Article Critique: “New Trends in Democracy and Development: Democratic Capitalism in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya” - Rita Kiki Edozie

In her article titled “New Trends in Democracy and Development: Democratic Capitalism in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya” Professor Rita Kiki Edozie of the International Relations department at Michigan State University examines the “complex relationship between capitalism and democracy in contemporary democratic regimes in Africa from the perspective of current trends in economic globalization” (43). The article follows the prospects of democracy in the three mentioned African countries and the scandals surrounding their dominant political parties: The African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Nigeria, and the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) in Kenya (Edozie 43).

Edozie uses the theoretical frameworks of political economy and comparative studies to show how the global regimes of capital are having effects on contemporary national democratic politics and how a democratic crisis in each country is associated with an economic crisis. Among these are South Africa’s French Connection Scandal, Nigeria’s Globacom Affair, and Kenya’s Anglo-Leasing Finance Scandal (Edozie 43). According to Edozie, when considering the relationship between capitalism and democracy, one must consider two things: the region’s context of economic development and economic conditions that foster the emergence of democracy, as well as the performance of democratic regimes that speak to the conditions required for democratic stabilization, consolidation, and effective performance (45).

Edozie explains that in the developing world context, the analyses of problems that influence democracy are defined in socio-political, economic, and cultural, terms Edozie labeled as external or extrinsic (47). In the case of Africa, such factors cause significant effects on unevenly developed economic structures in developing democracies. Democratic transitions in which economic and democratic reform occur simultaneously allow for the formation of “democratic capitalism” (Edozie 48). From here Edozie moves into specific examples in the African context: South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya’s network of democratic capitalism. All three countries serve as important examples of the “phenomena” of democratic capitalism and show how intrinsic features such as liberal democracies and pluralism, along with extrinsic features such as global laissez-faire capitalism are contributing to a crisis of democracy (49). These three countries were selected because they are among the wealthiest of African economies on the continent. However, compared to other advanced industrial democracies throughout the world these African countries are relatively poor (Edozie 49).

Beginning with South Africa, the crisis of democracy is attributed to the second election and the assumption of Thabo Mbeki as the executive power. After his rise to power, the ANC become more centralized and dominating and “talking left while acting right” (Edozie 50). Others such as Jacob Zuma further tarnished the name of the ANC by illegally benefitting from a multibillion dollar arms contract, or the “French connection” as Edozie terms it. The tension originally began as a power dispute between Jacob Zuma, the Deputry President of the ANC and Bulelani Ngcuka, head of South Africa’s Directorate of Special Investigations. Ngcuka illegally benefitted from an arms trade deal with his financial partner Schabir Shaik, the director of the Nkobi Holdings and the African Defence Systems (Edozie 56). Tension built within the party as those with different ideologies (pro-reform vs. traditional revolutionary beliefs) clashed. Such internal conflict made it impossible for the ANC government to focus effectively on the issues of South Africa such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic and unemployment among others. and put democracy at risk.

Next Edozie moves onto Nigeria and its incumbent ruling party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In Nigeria much of the political tension was caused between the battles between the country’s legislature and the executive. Impeachment charges were brought against then President Obasanjo and then counter charges against key legislators. Later on when Abubaka won the presidency, tension arose between the Southern Christians and the Northern Muslims. More pro-economic reform policy was pushed by the executive, putting more emphasis on personal power politics and the ideology of Nigerian ethno-regionalism (Edozie 50).
Under the NARC regime Edozie elaborates on the Globacom Affair. This affair had international connections, and very heavy relations with the US Department of Justice, the FBI, and Congressman William Jefferson. The Nigerian Presidency claimed to have been acting on behalf of the FBI to investigate the Vice President involvement in the laundering of money from privatization program funds and using them to purchase shares in Globacom and other US ‘front’ companies (Edozie 54). Such accusations of scandal, money laundering, and corruption are never conducive to democracy, and to accuse a President of those wrongdoings truly damages democracy in Nigeria.

Finally Edozie elaborates on the crisis in Kenya and the historic transition election in 2002 that brought President Mwai Kibaki and the National Rainbow Coalition Party (NARC) to power. With Kibaki’s ascension to power came Kenya’s adaptation of nurture capitalism in democratic politics. In 2003 a sensational corruptions scandal was discovered in Nigeria, now known as the Anglo-Leasing Finance Scandal. Its major players included NARC, President Kibaki, and a host of his other key ministers. The government of Kenya wanted to replace its passport printing system and sources its bids from international companies. A French firm quoted the transaction at 6million Euros, and a British firm, Anglo-Leasing Finance, quoted 30 million dollars. The scandal happened when the contract was awarded to Anglo-Leasing, which then sub-leased the contract to the French firm for 6 million dollars. NARC ministers were implicated but no charges were brought against them (Edozie 58-9). When the people can’t trust their own elected officials due to monetary scandal, democracy is in danger indeed.

Edozie’s collection of data for the three countries suggests that the democratic crises experienced by each country are linked to national and global economic structures including elites, electorates, and capitalist interests (60). These developing countries more aggressively “seek business investment for the purpose of economic growth and poverty reduction” (Edozie 61). But because of this, they tend to turn into nurture capitalist economies because they must rely on large domestic and international corporations who exploit the people of these countries. The governing bodies of these countries tend to support no-reform policies rather than economic reform because they realize how harmful such polices are to the welfare and interests of the people. Even still, since economic policy almost always presides with the executive and elite who are loyal to the central banks and creditors, they tend to form political majorities in parliament mobilized to support the technocratic, pro-reform economic policy (Edozie 62). Therefore, the interests of the people are never really given a chance.

Edozie’s evidence showing that people of these countries are demanding more than just democratic representation (such as suffrage, entitlements, or political rights) is her overall strength. She does not say that the political parties in South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria have taken part in corrupt practices, but gives specific evidence of their wrongdoings as well as shows how the people reacted to them. She uses the labor strikes, demonstrations, riots, and militant conflicts of the people to show that constituencies in all three countries are demanding democracies that provide the redistribution of the already scarce resources (Edozie 62). Democratic capitalism is being rejected by the people. The future of the countries depend on whether or not each country can get beyond their crises through peaceful political means. In the case of South Africa it may mean allowing other parties than the ANC to have a share in the political process of the country. Similar are the cases in Nigeria and Kenya where there is a need to create a multi-ethnic, multiparty systems that foster national development and equal access to material wealth for everyone, rather than just the elite few.

Works Cited:

Edozie, Rita Kiki. “New Trends in Democracy and Development: Democratic Capitalism in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya.” Politikon. 35:1, 43-67.

THINK BEFORE YOU DRINK: WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BACARDI

link

Rock around the Blockade, which campaigns in solidarity with Cuba, has launched a Boycott Bacardi campaign to highlight the organised attempts by the Bacardi company to undermine the Cuban Revolution – a stance belied by its publicity for its apparently ‘Cuban’ rum.

In advertising its lead brand white rum, Bacardi plays on its Cuban roots, misleading drinkers into believing that Bacardi still has some links with the island. In fact the Bacardi empire is based in the Bahamas and the Bacardi company broke all ties with Cuba after the Revolution of 1959, when its cronies in the hated Batista dictatorship were overthrown by a popular guerrilla movement led by Fidel Castro and Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.

Since then the Bacardi company has backed illegal and violent attempts to undermine the Cuban Revolution, including funding the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), a virulently anti-Castro right-wing exile organisation based in Miami, which has been responsible for systematic acts of terrorism against Cuba. Bacardi’s lawyers also helped draft the US Helms-Burton Act, which extends the United States’ blockade of Cuba to third countries, in breach of international trade law. So central was the role of Bacardi’s lawyer, Ignacio E Sanchez (a CANF member) in establishing Helms-Burton that US Senator William Dengue said the law should be renamed the Helms-Bacardi Protection Act.

The Helms-Burton Act was designed to tighten still further the United States blockade of Cuba. The blockade prevents the sale of food, medicines and other essential supplies to Cuba and threatens other countries (including Britain) if they trade with Cuba. It has been estimated that the blockade has cost Cuba over $40 billion in lost production and trade. Every year the US blockade is overwhelmingly condemned by the United Nations.

The blockade is responsible for severe shortages and suffering among the Cuban people. For instance, the prestigious American Association for World Health (AAWH) reported in 1997 that the US blockade is contributing to malnutrition and poor water quality in Cuba and that Cuba is being denied access to drugs and medical equipment which is causing patients, including children, to suffer unnecessary pain and to die needlessly. The AAWH gave examples of a heart attack patient who died because the US government refused a licence for an implantable defibrillator, of Cuban children with leukaemia denied access to new life-prolonging drugs and of children undergoing chemotherapy who, lacking supplies of a nausea-preventing drug, were vomiting on average 28 times a day.

The AAWH concluded that a humanitarian catastrophe had been averted only because the Cuban government has maintained a high priority for a system designed to deliver primary and preventive care to all its citizens. It is worth recording that, despite the effects of the blockade, Cuba last year received a World Health Organisation (WHO) award for meeting all the WHO targets for all countries by the year 2000 – the only country so far to have done so.

This is the humane, socialist system that Bacardi seeks to destroy.

Through its support for the blockade and its funding of CANF, Bacardi shares the responsibility for the suffering imposed on Cuba over the last 40 years by those who refuse to accept the socialist path chosen by the Cuban people. At the beginning of June 1999, the courts of Cuba issued a lawsuit against the US government and its representatives for human damages as a result of aggression perpetrated against Cuba for the last 40 years, based on witness statements and recently declassified US government papers. These crimes include the destruction of ships and civilian aircraft, biological and guerrilla warfare, the firebombing of factories and crops, assassination and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by US-trained mercenary troops in April 1961. The death toll from these activities is set at at least 3,400 Cuban citizens. These are the sort of terrorist acts supported by the Bacardi empire.

Not content with this, Bacardi has now resorted to stealing the Havana Club label. Although the blockade means that Cuban rum cannot be sold in the USA, in 1974 Cubaexport registered the Havana Club trademark there to prevent its use by other companies. The rights to the trademark were bought by the French company Pernod Ricard when it set up a joint venture with Havana Club Holdings in 1994 - in the face of threatening letters from Bacardi.

In 1996, Bacardi started illegally marketing its own Havana Club. Pernod Ricard sued. But, thanks to a section (section 211) hastily tacked onto last year’s US budget after frantic lobbying by Bacardi’s lawyers, Bacardi won. Section 211 arbitrarily stipulates that no court in the USA may recognise or in any way validate any claim regarding trademarks and commercial names related to properties ‘confiscated’ by the Cuban government. Bacardi claims Havana Club uses former Bacardi assets nationalised by Cuba in 1960. Section 211 contravenes international trade law, and Pernod Ricard is taking the case to the World Trade Organisation. As Castro pointed out, ‘I hope no one will now complain if we start marketing a Cuban Coca-Cola.’

Boycott Bacardi!

The Boycott Bacardi campaign launched by Rock around the Blockade will use petitions, protests, leaflets, stickers and direct action to expose the truth behind Bacardi’s ‘Cuban’ image and persuade consumers not to buy Bacardi. People throughout Britain will be asked to pledge not to buy any Bacardi products and pubs, clubs, student bars and shops will be asked not to stock them.

The campaign aims to threaten Bacardi’s profits and force them to get off Cuba’s back. It will build on the success of similar campaigns against other multinational companies involved in inhumane activities, such as that against Nestle for promoting powdered baby milk in underdeveloped countries and that against Shell for its involvement in atrocities committed against the Ogoni people in Nigeria. These campaigns attracted worldwide support and forced the companies involved to reconsider their policies.

Already a number of student bars and pubs have decided to make a stand against Bacardi’s activities by no longer stocking Bacardi and replacing it with Havana Club, a genuine Cuban rum whose sales bring much-needed hard currency into the Cuban economy. The challenge from Havana Club worldwide has left Bacardi sales down an estimated $25 million since 1990.

Don’t drink Bacardi – it’ll leave a bad taste in your mouth!

For further information contact Rock around the Blockade
c/o FRFI, BCM Box 5909, London WC1N 3XX

Tel: 020 7837 1688 Fax: 020 7837 1743
e-mail: rcgfrfi@easynet.co.uk

"Really Really Free Market" and State News Response by Allison Voglesong (YDS Co-Coordinator)

Help us promote the Really Really Free Market which is a block north of campus across from Gumby's in a park. Bring a chair and share at this fun skill-oriented "free market" where everything is free. Arrange through each other to bring whatever you want to give away for free. Or, just come take a study break and dig through some neat free stuff, learn (or share) how to do something useful (fix a bike/play a game) and enjoy the sounds of local music at its best. Leftover market items are (tentatively) going to VOA, feel free to indicate to us if you can help transport donations (depending on the nature of donations there is a possible bike brigade where small loads are taken by bike to donation sites. However, feel free to let us know if you've got a car you're willing to donate, then large items have a way of being donated.)

Got a good idea for this Really Really Free Market? Join the facebook group and let us know you plan to make it happen. There are no official organizers, so come join the horizontal effort to make cool stuff happen.

Saturday, April 25th
Valley Court Park, East Lansing
10 am -- 3 pm

Monday, April 20th, 2009
Students Protest In-State Tuition Increases
Response by Allison Voglesong

"Other members, such as international relations junior Allison Voglesong, said more students should be involved. “This is what being active is. If you want people to show up, throw a kegger — that is what students respond to,” Voglesong said." -The State News, April 20, 2009

Here's the VIDEO, which is a little better to clarify:



THE QUOTE IN THE PUBLISHED ARTICLE is a startling misrepresentation of my statement, particularly considering that the original comment I made regarding "keggers" was made in jest. The reporter asked me to repeat the point I had made to another protester that was not put into context in the article. More frustrating is that the young lady asked me to repeat myself and I made it clear to her that I was not suggesting our strategy to gain student interest in protesting the tuition increase was to throw keggers to get names on petitions.

Quite simply I am disappointed that more students show more interest in assemblies like "Cedarfest" and less interest in assembling to confront real problems that directly affect their ability to go to college. What was the point of Cedarfest that got so many people involved? Observing the frequency of "keggers" and their popularity, I find it discouraging that tuition is treated with such apathy here at MSU. Sadly, the State News Reporter, Ursula, did not choose to include that point when noting my comment about the appeal of "keggers" to large numbers of students. My bottom line is that it's too bad more students don't care and/or aren't vocal about this tuition issue. How do we get more students interested (at the very least) in what is going on with their school and their investment in their education? I think that point is well represented by my comments towards the end of the video.

If there are any responses, first answer the underlying question I'm trying to address. What is it that students respond to best or most often when assembling together? I'd love to know how to get more students excited about making a difference to encourage university transparency and accountability. It's too bad the tuition issue in itself isn't exciting enough.

Allison Voglesong

James Madison 2010
Major International Relations
Political Economy Specialization
Co-Coordinator, MSU Young Democratic Socialists
Member, Roosevelt Institution

Poll: Many Americans prefer socialism over capitalism

From: PWW

Author: Teresa Albano
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 04/09/09 14:54

This poll made our day.

According to a recent Rasmussen Report, only 53 percent of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.

Not a very good spread for the profits-before-people, greed-is-good crowd. Ayn Rand must be rolling in her grave.

These numbers of course reflect the deep, transformative moment we are living in. An economic depression is a powerful force for people to experience, leading them to question the system that got us here.

Then there is the 20 percent that say socialism is better than capitalism, according to Rasmussen. Another wow! Twenty-seven percent are not sure which is better.
As the population gets further away from the Cold War years, the more they are open to socialism. The under 30 population is essentially divided: 37 percent prefer capitalism, 33 percent socialism and 30 percent are undecided.

Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the current system with 49 percent for capitalism and 26 percent for socialism.

But the ones over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13 percent of those believe socialism is better. What happened to the radical baby boomers?!

As you may imagine, those who have money to invest chose capitalism by a 5-to-1 margin. But for the rest of us who have no money to invest – a quarter of us say socialism would be o.k. Only 40 percent of non-investors think capitalism is better.

These are amazing statistics considering Rasmussen did not define either capitalism or socialism in their questions.

In an earlier survey by the polling firm they found, 70 percent of Americans prefer a free-market economy. When using the term “free market economy,” Rasmussen asserts, it attracts more support than using the term “capitalism.”

“Other survey data supports that notion. Rather than seeing large corporations as committed to free markets, two-out-of-three Americans believe that big government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors,” the poll summary stated.

Imagine how Americans would react if truly a national conversation was had on the benefits of socialism. Right now most Americans see it as a “government-managed” economy and they aren’t convinced the government could do any better than the corporate royalty, according to further poll findings.

Not included in the current popular view of socialism is democratization of the economy – where representatives of all communities, unions, schools, etc., would actually be involved in steering economic policy and decision making on all levels – micro and macro.

Recently, a colleague of mine, Sam Webb, the chair of the Communist Party said of the current economic and political situation:

“Is there any reason to think that millions in motion can't transform this country and world into the just, green, sustainable and peaceful "Promised Land" that Martin Luther King dreamed of?

“It would be a profound mistake to underestimate the progressive and socialist potential of this era. The American people have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity within their reach.”

While polls are just a snapshot of a very fluid and dynamic process of what people think, the more long term forces of the economy are already having this profound effect.

Dyson Visits, YDS Documents and Interacts

From the Left (no pun intended): Nicole Iaquinto, Co-Founder MSUYDS; Michael Eric Dyson (top), Professor of Sociology, Georgetown University; Michael Davidson (bottom), MSUYDS member; Allison Voglesong, Co-Coordinator MSUYDS

Many a YDS member came to MSU's Kellogg Center to fill the Big Ten room on April 9th to hear Dr. Michael Eric Dyson speak at the 2009 Race in 21st Century America 6th National conference. Dyson went above and beyond the theme of "Health Care and Communities of Color," delivering (and occasionally singing) a rousing address well into the night. Participants were given the opportunity to dialog with the guest, and YDS members stuck around to snap this photo at the end of the night.

Dr. David Green's Presentation @ YDS Panel on Economic Crisis

Compared to Europe, American labor dreadfully passive in the face of corporate exploitation

NY Times, April 5, 2009
In America, Labor Has an Unusually Long Fuse

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
The workers and other protesters who gathered en masse at the Group of
20 summit meeting last week in London were continuing a time-honored
European tradition of taking their grievances into the streets.

Two weeks earlier, more than a million workers in France demonstrated
against layoffs and the government?s handling of the economic crisis,
and in the last month alone, French workers took their bosses hostage
four times in various labor disputes. When General Motors recently
announced huge job cuts worldwide, 15,000 workers demonstrated at the
company?s German headquarters.

But in the United States, where G.M. plans its biggest layoffs, union
members have seemed passive in comparison. They may yell at the
television news, but that?s about all. Unlike their European
counterparts, American workers have largely stayed off the streets, even
as unemployment soars and companies cut wages and benefits.

The country of Mother Jones, John L. Lewis and Walter Reuther certainly
has had a rich and sometimes militant history of labor protest ? from
the Homestead Steel Works strike against Andrew Carnegie in 1892 to the
auto workers? sit-down strikes of the 1930s and the 67-day walkout by
400,000 G.M. workers in 1970.

But in recent decades, American workers have increasingly steered clear
of such militancy, for reasons that range from fear of having their jobs
shipped overseas to their self-image as full-fledged members of the
middle class, with all its trappings and aspirations.

David Kennedy, a Stanford historian and author of ?Freedom From Fear:
The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945,? says that
America?s individualist streak is a major reason for this reluctance to
take to the streets. Citing a 1940 study by the social psychologist
Mirra Komarovsky, he said her interviews of the Depression-era
unemployed found ?the psychological reaction was to feel guilty and
ashamed, that they had failed personally.?

Taken together, guilt, shame and individualism undercut any impulse to
collective action, then as now, Professor Kennedy said. Noting that
Americans felt stunned and desperately insecure during the Depression?s
early years, he wrote: ?What struck most observers, and mystified them,
was the eerie docility of the American people, their stoic passivity as
the Depression grindstone rolled over them.?

By the mid-1930s, though, worker protests increased in number and
militancy. They were fueled by the then-powerful Communist and Socialist
Parties and frustrations over continuing deprivation. Workers also felt
that they had President Roosevelt?s blessing for collective action
because he signed the Wagner Act in 1935, giving workers the right to
unionize.

?Remember, at that time, you had Hoovervilles and 25 percent
unemployment,? said Daniel Bell, a professor emeritus of sociology at
Harvard. ?Many people felt that capitalism was finished.?

General strikes paralyzed San Francisco and Minneapolis, and a six-week
sit-down strike at a G.M. plant in Flint, Mich., pressured the company
into recognizing the United Automobile Workers. In the decade?s ugliest
showdown, a 1937 strike against Republic Steel in Chicago, 10 protesters
were shot to death. That militancy helped build a powerful labor
movement, which represented 35 percent of the nation?s workers by the
1950s and helped create the world?s largest and richest middle class.

Today, American workers, even those earning $20,000 a year, tend to view
themselves as part of an upwardly mobile middle class. In contrast,
European workers often still see themselves as proletarians in an
enduring class struggle.

And American labor leaders, once up-from-the-street rabble-rousers, now
often work hand-in-hand with C.E.O.?s to improve corporate
competitiveness to protect jobs and pensions, and try to sideline
activists who support a hard line.

?You have a general diminution of union leadership that was focused on
defending workers by any means necessary,? said Jerry Tucker, a longtime
U.A.W. militant. ?The message from the union leadership nowadays often
is, ?We don?t have any choice, we have to go down this concessionary
road to see if we can do damage control,? ? he said.

In the case of the Detroit automakers, a strike might not only hasten
their demise but infuriate many Americans who already view auto workers
as overpaid. It might also make Washington less receptive to a bailout.

Labor?s aggressiveness has also been sapped by its declining numbers.
Unions represent just 7.4 percent of private-sector workers today.

Unions have also grown more cautious as management has become more
aggressive. A watershed came in 1981 when the nation?s air traffic
controllers engaged in an illegal strike. President Reagan quickly fired
the 11,500 striking traffic controllers, hired replacements and soon got
the airports running. After that confrontation, labor?s willingness to
strike shrank markedly.

American workers still occasionally vent their anger in protests and
strikes. There were demonstrations against the A.I.G. bonuses, for
instance, and workers staged a sit-down strike in December when their
factory in Chicago was closed. But the numbers tell the story: Last
year, American unions engaged in 159 work stoppages, down from 1,352 in
1981, according to the Bureau of National Affairs, a publisher of legal
and regulatory news.

Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University, said that while
demonstrations remain a vital outlet for the European left, for
Americans ?the Internet now somehow serves as the main outlet? with
angry blogs and mass e-mailing.

Left-leaning workers and unions that might be most prone to stage
protests during today?s economic crisis are often the ones most
enthusiastic about President Obama and his efforts to revive the
economy, help unions and enact universal health coverage. Instead of
taking to the streets last fall to protest the gathering economic crisis
under President Bush, many workers and unions campaigned for Mr. Obama.

Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, said there were
smarter things to do than demonstrating against layoffs ? for instance,
pushing Congress and the states to make sure the stimulus plan creates
the maximum number of jobs in the United States.

?I actually believe that Americans believe in their political system
more than workers do in other parts of the world,? Mr. Gerard said. He
said large labor demonstrations are often warranted in Canada and
European countries to pressure parliamentary leaders. Demonstrations are
less needed in the United States, he said, because often all that is
needed is some expert lobbying in Washington to line up the support of a
half-dozen senators.

Professor Kennedy saw another reason that today?s young workers and
young people were protesting less than in decades past. ?This
generation,? he said, has ? found more effective ways to change the
world. It?s signed up for political campaigns, and it?s not waiting for
things to get so desperate that they feel forced to take to the streets.?



------------------------------

Spartans- Unite! Say No To Hike!

MSU YDS Public Statement Regarding Proposed Tuition Increase and the Failure of Our Student Government to Oppose 9% Tuition Hike 3/31/09

If you go onto MSU’s website and search for the word “inclusion,” it will not take long to locate President Simon’s “Statement on Core Values”. This document lays out the fundamental values that guide our “civil engagement with one another and with the society we serve;” one of these values is “inclusiveness.” According to the “Statement on Core Values,”

“Our commitment to inclusion means we embrace opportunities for all. It means that we ensure individuals who come from ordinary backgrounds but who possess extraordinary talents, passion, and determination can find the path to success. It means building a vibrant, intellectual community that offers and respects a broad range of ideas and perspectives. We embrace a full spectrum of experiences, viewpoints and intellectual approaches because it enriches the conversation and benefits everyone, even as it challenges us to grow and think differently.”

The problem with this statement is that there is a contradiction between the image being put forward by the university and the actions of the Board of Trustees and ASMSU with regards to our tuition.

As we all know, we are currently in the midst of an economic crisis that is regularly being called the “worst since the Great Depression.” This crisis has hit Michigan especially hard with an unemployment rate of 12% in February 2009 a staggering 4.6% increase over the previous year (http://www.milmi.org/), a foreclosure rate that rose by 10% in just a month from January to February (http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/michigan), and the worst state economy in the nation. At the same time, U.S. News and World Report ran an article on March 27 pointing out that B.A.’s are quickly becoming the new high school diploma. And yet, in the middle of this economic maelstrom, our Board of Trustees is proposing a 9% tuition hike!

This tuition hike works to directly contradict MSU’s claim to be a university that supports and encourages diversity and inclusion. As education at MSU becomes increasingly unaffordable for working class and poor students, the university will become an increasingly elitist institution, available only to the rich and privileged of society. In addition this will be harmful to those attending the university as they are increasingly denied the opportunity of interacting with those who’s experiences and background are different from their own. And, those students who are able to claw their way through college will quickly be subjected to a renewed form of indentured servitude as they are forced to contribute 8% of their monthly income to repaying student debts. Finally, in light of the increasing need for college degrees to get decent jobs, the university is condemning poor and working class people to a potentially perpetual state of joblessness. The proposed tuition hike is exploitative, classist and racist.

Rather than relying on students to supply for its budget needs, the University ought to reevaluate its spending habits and ask who is benefiting from these actions. In 2008, our university completed construction of the $15.5 million Skandalaris football center, and construction is currently being continued on the $90 million dollar Secchia Center, a new MSU medical school located in Grand Rapids Michigan.

In her “Statement on Core Values,” President Simon also states that “great universities, like great companies, are rooted in fundamental values that define their contributions to society and that endure regardless of who is at the helm.” In light of these vanity projects and the proposed tuition hike, one must stop and wonder where MSU’s values lay, and whether it is not truly a company exploiting its students in the name of profit. An article posted on Inside Higher Ed.com in 2008 stated that Merit Based aid still makes up about 70% of college aid, despite the fact that such aid, by failing to take into account disparities in U.S. lower education, often goes to “those who could still otherwise afford a college education.” Once again, one is left to wonder why the university does not divert some of those funds to providing more need based scholarships if it is truly committed to promoting diversity.

The MSU Young Democratic Socialists would like to encourage our student government to engage in independent thought and fight for the rights of its constituency, the students, rather than simply towing the line of the Board of Trustees. After all, as I was told once by a friend, “what is the point of a government if it does not work for its people?”

Michigan State University Young Democratic Socialists

Allison Voglesong, MSU YDS Co-Chairperson, Logistics and Publicity

Ryan Wyeth, MSU YDS Co-Chairperson, Director of Communications and Public Relations