Too Important for the Experts
Eckstein, George & Howe, Irving & Booth, Paul & Terzuolo, Eric R. & Echols, Beate
We printed in our last issue a quietly thoughtful piece by H. A. Feiveson, "Can We Decide About Nuclear Weapons?" Mr. Feiveson wrote about the difficulties ordinary people face in trying to...
...might try to create a pro-Soviet Communist party, as it has done in Spain, Sweden, and Japan, but in Italy the practical inducements for joining a small leftist party are few...
...He took the Direzione to task for dismissing all "socialist" societies hitherto realized, for implicitly placing Communist and Social Democratic parties on the same level, and for desiring a definitive break with the Soviet party...
...It sometimes seems you can find, perhaps even hire, an expert for any opinion along the spectrum of nuclear controversy...
...But today: pleasure in the reassertion of popular will, in the readiness of people to speak out and initiate public debate...
...can be called socialism...
...Part of the document addresses the Polish events directly...
...But Brandt warns the peace movement and the neutralists: "Europe can achieve this only within the system of alliances, not by trying to detach itself from them...
...In the 1981 version, zone designation criteria, strictly prescribed in HR 7563, were loosened substantially—presumably to bring the measure more in line with the Reaganites' "New Federalism...
...Its tax incentives are mostly geared toward benefiting larger, more resilient firms that can substantially increase their after-tax profits by taking advantage of the offered corporate tax-rate reductions...
...in the event of nuclear war if there are enough shovels to go around...
...In the two Germanys, some 264 meetings have been held with participants, mainly intellectuals and church people, from both sides of the border...
...I see no alternative but to create the conditions that will help us to return to the policy of détente...
...workers without making a dent in the underlying problem...
...For some time now, the new world order that emerged after World War II has been profoundly shaken...
...q 267 even the pretense of socialism, presenting itself essentially as something "in between" the Communists and the Christian Democrats...
...The big question is whether, how soon, and to what extent the Reagan administration will respond to foreign resistance, domestic critics (now including prominent officials of past administrations), and the economic pressures, to change the dangerous course of its military policies...
...No one has held on so tenaciously to this concept of a Greater Europe—a Europe that extends from the Atlantic, if not to the Urals, to the Russian border—and no one has done as much to shape it as Willy Brandt...
...Industry will continue to relocate in the South and Southwest, where the cost of living and the wages are lower and unionization is at a minimum...
...Like its sibling Kemp-Roth, Kemp-Garcia is based on the concept of stimulating business through special investment and tax policies...
...A substantial percentage of older PCI members is much more pro-Soviet than the leadership would like, but younger activists also seem to be playing a 266 major role in the "neo-Leninist" current...
...Such dissent could be taken as evidence of a certain pluralism in the PCI's internal life...
...This approach indeed condemns the United States to a prolonged game of musical chairs, in which communities move into and out of a "distressed" status...
...in short, it's a zero-sum game...
...intermediate missiles now in the works, and their planned deployment in Western Europe, might be valuable as bargaining chips for gaining reduction or withdrawal of the Soviets' SS-20s...
...As a result, a large portion of zone investment could merely shift the location of firms for whom taxes are an insignificant factor in new zone decisions...
...Socialist leader Bettino Craxi, who is less than whole-hearted in his support of the Spadolini government, has been eager to force new elections, in the hope of making substantial gains...
...The proposal conveniently ignores the forces that produce structural unemployment in urban areas...
...At the Social Democrats' party convention in April, Schmidt managed to win a good-sized majority for his policies...
...massive public-works and public-service employment programs aimed at full employment...
...Prusso/German cooperation with Russia has long been a strand of Germany's political tradition...
...Under Craxi's leadership, the PSI has seemed to abandon Who's "A Bunch of Thugs...
...In some places Union staff now devotes a lot of time to drumming up pressure on congressmen, and the success of COPE and CLEC in holding off natural gas decontrol is a remarkable achievement, meriting emulation...
...In the Central Committee Cossutta cast the lone vote against Berlinguer's report...
...Schmidt's position is not made easier by the domestic recession (including, as of May, an unemployment rate of 8 percent), at least partly caused by high American interest rates that draw away investment capital...
...Garcia himself likened his proposal to "Operation Bootstrap that helped stabilize Puerto Rico in a difficult time...
...For labor to really "win" those congressional elections, the resulting majority must be willing to fight for programs that actually increase labor's bargaining power: improved unemployment insurance...
...Perhaps between 10 and 20 percent of PCI members could be classed as dissatisfied...
...Writing in the PCI daily L'Unitä on January 7, Cossutta expressed his continued belief in Soviet primacy...
...THE PCI'S CRITIQUE of the Soviet Union is closely intertwined with the matter of relations between the Communists and the Italian Socialist party (PSI...
...His reelection in 1984, and even the government's survival until then, is in doubt—making a conservative government a distinct possibility...
...269 Operation Bootstrap illustrates that a random application of tax incentives and deregulation measures, without any form of comprehensive planning, does not accomplish much in the way of "revitalizing" an ailing economy—that is, if economic revival is to be measured in terms of effective demand, levels of productive employment, and standards of living...
...easy money (with credit controls...
...Especially enthusiastic was the left wing of the PCI, which has long favored a trenchant critique of Soviet practice...
...Since the break, the PCI leadership has taken the initiative, calling for closer PCI–PSI relations, something that a majority of the Socialist rank and file seems to favor...
...Originally introduced in the House of Represen268 tatives as HR 7563 in June 1980, the Urban Jobs and Enterprise Zone Act, reintroduced 12 months later as HR 3824, is much the same and yet different from the old bill...
...But, in the long run, de-Stalinization has proved a superficial process...
...writes: One can find much to disagree with in the specific language of all the resolutions...
...Now Europeans feel exposed to possible extinction while having only very limited influence on bigpower decisions...
...Furthermore, the deeply religious strain in the Polish movement has been difficult for many Italian workers to accept...
...A major project such as the gas pipeline from Siberia to Western Europe entails a certain risk of blackmail, but the project's economic value for the Soviets is such that they presumably would think twice before using it for political pressure...
...Labor has not demanded that Democrats embrace its economic program...
...The PCI leadership thus plans to abandon the practice of maintaining preferential ties to other Communist parties...
...The momentum originating with the October Revolution is exhausted...
...Unlike France, which, thanks to de Gaulle, has a small but effective intermediaterange nuclear force de frappe, the German Federal Republic has renounced all nuclear weapons and thus has put itself in effect at the mercy of U.S...
...Enrico Berlinguer, head of the Italian Communist party (PCI), spoke these words on December 15, 1981, two days after General Jaruzelski's move against Solidarity...
...It is a question that has been answered, at least partly, by significant portions of the American people...
...The effects of "Bootstrap" or the Industrial Incentives Act, passed in 1947 to create, according to its stated purposes, "a second-to-none investment climate," are well-known...
...Moreover, notwithstanding its stated purposes, Kemp-Garcia does not guarantee the creation of a single job, nor does it ensure that the jobs that may in fact be created would benefit the jobless or underemployed...
...diseases of hatred, chauvinism, and racism," Europe now can bring into play its own experience in creating stability...
...These include civil rights and civil liberties, regulatory issues affecting the workplace and the environment, foreignpolicy issues involving human rights...
...Finally, it is important to remember some specific sources of unease regarding Solidarity...
...Second, it would "recognize that the poor on welfare may face the highest marginal tax rates of all" and "entice the poor when able to seek taxpaying jobs...
...It is reflected in every take-away demand at collective-bargaining tables across the country...
...The only hope for a genuinely democratic socialism, according to the Direzione, lies in the growth of socialist forces in the advanced capitalist countries, especially in Western Europe, and socialistic movements in the Third World...
...The question his article raised is important not only in its own right—it involves the very future of democracy, since more and more problems seem to become increasingly complicated and beyond our grasp...
...Such contracts, required "to insure that local governments are committed to making enterprise zones work," should outline steps the local unit is willing to take "to reduce burdens on employers and employees within the zone...
...The party leadership has been a bit vague as to precisely where it would like to settle along the East-West line, emphasizing its rejection of both great power blocs and making statements reminiscent of the nonaligned movement...
...investment, the Puerto Rico of today, far from moving toward greater autonomy and self-sufficiency, is more than ever a colonial extension of the United States...
...The Kemp-Garcia-Reagan approach will force distressed areas in urban America to enter a bidding game for industry and jobs...
...Interviewed by our roving correspondent, a taxi cab driver in North Korea who preferred that his name not be used told us that he regarded Kim Jong II as "a chip off the old block...
...The Enterprise Zone Act will allegedly provide these urban poor with opportunities for financial success and upward mobility, similar to Puerto Rico's 1947 Industrial Incentives Act...
...In fact, however, the PCI's analysis of Polish events is rather close to that of Germany's Social Democratic party...
...The Puerto Ricans today are increasingly a nation of transients, compelled to travel ever-widening circles in search of stable employment at a living wage...
...Word comes from Washington that members of Secretary Haig's party trying to negotiate a compromise on the Falkland Islands have described the Argentine junta as "just a bunch of thugs...
...THE KEMP-GARCIA SPONSORS ALTERNATE between claims that the act embodies a revolutionary urban strategy that is replacing the failed liberal handouts of the past, and more modest pronouncements describing the measure as a mere adjunct to the array of social programs that are now being systematically dismantled...
...The alleged beneficial impact of HR 3824 on low-income housing is dubious...
...The societies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have lost their capacity for renewal...
...and U.S.S.R...
...He added an explicit warning that changes in the European balance of power favorable to the U.S.S.R...
...Indeed, the Reagan sweep owed much to the frustrations caused by the last decade's successful challenges to United States power—from the defeat in Vietnam to the hostages held in Iran...
...These statements, coupled with the huge increases in the strategic nuclear forces budget, have fostered a feeling that the Reagan administration is somewhat cavalier about the prospect of nuclear war...
...Yet it would be a serious error to assume that all opposition stems from pro-Soviet sentiment...
...b) and exclude half of all income earned by zone enterprises from taxation...
...West Germans may feel powerless vis-a-vis the nuclear threat...
...But starting the day after the election, labor will have to mount a grassroots lobbying drive to obtain their votes on the congressional floor, with the threat of turning them out in 1984 primaries if they let the labor movement down...
...This "pockets-of-poverty" approach ill-suits a time when the nation's overall economic picture is one of high unemployment and Labor Prepares for the Elections We asked a friend who works as a union organizer about labor's role in the November elections, and here's his reply: We're halfway between Solidarity Day I and Solidarity Day II...
...The U.S.S.R...
...The habits of solidarity are slowly coming back after decades of neglect...
...Candidate Reagan said he would open strategic nuclear arms talks with the Soviets "immediately" if he were elected...
...At the most, such a position might be tolerated on the part of lesser powers such as the Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands...
...This is not the first time the PCI has faced a crisis of disorientation...
...In the short run, a change in policy may follow a changing political climate...
...As high-technology or low-wage industries locate in poverty areas with high percentages of nonwhite populations, the Kemp-Garcia-Reagan program— by forcing inner-city minority communities to copy the Hong Kong/Taiwan model—will perpetuate institutionalized racism and create a permanent underclass in the nation's ghettos...
...But the two superpowers' absolute and relative strengths have undergone considerable changes...
...investment funds have not reduced unemployment on the island, which is now at the 25-percent level...
...261 Tomorrow: the rise, no doubt, of various simplicities, from rigid pacifism to rigid anti-Americanism, as these have always troubled our protest movements...
...I agree with sociologists Frank Bonilla and Richard Campos, who argue that ". . the very practices that seek to divide, divert, and deny the capacity to act to classes, races, and peoples at the same time create the conditions necessary for political combination among U.S...
...A recent letter to the editor in the New Republic puts with a nice precision the reasons for this encouraging outburst of popular expression...
...With the bargaining power of unions thus reduced, the zone program can in effect be seen as a measure to deunionize the declining Northeast...
...declaring zones to be "small entities" for the purposes of the Regulatory Flexibility Act and designating the provision of lowincome housing as "zone enterprise" for income tax purposes...
...A year of the Reagan administration has settled the issue long debated on the left under the heading "Political Action" —the two old parties are not simply Tweedledum and Tweedledee...
...The PCI's new position emerges clearly from a document of December 30...
...Furthermore, many prominent Socialists have been implicated in recent political and financial scandals...
...Kim II Sung, the Beloved Leader of North Korea, having reached the age of 70 and begun, apparently, to feel the stirrings of mortality, has started a campaign to have his son, Kim Jong II, succeed him...
...And so the ailing NortheastMidwest corridor, with its heavy concentration of minority populations, will not gain a competitive edge over other distressed areas...
...Many Democratic standard-bearers do not adhere to labor's alternative economic strategy...
...The one thing all the freeze resolutions have in common is that they are reactions to profound fears among the American public that the Reagan administration is not serious about arms control...
...Both measures thus subscribe to the Administration's "supply-side" and trickle-down economics...
...It is likely, however, to accomplish something else: to set a pattern for the exploitation of certain segments of the labor force...
...At the AFL-CIO convention last fall, the delegates proclaimed Election Day as the followup to the extraordinary march on Washington...
...Some figures close to Berlinguer, including the PCI's number-two man, Alessandro Natta, have argued that the positions expressed in Berlinguer's report and the Direzione's document are essentially extensions of past criticisms of Soviet policies...
...Not a word about "thugs...
...The Kemp-Garcia model is a direct attack on organized labor in that the thrust of the concept is to shift employment from nonzone to zone areas...
...During this period, the United States also had to register a substantial loss of prestige and power...
...PCI LEADERS DRAW the conclusion that, under conditions of continued Soviet control, there is no way for East European societies to move out of their present impasse...
...This shifting not only endangers the security of existing jobs but is likely to result in downward pressures on wages across all the trades and bluecollar occupations...
...Having largely overcome its...
...and Eastern Europe] doesn't mean anything at all to me...
...Like the Kemp-Garcia bill, the Reagan proposal rests primarily on the removal of "government barriers, freeing individuals to create, produce, and earn their own wages and profits," the elimination of the "inefficiencies of monopolized government services," and an "increased reliance on the private sector"—in short, an "open-market environment...
...And they are right...
...Each union is on its own as it struggles to resist these demands, to maintain jobs and buying power...
...Labor-intensive firms are likely to gravitate toward enterprise zones in order to take advantage of the existing secondary labor force, consisting mostly of blacks and other minority-group members...
...The message of the freeze movement is simply, "End the madness of the nuclear arms race...
...The 1981 version rests on incentives to meet two goals explicitly stated by its sponsor Kemp...
...Local political pressures will surely influence decisions at the federal level, making the struggle for zone status particularly relentless...
...labor-law reform...
...The present mood of gathering interest and indignation won't of course last very long...
...Also: the economic issues on which Reagan hasn't yet gotten his way but will certainly try for if given a renewed mandate in November—such as Social Security benefits, the sub-minimum wage, and what's left of the "safety net...
...The fact that Jack Kemp and Robert Garcia are at opposite ends of the political spectrum has made the whole concept all the more credible and acceptable...
...Had the PCI failed to attack Soviet interference in Poland, Socialist electoral propaganda would have charged the Communists with continued subservience to Moscow, and in all likelihood this would have hurt the PCI at the polls...
...Signed by the Direzione (Politbureau), it is the first truly thoroughgoing condemnation of the Soviet and East European Communist experience published by the Italian Communist press...
...Meanwhile the prospects that, as a result of enterprise zoning, substantial benefits and windfall profits will accrue to certain industries appear as certain as the chances that this measure will improve the lot of the urban poor seem remote...
...We take this to be a very good sign...
...In practical terms, however, the critique of the Soviet Union has brought the PCI closer to the Socialist and Social Democratic parties of Western Europe...
...In spite of massive direct U.S...
...The thrust of Berlinguer's report to the Central Committee of January 11 was very similar to that of the Direzione's document...
...An interesting case was a peace meeting in East Berlin, held by writers from both sides and organized by the East German poet Stefan Hermlin...
...its bureaucratized industrial organization has resulted in low productivity...
...establishing foreign trade zones within zones wherever feasible, and directing the Internal Revenue Service to simplify the administration of all tax incentives as much as possible...
...The PCI's immediate future certainly will be difficult—that much, at least, can be said with certainty...
...The White House measure is modeled after the Urban Jobs and Enterprise Zone Act of 1981 (HR 3824), cosponsored by Representatives Jack Kemp and Robert Garcia...
...In a few places, economic alternatives were debated in Democratic primaries, but this was not labor's doing...
...Today security can only be achieved in common: I no longer am safe from my adversary except with him...
...We will have to find workable proposals for the limitation and reduction of nuclear arms that recognize the need for a reasonable defense policy and the reality of the problem of totalitarianism...
...Puerto Rico's "Operation Bootstrap" and Kemp-Garcia-Reagan resemble each other ideologically and politically in that both rely primarily on tax incentives and relaxed regulation, along with implicit guarantees of cheap—and docile—labor, to induce private investment in areas to which it would normally not flow...
...Trade with the West, on the other hand, and with West Germany in particular, financed by large Western credits, has become a significant factor—one of the results of the Ostpolitik that was initiated by Willy Brandt with the reluctant support of President Nixon...
...It is only when labor's political activists have worked at the grass roots on the economic issues that they can be expected to make those issues decisive in candidate selection...
...This experience has also undermined the general confidence in American leadership upon which Western Europe's security had been built...
...For a while, PCI militants now may tend to be generally less active...
...Whether it is the witchery of the balanced budget dogma or the blandishments of special interests pleading for higher returns and lighter taxes on capital, conservative economics are widely accepted by a large number of the Democratic candidates...
...Cossutta, who is closely tied to the workers of the Milan area, has been in the upper echelons of the PCI since the late 1950s...
...The war between business and labor, of course, is not just going on in Washington...
...March has come and gone, and "immediately," by whatever definition, has long since passed...
...To undermine them, to dissolve them, would mean to endanger stability...
...According to the American Federation of State, City and Municipal Employees, the enterprise-zone scenario will enable secondarysector firms "to exploit the presence of low-skilled ing, most notably over decontrol of natural gas in cooperation with the Citizen/Labor Energy Coalition...
...272...
...Congressman Kemp, a conservative Republican from Buffalo and esteemed Reagan adviser, and his colleague Robert Garcia, a liberal Democrat representing New York's blighted South Bronx, have touted their measure (largely inspired by a British experiment implemented under Thatcher) as a way to improve the fiscal health of ailing cities, revitalize neighborhoods, and employ the inner-city jobless, mostly blacks and other minority groups...
...Other provisions include requirements for "coordination and streamlining of other federal programs within the zones...
...Gradual wage increases, finally approximating the United States minimum, have reduced the competitive edge of local workers vis-à-vis other sources of low-cost labor, mostly overseas...
...Second, one should expect some apprehension at any radical break, especially when the new course to be followed (in this case the "third path") is as yet poorly articulated...
...As one Communist member of the Chamber of Deputies put it: Il socialismo reale [socialism as built in the U.S.S.R...
...Yet Brandt did support Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in his thankless task of nudging a confrontationist American government into a more cooperative attitude, notably in regard to the problem of intermediate-range missiles...
...On the other hand, the capitalization of tax benefits, conditioned on zone location, will create substantial windfall profits for landowners within a zone, which will in turn provide incentives for land speculation, inflate land costs, and thus bar smaller firms from enjoying zone benefits...
...Individuals can drop out, nations cannot...
...Both versions share the underlying assumptions that government taxation and regulation are most responsible for the nation's low rate of growth in recent years, and that reintroducing the freedom of action enjoyed by 19thcentury capitalists and contemporary Hong Kong entrepreneurs will lure new business activity into distressed zones, create jobs, and "greenline" decaying urban neighborhoods...
...America no longer is the unchallenged Number One...
...At present there is no party on the Italian left that could attract PCI members of a pro-Soviet bent...
...The masses of North Korea are said to be wildly enthusiastic about this prospect of a Communist monarchy: Beloved Leader the First, Beloved Leader the Second, etc...
...Yet the opinions of legislators, planners, and interest groups on the program's effectiveness, merits, and impact remain largely divided...
...Drastic cuts of federal funds for urban areas have caused great concern even among many staunch supporters of enterprise zoning...
...Contrary to American perception, Europe does not end at the river Elbe...
...According to Garcia, the strong bipartisan support the measure has thus far received—reaching from conservative coalitions to minority-oriented and pro-urban groups, including the Congressional Black Caucus—proves that the proposal "is far more pragmatic than ideological...
...Under conditions of reduced interparty conflict, a thoroughly "Western" and staunchly anti-Soviet PCI might gain some votes at the Socialists' expense...
...In ordei ito compete effectively with the Sunbelt, the older cities of the Northeast will have to reduce the price of labor, ease land-use controls and other regulations, and lower their local tax rates substantially...
...Today both superpowers face harsh tests of their stability...
...The analysis of the U.S.S.R.'s role in postwar East European history in itself is not new...
...According to HR 3824, local governments may apply for enterprise-zone status if the area meets certain general qualifications...
...In Europe, the de facto dividing line established at Yalta and Potsdam between the two superpowers' zones of influence has long been fortified by the military alliance systems, and was again more recently officially recognized in the Helsinki agreements...
...Knowledge is necessary, it is too late for populist "know-nothingism...
...If President Carter's hesitations were not exactly reassuring, at least one knew that he was aware of the nuclear danger...
...For example, without explicit provisions for low-cost housing, an enterprise will be forced to draw its workers from outside the zone, thereby defeating the program's stated purposes...
...Nothing said about "thugs...
...For a time, de-Stalinization held out the possibility of adapting communism more closely to national conditions...
...Yet there is the Reaganite assumption that the sufferings of some areas and industries from the impacts of stagflation are merely "temporary economic dislocations," in Reagan's own words, from a basically sound and functioning, albeit temporarily weakened economy...
...Along with the discretion allowed local governments, in which real-estate interests usually have a strong stake, this might create some bizarrely gerrymandered zones in order to include politically important land parcels...
...PCI members critical of the Direzione have found a mouthpiece in Armando Cossutta...
...Things change somewhat when he has to descend to daily politics...
...But the economic issues that are fundamental to Reaganism are labor's main reason to participate in this year's elections...
...This objective is to be met through such tax breaks as refundable personal tax credits for wages earned by zone employees and also by refundable business income tax credits, both within specified limits...
...When, as head of the Socialist International, he had to react to General Jaruzeiski's coup against Solidarity, he went to extremes of caution in order not to antagonize the Kremlin...
...Even the Direzione's document states that some of the Polish union's demands had far exceeded the capacity of Poland's economy, and a sense that Solidarity had gone "too far" seems not uncommon among Italian workers (not just those associated with the PCI...
...Yet we are still waiting for strategic arms talks DISQUIET ABOUT the nuclear problem is intensified by the common perception that the experts are quite as divided among themselves as everyone else...
...itself, the Kremlin faces problems with its various nationalities, exacerbated by the imbalances caused by the higher birthrates of its Asiatic peoples and the lower one of the Slavic sector...
...Tobias K. Seggerman of Washington, D.C...
...At one time he was rather close to Berlinguer, but in recent years he has become an insistently pro-Soviet voice...
...The secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in consultation with the secretaries of Commerce and the Treasury, will designate 10-25 zones a year over an initial three-year period, thereby giving preference to zones with the worst conditions, the broadest community support, and—most important—the best "contracts" offered by local governments...
...Dissatisfaction is especially strong among Communist workers in major industrial centers, especially in Milan...
...Well, now...
...This is particularly true of West Germany, the most valuable object of any possible Soviet expansion...
...Feiveson wrote about the difficulties ordinary people face in trying to reach political conclusions about nuclear policy, yet the necessity that somehow, even if not experts, we come to such conclusions...
...ENTERPRISE ZONING 15 by no means a novel concept...
...First, this present effort, like all PCI efforts to move away from the Soviet party, originated in the highest echelons rather than at the grass roots...
...When reports came up from Buenos Aires that some 15,000 people had been seized and murdered by the agents of these thugs, we were told by the Reaganites and their neoconservative pals that after all something had to be done to stop terrorism, etc...
...Berlinguer carried the day in the Central Committee...
...But grass-roots lobbying requires the reorientation of political-action structures, a lot of training, and a lot of new resources...
...substantial permanent inflation appears in a flowering of the black market...
...Yet not even the PCI's harsh comments on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan were accompanied by such a broad-ranging critique of the Soviet system and Soviet hegemonism...
...Party membership, a problem in some regions, might take a small temporary dip...
...The Kemp-Garcia Bill, like the Reagan measure, will be national in scope...
...Not the least consequence of the recent events in Poland is that they have clearly extended Europe's eastern frontier up to the river Bug...
...Without going into the often perverse calculations that seem to occupy nuclear strategists, one thing can be said: every step that will increase the quantity and/or variety of nuclear weapons, or the modes of their delivery, is bound to increase insecurity rather than to diminish it...
...Some governments are coming under growing pressure from a more or less neutralist peace movement, aroused by the trigger-happy rhetoric of the present American leadership and frightened by the prospect of becoming the superpowers' battleground...
...It will also subject zones to competition from such foreign countries as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea, which have already siphoned off many light industries from the United States...
...wage and price controls to keep inflation down (particularly energy price controls...
...but when expert opinion falls pretty much along the same curve as that of ordinary opinion, it may well follow that what matters most is political sense and moral sensitivity...
...and (c) it would substantially remedy any loss carried forward by allowing zone enterprises to write off initial losses against long-term gain...
...q them against allowing ideology to become a credo, against accepting the Soviet experience in uncritical fashion...
...So far the pacifist appeals are usually directed at both sides...
...would lead to an "unacceptable extension" of the Soviet model...
...Enterprise zoning in particular is bound to affect different geographic areas, industries, population and labor-market segments nationwide...
...People feel, however, that on matters regarding human survival all of us, whether or not we are up to date on "warheads," must speak out...
...It is that no longer: the tensions have expanded worldwide, and have moved away from Europe...
...The economy is perhaps the Soviet Union's weakest area: its agriculture is in permanent disarray, making the country dependent on massive food imports...
...His successor's rhetorical challenges and loose talk of "limited" nuclear warfare were bound to kindle fears of sliding into a nuclear conflict—a fear that 262 is bound to be felt most acutely in Europe...
...First, it would create "a new sense of economic buoyancy within the zones, by drastically expanding entrepreneurial activity"— (a) it would eliminate capitalgains taxes on investment within the zones...
...However pleased Reagan might be with a new, conservative government in West Germany, it would be imprudent to expect that the change would result, in the long run, in a more compliant foreign policy, even with regard to the now so explosive issue of the placement of intermediaterange missiles on West German soil...
...Let me quote here from a remarkable article Brandt published in the January 1982 issue of the German socialist journal Frankfurter Hefte (entitled "Zweite!, Berechenbarkeit and Vernunft in der Politik"): We must break the infernal circle from catch-up arming to catch-up arming, each time in order to equalize the adversary's real or imagined lead...
...Yet the break with Moscow might allow the PCI to pick up some support on its immediate right...
...The sense of a radical shift imposed from the top is vexing even to some party members sympathetic to criticisms of the U.S.S.R...
...All this leads me to suggest that enterprise zoning, as promoted by Kemp, Garcia, and Reagan, runs directly counter to the very interests of those it purports to aid...
...When Jacobo Timerman told us that the Argentine junta is composed of "thugs" (being high-falutin', he called them fascists), there followed a barrage of denunciations by deep thinkers who explained the difference between totalitarianism (bad) and authoritarianism (bad, but not so bad, or maybe just somewhat deplorable...
...This means, among other things, that the two superpowers must recognize each other's equality of status and practice maximum restraint in the pursuit of their interests...
...Furthermore, it promises to seek more energetically a "third path," a type of socialism distinct from both the Soviet model and that of the West European Social Democratic parties...
...Turning to the sources of protest in Poland, the PCI leadership emphasizes political factors: the inability of the Polish government to devise an economic program that is consistent with the country's real needs, the absence of democracy, the persistence of dogmatic attitudes, the corruption within the Polish Communist ranks...
...Eugene Rostow, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, said he thought START talks would begin by March 1982...
...The Reagan administration in large part created the movement by making frightening statements about achieving nuclear superiority, fighting a limited nuclear war in Europe, firing nuclear warning shots, and telling people that everything will be O.K...
...To live in the 20th century takes strong nerves...
...The implication is that in order to make American enterprise zones work, the price of labor, the docility of the labor force, and the low level of regulation would have to outdo overseas sweatshop economies in order to be attractive to business...
...Relations between the two parties are thoroughly antagonistic at present, and the Christian Democrats seem to be searching for a new means of discrediting the PCI...
...Some believe enterprise zoning, which is based primarily on tax "incentives" to business, will remedy inner-city decline...
...A historical phase is ending...
...HR 3824 is far more refined, elastic, and politically palatable than its 1980 forerunner...
...These steps could take the form of local property tax reductions, regulatory "reform," improved local services, and/or commitments from private groups to provide assistance to zone entrepreneurs and residents...
...Although some important elements in the Christian Democratic party initially applauded the actions of the PCI's Direzione, no return to the "historic compromise" is in the works...
...From Frederick the Great to the Napoleonic wars, from Bismarck to the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo, and on to the Stalin-Hitler pact in 1939, German rightwingers and conservatives have shown a latent readiness to opt for a Russian alternative—far more than Germany's West-oriented democratic forces...
...Thus the development of U.S...
...As the debate about America's urban crisis sharpens and "reindustrialization" gains momentum on the Republican agenda, a controversial proposal to aid distressed urban areas is making the rounds in policy-making circles...
...But now that U.S...
...ALL OF WESTERN EUROPE, at the moment at any rate and despite United States pressure, seems to stand firm on the question of expanding trade and credit relations with the Eastern Bloc...
...intentions...
...It's easy to talk about a "third path," but we would like to know in more concrete terms what these new PCI positions mean...
...The AFL-CIO is experimenting with grass-roots lobby270 distress...
...Theoretically, Solidarity Day II might have a grass-roots lobbying effect on the '83 budget...
...It reiterates demands for the easing of repression, the restoration of civil rights, the rights of the unions, and the release of arrested Solidarity activists...
...But the PCI's explicit and forceful adoption of such an analysis certainly is new...
...They perhaps hoped it would highlight their own critique of Soviet conduct...
...For Western Europe today, a return to a policy of coldwar confrontation has become undesirable, if not unthinkable...
...Thus the Soviet Union continues to suffocate any autono265 mous development of countries in its sphere of influence...
...Town meetings, gatherings of professionals and academics, local forums, major segments of the Catholic hierarchy, and even such starchy establishment figures as Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy—all have come up with proposals regarding "first strike," "nuclear freeze," etc...
...diplomacy has been thwarted, we hear about "thugs...
...But the debate over which "freeze" is the best freeze is largely irrelevant...
...Soviet leaders have not carried out comprehensive reforms or even exercised substantial self-criticism...
...But the spirit of Solidarity Day surely must show that labor knows now it can unite against attacks...
...I doubt that confrontation between East and West stems from an iron law of nature...
...This need not lead to neutralism or "Finlandization...
...For years now, the border barriers between Eastern and Western Europe have been eroded—by trade and credit, by intellectuals and artists, workers and scientists...
...And within the U.S.S.R...
...Thus it is no accident that there is no significant peace movement in France—despite both a strong pacifist tradition (Jaures) and a declining, but still substantial, Communist party that is faithful to Moscow...
...This effort has guided his policy from the start...
...Opposition is substantial but diffuse and difficult to gauge in percentage terms...
...and a reversal of the tax give-aways enacted in 1981...
...Closer relations could work to the long-term benefit of the Communists...
...There are many questionable and complicated aspects here...
...But it does imply, among other things, a limit on Europe's military expenditures at a level well below that desired by the Reagan administration...
...Even the Democrats who might temporize over the planks of labor's economic platform are sorely missed today when it's time to tackle a wide range of issues about which labor and all the other Solidarity Day participants care very much...
...The last provision "is meant to offset the disincentives of the Social Security payroll tax," prominent in the 1980 bill, which "discourages employers from hiring untrained poor, particularly untrained teen-agers...
...In view of the inevitable shrinkage of public services and a deteriorating infrastructure, this bidding contest for business investment is certain to impair the long-term social, economic, and physical health of already troubled communities...
...Local COPE committees are not accustomed to activity other than election work...
...Over the decades, the Soviet regime has had to cope with increasingly severe rebellions in its satellite countries...
...One suspects that many of these apprehensions will prove to be temporary...
...President Reagan, who has presented these enterprise zones as the cornerstone of his urban policy, recently sent the details of his zone plan to Capitol Hill on the chance that Congress will adopt it by early summer...
...In the short run, the Direzione opted to tolerate Cossutta's dissent...
...The leader of the left, Pietro Ingrao, was more explicit than Berlinguer in denying that what exists in the U.S.S.R...
...With nostalgic appeals for a return to traditional American values (entrepreneurialism, self-help), enterprise zones are being marketed as a panacea for urban blight and unemployment...
...But once they are put in place, the level of insecurity will be raised for both sides...
...On this issue Schmidt was facing a rising rebellion within the ranks of his party, for part of the SPD membership is sharply opposed to the stationing of any such missiles on German soil...
...The unsuitability of this model has condemned Eastern Europe to recurring crises...
...The labor movement, and many of its allies, will support plenty of Democrats this fall who don't come out for these economic planks, often for reasons of self-preservation...
...But I worry that cutting ourselves off from the East means moving lock, stock, and barrel into the Western camp, and I'm not comfortable with that...
...The Vietnam War caused a trauma from which the country has not fully recovered, recent attempts of "rehabilitation" notwithstanding...
...Upon Hermlin's insistence, the sessions were carried by West German radio and television, which insured an uncensored coverage accessible to the West and most of the East German population...
...Aside from the unequal treatment of different labor-market segments, the Kemp-Garcia approach discriminates against small firms that, according to David Birch of MIT, create more than two-thirds of the nation's new jobs...
...They also worry about the "fiscal magic" underlying enterprise zoning, in that a variety of taxes are forgiven without these giveaways being treated as actual federal outlays...
...The General Secretary also made some pointed remarks aimed at his own party members, warning Kim the First, Kim the Second To the list of political hybrids our society has produced or our political scientists have named— "democratic totalitarian," "friendly authoritarian," "state socialist," etc.—add now "Communist monarchy...
...Both Ii Manifesto, to the PCI's left, and Antonio Gambino, an important political commentator to its right, have recognized that the PCI has made a substantial leap...
...In this task, says Brandt, Europe has a special role to play: "In the period of the Cold War, Europe was the main area of world tensions...
...For twice in this century Europe, unlike the United States, has suffered the experience and the consequences of being the battlefield in major wars...
...So the strength displayed on Solidarity Day wasn't available during the budget debate, but many of the half-million who made the trek to Washington have enlisted in congressional campaigns...
...and a huge part of the GNP is reserved for the military sector...
...The Social Security tax-cut provision has been struck from the 1981 bill as a result of strong opposition not only on the part of special interest groups but of the general public as well...
...The only way that remains is to cooperate in securing the common safety of the world...
...In the military realm, the United States lost its nuclear monopoly over 30 years ago and, during the last decade, its substantial margin over the Soviet Union in nuclear weapons...
...The relaxation of zone designation criteria is most crucial in view of the impact it would have on neighborhoods, communities, and cities, as will be discussed below...
...Distressed Northern cities and their inner-city black populations will be pitted against each other in their quest to obtain zone designation...
...This November labor hopes to vote enough Reagan supporters out of office to make them a harmless congressional minority...
...They feel that Kemp-Garcia does not constitute a supply-side alternative that is sufficient to replace vital federal programs...
...But long-term policy tends to be guided by less volatile factors, such as geopolitical 263 location, relative economic strength, social coherence...
...Many of the so-called kabulisti or afgani—who protested the PCI's condemnation of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan—have been organizing opposition to the Direzione's latest initiative...
...And of course, ideological calcification and increasing contact with the outside world have produced dissidence, defections, and expulsions...
...But Cossutta's insistence led to a rather sharp warning, approved by the Central Committee on February 9. It seems clear that Cossutta has quite a bit of support within the party's mass base...
...to live in the present moment, a strong stomach...
...France is in a different position, thanks to its nuclear deterrent capability...
...It is no accident that the nuclear freeze movement appeared only in the past year...
...It will be replaced by a more contentious moment, in which we shall have to make hard choices of judgment and take "positions...
...In his role as elder statesman, Brandt cuts an impressive figure...
...The proposal provides neither adequate sources of venture capital nor mechanisms to help small-business start-ups survive the initial years...
...Others suspect it is simply voodoo urban policy or, in the words of George Sternlieb of Rutgers, "a merchandisable phrase in search of a program...
...But his hold on the party and on the government coalition with the Free Democrats remains precarious...
...THESE CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES have broadened Europe's concept of itself...
...Secondary-market jobs typically offer low wages, few benefits, little job stability, and no upward mobility...
...This reflects not only Europe's new economic strength but also its conviction that expanding trade eastward will further an interdependence with the Soviet bloc—an interdependence that, Europeans feel, has already produced some softening political effects...
...minorities.' " Enterprise zoning, therefore, could actually become a tool for coalitionbuilding among the politically weak in order to fight Reaganomics and other manifestations of economic exploitation...
...In addition, the requirement that at least 50 percent of the employed work force be zone residents has been relaxed to lend the zone concept an added flexibility...
...Here is what Mr...
...The Italian Communists argue that, after the Second World War, all the East European countries were forced to adopt a single political and economic model—the Soviet model—with no regard for distinctive socioeconomic structures, cultures, or traditions...
...Without guarantees to the contrary, enterprise zoning will most likely lock minority workers into underpaid, shortterm, and dead-end jobs that no one else would take...
...If any proof were needed, the evident irritation of the "experts" is quite enough—they seem to think that if you aren't affiliated with a Strategic Institute you should keep your mouth shut...
...but their country is too strong a factor in the world, too tempting a target for a Russian expansionist drive (however unlikely at the moment), to be able to afford a neutral position...
...Yet that conviction seems to die hard in this country—just as the trend of isolationism still has a way of popping up when things don't go our way abroad...
...Despite several attempts at some sort of control—from the first Test Ban treaty under Kennedy and Khrushchev to the unconfirmed but so far honored SALT H under Carter and Brezhnev—the nuclear arsenal on both sides has reached a level of mutual overkill, thereby increasing the danger of conflagration...
Vol. 29 • July 1982 • No. 3
