Capital & Class

FOR THOSE OF US who have been following how lone parents are represented in media and political debates over the last few years, the shift was all too apparent. By Spring 1997, the political scapegoating of single mothers as being responsible for tearing apart the moral fabric of society had become less frequent; tabloid headlines which screamed ‘family breakdown’, ‘scroungers' and ‘welfare benefit crisis' appeared less often; and many politicians had started to project themselves as, at the least, concerned about the welfare of lone parents and their children. Surprising really, that is, until we remember the backdrop—the UK General Election and 1.3 million UK lone parent voters. By April 1997, a growing backlash against the more extreme and pathologising accusations against single mothers had rendered explicit vilification unacceptable. To pull votes a different sort of language had to come into play—one which didn't risk turning off the electorate but would still allow a freezing or cutting of welfare spending on lone parent families. Since it was now politically inexpedient to engage in vitriolic attack, there emerged a new discourse—one which reappropriated and redefined lone parents as chief targets of government aid. Close scrutiny of the texts circulating from 1992 to the time of the General Election offers insights of how policy agendas, political rhetoric and news interweave to construct a definition of lone parents which bears little resemblance to how they may see themselves.

IT IS ONLY FOUR YEARS since the final resolution of the so-called Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), but the machinery that drives the world trade talks, now re-christened as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is already cranking into gear for the next season of protracted discussions. The name may have changed, but once again, the major trading blocks are set to carve up world trade amongst themselves for the next century. Such is the time-lag attached to the international policy stage, however, that the losers from the 1993 resolution—those countries from the South who are dependent upon international markets for the sale of their primary commodities—are still awaiting the full consequences of this official organisation of inequality. (Watkins 1992)

THE DEATH OF PRINCESS DIANA in the early hours of the 31st August 1997 and its aftermath have led to a number of propositions being aired in the Press, two of which are notable. First, it is argued that Princess Diana was in some way a radical/progressive figure, and second, following on from this, that the large number of people involved in the events surrounding the aftermath of her death were also in some way radical or progressive. This rather contradictory outpouring was a massive phenomenon and something socialists cannot ignore.

This article considers the experience of press workers in the newspaper industry in Britain to examine how workers can rebuild their collective organisations to resist and supplant the increasing prevalence of non-unionism. Taking the press workers at Wapping firstly and then press workers in general, the re-composition of the labour process is considered to show that new spaces and opportunities for worker resistance are continually provided even within inhospitable environments. As such workers' power is socially constructed and mobilised rather than technologically determined.

This article examines recent World Bank reports on the role of the state in the development process, with particular reference to the rise of the East Asian NICs and the crisis of ‘governance’ in sub-Saharan Africa. The concepts of market friendly intervention and good governance are critically discussed, and are found to be inadequate as explanations for East Asian ‘success' and African ‘failure’. An alternative explanation for the rise of the NICs is presented, which draws out some of the implications for the developing world.

At the empirical level there is evidence of industrialisation and economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean in the last 30 years but there has also been an increase in poverty and inequality. The authors argue that development and underdevelopment cannot be understood solely in terms of external dependency or national autonomy. The paper highlights the inadequacy of an empirical methodology which attempts to make universal theoretical generalisations from statistical regularities and suggests it is necessary to uncover the underlying structures which determine observable surface phenomena.

While recognizing the new ‘freedoms' of the labour contract, Marx and Marxist historians and theorists have emphasized its coercive origins and implications. In contrast, Weber and Simmel are struck by the extent to which rural labourers appear to opt for the labour contract even where this is not in their material interest. The article examines this debate and its continued significance for understanding contemporary changes in the nature of work and employment contracts. It argues that the significance of ‘personal’ freedom has to be acknowledged in analysing these changes.