2002 November
2002 October 2002 September
2002 July-August 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February
2002 January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
July-August 2001 June 2001
May 2001
April 2001
March 2001 February
2001 Index to Back Issues
AN
INTERVIEW WITH: |
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c o n t e n t s » "The American health care system is
confronting a crisis." This was the not very surprising conclusion of a
study by a National Academy of Science panel on the U.S. health care system,
carried out at the request of the administration and released in November 2002
www.nap.edu/books/0309087074/html.
The report, entitled Fostering Rapid Advances in Health Care, describes
conditions that are little short of horrendous. Health care costs are
increasing at an annual rate in excess of 12 percent. The insured are receiving
far fewer benefits while paying much more in out-of-pocket expenses. States in
fiscal trouble are cutting benefits for Medicaid and other health programs. The
number of uninsured has climbed to 41.2 million or 14.5 percent of the U.S.
population. This means that one in seven individuals in the United States lacks
any health care coverage whatsoever, and many more have inadequate coverage. A
quarter of U.S. children aged to nineteen to thirty-five months are deficient
in immunizations. Tens of thousands of individuals die every year from medical
errors and many more than that from injuries caused by the health system. REVIEW
OF THE MONTH The first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 generated hopes that the world would at long last address its global ecological problems and introduce a process of sustainable development. Now, with a second summit being held ten years later in Johannesburg, that dream has to a large extent faded. Even the principal supporters of this process have made it clear that they do not expect much to be achieved as a result of the Johannesburg summit, which is likely to go down in history as an absolute failure. We need to ask ourselves why. Kicking Away the Ladder: Neoliberals
Rewrite History There is currently great pressure on developing countries to adopt a set of "good policies" and "good institutions"-such as liberalization of trade and investment and strong patent law-to foster their economic development. When some developing countries show reluctance in adopting them, the proponents of this recipe often find it difficult to understand these countries' stupidity in not accepting such a tried and tested recipe for development. After all, they argue, these are the policies and the institutions that the developed countries had used in the past in order to become rich. Their belief in their own recommendations is so absolute that, in their view, they must be imposed on the developing countries through strong bilateral and multilateral external pressures, even when these countries don't want them. Neoliberalism and
Resistance An aspect of the transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa was inadvertently captured at the opening of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting held at the International Convention Centre in Durban, in June 2002, as the police arrived with a massive show of force and drove protesters away from the building with batons and charging horses. One of the organizers of the WEF was approached by an incredulous member of the foreign media and asked about the right to protest in the "new South Africa." The organizer pulled out the program and, with a wry smile, pointed to an upcoming session entitled "Taking NEPAD to the People." He said he could not understand the protests because the "people" have been accommodated. The Political
Economy The dramatic expansion of intellectual property rights represents a new stage in commodification that threatens to make virtually everything bad about capitalism even worse. Stronger intellectual property rights will reinforce class differences, undermine science and technology, speed up the corporatization of the university, inundate society in legal disputes, and reduce personal freedoms. BOOK
REVIEWS A review of The Global Political Economy of Israel by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler. The Philosophy
and Politics A review of The Power of Negativity: Selected Writings on the Dialectic in Hegel and Marx by Raya Dunayevskaya, edited by Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson; Marx and Engels: Their Contribution to the Democratic Breakthrough by August H. Nimtz, Jr.; and The Algebra of Revolution: The Dialectic and the Classical Marxist Tradition by John Rees. Occupation’s
Mixed Legacy A review of Inside GHQ: The Allied Occupation of Japan and Its Legacy by Eiji Takemae, translated and adapted by Robert Ricketts and Sebastian Swann with a preface by John W. Dower.
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