The New York Times - New York State Senate Votes Down Gay Marriage Bill, By JEREMY W. PETERS

ALBANY — The New York State Senate decisively rejected a bill on Wednesday that would have allowed gay couples to wed, providing a major victory for those who oppose same-sex marriage and underscoring the deep and passionate divisions surrounding the issue.

The 38-to-24 vote startled proponents of the bill and signaled that political momentum, at least right now, had shifted against same-sex marriage, even in heavily Democratic New York. It followed more than a year of lobbying by gay rights organizations, who steered close to $1 million into New York legislative races to boost support for the measure.

Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times - Senator Thomas K. Duane gave Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson a kiss after she said she would support same-sex marriage.

Senators who voted against the measure said the public was gripped by economic anxiety and remained uneasy about changing the state's definition of marriage.

"Certainly this is an emotional issue and an important issue for many New Yorkers," said Senator Tom Libous, the deputy Republican leader. "I just don't think the majority care too much about it at this time because they're out of work, they want to see the state reduce spending, and they are having a hard time making ends meet. And I don't mean to sound callous, but that's true."

The defeat, which followed a stirring, tearful and at times very personal debate, all but ensures that the issue is dead in New York until at least 2011, when a new Legislature will be installed.

Since 2003, seven states, including three that border New York, have legalized same-sex marriage. But in two of the seven — California last year and Maine last month — statewide referendums have restricted marriage to straight couples, prohibiting gay nuptials. Pollsters say that while support generally is building for same-sex marriage, especially as the electorate ages, voters resist when they fear the issue is being pushed too fast.

In Albany on Wednesday, proponents had believed going into the vote that they could attract as many as 35 supporters to the measure; at their most pessimistic, they said they would draw at least 26. They had the support of Gov. David A. Paterson, who had publicly championed the bill, along with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the Senate Democratic leadership.

The defeat revealed stark divides: All 30 of the Republican senators opposed the bill, as did most of the members from upstate New York and Long Island. Support was heaviest among members from New York City and Westchester County and among the Senate's 10 black members. Seven of the Senate's 10 women voted for it.

"I'm a woman and a Jew and so I know about discrimination," said Senator Liz Krueger of Manhattan.

Senators who are considered politically vulnerable also voted almost uniformly against the bill, including four first-term Democrats. All but one of those whose districts border or lie within the 23rd Congressional District, where the marriage issue erupted in a recent special election, opposed it. In that race, a Republican who supported gay marriage withdrew after an uproar from conservatives in her district.

"I think that there were political forces that in some respects intimidated some of those who voted," said Mr. Paterson. "I think if there'd actually been a conscience vote we'd be celebrating marriage equality right now."

While gay rights supporters such as Mr. Paterson had prominently pushed for passage, the opposition was less visible but ultimately more potent. That was reflected in the floor debate Wednesday: Opponents remained mostly silent; all but one of those who spoke on the floor supported the measure.

The state's Roman Catholic bishops had consistently lobbied for its defeat, however, and after the vote released a statement applauding the move.

"Advocates for same-sex marriage have attempted to portray their cause as inevitable," Richard E. Barnes, the executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, said in the statement. "However, it has become clear that Americans continue to understand marriage the way it has always been understood, and New York is not different in that regard. This is a victory for the basic building block of our society."

Several supporters said they felt they had been betrayed by senators who promised to vote yes but then, reluctant to support an issue as politically freighted as same-sex marriage if they could avoid it, switched their votes on the floor when it became evident the bill would lose.

"This is the worst example of political cowardice I've ever seen," said Senator Kevin S. Parker, a Brooklyn Democrat. "Clearly people said things prior to coming to the floor and behaved differently."

Republican advocates who supported the bill insisted that the agreement they struck with Democrats called for Democrats, who have 32 seats in the 62-member Senate, to deliver enough support so only a handful of Republicans were needed to take such a politically risky vote.

"Several Republicans wanted to vote for this," said Jeff Cook, a legislative adviser for the Log Cabin Republicans. "But those Republicans aren't willing to take a tough political vote when the bill has no chance of passage. And that's the political reality."

It is rare for legislation to reach the floor in Albany when passage is not all but assured. And initially, gay rights advocates resisted bringing this bill to a vote, fearing the consequences of a defeat. But they shifted that strategy over time, becoming convinced that an up or down vote was necessary so they could finally know which senators supported the bill.

That was in part because gay rights groups, which have become major financial players in state politics, wanted to know which senators they should back in the future and which ones to target for defeat.

Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, New York's largest gay rights group, hinted that senators who voted against the bill on Wednesday could face repercussions. And Christine C. Quinn, the New York City Council speaker, echoed that sentiment, saying, "Anybody who thinks that by casting a no vote they're putting this issue to bed, they're making a massive miscalculation."

Polls suggest that voters in New York favor same-sex marriage, though the electorate is clearly split. A poll released Wednesday by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie showed that 51 percent of registered voters supported same-sex marriage while 42 percent opposed it.

On Wednesday, as news of the vote made its way to demonstrators standing outside the Senate chamber, some erupted in angry chants of "Equal rights!" and surroundeda senator who opposed the measure.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated incorrectly that the California State Legislature adopted a same-sex marriage law. Same-sex marriage in California was legalized by the state's Supreme Court.

By JEREMY W. PETERS

Globale o locale? La politica cerca una nuova identità di Alain de Benoist

Nel XVIII secolo è nato il liberalismo; nel XIX il socialismo; nel XX il fascismo. E ora quale sarà il tratto fondamentale del XXI?

Alla caduta del Muro piansi d'emozione. Il Muro non era una frontiera. Le frontiere possono essere un luogo di scambio: filtrano, non fermano i flussi. Ma non ci sono scambi dove c'è un muro. Nei decenni il Muro di Berlino mi parve un'orribile cicatrice. Vederlo crollare fu una vera gioia, così come sentire i manifestanti delle due Germanie gridare in coro: Wir sind ein Volk! (Siamo un solo popolo!). Le delusioni vennero dopo.

Innanzitutto la riunificazione tedesca non fu superamento dei sistemi della Repubblica federale di Germania (Brd) e della Repubblica democratica tedesca (Ddr), ma assorbimento della Germania est nella Germania ovest. I tedeschi orientali divennero «occidentali». Passarono dalla Ddr, sotto influenza sovietica, alla Germania, sotto influenza «atlantica».

Annuncio dello sgretolarsi del sistema sovietico, la caduta del Muro di Berlino non segnò solo la fine del dopoguerra. Chiuse anche il XX secolo, il «secolo breve»: 1917-89 (la guerra del 1914 cambiò natura nel '17, con la rivoluzione russa e l'entrata in guerra degli Stati Uniti). Più in generale, finì l'ampio vasto ciclo della modernità, cominciato dal Rinascimento. Dagli anni '90 siamo nell'era postmoderna, non più nell'era degli Stati-nazione, ma in quella delle comunità, delle reti e dei grandi complessi continentali.

Troppo spesso si dimentica il contributo alla globalizzazione dato dalla fine dell'Urss. Ormai il pianeta è unificato, ma di un'unificazione dialettica, perché, in reazione al movimento principale, comporta un'altra frammentazione. Ma le frontiere non fermano più niente: né uomini, né merci, né comunicazioni, né tecnologie. I mercati finanziari agiscono in «tempo reale» da un capo all'altro della Terra. In un attimo le crisi locali diventano mondiali. La tecnoscienza s'estende ovunque. Il liberalismo e la logica del capitale dominano tutto, mentre l'ideologia dei diritti dell'uomo è la nuova religione civile. Un mondo di tal fatta non ha più nulla d'«esterno» (nel senso che, durante la Guerra fredda, il «mondo libero» era «esterno» al blocco sovietico). È ciò che Paul Virilio chiama globalitarismo.

Infine la caduta del Muro di Berlino estingue il Nomos della Terra risalente al 1945. In greco nomos è «legge», ma anche, in origine e in generale, «ripartizione, spartizione». Il Nomos della Terra descrive la disposizione generale dei rapporti di forza internazionali. Carl Schmitt distingue il susseguirsi di tre grandi Nomos della Terra: il primo va dalle origini alla scoperta del Nuovo Mondo; il secondo si confonde con l'ordine degli Stati-nazione nati dal trattato di Westfalia; il terzo scaturisce dalla fine della II guerra mondiale e si connette all'ordine binario (americano-sovietico) di Yalta. La nostra epoca d'incertezza e transizione - quanto lontana dalla fine della storia, annunciata da Francis Fukuyama! - ci fa chiedere: quale sarà il quarto Nomos della Terra? Avremo il mondo unipolare, consacrazione del potere planetario della potenza dominante, gli Stati Uniti d'America; o avremo il mondo multipolare - pluriversum, non universum -, dove i grandi complessi culturali e civili si manterranno diversi, agendo come poli regolatori della globalizzazione?

La questione del quarto Nomos della Terra pone però anche il problema della «quarta teoria politica». Il XVIII secolo vide nascere il liberalismo; il XIX, il socialismo; il XX, il fascismo. Nel XXI quale teoria politica nascerà? Oggi ogni grande ideologia che abbia formato la modernità è in crisi e, come ogni famiglia politica, cerca una nuova identità. La teoria politica del futuro combinerà e supererà, nel senso hegeliano del termine, le passate teorie. Tenterà di combinare libertà e giustizia sociale, lotta all'alienazione e volontà d'autonomia, senso della misura e affermazione di sé, valori disinteressati e «comune decenza» (common decency) di George Orwell. C'è una connessione fra globalizzazione, postmodernità, quarto Nomos della Terra e quarta teoria politica.
(Traduzione di Maurizio Cabona)

Corner Office: 68 Rules for success? No, Just 3 Rules for success Are Enough - interview with William D. Green, chairman and C.E.O. of Accenture

This interview with William D. Green, chairman and C.E.O. of Accenture, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Dan Neville/The New York Times

William D. Green, chairman and chief executive of Accenture, the consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, says competence, confidence and caring are vital to success.

Q. Tell me about important leadership lessons you've learned?

A. I'm a proud plumber's son from Western Massachusetts. In my family, working with tools is the highest honor. It isn't how many degrees you have. It's what you can do. So that had a big impact on me. What that says is, it doesn't matter what you look like, what you talk like, where you went to school, where you came from, any of that stuff. What matters is what you're capable of.

Q. What else?

A. I was not a good student. I took what they call today a gap year, but back then it was called "finding yourself." I did one of those, and I finally found my way into a two-year college. I went from an underperformer to a solid performer, with a little inspiration from some professors. That had a profound effect on me, to realize how much raw talent there is out there for us to exploit, leverage, take advantage of, and how much talent there is that people can give that organizations don't mine, they don't harvest, they don't get the best of, because of structure, because of strategy, because of rules.

Q. So how do you break through?

A. I once sat through a three-day training session in our company, and this was for new managers, very capable people who were ready for a big step up. I counted, over three days, 68 things that we told them they needed to do to be successful, everything from how you coach and mentor, your annual reviews, filling out these forms, all this stuff.

And I got up to close the session, and I'm thinking about how it isn't possible for these people to remember all this. So I said there are three things that matter. The first is competence — just being good at what you do, whatever it is, and focusing on the job you have, not on the job you think you want to have. The second one is confidence. People want to know what you think. So you have to have enough desirable self-confidence to articulate a point of view. The third thing is caring. Nothing today is about one individual. This is all about the team, and in the end, this is about giving a damn about your customers, your company, the people around you, and recognizing that the people around you are the ones who make you look good.

When young people are looking for clarity — this is a huge, complex global company, and they wonder how to navigate their way through it — I just tell them that.

Q. Talk about the challenge of running a big global company in this tough economy.

A. We operate the company so that we keep one foot in today and one foot in tomorrow, regardless of what's going on. In an economy like this, everyone wants to look at their shoes. You can't. We've got to be doing as many things about tomorrow as we are today. We operate with a philosophy that says, never be afraid to change, even when we're at the top of our game.

In our company, usually in the summer, people ask me, "When are you going on vacation?" Because when I come back from a week's vacation, they know I've had time to think and reflect and have been strategizing about changes and it could be anything.

Q. Does that usually happen?

A. Happens every time. People even joke about it a little bit. Even my outside board members say, "When are you taking the vacation, Bill?" This year, in the middle of tough economic times for everybody, we built a human capital strategy for the future, we refreshed our corporate-wide strategy, and I moved my leadership people around into different positions and promoted some new people into leadership roles to infuse energy.

All of this is about energizing people, giving them broader scope and new experiences. This obviously helps build durability in terms of people being able to have multiple jobs, and it's an important part of succession planning, getting the athletes the experience they need in different spaces.

So just when you think all the cylinders are clicking and everything's right, that's the time you have to change, because that's the world we live in now. If you rest, it will cost you, because global competitiveness is here to stay, and it's not about the traditional competitors anymore. It's about new and emerging competitors that you've never heard of, and you just have to get your mind around the new normal, as they call it.

Q. Can you elaborate on why you shift people around?

A. If you look at why people in general leave companies, they often leave because they get bored. And high-performance people are learners by nature. And as long as they're learning, they'll stay where they are. When they start to think about leaving, when they start to respond to a headhunter's call, is when they haven't been learning.

On my leadership team, I have 15 bona fide C.E.O.'s. These people are capable of running big companies. But as long as they're learning and engaging and on a mission, they don't need to be the C.E.O. They just need to be part of the ecosystem that leads the company.

Q. What other basic messages do you have for all your employees?

A. One of our other principles is that people who are successful are the ones who ask for help. It sounds simple, but to get an organization to believe that asking for help is a sign of strength, and not weakness, is a huge thing.

Q. You have to make sure people aren't going to worry they might be criticized for asking.

A. You want to challenge people to get them to raise their game, as opposed to criticizing them, which makes them raise their defenses. It's like learning. With a motivated learner, you can work wonders. In institutions, it's the same thing. Are there companies with the will and resolve to change — that's the equivalent of a motivated learner. Or are there companies that are just sort of stuck where they are, and they like the status quo? In the end, that's the difference between winners and losers in corporate America and around the world. That's the contrast. So, the question is, how do you get motivated learners? So, I bring it back to me, and how did I become a motivated learner? Somebody inspired me.

Q. Was there anything that surprised you about the top job?

A. The amount of responsibility you carry around on your back is unbelievable. It's not like you're a martyr — it just comes with the territory. There's something going on around the globe in our place 24/7, and the sense of responsibility you feel for all those people and their families is profound.

I like taking the responsibility, but I had no idea about the spiritual part. The spiritual obligation to the lives of 177,000 people is a big deal. I'm a guy who had trouble being responsible for his own life in the early days, and now I've got 177,000 people that look up to me. That took a little getting used to.

Q. How has your leadership style evolved?

A. I used to be an orchestrator from behind the scenes. I could make stuff happen, but I never wanted to be on point. I could connect dots. I could catalyze activity. I could get other people to do things without being in the front. I sort of engineered it from the back.

Q. And you preferred it that way?

A. At the time I was comfortable with it because I was never comfortable with the spotlight. I took great pleasure and pride in seeing things get done that I knew I had made happen, and when it came time to taking bows, I didn't do the bow-taking part. I felt good about myself for that because it's just sort of where I came from. Now I lead a lot more from the front. I have a better appreciation of what people are expecting of me and how people are counting on me.

Q. How have you adjusted your leadership style based on feedback you've received?

A. I needed to beef up my operator skills because I'm an instinctive and intuitive guy. I listen, I synthesize, I process, I make judgments. There's another school of thought — that's analytics, and I needed to turn the dial a little more toward analytics and a little away from seat-of-the-pants. I didn't have to turn it a ton, but I have. I have purposely tried to get better grounding in the analytics behind the decision-making and used that to check to see if there was a huge disconnect between what my instinct told me and what the analytics told me.

Q. Let's talk about hiring. How do you do it?

A. It's one of our core competencies at Accenture. We get two million C.V.'s a year and ultimately we hire between 40,000 and 60,000 people.

I always say, in simple terms, we need people who are analytical, and have common sense, good judgment and the ability to get along with other people, because we're in a people business.

We're taking a more scientific approach to how we recruit. We do something called "critical behavior interviewing." It's based on the premise that past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior. Essentially what we're looking for is, have you faced any adversity and what did you do about it? We also know the profile of successful Accenture people, and how do we learn from the people we have who have stayed, learned, grown and become great leaders, and how do we push that back into the recruiting process to find the best matches for Accenture?

Q. That's what it comes down to?

A. If you get down to it, it's what have you learned, what have you demonstrated, what behaviors do you have? Have you shown intuition? Have you shown the ability to synthesize and act? Have you shown the ability to step up and make a choice? How have you dealt with the hand in front of you, played it out?

I was recruiting at Babson College. This was in 1991. The last recruit of the day — I get this résumé. I get the blue sheet attached to it, which is the form I'm supposed to fill out with all this stuff and his résumé attached to the top. His résumé is very light — no clubs, no sports, no nothing. Babson, 3.2. Studied finance. Work experience: Sam's Diner, references on request.

It's the last one of the day, and I've seen all these people come through strutting their stuff and they've got their portfolios and semester studying abroad. Here comes this guy. He sits. His name is Sam, and I say: "Sam, let me just ask you. What else were you doing while you were here?" He says: "Well, Sam's Diner. That's our family business, and I leave on Friday after classes, and I go and work till closing. I work all day Saturday till closing, and then I work Sunday until I close, and then I drive back to Babson." I wrote, "Hire him," on the blue sheet.

He's still with us, because he had character. He faced a set of challenges. He figured out how to do both.

Q. So what's that quality you just described?

A. It's work ethic. You could see the guy had charted a path for himself to make it work with the situation he had. He didn't ask for any help. He wasn't victimized by the thing. He just said, "That's my dad's business, and I work there." Confident. Proud.

What critical behavior interviewing does is get at people's character, and you get to see where work fits in their value system, where pride fits in their value system, where making hard decisions or sacrificing fits in their value system. I mean, you sacrifice and you're a victim, or you sacrifice because it's the right thing to do and you have pride in it. Huge difference. Simple thing. Huge difference.

www.nytimes.com

Constitution of the People's Republic of China - Guiding Political Ideologies Mao Zedong: Mao Zedong Thought Deng Xiaoping: Deng Xiaoping Theory Jiang Zemin: Three Represents Hu Jintao: Harmonious society

Constitution of the People's Republic of China

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People's Republic of China
This article is part of the series: Politics of the People's Republic of China
Constitution Past constitutions: 1954 1975 1978
Guiding Political Ideologies Mao Zedong: Mao Zedong Thought Deng Xiaoping: Deng Xiaoping Theory Jiang Zemin: Three Represents Hu Jintao: Harmonious society
President: Hu Jintao National People's Congress    Standing Committee
Premier: Wen Jiabao State Council People's Liberation Army Central Military Commission
Law of the PRC Supreme People's Court Supreme People's Procuratorate
Political Parties CPPCC Communist Party of China    Constitution    General Secretary    National Congress    Central Committee    Secretariat    Politburo       Standing Committee
Elections    Political divisions    Human rights    Foreign relations    Foreign aid
See also    Politics of Hong Kong    Politics of Macau    Politics of the Republic of China
Other countries :commons:Atlas of the People's Republic of China	Atlas   Template:Politics of the People's Republic of China	view • Template talk:Politics of the People's Republic of China	talk • [ edit]

The Constitution of the People's Republic of China (Simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国宪法; Pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó Xiànfǎ) is the highest law within the People's Republic of China. The current version was adopted by the National People's Congress on December 4, 1982 with further revisions in 1988, 1993, 1999, and 2004. Three previous state constitutions--those of 1954, 1975, and 1978--were superseded in turn. The Constitution has five sections: the preamble, general principles, the fundamental rights and duties of citizens, the structure of the state, and the national flag and emblems of state.

1982 document

The 1982 document reflects Deng Xiaoping's determination to lay a lasting institutional foundation for domestic stability and modernization. The new State Constitution provides a legal basis for the broad changes in China's social and economic institutions and significantly revises government structure and procedures.

There have been four major revisions by the National People's Congress (NPC) to the 1982 Constitution.

Much of the PRC Constitution is modelled after the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union, but there are some significant differences. For example, while the Soviet constitution contains an explicit right of secession, the Chinese constitution explicitly forbids secession. While the Soviet constitution formally creates a federal system, the Chinese constitution formally creates a unitary multi-national state.

The 1982 State Constitution is a lengthy, hybrid document with 138 articles. Large sections were adapted directly from the 1978 constitution, but many of its changes derive from the 1954 constitution. Specifically, the new Constitution deemphasizes class struggle and places top priority on development and on incorporating the contributions and interests of nonparty groups that can play a central role in modernization.

Article 1 of the State Constitution describes China as "a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship" meaning that the system is based on an alliance of the working classes--in communist terminology, the workers and peasants--and is led by the Communist Party, the vanguard of the working class. Elsewhere, the Constitution provides for a renewed and vital role for the groups that make up that basic alliance--the CPPCC, democratic parties, and mass organizations. The 1982 Constitution expunges almost all of the rhetoric associated with the Cultural Revolution incorporated in the 1978 version. In fact, the Constitution omits all references to the Cultural Revolution and restates Mao Zedong's contributions in accordance with a major historical reassessment produced in June 1981 at the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee, the "Resolution on Some Historical Issues of the Party since the Founding of the People's Republic."

There also is emphasis throughout the 1982 State Constitution on socialist law as a regulator of political behavior. Thus, the rights and obligations of citizens are set out in detail far exceeding that provided in the 1978 constitution. Probably because of the excesses that filled the years of the Cultural Revolution, the 1982 Constitution gives even greater attention to clarifying citizens' "fundamental rights and duties" than the 1954 constitution did, like the right to vote and to run for election begins at the age of eighteen except for those disenfranchised by law. The Constitution also guarantees the freedom of religious worship as well as the "freedom not to believe in any religion" and affirms that "religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination."

Article 35 of the 1982 State Constitution proclaims that "citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration." In the 1978 constitution, these rights were guaranteed, but so were the right to strike and the "four big rights," often called the "four bigs": to speak out freely, air views fully, hold great debates, and write big-character posters. In February 1980, following the Democracy Wall period, the four bigs were abolished in response to a party decision ratified by the National People's Congress. The right to strike was also dropped from the 1982 Constitution. The widespread expression of the four big rights during the student protests of late 1986 elicited the regime's strong censure because of their illegality. The official response cited Article 53 of the 1982 Constitution, which states that citizens must abide by the law and observe labor discipline and public order. Besides being illegal, practicing the four big rights offered the possibility of straying into criticism of the Communist Party of China, which was in fact what appeared in student wall posters. In a new era that strove for political stability and economic development, party leaders considered the four big rights politically destabilizing. Except for the ostentatious six democratic parties, Chinese citizens are prohibited from forming parties.

Among the political rights granted by the constitution, all Chinese citizens have rights to elect and be elected, as opposed to parallel clauses in the US constitution which forbids foreign-borns to be elected president among other limitations. However since direct election is confined to the village level, the electorial rights of the people are questioned by many critics. Other scholars argue that this is a form of Electoral College system. According to the later promulgated election law, rural residents have only 1/4 vote power of townsmen. As Chinese citizens are categorized into rural resident and town resident, and the constitution has no stipulation of freedom of transference, those rural residents are restricted by the Hukou (registered permanent residence) and have less rights on politics, economy and education. This problem has largely been addressed with various and ongoing reforms of hukou in 2007.

The 1982 State Constitution is also more specific about the responsibilities and functions of offices and organs in the state structure. There are clear admonitions against familiar Chinese practices that the reformers have labeled abuses, such as concentrating power in the hands of a few leaders and permitting lifelong tenure in leadership positions. On the other hand, the constitution strongly oppose the western system of separation of powers by executive, legislature and judicial. It stipulates the NPC as the highest organ of state authority power, under which the State Council, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall be elected and responsible for the NPC.

In addition, the 1982 Constitution provides an extensive legal framework for the liberalizing economic policies of the 1980s. It allows the collective economic sector not owned by the state a broader role and provides for limited private economic activity. Members of the expanded rural collectives have the right "to farm private plots, engage in household sideline production, and raise privately owned livestock." The primary emphasis is given to expanding the national economy, which is to be accomplished by balancing centralized economic planning with supplementary regulation by the market.

Another key difference between the 1978 and 1982 state constitutions is the latter's approach to outside help for the modernization program. Whereas the 1978 constitution stressed "self-reliance" in modernization efforts, the 1982 document provides the constitutional basis for the considerable body of laws passed by the NPC in subsequent years permitting and encouraging extensive foreign participation in all aspects of the economy. In addition, the 1982 document reflects the more flexible and less ideological orientation of foreign policy since 1978. Such phrases as "proletarian internationalism" and "social imperialism" have been dropped.

2004 Amendments

The Constitution was amended on March 14, 2004 to include guarantees regarding private property ("legally obtained private property of the citizens shall not be violated,") and human rights ("the State respects and protects human rights.") This was argued by the government to be progress for Chinese democracy and a sign from CPC that they recognised the need for change, because the booming Chinese economy had created a new class of rich and middle class, who wanted protection of their own property.

Wen Jiabao was quoted by the Washington Post as saying, "These amendments of the Chinese constitution are of great importance to the development of China." "We will make serious efforts to carry them out in practice." [1] But subsequently there was no clear indication that the changes were leading to increased protection for Chinese citizens in terms of human rights or property rights. Chinese people continue to be arrested for trying to challenge government decisions (whether they are legal or not), even when using the law itself. The censure of the media is still in place, as can be seen by the closure of out-spoken publications, or re-staffing to remove editors and journalists who have annoyed officials, such as was the case with the Freezing Point magazine.

Constitutional Enforcement

There is no special organization established for the enforcement of constitution. Although in the constitution it stipulates that the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee have the power to review whether laws or activities violate the constitution.

Furthermore, under the legal system of the People's Republic of China, courts do not have the general power of judicial review and cannot invalidate a statute on the grounds that it violates constitution. Nonetheless, since 2002, there has been a special committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress which has reviewed laws and regulations for constitutionality. Although this committee has not yet explicitly ruled that a law or regulation is unconstitutional, in one case, after the subsequent media outcry over the death of Sun Zhigang, the State Council was forced to rescind regulations allowing police to detain persons without residency permits after the NPCSC made it clear that it would rule such regulations unconstitutional if they were not rescinded.

See also

• Law of the People's Republic of China

External links

• English version of the Constitution of People's Republic of China (Adopted in 1982)
• Government of China website in English: The Constitution

Small-Business Guide: How to Sell on Amazon and eBay by KELLY K. SPORS

Small-Business Guide

How to Sell on Amazon and eBay

By KELLY K. SPORS

Quick Tips:

• Try out several marketplaces to get a feel.

• Sell products that interest you but carve a niche.

• Write detailed, professional listings and titles with key search terms for your products.

• Communicate frequently and openly with buyers to maintain a good reputation.

Suggested Resources:

• Strategies for and news about selling in online auctions on AuctionBytes.com.

• A guide to selling on Amazon from Amazon.

• Tips from eBay on everything from writing strong listings to building a business.

• An eBay research tool.

• More New York Times small-business guides.

The online marketplaces eBay and Amazon once seemed like surefire places to make extra money or to build an online retail business. It's not quite so simple anymore.

The sites are crowded with sellers, and new third-party marketplaces are cropping up all of the time. And the rules change frequently. EBay angered many longtime sellers in recent years by restricting payment options, changing seller feedback procedures and promoting fixed-price items over its original auction-style listings. Amazon's Marketplace stopped accepting new sellers in some product categories and requires preapproval in others.

"Merely being listed on eBay or Amazon isn't a sustainable business," said Dennis Ceru, an entrepreneurship professor at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. "There are a lot of people going down this path that are making little or no money."

Building viable enterprises off these marketplaces requires sourcing inventory cost-effectively, researching each marketplace's procedures and commissions, polishing customer-service practices and managing your online reputation. (Have you tried? Please tell us about your experiences here.)

Here's how to get started:

Figure Out the Basics

Familiarize yourself with the various marketplaces, particularly the giants, eBay and Amazon.

Try listing a few items on each site, which usually costs less than a dollar. You will also have to pay a commission ranging anywhere from 6 percent to 20 percent of the final sales price of any items you sell. Trying out the marketplaces and their various sales methods will help you spot the differences quickly.

Figure out what to sell. For start-up sellers, new goods are typically more lucrative than used items because they are easier to price and list, according to Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, a company that helps small businesses sell on the Internet. Collectibles are more difficult to price and are better suited to being sold in auctions.

Identify product areas that interest you, and seek a niche. Rather than sell, say, digital cameras, you might sell a specialty tripod or other accessories that aren't already sold abundantly online. Skip McGrath, an eBay Powerseller,, started with automatic pepper mills. Based in Anacortes, Wash., he decided to sell specialty kitchen gadgets on eBay. "They're light, easy to ship and I'm one of the few sellers selling them," he said. "If I had pots and pans, I'd have 200 competitors."

Find a reliable wholesaler who offers low enough prices to generate high enough profit margins on resale. Mr. McGrath, who said he generated roughly $150,000 in annual revenue with his eBay store, buys his pepper mills from a Seattle-based wholesale dealer. Finding the right wholesaler can require an extensive search. Many sellers, Mr. McGrath said, source their products offline, through local wholesalers or flea markets. Comparison shopping can still be done online, using sites like Liquidation.com and eBay, which offer wholesale items in bulk.

Choose Your Marketplace

One key to success is identifying the marketplace where the buyers of your products shop. Experts say it's better to master one site before expanding.

The fast-growing number of choices include Bonanzle.com, Overstock.com, and Etsy.com, a marketplace for handmade crafts. Even social-networking sites like Facebook offer their own marketplaces, although they tend to be geared more toward online classifieds than retail businesses.

In late August, Wal-Mart introduced Wal-Mart Marketplace, which works with other retailers to sell goods on Walmart.com. So far, however, only a few established retailers, including eBags, have been admitted to the program. Alibaba.com, operated by the Alibaba Group of China, is the largest online marketplace in the world but primarily serves audiences outside the United States. It's a growing option, though, for American retailers looking to generate international business.

EBay and Amazon remain the primary choices for most American-based sellers because they offer far more shopper traffic, said Mr. Wingo of ChannelAdvisor. Amazon had about 54.5 million unique visitors in October, according to Nielsen Online, while eBay had about 51 million.

Still, comparing the big marketplaces can be tricky. Amazon has lured away many eBay sellers in recent years because it doesn't charge listing fees, meaning sellers have no upfront risk. Overall seller fees on Amazon, however, are often comparable or even slightly higher than those on eBay.

Selling on Amazon is more automated and requires less buyer interaction. The site collects money from customers and deposits it in seller accounts. In most categories of goods, eBay requires that sellers accept payment only through electronic systems, including its own PayPal system. Amazon has no auctions — all items are sold at fixed prices — and automatically sets the shipping fees depending on the item being sold. EBay sellers can choose their own shipping fees and have more control over the look and timing of listings.

Mr. McGrath said that eBay was still the better option for selling clothes, toys and household goods. Books, music and other electronic media, he said, tend to do better on Amazon.

Write Clear, Detailed Listings

Once you have your product and your marketplace, you have to figure out how to stand out from the pack.

One way is to write listings and titles that lure prospective buyers by providing detailed, reliable information about the product and customer service. When possible, include at least one high-quality, attractive photo of every item being sold — more if the item is used or a collectible. Using keywords — words shoppers are likely to enter when searching for the product online — in the item headline and listing is also crucial.

Listings should fully and accurately describe the item's condition, especially any defects, said Steve Lindhorst, an e-commerce consultant in Atascadero, Calif., and a former eBay University instructor. Include shipping fees and procedures, so buyers know what to expect. Sellers who offer next-day shipping or money-back guarantees, he added, can get a leg up.

Make sure the listing looks reliable. Proofread it carefully and don't use too many exclamation points or language that suggests you're inexperienced or unprofessional. "Stay positive, clear and concise — that's really important," Mr. Lindhorst said. "It's all about making the buyer feel comfortable."

Note that each marketplace displays listings in its search results differently. EBay's "Best Match" search results, for instance, give higher placement to listings offering free shipping and sellers with high feedback ratings. That's why many eBay sellers now wrap their shipping fees into the asking price on fixed-price items. Amazon, on the other hand, generally lists the lowest-priced products first. EBay lets sellers pay for "featured" listings that get better placement in search results.

Selling through auction requires more strategy. Sellers generally want their auction listings to expire at the time of week when the listed item tends to sell best. Mr. McGrath, for instance, found his pepper mills and other kitchen gadgets sold best on Sunday and Monday evenings.

Some third-party services like Terapeak.com and HammerTap.com give eBay sellers and other online auctioneers access to marketplace analytics that help them time and write their product listings. The sites show, for instance, the time of day certain products sell best on eBay and identify keywords to include in listings and titles. Monthly subscriptions start around $20 (HammerTap offers a 10-day free trial).

Watch Your Ratings

Maintaining a high seller rating is essential. Most marketplaces ask buyers to rate sellers on a five-star scale. One or two bad reviews can ruin a small seller's rating, and some sites boot sellers whose positive ratings fall below a certain level.

Detailed and clear product listings can avert miscommunication between buyer and seller. Including contact information also encourages sellers to contact you directly with problems — rather than posting negative comments or ratings.

Belinda North, founder of SophiasStyle.com, began her children's clothes business on eBay and now sells about 30 percent of her inventory on eBay and Amazon, while the rest is sold mostly from her own site.

Ms. North, based in Omaha, sends all of her buyers an e-mail message immediately after a purchase to let them know the order was received and when it will ship. She follows up by e-mail once the item is shipped and provides her contact information in case of questions or problems.

The e-mail messages, Ms. North said, reassure buyers and show that she's committed to customer service. They also allow her to continue marketing to new customers and to direct them to her own Web site. "This is your chance to create a customer for life," Ms. North added.

That kind of branding, experts say, is what separates people who sell online from people who build retail businesses online.