Final salvo. Here I was pleased to see in Perelman's stats on posting that I ranked well below the leading blabbermouths, and I'm afraid I've shot that all to hell in just one day. Mat: Perhaps I'm thick but I'm not sure what it is you're lookig for. Is it just alternative indicators? I can't believe that you're not familiar with them. mbs: if you look back you'll see this began yesterday when Blaut said, in response to Steve P.: "Allowing for exceptions, the great mass of people in "the poorer regions of the world" are not enjoying any development." Brad kindly supplied some data to the contrary. Louis tried to debunk the data on assorted fallacious conceptual grounds, suggesting he agreed with Blaut. I commented ever so briefly on the inadequacy of the response, and elaborated this a.m. at slightly greater length, specifically asking if someone would care to supply counter-data (not necessarily based on GDP). And we were all off to the races. Now it develops, so to speak, that nobody actually believes the statement above, so this has all been a tragic misunderstanding. I'm familiar with some of the alternative indicators you propose. Repetto knows his business. I'm a little leery of the RP thing. Certainly I favor the use of social indicators, as well as distributional ones, to supplement GDP. In fact, I seem to remember EPI publishing something on that subject. >> Am I on the right track Max or am I lost in a fog?? Mat >> Anyone would be lost in this thread, or even in this (my) post. ------------------------------ LP: Robin Hahnel, Z Magazine tutorials: >>> mbs: Robin will be elated to learn of your use of his work. After contrasting the NIC's to the ex-socialist states, Robin says: "As best I can tell, for every NIC (Newly Industrializing Country) there were ten FEBs (countries Falling Evermore Behind)." But Robin does not document the implication of this, and neither do you. If you did, we could have avoided this entire thread. I take the implication to be, most Third World nations (in principle we would want to weight these by population level) have generally become worse off over the past 50 years, in terms of basic summary measures of well-being, and in terms of income abstracting from distribution. I am not hostile to this finding (i.e., have no personal investment), especially if it's true. And some day I might find out if it is. For the time being, I have my doubts. >>>> CB: [mbs]"The premise that capitalism is fundamentally incapable of delivering the goods -- of managing to increase output and income more-or-less consistently and indefinitely -- seems to me the most compelling part of Marxism" CB: And my answer is that that is not the most or only compelling part of Marxism. Marxism also criticizes capitalism for generating enormous wars too. mbs: We can disagree on 'most.' I didn't say 'only.' To me it is 'most' because if the system cannot function on a fundamental level, I'll have to start storing canned goods. I'll defer to your authority on what Marxism is about. You can question Brad's sample, but nobody has contradicted it with a better sample. CB: . . . I don't think you have the Marxist thesis of imperialism accurately. See above. Lenin assumes development of the periphery as an essential feature of imperialism . . . mbs: I don't doubt it. I thought I was hearing the thesis that the victims of imperialism were, in the main, experiencing negative development (stagnation in income, average standard of living). If most everybody is developing, albeit unevenly, that's a different story. . . . If it is not, then we could say the main thing wrong with capitalism is distribution, not growth, and this substantially narrows the case for socialism. There is still a lot left, I grant you, but much less then envisioned in some variants of marxism other than Louis'. Charles: See above. The level of growth that YOUR indicators show is in consonance, not contradiction with the Marxist-Leninist variant of the theory of imperialism. mbs: looks like we agree with Brad on what is happening, but disagree on what it means and whether it accords with marx. ------------------- JD: Max, what are you looking for? mbs: see above re: Mat. I'm about out of gas. >> . . . When the environmental crisis gets so bad that even you, Max, start to suffer from it, I'd bet that the biggest capitalists will be able to pull their nuts out of the fire -- by making the poor and working classes pay for it. . . . >> mbs: Actually the enviro crisis puts me personally at high risk. I have allergies, I am too lazy (and too cheap) to use the 'pure' water in the frig and drink right from the tap, I could drop dead on one of D.C.'s August 'bad air quality' days, and I usually drive to work. But I am heroically rising above my own miserable self interest for the sake of the working class. Cheers, mbs
