by Maliha Safri

See previous post: the marriage of feudalism and the military in Pakistan

In doing some research for a project, two important insights emerged concerning contemporary economic policies in Pakistan, and the transformation of feudalism. When it comes to Benazir Bhutto's economic policies, this much is clear: she was closer to being the daughter of the military dictator Zia than to her own father, who was hung by Zia. Zulfikar Bhutto undertook a plan to dramatically increase the role and size of the state in the economy in 1972: nationalizing firms in the steel sector, basic metals, heavy engineering, heavy electrical, assembly and manufacture of motor vehicles and tractors, heavy and basic chemicals, petrochemicals, cements, public utilities, power generation, transmission and distribution, gas and oil refineries (Ur-Rehman 1998).

By Rick Wolff

US consumerism -- citizens driven excessively to buy goods and services and accumulate consumable wealth -- is cursed almost everywhere. Many environmentalists blame it for global warming. Critics of the current economic disasters often point to home-buying gluttony as the cause. Many see consumerism behind the borrowing that makes the US the world's greatest debtor nation today. Moralists of otherwise diverse motivations agree on attacking consumerist materialism as against spiritual values. Educators blame it for distracting young people's interest from learning. Psychologists attribute mass loneliness and depression to unrealizable expectations of what commodities can deliver to consumers.

S. Charusheela

Marxists may feel pleased to hear the terms "exploitation" and "slavery" gain wider currency in discussions about globalization. But I want to argue that we should be cautious about the implications of recent popular discourses of slavery and exploitation of third world workers, particularly women, under globalization.