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Le 28 juillet à Saint-Astier (Dordogne), le président de la République annonçait officiellement sa volonté de créer une Garde nationale. Trois mois plus tard, le dispositif est définitivement adopté avec comme objectif d’augmenter la capacité des réserves et leur fidélisation. Un défi dans lequel l’armée de Terre occupera un rôle majeur. 

Le caporal-chef Emmanuel est engagé pour la troisième fois en opérations extérieures. Il occupe le poste d’agent d’opérations, à Šiauliai, en Lituanie, dans le cadre de l’opération Baltic Air Policing.

Although class has not declined in significance, by shaping the institutional context, political geography has become a key determinant of income. Credit: IPS

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Nov 17 2016 (IPS)

Global income inequality among different regions began to increase about five centuries ago, before accelerating about two centuries ago, according to the great economic historian Angus Maddison. After the brief reversal during the ‘Golden Age’ quarter century after the Second World War, higher commodity prices in the decade until 2014, despite protracted slowdowns in most rich countries following the 2008 financial crisis, reduced international disparities between North and South.

Before the Industrial Revolution, inequalities among regions were relatively small, while within-‘country’ inequalities accounted for most of overall global income inequality. But inter-country income inequalities now account for about two-thirds of world inequality, with intra-country inequality accounting for a third.

Short 20th century
National income distribution trends do not necessarily follow those for global income inequality. National level inequality in 22 developed economies grew up to the second decade of the 20th century, with inequality declining thereafter until the 1970s. The trend then reversed again with the market fundamentalist counter-revolution and changing role of the state in recent decades.

The general trend for these countries is quite clear, but does not hold for all other countries. For example, many developing countries fared badly in the 1920s and 1930s as primary commodity prices fell, especially during the Great Depression.

The late historian Eric Hobsbawm famously described the period from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, as the ‘short twentieth century’. Other pundits identify the end of the First World War, or the creation of the ILO in 1919, as an alternative starting point for Karl Polanyi’s ‘second movement’.

For many, the ascendance of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan led the ‘neo-liberal’ counter-revolution against the post-World War Two ‘Golden Age’ marked by decolonization, Keynesianism, the welfare state, agrarian reforms and rapid employment expansion.

Washington Consensus
The ‘Washington Consensus’ from the early 1980s – shared by different branches of the US government and the Bretton Woods institutions located in the American capital – brought an end to earlier policy interventions associated with Keynesian and development economics.

The breakdown of the international monetary system and other developments of the 1970s led to ‘stagflation’ – economic stagnation despite high inflation — in much of the West while growth accelerated in other regions, notably East Asia. The US Fed raised interest rates sharply from 1980, inducing an international recession, and eventually, fiscal and sovereign debt crises in some developing countries and ‘communist’ economies. High debt and the Volcker-induced interest rate spike forced many governments to pursue macro-financial stabilization policies to defeat inflation besides microeconomic structural adjustment policies.

But the so-called Washington Consensus was not really about market liberalization, as little was done to check, let alone undermine private oligopolistic and oligopsonistic trends. Instead, despite the market rhetoric, neo-liberalism is really about strengthening property rights and capturing rents.

This involved a shift away from public authority and coordination, redefining the role of the state and enhancing private power. Good governance in the new order means upholding the rule of law, especially strengthening property rights and related privileges and entitlements. To secure political support, it appeals to all as consumers, and to all asset-owners, including petty ones and rentiers seeking to maximize net income flows by minimizing rent-seeking costs. Not surprisingly then, recent trends in the functional distribution of income reflect a declining share for labour despite rising labour productivity.

Labour solidarity?
This disconnect between labour productivity and income is not unfamiliar to developing economies with high unemployment and underemployment. In such labour markets, characterized by ‘unlimited supplies of labour’ associated with economics laureate Arthur Lewis, productivity gains did not translate into higher wages, or a ‘producer surplus’, but instead lowered prices, contributing to the ‘consumer surplus’. This contrasts sharply with strong labour market institutions where wages rise with productivity.

Growing wealth concentration in recent decades reflects enhanced rentier power in most economic sectors and activities as well as the ascendance and globalization of finance in recent decades. Rentier income flows from legally sanctioned monopolies associated with intellectual property rights have grown greatly in recent years, increasingly capturing productivity gains at the expense of labour.

Although class has not declined in significance, by shaping the institutional context, political geography has become a key determinant of income. This not only helps explain the continuing strong economic incentive for international migration, but also the growing barriers to such movement, often supported by those who feel threatened about losing their privileges.

Not surprisingly, international labour solidarity has become much more difficult, while foreign advocacy of labour rights or the environment is treated with suspicion as self-interested, or even as protection by another name.

Les autorités russes ont ordonné, jeudi 17 novembre 2016, le blocage du réseau social LinkedIn. La justice russe estime en effet que le réseau ne respecte pas la loi, qui impose le stockage des données personnelles en Russie. LinkedIn est la premier site bloqué en raison de cette loi controversée.

C'est officiel, la RDC a un nouveau Premier ministre. Il s'agit du député Samy Badibanga qui avait été élu en 2011 sous les couleurs de l'UDPS. Il avait été radié par la suite. Cette nomination est le fruit de l'accord politique signé en octobre entre la majorité et une fraction de l'opposition.

At the one-month mark of Iraqi military operations to oust terrorists from Mosul, the United Nations and its partners today said tens of thousands of families in newly retaken areas urgently requiring life-saving assistance and warned that the humanitarian community in Iraq faces a “massive scope” of need.

La décision du tribunal oblige désormais la direction du FN à convoquer Jean-Marie Le Pen dans toutes les instances du parti en sa qualité de membre de droit.

(B2) La réunion des ministres des Affaires étrangères et de la défense ces 14 et 15 novembre a été l'occasion de plusieurs déclarations et prises de position sur les différents sujets à l'ordre du jour... L'arrivée de Trump aux États-Unis il est "normal" de s'inquiéter Pour Margot Wallström, la ministre suédoise des Affaires étrangères, il est […]

Le 27 février 1942, les forces navales néerlandaises, britanniques, australiennes et américaines, placées sous le commandement de l’amiral Karel Doorman, ancien pionnier de l’aviation au Pays-Bas, subissaient une cuisante défaite face à la marine impériale japonaise en mer de Java. Au cours de cette bataille, le destroyer britannique HMS Electra fut coulé en raison de […]

Cet article Les épaves de navires de guerre néerlandais et britanniques coulés en mer de Java ont disparu est apparu en premier sur Zone Militaire.

EU member states should “refrain from inciting fear and hatred in their citizens towards migrants and asylum-seekers for political gains”, said Civil Liberties Committee MEPs voting a resolution on fundamental rights in the EU on Thursday. The rights to free movement and life-saving abortion are also stressed in the text, which will now be put to a vote by Parliament as a whole.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

EU member states should “refrain from inciting fear and hatred in their citizens towards migrants and asylum-seekers for political gains”, said Civil Liberties Committee MEPs voting a resolution on fundamental rights in the EU on Thursday. The rights to free movement and life-saving abortion are also stressed in the text, which will now be put to a vote by Parliament as a whole.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

EU member states should “refrain from inciting fear and hatred in their citizens towards migrants and asylum-seekers for political gains”, said Civil Liberties Committee MEPs voting a resolution on fundamental rights in the EU on Thursday. The rights to free movement and life-saving abortion are also stressed in the text, which will now be put to a vote by Parliament as a whole.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

EU member states should “refrain from inciting fear and hatred in their citizens towards migrants and asylum-seekers for political gains”, said Civil Liberties Committee MEPs voting a resolution on fundamental rights in the EU on Thursday. The rights to free movement and life-saving abortion are also stressed in the text, which will now be put to a vote by Parliament as a whole.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

A conference dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Azerbaijan’s state independence was held in the University of Houston.

DRAFT OPINION on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2015, Section III - Commission and executive agencies
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Zigmantas Balčytis

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

DRAFT OPINION on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2015, Section X - European External Action Service
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Zigmantas Balčytis

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

DRAFT OPINION on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2015, Section III - Commission and executive agencies
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Zigmantas Balčytis

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

DRAFT OPINION on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2015, Section X - European External Action Service
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Zigmantas Balčytis

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - Draft opinion on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada of the one part, and the European union and its Member states, of the other part
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - Draft opinion on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada of the one part, and the European union and its Member states, of the other part
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP