I want to second Louis Proyect's comment. As I've noted here before, some
serious problems re unemployment, underemployment, the nature and
distribution of "jobs", and the like are upon us. Please - can't all you
progressive economists turn your attention to how North America, at least,
can deal with the need to ways to provide for secure families and
communities in the face of a worldwide situation that is not the fault of
unemployed/underemployed/low waged individuals. Help! (For those who
aswered my invitation to learn more about our Futurework Project/Net -
sorry for the delay. The material goes out this week, and then I hope we
can all get some good dialogue going. Sally Lerner
Louis Proyect wrote:
>Although I feel like an interloper on this list since I am not a
>professional economist or academician, I feel compelled to say a word or
>two about the character of the discussion on this list.
>
>In the past I was a project coordinator for Tecnica, an organization
>which sent programmers and other skilled professionals to work with the
>Sandinista government. I had numerous discussions with Nicaraguans about
>economic problems they were facing and their attempt to use technology to
>solve some of these problems. The electoral loss of the Sandinista party
>as well as the retreat from socialist goals by the Sandinistas, the FMLN
>and the African National Congress has forced me and others who have been
>involved in solidarity efforts to reconsider what possibilites lie before
>the developing world. The collapse of the Soviet Union has enormous
>implications for these countries, and ultimately our own.
>
>I joined the PEN-L in order to eavesdrop on your conversation on this and
>other urgent matters. While I respect your efforts to sort out
>theoretical questions (LTV, etc.), I have found fewer and fewer messages
>that relate to real-life economic problems. Many of the contributions
>seem to be of the character one would hear at an academic conference.
>They remind me to some extent of the type of problems Russell Jacoby was
>grappling with in "The Last Intellectuals".
>
>I suppose this leads to the question of what the Internet is for. If the
>audience is trained economists, I suppose I have no business being a
>member of the list. If, however, the list is intended to educate and
>organize the broader mass movement, then I think that we (you?) can
>"definitely do better".
