The Vietnam Update will be held at University House, Australian National

University on 6-7 November 2008. The 2008 Vietnam Update addresses the

topic of labour in Vietnam.

Vietnam is one of the world's fastest growing economies and has undergone

a remarkable transformation over the last two decades from a poor, mostly

agricultural country to a new centre of global industrial production.

However, for three years in a row, factories throughout the country have

been hit by waves of strikes. Complaints about low wages, harsh conditions

and the high cost of living have come to the fore in labour disputes.

Industrial unrest has increased in 2008, a year of soaring inflation and

slowing growth. Below the surface, rarely manifested in the strikes, are

diverse concerns about inadequate social infrastructure for migrant

workers, the quality of the workforce, the representation of worker's

interests, the unregulated informal sector, and the social and cultural

costs of Vietnam's rapid metamorphosis into a globalised industrial

society.

By Duncan Meerding

In May and June 1968, a movement erupted in France that threatened not just the survival of the government of President Charles De Gaulle but the system that it represented — capitalism. At the height of this movement, which was sparked by radical action by youth and students, an estimated 10 million workers were on strike and 600,000 students were occupying their schools and universities, and a further 2 million farmers were supporting them. This meant that more than one in five of France’s population were on the

 

Since its landmark publication in 1980, A People’s History of the United States has had six new editions, sold more than 1.7 million copies and been turned into an acclaimed play. More than a successful book, A People’s History triggered a revolution in the way history is told, displacing the official versions with their emphasis on great men in high places to chronicle events as they were lived, from the bottom up.

Forty-one years ago, on April 4, 1967, African-American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King addressed a gathering of religious antiwar activists at Riverside Church in New York City. Forty years ago, on April 4, 1968, he was assassinated.

``I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a `thing-oriented' society to a `person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.'' -- MLK.

***

 

Announcing conference in Hanoi, 7-8 October 2008: "Problems in Contemporary
Socioeconomic Theory" sponsored by Nature, Society and Thought and the Ho
Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration. Conference
is embedded in a two week study in northern & northwestern Vietnam and
Laos. For details see attached PDF file or
http://umn.edu/home/marqu002/VL2008.htm

Erwin Marquit
Editor, Nature, Society and Thought
University of Minnesota
116 Church Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

marqu002@tc.umn.edu
612-922-7993

By Tran Dac Loi

Years ago, while we were fighting the US war of aggression, the word “Vietnam” became very familiar to the world. However, over the past decades, less information about Vietnam has reached to the outside world,

by Doug Lorimer

By Michael Alexandros

By Gus Horowitz

This is the text of a speech that was printed in the Militant, the newspaper of the us Socialist Workers Party, on October 10, 1969, shortly before the massive anti-war demonstrations scheduled to occur in mid-November of that year. Gus Horowitz was the SWP's national anti-war director during that year and through the first half of 1970. Minor spelling and punctuation changes have been made in the text reprinted here. The introduction was by the Militant.

Introduction

On Labour Day weekend [September 1969] in New York, the Socialist Workers Party held its national convention. One of the central points on the agenda was a resolution assessing developments within the movement against the Vietnam War and the role of the SWP within that movement.

Discussion on the resolution was initiated with a report by Gus Horowitz, a member of the party's national committee and its representative to the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.

By Nguyen The Phiet

 

The author is the Vietnamese consul general in Sydney. This is an edited and abridged version of a talk given to an educational conference of the Australian Democratic Socialist Perspective in January 2005.

I have been asked to present a brief account of our history and of our anti-French and anti-US struggles and the important factors that made our struggles victorious, particularly those factors which I think are still relevant in our efforts for national defence and construction of our socialist homeland.

Vietnam has an age-old history. The ancient Viet, the ancestors of the presentday Vietnamese, and several other ethnic groups settled in Vietnam's territory right from the dawn of humankind. They explored and conquered nature to survive and develop. Over thousands of years of nation building, they had to fight continuously against foreign invaders and foiled invaders' attempts to assimilate this nation.

by Michael Karadjis

 

Michael Karadjis is an Australian socialist currently living and researching in Vietnam.

 

Contents

Differences in collectivisation and de-collectivisation

Differences in SOE reform

Roles of state sectors change in opposite directions

Why the difference?

Massive privatisation in China and slowdown in Vietnam

Party, bureaucracy and capitalist business

Mass lay-offs in Chinese privatisation

Labour and unions

Differences within the ruling parties

Health and education

Socialist orientation and the nature of SOE

Problems ahead for Vietnam

Footnotes