Lucky USA prepares for a soft landing
The first sign of a downturn in the readiness of US consumers to buy, and the probable new administration and Greenspan warn of a recession. Greenspan's modulated comment is enough to be taken as a signal that US interest rates are likely to be lowered. The stock markets rise. What is the dog that does not bark here? That this instructive round of little signals between the people who run the country, can take place without any attention having to go to the effect of a cut in interest rates on the international position of the dollar. After all if the US goes into a recession it will slow down world trade so much that all countries will have to support the US allowing the value of the dollar to fall anyway. So its position as both a national currency and world money remains secure. Self evident really isn't it? Does not even require comment. Compare the plight of a trading bloc even as powerful as that of Europe. The first sign of recession precipitates a gradually increasing vicious circle very much involving the exchange value of the currency which falls substantially against the US dollar. This will only level out when the Euro has fallen so much below a realistic level that finance starts coming in. The US loses only a few months of potential growth while Europe loses the best part of several years. These are some of the unseen effects of the massive global tendency for the uneven accumulation of capital, which the US in particular has every reason to oppose being brought under global democratic control. Meanwhile possible schemes for greater global democratic control of the world economy are criticised by ultra-leftists, some in the name of Marxism, as reformist, even though they have no strategy for precipitating the instant definitive world revolution against capitalism. Prepare for a soft US landing, while world inequalities widen. Chris Burford London
Guardian UK challenges monarchy
As reported on the Guardian website, whose number of audited "impressions" has gone up from 10 million a month last year to 22 million, the paper is to mount a challenge to the British Royal Family. While this may appear to many to be about quirks arising from old fashioned traditions, behind some of these constitutional formulae are relics of previous class relations which still have an impact on present ones. Behind royal prerogative lies a significant area of arbitrary unaccountable power in Britain mediated by gentlemen's agreements behind the facade of the two party system. (Consider similarly how class-rooted quirks of the US consitution have been thrown under the spotlight by the recent close electoral contest.) The Guardian is a not-for-profit organisation owned by a trust with roots in Manchester socialism. This present initiative may be criticised from a leftist workerist position as about a trivial battle to allow aristocratic Roman Catholics to be elected monarchs. But that would be a superficial view. I will be happy to refer people to the appropriate argument by Lenin that is is necessary to react to every manifestation of oppression, no matter what stratum or class of people it affects. The importance of this issue reflects on the concept that all people are subject entitled to human rights and the state can be held accountable if they are not properly delivered. This is not socialism but it opens the door to more radical interpretations of democracy, which undermine the old order and prepare the way for the new. The Guardian is usually well briefed and well prepared for its legal challenges. It is going to win this one. --- From 6th Dec 2000 The Guardian is to back a legal challenge to the 300-year-old law banning Roman Catholics and other non-Protestants from succession to the British throne, on the grounds that it clashes with the Human Rights Act and should be reinterpreted or removed from the statute book. Leading human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC believes the Act of Settlement 1701 may be affected by the European convention on human rights, which became part of UK law two months ago when the Human Rights Act came into force. The challenge to the Act of Settlement coincides with an editorial in the paper which argues for a referendum on the future of the monarchy. Today and over the next few days the paper is running a number of articles advocating republicanism, despite another outdated statute, the Treason Felony Act 1848, which threatens anyone doing so with deportation "for the term of his or her natural life". The paper's editor, Alan Rusbridger wrote last week to the attorney general, Lord Williams of Mostyn, asking for an assurance that he will not be prosecuted, given that he has no intention of advocating overthrow of the monarchy by force. In his letter, he argued the Treason Felony Act breaches article 10 of the European convention, the right to freedom of expression.
RE: Cyborg variations
that BC weed shouldn't be given to islanders. Ian > > > The image of the cyborg entails a double process of objectification (of > social relations) and anthropomorphic animation (of the resulting object). > The analysis of this double process is already present in Marx's > discussion > of the commodity fetish. Thus the cyborg is in a way a redundant figure. > > Although fantastically constructed of body and machine, the > actually-existing cyborg is constructed of labour power and *real* (as > opposed to formal) domination of labour by capital. In its > fictitious guise > as human capital, the cyborg holds out an ambiguous promise of > endowment "by > attributing [the] mystical quality of interest-bearing capital to labour > power itself." > > Marx noted two "disagreeably frustrating facts [to] mar this thoughtless > conception." The labourer must work to obtain this interest and he cannot > cash in the fictitious capital-value. A third disagreeable fact > arises from > the illiquidity of the worker's supposed capital: accelerated depreciation > as a result of technical innovation. In six months, the > six-million man may > become a mere six-hundred thousand dollar man. Meanwhile, the original > invoice price keeps showing up on his VISA bill. > > Accelerated depreciation lends a second meaning to the "redundancy" of the > cyborg -- this time as reserve army of the un(der)employed. All of this > doubling suggests that the cyborg is in fact a doppelganger, spectre of > labour power and harbinger of its demise. > > The cyborg has nothing to add to the sandwichman, who was always already > objectified, animated, redundant and in disguise. > > Tom Walker > Sandwichman and Deconsultant > Bowen Island, BC >
Re: Re: Microsoft
G'day Paul and Michael, I'm either wholly wrong or teaching old pros how to suck eggs, but ... >That's easy. For years, Microsoft arrogantly neglected to contribute much >to either political party. So it was vulnerable. Few major corporations >ever make this error. Microsoft soon rectified its behavior. >On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 08:59:42PM -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> Could anyone give me in a short one or two paragraph digest >> a) what was Microsoft charged with; >> b) what was it convicted of; and >> c) what was the remedy proposed. And lots of would-be competitors had been far nicer to Washington than M$ had been, And (a speculation) Bill Gates made a celebrity of himself, which has its benefits, but ever risks the slings and arrows of backlash. Lots of people didn't like M$ and had a persona on hand at which to level their indignation. So it was politically all the more doable to attack M$ as an institution. As for its crime, was it not simply an obvious exploitation of market power? Something about demanding of vendors that computers be sold only with M$ software (especially internet Explorer) bundled within. If memory serves, vendors were allegedly told that to put anything else in their machines would be to lose the right to sell M$ stuff. The sort of problem you'd expect in a new sector where standardisation is required. Whoever has the IP on the standard has the power to snaffle up every new application as it comes into viability, I s'pose. The neoclassicals see competition as the only regulator in the perfect market, but competition is a tendency towards monopoly at heart, so, even if a perfect market were imaginable, it couldn't last. This has been exacerbated in the case of the IT-revolution-as-mass-market-phenomenon as, ever since the IBM/M$ deal, the standard has been M$, so here we have a market which began without competition. This happened with telephony, too. Whilst the rest of the world saw all this, and opted for developing telecommunications as a public sector utility so as to ensure compatible standards without conferring monopoly market power, the US went with Bell/AT&T. Which consequently got huge, and snaffled each new application as it came along. The Justice Department then had the devil of a job compromising (things called 'consent decrees) with the giant. Prying loose its manufacturing and R&D wings in 1956, in return for maintaining a monopoly over both long-distance and local loops in the USA, and then letting 'em get 'em back in 1982, in return for prying loose the local loops. The telephony 'market', to the degree one exists, exists only because of political intervention by a government big enough (and lobbied by would-be competitors enough) to wrest a compromise out of a giant whose initial advantage was itself a product of political protection from competition. Cheers, Rob.
Re: Back in the US... SR
I meant Doug, not Dog. Arf! --jks> _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Back in the US... SR
.the real issue is that we're >going to get a Prez who *lost the popular vote* thanks to our dreadful 18th >century electoral system. A properly Soviet conclusion to the twilight of >the American Empire! > >-- Dennis As Dog has pointed out, we don't yet know for sure that Gore won the popular vote. And the Soviets never had a leader who lost it. Course, they avoided the problem by having one-candidate elections. . . . --jks _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Max Weber's Genteel Racism (was Re: weber)
Kelley wrote:
>At 04:22 PM 12/5/00 -0600, Carrol Cox wrote:
>>kelley wrote:
>> > no, i'm talking about Weber's study of the rise of capitalism. the
>>> conditions were, largely, there for the chinese to have been the place
>>> where a proto-capitalist economic organization took off, not all the
>>> conditions, but many. nonetheless, various places in the west took off and
>>> were more successful and this was about the development of accounting
>>> techniques, in part, that aided people in conceptualizing symbolically
>>> rational planning of projections based on past, present, future.
>>
>>Kelley, you are way out on a limb. Have you any idea what storms have
>>raged around this on the pen-l and marxism lists?
>>
>>The story about double-entry accounting belongs as much to urban legend
>>as does the 400 names for snow. "Take-Off" is a very loaded term. And
>>Weber held to an absolutely indefensible "stagist" and linear view of
>>history.
>
>no, he didn't, that's a misreading. he largely abjured such
>accounts of history and he saw himself as elaborating marx's
>framework, in some ways. but it was precisely the grand theory of
>history as developing in some logical progression that weber was on
>about.
Jim M. Blaut, in Chapter 2 of _Eight Eurocentric Historians_ (NY: The
Guilford Press, 2000), correctly argues that Max Weber was a racist.
For instance, about Africans, Weber had this to say: Negroes are
"unsuitable for factory work and the operation of machines; they have
not seldom sunk into a cataleptic sleep. Here is one case in
economic history where tangible racial distinctions are apparent"
(_General Economic History_. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1981,
p. 379). With regard to the Chinese, Weber, among many other lovely
remarks, made this pronouncement: the Chinese exhibit "slowness in
reacting to unusual stimuli, especially in the intellectual sphere,"
"horror of all unknown...things," "good-natured credulity," "absolute
docility," "incomparable dishonesty" & "distrust...for one another"
which "stands in sharp contrast to the trust and honesty of the
faithful brethren in the Puritan sects" in Europe (_The Religion of
China_, NY: Free Press, 1951, pp. 231-232). For Weber, so-called
"Europeans" were "rational," and so-called "non-Europeans" were
either "irrational" or less "rational," and he attributes the origin
of capitalism to this alleged difference: "European rationality." In
Weber, one cannot but see one of the founding fathers of what might
be called cultural racism.
Even worse than racism (which was common among "Europeans" of his
days & still is today), Weber committed an irredeemable intellectual
crime of putting the cart before the horse: he essentially argued
that capitalist rationality caused capitalism. Capitalist
rationality was, of course, a _result_ of capitalism, so it logically
could _not_ have been its cause. Weber's intellectual sleight of
hand -- racializing capitalist rationality & calling it "European
rationality" -- has been influential ever since, even among those who
would be too embarrassed to make an outright argument for racial
superiority ("Europeans were smarter than the Chinese & all other
non-Europeans, and that's why they have gotten richer than everyone
else!").
In place of Weber's anachronistic "theory," I recommend Robert
Brenner's & Ellen Wood's non-Eurocentric accounts of the origin of
capitalism. Brenner writes:
* In England, as throughout most of western Europe, the
peasantry were able by the mid-fifteenth century, through flight and
resistance, definitively to break feudal controls over their mobility
and to win full freedom. Indeed, peasant tenants at this time were
striving hard for full and essentially freehold control over their
customary tenements, and were not far from achieving it. The
elimination of unfreedom meant the end of labour services and of
arbitrary tallages. Moreover, rent _per se_ (_redditus_) was fixed
by custom, and subject to declining long-term value in the face of
inflation. There were in the long run, however, two major strategies
available to the landlord to prevent the loss of the land to peasant
freehold.
In the first place, the demographic collapse of the late fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries left vacant many former customary peasant
holdings. It appears often to have been possible for the landlords
simply to appropriate these and add them to their demesnes. In this
way a great deal of land was simply removed from the "customary
sector" and added to the "leasehold sector", thus thwarting in
advance a possible evolution towards freehold, and substantially
reducing the area of land which potentially could be subjected to
essentially peasant proprietorship
In the second place, one crucial loophole often remained open to
those landlords who sought to undermine the freehold-tending claims
of the customary tenants who still remained o
Cyborg variations
The image of the cyborg entails a double process of objectification (of social relations) and anthropomorphic animation (of the resulting object). The analysis of this double process is already present in Marx's discussion of the commodity fetish. Thus the cyborg is in a way a redundant figure. Although fantastically constructed of body and machine, the actually-existing cyborg is constructed of labour power and *real* (as opposed to formal) domination of labour by capital. In its fictitious guise as human capital, the cyborg holds out an ambiguous promise of endowment "by attributing [the] mystical quality of interest-bearing capital to labour power itself." Marx noted two "disagreeably frustrating facts [to] mar this thoughtless conception." The labourer must work to obtain this interest and he cannot cash in the fictitious capital-value. A third disagreeable fact arises from the illiquidity of the worker's supposed capital: accelerated depreciation as a result of technical innovation. In six months, the six-million man may become a mere six-hundred thousand dollar man. Meanwhile, the original invoice price keeps showing up on his VISA bill. Accelerated depreciation lends a second meaning to the "redundancy" of the cyborg -- this time as reserve army of the un(der)employed. All of this doubling suggests that the cyborg is in fact a doppelganger, spectre of labour power and harbinger of its demise. The cyborg has nothing to add to the sandwichman, who was always already objectified, animated, redundant and in disguise. Tom Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant Bowen Island, BC
Re: Microsoft
That's easy. For years, Microsoft arrogantly neglected to contribute much to either political party. So it was vulnerable. Few major corporations ever make this error. Microsoft soon rectified its behavior. On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 08:59:42PM -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Could anyone give me in a short one or two paragraph digest > a) what was Microsoft charged with; > b) what was it convicted of; and > c) what was the remedy proposed. > > i.e. what sin against neoclassical orthodoxy did it transend. > > Paul Phillips, > Economics, > University of Manitoba > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Microsoft
Could anyone give me in a short one or two paragraph digest a) what was Microsoft charged with; b) what was it convicted of; and c) what was the remedy proposed. i.e. what sin against neoclassical orthodoxy did it transend. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Re: Re: co-ops
Norm, If you want to study co-ops as a system, complete with their own credit union bank and education system, have a look at the history and success of the Mondragon co-ops in Spain. With all their limitations, this is probably the best example of what you are looking for. I would also refer you to the Encyclopedia of Political Economy which has a digest not only of Mondragon, market socialism, social ownership, Marxian political economy and just about everything else you have asked about complete with short bibliographies on each topic. It is an invaluable resource. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Re: Re: Racial Blind Spot Continues toAfflictGreens
Nathan, Looking from the outside, whatever the cost to Americans, getting rid of Madeline Albright has got to be a welfare gain to the rest of the world. It is surely worth 4 years of Bush to get rid of that person before she brings more disaster on the rest of the world. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
(Fwd) Jesse Helms is Sparking a Real Constitutional Crisis - T
--- Forwarded message follows --- Date sent: Tue, 05 Dec 2000 15:20:17 -0800 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject:Jesse Helms is Sparking a Real Constitutional Crisis - The Boston Globe The Boston GlobeDecember 5, 2000 Jesse Helms is Sparking a Real Constitutional Crisis by James Carroll Worrying about a potential constitutional crisis coming out of Florida, we hardly noticed a creeping constitutional crisis that showed itself in New York last week. At the United Nations, representatives of more than 100 countries are at work, until this Friday, on negotiations aimed at implementing the 1998 Rome Treaty on the International Criminal Court. Arising from American- backed tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the ICC will adjudicate genocide and other crimes against humanity. Replacing vengeance with law, the court represents a major step toward a new world-structure of peace. Recall that, out of concerns for sovereignty, the United States has yet to sign this treaty, a demurral that puts us in the company of Iraq, Libya, China, and a few others. The Clinton administration, which supports the court in principle, has been working in a delicate process to obtain side agreements that address its concerns, and there have been hopes that the president would sign the treaty by the Dec. 31 deadline that would keep the United States actively engaged in the shaping of the court, even without full ratification. But last Wednesday, in a clear violation of the American way, Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina preempted the administration's transcending responsibility to conduct foreign policy by dispatching his press spokesperson to the United Nations, where he held a press conference to spotlight his diehard opposition to the treaty. (An Associated Press story, my source, reported on this event, but it was not covered in the Globe or The New York Times.) Helms will make his ''American Servicemembers Protection Act'' a ''top legislative priority,'' the spokesperson said, referring to a bill that would not only spike US participation in the court, but would punish countries that ratified the treaty, and would severely restrict future American support of UN peacekeeping. Thus Helms was not only inserting himself into an international forum, contemptuously intruding upon an American president's delicate and time-sensitive effort to shape foreign policy. He was threatening other nations with retaliation - a military aid cutoff - if they go forward with a court he doesn't like. And that is not all. Against the present administration, Helms produced a chorus of former officials to echo his intervention at the UN. On that same Wednesday - a coincidence? - a letter supporting the Helms bill was released by a dozen foreign policy heavy hitters, including Henry Kissinger, Jeane Kirkpatrick, George Shultz, and James Baker III - a sad demonstration of how far we've come from the post-World War II generation of internationalists who, in fact, gave first expression to the idea of an international war crimes tribunal. Helms and his supporters claim to be speaking for ''American servicemembers,'' but how do the military men and women who might find themselves subject to the ICC feel about it? In a phone conversation last Friday, I put the question to retired Major General William L. Nash, who commanded Task Force Eagle in Bosnia, a multinational division supporting the Dayton Peace Accords, and who has just returned from a stint as a UN administrator in Mitrovica, Kosovo. These responsibilities have given General Nash a clearer view of these complexities than almost anyone. He said, ''My experience from Vietnam to Desert Storm to Bosnia tells me that you behave within the laws of war. The treaty does not change that. It is an endorsement of what we believe in.'' Indeed, by deterring war crimes, the ICC would be the true protection of Americans, along with everyone else. General Nash is author of ''The ICC and the Deployment of US Armed Forces,'' a chapter in a study of the court published recently by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The academy's program director for international security studies, Martin Malin, watched events unfold last week. The Helms intervention, he told me, ''was timed to sharpen the divisions between the United States and other nations, threatening them by saying, in effect, `If you support this court, you put your military relations with the US at risk.' Senator Helms is way overstepping the right of Congress to exercise authority in foreign policy.'' That James Baker is a party to the Helms campaign signals that an incoming Bush administration w
Back in the US... SR
On Tue, 5 Dec 2000, David Shemano wrote: > Gore had requested a statewide manual recount on November 9, he would have > had the moral upper hand, and I would have supported him. But if he did > that, he probably would have lost, so he chose the "count every Democratic > vote" strategy. He deserved to lose after that. I couldn't care less about Gore myself, but the real issue is that we're going to get a Prez who *lost the popular vote* thanks to our dreadful 18th century electoral system. A properly Soviet conclusion to the twilight of the American Empire! -- Dennis
Greenspan, the red-nosed reindeer
Greenspan intimates that the economy is slowing too fast, the stock market takes that as a sign of lower interest rates to come and instantly discounts those not-yet-hatched lower rates. The wealth effect of the run-up in stock prices will encourage folks to extend their credit card debt more than they had planned during the christmas season. Higher than anticipated christmas sales will cause the GDP to grow at a faster rate during the fourth quarter, which will lead investors to speculate that the fed will hold steady on interest rates, as a consequence of which the NASDAQ will plunge 10% in a day. Greenspan, the central banker had a very pliant fed and if you ever saw it you would even say it spread. All of the Wall Street brokers used to laugh and call him names. They always made poor Alan play in all their hedging games. Then one stalling GDP NASDAQ came to say, "Greenspan with your rate so high won't you light my index tonight." Then all the exuberant brokers shouted out with irrational glee "Greenspan, the central banker you'll go down in his-tor-y" Tom Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant Bowen Island, BC
Re: Re: Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
> From: "Michael Hoover" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >First specific DLC accomplishment was to convince 11 southern states to > >hold their prez primaries on same day in 1988 for purpose of boosting > >their clout, enhancing position of south in nominating process and > >helping "moderate" southern candidates. Gore won a few of these so-called > >"Super Tuesday" races that year. > > What a weird spin on the 1988 primary debacle for the DLC? What Super > Tuesday did was hand Jesse Jackson a chance to rack up some of his most > impressive states and, for a short period, seem to threaten to win the > nomination. Gore generally failed miserably, while Dukakis managed to > maintain his stead delegate gains that eventually left him the last white > guy standing to defeat Jesse. > Super Tuesday did its job finally in 1992 in helping elect Clinton - > although the irony was that it helped Clinton defeat Tsongas because Clinton > could pick up Jesse's black vote support, while Tsongas I believe took the > majority of the white vote in a lot of the Southern states. > -- Nathan Newman no spin, no debating points to win...allow me, however, to revise and extend my remarks... DLC promoted "Super Tuesday" as vehicle for centrist/southern dems based on assumption that party couldn't win prez election without winning south. Proponents looked to Robb & Nunn as best choices but neither decided to run. DLCers were left with Al Gore after one their own, Gephardt, decided to run opposing organization's position on free trade. Gore won 4 ST states - Ark, Ky, NC, Tenn (5 if you count Okla where another former DLC chair, McCurdy was from) and his campaign had some temporary life. Jackson won 5 states - AL, GA, LA, Miss, VA. Significantly, Dukakis won 2 biggest states - FL & TX. No, 1988 "Super Tuesday" didn't work out as its architects had planned with respect to either candidate choices or to bringing conservative white Dems back into party. By late 1980s, southern whites were more likely to vote Rep than in any other region of country. Smaller 1992 "Super Tuesday" - FL, LA, Miss, Tenn, Tx - worked (I guess) from standpoint of its creators in producing more moderate victor in Clinton. But this result was achieved via very low turnout. Moreover, more southern whites voted in Rep primaries in 1992 than in Dem primaries for first time. no spin, no debating points to win... Michael Hoover
RE: Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
<> Since you asked, I am a conservative who lurks on this list, so I can give you my opinion. I actually was sympathetic to Gore for the first day or two. The fact that he won the national popular vote, and was only behind by several hundred votes in a state in which Nader received 92,000 votes, were hard to ignore. But then he lost me. Instead of immediately requesting a state-wide manual recount, he asked for a manual recount in four Democratic counties, and then started suing the Democratic canvassing boards if they either refused to do a manual recount, or refused to count the dimple ballots. He then turns Kathryn Harris into Ken Starr, simply because she was doing her job. (I am a lawyer and have followed this closely. She may be a partisan, but she did nothing wrong and did not deserve the treatment she received.) In other words, instead of playing fair, Gore played power politics. And if he was going to play power politics, then all was fair on the Bush side. I do not know what Bush could have done differently. He was ahead -- was he supposed to voluntarily change the rules to make victory more difficult? If Gore had requested a statewide manual recount on November 9, he would have had the moral upper hand, and I would have supported him. But if he did that, he probably would have lost, so he chose the "count every Democratic vote" strategy. He deserved to lose after that. And that's how this bourgeois Republican thinks. David Shemano
Re: Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
- Original Message - From: "Michael Hoover" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >First specific DLC accomplishment was to convince 11 southern states to >hold their prez primaries on same day in 1988 for purpose of boosting >their clout, enhancing position of south in nominating process and >helping "moderate" southern candidates. Gore won a few of these so-called >"Super Tuesday" races that year. What a weird spin on the 1988 primary debacle for the DLC? What Super Tuesday did was hand Jesse Jackson a chance to rack up some of his most impressive states and, for a short period, seem to threaten to win the nomination. Gore generally failed miserably, while Dukakis managed to maintain his stead delegate gains that eventually left him the last white guy standing to defeat Jesse. Super Tuesday did its job finally in 1992 in helping elect Clinton - although the irony was that it helped Clinton defeat Tsongas because Clinton could pick up Jesse's black vote support, while Tsongas I believe took the majority of the white vote in a lot of the Southern states. -- Nathan Newman
Re: Immigration and economic growth
Charles Brown wrote: >Immigration and economic growth > >By Wadi'h Halabi (Peoples Weekly World) > >Capital has been flooding into the U.S. since the 1991 Gulf War. In >the three months after imperialism began bombing Yugoslavia in 1999 How I love the PWW. For the 3 months leading up to the election, they did little but shill for Gore & the Dems - the very people who brought us the bombing of Yugoslavia. Maybe it was *imperialism* that bombed Yugoslavia, and the Dems were just innocent bystanders. Doug
RE: Re: Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
The DLC started after the Mondale defeat. The guiding principle was not any special conservative ideological position, but a determination not to get smoked again in a national election. What did Mondale win? Two states or something? A pretty strong reaction was understandable. Mondale was perceived as too liberal, hence the logical remedy was to move towards the center. You could as easily say the DLC started with Thurmond and the Dixiecrats in 1948. But that, like Dems for Nixon, is polemics masquerading (ineffectively) as history. mbs according to Christopher Hitchens (a reliable source though not a reliable thinker), the DLC started earlier, as the "Democrats for Nixon." Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Progressive Information Aggregation Institutions?
\Robin Hanson wrote: >>The question is how to choose, on matters of fact as opposed to value, when >>disagreement persists, even after substantial discourse. Whose estimate >>should determine actions? A vote among everyone? A vote among a random >>jury? Administrative agency experts? A panel of distinguished academics? >>My proposal was to use the estimate of a betting market. I responded: >>a vote among everyone seems needed to decide general principles. Experts >>and academics can advise the voters. Votes among those most affected seem >>appropriate for specific cases, under the rules set by general >>principles. A betting market encourages people to compete instead of >>working together on these issues, which is an error when external costs >>and benefits are so prevalent. Robin answered: >I don't think we're communicating. yes, since I wasn't really paying attention. >The topic is matters of fact, not >value. Such as estimating whether OJ did it, how high sea levels will >rise if CO2 emissions are or are not curtailed, or the effect of NAFTA >on US unemployment. The question is what the general principles >should be for such specific cases (what would you vote for?). I'm not sure that issues of fact and value can always be separated in practice (even though it's a good idea to do so). After all, the fact that most White folks here on the Westside of L.A. think that OJ did it while most Black folks in L.A. think of him as innocent suggests that issues of values have clouded judgements of fact. >Given persistent disagreement, almost any social institution will induce >some forms of competition between people with different views. So it >is not a choice of competition or not, but between forms of competition. one issue is what defines the "winners" in the competition: is it following the rules of democracy (one person/one vote) or those of the market (one dollar/one vote)? I think that Kato Kaelin was the perp who done the dirty deed ;-) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
> The Democratic Party essentially believes in nothing except winning office, > so why would it be capable of galvanizing a nonexistent base? > This state of affairs was created by the Democratic Leadership Council. The > DLC was launched by Gore, Clinton and other disciples of New Republic > publisher Marty Peretz shortly after the defeat of Dukakis. > Louis Proyect DLC was founded in 1985 following Mondale's prez candidacy in 84. Original members were mostly "centrist" southern Dem pols. If memory serves, Clinton was 1st chair and most chairs have been from south: Nunn, Breaux, Robb, etc. (Gephardt may be former chair as well). DLCers intended to move party to right *and* facilitate relations with wealthy contributors (expanding upon work of Tony Coelho). First specific DLC accomplishment was to convince 11 southern states to hold their prez primaries on same day in 1988 for purpose of boosting their clout, enhancing position of south in nominating process and helping "moderate" southern candidates. Gore won a few of these so-called "Super Tuesday" races that year. In 1986, DLC had established Progressive Policy Institute as advisory arm to DLC. PPIers were most influential group of pro-business Dems backing Clinton in 1992 and comprise large number of his advisers. At time, PPI was chaired by Wall Street broker Michael Steinhardt who had been early booster of Buckley's *National Review* and who voted for Goldwater in 64. Michael Hoover
Immigration and economic growth
Immigration and economic growth By Wadi'h Halabi (Peoples Weekly World) Capital has been flooding into the U.S. since the 1991 Gulf War. In the three months after imperialism began bombing Yugoslavia in 1999, capital gushed into the U.S. at the extraordinary annual rate of $1,109 billion, according to Federal Reserve Bank statistics. This capital is fleeing the instability, wars, declining profit rates and outright losses found in more and more of the capitalist world. Its flight contributes to further destabilization of those areas. Its inflow in turn has been a real, if unpublicized * and temporary * factor in the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. Immigrants have also been coming to the U.S. in growing numbers since the Gulf War. Nearly 12 million people, three-quarters with documents, came to the U.S. in the 1990s, breaking the previous record of 8.8 million set in 1901-1910. Most are attempting to flee the low wages, mass unemployment, insecurity and conflicts characterizing more and more of the capitalist world. Their departure further impoverishes their countries of origin. And receiving even less publicity are the contributions of immigrants to the U.S. economic expansion. Immigrants accounted for one-quarter to one-third of the growth in the U.S. labor force in the last decade. Without immigrants, the U.S. economy could not have grown as it did in the 1990s. Without immigrants' labor and purchases, the economies of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas, from N.Y. to Silicon Valley, would slump or stop functioning. Immigrants are reported to account for one-quarter to one-third of home purchases in New York City, Los Angeles and several other cities. Recent articles in Southwest Economy, a regional publication of the Federal Reserve Bank, and a study commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences (James Smith and Barry Edmonston, eds., The New Americans) testify to a few of the contributions from immigrants. According to New Americans, federal and local governments enjoy an average net gain (in present dollars) of $80,000 from each immigrant and children. That is how much taxes paid by immigrants will exceed the cost of government services, with the Pentagon and prisons included in calculations of "services." New Americans estimates that the net contribution to government from highly educated immigrants and their children will average $200,000. All in all, that comes to about $1 trillion in net gains to government from the 1990s immigrantion alone. In addition, New Americans does not fully take into account the savings to the U.S. from having other countries raise and educate immigrants, whose median age on arriving is about 25. And, typical of capitalist economic studies, the work does not even mention the profits made from immigrants' labor. An important fact from Southwest Economy is that California and Texas, two states bordering Mexico, now have the highest manufacturing employment of all the states in the U.S. As recently as 1985, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania ranked ahead of Texas in manufacturing employment. In addition, if maquiladoras, the factories in Mexico, primarily producing for U.S. corporations, were counted as a "state," their 1.1 million workers would have placed them between California and Texas in manufacturing employment. "One of the best-kept secrets in Washington D.C.," crows the Federal Rreserve's Southwest Economy, "is that NAFTA is a success ... Maquiladora manufacturing [should be] thought of as a physical extension of Texas and California production," keeping U.S. corporations "competitive" in the unmentioned "race to the bottom." Why then is there so much capitalist-inspired propaganda and discrimination against immigrants? For the same reason there is relentless discrimination against African-Americans, Puerto Ricans and other people of color * to keep labor divided and cheap. Recent immigrants' earnings averaged 33 percent below those of U.S.-born workers in 1998; they had been 12 percent lower in 1960. Immigrant workers face some of the hardest work, lowest wages, poorest benefits and worst housing conditions in the United States. But immigrants have not been mere passive victims of capitalism. Immigrants have been prominent in recent labor-led struggles * economic and political * throughout the U.S., from New York to California. Immigrant workers, together with African Americans and Puerto Ricans, are certain to be prominent in the coming struggles to unite workers of all countries and skin colors. A button worn by a Southern California trade union leader sums up some of the capitalists' worst fears:"Those darn immigrants," it reads, "are scaring away all the bigots"!
re: Open Letter to Readers Of Kolakowski
Rhetorical question: is ex-Marxism among Kolakowski's Main Currents of Marxism? Seriously, I keep coming back to the spectre (pun intended) of all the former Marxists who define what has come to stand as "other than Marxism" in contemporary academic thought and journalistic certitude. This particular other-than stands on precisely the ground of historical inevitability that it insists Marxism must vacate. It's like the reformation, I suppose. Martin Luther and his followers didn't cook up something entirely new, nor did they go around establishing Buddhist shrines and Hindu temples. On the one hand, there are clear continuities in ritual and theology. On the other, there are points of doctrine that can only be understood in terms of a deep-seated hostility, positions born of a will to differentiate. These differentia come forward in ways that baffle the un-schooled. One wonders how a population presumably ignorant of a particular mode of thought can, nevertheless, 'instinctively' detect and repudiate it. They have been vaccinated. Remember, one doesn't get vaccinated with an antibody but with a modified strain of the organism. Extra credit: What do "capital" and "vaccination" have in common? (hint: Kola-_ _ _-ski) Tom Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant Bowen Island, BC
Re: Re: Re: co-ops
At 02:06 PM 12/5/00 -0800, you wrote: >The huge Berkeley co-op went belly-up. They tried to expand too fast -- >acting corporate. right. I was there for much of it (before the fall). They bought out a small chain of grocery stores and instantly grew, which led to the Co-Op's demise. There were also co-op dorms, though. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: co-ops
The huge Berkeley co-op went belly-up. They tried to expand too fast -- acting corporate. > There used to be a lot of co-ops in Berkeley > when I lived there, because it was a hot-bed of leftism. (It's like in much > of Canada.) -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
- Original Message - From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >If and when objective conditions foment a Buchanan candidacy, I >would expect the Democrats to run somebody who has an abysmal position on >immigration and all the rest of it. New immigrants becoming citizens are voting Democrats in overwhelming numbers. Why would Democrats, even as craven opportunists, do anything to stop a massive expansion of their supporters? Given that Dems have added millions of new voters in the last four years - a big reason for the total destruction of the GOP as a viable political force in California - the "Buchanan leakage" of nativist voters would have to get incredibly large to make such a move rational. In the midst of the nativist, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic hysteria of the 1920s, the Dems moved the other way in 1928 in electing Al Smith, thereby locking in white Catholics and many other white ethnics for the next generation. 1994 in California is a good example of this dynamic- the GOP lunged to the Right on immigration issues - remember Pete Wilson had once supported immigration - while the Dems solidified a pro-immigrant position. Whether based on principle or opportunism, the results for the Dems have been fantastic with a massive increase in latino voters as a percentage of the population and a massive partisan increase of latinos voting Democratic. Nationally, Dems have learned from that result. They recognize that the demographic shift that has hit California is hitting the whole country over the next decades, so they have strengthened their pro-immigration positions on amnesty et al. The shift of the labor unions towards a stronger pro-immigrant position - partly from recognizing the same demographic shifts for organizing - are just reinforcing that shift by the Dems. I'm sure there will be backtracking by some Dems when the recession hits, but it will not be wholesale and the basic pattern of pro-immigrant positions will remain, from NLRB protection to restoration of welfare benefits for legal immigrants. -- Nathan Newman
Re: Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
Nathan Newman wrote: >One of the areas where >the Democrats have clearly and demonstrably moved towards a more progressive >position in the last fifteen years is on immigration. Employers love loose immigration regulations, no? Forbes and the WSJ are all in favor of pretty open borders. Can you come up with an example of a "progressive" move on the part of Dems that goes against the interest of employers? It was nice, however, to see organized labor drop its longstanding nativism. Doug
Re: Racial Blind Spot Continues toAfflictGreens
- Original Message - From: "Doug Henwood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Nathan Newman wrote: >When folks spend more time criticizing the Dems than talking about the >outrages of the GOP, you are choosing sides and the wrong one. -I'll be very interested to see how much an issue of this the Dems -make going forward, in future elections. Gore sent Jesse Jackson home -from Florida, didn't he? I don't necessarily agree with the strategy, but the idea was that while the GOP were running blackshirts in the streets trying to disrupt legal recounts, the idea was to avoid giving the GOP excuse to justify themselves by pointing to Jackson and other protesters. But the public hearings, denouncing of the racial attacks on voters, and filings with the Justice Department continued. But that is strategy- the Clinton Justice Department has begun investigations of the abuses in Miami. The unfortunate reality is that the Voting Rights Act gives no ability to contest the results of elections, only the ability to get injunctive relief for future elections. So prioritizing immediate goal of getting black and latino votes counted in Broward and Miami-Dade on the "chad" issue is quite compatible with pursuing the longer-term Voting Rights Act violations and felony disqualification problems. But again, your first jump is to mention a strategic disagreement with Jackson and Gore, rather than talk about Tom Delay paying to send aides down to disrupt and shutdown the recount of votes in Miami-Dade. You and others seem incapable of talking about those GOP outrages except as a phrase long "of course I don't like it" aside to your continual denunciation of Gore and left Dems. -- Nathan Newman
Re: Re: depressions
Tom writes: > Although the "total working day" may be hard to quantify, it has >qualitative limits, depending upon definite technical, historical and >physiological factors. At some unspecifiable (and malleable) point, >increasing the length of the working day won't do any more good because it >reduces the productivity of labour below the prevailing average. >Similarly, at some unspecifiable point, intensifying the productivity of >labour won't do any good because it will devalorize a greater quantity of >existing capital than it will produce new surplus-value. Fictitious values >allow capital to exceed (on paper) these qualtitative barriers to >accumulation -- for a while, but only for a while. I think about the key point here as follows: the total amount of profits + interest + rent in society is constrained by the total amount of surplus-value that workers produce. However, the total amount of profits + interest + rent _promised_ or _expected_ is not constrained in this way, so we can see all sorts of craziness. Even for an individual industry, does anyone ever add up all of the profit predictions/promises/expectations and consider the extent to which one company's profits cancel out another's? This is different from the recent political duopoly competition in the US, where the candidates' promises were quantified and found not to add up in terms of budget balance (or at least so it was claimed). > >Since the "market for fictitious human capital" isn't as important as the > >stock market for the day-to-day functioning of capitalism, I don't read it > >this way. However, if credentialed workers get enough in the way of broken > >promises, they might unionize or similar. Here in the US, they sue. > >I think this gets to the heart of what I'm asking. Is the stock market >_really_ more important for the day-to-day functioning of capitalism or is >it simply so much easier to quantify and index? The stock market is not as important as it's implied to be by all the news coverage it gets.[*] But there can be wealth effects and expectations effects (I repeat myself) of big fluctuations of the SM, as in the aftermath of 1929. Of course, as I argue in my 1994 paper (http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine/depr/D0.html), the Crash was only a trigger that set off an already implosive situation. This one event, of course, was burned into the historical memory and helps explain why people are so fascinated by the SM. [*] I think that no commercial news outlet wants to start downplaying the stock market, because they'd lose an audience to all the others who don't do so. If all of them started doing so, however, probably no one would miss it. After all, the people who really care about the SM get all their news from the Internet, directly. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine "From the east side of Chicago/ to the down side of L.A. There's no place that he gods/ We don't bow down to him and pray. Yeah we follow him to the slaughter / We go through the fire and ash. Cause he's the doll inside our dollars / Our Lord and Savior Jesus Cash (chorus): Ah we blow him up -- inflated / and we let him down -- depressed We play with him forever -- he's our doll / and we love him best." -- Terry Allen.
Re: co-ops
Norm, in addition to the legal impediments that don't exist, it's important to realize that a company doesn't win in a capitalist market by being efficient. A company has to have advertising, distribution networks, a large and aggressive legal staff, friends at the bank, R&D investment, political connections, and more and more, international operations. As Justin said, the economic process is also a sociological process. (The Money & Banking textbook I use, by Mishkin, edges toward this realization, seeing the importance, for example, of "relationship banking," in which banks and their main borrowers have long-term relationships.) In order for co-ops to grow & succeed as a major form of economic organization, there has to be some sort of social-democratic political movement (which provides the political-sociological replacement for the capitalist old-boys network). There used to be a lot of co-ops in Berkeley when I lived there, because it was a hot-bed of leftism. (It's like in much of Canada.) But in Los Angeles, until recently the capital of anti-unionism? no way. At 01:43 PM 12/5/00 -0500, you wrote: >thank you for your valuable addition to the co-op discussion. all kinds of >cooperatives are welcome, including industrials. > >seems to me that co-ops are an ideal way for the socialists and their >suffering proletariat to conquer the world. > >assumption: no legal impediments for co-ops of any type. > >then, > >1. co-ops extract less surplus value for investments than profit >businesses, therefore they can offer better wages and lower prices. > >2. with higher wages and lower prices, they attract better people, sales >expand and they use the surplus value to grow larger. > >3. with better people, some of these employees make competitive >innovations/inventions using their co-op surplus value to keep up with the >innovations of profit businesses. > >4. with larger co-ops they buy more economically (economies of scale) to >reduce unit costs and prices, increase wages, increase co-op surplus and >expand indefinitely. > >5. ERGO, the capitalists are beaten at their own game and whole world turns >into one big socialist co-op. Q.E.D. > >however, since co-ops have not conquered the world and since i haven't >become rich and famous for my brilliant idea, then there must be something >wrong with it. > >what is that? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
At 02:13 PM 12/5/00 -0500, you (Barry?) wrote: >Why is it that the Democrats are wishy-washy on Gore, while the >Republicans are hard-core for Bush? perhaps because Gore is such a robot? or because he's so wishy-washy himself, first being a DLC technocrat and then pretending to be an "I'll fight for you!" amalgamation of a late-night TV lawyer ad and an attenuated populist. The latter felt less sincere. GOPsters heard Bush say he was a "compassionate conservative" and said "heh heh, we know what he means." But Democrats saw Gore and said, "yuk, but he's better than the alternative." I don't know how anyone -- even a stone-cold Democrat -- can get _excited_ by the lesser of two evils. At 02:19 PM 12/5/00 -0500, you (Barry?) wrote: >In many ways, it's a regression to the days before the civils/voting >rights acts of the 1960's. shouldn't we also be denouncing Clinton and the DLC in encouraging this trend? And isn't it Gore who led the charge for "welfare reform"? At 02:34 PM 12/5/00 -0500, Louis wrote: >This state of affairs was created by the Democratic Leadership Council. The >DLC was launched by Gore, Clinton and other disciples of New Republic >publisher Marty Peretz shortly after the defeat of Dukakis. It was seen as >a way to capture the presidency by going after the Republican Party's base >of white middle-class suburbanites. according to Christopher Hitchens (a reliable source though not a reliable thinker), the DLC started earlier, as the "Democrats for Nixon." Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Django + Grappelli
Hey, I get my best drugs from the FBI itself. >Do you want to FBI looking at you for drugs as well as politics? --jks > >> >>At 11:49 AM 12/5/00 +0200, you wrote: >>>Jim Devine wrote: >>> >>>hey, what's wrong with Marilyn Manson? or 'N Sync? or Pauly Shore? Do you >>>want to step _outside_ and say that? >>> >>>= >>> >>>Actually, Jim, it could have been a lot worse. Until your recent recantation >>>it looked like your Christmas stocking filler was going to be Paul Krugman's >>>Greatest Hits. >> >>do you mean hits as in "hits from a bong"? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
>So where is your evidence of any even incipient rightward shift among Dems >on immigration issues. In the last four years, especially, as the results >of the latino electoral mobilization of 1996 was fully appreciated, the Dems >have been moving in a MORE pro-immigrant stance. > >-- Nathan Newman Actually both parties have eased up on anti-immigration rhetoric over the past 5 years or so. I suspect that this is a function of a tight job market that requires a steady inflow of labor, either legal and skilled or illegal and unskilled. My reference to Buchanan was of an entirely hypothetical nature. It presupposes an extremely nasty polarization in the USA that is fueled to some extent by xenophobia. We know from experience that Clinton is not above pandering to racial hysteria as evidenced in his Sister Souljah performance and putting in an appearance at the Ricky Rector execution. If and when objective conditions foment a Buchanan candidacy, I would expect the Democrats to run somebody who has an abysmal position on immigration and all the rest of it. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: Racial Blind Spot Continues toAfflictGreens
Nathan Newman wrote: >When folks spend more time criticizing the Dems than talking about the >outrages of the GOP, you are choosing sides and the wrong one. I'll be very interested to see how much an issue of this the Dems make going forward, in future elections. Gore sent Jesse Jackson home from Florida, didn't he? Doug
Business thoroughly sound
Stocks added to strong gains in late afternoon trading on Tuesday, pushed upward by speculation that the U.S. central bank may consider cutting interest rates and the battle for the White House is nearing a conclusion. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Tuesday the U.S. central bank must be alert to the risks of a sharp economic slowdown, signaling he may be willing to contemplate interest rate cuts before too long. Shares of managed care companies shot up Tuesday along with the broader stock market as investors anticipated a likely Republican victory in the White House that may spell relief for HMO reform in Washington. Orders for new goods from U.S. factories plummeted in October, reflecting weakened demand in most key sectors, the government said on Tuesday in a report signaling a slowing in the world's strongest economy. The global economy looks set for solid growth in the coming years as technological advances and globalization have helped boost growth prospects, the World Bank said in a report released on Tuesday. Business is always thoroughly sound and the campaign in full swing, until suddenly the debacle takes place. Tom Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant Bowen Island, BC
Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
- Original Message - From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I expect that as the social and economic crisis of late capitalism deepens, >the Republican Party will continue to shift to the right. Despite Bush's >minstrel show at the convention, the Republican Party ruled Texas with a >racist iron fist. When this party shifts to the right, so will the >Democrats. This means that if the Republicans run a figure like Pat >Buchanan at some point, the Democrats will run somebody opposed to >immigration as well but without the creepy rhetoric, just as Tony Blair >does today in Great Britain. It's this kind of comment, unsupported by any facts, that makes your whole ideological point seem so empty and wrong-headed. One of the areas where the Democrats have clearly and demonstrably moved towards a more progressive position in the last fifteen years is on immigration. Back in 1986, the Democratic leadership supported the imposition of employer sanctions and other retreats from the 1965 more open immigration position. But when Prop 187 came in California, the official Democratic Party position and almost every major Democratic position was to oppose it. Softening or repeal of anti-immigrant sanctions, restoration of welfare for legal immigrants, and broad-based amnesty for large classes of undocumented immigrants are supported by the top leadership of the Dems, including Clinton. The Dems had a real "Buchanan" wing around conservative union folks a decade ago; that has largely shrunk to a few nuts like the wacko from Youngstown Ohio who is moving towards joining the GOP. Whole state Dem party apparatuses as in California are controlled largely by latino and pro-immigrant allies, with large numbers of the top elected state leadership, including Lieutenant Governor, speakers of the assembly, and chairmanships held by pro-immigrant latinos. One of the bigger wins for unions in the last couple of years from the NLRB was the firm declaration that undocumented workers have protection under labor laws. So where is your evidence of any even incipient rightward shift among Dems on immigration issues. In the last four years, especially, as the results of the latino electoral mobilization of 1996 was fully appreciated, the Dems have been moving in a MORE pro-immigrant stance. -- Nathan Newman
Re: depressions
Jim Devine wrote: >Tom wrote: >>Somewhere in vol. III of Capital (I haven't been able to track down the >>location), Marx criticized those vulgar political economists who become so >>enamored of the idea of interest-bearing capital that they even proclaim >>wages as a form of interest on the labourer's "capital". Gary Becker, eat >>your heart out. > >in the International Publishers' paperback edition of volume III, it's on >page 465-6. Marx provides quite a relevant critique of those who seen >labor-power as a kind of "capital" that pays "interest" to its owner (the >worker). Becker was obsolete before he wrote. Thanks. The passage reads: "instead of explaining the expansion of capital on the basis of the exploitation of labour-power, the matter is reversed and the productivity of labour-power is explained by attributing this mystical quality of interest-bearing capital to labour-power itself. . . Unfortunately two disagreeably frustrating facts mar this thoughtless conception. In the first place, the labourer must work in order to obtain this interest. In the second place, he cannot transform the capital-value of his labour-power into cash by transferring it. . ." >>The identity of surplus-value and surplus-labour imposes a qualitative >>limit upon the accumulation of capital. This consists of the *total >>working-day*, and the prevailing development of the productive forces and >>of the population, which limits the number of simultaneously exploitable >>working-days. But if one conceives of surplus-value in the meaningless >>form of interest, the limit is merely quantitative and defies all fantasy. > >I don't get this. It's from vol. III again. Although the "total working day" may be hard to quantify, it has qualitative limits, depending upon definite technical, historical and physiological factors. At some unspecifiable (and malleable) point, increasing the length of the working day won't do any more good because it reduces the productivity of labour below the prevailing average. Similarly, at some unspecifiable point, intensifying the productivity of labour won't do any good because it will devalorize a greater quantity of existing capital than it will produce new surplus-value. Fictitious values allow capital to exceed (on paper) these qualtitative barriers to accumulation -- for a while, but only for a while. >I interpret what's been happening in simpler terms. If given a chance, >bosses will pay workers with promises. If given a chance, they'll break them. > >Since the "market for fictitious human capital" isn't as important as the >stock market for the day-to-day functioning of capitalism, I don't read it >this way. However, if credentialed workers get enough in the way of broken >promises, they might unionize or similar. Here in the US, they sue. I think this gets to the heart of what I'm asking. Is the stock market _really_ more important for the day-to-day functioning of capitalism or is it simply so much easier to quantify and index? The vote-o-matic gives us President Bush and the NASDAQ index shows an 8.5% gain with an hour of trading left. The vote-o-matic chokes on chad. What does the NASDAQ choke on -- options? Is the stock market really more important for the day-to-day functioning of capitalism or has it simply become -- like American elections -- an icon of capitalism as divinely-guided and spontaneously self-correcting? Tom Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant Bowen Island, BC
Credit Unions in Canada
Here is a short overview of credit unions in Canada. More detailed information is available at http://www.fin.gc.ca/toce/2000/ccu_e.html#Overview Cheers, Ken Hanly Overview Canada has a strong credit union movement, which consists of both credit unions and caisses populaires, a form of credit union located predominantly in Quebec. Canada has the world's highest per capita membership in the credit union movement, currently with some 10 million members or about 33 per cent of the population. In 1997, 26 per cent of Canadians used a credit union or caisse populaire as their primary financial institution. The credit union movement has traditionally focused on consumer financial services, and is an important source of innovation and product development. In 1998, the movement accounted for about 12 per cent of the domestic assets of Canada's deposit-taking financial institutions. Although it plays a role in most areas of Canada, the movement is primarily active in Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. In Quebec and Saskatchewan, it accounts for about 40 per cent of market share. In British Columbia, it accounts for about 20 per cent. Credit unions and caisses populaires are an important source of financing for small and medium-sized enterprises. The vast majority of credit unions' loans are under $1 million. This industry is almost exclusively regulated at the provincial level in Canada. However, six provincial credit union centrals have chosen to register under federal legislation, in addition to being regulated provincially. Although most credit unions and caisses populaires rely on retained earnings for capital, legislation in some provinces allows them to issue preferred shares and non-voting shares. Canada's credit unions and caisses populaires play an important international role by providing technical expertise to developing credit union movements around the world.
Re: co-ops
Norm, the paying field is not level. We have a huge structure of corporate law and a network of interlocking financial and other institutions based on corporate (and private individual) ownership as a fundamental business of enterprise organization. Form of business organization do not operate ina vaccum. This an error or illusion prompted by overdoses of neoclassical economics. Read Keynes, Veblen, Schumpter, Hayek, Marx, and other institutionalists who do political economya nd emphasize the sociological embeddedness of economic transations. Example. My boss was telling me about how her old law firm used to have Playboy as a client; she'd do a lot of interesting first amendment work when she was in private practice. I asked, did they still have them? No. Why not? Changed firms. Why? Was it because there was a better, cheaper, more efficient, etc. firm? No. I bet you can fill in the answer. The general counel of Playboy retired; a new one stepped in, and he had his own friends from law school and long association who were at a different (probably no worse and no better) firm. Guess who got the account? Point of this: you have to see the economy as a sociological process, --jks > > >KH: it was not long ago that co-operative housing was funded by both >provincial and federal government. While there were some ridiculous >restrictions a group of which I was president were able to get financing >at >below market rates. In exchange we made some of our units available to the >local housing authority for public housing. > >-- > >for reasons i cited in an earlier post, i don't see why co-ops can't stand >on a level playing field and out-perform profit businesses and therefore i >don't see why they need special govt. consideration for anything except for >special services, e.g., handicapped people. > >norm > _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
>A comment - has anybody met/seen/talked with/heard or heard of a >single Republican who doesn't stand solidly on Bush's side in this >dispute? > >Why is it that the Democrats are wishy-washy on Gore, while the >Republicans are hard-core for Bush? > >Perhaps they have a clearer vision. > > >Barry The Democratic Party essentially believes in nothing except winning office, so why would it be capable of galvanizing a nonexistent base? This state of affairs was created by the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC was launched by Gore, Clinton and other disciples of New Republic publisher Marty Peretz shortly after the defeat of Dukakis. It was seen as a way to capture the presidency by going after the Republican Party's base of white middle-class suburbanites. It calculated that Republicanism minus the reactionary social message would appeal to this sector. Clearly this is what accounts for Clinton's success. However, by following this road it cut itself off from those elements of society who were capable of acting in an energized fashion: blacks, students, sections of the labor movement, etc. It probably would have succeeded in winning the last election if Gore had not been so inept and unattractive. Black votes automatically go to the Democrat, it seems. I expect that as the social and economic crisis of late capitalism deepens, the Republican Party will continue to shift to the right. Despite Bush's minstrel show at the convention, the Republican Party ruled Texas with a racist iron fist. When this party shifts to the right, so will the Democrats. This means that if the Republicans run a figure like Pat Buchanan at some point, the Democrats will run somebody opposed to immigration as well but without the creepy rhetoric, just as Tony Blair does today in Great Britain. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: co-ops
You begin to see what I mean about collective action problems? Also, the CUs have to be big enough. ALso, they have to look out for the good of their depositors, which means they can't especially favor coops if a coop is not competitive . . . . --jks >justin: Indeed, if the usual studies are correct, co-ops are as efficient >or >more so than capitalist enterprise, and no less productive or profitable. >So >if lenders make decisions solely on those basis, they should not >discriminate >against co-ops. That does not mean they do make such decisions. > >norm: amendment to my last post. the co-op CUs lend to the other co-ops so >there is no discrimination. the co-ops supply each other. > >follows even more so now that co-ops conquer the world unless the world >legal systems prevent that. > >norm > _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
co-ops
KH: it was not long ago that co-operative housing was funded by both provincial and federal government. While there were some ridiculous restrictions a group of which I was president were able to get financing at below market rates. In exchange we made some of our units available to the local housing authority for public housing. -- for reasons i cited in an earlier post, i don't see why co-ops can't stand on a level playing field and out-perform profit businesses and therefore i don't see why they need special govt. consideration for anything except for special services, e.g., handicapped people. norm
Re: co-ops
The short version of my own answer (which I am sending you) is that there are collective acion problem in getting this started, that it would take powerful political actors like unions and ultimately the government to get a mass coop movement off the ground. The standard right wing answer, that coops are less efficient, is demonstrably false. --jks > >thank you for your valuable addition to the co-op discussion. all kinds of >cooperatives are welcome, including industrials. > >seems to me that co-ops are an ideal way for the socialists and their >suffering proletariat to conquer the world. > > >assumption: no legal impediments for co-ops of any type. > >then, > >1. co-ops extract less surplus value for investments than profit >businesses, therefore they can offer better wages and lower prices. > >2. with higher wages and lower prices, they attract better people, sales >expand and they use the surplus value to grow larger. > >3. with better people, some of these employees make competitive >innovations/inventions using their co-op surplus value to keep up with the >innovations of profit businesses. > >4. with larger co-ops they buy more economically (economies of scale) to >reduce unit costs and prices, increase wages, increase co-op surplus and >expand indefinitely. > >5. ERGO, the capitalists are beaten at their own game and whole world >turns >into one big socialist co-op. Q.E.D. > >however, since co-ops have not conquered the world and since i haven't >become rich and famous for my brilliant idea, then there must be something >wrong with it. > >what is that? > >norm > > > > > >-Original Message- >From: Ken Hanly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] >Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 10:05 PM >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: [PEN-L:5554] Re: Re: co-ops > > >I missed the earlier part of this discussion. You must be talkiing of some >type of production co-op. THere are co-operative financial institutions: >credit unions, or caisse populaires. There are retail co-ops, agricultural >marketing co-ops, dairy co-ops, housing co-oops and on and on. Go to any >small town near where I am and the main financial institution will not be a >bank but a credit union. The main or only grocery store in town will be a >co-op. I belong to four retail co-ops and two credit unions. Our local >credit union amalgamated with two others. THe growth increases our >advantages rather than losing them. We now have 24 hour no fee access to an >ATM rather than paying 50 cents for each transaction formerly. It may be >that some very large urban credit unions lose a lot of advantages of >smaller >credit unions I couldn't say. But if they do why would they continue >growing? > Cheers. Ken Hanly >- Original Message - >From: Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 1:33 PM >Subject: [PEN-L:5506] Re: co-ops > > > > At 01:55 PM 12/4/00 -0500, you wrote: > > >if co-ops can successfully give people what they want at a price that > > >excludes "surplus value", then why haven't they become a major factor >in > > >republican-capitalist societies? > > > > there are at least two reasons: > > > > (1) if they grow, they lose most or all of their advantages; > > > > (2) banks won't lend to them, except at higher interest rates. > > > > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine > > > _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
For those who don't think that the dispute in Florida is a big deal, consider this: Aside from Bush getting the presidency, we are now (if things go as I predict) going to see: Widespread voting abuse conducted by a party, sufficient to alter a national election. The campaign co-chair rushing to certify an election, and then claiming that the election can't be altered after it was certified. A candidate's brother and the legislature openly discussing the idea of just declaring a winner, and disenfranshising the electorate of a state. And the idea that these abuses deserve a thorough investigation going straight down the tube (unless you think that the GOP will investigate them). In many ways, it's a regression to the days before the civils/voting rights acts of the 1960's. Barry
Veblen
but these minor character defects pale in a man so brilliant that he could envision a flawless engineering meritocracy ruling the world in the public interest. of course in his farsightedness he would not have missed ensconsing rocket engineers as the elite among the elite! norm --- rob says: After all, this was the bloke who: - called churches 'retail outlets'; - discerned a society in which it was honourable to win wealth by force and dignified gratuitously to flaunt that wealth; - noted that invention becomes the mother of necessity by way of competitive emulation; - saw in the businessman a saboteur bent on extracting value by creating disruption; - perceived that the making of things and the accumulation of money are anathema to each other; and ... - predicted that our predatory order must either culminate in a deadly war of all against all or be transformed into one controlled by the actual makers of things. I suppose it's all been true since the days of pay-as-you-go indulgences, Colombuses, Dutch tulips, privateers on Spanish Mains and Hundred Years' Wars, but here we sit, amidst our Praise The Lord 'ministries', our Donalds and Ivanas, our NASDAQs and fake Calvin Kleins, our Bill Gateses, our desolate Flints, and our Euro-American trade wars, eh? Cheers, Rob.
Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
A comment - has anybody met/seen/talked with/heard or heard of a single Republican who doesn't stand solidly on Bush's side in this dispute? Why is it that the Democrats are wishy-washy on Gore, while the Republicans are hard-core for Bush? Perhaps they have a clearer vision. Barry
Re: Re: Re: Open Letter to Readers Of Kolakowski
Oh, I like Elster a lot. It's just that he's no scholar in the sense that Kolakowski is. Elster has a new book out on self-binding, the latest installment in what has been his best work in any case. I haven't read it, but it is called Ulysses Unbound. --jks > >>Elster can't lay a hand on Kolokowski as a scholar or an interpreter of >>Marx: K's readings are always possible, while Elsters' are often just >>obtuse or perverse. On the other side, Elster isn't anti-Marxist; he >>wasn't trying to construct a tombstone, but to do develop and reconstitute >>the tradition. --jks > >Elster does some good social science (game theory, traditions, etc.), as >long as he stays away from interpreting Marx. BTW, it's interesting that he >was cited right at the start of Oliver Williamson's little essay on the New >Institutional Economics in the recent JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE. > >Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine > _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Re: GOP vs Dem Behavior (e.g., voting)
MK: I disagree. I think most folks take the outrages of the GOP for granted. They are shameless in their shamefulness. Michael K. Yes, they are. But it doesn't seem to hurt them. Can you imagine the Democrats successfully doing to Bush what was done to Clinton? For example, a la Whitewater: Having a leftist civil servant accuse Bush of crimes while governor of Texas. Having the Democrats successfully make this a federal issue. Having the Democrats in Congress get a Democratic law firm to investigate, which clears Bush of any criminal involvement (a la Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro). Continuing the investigation regardless, getting a Democrat appointed by the GOP AG as a special prosecutor. When the special prosecutor clears Bush, successfully getting him replaced with another Democrat, and proceeding with the investigation. Keeping the investigation going for six more years. I can't. A year ago, I believed the story that the GOP's whacko behavior was leading to their political destruction. Now, I don't believe that that's so (or at least, that it will do so before they do far more damage). Barry
Re: Re: Django + Grappelli
Do you want to FBI looking at you for drugs as well as politics? --jks > >At 11:49 AM 12/5/00 +0200, you wrote: >>Jim Devine wrote: >> >>hey, what's wrong with Marilyn Manson? or 'N Sync? or Pauly Shore? Do you >>want to step _outside_ and say that? >> >>= >> >>Actually, Jim, it could have been a lot worse. Until your recent >>recantation >>it looked like your Christmas stocking filler was going to be Paul >>Krugman's >>Greatest Hits. > >do you mean hits as in "hits from a bong"? > >Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine > _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Comment on Credit Unions from Quebec...
This is from Eric Pineault in Quebec. He is not on the list so I am forwarding it on his behalf. His remarks re treatment of workers, cutbacks, etc. might apply to larger credit unions here as well but I don't know. When our local credit unions merged there was no cutback in staff but perhaps employment will dwindle by attritution. I was at a conference on ethics and globalisation a couple of years ago and a representative from one of the big banks, I forget which one, claimed the company had decided against letting anyone go while other banks were slashing staff..they cut back by attrition. She claimed this was much better for employee morale and performance and did not hurt the bottom line at all. If anything they did better than competitors... CHeers, Ken Hanly credit unions in Québec, unified in a huge federation (Desjardins) have become one of the province's largest financial institutions and were the first to integrate completely financial services, ie insurance (life, car, home), long term investment and traditionnal banking, since they were not subject to the same restrictions of "compartmentalization" as were the banks until the nineties. They also were instrumental in the development of an electronic purchase system called "direct access" which uses atm cards in reatil stores. And they are very aggressive players in the fiscally subsidized "registered retirement savings fund" boom during the nineties, they where among the first to suggest to their costumers (oops "members") that they should borrow to buy their RRSP accounts. (So they can make money on interest and on brokering fess). The money they make is ideally redistributed to all members. actually it gets sucked up in the big salaries that pay themselves the top executives of the movement's bureaucracy. Today the federation is united in a holding euphemistically called a "movement" which includes participation in a for profit bank (the laurentian) and other for profit enteprise. It has downsized and flexiblized its workers like everybody else in the financial sector and has even in the eigthies tried some union busting among some of its employees, all the while clamouring about cooperative values. Finally a more left leaning type of credit union, labour union credit unions, have tried to keep out of Desjardins's grasp but have been sucked in this year, they will most probably loose their independance and capacity to fund alternative projects. sorry about the english my first language is french. - Original Message - From: "Ken Hanly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: mardi 5 décembre 2000 11:47 Subject: Re: Re: co-ops
Re: Re: unmet needs
I don't see this. Why does it diminish my quality of living as a lover of seminbars that there are opportunities as a listener to symphonies? And while choosing may be hard, and and the hardness a disvalue, why is it an improvement to say, No More Seminars? There, now you don't have to choose! I agree taht there is no single dimension on which to measure standards of living or even the overall goodness of life. > > > >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/05/00 11:07AM >>> >Jon Elster made this sort of point. It's fair enough, but it just shows >that >in rich society with a profusion of needs, we need to make choices. Is that >so bad? > >(( > >CB: The claim is not that it is so bad. It is that there are diminishing >returns to the quality of living of individuals from your standard of ever >increasing the number of needs in society as a whole. If I have to choose >between needs, then the total amount of needs in society being great does >not benefit me. And no, I don't think of the opportunity and the >REQUIREMENT that I choose as a sign of my freedom. > _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
re: depressions (and needs)
Michael Perelman wrote:
>I tried to tell the story of the Great Depression of the late 19th century
in my
>book, End of Economics. Not only did the Depression occur in the way Jim
cited
>Doug Dowd, but most of the leading economists of the time in the United States
>explicitly recognized that reality.
Right. And it's pretty much Michael's story of the late 19th century, from
a piece I came across online, that I had in mind. See:
Marx, Devalorization, and the Theory of Value
http://www.ucm.es/wwwboard/bas/messages/223.htm
also, more specifically:
Devalorization, Crises, and Capital Accumulation in the Late Nineteenth
Century
United States
http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/econ-value/files/96sessions.txt
I was also thinking of an intriguing expression -- "the left-wing of
devalorization" -- used by my long ago Cazadero camp-mate, Loren Goldner, to
refer to proponents of Keynesian welfare state policies. Goldner used the
expression polemically but his usage got me to thinking about its deeper
implications for crisis theory. If we think of welfare statism as the
"left-wing of devalorization", might not we think of NAIRU era labour
supply-side policies as the "right-wing of 'left-wing' devalorization".
In the second piece, Michael refers to the post-civil-war overinvestment in
fixed capital. To me the striking parallel in the more recent period is the
post-WW II overinvestment in educational credentials, which incidentally
shifted from social overinvestment in the 1960-1970s ("do not fold spindle
or mutilate") to competitive private overinvestment in the 1980s-1990s (the
pursuit of marketable skills). And, yes, Veblen has an uncanny contemporary
relevance, here.
Often when people talk about the historical composition of "needs", they
have in mind simply an enlarging absolute bundle of commodities. But what
about the _specificity_ of many of those needs to labour market entry and
participation? Are life-long learning, home offices, dressing for success,
UMC (upwardly mobile copulation), and owning a car to commute to work final
consumption goods or a subtle repackaging and "putting out" of the more
highly competitive (and less profitable) means of production? Immiseration
may thus be conceived of as not just relative to other people's consumption
-- let alone some absolute standard of subsistence -- but also as relating
to the mix of individually optional and objectively compulsory
(conspicuous?) items of consumption.
If anyone has the slightest clue what I'm rambling on about, I'd appreciate
feedback. I sense that what I'm saying is at the margin of comprehensibility
and hence hard to articulate. The best I can do is pile up metaphors in the
hope that they come crashing down in the right direction. What I'm getting
at is a sense in which "labour" in the late 20th century has come to display
characteristics more or less specific to "capital" in the late 19th -- not a
physical, but a social "cyborganization".
Tom Walker
Sandwichman and Deconsultant
Bowen Island, BC
co-ops
justin: Indeed, if the usual studies are correct, co-ops are as efficient or more so than capitalist enterprise, and no less productive or profitable. So if lenders make decisions solely on those basis, they should not discriminate against co-ops. That does not mean they do make such decisions. norm: amendment to my last post. the co-op CUs lend to the other co-ops so there is no discrimination. the co-ops supply each other. follows even more so now that co-ops conquer the world unless the world legal systems prevent that. norm
forwarded from eric pine
credit unions in Québec, unified in a huge federation (Desjardins) have become one of the province's largest financial institutions and were the first to integrate completely financial services, ie insurance (life, car, home), long term investment and traditionnal banking, since they were not subject to the same restrictions of "compartmentalization" as were the banks until the nineties. They also were instrumental in the development of an electronic purchase system called "direct access" which uses atm cards in reatil stores. And they are very aggressive players in the fiscally subsidized "registered retirement savings fund" boom during the nineties, they where among the first to suggest to their costumers (oops "members") that they should borrow to buy their RRSP accounts. (So they can make money on interest and on brokering fess). The money they make is ideally redistributed to all members. actually it gets sucked up in the big salaries that pay themselves the top executives of the movement's bureaucracy. Today the federation is united in a holding euphemistically called a "movement" which includes participation in a for profit bank (the laurentian) and other for profit enteprise. It has downsized and flexiblized its workers like everybody else in the financial sector and has even in the eigthies tried some union busting among some of its employees, all the while clamouring about cooperative values. Finally a more left leaning type of credit union, labour union credit unions, have tried to keep out of Desjardins's grasp but have been sucked in this year, they will most probably loose their independance and capacity to fund alternative projects. sorry about the english my first language is french. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
RE: Re: Re: co-ops
don't understand why this is a Constitutional crisis worthy of the High-9. something in the Constitution that prevents co-ops? maybe i need a legal lesson in "legal forms of business enterprise". norm -Original Message- From: Jim Devine [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 4:51 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:5537] Re: Re: co-ops At 01:20 PM 12/4/00 -0800, you wrote: >A case hit the Supreme Court a couple years ago in which the banks tried to >curtail the credit unions. didn't they succeed? this is different though, since they were trying to squish their competitors rather than objecting to an organizational form of the potential borrowers. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: "Now instead we have human rights"
I just finished reading Garrett, Laurie. 2000. Betrayal of Trust (NY: Hyperion). She gives an excellent critique of Russian health. The book is devoted to the history of the rise and fall of public health. A central thesis is that capitalism is putting excessive attention to the delivery of private health relative to public health, which is in steep decline throughout the world. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
IMF to Turkey: "move faster with privatization"
NY Times, December 5, 2000 Turkey Grapples With a Severe Financial Crisis By DOUGLAS FRANTZ ISTANBUL, Dec. 4 - Confronting a plunging stock market, stratospheric overnight interest rates and protests in the street by teachers and hospital workers, the Turkish government struggled today to find a way to deal with a burgeoning financial crisis with political overtones. Treasury officials met in Ankara with a team from the International Monetary Fund to discuss conditions for an emergency loan to alleviate the immediate crisis, but long-term structural solutions like banking reform and increased privatization looked tougher to work out. The signs of economic trouble have intensified in recent days as concerns deepened that the government has not done enough to fight inflation, revamp its troubled banks and sell state enterprises. "This started as a short-term liquidity crisis," said Burak Akbulut, an analyst with Bayindir Securities, "and it has turned into a crisis of confidence in the government's ability to reform the economic structure of the country." The financial crisis is straining Turkey's coalition government as officials deal with a potential problem in relations with the European Union that could further shake confidence in the country's economy. When European Union leaders meet in Nice later this week, they are expected to debate demands by Greece that Turkey resolve disputes over the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus and some Aegean islets as part of its bid for membership in the organization. There was word late today of a possible compromise among European foreign ministers in Brussels, but there was no certainty that Turkey's fractious leadership would accept anything short of removing the questions of Cyprus and the Aegean from the membership criteria. On the economic front, the Turkish government and the I.M.F. sought to calm the turmoil. The Turkish treasury said there was no need to change the basic economic plan. I.M.F. officials in Washington said over the weekend that the agency would recommend quick approval of a loan, but cautioned that Turkey would have to take hard steps to strengthen its economy and its banking system. The reassurances and the start of special talks with the I.M.F. did not stop the Istanbul Stock Exchange's main index from dropping 8.12 percent today, to 7,329.61. Shares have lost 43 percent of their value over the last two weeks and, year to date, more than 60 percent in dollar terms. There was little sign today of a halt in the market's plunge. The depth and duration of the financial crisis remain unclear. There were no signs of panic among the people, who are accustomed to economic and political turbulence. But even savvy investors seemed to be pinning their hopes on the I.M.F.'s coming through with an emergency loan quickly, an uncertain prospect. News reports and rumors in financial circles here predicted that the I.M.F. was on the verge of pumping $2 billion to $4 billion into the economy. But a spokeswoman for the I.M.F. in Washington, Constance Lotze, said in a telephone interview that no decision was expected until after the meetings with Turkish officials end in 10 days. She also said it was uncertain that the I.M.F. board would approve more money before its meeting on Dec. 21. The new round of troubles started with anxiety about the solvency of Turkey's midsize banks. The government is investigating some of the 10 banks already in receivership on suspicion of corruption, and more banks may be taken over. Healthy banks cut credit lines to the suspect institutions last week, starving the economy for cash and pushing up overnight interest rates into four digits. The overnight interest rates - what banks charge their best customers, usually companies and other banks, for short-term borrowing - while staggeringly high, do not pose a financial risk on the basis of one night. But dangers increase if the rates remain high for an extended period. Last week, Turkey's central bank added about $6 billion to the financial system to meet the demand for cash and to bring down rates, violating an agreement it had with the I.M.F. to let the Turkish lira float against a basket of dollars and euros. When the central bank halted the cash infusions today, the overnight rate shot up again, touching 1,950 percent before settling at an average of more than 1,000 percent. The cash squeeze is just one of the challenges impeding the government's 11-month effort to bring inflation under control and get Turkey's economy in line with those of advanced industrial nations. The effort was part of an economic overhaul required by the I.M.F. in exchange for a $3.7 billion loan package. Turkey's currency has hardly been stable. The lira rose slightly today, settling in New York trading at a rate of 681,675 to the dollar. In the last six months, its value has declined roughly 10 percent. The government managed last month to reduce consumer inflation to 44 percent
co-ops
thank you for your valuable addition to the co-op discussion. all kinds of cooperatives are welcome, including industrials. seems to me that co-ops are an ideal way for the socialists and their suffering proletariat to conquer the world. assumption: no legal impediments for co-ops of any type. then, 1. co-ops extract less surplus value for investments than profit businesses, therefore they can offer better wages and lower prices. 2. with higher wages and lower prices, they attract better people, sales expand and they use the surplus value to grow larger. 3. with better people, some of these employees make competitive innovations/inventions using their co-op surplus value to keep up with the innovations of profit businesses. 4. with larger co-ops they buy more economically (economies of scale) to reduce unit costs and prices, increase wages, increase co-op surplus and expand indefinitely. 5. ERGO, the capitalists are beaten at their own game and whole world turns into one big socialist co-op. Q.E.D. however, since co-ops have not conquered the world and since i haven't become rich and famous for my brilliant idea, then there must be something wrong with it. what is that? norm -Original Message- From: Ken Hanly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 10:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:5554] Re: Re: co-ops I missed the earlier part of this discussion. You must be talkiing of some type of production co-op. THere are co-operative financial institutions: credit unions, or caisse populaires. There are retail co-ops, agricultural marketing co-ops, dairy co-ops, housing co-oops and on and on. Go to any small town near where I am and the main financial institution will not be a bank but a credit union. The main or only grocery store in town will be a co-op. I belong to four retail co-ops and two credit unions. Our local credit union amalgamated with two others. THe growth increases our advantages rather than losing them. We now have 24 hour no fee access to an ATM rather than paying 50 cents for each transaction formerly. It may be that some very large urban credit unions lose a lot of advantages of smaller credit unions I couldn't say. But if they do why would they continue growing? Cheers. Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 1:33 PM Subject: [PEN-L:5506] Re: co-ops > At 01:55 PM 12/4/00 -0500, you wrote: > >if co-ops can successfully give people what they want at a price that > >excludes "surplus value", then why haven't they become a major factor in > >republican-capitalist societies? > > there are at least two reasons: > > (1) if they grow, they lose most or all of their advantages; > > (2) banks won't lend to them, except at higher interest rates. > > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine >
Re: PEN-L digest 839
For those who keep sending images - I have never seen an image come through successfully, on any of the three mail lists that I'm on. It always comes through as a huge block of gibberish. Barry
Re: Re: depressions
Tom wrote: >What if we push the preceding argument "Beyond Capital" (so to speak) to >consider the depreciation of wage labour on more or less the same basis? >Somewhere in vol. III of Capital (I haven't been able to track down the >location), Marx criticized those vulgar political economists who become so >enamored of the idea of interest-bearing capital that they even proclaim >wages as a form of interest on the labourer's "capital". Gary Becker, eat >your heart out. in the International Publishers' paperback edition of volume III, it's on page 465-6. Marx provides quite a relevant critique of those who seen labor-power as a kind of "capital" that pays "interest" to its owner (the worker). Becker was obsolete before he wrote. >But couldn't we imagine that by some time around the third quarter of the >twentieth century a considerable portion of employment income in the U.S. >had taken on the characteristics of a legal claim on revenues, backed by >"credentials", similar to what share ownership represents (thereby >anticipating the trend of compensating employees with stock options)? By >analogy, this would give us "fictitious human capital" and we could view the >1973-1992 period as one of shaking out the fictitious human capitals and >concentrating the legal claims on future revenues. Telling the story this >way begins to make 1973-1992 look a bit more like 1873-1897 -- or perhaps I >should say more like its mirror image. I think this makes sense: individual workers do receive promises on the basis of their education, both their credentials & skills. The "capitalized" form of those promises is indeed a kind of "fictitious capital," though I find the phrase "fictitious human capital" to be confusing. As with other promises, a lot of these were violated. A clear case is with those folks in the high-tech sector who were accepting stock options as deferred wages, only to discover that the stock options were worthless. (It's a little like having "frequent flyer miles" (another kind of fictitious capital) from an airline that's gone bust.) Unlike 1873-1897, the 1973-1992 period had clear beneficiaries, i.e., the capitalists who survived the shake-out. In the early period, I can't think of who benefited from the destruction of fictitious capital. Maybe it's because when the stock market goes into panic mode, it has an effect on aggregate demand (sometimes), whereas when bosses break promises, it's business as usual. >The identity of surplus-value and surplus-labour imposes a qualitative >limit upon the accumulation of capital. This consists of the *total >working-day*, and the prevailing development of the productive forces and >of the population, which limits the number of simultaneously exploitable >working-days. But if one conceives of surplus-value in the meaningless >form of interest, the limit ismerely quantitative and defies all fantasy. I don't get this. >That qualitative limit on the accumulation of capital is also, *pari >passu*, a limit on the extent to which the worker can participate as a >"stake holder" in his/her self-exploitation. The problem with the analogy >between fictitious capital and fictitious human capital is, of course, >that the owners of human capital also have to supply labour-power in order >to receive their "interest payments". This might explain why hours worked >have become unhinged from productivity considerations over the last 25 >years or so -- people are getting paid for "putting in hours", not for >performing work. I interpret what's been happening in simpler terms. If given a chance, bosses will pay workers with promises. If given a chance, they'll break them. >Are we headed for a crash? I'll be provocative here: I don't think it >matters. At this point it seems to me that the end of the recent boom will >have immense social and political consequences. That is to say, a "soft >landing" may be the worst thing that could happen to the "new economy" -- >just as a stalemate was the worst thing that could happen to the two-party >political monopoly. My inclination is to expect a lull that after a while >will begin to feel uncomfortably entrenched. Since the "market for fictitious human capital" isn't as important as the stock market for the day-to-day functioning of capitalism, I don't read it this way. However, if credentialed workers get enough in the way of broken promises, they might unionize or similar. Here in the US, they sue. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: unmet needs
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/05/00 11:07AM >>> Jon Elster made this sort of point. It's fair enough, but it just shows that in rich society with a profusion of needs, we need to make choices. Is that so bad? (( CB: The claim is not that it is so bad. It is that there are diminishing returns to the quality of living of individuals from your standard of ever increasing the number of needs in society as a whole. If I have to choose between needs, then the total amount of needs in society being great does not benefit me. And no, I don't think of the opportunity and the REQUIREMENT that I choose as a sign of my freedom. (( It will be nice when the hard choice we must make is whether to devote ourselves to the symphony or the seminar rather than to paying rent or food! --jks ((( CB: The Marxist position is that humans are not truly free unless such needs as shelter or food , physiological necessities, are automatically met. Fulfillment of these necessities is a premise for freedom. Freedom is the mastery of necessity. >CB: On a related topic, another reason that the notion that more and more >needs, in an ever growing way like GDP, is not necessarily only standard to >measure improvement of standard of living: the fulfillment or consumption >of many needs takes long tracks of time. It takes time to listen to a >symphony, attend a party , dance and sing, or to go fishing, to build a >car, or to eat a decent meal, or to enjoy a beautiful sunset, or to grow a >garden , to play games in sports, to learn a science, to care for a child. >There is only so much time in a day or a lifetime. With an evergrowing , >unlimited proliferation of needs, eventually there will not be enough time >to properly consume all the needs except in some instantaneous, empty >sense: there will only be fast foods, not slow feastly dinners. >Instantaneous consumption is not necessarily the highest quality >consumption. The total quantity of needs can affect the individual >qualitity of needs. > _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Re: co-ops
Credit Unions in Canada were also restricted but I do not know the details...but banks also have tried to keep trust companies from banking functions,, unsuccesssfully I gather. If there is strong enough political pressure governments can and have been moved on these matters. Money talks but so do votes. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 3:20 PM Subject: [PEN-L:5532] Re: co-ops > A case hit the Supreme Court a couple years ago in which the banks tried to > curtail the credit unions. > -- > > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Chico, CA 95929 > 530-898-5321 > fax 530-898-5901 >
Re: Re: co-ops
Ken Hanley wrote: >Well, this list strikes me as rather insular. Louis talks about Co-ops in >the same breath with utopian socialism. On the prairies co-ops, credit >unions, etc. are all >around us. They are not failing. One of the things that must not be neglected is the very real value of such experiments that brought tangible improvements to the lives of working people. The problem is not that they didn't work, but rather that they were not answers to the real problem which is who rules the state and therefore has the ability to direct the economy as a whole. St. Petersburg Times, February 13, 1994, Sunday, City Edition WITHOUT SIN: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community By Spencer Klaw Viking, $ 25 UTOPIAN EPISODES: Daily Life in Experimental Colonies Dedicated to Changing the World By Seymour R. Kesten Syracuse University Press, $ 39.95 Reviewed by Delilah Jones In the 19th century the secret to maintaining a society of free love was the manufacture of household goods, and the real shame today is that no one in the 1960s ever really figured that out. Religious and socially inspired utopian experiments were rather common in 19th-century America. There were dozens of them from the 1820s until shortly after the Civil War, including New Harmony, Brook Farm and Icaria. Many of these were not devoted to free love at all , but one of the most famous of them all was: the Oneida community, which produced a wide range of household products in its time and even today remains a name recognized for its fine silverware (as is Amana, a once-successful community, whose name is still known for its refrigerators). Many of these utopian communities were inspired by the ideas of Charles Fourier, a Frenchman who believed that people should be like butterflies - moving from one job to another rather than staying always in the same place - thereby attaining the maximum achievement (because no one would get bored or fall into a rut) - although, frankly, he also believed that a golden age of harmony was approaching in which the sea would lose its saltiness and turn to lemonade, and/or by those of Robert Owen, who was rather more inspired by notions of "enlightened capitalism." Seymour Kesten's rather ploddingly written Utopian Episodes: Daily Life in Experimental Colonies Dedicated to Changing the World covers the history and background of these men and the history of the Utopian movement, noting that it arose as a response to poor social conditions in 19th-century America. During this industrial age, people tended to come down on one of two sides - and still do today - that the troubles of society were due, on the one hand, to the evils of sin, and, on the other, to the evils of poverty, ignorance and inequality. If nothing else is true about Americans, it is that they are attracted by kooks and extremists with solutions to their problems (especially economic woes and psychic agonies). The louder and the kookier they are, the more we seem to like them . My own favorite 19th-century kook has to be John Humphrey Noyes, who founded the Oneida community - which had the good sense to couple free love with the manufacture of silverware and other household goods (including the first Lazy Susan, which was invented at Oneida). The community put into thriving economic play Noyes' theories of complex marriage (which is to say free love among members of the community, provided that Noyes approved), Stirpiculture (a word for human breeding coined by Noyes) and Perfectionism (a 19th-century religious movement that was connected with the Utopian movement). The fascinating rise and fall of the Oneida experiment (which had its genesis in Noyes' conception that God had made all men and women without sin, and therefore nothing that brings pleasure - such as intercourse - can possibly be a sin) is entertainingly narrated by Spencer Klaw in his lively Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community. The Oneidans, for more than 30 years, managed to operate a communal society with thriving businesses and sexual freedom (for its time) and social equality (relatively) for women. Perhaps I like Noyes because he succeeded, and nothing is more attractive than success, or maybe I just like his silverware; but what could be more entertaining to read than the story of a guy who wanted to sleep with any woman he desired - so he invented a religion and a God-given mission that made it not only an okay thing to do, but a moral imperative? Okay, so maybe I don't approve of the fact that he slept with his nieces, but I remain steadfast in my belief that Noyes was right about variety being the path to heaven - and right when he said it was dangerous to get into a rut because the devil will always know where to find you. Movement and variety are the essence of American life. Maybe the reason we like kooks so much is that they manage, somehow, to stick out from among all those freshly scrubbed millions. Louis Proyect
Re: Veblen
At 10:59 AM 12/5/00 +0200, you wrote: > Rick Tilman is another author who has >written a great deal about Veblen, and it's worth checking out his >"Intellectual Consequences of Thorstein Veblen: Unresolved Issues" >(Greenwood Press, 1996) and "Thorstein Veblen and His Critics" (Princeton >UP, 1992), as well as his many articles published in the Journal of Economic >Issues and elsewhere. My dad wrote his senior honors thesis in college (at Yale, in 1935) on Veblen. It's a pretty good short intro to TV's ideas. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Fwd: Can u put this on the list serve?
for those of you near Los Angeles >You are invited to attend a > >LABOR/COMMUNITY FORUM >Featuring the >KOREAN CONFEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS > >Thursday, December 7 >6-8 p.m. > >United Teachers of Los Angeles Building >3303 Wilshire Blvd. (at Berendo) >Room 815 >Los Angeles >(Parking entrance on Berendo, say you're going to a UTLA meeting) > >KCTU has been at the forefront of mobilizing a progressive labor movement in >South Korea, organizing traditionally marginalized workers, leading general >strikes, and influencing public policy. This will be a great opportunity to >meet and talk to the top Organizing Directors of the KCTU as we build >international labor solidarity. > >Co-Sponsored by APALA (Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance), KRC (Korean >Resource Center), KIWA (Korean Immigrant Worker Advocates), and YKU(Young >Koreans United). >For more info, please call Quynh Nguyen at (818)789-1579 > > > >*** > >The UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education email list announces >Labor Center events, LA local actions, events and job openings. If you >would like to be added to or removed from the list, please email >[EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Django + Grappelli
At 11:49 AM 12/5/00 +0200, you wrote: >Jim Devine wrote: > >hey, what's wrong with Marilyn Manson? or 'N Sync? or Pauly Shore? Do you >want to step _outside_ and say that? > >= > >Actually, Jim, it could have been a lot worse. Until your recent recantation >it looked like your Christmas stocking filler was going to be Paul Krugman's >Greatest Hits. do you mean hits as in "hits from a bong"? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Open Letter to Readers Of Kolakowski
>Elster can't lay a hand on Kolokowski as a scholar or an interpreter of >Marx: K's readings are always possible, while Elsters' are often just >obtuse or perverse. On the other side, Elster isn't anti-Marxist; he >wasn't trying to construct a tombstone, but to do develop and reconstitute >the tradition. --jks Elster does some good social science (game theory, traditions, etc.), as long as he stays away from interpreting Marx. BTW, it's interesting that he was cited right at the start of Oliver Williamson's little essay on the New Institutional Economics in the recent JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: RE: Re: co-ops
Well, this list strikes me as rather insular. Louis talks about Co-ops in the same breath with utopian socialism. On the prairies co-ops, credit unions, etc. are all around us. They are not failing. Part of the reason for the plethora of co-ops is that there have been social democratic and/or populist provincial governments committed to them. The party that ruled Saskatchewan for many years and brought in the first North American universal health care system was called the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation..The Regina Manifesto, the party platform for some time, called for the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by a Co-operative Commonwealth. I posted the Manifesto to Pen-L some time ago,. We still have a minister responsible for co-operatives in the Manitoba provincial government. Things have changed for the worse but it was not long ago that co-operative housing was funded by both provincial and federal government. While there were some ridiculous restrictions a group of which I was president were able to get financing at below market rates. In exchange we made some of our units available to the local housing authority for public housing. We had two apartment bldgs and a substantial number of double units plus one special unit for handicapped peoples. The local Conservative MP helped us rather than hindered us . He had a son who was handicapped. Even the local Conservative dominated council did not give us a bad time since construction was almost non=existent and the city had landbanked land they were eager to have developed. So it all depends upon the specific context whether co-ops work. At present in rural Manitoba, banks are losing the battle with Credit Unions. Many banks are just pulling out of smaller towns because there is no profit to be made for them. Customers are then snapped up by local credit unions. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Charles Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 3:02 PM Subject: [PEN-L:5525] RE: Re: co-ops > > > >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/04/00 03:30PM >>> > to CB: can you make a substantiated case for capitalists putting co-ops out > of business? of course one would be for banks to lend at higher interest > rates as JD says. what other destructive mechanisms do they have? > > (( > > CB: Credit unions are coops. Recently there was an effort by big banks to get a federal law passed that would restrict credit unions. > > My parents live in housing structured as a coop. That is rare. But that is only indirect evidence of how big biz may limit the proliferation of the form. >
Re: unmet needs
Jon Elster made this sort of point. It's fair enough, but it just shows that in rich society with a profusion of needs, we need to make choices. Is that so bad? It will be nice when the hard choice we must make is whether to devote ourselves to the symphony or the seminar rather than to paying rent or food! --jks >CB: On a related topic, another reason that the notion that more and more >needs, in an ever growing way like GDP, is not necessarily only standard to >measure improvement of standard of living: the fulfillment or consumption >of many needs takes long tracks of time. It takes time to listen to a >symphony, attend a party , dance and sing, or to go fishing, to build a >car, or to eat a decent meal, or to enjoy a beautiful sunset, or to grow a >garden , to play games in sports, to learn a science, to care for a child. >There is only so much time in a day or a lifetime. With an evergrowing , >unlimited proliferation of needs, eventually there will not be enough time >to properly consume all the needs except in some instantaneous, empty >sense: there will only be fast foods, not slow feastly dinners. >Instantaneous consumption is not necessarily the highest quality >consumption. The total quantity of needs can affect the individual >qualitity of needs. > _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Re: Re: needs
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/05/00 10:30AM >>> Michael P. wrote: >So, Marx, somewhere in the Grundrisse ... uses newspapers, I believe, as >an example of a new need. He never read a modern US newspaper and thus >believed that they could be sources of information and education. It makes more sense to say that newspapers were a new _product_, which may or may not be good. Then, social or economic or psychological conditions might then turn it into a need (something that is necessary to civilized human life). ((( CB: Yes, use-values, new use-values. (( What I found in the GRUNDRISSE was: > The workers should save enough [say the political economists] at the times when business is good to be able more or less to live in the bad times, to endure short time or the lowering of wages. (The wage would then fall even lower.) That is, the demand that they should always hold to a minimum of life's pleasures and make crises easier to bear for the capitalists etc. Maintain themselves as pure labouring machines and as far as possible pay their own wear and tear. Quite apart from the sheer brutalization to which this would lead -- and such a brutalization itself would make it impossible even to strive for wealth in general form, as money, stockpiled money -- (and the worker's participation in the higher, even cultural satisfactions, the agitation for his own interests, newspaper subscriptions, attending lectures, educating his children, developing his taste etc., his only share of civilization which distinguishes him from the slave, is economically only possible by widening the sphere of his pleasures at the times when business is good, where saving is to a certain degree possible), [apart from this,] he would, if he saved his money in a properly ascetic manner and thus heaped up premiums for the lumpenproletariat, pickpockets etc., who would increase in proportion with the demand, he could conserve savings -- if they surpass the piggy-bank amounts of the official savings banks, which pay him a minimum of interest, so that the capitalists can strike high interest rates out of his savings, or the state eats them up, thereby merely increasing the power of his enemies and his own dependence -- conserve his savings and make them fruitful only by putting them into banks etc., so that, afterwards, in times of crisis he loses his deposits, after having in times of prosperity foregone all life's pleasures in order to increase the power of capital; thus has saved in every way for capital, not for himself. < This looks to me as if Marx didn't use the word "needs" in this context, but instead referred to "higher cultural satisfactions." However, I can imagine that the newspapers could be incorporated as part of what he later called the social and historical component of subsistence requirements (needs). But it's not the _needs_ which are (or can be) good, so that "entrepreneurs" should be lauded for creating them. It's the goods themselves. If I remember Bob Rowthorn's essay on Marx's theory of wages correctly, it's the working class' struggle that converts things from being mere goods or luxuries into part of working-class subsistence needs. In that case, it's not the entrepreneurs who should be praised for "creating needs" as much as the working class itself. They can see it as a victory. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
RE: Re: Veblen
Learning. And TV knew a thing or two about depravity. mbs I don't remember where I picked this up, and it may be quite apocryphal, but I always loved it. Supposedly, Veblen's original sub-title (rejected by the publisher) for *The Higher Education in America* was "A Study in Human Depravity." Carrol P.S. Do I have that title right? Or was it "Higher Learning"?
Re: Re: Re: needs
Michael P. wrote: >So, Marx, somewhere in the Grundrisse ... uses newspapers, I believe, as >an example of a new need. He never read a modern US newspaper and thus >believed that they could be sources of information and education. It makes more sense to say that newspapers were a new _product_, which may or may not be good. Then, social or economic or psychological conditions might then turn it into a need (something that is necessary to civilized human life). What I found in the GRUNDRISSE was: > The workers should save enough [say the political economists] at the times when business is good to be able more or less to live in the bad times, to endure short time or the lowering of wages. (The wage would then fall even lower.) That is, the demand that they should always hold to a minimum of life's pleasures and make crises easier to bear for the capitalists etc. Maintain themselves as pure labouring machines and as far as possible pay their own wear and tear. Quite apart from the sheer brutalization to which this would lead -- and such a brutalization itself would make it impossible even to strive for wealth in general form, as money, stockpiled money -- (and the worker's participation in the higher, even cultural satisfactions, the agitation for his own interests, newspaper subscriptions, attending lectures, educating his children, developing his taste etc., his only share of civilization which distinguishes him from the slave, is economically only possible by widening the sphere of his pleasures at the times when business is good, where saving is to a certain degree possible), [apart from this,] he would, if he saved his money in a properly ascetic manner and thus heaped up premiums for the lumpenproletariat, pickpockets etc., who would increase in proportion with the demand, he could conserve savings -- if they surpass the piggy-bank amounts of the official savings banks, which pay him a minimum of interest, so that the capitalists can strike high interest rates out of his savings, or the state eats them up, thereby merely increasing the power of his enemies and his own dependence -- conserve his savings and make them fruitful only by putting them into banks etc., so that, afterwards, in times of crisis he loses his deposits, after having in times of prosperity foregone all life's pleasures in order to increase the power of capital; thus has saved in every way for capital, not for himself. < This looks to me as if Marx didn't use the word "needs" in this context, but instead referred to "higher cultural satisfactions." However, I can imagine that the newspapers could be incorporated as part of what he later called the social and historical component of subsistence requirements (needs). But it's not the _needs_ which are (or can be) good, so that "entrepreneurs" should be lauded for creating them. It's the goods themselves. If I remember Bob Rowthorn's essay on Marx's theory of wages correctly, it's the working class' struggle that converts things from being mere goods or luxuries into part of working-class subsistence needs. In that case, it's not the entrepreneurs who should be praised for "creating needs" as much as the working class itself. They can see it as a victory. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: depressions
G'day again, For those of you who missed Wynne Godley's latest; it's compellingly summarised here. For those of you interested in comparisons between Australia's 'boom' and America's; here 'tis. For those of you who have a view about how legal across-the board import duties would be under WTO and how advisable they'd be as a way to minimise the danger of runaway imports; here's your chance to educate me on the matter. Cheers, Rob. Why the debt binge must stop TIM COLEBATCH *THE (Melbourne) AGE* Tuesday 5 December 2000 >"Freedom of mind requires not only ... the absence of legal constraints >but the presence of alternative thoughts. The most successful tyranny is >not one that uses force to ensure uniformity but the one that removes the >awareness of other possibilities, that makes it inconceivable that other >ways are viable." > >- Allan Bloom,The Closing of the American MindWHEN historians look back on >this chapter of Australia's unfolding story, they will wonder why, what >should have been so obvious at the time, went unnoticed. How did so many >clever, well-meaning people overlook the fatal flaw in Australia's >economic performance? > >How did they let pressure build up until it could escape only by severely >deflating the whole economy, causing massive unemployment and business >collapses? Why did they not see the warning signs earlier, and recast >policy while there was time? > >When Reserve Bank Governor Ian Macfarlane went to Wagga Wagga last Friday >to deliver his "no worries" spiel to Federal Parliament's economics >committee, his statement did not mention Australia's spiralling foreign >liabilities, although they have grown by almost $1billion a week in the >past year to a record $410billion - 64per cent of GDP. Nor did he mention >private debt, although bank lending to the private sector has soared by >$65billion in the past year to $672billion, or more than Australia's >annual output. Nor did he mention that households increased their net >borrowing by $41billion, which the banks in turn are borrowing overseas. > >There was nothing unusual in that. Political correctness, as practised by >ministers, economic bureaucrats and commentators, dictates that you don't >talk about these things unless you have a positive spin to put on them. >You do not admit that they are a serious flaw in Australia's economic >performance. You do not admit that this decade of growth has been financed >by borrowing and selling off assets. And you do not admit that you offer >no solution other than to let them unravel however they will. > >One man who has stared hard into the role of debt in the '90s boom is >former Cambridge economist Professor Wynne Godley, now at the Jerome Levy >Economic Institute in the United States. Godley's focus is on the US, but >his analysis translates directly to the very similar performance of >Australia's economy. > >His latest analysis, "Drowning in debt" (at www.levy.org) makes four key >points about the US boom: > >1. The US expansion in the '90s has been unusually long, but not unusually >fast: its average growth rate of 3.7per cent is only slightly above the >post-war average. Similarly, Australia's average growth rate since 1991 >has been 3.9per cent, just below the 50-year average of 4per cent. > >2. Private sector spending has grown much faster than GDP (4.6per cent in >the US, 4.5per cent in Australia). This has been possible only because the >balance of payments has deteriorated to allow import growth averaging >10.4per cent a year (8.3per cent in Australia). > >3. The private sector has been able to increase spending faster than the >economy is growing only by taking on debt. By 1999 the net flow of credit >was augmenting private disposable income by about 15per cent (11per cent >in Australia). > >4. Net private saving has fallen from a historic average of 3per cent of >disposable income to minus 7per cent by early 2000. (In Australia, the >parallel fall has been far less dramatic: from 7per cent in 1993-94 to >3per cent now.) > >As in Australia, the orthodoxy has replied by arguing that as asset prices >rise, the net worth of households has risen relative to disposable income, >and thus households can afford their increased debt. But Godley points out >the fallacy of this: asset prices are an unstable base for debtors to rely >on. > >"It is income rather than net worth that is ultimately the criterion of >creditworthiness, since in a crisis it may be impossible for everyone to >realise assets simultaneously," he argues. And he might have added a >second limitation: I can't sell your assets to pay my debt. > >The bottom line of his analysis is blunt: the US private sector will not >keep borrowing at this pace. The debt binge must stop, and when it does, >the rush for the exits on financial markets could bring the whole economy >to a stop, plunging the US into a seve
unmet needs
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/04/00 04:53PM >>> At 09:34 PM 12/4/00 +, you wrote: >entrepreneurship =df creation of new needsa nd ways to satisfy them. this is an unconventional definition of entrepreneurship, using an unconventional definition of needs. As I've said, unconventional definitions are fine, as long as you make them clear. I didn't see clear definitions. ((( CB: On a related topic, another reason that the notion that more and more needs, in an ever growing way like GDP, is not necessarily only standard to measure improvement of standard of living: the fulfillment or consumption of many needs takes long tracks of time. It takes time to listen to a symphony, attend a party , dance and sing, or to go fishing, to build a car, or to eat a decent meal, or to enjoy a beautiful sunset, or to grow a garden , to play games in sports, to learn a science, to care for a child. There is only so much time in a day or a lifetime. With an evergrowing , unlimited proliferation of needs, eventually there will not be enough time to properly consume all the needs except in some instantaneous, empty sense: there will only be fast foods, not slow feastly dinners. Instantaneous consumption is not necessarily the highest quality consumption. The total quantity of needs can affect the individual qualitity of needs.
BLS Daily report
BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2000 The Wall Street Journal's "Tracking the Economy" (A15) says that the BLS productivity figure for the third quarter, to be released Wednesday, is likely to be 3.5 percent, according to the Thomson Global Forecast, in comparison to the previous preliminary figure of 3.8 percent. BLS' November unemployment rate, to be released Friday, is expected to be 4.0 percent, compared with the actual figure of 3.9 percent for October. Nonfarm payrolls are projected to have risen 148,000 in November, compared with 137,000 in October. November average hourly earnings, also to be released Friday, are expected to move up 0.3 percent, slightly less than the 0.4 percent increase for October. Business activity in the manufacturing sector contracted at a faster rate in November, falling for the fourth consecutive month and reaching its lowest level of the year, according to a survey by the National Association of Purchasing Managers. NAPM's purchasing manager's index of manufacturing activity slid 0.6 percentage point to 47.7 percent in November, down from the 12-month high of 57.1 percent posted in November 1999. NAPM said a purchasing manager's index below 50 generally shows that the manufacturing economy is contracting, while a number above 50 would show that it is expanding. Analysts said the slowdown in manufacturing activity still is consistent with a "soft landing," and the NAPM index historically has not signaled a recession until it has fallen below 45 percent. ... Manufacturing employment contracted in November, falling 1.9 percentage points to 46 percent as companies that indicated they were maintaining employment levels in October decided to cut jobs in November. The five industries that reported growth in employment during November were instruments and photographic equipment, wood and wood products, electronic components and equipment, food, and chemicals (Daily Labor Report, page A-2; New York Times, Dec. 2, page B1). These are rough times for the nation's old-line manufacturers, who are feeling the sting of higher interest rates, falling domestic demand, and a global economic slowdown. For many construction companies, by contrast, business is better than it has been in months, as developers pour hundreds of millions of dollars into apartment buildings and business construction. The two industries' differing fortunes are complicating efforts to gauge the duration and intensity of the economic slowdown. The National Association of Purchasing Management said its manufacturing index declined for the fourth consecutive month in November, indicating the sector continues to slow significantly. If extended over a year, the data would be consistent with an economy inching up an anemic 1.9 percent. The Commerce Department, by contrast, said that construction spending jumped 0.9 percent in October, to its second highest level on record, suggesting that the sector will offer a sizable boost to overall economic growth. ... (Wall Street Journal, page A2). The combined sales of Detroit-based automakers fell 3.5 percent last month, compared with November of last year. While sales are still at a level that would have been considered very strong until the last 2 years, they have now lagged last year's pace in 6 of the last 7 months -- and much more production capacity is becoming available. General Motors, Ford Motor, and DaimlerChrysler have already responded by eliminating overtime and briefly closing a few factories. Ford and the Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler both announced further temporary closings. ... (New York Times, Dec. 2, page B1) Liberal arts graduates can expect to be more sought after this year and to be offered better salaries, according to the 30th annual recruiting trends survey conducted by the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University. Among the reasons: the earlier-than-predicted retirements of the oldest baby boomers. Also, with the high tech industry booming, employers have changed their attitudes about liberal arts majors. A total of 380 employers primarily in the manufacturing and professional services sectors responded to the survey(USA Today, page 8D). Expressing their growing concerns about the economic outlook, the National Association of Manufacturers officials say they will urge Congress and the new administration to promptly turn their attention to policy initiatives -- including tax cuts -- to keep the economy growing. ... The Federal Reserve should start reducing short-term interest rates to spur growth, the president of the NAM says. The central bank's Federal Open Market Committee generally is expected to remain on the sidelines when it next meets Dec. 19. ... Factory employment losses have totaled 121,000 over the year ended in October, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. ... Higher energy prices and rising interest rates have hit manufacturing harder than some o
Veblen
Arthur K. Davis wrote an article/chapter in a book if I remember the title correctly as *American Radicals* on Veblen. Part of the title of that chapter is "the Marxian Key" or something like that. I have an offprint copy that Art gave me but I don't know if I can find it to give the full and accurate title. It was published in the early 1960s. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Homosexuality and What's in a Name?
Gary MacLennan wrote:
>2. Were there homosexuals back then?
>
>I especially enjoyed the posts around the history of homosexuality
>and homophobia. I am vividly reminded about the first time I used
>the word "homophobia" in a lecture sometime in the early 80s. The
>students stopped me and asked me to explain it. When I said
>"Intolerance of homosexuals" they burst out laughing. It was as if I
>had said to a tiger it was wrong to eat meat. Today of course
>students say, "I am no homophobe but..." and proceed to air some
>foul prejudice.
The feelings often described as homophobic are complex & cannot be
reduced to the dislike of or hatred for actual or imaginary
homosexuals. The feelings seem to be a mixture of the following:
1. Fear of appearing homosexual.
2. Fear of oneself becoming (or turning out to be) homosexual.
3. Fear of being victimized by the homosexual.
1 is quite obvious, in that much of homophobic behaviors originates
in the desire not to appear homosexual -- the desire caused by the
fact that, in this society, to be or to appear homo carries penalties
ranging from mild disapproval to lynching. Since one does not wear
one's sexual preferences (actual or imaginary) on one's sleeve, it
seems to some (especially some young men) that they need to prove
their "normalcy" by creating & oppressing the "abnormals." Because
it is impossible to "prove" one's sexuality once and for all,
homophobic behaviors tend to assume a character of compulsive
repetition that does not achieve its end (= proof of "normalcy").
2 is less obvious, so allow me to quote the late and lamented Quentin
Crisp to illustrate my point: "Mainstream people dislike
homosexuality because they can't help concentrating on what
homosexual men do to one another. And when you contemplate what
people do, you think of yourself doing itThat's the famous joke:
I don't like peas, and I'm glad I don't like them, because if I liked
them, I would eat them, and I would hate them" (_The Celluloid
Closet_, dir. Robert Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman [based upon the work
of film historian Vito Russo _The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in
the Movies_], 1995).
As for 3, it is a common ideological inversion of victims &
victimizers. The oppressed appear as "victimizers" in the eyes of
the oppressors. Gay bashers used to make use of the "homosexual
panic" defense regularly; and the "homosexual panic" defense used to
allow them to avoid legal sanctions against violence. This defense is
still being invoked by the gay bashers today, but nowadays the judges
and/or the juries do not necessarily accept it. This may be properly
called progress, paltry progress as it is.
>But anecdotes apart there is a good deal at stake. I have snipped
>what I think is the crucial line from Lou's post. Phil like the
>fine polemicist that he is went straight to it.
>
>'Odd that they 'lacked the vocabulary and the constructs necessary. . .'
>
>It is my opinion that there can be behaviour, feelings etc without
>words for them. I think that Phil, Yoshie and others border on what
>Bhaskar terms the linguistic fallacy, that is the claim that
>language calls the world/reality into being.
No, I am not arguing for a nominalist or post-structuralist position.
I'm making use of Marx (esp., _Grundrisse_ & _Capital_ Vol. 1), Karl
Polanyi, etc. Recall how Marx uses the term "rational abstraction"
in _Grundrisse_.
The disembedding of the erotic from the rest of social relations &
the creation of "sexuality" & "sexual identities" ("identities" based
upon erotic preferences & orientations, mainly now shaped by the
sex/gender of the object choice) could _not_ have occurred prior to
the rise of capitalism. Consider the "rational abstraction" of
"economy": "[B]efore modern times the forms of [human] livelihood
attracted much less...conscious attention than did most other parts
of...organized existence. In contrast to kinship, magic or etiquette
with their powerful [influences], the economy as such remained
nameless...Only two hundred years ago did an esoteric sect of French
thinkers coin the term and call themselves économistes. Their claim
was to have discovered the economy (Karl Polanyi, "Aristotle
Discovers the Economy," in _Trade and Market in the Early Empires_
[Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1957], p. 71). According to Polanyi, "The
prime reason for the absence of any concept of the economy is the
difficulty of identifying the economic process under conditions where
it is embedded in non-economic institutions" (ibid.). The economy is
at once discovered and invented by disembedding it from the total
ensemble of social relations.
"Sexuality" is the name given to the "rational abstraction," the
product of the disembedding of the erotic from the total ensemble of
social relations. Such disembedding was impossible under either
pre-capitalist class societies in which surplus was extracted not
mainly through t
Veblen
It's even better than that: "The Higher Learning in America: A Study in Total Depravity" Carrol Cox wrote: I don't remember where I picked this up, and it may be quite apocryphal, but I always loved it. Supposedly, Veblen's original sub-title (rejected by the publisher) for *The Higher Education in America* was "A Study in Human Depravity." Carrol P.S. Do I have that title right? Or was it "Higher Learning"?
RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: needs
This would fall under my definition of fussy, but to each his own. I'll probably buy a $200 driver (Taylor TI2 Bubbleshaft; I know, go ahead and make up a joke) next spring. mbs I recommend a Linn turntable (basik), good value for a tidy sum! I think at 450, which I have been eyeing it for some years! I do have Linn speakers (lowest end) though and they are excellent:) Anthony
Re: Veblen
I don't remember where I picked this up, and it may be quite apocryphal, but I always loved it. Supposedly, Veblen's original sub-title (rejected by the publisher) for *The Higher Education in America* was "A Study in Human Depravity." Carrol P.S. Do I have that title right? Or was it "Higher Learning"?
Re: Veblen
G'day all, >A lot of his work was very specific to his era, so that orthodox economists >see his work as irrelevant. But his era -- the Gilded Age at the end of the >19th century -- seems very similar to our own, so I can see his insights as >being quite relevant now. Bit of British understatement, perhaps? After all, this was the bloke who: - called churches 'retail outlets'; - discerned a society in which it was honourable to win wealth by force and dignified gratuitously to flaunt that wealth; - noted that invention becomes the mother of necessity by way of competitive emulation; - saw in the businessman a saboteur bent on extracting value by creating disruption; - perceived that the making of things and the accumulation of money are anathema to each other; and ... - predicted that our predatory order must either culminate in a deadly war of all against all or be transformed into one controlled by the actual makers of things. I suppose it's all been true since the days of pay-as-you-go indulgences, Colombuses, Dutch tulips, privateers on Spanish Mains and Hundred Years' Wars, but here we sit, amidst our Praise The Lord 'ministries', our Donalds and Ivanas, our NASDAQs and fake Calvin Kleins, our Bill Gateses, our desolate Flints, and our Euro-American trade wars, eh? Cheers, Rob.
RE: Re: RE: Re: co-ops
I don't doubt it. I was speaking from a U.S. vantage point, where a coop in our ocean of business firms and hierarchical non-profits is more of a curiosity than a political statement. mbs > Coops are not so dangerous that a lender > would forego their business.\ > > mbs > Max, You should hear/see the venom hurled by private business whenever the provincial government threatens to extend the same small business subsidies to co-ops as it does to private businesses. Quite nasty. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
"Now instead we have human rights"
NY Times, December 5, 2000 FREEDOM'S TOLL Infectious Diseases Rising Again in Russia By ABIGAIL ZUGER VORONEZH, Russia - Natalia Kostina lay flat on her back on a metal examining table in this city's tuberculosis hospital, staring impassively at the ceiling. In an instant, a doctor jabbed into her abdomen a thick needle attached to a syringe and pushed in a few cubic inches of air. A moment later the needle was withdrawn and Ms. Kostina, silent and stoic, got off the table and returned to her room. Her treatment was over for another week. Injecting air into the abdomen is a painful, archaic, last-ditch way to battle tuberculosis when medications are scarce or can no longer help. It has not been used in the West for decades. But this is Russia, where TB, once nearly under control, has become epidemic since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Doctors often use air injections to fight TB strains that resist the most commonly used drugs. The technique compresses infected lungs, giving them time to rest and heal. Ms. Kostina, 24, was healthy until two years ago, working as a nurse at the local prison, just a mile down the road from this hospital. There, as in most of Russia's overcrowded prisons, tuberculosis has been spiraling out of control. When she fell ill with fever and a cough, doctors quickly ascertained that she had caught tuberculosis from one of her inmate patients. Despite months of treatment, her disease got worse. All four of the antituberculosis drugs she tried were powerless against it. Moreover, during the year she spent traveling from work to home, then into the hospital, then to a convalescent home, then back to the hospital, she had undoubtedly exposed dozens of others to her drug-resistant germs. Russia's political turmoil, its economic crisis and its new freedoms have been accompanied by a wave of old diseases. Tuberculosis is flooding the country, producing what some authorities are calling the world's largest outbreak of the drug-resistant variety, one of medicine's most ominous problems. Rates of other infections, including hepatitis, syphilis and AIDS, are skyrocketing. An epidemic of diphtheria swept through in the mid-1990's. Reports of smaller, regional outbreaks of encephalitis, typhoid fever, malaria, polio, pneumonia and influenza pepper the nightly news. Health experts describe Russia's prison system as an "epidemiologic pump," continuously seeding the country with pockets of tuberculosis that can spread on their own. Increasingly, TB cases of Russian origin are turning up in the Baltic countries and even farther afield - for instance, Germany and Israel. Specialists worry that if the rising rates of infectious diseases in Russia continue unabated, the country itself may turn into an epidemiologic pump, sending infectious diseases into the rest of the world. "It's not surprising to see a case here," said Barry N. Kreiswirth, a tuberculosis expert at the Public Health Research Institute in New York City, "but it's a good reminder that it doesn't take much for one person to be a vector and start an epidemic." An Old Scourge Made New Tuberculosis is hardly new in Russia. It ravaged the country in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. But before the Soviet Union fell it was finally being brought under control, through major government effort and expense. Infection rates, though roughly three times higher than in the United States, were falling in parallel with those in Europe and developed countries elsewhere. This victory bred "a tremendous pride on the Russian side," said Dr. Mario Raviglione, coordinator for TB activities at the World Health Organization in Geneva. That has changed. With thin budgets, government health programs are no match for infections given new momentum by increasing poverty, stress, alcoholism, overcrowding and intravenous drug use. Mortality from infectious diseases has not reached third world rates here. Last year, infections were estimated to account for 2 percent of all deaths. But that is still four times higher than in most developed nations. "The total cost of infectious diseases in Russia is not that great," said Martin McKee, an expert in Russian public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, "but the important thing is that it is going up and up and up." As AIDS becomes more firmly entrenched, that cost is expected to rise even faster. Deaths due to tuberculosis alone rose 30 percent in 1999. In the days of the Soviet Union, the powerful Sanitation and Epidemiology Service, or "SanEp," sought out infectious diseases and stamped them out with compulsory vaccinations and annual disease screenings: chest X-rays for tuberculosis, blood tests for syphilis. People suspected of harboring infection were removed from society for as long as it took to guarantee that they were no longer contagious. The SanEp tactics were brutal - people were often taken from their families and hometowns for months to ye
The Internet Anti-Fascist: Friday, 1 Dec 2000 -- 4:97 (#493)
--- Support Our Sponsor N E E D H O L I D A Y S H O P P I N G -15% off electronics, music, movies, sporting goods & more!- -Enter coupon code TGS18022 for up to $15 off. Expires 12/7- http://click.topica.com/Wrbz8SnrbAjwjxa/mall_com __ The Internet Anti-Fascist: Friday, 1 December 2000 Vol. 4, Number 97 (#493) __ Continuing Coverage of Yahoo and Nazi Material Rick Perera (IDG News Service), "Germany's Yahoo Bans Auction of Nazi Items: France wants to regulate U.S. site, but German subsidiary enforces national prohibition on some goods," 29 Nov 00 Continuing Coverage: Matt Hale and the World Church of the Creator Michael Greenwood (Hartford Courant), "With the Web, Midwest minister of hate gains a global reach: Unlike many white supremacists, Hale reaches out to women and youth," 4 Dec 00 Continuing Coverage: Roten Murder Trial William R. Levesque (St. Petersberg Times), "A lifetime to think about hate: His rage roared from a rifle barrel as a little girl slept. That night of anger costs him his freedom," 1 Dec 00 Continuing Coverage: Compensation For Victims of the Holocaust AA News, "Vatican Asks Court, U.S. Government to Dismiss Lawsuit Over Nazi Gold: Church Evades Responsibility For Clerical Fascism," 26 Nov 00 Rightwing Web Site of Interest: Nationalsozialistische Japanische Arbeiterpartei / National Socialist Japanese Workers Party / Kokka Shakaishugi Nippon Rodosha To Real Political Correctness: ACLU News, "Setting Limits on Drug War Tactics: High Court Rejects Drug Roadblocks," 28 Nov 00 -- CONTINUING COVERAGE OF YAHOO AND NAZI MATERIAL Germany's Yahoo Bans Auction of Nazi Items: France wants to regulate U.S. site, but German subsidiary enforces national prohibition on some goods Rick Perera (IDG News Service) 29 Nov 00 BERLIN -- Yahoo Deutschland, the German subsidiary of Yahoo, says it is confident an investigation into an alleged online auction of banned Nazi propaganda will be dismissed. Yahoo's legal adviser has assured the company that the investigation, announced Monday by Munich state prosecutor Manfred Wick, will be called off, says Claudia Strixner, Yahoo Deutschland spokesperson. Wick opened the investigation after allegations that a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf had been listed on Yahoo Deutschland's auction site on February 1. The book is illegal under German laws banning Nazi propaganda. "We first found out about [the auction listing] in November," Strixner says. "Our position is that of course we absolutely refuse to have Nazi material on our Web pages. Here in Germany we support actions and movements against right-wing radicalism." The company conducts regular controls of its pages and removes any illegal items posted by customers, Strixner says. Differs From French Feud Last week, a French judge ruled that Yahoo must install filters to prevent French users from taking part in auctions of Nazi memorabilia on the U.S. site. The decision has drawn international interest because of its potential ramifications for national laws regulating cross-border Internet transactions. (See "Judge to Yahoo: Block Nazi Goods From French" and "Yahoo Wins Reprieve in Nazi Sales Case.") But Strixner says the Munich investigation can't be compared to the French case. "In France we had a case against Yahoo, our parent company, for selling things that are legal in the U.S. but illegal in France. Here it's a completely different matter, in that it's about allegedly having something on Yahoo Deutschland that's illegal under German law," she says. -- CONTINUING COVERAGE: MATT HALE AND THE WORLD CHURCH OF THE CREATOR With the Web, Midwest minister of hate gains a global reach: Unlike many white supremacists, Hale reaches out to women and youth Michael Greenwood (Hartford Courant) 4 Dec 00 EAST PEORIA, Ill. - At the headquarters of the World Church of the Creator, Matt Hale is hard at work on the white revolution, organizing his soldiers for the final struggle: RAHOWA, or Racial Holy War. Hale has been preaching the gospel of hate for more than a decade and recently extended it via cable-access television, confident he will snap people out of their complacency and eventually turn America into a bastion of whiteness. His vision for the future includes mass deportations of minorities, the execution of interracial couples, and strict loyalty to an all-white government. On the television screen and over the Internet, his stern, angular face takes on a sinister qu
Django + Grappelli
Jim Devine wrote: hey, what's wrong with Marilyn Manson? or 'N Sync? or Pauly Shore? Do you want to step _outside_ and say that? = Actually, Jim, it could have been a lot worse. Until your recent recantation it looked like your Christmas stocking filler was going to be Paul Krugman's Greatest Hits. A-reelin'-an'a-rockin' to Pop Internationalism, Michael K.
Veblen
Jim Devine wrote, quoting Norm:
>Thorstein Veblen?
>
>a old prof of mine once told me, "He was an 'institutionalist', but they
>never amounted to anything." true or not?
A lot of his work was very specific to his era, so that orthodox economists
see his work as irrelevant. But his era -- the Gilded Age at the end of the
19th century -- seems very similar to our own, so I can see his insights as
being quite relevant now.
=
MK: The paper by Jim Cypher on "Absentee Ownership" I cited earlier argues
this case well. So, too, do the many writings of Doug Dowd on the subject,
not least his recently republished "Thorstein Veblen" (Transaction, 2000).
Doug has consistently proffered the view that Veblen was a sympathetic
critic of Marx, inasmuch as he took Marx very seriously indeed, clearly
admiring Marx's achievements as a theorist and as a political activist.
Where they parted company was in Veblen's criticisms of Marx's analysis of
class (which Veblen regarded as too Benthamite) and the labour theory of
value (which was too "metaphysical"). Rick Tilman is another author who has
written a great deal about Veblen, and it's worth checking out his
"Intellectual Consequences of Thorstein Veblen: Unresolved Issues"
(Greenwood Press, 1996) and "Thorstein Veblen and His Critics" (Princeton
UP, 1992), as well as his many articles published in the Journal of Economic
Issues and elsewhere.
=
>also, where do his writings fit into the marxist-socialist paradigms, if
>at all?
He wasn't a Marxist or a socialist (though of course those terms might be
redefined to make him fit). His study of business behavior -- including
what he called "business sabotage" (socially wasteful activities in pursuit
of competitive advantage) seem relevant to a Marxian theory of capitalist
competition. He wasn't a socialist as much as he admired the engineers and
technocrats more than the marketeers and "entrepreneurs." His ideas link up
with those of Technocracy (which wanted a revolution so that the technical
experts could rule), which might be seen as a kind of socialism from above.
I understand Paul Sweezy used to admire Veblen a lot.
=
MK: Neither Doug Dowd nor Rick Tilman would agree with Jim on Veblen as
primarily a Technocrat. Tilman devotes a chapter of his "Intellectual
Consequences" to a closely argued refutation of this interpretation, while
Dowd writes:
"Some of the severest critics of Veblen and other institutionalists are only
barely acquainted with their extensive theoretical writings; much has been
written by self-styled followers of Veblen, or those to whom Veblenism is
attributed, where neither their ideas nor Veblen's provide much support for
the connection. (Most notorious of these, perhaps, were the 'Technocrats' of
the 1930's.)" ("Thorstein Veblen", p. 55)
"...the series of essays in which Veblen is thought to have put forth his
'program of social reform' is not quite that. In those essays, "The
Engineers and the Price System" (1921), Veblen mused on whether and how a
society run by engineers might come about, how it might function, and what
it would look like. Written at a time when Veblen's mood was one of dark
despair, his position was not so much a program of action as an ironic
statement of why such a program would be Utopian." (p.153)
Succeeding pages explain this interpretation more fully.
I believe that, in a loose way, Veblen, John Dewey, Charles Beard and others
worked together to formulate an indigenous reform programme of a kind that
may have seen the light of day had Henry Wallace won in 1948. There were
major differences between each of course, but there are also some remarkable
similarities, not least the focus on the socialisation of corporations and
the establishment of planning bodies to oversee production and thereafter
equitable distribution. But that's just by the way.
Apparently Paul Baran wasn't too keen on Veblen, but Sweezy's reevaluation
of and consequently greater appreciation for him led to his several mentions
in "Monopoly Capital". Monthly Review published a special issue in 1957
(volume 9, no. 11) on Veblen to mark the centenary of his birth. Sweezy also
contributed an appreciative essay to Doug Dowd's collection, "Thorstein
Veblen: A Critical Appraisal" published by Cornell UP in 1958 and reissued
by Greenwood c.1977.
Michael K.
