The Asian Economic Crisis and Capitalist Restructuring: Two Approaches

ABSTRACT

The global capitalist system is at a particular historical juncture with a dilution of the capitalist core away from Western (and Japanese) centers of accumulation to China and India, among other countries. What is the nature of capitalism in these countries? Are China and India going along the same development trajectories that advanced capitalist countries followed earlier? Is their accumulation model the same as that of the OECD economies or is accumulation different under late capitalism? The author argues that capitalism in India and China is “compressed,” meaning that the phases of capitalism do not follow one another in sequential order. Instead, some phases, such as primitive accumulation, may be delayed or be experienced at the same time as advanced accumulation under the corporate sector, thereby producing a mode of development that does not generate widespread employment. The author contends that capitalism in India and China is compressed and he demonstrates empirically that primitive accumulation, petty commodity producing sectors, and mature capitalism in late-industrializing countries reinforce each other, creating precarious forms of employment in the process.     

Home Is Where Mother Is: Ideals and Realities in Australian Family Houses of the 1950s

Following the austerity of war, Australians in the 1950s were keen to pursue their inter-related ambitions of building families and homes. Architectural design was heavily influenced by modernism and focused particularly on the perceived needs of mothers and children, imagined to be ever-present in the home. Architects recommended modernising and centralising the kitchen so that the mother could efficiently complete chores while supervising her children. They advised designing children’s bedrooms to provide privacy and stimulate creativity, as well as incorporating indoor and outdoor play areas. While these ideals were promoted in housing magazines, analysis of other sources reveals that the reality of 1950s housing was more complex. Many Australians lived in dwellings representing the design conventions of previous eras. For those building new houses in the 1950s, postwar shortages and personal finances often constrained aspirations. Others disliked the fact that modernism challenged traditional spatial and social precepts. Even for that minority residing in newly constructed, architecturally designed housing, families did not always inhabit domestic spaces in the manner anticipated by architects. Attention to a range of historical sources allows a fuller understanding of the broad spectrum of postwar housing and the diverse ways in which 1950s Australian families dwelt in their homes.     

Two Nigerian Lists

These two lists may prove of interest in relation to recentdevelopments in Nigeria. The first was extracted from the quarterlyreview of the Department of Labour for September, 1944—membersof the African Civil Servants Technical Workers Union are starred,and three later unions should be added to them: P.W.D. Ijora(Sawmill) Workers Union, Lagos Town Council Workers Union, RailwayStation Staff Union. The dates of forming are as follows: 1–12,1940;13–36, 1941; 37–77. 1942; 78–83, 1943;and the last 2, 1944. The second list is based on an accountof the. opening ceremony in August, 1944, contained in the WestAfrican Pilot together with subsequent additions. It is notcomplete, containing 105 names where the N.C.N.C. claims anythingup to 126. The 8 bodies which decided on a National Delegationto proceed on behalf of the Council to England are starred.     

Two Nigerian Poems

A considerable poetry has sprung up in the English press ofNigeria and elsewhere in West Africa. It often violates academiclaws. but, like so much in African culture, it is alive. Wegive two examples below, with acknowledgements to the NigerianSpokesman, from which they are taken. The first illustratesthe direct and concrete nature of the African mind, the second,his political emotion. Tony Enahoro is a young editor from Beninrecently sentenced to 9 months imprisonment for criminal libel,and the author belongs to a chief's family from the same town.Imoudu is the Nigerian labour leader. Wallace Johnson, the SierraLeone labour leader, was interned in Sherbro Island during thewar.     

Two More Nigerian Poems

In our last number we printed two poems, selected, with no regardto their subject matter, as examples of the attempts that youngAfricans are making to express themselves. Crude though theyare, these poems appeared to us to be something more than merebad imitations of English verse. V/e now reproduce another two–onea romantic, almost Teutonic evocation of the forest, the otherresembling at least the spirit of the Latin songs of wanderingscholars in the Middle Ages. Eweka writes from the same townas Yesufu-Giwa, Sapele, where there seems to be a literary schoolthat might be worth investigating: at least the quality of itsverse, however uneven, ts much higher than any seen from "older"areas like Lagos or the Gold Coast. Is this due to the superiorimagination of the "new" Nigertan peoples, or to the fact thatthey have not yet learned enough to blight them by imitatinginappropriate English models? The answer may be a combinationof these reasons. The first of the present poems, by the way,comes from the Comet of Lagos, the second from the Spokesmanat Onitsha.