In reply to my comments, Bill Burgess wrote, >If we agree that nation states are still important, isn't it important >to also identify exactly who has power in them, and specifically whether >domestic or foreign capital predominates? Yes, it's important to identify who has power but, since the exercise of power will have different consequences in different situations, I don't see the need -- or even in many cases the feasibility -- for exact calculation of the domesticity or otherwise of capital. At any rate, I'd be hard pressed to see Conrad Black as somehow more benign that, say, the Body Shop just because he's Canadian, eh? >Not long waves, but the notion that there are longish periods of growth >and then stagnation, and that the shift from one to the other is the >backdrop for increased capitalist "aggression" (rather than growth in >foreign penetration, globalized production, etc.) I do accept the notion of longish periods of growth and stagnation -- even long waves -- with the qualification that the factors contributing to any particular period of growth or decline are unique to that period and only identifiable after the fact. In other words, I think long waves or periods have enormous descriptive and heuristic value and are virtually worthless for prediction. What follows should not be construed as an argument against anything Bill said, but as more general thoughts on the issue of productivity raised by Bill's comments and earlier by Dean Baker's article. More important than whether productivity growth and/or real profits have stagnated or boomed is the fact that "productivity" has come to mean something different. Instead of being seen as an index of performance, productivity growth has come to be seen as a litmus test for policy prescription -- perhaps the ultimate litmus test. It may seem like a subtle difference, but it's the difference between keeping score and gatekeeping. (A parallel is the controversy over the CPI, or for that matter the GDP). What gets especially lost in this shift from index to litmus test is any acknowledgement that "productivity growth" is a somewhat arbitrary measurement of relationships that ultimately can't be measured (because the changes are qualitative as well as quantitative). The fact that the measurement may show stable trends over a long period of time is no guarantee that "the same thing" is being measured over the course of that period. Still on the topic of productivity growth, I'm looking at two documents: one a 1962 pamphlet from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; the other a newspaper column written last month by Fraser Institute economist Michael Walker (the Fraser is the local "free enterprise" think tank). The notion of "productivity" plays a central role in both documents. And the view of productivity hasn't changed one iota in 35 years. So much for the "neo" in neo-liberalism. For both authors, increases in productivity result from actions by capitalists (investment in new technology) and passivity by workers (not resisting the new technology, refraining from demanding too great a share of the proceeds). At most, raising productivity requires an "active passivity" from workers: adapting to the new technology, retraining to acquire the appropriate skills. Such a view of productivity would be laughable, if it wasn't for the fact that it goes largely uncontested by the left. The left generally shares a reified view of productivity in which measures of output per worker hour can be taken as an index of productivity and in which "class struggle" at the point of production is reflected in worker resistance to automation and speed-up. I'm afraid that factoring in a "whole whack of unproductive labour" does nothing to challenge the ideological equation of capital=active, worker=passive. And I'm guessing that by unproductive, Mosely is referring to the production of surplus value. Under such a distinction, a teacher would be unproductive if employed in the public education system yet productive if employed by a profit-oriented private academy. I suspect that what is at the heart of the reification of productivity, is a unexamined belief that "science and technology" is some kind of eternal, self-perpetuating realm that acts on production processes without itself being acted upon. 'Belief' is probably too strong a word for what might better be described as avoidance of an issue that's exceedingly ambiguous. The importance of passivity and of an unmoved mover in the reified notion of productivity should be a more than sufficient clue that we're dealing with theological positions and not empirical analysis. Not only is it theology, it's _bad_ theology. Perhaps it would be more useful to counter bad theology with better theology than to try to answer it with more refined empirical analysis. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [and in spreadsheets] [EMAIL PROTECTED] | does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286 | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm