Articles by Frederick F Clairmonte

September 21, 1983 BELGRADE Pointers to the Eighties Frederick F Clairmonte PUBLIC relations gimmickry cannot conceal the amplitude of the Belgrade debacle nor should it be allowed to do so. The sheer magnitude of the debacle follows in the wake of four major international conferences from GATT to Delhi, Buenos Aires to Williamsburg. At least in the care of Belgrads there was no need to write an obituary since its protagonists could not even fashion a ragtag final communique. In all of this, there is nothing to regret. What remains to be done is to perform a meticulous autopsy, within and out' side UNCTAD, Whether such an autopsy is feasible ' in view of the malaise is arguable.

THE LAW OF THE SEA Perceptions of National Interest Frederick F Clairmonte John Cavanagh ON the eve of what was billed the final session of the Law of the Sea Conference, the authors argued that it was in the long term interests of transnational corporations (TNCs) to secure a viable treaty. Thus, we predicted that the US government would find accommodation with the treaty by forcing through certain last minute revisions. Judged by the April 1982 US refusal to sign, it would appear that our forecasts were off the mark. How is the gap between prediction and reality to be explained?

This paper examines the origins, role and reunification of conglomerate oligopolistic power in world tobacco economy. The power of the tobacco transnational conglomerates (TTCs) is such that many developed and underdeveloped countries have been totally marginalised in the output and marketing decision processes. Underdeveloped capitalist countries supply 55 per cent of world leaf tobacco; but their processed exports are almost non-existent, they have no influence whatsoever in the design, output and innovation of tobacco machinery, and their aggregate receipts from tobacco are based almost exclusively on the demand, response and marketing decisions dictated by the TTCs.

January 28-February 4, 1978 some effort on the part of the social scientist to prevent his endeavours from becoming inane and repetitive. Besides, considering that only little of what is planned for the poor is actually implemented in practice, the research on poverty gets meagre help from the source on which empirical research depends for its vigour and continuing rejuvenation, viz, an extensive and strong base of field studies. It is not an accident that so much of this research remains preoccupied with the long-term and with general prescriptions, neither of which could provide any new and striking insights to researchers and policymakers. Without considerable ingenuity on the part of the social scientist and firm resolve by him to discard easy liches, it is difficult to see the research on poverty gaining in substance and usefulness. It would also appear that a perspective focused on the society as a whole could be more productive than one confining itself only to the poor. For example, consider the programme for extending guaranteed employment to the rural poor which has very good prospects of being implemented effectively when the country has, as is the case now, large food surplus. Viewed as a poverty programme, it is no more than a halting first step and most poverty researchers give it only a passing reference in their lengthy agenda of what should be done for the poor. On the other hand, when considered in the context of a system characterised by incomplete demoralisation, it is difficult to think of another measure which could do so much for the poor, almost immediately, by expanding the frontiers of democracy and by lifting the pall of precariousness from the lives of the casual workers. One wishes that the Indian democracy breaks out of its fixation with the long-term goals for the poor to seize such opportunities. While the success that it achieves may not be easy or automatic, the system would at least begin to sound less hypocritical towards the poor than it does now.

in the case of a dispute as to whether "a pending issue is to be discussed or not between management and labour" ONE of the salient traits of post-war economic growth has been that capital accumulation on a world scale, to use Rosa Luxembourg'sconceptual framework, has overwhelmingly redounded to the countries of the capitalist core and only marginally, if at all, to the peripheral and .semi-peripheral countries. In short, the familiar indicators of poverty, mass unemployment, illiteracy, chronic malnutrition and famine, marginalisation in its most acute forms, continue to bedevil these countries. Inexorably the process of accumulation for the developed core has been matched by dis-accumulation from the peripheral orbit.