It may be a tribute to the importance of South Pacific Futures: Oceania Toward 2050 that Helen Hu... more It may be a tribute to the importance of South Pacific Futures: Oceania Toward 2050 that Helen Hughes resorts to so many inaccuracies and personal attacks in her attempts to repress it in her review in Pacific Economic Bulletin (20(3):142-44). It is a rare experience to read so many distortions in such a short piec
This article examines why Vanuatu creates a congenial legal environment for an offshore financial... more This article examines why Vanuatu creates a congenial legal environment for an offshore financial centre (OFC). There are four structural reasons. The OFC turns Vanuatu into a legal transplant laboratory. It makes significant contributions to its small local economy. The OFC's subculture plays an important role in the country's domestic politics. Vanuatu contains few interest groups which are inclined to oppose tax haven development.
This article analyzes offshore (including Internet) gambling in Oceania-particularly its uneven d... more This article analyzes offshore (including Internet) gambling in Oceania-particularly its uneven development in Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, Norfolk Island, and Palau. Offshore gambling's evolution and future prospects are examined in terms of tensions between (1) the drive by entrepreneurs and regional taw-haven promoters to increase the volume and variety of gambling among the array of services that Pacific Islands tax havens provide and (2) the growing moves by metropolitan countries to curb taw avoidance and evasion, economic loss, money laundering, and other forms of crime and deviant behavior associated with offshore gambling.
Tax havens (or offshore financial centers) are often cited as evidence of contemporary capitalism... more Tax havens (or offshore financial centers) are often cited as evidence of contemporary capitalism’s “borderless world” – where, for example, millions or even billions of dollars are transferred instantaneously from metropolitan states1 such as China to offshore tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean or Samoa in the Pacific. Yet tax havens and their usefulness for capital depend on their being able to pass laws and hold assets within the jurisdiction of their borders and their ability to defend these borders against taxation and regulation by metropolitan states. In this chapter the following major themes will be discussed: 1) The nature of offshore financial centers (OFCs) as borderlands 2) How onshore governments’ actions towards OFCs may be more expressive than instrumentally effective, and how onshore tax agencies’ aggressive rhetoric against tax havens in border skirmishes is often hypocritical and ignores class-based realities 3) How the transnational ca...
Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to ... more Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to advance private interests against regulation by metropolitan states. Tongasat, Tonga's innovative satellite enterprise, is one such recent initiative in "stateless" capitalism that has deep structural similarities with flags of convenience and offshore tax havens. The microstate has claimed a disproportionate percentage of geostationary slots and succeeded in filling a number of them. Tongasat's emergence is analyzed in terms of the contemporary world-system, declining U.S. hegemony over the global satellite regime (creating opportunities for independent entrepreneurs), and the end of the cold war (making inexpensive Russian satellites available for commercial uses in Tonga's slots). Tonga's satellite venture has benefited members of the ruling elite but made few contributions to the country's internal development. Tongasat has been at the vanguard of moves ...
Review(s) of: Pacific ways, government and politics in the Pacific Islands, by Levine, Stephen, 2... more Review(s) of: Pacific ways, government and politics in the Pacific Islands, by Levine, Stephen, 2nd edition, Wellington, Victoria University Press, 2016, 416 pp., bibliography, illustrations, notes, NZ$40.00 (softcover).
This paper provides a comparative perspective on the development of tourism in Queensland through... more This paper provides a comparative perspective on the development of tourism in Queensland through analysing the history of tourism in Hawaii. Both Queensland and Hawaii are heavily dependent on tourism, with the future of tourism being a constant focus of public debate in each case. Since Hawaii embarked on tourism development decades before Queensland, the history of Hawaiian tourism may present some important lessons for tourism in Queensland. Also, Hawaii is Queensland's most important competitor for the Japanese and emerging Asian markets (such as South Korea, Taiwan and mainland China) in sun-and-surf tourism.
The rise of ethnic nationalism (as expressed by the political ascent of Pauline Hanson and her On... more The rise of ethnic nationalism (as expressed by the political ascent of Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party) has created divisions within the Right of Australian politics and impediments to a privatisation program which had been proceeding under the aegis of the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Party Coalition over the last fifteen years. This paper focuses on how Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party has opposed privatisation of government assets on the basis that privatisation offers opportunities for subversive foreign capital to weaken national solidarity, which is conceived in ethnic and racial terms. The One Nation Party, this new anti-privatisation movement, is interpreted on two levels: 1as one of a growing number of ethnic nationalist movements across the globe which are recurrent outcomes of hegemonic decline and increasing multipolarity in the world-system (e.g., the current situation of declining American hegemony being similar to the crisis of British hegemony i...
This article examines why Vanuatu creates a congenial legal environment for an offshore financial... more This article examines why Vanuatu creates a congenial legal environment for an offshore financial centre (OFC). There are four structural reasons. The OFC turns Vanuatu into a legal transplant laboratory. It makes significant contributions to its small local economy. The OFC's subculture plays an important role in the country's domestic politics. Vanuatu contains few interest groups which are inclined to oppose tax haven development. Vanuatu is a significant tax haven or offshore financial centre 1 (OFC) and it is important to focus on it as a financial centre, a nested community and culture of legal interpretation, not just as a 'market'. 2 Vanuatu's OFC gives the archipelago a prominence in global finance that is greatly disproportionate to its size 3. The principle of sovereignty (particularly its ability to pass its own tax laws) allows Vanuatu to create structures which attract a wide range of wealthy and powerful clients and produce a new kind of global political economy. Vanuatu's tax haven has often surprised, amused or scandalized metropolitan outsiders if they become aware of the situation. This microstate is often criticized for encouraging rich metropolitan clients to pretend to be something else-to
Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to ... more Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to advance private interests against regulation by metropolitan states. Tongasat, Tonga's innovative satellite enterprise, is one such recent initiative in " stateless " capitalism that has deep structural similarities with flags of convenience and offshore tax havens. The microstate has claimed a disproportionate percentage of geostationary slots and succeeded in filling a number of them. Tongasat's emergence is analyzed in terms of the contemporary world-system, declining U.S. hegemony over the global satellite regime (creating opportunities for independent entrepreneurs), and the end of the cold war (making inexpensive Russian satellites available for commercial uses in Tonga's slots). Tonga's satellite venture has benefited members of the ruling elite but made few contributions to the country's internal development. Tongasat has been at the vanguard of moves toward privatization, deregulation, congestion, and conflictual competition in outer space. The current period of globalization is not simply a continuation of the expansion of capitalism and the West. If one wanted to fix its specific point of origin, it would be the first successful broadcast transmission made by satellite.
Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to ... more Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to advance private interests against regulation by metropolitan states. Tongasat, Tonga's innovative satellite enterprise, is one such recent initiative in " stateless " capitalism that has deep structural similarities with flags of convenience and offshore tax havens. The microstate has claimed a disproportionate percentage of geostationary slots and succeeded in filling a number of them. Tongasat's emergence is analyzed in terms of the contemporary world-system, declining U.S. hegemony over the global satellite regime (creating opportunities for independent entrepreneurs), and the end of the cold war (making inexpensive Russian satellites available for commercial uses in Tonga's slots). Tonga's satellite venture has benefited members of the ruling elite but made few contributions to the country's internal development. Tongasat has been at the vanguard of moves toward privatization, deregulation, congestion, and conflictual competition in outer space. The current period of globalization is not simply a continuation of the expansion of capitalism and the West. If one wanted to fix its specific point of origin, it would be the first successful broadcast transmission made by satellite.
It may be a tribute to the importance of South Pacific Futures: Oceania Toward 2050 that Helen Hu... more It may be a tribute to the importance of South Pacific Futures: Oceania Toward 2050 that Helen Hughes resorts to so many inaccuracies and personal attacks in her attempts to repress it in her review in Pacific Economic Bulletin (20(3):142-44). It is a rare experience to read so many distortions in such a short piec
This article examines why Vanuatu creates a congenial legal environment for an offshore financial... more This article examines why Vanuatu creates a congenial legal environment for an offshore financial centre (OFC). There are four structural reasons. The OFC turns Vanuatu into a legal transplant laboratory. It makes significant contributions to its small local economy. The OFC's subculture plays an important role in the country's domestic politics. Vanuatu contains few interest groups which are inclined to oppose tax haven development.
This article analyzes offshore (including Internet) gambling in Oceania-particularly its uneven d... more This article analyzes offshore (including Internet) gambling in Oceania-particularly its uneven development in Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, Norfolk Island, and Palau. Offshore gambling's evolution and future prospects are examined in terms of tensions between (1) the drive by entrepreneurs and regional taw-haven promoters to increase the volume and variety of gambling among the array of services that Pacific Islands tax havens provide and (2) the growing moves by metropolitan countries to curb taw avoidance and evasion, economic loss, money laundering, and other forms of crime and deviant behavior associated with offshore gambling.
Tax havens (or offshore financial centers) are often cited as evidence of contemporary capitalism... more Tax havens (or offshore financial centers) are often cited as evidence of contemporary capitalism’s “borderless world” – where, for example, millions or even billions of dollars are transferred instantaneously from metropolitan states1 such as China to offshore tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean or Samoa in the Pacific. Yet tax havens and their usefulness for capital depend on their being able to pass laws and hold assets within the jurisdiction of their borders and their ability to defend these borders against taxation and regulation by metropolitan states. In this chapter the following major themes will be discussed: 1) The nature of offshore financial centers (OFCs) as borderlands 2) How onshore governments’ actions towards OFCs may be more expressive than instrumentally effective, and how onshore tax agencies’ aggressive rhetoric against tax havens in border skirmishes is often hypocritical and ignores class-based realities 3) How the transnational ca...
Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to ... more Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to advance private interests against regulation by metropolitan states. Tongasat, Tonga's innovative satellite enterprise, is one such recent initiative in "stateless" capitalism that has deep structural similarities with flags of convenience and offshore tax havens. The microstate has claimed a disproportionate percentage of geostationary slots and succeeded in filling a number of them. Tongasat's emergence is analyzed in terms of the contemporary world-system, declining U.S. hegemony over the global satellite regime (creating opportunities for independent entrepreneurs), and the end of the cold war (making inexpensive Russian satellites available for commercial uses in Tonga's slots). Tonga's satellite venture has benefited members of the ruling elite but made few contributions to the country's internal development. Tongasat has been at the vanguard of moves ...
Review(s) of: Pacific ways, government and politics in the Pacific Islands, by Levine, Stephen, 2... more Review(s) of: Pacific ways, government and politics in the Pacific Islands, by Levine, Stephen, 2nd edition, Wellington, Victoria University Press, 2016, 416 pp., bibliography, illustrations, notes, NZ$40.00 (softcover).
This paper provides a comparative perspective on the development of tourism in Queensland through... more This paper provides a comparative perspective on the development of tourism in Queensland through analysing the history of tourism in Hawaii. Both Queensland and Hawaii are heavily dependent on tourism, with the future of tourism being a constant focus of public debate in each case. Since Hawaii embarked on tourism development decades before Queensland, the history of Hawaiian tourism may present some important lessons for tourism in Queensland. Also, Hawaii is Queensland's most important competitor for the Japanese and emerging Asian markets (such as South Korea, Taiwan and mainland China) in sun-and-surf tourism.
The rise of ethnic nationalism (as expressed by the political ascent of Pauline Hanson and her On... more The rise of ethnic nationalism (as expressed by the political ascent of Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party) has created divisions within the Right of Australian politics and impediments to a privatisation program which had been proceeding under the aegis of the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Party Coalition over the last fifteen years. This paper focuses on how Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party has opposed privatisation of government assets on the basis that privatisation offers opportunities for subversive foreign capital to weaken national solidarity, which is conceived in ethnic and racial terms. The One Nation Party, this new anti-privatisation movement, is interpreted on two levels: 1as one of a growing number of ethnic nationalist movements across the globe which are recurrent outcomes of hegemonic decline and increasing multipolarity in the world-system (e.g., the current situation of declining American hegemony being similar to the crisis of British hegemony i...
This article examines why Vanuatu creates a congenial legal environment for an offshore financial... more This article examines why Vanuatu creates a congenial legal environment for an offshore financial centre (OFC). There are four structural reasons. The OFC turns Vanuatu into a legal transplant laboratory. It makes significant contributions to its small local economy. The OFC's subculture plays an important role in the country's domestic politics. Vanuatu contains few interest groups which are inclined to oppose tax haven development. Vanuatu is a significant tax haven or offshore financial centre 1 (OFC) and it is important to focus on it as a financial centre, a nested community and culture of legal interpretation, not just as a 'market'. 2 Vanuatu's OFC gives the archipelago a prominence in global finance that is greatly disproportionate to its size 3. The principle of sovereignty (particularly its ability to pass its own tax laws) allows Vanuatu to create structures which attract a wide range of wealthy and powerful clients and produce a new kind of global political economy. Vanuatu's tax haven has often surprised, amused or scandalized metropolitan outsiders if they become aware of the situation. This microstate is often criticized for encouraging rich metropolitan clients to pretend to be something else-to
Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to ... more Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to advance private interests against regulation by metropolitan states. Tongasat, Tonga's innovative satellite enterprise, is one such recent initiative in " stateless " capitalism that has deep structural similarities with flags of convenience and offshore tax havens. The microstate has claimed a disproportionate percentage of geostationary slots and succeeded in filling a number of them. Tongasat's emergence is analyzed in terms of the contemporary world-system, declining U.S. hegemony over the global satellite regime (creating opportunities for independent entrepreneurs), and the end of the cold war (making inexpensive Russian satellites available for commercial uses in Tonga's slots). Tonga's satellite venture has benefited members of the ruling elite but made few contributions to the country's internal development. Tongasat has been at the vanguard of moves toward privatization, deregulation, congestion, and conflictual competition in outer space. The current period of globalization is not simply a continuation of the expansion of capitalism and the West. If one wanted to fix its specific point of origin, it would be the first successful broadcast transmission made by satellite.
Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to ... more Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to advance private interests against regulation by metropolitan states. Tongasat, Tonga's innovative satellite enterprise, is one such recent initiative in " stateless " capitalism that has deep structural similarities with flags of convenience and offshore tax havens. The microstate has claimed a disproportionate percentage of geostationary slots and succeeded in filling a number of them. Tongasat's emergence is analyzed in terms of the contemporary world-system, declining U.S. hegemony over the global satellite regime (creating opportunities for independent entrepreneurs), and the end of the cold war (making inexpensive Russian satellites available for commercial uses in Tonga's slots). Tonga's satellite venture has benefited members of the ruling elite but made few contributions to the country's internal development. Tongasat has been at the vanguard of moves toward privatization, deregulation, congestion, and conflictual competition in outer space. The current period of globalization is not simply a continuation of the expansion of capitalism and the West. If one wanted to fix its specific point of origin, it would be the first successful broadcast transmission made by satellite.
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