Moderate Muslims Are the World's Swing Voters
Posted: 3 February 2009 - Huffington Post. Moderate Muslims should be seen as the world's swing voters. The Obama administration should think carefully about the lessons of the past eight years, indeed the past 80 years. There are hundreds of millions of moderate Muslims in the world, and they are waiting for an American partner that is cognizant of its role in a long, difficult history of colonialism and imperialist interventions. They, too, are looking for a "new deal." A president with the name of Barack Hussein Obama presents an opportunity, but the opening may not last long.
In Canada, Regular Folks Are Put to Work on Reforms
San Jose Mercury News, by Steven Hill, 17 November 2004. One of the solutions may lie across the border in Canada. It's called a Citizens' Assembly, and it was on display last year in the province of British Columbia. The government there turned over to the people the task of basic political reform, and by doing so took the partisanship out of the process, something California badly needs.
<< Back
An Antidote to GATT: Stakeholders vs. Stockholders
Article: Labornet viewpoints: Global online communication for a democratic, independent labor movement. Also posted at: The Humanist, March-April, 1995. With NAFTA behind us and GATT in front of us, it's a sane response for working people to start feeling surrounded. There seems to be little to stop these steamrollers from running us over, as the workers of the world prepare to unite finally -- in the unemployment line. But, Hill points out, there are stubborn pockets of resistance to free trade that have sprung up over the last few years.
Stakeholders vs. Stockholders
Article: 2000, in Labornet viewpoints: Global online communication for a democratic, independent labor movement. Five years on, Hill looks at the enduring legacy of the Pennsylvania law that protects the rights of stakeholders, as opposed to the rights of the stockholders with respect to corporate-community relations. States and communities seeking new strategies to cope with job losses and corporate disinvestment associated with global free trade would do well to understand the opportunities provided by a legal framework solidifying stakeholder rights.
Another Gold Medal For the United States
Article 2000 in Labornet viewpoints: Global online communication for a democratic, independent labor movement reprint from: Dollars & Sense (Newsletter) issue no. 205, 1996 - Economic Affairs Bureau). A global survey was released recently that says that world business leaders give the gold medal to the U.S. economy as the "most competitive" in the world among industrialized nations. What business leaders mean when they say "most competitive" is this: low wages, few worker benefits, and deregulation.
ICANN: the Secret Government of the Internet?
Article: April, 2001 - Labornet viewpoints: Global online communication for a democratic, independent labor movement. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a little-known international body that oversees crucial Internet functions. Depending on whose description you read, ICANN is either an innocuous non-profit with a narrow technical mandate, or the first step in corralling the Internet for commercial and other purposes. And despite the centrality of it's role in the online world, there has been almost no media coverage of ICANN.
Europe's Answer To Wall Street
Article: April 21, 2010 - the Nation. Many European countries have the right institutions to facilitate both a powerful economic engine and the supportive institutions and benefits to harness that engine. Co-determination is one of them. It gives workers in Europe the advantage of electing worker directors that sit side by side as equal decision-makers with stockholder representatives, and supervising management. This is a little-known yet unprecedented extension of democratic principle into the corporate sphere.
Economic Democracy and Codetermination: Harnessing the Capitalist Engine
Book review: Posted Friday, 15 January 2010, on the Globalist (daily online magazine on the global economy, politics and culture). In the aftermath of the economic crisis, the United States needs a new economic model — one that will decentralize power and put it in the hands of the workers. As Steven Hill suggests in this excerpt from his book, Europe's Promise, the United States might have a lesson to learn from post-World War II Germany.
Merry Christmas, From the Government To the Workers -- In France, That Is
Article: 2000, in Labornet viewpoints: Global online communication for a democratic, independent labor movement. 
Just a few days before Christmas in 1999, the French government passed a law that was a welcome gift to their workers -- they shortened the legal workweek from 39 hours
to 35. This follows a European trend, where Swedish, German, Italian and soon Belgian and Spanish workers will have seen reductions in their workweek.
The World Cup of Global Competition
Article: July 1998 - Hartford Web Publishing: World History Archives. Steven Hill is in Paris during the 1998 World Cup of soccer hosted in France. Watching Europeans of numerous nationalities patriotically cheering their home teams, he reflects on the remaining barriers to the European Union. Some Europeans are looking westward toward the American model, marked by low unemployment of 4-5%, market and labor flexibility, low deficits and increased worker productivity. However, important distinctions should be noted about U.S. practices.
ELSEWHERE IN LINKAGOGO
Enable Choice on Labor Unions
Special article by Steven Hill and Dmitri Iglitzin : 20 March 2007 – in the Washington Post’s column - Think Tank Town. The top priority of pro-labor members of the United States Congress is passage of the employee Freedom of Choice Act, a law that would make it easier for workers to organize a union in their workplace and negotiate a contract with their employer. This legislation has been the subject of vigorous public debate among labor organizations and business lobbyists, yet it only scratches the surface of a badly needed overhaul of U.S. labor law.
Time For a Tex-Mex Marshall Plan
Article: 23 April 2006 – Washington Post. The bold yet carefully planned E.U. approach to worker migration suggests the direction that policy between
the United States and Mexico should take. To deal
with the situation, the leaders
of the European Union wisely created policies for fostering regional economic and political integration that make efforts
such as the North American Free Trade Agreement look timid and half-hearted by comparison. Increasingly the demands of the global economy will push North American regional integration out of the realm of a shadow economy and flawed free trade agreements.
Look Who's Acting Like the Microsoft of Politics: This Monopoly's Not Even Debatable
Article by Steven Hill & Rob Richie: 11 February 2000 – Chicago Tribune. For the past year we have watched the U.S. government's attempt to apply anti-monopoly laws to the business practices of Microsoft. Ever since the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed a century ago, it has been widely accepted that domination of a market by a handful of private corporations can be bad for business, bad for consumers and bad for the nation.
ELSEWHERE IN LINKAGOGO
Next Steps For Social Democracy: An American Perspective
Article: 16 December 2009 - Social Europe Journal. This article was published as part of the "Building the Good Society" debate hosted by Social Europe Journal. In Hill's opinion, the predicament of social democracy strikes at the heart of several modern dilemmas that will be at the forefront of the twenty-first century. Given the many obstacles and challenges presented by globalisation, global warming and geopolitical shifts, he believes that social democrats have made remarkable gains and are providing a beacon to the rest of the world.
Steven Hill on Europe’s Promise
Video: Book talk: 21 January 2010 - held at the New America Foundation. Also posted with title: What the U.S. (Even California) Can Learn from Europe
The author discusses his new book and explains Europe's bold new vision. For a decade Hill travelled widely to understand this uniquely European way of life. He shatters myths and describes how Europe's leadership is rooted in different economic, social and cultural values. Hill points out that the European model has the greatest potential to nudge the world forward.
San Francisco Mayoral Race Mobilizes Opposition
to Globalization
Article: 2000 - Labornet viewpoints: Global online communication for a democratic, independent labor movement. San Francisco, a busy commercial and Internet center riding the crest of nearby Silicon Valley, is the poster city for the globalized economy. Local startups, IPOs and surging stock prices are the latest embodiment of the American Dream, dangling the bait before a wide-eyed generation. Interestingly enough, this electoral challenge came less than two weeks after thousands of protesters in Seattle delivered a shot across the bow of the WTO and its cruise ship, the USS Globalization.
ELSEWHERE IN LINKAGOGO
