A Political Economy Forecast for the 2005 British General Election

Recently, we proposed an original statistical model for forecasting general elections in the United Kingdom, based on the observation of a few key indicators of the political and economic system. That vote function model was tested against the results of the 2001 general election. Here we evaluate the results of that test, and offer an appropriately revised model for the forecasting of the upcoming 2005 general election. According to our forecast, a Labour victory appears the most likely outcome.     

The value of Peasant labour power in a prolonged transition to capitalism

Like peasant populations in many areas of the world, the Aymara of southern Peru have been subjected to a variety of social, political and economic pressures that have radically altered relations of production and exchange. However, in spite of being altered, precapitalist social relations persist in juxtaposition with increased participation in the expanding capitalist economy. By comparing the average return to labour power in subsistence production with the return associated with participation in the capitalist economy, this article highlights some of the relationships that exist between capitalist and pre‐capitalist production, and seeks to offer a partial explanation for an arrested transition to capitalism.     

Plantations and modes of exploitation

Persistent Poverty. Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the Third World by George L. Beckford. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1972. Pp. xxvii + 303, Index; £3.45 (hardback) and £1.40 (paperback).     

Differentiation and survival among North Carolina smallholders: An empirical perspective on the Lenin‐Chayanov debate

This article addresses theoretical issues concerning differentiation and class formation using North American data. It explores how socio‐economic characteristics vary and impact survival in agriculture. The study is based on panel data collected from a sample of smallholders in three Piedmont North Carolina counties. Factor analysis reveals five major dimensions of differentiation: scale, household labour, off‐farm family labour and income, demographic characteristics, and land tenure. An index of propensity to survive in agriculture, constructed from three waves of panel data is regressed upon five indices measuring the underlying dimensions of differentiation. Land tenure manifests a statistically significant net effect on survival in agriculture. These empirical results support theoretical arguments in favour of integrating analyses of socio‐economic and demographic differentiation in the study of agricultural enterprises.     

Women in Defense of Workers: Ella Winter,the literary left,and labor journalism in California

Left-wing, middle-class journalists such as Ella Winter contributed decisively to the labor rebellion of the 1930s. In contrast to mainstream labor reporting, they practiced a form of anti-fascist, working-class journalism that consistently linked the drive for collective bargaining to a larger movement for social and economic justice. Winter and other writers such as Miriam deFord and Emily Joseph carried forward a tradition of labor defense, socialist feminism, and free speech advocacy that originated in the bohemian left of the early twentieth century. Rather than reducing women’s activism to communist intrigue or the exigencies of the economic crisis, this essay seeks out the deeper roots of women’s working-class journalism in the 1930s. It finds them in the democratic and aesthetic aspirations of the pre-Bolshevik left, even while it addresses the critical impact that the crisis of capitalism and the rise of fascism had on socialist feminist writers. Functioning as mediators, organizers, and witnesses to the movement, they bridged the gap between the middle and working classes, chronicling the experiences and articulating the aspirations of a multiracial proletariat. For these writers, radical commitment and responsible social commentary seemed entirely compatible. Out of this conviction, Winter and others helped build a cross-class coalition in California. In addition, they carved out lives of social purpose that allowed them to achieve a measure of female independence and professional achievement.