RE: RE: Kuznets cycles and energy-system renewal

[Mark Jones]

Mathew Forstater wrote:
>
>
> I have a very short encyclopedia entry on the Kuznets U hypothesis, but
> it is part of slightly a longer essay, if anyone is interested.

I'd very much like to see it.

>I argue
> that Kuznets himself warned against applying what were some "hunches"
> about the early development of presently industrialized countries to
> currently 'developing' economies. Neverthless, in the 70s people like
> Paukert and Ahluwalia did just that, and even used cross-sectional data
> to test what was a theory about secular development. So they pieced
> together countries at different levels of GNP across a U shaped curve,
> implying that they were going to move along it. The problem here is that
> the conclusion that may be drawn is that countries with lousy income
> distribution should not worry, just keep on pursuing growth and they
> will become more equal.  More recent evidence tells us this is not a
> very likely prospect, plus there is the problem with the environmental
> impact, since they are just talking about good old GNP/GDP grwoth, with
> all the problems with that.
>
> Cutler Cleveland has been doing interesting work for a long time on
> biophysical limits. At one time he supported the energy theory of value,
> which has some problems I think, although people like Herman Daly
> rejected it on the grounds that it was too similar to a labor theory of
> value, but I don't buy their non-critique of that.

You mean Odum's eMergy stuff? It doesn't really work, but it's useful in
lots of ways anyway, don't you think?

> Be that as it may,
> the Daly-Costanza ecological economics stuff has its good points, but it
> also has some weaknesses that can be improved by blending it with
> political economy, social ecology, feminist economics, etc.


Absolutely true.

> I have some
> papers where I derive what I call some biophysical conditions for a
> sustainable economy--similar to some of what you can find in the
> ecological economics and sustainability lit under the names of things
> like 'rules for sustainability' etc.

Is it on the Net, or can you send stuff to me offlist, Mat? I'd really be
obliged.

> If we take this stuff seriously,
> it would entail a very major transformation of the way we live, the
> technological structure of production (transformation from an
> exhaustible resource-based to a renewable resource-based technological
> structure of production, etc.), whole sectors, industries, firms,
> occupations, skills, etc, would become obsolete, news ones required.
> There would have to a major sort of transition period, rethinking the
> whole layout in terms of the way we live and so on. There would
> definitely have to be either a guaranteed income and or guaranteed jobs
> for all (and there will be plenty to do) to make sure that the
> disruptions would not result in more massive unemployment, poverty, etc.
> I don't think it is impossible, but it would require a fantastic change
> in consciousness etc.  Adolph Lowe, who taught at the New School for
> many years and who was thinking about these issues from the sixties on,
> thought that it was possible that it would take a "mini-catastrophe" or
> even a few "mini-catastrophes" to get the message through to people on a
> mass scale that we absolutely must change in fundamental ways.  He hoped
> that it would take a major catastrophe, and he hoped that maybe it
> wouldn't take any catastrophes at all, but the way things have
> developed, with the inequalities and the technological developments,
> some people are able to insulate themselves from the effects of
> environmental and other problems, so we might be looking more to
> something like the old movie "Metropolis" than bioregionalist communism
> or communist bioregionalism.  I can't see how will get there absent
> significant economic and social planning, with all the challenges that
> brings.  We are not on the path to evolve in that direction presently,
> it doesn't seem, not automatically. Mat

This is all very helpful and thank you so much.

Mark Jones

Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Current implications for South

[Patrick Bond]

> From:  "Mark Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> The problem of debt, which you raise about Zim, is simply a red-herring. In
> context, debt, though not trivial, is symptomatic rather than causal. Your
> hopes about renewables are equally illusory.

You're jumping around, comrade. But I agree with these two points.

But not this: 
> Are you now supporting the MDC? Well, yes, you obviously are. 

No, same line: left civil-society critique.

> Is that not
> actually supporting a neoliberal solution in Zim? What do you think,
> realistically, will happen when and if MDC come to power?

More neoliberalism. (I think I made that clear in the article.)

> Finally, the global problem capitalism faces is not over-accumulation, but a
> capital shortage, desperate and bordering on famine. 

Ok, this one I will look forward to with interest, comarde.

Re: Fw: Jesse Lemisch

[Michael Perelman]

I do not think that something like this should be sent to the list.

Michael Pugliese wrote:

> > >I'm sure you've seen Lou "intervene" at the NY Marxist School or the
> > > Brecht Forum!
> > > Michael Pugliese

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: RE: Kuznets cycles and energy-system renewal

[Jim Devine]

At 07:10 PM 06/25/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>. I argue
>that Kuznets himself warned against applying what were some "hunches"
>about the early development of presently industrialized countries to
>currently 'developing' economies.

without those warnings, the "Kuznets hypothesis" (that rising inequality is 
eventually solved by economic growth) is nothing but the trickle-down theory.

I've wondered about the view that workers "have to make a sacrifice" to 
promote or save capitalism, whether it's trying to "take off" and become 
developed or it's in crisis. But in the orthodox theory, isn't interest the 
reward for saving, i.e., for abstinence? so shouldn't the working class be 
paid interest for making sacrifices? even better, shouldn't it be given equity?

Some might argue that these sacrifices sometimes only involve relative 
deprivation, not absolute deprivation. But both the take-off and economic 
crises create new needs, which undermine the utility-value of "real" wages. 
So what looks like merely relative sacrifice could be absolute.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine

Re: Marxism and ecology

[Chris Burford]

At 25/06/01 14:02 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:

>No kidding.


>Geez, I did not know that.


>Recent reading has convinced me that it is time to reconsider dialectical
>materialism, the unjustly maligned attempt by Marx and Engels to provide a
>unified analysis of society and nature.


That is not what dialectical materialism is.


>an
>updated version can provide insights into the environmental crisis that
>historical materialism simply can not.


Always assuming the update is accurate and not an adaption of something else.



>(By the
>way, there's an essay by this guy named Michael Perelman titled "Marx and
>Resource Scarcity" in there as well. It's pretty gosh-darned good.)



>Vaillancourt singles out Engels's "Anti-Duhring" and the "Dialectics of
>Nature" for special consideration since they are more directly concerned
>with nature and ecology than any of the previous writings of Marx and
>Engels. They are also considered bulwarks of dialectical materialist
>thought. The "Dialectics of Nature" contains the famous chapter "The Role
>of Work in Transforming Ape into Man."

I cannot comment on the work by Vaillancourt but Louis Proyect dwells on 
this particular article by Engels to imply that the "Dialectics of Nature" 
is an ecological work.

It is not.

It is the last of a collection of articles with titles about Motion, Heat, 
and Electricity. It is followed by other notes and fragments covering 
themes like Mathematics, Mechanics and Astronomy, Physics and Chemistry. 
The last fragment, Biology, might be most likely to portray an ecological 
perspective if that was a general theme of this work, but it does not.

The article known as "The Part Played by Labour in the Transition form Ape 
to Man" is an extremely creative work which is rightly quoted to show the 
compatability of marxism with ecological concerns but it would be quite 
wrong to go away with an unquestioned assumption that "the Dialectics of 
Nature" is about ecology.  The particular article was originally written as 
an introduction to a more extensive work entitled "The Three Basic Forms of 
Slavery" but this was not completed.


After one of the most famous passages Louis Proyect goes on to quote the 
next passage:

>"And, in fact, with every day that passes we are acquiring a better
>understanding of these laws and getting to perceive both the more immediate
>and the more remote consequences of our interference with the traditional
>course of nature. In particular, after the mighty advances made by the
>natural sciences in the present century, we are more than ever in a
>position to realise, and hence to control, also the more remote natural
>consequences of at least our day-to-day production activities. But the more
>this progresses the more will humanity not only feel but also know their
>oneness with nature, and the more impossible will become the senseless and
>unnatural idea of a contrast between mind and matter, humanity and nature,
>soul and body, such as arose after the decline of classical antiquity in
>Europe and obtained its highest elaboration in Christianity."


If Louis Proyect had continued still further, he would have read:

"But if it has already required the labour of thousands of years for us to 
learn to some extent how to evaluate the more remote *natural* effects of 
our actions directed towards production, this has been even more difficult 
in regard to the more remote *social* effects. ... The men who in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries laboured to create the steam engine 
had no idea that they were preparing the instrument which more than any 
other was to revolutionize social conditions throughout the world. 
Especially in Euorpe where it helped to concentrate wealth in the hands of 
a minority and to make the huge majority propertyless, this instrument was 
destined, first to give social and political domination to the bourgeoisie, 
but then to give rise to a class struggle between bourgeoise and 
proletariat which can end only in the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the 
abolition of all class antagonisms."

Louis Proyect does not understand that the previous chords were to prepare 
for this key change. Instead he dwells on Engels' formulation about our 
"oneness with nature".

[Apologies Michael, if this is a characterisation. Apologies to Lou if this 
is a *false* characterisation, but how can one argue against a serious 
misreading of an important text if one cannot say how one thinks it has 
been seriously misinterpreted?]


>When Engels states we will know our "oneness with nature", he is really
>hearkening back to the classical materialist roots of Marxism. After all,
>Marx wrote his PhD thesis on the philosophy of nature in Democritus and
>Epicurus. These philosophers are in the materialist tradition begun by
>Parmenides and Heraclitus, who lived a century before. This tradition is
>continued in the philosophy of Hippocrates, Aristotle and Theophrastus, who
>are the forerunners of the scie

Fwd: NULL'S REPORT REBROADCAST

[Louis Proyect]

>GARY NULL REBROADCAST RIGHT NOW ON WBIX.ORG
>
>...folks, right now--8:11 p.m.--on www.wbix.org, Errol is 
>broadcasting Gary Null's *investigation* from earlier today on the 
>situation at WBAI.  After that conversation, Denis Moynihan from the 
>Pacifica Campaign and Bernard White appeared on WBIX to discuss 
>Gary's report.  After Null's rebroadcast, WBIX will also run Moynihan 
>& White.
>
>Tune in for some good radio!
>
>--efs
>
>
>
>   http://savewbai.tao.ca
>
>
>   To unsubscribe from this list
>   email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with: unsubscribe savewbai
>   or visit http://lists.tao.ca
> 

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/

RE: Kuznets cycles and energy-system renewal

[Forstater, Mathew]

I have a very short encyclopedia entry on the Kuznets U hypothesis, but
it is part of slightly a longer essay, if anyone is interested. I argue
that Kuznets himself warned against applying what were some "hunches"
about the early development of presently industrialized countries to
currently 'developing' economies. Neverthless, in the 70s people like
Paukert and Ahluwalia did just that, and even used cross-sectional data
to test what was a theory about secular development. So they pieced
together countries at different levels of GNP across a U shaped curve,
implying that they were going to move along it. The problem here is that
the conclusion that may be drawn is that countries with lousy income
distribution should not worry, just keep on pursuing growth and they
will become more equal.  More recent evidence tells us this is not a
very likely prospect, plus there is the problem with the environmental
impact, since they are just talking about good old GNP/GDP grwoth, with
all the problems with that.

Cutler Cleveland has been doing interesting work for a long time on
biophysical limits. At one time he supported the energy theory of value,
which has some problems I think, although people like Herman Daly
rejected it on the grounds that it was too similar to a labor theory of
value, but I don't buy their non-critique of that.  Be that as it may,
the Daly-Costanza ecological economics stuff has its good points, but it
also has some weaknesses that can be improved by blending it with
political economy, social ecology, feminist economics, etc.  I have some
papers where I derive what I call some biophysical conditions for a
sustainable economy--similar to some of what you can find in the
ecological economics and sustainability lit under the names of things
like 'rules for sustainability' etc.  If we take this stuff seriously,
it would entail a very major transformation of the way we live, the
technological structure of production (transformation from an
exhaustible resource-based to a renewable resource-based technological
structure of production, etc.), whole sectors, industries, firms,
occupations, skills, etc, would become obsolete, news ones required.
There would have to a major sort of transition period, rethinking the
whole layout in terms of the way we live and so on. There would
definitely have to be either a guaranteed income and or guaranteed jobs
for all (and there will be plenty to do) to make sure that the
disruptions would not result in more massive unemployment, poverty, etc.
I don't think it is impossible, but it would require a fantastic change
in consciousness etc.  Adolph Lowe, who taught at the New School for
many years and who was thinking about these issues from the sixties on,
thought that it was possible that it would take a "mini-catastrophe" or
even a few "mini-catastrophes" to get the message through to people on a
mass scale that we absolutely must change in fundamental ways.  He hoped
that it would take a major catastrophe, and he hoped that maybe it
wouldn't take any catastrophes at all, but the way things have
developed, with the inequalities and the technological developments,
some people are able to insulate themselves from the effects of
environmental and other problems, so we might be looking more to
something like the old movie "Metropolis" than bioregionalist communism
or communist bioregionalism.  I can't see how will get there absent
significant economic and social planning, with all the challenges that
brings.  We are not on the path to evolve in that direction presently,
it doesn't seem, not automatically. Mat

Gary Null

[Louis Proyect]

The Pacifica board, which has been hijacked by a bunch of corporate sharks,
has two main bases of support. In NYC's WBAI, it consists of porkchop
nationalists who take their cue from station manager Utrice Leid while at
Los Angeles's KPFK it consists of Nation magazine liberals. Two smaller
stations in Houston and Washington, DC also line up with the board but have
generally kept a low profile in the battle, except for Houston's station
manager Garland Ganter who had a protester arrested for leafleting in front
of a fundraiser. In a gesture reminiscent of East Asia cronyism, Ganter
hired his wife and the two reputedly make $80,000 each. The only station
that has eluded the board's grasp is KPFA in Berkeley, which mobilized
10,000 people in the streets after Ganter seized control of the station on
the behest of national program director Bessie Wash. The hijackers, which
were forced to back down in Berkeley, are now on the defensive after 6
months of militant and massive protests. Some of the hijackers have
resigned, while one board member named Ken Ford is threatening to turn over
protest letters to the FBI. Such is the state of a "progressive board" that
has the full backing of people like Marc Cooper.

One of the few on-air but non-paid hosts in NYC who has gone along with the
Leid gang is new age health food and vitamin guru Garry Null
(http://www.garynull.com/), who has launched an "investigation" into the
crisis on his noonday show "Natural Living". The show is usually devoted to
Null telling listeners how vitamin C can cure AIDS or cancer, or how the
medical establishment is out to "get him". Null also appeared for hours at
a time during the local PBS TV's fundraising marathon last year. If you
became a subscriber to the station, you'd receive a copy of one of Null's
ridiculous books.

He is a tall, handsome fellow about my age but there is something a bit
"off" about him, most especially his head full of coal black hair that
shrieks "dye" as much as Ronald Reagan's head used to. Null must be a bit
self-conscious about his dye job, since he kept pointing it out to his
fund-raising co-host. "See, Sally, that's what a good diet of soybeans and
cabbage will do. It will keep you young. Not only is my eyesight 20-20 but
I don't have a single gray hair." Right. He painted them all.

On today's show, he interviewed Bernard White, the fired popular
African-American host of the morning show that he shared with Amy Goodman.
She is still at the station but under extreme duress. White, Goodman and
Juan Gonzalez form the central leadership of the struggle to regain
Pacifica. To Null's credit, he gave White a full hour to air his
criticisms. None of this sunk in on Null at all who despite his new age
unctuousness can explode with frightening rancor. It appears that Null has
it in for the opposition because some of them, including Goodman
apparently, thought his new age bullshit was an embarrassment to the
station, even if it raised something like 25 percent of the funds.

Listening to Null trying to persuade White of the merits of the board's new
directions was a genuine culture clash, with Bernard, an overweight,
mellow-voiced, laid-back fellow trying to parry the thrusts of the febrile
new age hustler who thought that Pacifica had to be "tolerant" of board
members who were in business. As an example of the direction that the
station should be moving in, according to Null, was the development of an
endowment like the local PBS station had. Null, his voice raising, said,
"Don't you see. Channel 13 has an endowment of 150 million dollars and only
5 percent comes from listener contributions." When White pointed out to him
that the other 95 percent came from sources like Archer-Daniels-Midland,
Mobil and Mercedes-Benz, Null grew excited and changed the subject.


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/

Re: RE: Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Rob Schaap]

Mark Jones wrote:
 
> Yoshie Furuhashi
> > Mark should stop putting the question as an oft-thwarted attempt at
> > a prediction -- e.g., "will energy be available at current > > requirement 
>projections at environmental costs most people can > > stand and at market prices 
>compatible with those particular> > requirements within a capitalist context?"
> 
> Yoshie, please don't put words in my mouth. I haven't said this or
> anything like this.

Mea culpa, Mark.  Er, so what have you been saying?

Cheers,
Rob.

Re: Re: Cuban Genetic Engineering (was Jesse Lemisch)

[Louis Proyect]

Yoshie:
>I'm not presenting Cuba as a model, however attractive & promising 
>its combination of organic agriculture & genetic engineering may be. 
>I'm simply saying that one-dimensional opposition to genetic 
>engineering (& science in general) is counter-productive.  Genetic 
>engineering can be a very useful tool in socialist hands, whereas in 
>corporate hands it will be mainly used to further corporate monopoly 
>of intellectual properties.

We have different assessment about the value of industrial farming
techniques. Genetic engineering, along with pesticides, irrigation,
chemical fertilizers and all the rest can not be simply appropriated by
socialists. The reason they are counter-productive is that they go against
the basic principles of soil chemistry, which is a branch of science. This
is not about "gaia". It is about overcoming the "metabolic rift", one of
Marx's main preoccupations.

>More generally, the transition from capitalism to socialism (when 
>such transition is possible) will not take place according to a 
>blueprint of how to reconcile town & countryside: "What we have to 
>deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its 
>own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from 
>capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, 
>morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the 
>old society from whose womb it emerges" (at 
>).

I have no idea what this has to do with my original point. Marx's concerns
with soil fertility did not lead to activism. Your quote above has to do
with the transition from socialism to communism, not how to make a punchy
leaflet.

>For instance, from the points of view that focus on impacts on health 
>& environment, it would have been correct for socialists not to 
>develop any nuclear power at all, much less nuclear weapons; however, 
>nuclear weapons did probably help to defend socialist states while 
>they lasted, though the burden of military production & conscription 
>-- & more importantly social control that went with them -- 
>contributed to their eventual downfall, in addition to economic 
>difficulties. 

I am mortified to hear this. As anybody knows, a principled Marxist
position would have been for the USSR to use bow and arrows.


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/

Genetic Engineering (was John Zerzan: Future Primitive [was Re:Current implications for South Africa])

[Michael Pugliese]

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2001/06/mooney-c-06-22.html
Libertarians are Right!

When It Comes to Promising Technologies Like Genetically Modified Foods,
Liberals Need Stranger Bedfellows
6.22.01

- Original Message -
From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2001 5:32 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:13915] John Zerzan: Future Primitive (was Re: Current
implications for South Africa)


> >Carrol Cox:
> >>My understanding of capitalism is that it _must_ grow, regardless of
> >>consequences, and that it simply is not worth considering possibilities
> >>for constraining growth under capitalism, however desirable or even
> >>absolutely necessary that may be.
> >
> >Right now I am reading "The Last Ranch" by the late Sam Bingham, which
> >deals with the disastrous ecological effects of cattle ranching in
> >Colorado, including desertification. This is the reality that Marxists
have
> >to identify to the masses. Saying that MacDonalds fast food is some kind
of
> >"conquest" of the working class because it makes meat cheap and
eliminates
> >the need to prepare meals is just the kind of thing that we have no
> >business saying. The fact that so many young people associate Marxism
with
> >this kind of vulgar "modernization" explains why the anti-globalization
> >protesters often call themselves anarchists. While anarchism attracts the
> >young, we are ending up with a movement that revolves around bizarre
sects
> >or annual conferences attracting the enlarged prostate brigade. At the
last
> >Socialist Scholars Conference, the last I'll ever go to, young people got
> >up during the discussion period of a talk given by Bogdan Denitch on the
> >"future of the left" and told him that he was completely out of touch.
> >Denitch's social democratic business-as-usual left-Gompers trade unionism
> >is based on the notion that working people in the USA should have a
bigger
> >slice of the pie, the rest of the world be damned. As long as Marxism is
> >perceived in this manner, we are in bad shape. As Marxists, our message
is
> >not just about "more". It is about equity. Most people in the imperialist
> >countries have to understand that the life-style we "enjoy" is
> >unsustainable. In exchange for a more modest life-style, we will live in
> >world that enjoys peace and respect for the individual. If people in the
> >imperialist countries can not rally to this message, then they (we)
deserve
> >the fate that awaits us: war, urban violence, cancer epidemics, drug
> >addiction, alcoholism, FOX TV, and prozac.
> >
> >Louis Proyect
>
> If the fundamental problem facing the world is that we are running
> out of fossil fuels & that no alternative energy source will ever be
> available due to technical impossibility as Mark argues, it appears
> socialism won't be able to meet even the historically evolved basic
> needs of all in the world, much less doing more than that.  If that's
> really the case, why not turn to John Zerzan?
>
> *
> AAA
> P.O. Box 11331
> Eugene, OR 97440
>
> On the Transition
>
> Postscript to Future Primitve
> by John Zerzan
>
> ...Who doesn't hate modern life?  Can what conditioning that remains
> survive such an explosion of life, one that ruthlessly removes the
> sources of such conditioning?
>
> We are obviously being held hostage by capital and its technology,
> made to feel dependent, even helpless, by the sheer weight of it all,
> the massive inertia of centuries of alienated categories, patterns,
> values.  What could be dispensed with immediately?  Borders,
> governments, hierarchyWhat else?  How fast could more deep-seated
> forms of authority and separation be dissolved, such as that of
> division of labor?  I assert, and not, I hope, in the spirit of
> wishing to derive blueprints from abstract principle, that I can see
> no ultimate freedom or wholeness without the dissolution of the
> inherent power of specialists of every kind.
>
> Many say that millions would die if the present techno-global fealty
> to work and the commodity were scrapped.  But this overlooks many
> potentialities.  For example, consider the vast numbers of people who
> would be freed from manipulative, parasitic, destructive pursuits for
> those of creativity, health, and liberty.  At present, in fact, very
> few contribute in any way to satisfying authentic needs.
>
> Transporting food thousands of miles, not an atypical pursuit today,
> is an instance of pointless activity, as is producing countless tons
> of herbicide and pesticide poisons.  The picture of humanity starving
> if a transformation were attempted may be brought into perspective by
> reference to a few other agricultural specifics, of a more positive
> nature.  It is perfectly feasible, generally speaking, that we grow
> our own food.  There are simple approaches, involving no division of
> labor, to large yields in small spaces.
>
> Agriculture itself must be overcome, as domestication, and because

Re: FT on the slump

[Jim Devine]

the FT wrote:
>The Bank for International Settlements recently published a sobering 
>report noting that falls in private-sector net saving on the scale that 
>the US has experienced - minus 6.5 per cent of gross domestic product in 
>2000 - have almost always been followed by sharp falls in economic growth 
>two years later.
>
>... Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's prime minister, has announced ambitious 
>plans for economic reform and restructuring. But Japan's partners in the 
>Group of Seven industrialised countries fear that while these reforms may 
>be good for the country's long-term health, they reduce the chance of a 
>short-term recovery.
>
>"The weakest global link is likely to be Japan. Their intentions are good 
>but their timing is bad," says Edward Yardeni, chief investment strategist 
>at Deutsche Banc Alex Brown in New York. Heizo Takenaka, the economy 
>minister, in effect warned this week that Japan could not be expected to 
>be part of the solution to the world's economic woes for two years.

I read a lot of the Bank for International Settlements report on the world 
economy. It was contradictory. On the one hand, there was a lot of very 
sober Keynesian talk like that in the first paragraph above. On the other 
hand, they clearly recommended neoliberal reforms (e.g., those that Koizumi 
seems to be proposing) that typically make that aggregate demand situation 
worse, while making the income distribution more unequal. They even 
mentioned the likelihood that Japanes unemployment would rise during the 
next few years as the result of the reforms.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: Re: Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Jim Devine]

At 02:58 PM 6/25/01 -0400, you wrote:

>>At Foundry on April 14, Nader spoke out, rightly, for vaccination, but 
>>attacked Viagra and Prozac, apparently seen as only life-style 
>>frivolities. From the audience, Joanne Landy (a Nader supporter) cried 
>>out -- as is her custom in such situations, particularly in large domed 
>>spaces -- "Whatsamatta with Viagra!!?"

and Whatsamatta with Prozac?

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: RE: Re: Re: THE HISTORY OF DEFORESTATION

[Tim Bousquet]

The history of Pacific Lumber Company is illustrative.
(I have a book about it sitting around somewhere, but
it's not here in my office, so this is of the top of
my head.) The first generation to log in the family
started in Main, but had overlogged their lands and so
picked up and moved to Wisconsin. The second
generation overlogged Wisconsin, and so picked up and
moved to California, starting Pacific Lumber. The
third generation, and I'm sorry I forget the fellow's
name, actually learned from his family's past, and
logged at such a rate that there was always a good
supply of mature trees. In fact, most of the land
wasn't even surveyed, and as hard as it may be to
believe, apparently nobody at knew the extent of the
"Headwaters" stand of old growth redwoods, just 30
miles from Arcata, the company headquarters. Company
employees used to brag that they would never lose
their jobs, because there would always be tree to
logs. This situation couldn't be tolerated once the
company went public, though, and Charles Hurwitz took
aim at it. The rest is history, as are the trees.
tim
--- "Forstater, Mathew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >From the establishment of the English colony of
> Jamestown in 1607, there
> was uninterrupted and widespread environmental
> destruction.  Within a
> few generations, the great forests of the Northeast
> were leveled, and
> not long after the Civil War logging companies
> started deforesting the
> Midwest at such a rapid rate that within 40 years an
> area the size of
> Europe had been stripped, including much of
> Minnesota, Michigan, and
> Wisconsin.  For instance, by 1897, sawmills in
> Michigan had processed
> 160 billion board feet of white pine leaving less
> than 6 billion board
> feet standing in the entire state. mat
> 


=
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Re: Marxism and ecology

[Michael Pugliese]

   Re; Diamat
"The Betrayal of Marx:Engels Contra Marx, " by
Bender, Frederic L.
early 70's. Not an Althusserian. "The Two Marxism's, " by Alvin Gouldner,
most definitely no fan of Althusser!

BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D]

> BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS DAILY REPORT, JUNE 25, 2001:
> 
> Workforce reductions in the high-tech industry have garnered many of the
> headlines and public attention this year, but layoffs in the old economy
> sectors have actually been more numerous since 1997, the outplacement firm
> Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in an analysis released June 24.
> Telecommunications, computer, electronics and e-commerce are among the top
> five job-cutting industries in 2001, according to Challenger, Gray &
> Christmas.  The outplacement firm said its study of job cut data shows
> that high-tech firms reduced 267,907 jobs, accounting for 41 percent of
> the total cuts nationwide this year. However, while technology-related
> companies lead in job cuts for 2001, they constitute only one-fifth of the
> total layoffs announce since 1997.  The firm said it analyzed more than 3
> million job reductions from 1997 to May 2001, finding that the retail
> industry was the top job-cutting sector in that time with 285,846
> positions eliminated.  The automotive, industrial goods, financial and
> computer businesses round out the top five job-cutting industries over
> that span  (Daily Labor Report, page A-8).
> 
> The Wall Street Journal feature "Tracking the Economy" (page A8) indicates
> that the chain weighted price index for the first quarter, to be released
> by the Department of Commerce Friday, will be unchanged at a 3.2 percent
> increase, according to the Consensus Global Forecast.
> 
> It is getting easier for people age 50 and older to find meaningful jobs,
> according to one placement agency that focuses on them.  But there are big
> ifs.  The biggest one is whether you can shed any anger you still hold
> against the employer who downsized or otherwise forced you into early
> retirement, says a man who has devoted the last 9 years to finding work
> for "mature workers".  Job prospects are better for people who know
> Microsoft's Windows operating system.  And it is important to have decent
> skills using the Internet and word-processing spreadsheet,
> relational-database and presentation software.  
> 
> In another sign of the weakening economy, more debt-laden Americans are
> losing their homes.  In the first quarter, the number of home mortgages in
> foreclosure increased 9 percent to about 142,000, according to Mortgage
> Information, a San Francisco-based mortgage research firm that tracks a
> database of about 29 million loans (USA Today, page 1B).
> 

 application/ms-tnef

e: US Deception during Bosnian war (previously sent,cut a bunch 'o verbiage...)

[Michael Pugliese]

Click the URL's esp. for the great aufheben piece> etnicizing NATOsevic by
Harald Beyer-Arneson, I think.
Michael Pugliese

>funny how one can easily disconnect nationalism from economy.

jc helary

http://www.ainfos.ca/99/may/ainfos00083.html
(en) The BALKAN WAR and leftist apologetics for the Milosovic regime
>From Harald Beyer-Arnesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date Tue, 11 May 1999 15:05:43 -0400
http://www.idea.org.uk/cfront/texts/other/kosovo-subjectivities-en.html
(Kosov@ – Contradictions and Subjectivities
(Ethnicizing Social Conflicts - The Example of Yugoslavia - With an Updated
Annex). Available online at
, updated annex at
.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Ethnicizing+and+Natosevic+&btnG=Google+Search

http://csf.colorado.edu/pen-l/apr99/msg02975.html
http://www.webcom.com/wildcat/Yugoslavia.html
http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/guest/radical/ESBOSNIA.HTM
Bosnia and the poison of nationalism
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/Aut_html/Auf1edit.htm
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/aut_html/Aufheben/yugo.html
Class Decomposition In The New World Order:

Yugoslavia Unravelled

(1) Introduction

Whilst there have been numerous wars around the globe over the last
forty-eight years, Europe has seen only the mundane brutality of everyday
capitalist social relations. But once again the spectre of war haunts the
proletarians of the continent. The former republics of Yugoslavia have
lurched into a bitter cycle of war, and the images of the suffering provide
a terrifying reminder of the capacity of the working class to carve itself
up along national lines. Are we heading for a major European war? Will the
events of the past couple of years in Yugoslavia be repeated throughout
Eastern Europe? An analysis of the conflict is clearly imperative.

Such an analysis is made more difficult however both by our separation from
the events, leading to a lack of information from 'below', and by the
endless stream of depressing details on the conflict in the media making any
attempt to keep abreast of events into a desensitising test of endurance. So
this article will be limited to an attempt to simplify the conflict by
grasping the material roots of the nationalist tensions.

The first problem lies with deciding where to start. A possible starting
point would be the formation of the first (monarchist) Yugoslavia after WW1,
as the internal migration of Serbs under the Serb-dominated regime (to be
followed by a similar migratory flow after WW2) helped produce the ethnic
mish-mash with which we are now familiar. Another possibility is WW2 and the
genocide perpetrated by the Ustashe which helps explain the fear of
persecution so characteristic of current Serbian nationalist ideology.

Neither of these starting points seem to provide the best means of
unravelling the conflict however, as the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia
did hold together for well over forty years despite its ethnic diversity and
the experiences of WW2. Instead, the focus of the analysis has to be the
1974 Constitution, which appears to be a pivotal moment in the shaping of
Socialist Yugoslavia; so, to begin with, we have to examine the factors
which gave rise to it.

(2) Class Recomposition.

Re: Cuban Genetic Engineering (was Jesse Lemisch)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Yoshie:
>>Cuban socialists aren't opposed to genetic engineering per se, though
>>I don't know if they like eatin' tuna & doubt that they are sanguine
>>about trends in corporate genetic engineering.  :->
>
>Cubans also use nuclear power. In any case, it does not make sense to
>extrapolate from the economic development model of a besieged island bereft
>of its main trading partner, except to say that you are always better off
>eliminating the profit motive--this despite the seething hostility of
>social democrats like Sam Farber who has written screeds against Cuba for
>New Politics.
>
>Louis Proyect

I'm not presenting Cuba as a model, however attractive & promising 
its combination of organic agriculture & genetic engineering may be. 
I'm simply saying that one-dimensional opposition to genetic 
engineering (& science in general) is counter-productive.  Genetic 
engineering can be a very useful tool in socialist hands, whereas in 
corporate hands it will be mainly used to further corporate monopoly 
of intellectual properties.

More generally, the transition from capitalism to socialism (when 
such transition is possible) will not take place according to a 
blueprint of how to reconcile town & countryside: "What we have to 
deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its 
own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from 
capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, 
morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the 
old society from whose womb it emerges" (at 
).

For instance, from the points of view that focus on impacts on health 
& environment, it would have been correct for socialists not to 
develop any nuclear power at all, much less nuclear weapons; however, 
nuclear weapons did probably help to defend socialist states while 
they lasted, though the burden of military production & conscription 
-- & more importantly social control that went with them -- 
contributed to their eventual downfall, in addition to economic 
difficulties.  The same goes for the breakneck pace of 
industrialization in the USSR, without which it wouldn't have likely 
lasted either.  With more freedom & democracy than existed in the 
Socialist Bloc, they could have made production ecologically 
friendlier & safer for workers than it was, but not to the extent 
that would make most environmentalists happy, I suspect.

Yoshie

Kuznets cycles and energy-system renewal

[Mark Jones]

Energy-supply systems tend to be highly centralised, large-scale and capital
intensive. Therefore they tend to be the subject of waves of investment,
consolidation, and eventual transformation as new technologies accumulate.
Since the periods of renewal and transformation require massive new
investment and therefore a transfer of resources from current consumption,
they are often stressful in social-stability terms and may partly coincide
with generalised recessions. However, in the past, capitalism has
successfully negotiated such transitions and renewals.

In 1955, Simon Kuznets (creator of national accounts and the concept of
Gross National Product) published his "inverted U" theory of capitalist
evolution: that income inequality rises in the early stages of development,
and falls as economies mature. (see LBO #80 (November 1997)which may still
be on Doug Henwood's website).

One conventional approach, based on Kuznets-type cycles, to understanding
current energy-supply concerns is to take account of investment cycles and
try to see how these interact with wider conjunctural phenomena, such as the
general business cycle, geopolitical considerations and so on. In this view,
there is no absolute lack of energy, but shortages may arise in
market-driven supply because of lack of infrastructure renewal, the result
of a period of low prices. There will be no apocalyptic melt-down, just
short-term supply difficulties and price spikes until raised profits lead to
new investment and more abundant supply. This argument is well put in the
following article, from the Kansas City Business Journal, 22 June 2001.

This argument is important because it tells us something about what is
likely to happen in the next few years, so we can learn from it. But it is
an argument from past experience, and that is not an accurate guide,
especially when entirely unprecedented things may be happening to
capitalism's all-important energy-base.

This argument that energy will always be available but is subject to
cyclical change in availability, leaves aside the question of whether or not
there is any ultimate resource constraint. The thinking is that enough
investment will always find new exploitable reserves and that given time the
energy markets, like all other commodity markets, will be self-correcting.
This is certainly wrong. There is too much hard evidence now of the
existence of severe constraints on future supply caused by reserve-depletion
and the failure to add new reserves/resources to the world's energy
portfolio. It is clear that conventional hydrocarbon reserves are strictly
finite. Unconventional reserves do also exist (Alberta tar sands, stranded
gas, deepwater gas etc) but they do not come cheap and may be irrecoverable
for enviornmental and other reasons. So the underlying assumption in the
Kuznets-type argument is too optimistic; nevertheless, Carlson in the
article below is right about one thing. It is clear that we are entering a
new period of sustained and much higher energy prices coupled with very high
levels of investment in new sources of supply, particularly in oil and gas,
and in the construction of new electricity generation capacity. This new
investment-wave, coupled with the effects of economic recession and new
forms of energy conservation (very easy in energy-guzzling nations like the
USA), which together help reduce demand for energy, ought in normal
circumstances to push the underlying problem away to another day.  But
these, as I hope to show, are not normal circumstances.

Assuming conventional reserves, primarily of hydrocarbons, are strictly
finite, the next question (moving beyond Kuznets-type cycles of
infrastructure renewal), is whether the world economy can make the
transition to an entirely new energy-base in the future. Presumably this
would be some kind of hydrogen-based economy with much more conservation,
use of renewables (especially wind power), new kinds of nuclear such as
pebble-bed reactors, and more exotic things like fusion reactors, fast
breeders, and so on. This is serious stuff. If conventional reserves are as
finite as some think (me included), then if we don't transition to some
entirely new energy-base, we shall have to transtion back to chopping wood
and using steam engines to get coal. So some kind of transition is
inevitable. The question becomes, how messy will it be? How much of
humankind will be left even further behind, and will the resulting global
inequality, which would be far more severe even than today, be manageable at
all? The transition from coal and steam to oil and electricity took all of
the first half of the last century, and produced two world wars and a legacy
of absolute immiseration for two-thirds of humankind. Yet it should have
been easy: oil was plentiful, easily obtainable and far superior to coal.
Also, the global environment was far less stressed than it now is, and we
were still in Herman Daly's 'half-full world'. None of these advantage now

Re: Fw: Jesse Lemisch

[Louis Proyect]

>- Original Message -
>From: "Jesse Lemisch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "Michael Pugliese" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 12:50 PM
>Subject: Re: [PEN-L:13969] Jesse Lemisch
>
>
>> Thanks for sending this to me. It's amazing in its inability to come to
>> terms with a serious argument. I'm not on the list this was apparently
>> posted on, and don't know whether I care to reply -- but if I did, I'd
>> appreciate knowing how I would do so. Or, it would be nice if somebody
>> posted my article, which is available at www.wpunj.edu/newpol
>>
>> Jesse

Jesse, you can respond to my criticisms on a list called
Marxism-International which is located at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This is where my criticisms of movement celebrities can found. I have been
involved in a two day battle royale with Gayatri Spivak on the question of
whether widow burning is phallocentric or not. Come join in the festivities.

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org

Re: Re: Cuban Genetic Engineering (was Jesse Lemisch)

[Michael Pugliese]

 http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/msg04556.html

Sent to PSN on the 8th or so...
M.Pugliese

Janette Habel's  (French Trotskyist)
'Cuba. The Revolution
in Peril' (Verso, 1991)
http://www.unhcr.ch/refworld/country/writenet/wricub01.htm
http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue19/farber19.htm

Cuba: The One-Party State Continues
Samuel Farber
[from New Politics, vol. 5, no. 3 (new series), whole no. 19, Summer 1995]
Samuel Farber was born and grew up in Cuba. He is the author of Revolution
and Reaction in Cuba 1933-1960 (Wesleyan University Press, 1976) and
numerous articles dealing with that country. He teaches political science at
Brooklyn College and is a member of the editorial board of Against the
Current.
IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM in Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union, some leftists are willing to take a more critical look
at the socio-economic and political system that has prevailed in Cuba for
more than 35 years. Among them is Carollee Bengelsdorf, a professor of
politics at Hampshire College. Unlike many pro-Castro leftists, who
substitute Third Worldist clichés for their scant knowledge of Cuban society
and history, Bengelsdorf is intimately acquainted with Cuba. She must also
be given credit for affirming the need for democracy as a central element of
the necessary transformation of the Cuban polity and society.
But in spite of its virtues, The Problem of Democracy in Cuba is a deeply
flawed book.* Bengelsdorf's narrative often appears to be a history without
subjects making choices and taking decisions. This is particularly true of
her treatment of Fidel Castro, the most powerful actor in the Cuban drama.
Thus, Bengelsdorf advocates a democratization of Cuban society and at least
implicitly recognizes that neither Castro nor the Cuban Communist Party
shares her inclinations. Yet, she fails to follow through on her analysis
and confront the issue of whether the democratization she recommends is
compatible with the continuing rule of Fidel Castro and his Communist Party,
or whether it will have to be accomplished in opposition to these forces.
Moreover, she evades the issue of the continuing one-party state suggesting,
with little logic but a good deal of equivocation, that this state
in and of itself, does not spell doom for any movement toward
democratization, just as the existence of two or more parties in other
countries does not guarantee it. Rather, what is critical in this regard is
the Party's continuing effort to confiscate the political arena. (p. 171)
Bengelsdorf tiptoes around the question of Castro's leading role, or
addresses it with euphemisms and circumlocutions. A case in point is her
characterization of Castro's regime as paternalism, which she defines as the
practice of treating people as children instead of self-reliant adults
capable of making decisions. This approach captures an aspect of Castroism
but deflects attention from the major role repression has played in almost
four decades of rule. While the right-wing incorrectly claims that Castro
does not enjoy any popular support and that his regime rules only on the
basis of repression, it is disturbing that Bengelsdorf downplays the role of
State Security (Seguridad del Estado) and the neighborhood vigilance carried
out by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs), resulting in
systematic violations of civil and political liberties.
SIMILARLY, BENGELSDORF ACCEPTS AT FACE VALUE Castro's espousal of the values
of national unity as a justification for his suppression of any expression
of political opinion potentially threatening his monopoly of power. She also
accepts Castro's claim that his approach is based on the views of Cuba's
Founding Father, Jose Marti. When Marti -- a Freemason with views deeply
rooted in 19th century traditions of progressive liberalism and
nationalism -- spoke about unity he was trying to overcome the petty
jealousies of the insurgent caudillos in order to bring about a united
military campaign against Spanish control of the island. Marti attempted to
accomplish this through political means: persuasion, education, and the
creation of a united organization to achieve Cuban independence. He did not
advocate forceful suppression, imprisonment or the execution of those who
resisted his efforts. Furthermore, Marti's views pertaining to "unity" in
the struggle against Spain had no relevance to the different issue of the
social, political and constitutional arrangements of the Cuban Republic to
be established after victory.
For Castro, the word unity has been a euphemism for monolithism and
autocratic power. As early as 1954 he wrote to Luis Conte Aguero, then his
close friend:
Conditions which are indispensable for the integration of a truly civic
moment: ideology, discipline and chieftainship. The three are essential but
chieftainship is basic...The apparatus of propaganda and organization must
be such and so powerful that it will implacably destroy him who will create
tende

Fw: Jesse Lemisch

[Michael Pugliese]

- Original Message -
From: "Jesse Lemisch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Michael Pugliese" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 12:50 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L:13969] Jesse Lemisch


> Thanks for sending this to me. It's amazing in its inability to come to
> terms with a serious argument. I'm not on the list this was apparently
> posted on, and don't know whether I care to reply -- but if I did, I'd
> appreciate knowing how I would do so. Or, it would be nice if somebody
> posted my article, which is available at www.wpunj.edu/newpol
>
> Jesse
> - Original Message -
> From: Michael Pugliese <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 3:11 PM
> Subject: Fw: [PEN-L:13969] Jesse Lemisch
>
>
> >I'm sure you've seen Lou "intervene" at the NY Marxist School or the
> > Brecht Forum!
> > Michael Pugliese
> >
> > - Original Message -
> > From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 11:59 AM
> > Subject: [PEN-L:13969] Jesse Lemisch
> >
> >
> > > >Jesse Lemisch
> > > >
> > > >[from New Politics, vol. 8, no. 3 (new series), whole no. 31, Summer
> > 2001]
> > > >
> > > >... I SUPPORTED RALPH NADER FOR PRESIDENT IN 2000. Nonetheless, I
> > > >think that in some ways Nader and the Greens offer a bad model for
> > > >the future of independent politicsHere is my criticism, first in
> > > >summary: Nader and the Greens abstemiously turned their backs on
> > > >people's reasonable and deeply human longings for abundance, joy,
> > > >cornucopia, variety and mobility,
> > >
> > > Abundance, joy, corncupia, variety and mobility? I think that's what
> most
> > > NY'ers like Lemisch enjoy right now, while their taxes go to pay for a
> CIA
> > > and military that denies it to the rest of the world.
> > >
> > > > What, after all, is
> > > >the matter with food in abundance, and wonderful material goods?
> > > >Might globalization, under popular control, be a good thing, or is it
> > > >intrinsically and inevitably bad? Might large-scale agriculture,
> > > >under different conditions, be a good thing?
> > >
> > > This is not what Marx argued in v.3 of Capital, but Lemisch's
> connections
> > > to Marxism seems tangential at best.
> > >
> > > >How can it be that in
> > > >2000 Nader still believed in the family farm as what he
> > > >anachronistically called "the cultural backbone of America"? Why do
> > > >we hear so much about such archaic notions as "self-reliance"?
> > >
> > > Because people feel appalled by the kind of cancer epidemics
industrial
> > > farming produces?
> > >
> > > > Are
> > > >TV, Viagra, Prozac and tourism necessarily, as Nader thinks, bad
> > > >things? What about cars? Even if we were to deal successfully with
> > > >pollution, I just don't think that Greens would accept, much less
> > > >delight in, the utopian potential of the easy mobility given to us by
> > > >cars
> > >
> > > Don't forget fox-hunting. You haven't lived until you ride across the
> bog
> > > on a foggy morning in your red suit, blowing your horn.
> > >
> > > >...Do demographic and other data support Green notions of scarcity,
> > > >or does the Green mystique of scarcity precede investigation of the
> > > >realities? Are Green ideas of "sustainability" sometimes rooted in
> > > >apparent givens that turn out in fact to be political choices?
> > >
> > > There are only so many blue-finned tuna in the ocean. With fishing
boats
> > > made from converted sonar-equipped WWII sub hunters, they will rapidly
> > > disappear. This has nothing to do with Malthus, but common sense.
> > >
> > > >>So it's not clear whether the real limits of what the earth can
> > > >produce cause the ascetic complex, or whether the ideology comes
> > > >first, a priori, focusing attention on the limits rather than the
> > > >possibilities. What ever became of the notion of planning -- figuring
> > > >out how to accomplish social goals, especially with newer
> > > >technologies?...
> > >
> > > Right new technologies. Let's clone blue-fin tuna.
> > >
> > >
> > > Louis Proyect
> > > Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
> > >
> >
>

RE: Re: Re: THE HISTORY OF DEFORESTATION

[Forstater, Mathew]

>From the establishment of the English colony of Jamestown in 1607, there
was uninterrupted and widespread environmental destruction.  Within a
few generations, the great forests of the Northeast were leveled, and
not long after the Civil War logging companies started deforesting the
Midwest at such a rapid rate that within 40 years an area the size of
Europe had been stripped, including much of Minnesota, Michigan, and
Wisconsin.  For instance, by 1897, sawmills in Michigan had processed
160 billion board feet of white pine leaving less than 6 billion board
feet standing in the entire state. mat

environmental demands

[Michael Perelman]

I don't think anybody here is a real expert on ecology -- I hope that I am
wrong.  I think that we have made demands on the environment that go well
beyond sustainability.  I assume that there is general agreement there.

I assume that we some mix of 3 possibilities ahead of us.

1. Superior technology to the rescue.  I am skeptical about how far we 
can go with that one.  But there are some things we can do.  Sprawl, for
example, is a major culprit, but to fight it requires a tremendous
political will.  You can make the cities more liveable -- but that
probably means chasing the poor out.

2. Do with less -- meaning horrible fights over who gets what -- sure to
bring out the worst in all of us.  Patrick B. has reminded us of the
standard market solution: price the poor out of the market.

3. Let things go to hell.

Since none of us have all the answers, we should at least be tolerant of
those who make suggestions, and make our own suggestions without
arrogance.



 -- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Cuban Genetic Engineering (was Jesse Lemisch)

[Louis Proyect]

Yoshie:
>Cuban socialists aren't opposed to genetic engineering per se, though 
>I don't know if they like eatin' tuna & doubt that they are sanguine 
>about trends in corporate genetic engineering.  :->

Cubans also use nuclear power. In any case, it does not make sense to
extrapolate from the economic development model of a besieged island bereft
of its main trading partner, except to say that you are always better off
eliminating the profit motive--this despite the seething hostility of
social democrats like Sam Farber who has written screeds against Cuba for
New Politics.

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org

Cuban Genetic Engineering (was Jesse Lemisch)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>  >>So it's not clear whether the real limits of what the earth can
>>produce cause the ascetic complex, or whether the ideology comes
>>first, a priori, focusing attention on the limits rather than the
>>possibilities. What ever became of the notion of planning -- figuring
>>out how to accomplish social goals, especially with newer
>>technologies?...
>
>Right new technologies. Let's clone blue-fin tuna.
>
>Louis Proyect

Cuban socialists aren't opposed to genetic engineering per se, though 
I don't know if they like eatin' tuna & doubt that they are sanguine 
about trends in corporate genetic engineering.  :->

*   EJB Electronic Journal of Biotechnology
Papers accepted from next issue of August 15th, 2001

Tilapia chromosomal growth hormone gene expression accelerates growth 
in transgenic zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Reynold Morales, Mammalian Cell Genetics Division. Center for Genetic 
Engineering and Biotechnology. PO Box 6162, Havana, Cuba.
María Teresa Herrera, Department of Animal and Human Biology. Faculty 
of Biology. University of Havana. 25th street No. 455, Havana 10400, 
Cuba.
Amílcar Arenal, Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. PO 
Box 387, Camagüey 1, Cuba.
Asterio Cruz, Division of Quality Control and Assurance. Center for 
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. PO Box 6162, Havana, Cuba.
Oscar Hernández, Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. PO 
Box 387, Camagüey 1, Cuba.
Rafael Pimentel, Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. PO 
Box 387, Camagüey 1, Cuba.
Isabel Guillén, Mammalian Cell Genetics Division. Center for Genetic 
Engineering and Biotechnology. PO Box 6162, Havana, Cuba.
Rebeca Martínez, Mammalian Cell Genetics Division. Center for Genetic 
Engineering and Biotechnology. PO Box 6162, Havana, Cuba.
Mario P Estrada, Mammalian Cell Genetics Division. Center for Genetic 
Engineering and Biotechnology. PO Box 6162, Havana, Cuba.

   *

*   EJB Electronic Journal of Biotechnology ISSN: 0717-3458
Vol.1 No.3, Issue of December 15, 1998.
© 1998 by Universidad Católica de Valparaíso -- Chile

INVITED REVIEW ARTICLE

Agrobacterium tumefaciens: a natural tool for plant transformation

Gustavo A. de la Riva*
Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology. Plant Division. Centre for 
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).
P.O.Box 6162, 10600 Havana, Cuba
Fax: (53-7) 218070, (53-7) 336008
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Joel González-Cabrera
Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology. Plant Division. Centre for 
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).
P.O.Box 6162, 10600 Havana, Cuba
Fax: (53-7) 218070, (53-7) 336008
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Roberto Vázquez-Padrón
Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology. Plant Division. Centre for 
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).
P.O.Box 6162, 10600 Havana, Cuba
Fax: (53-7) 218070, (53-7) 336008
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Camilo Ayra-Pardo
Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology. Plant Division. Centre for 
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).
P.O.Box 6162, 10600 Havana, Cuba
Fax: (53-7) 218070, (53-7) 336008
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

*Corresponding author

Keywords: Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Plant transformation, T-DNA

Abstract

Updated information of mechanisms for T-DNA transfer to plant cells 
by Agrobacterium tumefaciens is provided, focused on the role played 
by the different components of the virulence system. The general 
assessments for the establishment of efficient transformation 
protocols are discussed with an emphasis in the application of this 
methodology to monocotyledonous plants. Based on our own experience, 
we present the establishment of sugarcane transformation by A. 
tumefaciens as a model of application of this methodology to an 
important culture plant species, previously considered recalcitrant 
and inaccessible for this type of genetic manipulation.

   *

See also Tim Wheeler, "Cuba Takes Lead in Genetic Engineering, 
Biotechnology," _People's Weekly World_ 14 December 1996 at 
.

Yoshie

WTO/AIDS

[Ian Murray]

Monday June 25, 1:34 pm Eastern Time
U.S. Withdraws WTO Patents Case
U.S. Withdraws WTO Patents Case Against Brazil Over Law to Ensure
Cheap AIDS Drugs
By NAOMI KOPPEL
Associated Press Writer

GENEVA (AP) -- The United States has withdrawn a complaint with the
World Trade Organization over a law used by Brazil to ensure cheap
drugs to fight AIDS, a Brazilian trade negotiator said Monday.


Jose Alfredo Graca Lima told reporters the two countries had ``come to
an understanding'' over a law that requires owners of Brazilian
patents to manufacture their products in Brazil rather than import
them. If this is not done, the law gives the Brazilian government the
right to license the manufacturing rights to another producer.

``It is a victory for both sides, a victory for common sense,'' he
said.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, speaking in Washington,
insisted the U.S. case had nothing to do with AIDS drugs. Under WTO
rules, there are procedures for governments to force local production
of patented drugs if the country is experiencing a health emergency
like the HIV/AIDS epidemic, he said.

The United States went to the WTO in February to complain that
Brazil's 1996 industrial property law violates patent protection
rules.

Brazil maintained that its laws are acceptable under WTO rules.

The Nobel Prize-winning charity Medicins Sans Frontieres -- also known
as Doctors Without Borders -- said the Brazilian government's program
allowed it to offer free treatment to more than 90,000 patients, and
this would be threatened if Brazil had to accept higher-priced
imported drugs.

Graca Lima said Brazil had agreed with Washington that it would give
10 days' notice before it used compulsory licensing under the law, to
give time for consultations.

The WTO agreed last week to look into whether its rules protecting
drug patents can become more flexible to address concerns by
developing countries and health activists that the regulations prevent
vital medicines reaching the poor.

Jesse Lemisch

[Louis Proyect]

>Jesse Lemisch
>
>[from New Politics, vol. 8, no. 3 (new series), whole no. 31, Summer 2001]
>
>... I SUPPORTED RALPH NADER FOR PRESIDENT IN 2000. Nonetheless, I 
>think that in some ways Nader and the Greens offer a bad model for 
>the future of independent politicsHere is my criticism, first in 
>summary: Nader and the Greens abstemiously turned their backs on 
>people's reasonable and deeply human longings for abundance, joy, 
>cornucopia, variety and mobility,

Abundance, joy, corncupia, variety and mobility? I think that's what most
NY'ers like Lemisch enjoy right now, while their taxes go to pay for a CIA
and military that denies it to the rest of the world.

> What, after all, is 
>the matter with food in abundance, and wonderful material goods? 
>Might globalization, under popular control, be a good thing, or is it 
>intrinsically and inevitably bad? Might large-scale agriculture, 
>under different conditions, be a good thing? 

This is not what Marx argued in v.3 of Capital, but Lemisch's connections
to Marxism seems tangential at best.

>How can it be that in 
>2000 Nader still believed in the family farm as what he 
>anachronistically called "the cultural backbone of America"? Why do 
>we hear so much about such archaic notions as "self-reliance"?

Because people feel appalled by the kind of cancer epidemics industrial
farming produces?

> Are 
>TV, Viagra, Prozac and tourism necessarily, as Nader thinks, bad 
>things? What about cars? Even if we were to deal successfully with 
>pollution, I just don't think that Greens would accept, much less 
>delight in, the utopian potential of the easy mobility given to us by 
>cars

Don't forget fox-hunting. You haven't lived until you ride across the bog
on a foggy morning in your red suit, blowing your horn.

>...Do demographic and other data support Green notions of scarcity, 
>or does the Green mystique of scarcity precede investigation of the 
>realities? Are Green ideas of "sustainability" sometimes rooted in 
>apparent givens that turn out in fact to be political choices?

There are only so many blue-finned tuna in the ocean. With fishing boats
made from converted sonar-equipped WWII sub hunters, they will rapidly
disappear. This has nothing to do with Malthus, but common sense.

>>So it's not clear whether the real limits of what the earth can 
>produce cause the ascetic complex, or whether the ideology comes 
>first, a priori, focusing attention on the limits rather than the 
>possibilities. What ever became of the notion of planning -- figuring 
>out how to accomplish social goals, especially with newer 
>technologies?...

Right new technologies. Let's clone blue-fin tuna.


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org

Re: Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Doug Henwood]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

>>
>
>I have yet to browse through the entire issue, but are you pointing 
>to the following?

Yes, sorry, wrong link. It should have been 
.

Lemisch wrote in an earlier NP piece 
:

>At Foundry on April 14, Nader spoke out, rightly, for vaccination, 
>but attacked Viagra and Prozac, apparently seen as only life-style 
>frivolities. From the audience, Joanne Landy (a Nader supporter) 
>cried out -- as is her custom in such situations, particularly in 
>large domed spaces -- "Whatsamatta with Viagra!!?" The gentle sound 
>wafted toward the dome of the beautiful church; two days later, at 
>the Ellipse, Nader delivered the same speech, but without the 
>offending passages. But they are likely to come back. There is, with 
>Nader, a strong ascetic streak which is very much in the American 
>grain, but also very much out of touch with the cultural revolution 
>wrought by the sixties. Even Oprah knows better than Ralph Nader. 
>(As Landy points out, half seriously, a Nader presidency could leave 
>us depressed, in our mud huts, suffering from erectile dysfunction 
>-- and possibly without any tv to watch.)

There's a way in which a certain kind of environmentalism seems like 
depressive misanthropy made into a political program.

Doug

Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Doug posted:

>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>>I am pretty sure that we can, but it will require *radical* adjustments
>>>including:
>>>
>>>1. overcoming the city-countryside split as called for in the Communist
>>>Manifesto.
>>>2. elimination of the automobile and jet plane except for extraordinary
>>>reasons.
>>>3. promotion of bicycles and trains and other forms of environmentally wise
>>>transportation.
>>>4. drastic reduction in meat eating.
>>>5. sharp cutback in fashion, luxury goods like Rolex watches, Mount Blanc
>>>pens, overseas vacations, fancy restaurants and delicatessens--ie.
>>>everything that goes into a "yuppie" lifestyle. In exchange for a reduction
>>>in these kinds of dubious "goodies" we achieve more free time and a sense
>>>of relief that we are not fucking over the rest of the world.
>>>6. in general, less is more as Mies van der Rohe put it.
>>
>>1-6 won't solve the problem, though, if fossil fuels & clean water 
>>are soon running out & there is no practical alternative energy 
>>source, as Mark says.  How do you make bicycles & run trains 
>>without fuels?
>
>

I have yet to browse through the entire issue, but are you pointing 
to the following?

*   Nader vs. the Big Rock Candy Mountain
Jesse Lemisch

[from New Politics, vol. 8, no. 3 (new series), whole no. 31, Summer 2001]

... I SUPPORTED RALPH NADER FOR PRESIDENT IN 2000. Nonetheless, I 
think that in some ways Nader and the Greens offer a bad model for 
the future of independent politicsHere is my criticism, first in 
summary: Nader and the Greens abstemiously turned their backs on 
people's reasonable and deeply human longings for abundance, joy, 
cornucopia, variety and mobility, substituting instead a puritanical 
asceticism that romanticizes hardship, scarcity, localism and 
underdevelopment -- a traditionalism that blinds us to the 
possibility of utopia. I see in this complex, vestiges of an Old 
Left/New Left puritanism, a continuing quest for a kind of a faux 
working-class authenticity and a reaffirmation of the Protestant 
Ethic. Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 
continues to have much to tell us about puritanical asceticism.

A lot of this austere and abstinent complex has been seen as just a 
quirk of Nader's character, but it's more pervasive than that. Many 
of us who gave general support to Nader nonetheless saw and spoke -- 
as Landy and I did in our pro-Nader petition -- of serious problems 
in his views on abortion, race and gender. Some friendly critics 
spoke of Nader's "tin ear" or "blind spot" in these areas. But these 
are not just blind spots or imperfections in an otherwise good 
program, but rather add up to a coherent and systemic component of 
Nader's thought, rooted in a Gitlinesque horror of identity politics. 
Nader's contempt for what he called "gonadal politics" is as deep as 
Todd Gitlin's contempt for identity politics, and despite the 
political gap between them, there is an interesting congruence on 
this.

Similarly, a romance of parsimoniousness and asceticism is not just a 
quirkiness of individual Greens but rather permeates Green thought. 
(In this paper I often speak simultaneously about Nader and about 
different kinds of Greens. Obviously, there are differences. But to 
deny the fundamental consensus among them on asceticism is to throw 
out all reasonable generalization. The central point is not whether 
there is explicit and total agreement, but whether these beliefs are 
ever questioned. My experience and reading indicate that these values 
are hegemonic and are publicly unquestioned among Greens.) Such 
blinders leave the left incapable of tangling with many difficult 
questions that independent politics should face: What, after all, is 
the matter with food in abundance, and wonderful material goods? 
Might globalization, under popular control, be a good thing, or is it 
intrinsically and inevitably bad? Might large-scale agriculture, 
under different conditions, be a good thing? How can it be that in 
2000 Nader still believed in the family farm as what he 
anachronistically called "the cultural backbone of America"? Why do 
we hear so much about such archaic notions as "self-reliance"? Are 
TV, Viagra, Prozac and tourism necessarily, as Nader thinks, bad 
things? What about cars? Even if we were to deal successfully with 
pollution, I just don't think that Greens would accept, much less 
delight in, the utopian potential of the easy mobility given to us by 
cars

...Do demographic and other data support Green notions of scarcity, 
or does the Green mystique of scarcity precede investigation of the 
realities? Are Green ideas of "sustainability" sometimes rooted in 
apparent givens that turn out in fact to be political choices? For 
instance, would population decrease with increased education for 
women and increased social and cultural rewards for female roles 
other than motherhood? E

Re: California Drought

[Louis Proyect]

>If I understand the global warming models correctly,
>this situation will be normal in California within a
>decade or so. Sending bottled water to farmers may be
>"nice" but it's no way to run an economy. Farming is
>dead in the far north, for good, apparently.
>
>tim

This is exactly the sort of thing that symbolizes the deepening
environmental crisis. You have the following things interacting with each
other:

1. growth of cities in what amounts to desert conditions (Phoenix, Las
Vegas, etc.) requires water-based energy to be diverted into air
conditioning, lawn sprinklers, golf courses, etc.

2. such cities are car-based by their nature. SUV's, the car of choice in
such yahoo locales, were responsible for 15 percent of the increase in
greenhouse emissions last year.

3. food supplies to such cities involves agribusiness suplies from
out-of-state either in California or Mexico. by their nature, crops are
subject to pesticides, chemical fertilizers and irrigation, all of which
seriously degrade the environment.

4. water diverted to hydroelectric dams and irrigation causes rivers to dry
up, thus leading to the extinction of valuable fish.


What a fuggin mess.

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org

Re: California Drought

[Doug Henwood]

Tim Bousquet wrote:

>If I understand the global warming models correctly

Forget about global warming! Alex Cockburn reassures us there's 
nothing to worry about: 
.

Doug

Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Yoshie Furuhashi
>>  Mark should stop putting the question as an oft-thwarted attempt at a
>>  prediction -- e.g., "will energy be available at current requirement
>>  projections at environmental costs most people can stand and at
>>  market prices compatible with those particular requirements within a
>>  capitalist context?"
>
>Yoshie, please don't put words in my mouth. I haven't said this or anything
>like this.
>
>Mark Jones

You may have intended something entirely different, but that's how 
Rob & many of us heard it.  Communication (which isn't a one-way 
affair) is after all part of politics, so we got to work on it, too. 
It's often a matter of wrong accents, inflections, etc. rather than 
wrong themes -- for instance, energy is obviously an important theme 
of Marxist discussion, in which more should become interested.

Yoshie

California Drought

[Tim Bousquet]

If I understand the global warming models correctly,
this situation will be normal in California within a
decade or so. Sending bottled water to farmers may be
"nice" but it's no way to run an economy. Farming is
dead in the far north, for good, apparently.

tim


Siskiyou County running dry
Scott, Shasta river conditions are life threatening to
salmon
Redding Record-Searchlight - 6/23/01
By Jim Schultz, staff writer

YREKA - Siskiyou County, caught in the grips of its
worst drought since
1936, is a county under siege.

"It's getting horrible," Siskiyou County Supervisor
Bill Overman of 
Yreka
said Friday. "It's drier than the dickens."

With no end in sight, 44 wells have gone dry in Scott
and Little Shasta
valleys in north central Siskiyou County, and others
are close to being 
dry,
he said.

"We fear there will be a lot more before summer's
out," Overman said.

Earlier this week, Grizz Adams, head of the county's
Office of 
Emergency
Services, told supervisors that he expects that the
Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) may soon step in to help fund
emergency 
relief operations.

But, Adams said Friday, he's not sure exactly what the
nature of that 
aid
would be.

"I have no idea," he said. "It's kind of the
million-dollar question."

Adams said the county may have to step in to ensure
that residents have
water.

"But it could get to the point where we might have to
hire water trucks 
to
get water to people," he said, adding that such help
would present a
"nightmare" of logistical problems.

In the meantime, the county has agreed to waive a
variety of fees so 
those
with wells that have gone dry can be deepened, said
Overman.

Meanwhile, two Mount Shasta water bottling companies -
Crystal Geyser 
and
Dannon - have donated 48 pallets of bottled drinking
water for those 
whose
wells have failed.

"They have been very generous," Overman said.

Last month, Siskiyou County was declared as a state
and federal 
disaster area due to its drought conditions, but a
presidential 
disaster declaration has yet been issued, said Adams.

Adams, who noted that the Klamath Basin has been
reeling since 
irrigation
water was nearly cut off to farmers by the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation 
to
protect endangered fish, said he's trying to treat the
Klamath Basin 
and the
water emergency in the Scott and Little Shasta valleys
separately.

But, he agreed, Siskiyou County's drought will only
get worse in the 
weeks
and months ahead, and perhaps longer, noting that the
small community 
of
Etna has contacted him for water conservation
information.

"It's just started," said Adams. "I'm not sure what
we're going to do."

Meanwhile, state Department of Fish and Game officials
told the San
Francisco Chronicle that irrigation by Siskiyou County
ranchers is 
decimating salmon and steelhead populations on
California's second 
biggest river system, but they are not implementing a
state law that 
could stop the diversions.

Ranchers have diverted most of the flow of the Scott
and Shasta rivers 
in
Siskiyou County to irrigate alfalfa fields and
pastures, leaving 
thousands of young salmon and steelhead without enough
water and 
facing imminent death.

But agency officials say they are being told not to
cite offenders 
out of concern that cooperative restoration projects
between the 
state and ranchers
on the Scott and Shasta Rivers would end instantly if
the law were 
enforced.

"We've got five or six thousand steelhead trout dead
on the Scott, and 
(dead
juvenile steelhead) everywhere on the Shasta," Warden
Renie Cleland 
said.

The Scott has been sucked dry, and the Shasta reduced
to a trickle at 
its
juncture with the Klamath.

Temperatures in the river have reached or exceeded the
level considered
lethal for salmon species, which favor cold water.
Thousands of fish 
have died and thousands of others face imminent death.

"Everything has died," Fish and Game Captain Chuck
Konvalin said of the
Scott River, according to the Chronicle. "The system
has been dried 
up."#

=
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RE: Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie Furuhashi
> Mark should stop putting the question as an oft-thwarted attempt at a
> prediction -- e.g., "will energy be available at current requirement
> projections at environmental costs most people can stand and at
> market prices compatible with those particular requirements within a
> capitalist context?"

Yoshie, please don't put words in my mouth. I haven't said this or anything
like this.

Mark Jones

Marxism and ecology

[Louis Proyect]

Yoshie:
>rationing, & many Cubans depend upon access to dollars for 
>necessities.  In fact, it is probably very difficult for any one 
>nation to reconcile town & country, since the division between town & 
>country has an international dimension.

No kidding.

>
>And let's not forget that Marx also argued for "[e]xtension of 
>factories and instruments of production owned by the state," whether 
>you like it or not.

Geez, I did not know that.

>We can't destroy the planet but we can destroy our habitat -- through 
>war & pollution -- enough to make it largely inhabitable for humans. 
>I'm not familiar with Burkett's & Foster's "attacks" upon Jim 
>O'Connor's idea of "second contradiction."  You might discuss it here.

They think that capitalism will not go off the rails because of
environmental contradictions. In any case, I have my own views and allow
others to think what they want. That's what makes politics interesting.

Dialectical Materialism and Ecology

Recent reading has convinced me that it is time to reconsider dialectical
materialism, the unjustly maligned attempt by Marx and Engels to provide a
unified analysis of society and nature. Dialectical materialism has gotten
a bad reputation from its use in Soviet apologetics, but, despite this, an
updated version can provide insights into the environmental crisis that
historical materialism simply can not. 

Jean-Guy Vaillancourt's essay "Marx and Ecology: More Benedictine than
Franciscan" is contained in the collection "The Greening of Marxism"
(Guilford, 1996) raises this question in a most perceptive way. (By the
way, there's an essay by this guy named Michael Perelman titled "Marx and
Resource Scarcity" in there as well. It's pretty gosh-darned good.) 

Vaillancourt singles out Engels's "Anti-Duhring" and the "Dialectics of
Nature" for special consideration since they are more directly concerned
with nature and ecology than any of the previous writings of Marx and
Engels. They are also considered bulwarks of dialectical materialist
thought. The "Dialectics of Nature" contains the famous chapter "The Role
of Work in Transforming Ape into Man." 

Most people are quite familiar with the paragraph that describes how the
"conquest" of nature can have unexpected results: 

"Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human
victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on
us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results
we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different,
unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people who,
in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to
obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that by removing along with the
forests the collecting centres and reservoirs of moisture they were laying
the basis for the present forlorn state of those countries. When the
Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests on the southern slopes, so
carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by
doing so they were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry in their
region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their
mountain springs of water for the greater part of the year, and making it
possible for them to pour still more furious torrents on the plains during
the rainy seasons. Those who spread the potato in Europe were not aware
that with these farinaceous tubers they were at the same time spreading
scrofula. Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over
nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing
outside nature -- but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to
nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in
the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able
to learn its laws and apply them correctly." 

What is less frequently quoted is the paragraph which immediately follows: 

"And, in fact, with every day that passes we are acquiring a better
understanding of these laws and getting to perceive both the more immediate
and the more remote consequences of our interference with the traditional
course of nature. In particular, after the mighty advances made by the
natural sciences in the present century, we are more than ever in a
position to realise, and hence to control, also the more remote natural
consequences of at least our day-to-day production activities. But the more
this progresses the more will humanity not only feel but also know their
oneness with nature, and the more impossible will become the senseless and
unnatural idea of a contrast between mind and matter, humanity and nature,
soul and body, such as arose after the decline of classical antiquity in
Europe and obtained its highest elaboration in Christianity." 

When Engels states we will know our "oneness with nature", he is really
hearkening back to the classical materialist roots of Marxism. A

Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 11:49 AM -0400 6/25/01, Louis Proyect wrote:
>The questions we are dealing with exist on an overarching basis and 
>have little to do with organizing people.

The environmental questions had better be posed with a view to 
organizing people & pushing for socialism.  It appears, btw, that 
South Africa has gone out of the window in this thread, despite the 
subject line.  Poor Comrade Bond is on his own again.  :->

At 11:49 AM -0400 6/25/01, Louis Proyect wrote:
>  >Mark should stop putting the question as an oft-thwarted attempt at a
>>prediction -- e.g., "will energy be available at current requirement
>>projections at environmental costs most people can stand and at
>>market prices compatible with those particular requirements within a
>>capitalist context?"  That's a perspective of a political spectator.
>
>No more so than Marx reading and writing about the soil fertility crisis of
>the 19th century. His answer to this was not activism in the narrow sense
>but a "maximalist" call in the Communist Manifesto for the reconcilement of
>city and countryside.

*   The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by 
degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all 
instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the 
proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total 
productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means 
of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions 
of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which 
appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the 
course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further 
inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of 
entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be 
pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land 
to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a 
national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he 
hands of the state.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the 
state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the 
improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial 
armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual 
abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more 
equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of 
children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of 
education with industrial production, etc.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have 
disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of 
a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose 
its political character. Political power, properly so called, is 
merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If 
the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, 
by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by 
means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as 
such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it 
will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for 
the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will 
thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class 
antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free 
development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

   

Evidently, Marx & Engels even in 1848 didn't think that "the 
abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more 
equable distribution of the populace over the country" could be 
brought about overnight.  Cuba, even with its turn to urban gardens & 
organic agriculture (compelled by the collapse of the Eastern bloc & 
the US embargo), is still a heavily urbanized country, probably with 
only 20% or less of the population living in the countryside.  While 
the production of vegetables improved much due to the reorganization 
of agriculture in Cuba, it has yet to become able to move beyond 
rationing, & many Cubans depend upon access to dollars for 
necessities.  In fact, it is probably very difficult for any one 
nation to reconcile town & count

Yellow River: Faustian lock-in?

[Ricardo Duchesne]

Marshall Berman on Faust 'The Developer'

"Suddenly Faust springs up enraged: Why should men let things 
go on being the way they have always been? Isn't it about time for 
mankind to assert itself against nature's tyrannical arrogance, to 
confront natural forces in the name of 'the free spirit that protects 
all rights'?

"It is outrageous that, for all the vast energy expended by the sea, 
it merely surges endlessly back and forth-- 'and nothing is achieved!'

'This drives me near to desperate distress!
Such elemental power unharnessed, purposeless!
There dares my spirit soar past all it knew;
Here I would fight, this I would subdue!'

"...the Faustian enterprise will be less quixotic and more fruitful, 
because it will draw on nature's own energy and organize that 
energy into the fuel for new collective human purposes and projects 
of which archaic kings could hardly have dreamt"

"'And it is possible!...Fast in my mind, plan upon plan unfolds'. 
Suddenly the landscape around him metamorphoses into a site. 
He outlines great reclamation projects to harness the sea for 
human purposes: man-made harbors and canals that can move 
ships full of goods and men; dams for large-scale irrigation; green 
fields and forests, pastures and gardens, a vast and intensive 
agriculture; waterpower to attract and support emerging industries; 
thriving settlements, new towns and cities to come -- and all this to 
be created out of a barren wasteland where humans have never 
dared to live"

'Daily they would vainly storm, 
Pick and shovel, stroke for stroke;
Where the flames would nightly swarm
Was a dam when we awoke.
Human sacrifices bled,
Tortured screams would pierce the night,
And where blazes seaward spread
A canal would greet the light'

"He has replaced a barren, sterile economy with a dynamic new 
one that will 'open up space for many millions/ To live, not 
securely, but free for action'"

"In order to understand the developer's tragedy, we must judge his 
vision of the world not only by what it sees -- by the immense new 
horizons it opens up for mankind -- but also by what it does not 
see: what human realities it refuses to look at, what potentialities it 
cannot bear to face"

"Faust becomes obsessed with this old couple and their little piece 
of land: 'That aged couple should have yielded, / I want their lindens 
in my grip, / Since these few trees that are denied me / Undo my 
worldwide ownership...Hence is our soul upon the rack, / To feel, 
amid plenty, what we lack'. 

"Faust commits his first self-consciously evil act. He summons 
Mephisto and his 'mighty men' and orders them to get the old 
people out of the way. He does not want to see it, or to know the 
details of how it is done".

"But now he has staked his whole identity on the will to change, 
and on his power to fulfill that will, his bond with his past petrifies 
him. 'That bell, those lindens' sweet perfume
Enfolds me like a church or tomb'

For the developer, to stop moving, to rest in the shadows, to let the 
old people enfold him, is death"
(pp 60-69)   

Economic Reporting Review, 6/25/01

[Robert Naiman]

Economic Reporting Review, June 25, 2001
By Dean Baker

You can sign up to receive ERR every week by
sending a "subscribe ERR"
email request to [EMAIL PROTECTED]  You can find the
latest ERR at
http://www.tompaine.com/news/2000/10/02/index.html
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August are archived at http://www.fair.org/err.
All ERR after August
are archived at www.tompaine.com.

***

OUTSTANDING STORIES OF THE WEEK

"Wall St. Advocacy Group Gets White House Help,"
by
John Mintz in the Washington Post, June 17, 2001,
page A2.

This article reports on Treasury Secretary Paul
O'Neill's cooperation with a financial industry
lobbying group, which seeks to privatize Social
Security. The article notes the peculiarity of the
relationship, since O'Neill is a trustee of the
Social Security system, with a fiduciary
responsibility to it.

"O'Neill Faults 'No Assets' Social Security," by
Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post, June 19,
2001,
page E1.

This article reports on a speech on Social
Security
that Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill gave before a
group of financial industry executives in New
York.
In the speech, O'Neill asserted that Social
Security
has no assets. The article points out that as
Treasury Secretary, O'Neill is also a trustee of
the
Social Security program. In that capacity he
signed
the most recent trustees' report, which shows that
the system has more than $900 billion in assets.

"States Expecting to Lose Billions from Repeal of
U.S. Estate Tax," by Kevin Sack in the New York
Times, June 21, 2001, page A1.

This article examines the amount of revenue that
states are expecting to lose over the next decade
as
a result of the recent change in the federal
estate
tax. The article points out that in many states
the
loss will be quite significant, with the total
loss
projected at 1.5 percent of projected state
revenue
over the next decade. The article also emphasizes
the
percentage of projected revenue that will be lost,

rather the dollar amount. The percentage of
revenue
is a far more meaningful number to most readers.

"Future May Be More Uncertain for Technology," by
Gretchen Morgenson in the New York Times, June 20,
2001, page C1.

This article reports on the findings of a new
study
by Merrill Lynch, which indicates that the
reported
profits of many leading tech companies may be
significantly overstated. The main factors noted
in
the study were that firms did not write off the
value
of stock options issued to their employees as
expenses, and they were able to deduct from their
taxes the cost of buying shares (to maintain the
stock price) when these options were redeemed.
While
these practices could inflate profits in a rapidly
rising stock market, the sharp stock declines in
this
sector means that reported profits are likely to
be
far lower in the future. It is worth noting that
some
economists had called attention to these sorts of
accounting problems in the past (e.g. "The Costs
of
the Stock Market Bubble," by Dean Baker,
www.cepr.net/stock_market_bubble.htm).


STEEL PRICES AND THE FREE MARKET

"Of Politics, Free Markets, and Tending Society,"
by
Tom Redburn in the New York Times, June 17, 2001,
Section 3, page 4.

This thoughtful article examines the factors that
led
President Bush to take steps to protect the
domestic
steel industry. At several points it asserts that
South Korea's steel industry is more efficient
than
the U.S. industry because it can sell its steel
more
cheaply. This is not clear.

The Clinton and Bush administrations have both
pursued a high dollar policy, under which the
dollar
has risen 20-30 percent above a sustainable level.
In
the short-run this policy has the effect of
reducing
the price of imports by approximately 20-30
percent.
In the long-run, the policy cannot be sustained,
since it is causing the United States to borrow
approximately $450 billion a year from abroad.
This
level of borrowing clearly cannot be maintained
for
more than a few years. When the dollar falls back
to
a sustainable level, it is not clear that South
Korean steel will still be cheaper than steel made
in
the United States.


THE TRADE DEFICIT

"Trade Gap Narrowed in April," Business in Brief
(compiled from wire service reports and Washington
Post staff writers), Washington Post, June 22,
2001,
page E2.

"Weak Demand Helps Reduce Trade Deficit," by
Bloomberg News in the New York Times, June 16,
2001,
page C6.

These articles report on the Commerce Department's
release of trade data for April and revised data
for
March. The headlines are both somewhat misleading.
The deficit figure reported for April was somewhat
lower than the revised figure reported for March,
but
this was only due to the fact that the March
figure
was revised upward by nearly $2 billion. The April
deficit was more than $1 billion larger than the
deficit that had originally been reported for
March,
and was higher than the figure that most analysts
had
expected for April. It is also worth noting that
the
upward revision in t

Re: Re: recession and real estate prices

[Michael Perelman]

Tim is correct.  It may be that the continued strength in the Chico real
estate market might be from people cashing out ASAP from the Bay Area --
although many of the "refugees" come from the southern part of the state.
So, it could be that the strength in the "rural" real estate could be
consistent with the faltering Bay Area market.

I might mention that while the influx of "refugees" increases the monetary
value of Chico real estate, it lowers the real value.  Traffic gets worse
and worse each year.

On Mon, Jun 25, 2001 at 07:35:45AM -0700, Tim Bousquet wrote:
> Local realtors and developers have made much out of
> the high cost of housing in Chico, demanding, and
> getting, a green light on any housing development
> whatsoever in the name of "providing low cost housing"
> (of course, no one ever tracks the actual prices of
> the developments).
> 
> But it's clear to me that we are in the San Francisco
> market. Bay Area residents found that their homes were
> doubling, tripling, quadrupling in value, and they
> could sell them, buy a nice home in Chico next to the
> park for a tenth as much, and live forever on the
> balance. Lots of forty-ish retirees in Chico. This
> obviously drives up the price of housing in Chico as
> sellers market to the incoming retirees.
> 
> I imagine this process will even speed up with the
> dot-com downturn, as people leave the industry
> entirely. Can't go on forever, though.
> 
> tim
> --- Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > The collapse of the dot.coms has cut real estate
> > prices in San
> > Francisco, but the previous momentum is still
> > pushing prices up
> > in Sacramento -- about 90 miles away.  Chico prices
> > -- about 160
> > miles from San Francisco -- seem to have leveled
> > out, the
> > realators in the sauna tell me.  Is there much
> > information about
> > how recessions propagate across regions within a
> > single economy?
> > 
> > I read about the synchronization of world economic
> > cycles, yet
> > the lags seem relatively long, even within the N.
> > Cal. economy.
> > 
> > --
> > 
> > Michael Perelman
> > Economics Department
> > California State University
> > Chico, CA 95929
> > 
> > Tel. 530-898-5321
> > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > 
> 
> 
> =
> Subscribe to ChicoLeft by emailing
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChicoLeft
> 
> Subscribe to the Chico Examiner for only $30 annually or $20 for six months. Mail 
>cash or check payabe to "Tim Bousquet" to POBox 4627, Chico CA 95927
> 
> __
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail
> http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

FT on the slump

[Ian Murray]

Going backwards
The optimism about a rapid recovery from the global downturn has begun
to dissipate, say Alan Beattie and Peronet Despeignes
Published: June 22 2001 18:42GMT | Last Updated: June 22 2001 18:51GMT



Edward Robertson, managing director of Peterson Springs UK, is
discovering the hard way how US economic gloom can spread round the
world. "January and February were good months for us but things turned
bad in April - and in June the bottom has dropped out," says Mr
Robertson, whose company is a subsidiary of a US-owned manufacturer.

Mr Robertson is not alone. The air of modest optimism among companies
and investors in Europe and the US about the ability of the global
economy to recover has begun to dissipate. Share prices are once again
on the slide and a series of profit warnings from companies has cast
doubt on the likelihood of a rapid economic recovery.

On Friday the Ifo survey of confidence among German employers reached
its lowest point for two years. Forecasts for euro-zone growth in
2001, collected by Consensus Economics, have dropped steadily from an
average of 3 per cent in December to 2.3 per cent in June and are
likely to fall further. Mr Robertson, whose company exports 30 per
cent of its output, says: "The US slowdown has affected German
confidence; that has affected us and hence there is a general
malaise."

The US is clearly the key. A run of profit warnings in the past two
weeks has battered equities, in a reminder of the gloomy run-up to the
first-quarter earnings season. Companies as diverse as McDonald's, the
fast-food chain, JDS Uniphase, the fibre-optics parts supplier, and HJ
Heinz, the food manufacturer, have issued warnings. They were on
Friday joined by Merck, the US pharmaceuticals group.

Stephen Weiting, an analyst at Salomon Smith Barney in New York,
titled his latest report on the US economy: "Help! I've fallen and I
can't get up." He predicts two years of zero earnings growth for US
companies after several years of rapid rises. The S&P 500 share index
rallied to reach 1,312 on May 21 but has since slid 6 per cent.

Thomas Mayer, an economist with Goldman Sachs in Frankfurt, also
notices a distinct deterioration in euro-zone investor sentiment over
the past few weeks. "In conjunction with the US, and on the back of
worries about the local situation, investors are pretty scared," he
says. Euro-zone stocks have followed US shares lower since the end of
May, as have those in the UK.

The pattern of the decline in sentiment shows this is more than just a
correction in new technology sectors. Weakness in such shares has
spread to old-economy stalwarts. Thursday's profit warning from the
German chemicals giant BASF showed that companies reliant on a
cyclical upswing in the global economy were no longer a haven for
investors.

The atmosphere is reminiscent of the start of the year, just before
the US Federal Reserve quickly cut interest rates to give markets and
companies a boost. "This is deja` vu all over again," said Ken
Goldstein, an economist with the Conference Board, the New York-based
business research organisation.

The Fed is expected to cut rates again next week, which may once again
boost confidence and put a floor under stock prices. But with the
gloom spreading, some fear that central banks may be reaching the
limits of their ability to prevent a prolonged global slowdown.

The worry is that the Fed's interest rate cuts have failed to solve
the economy's underlying problem. Consumers remain heavily in debt and
companies wallow in unsold inventory in spite of big write-offs by
technology companies. Business inventories of unsold goods are larger
than at any time over the past two years and the share of US
production capacity lying idle has risen to its highest level in
nearly two decades.

The Bank for International Settlements recently published a sobering
report noting that falls in private-sector net saving on the scale
that the US has experienced - minus 6.5 per cent of gross domestic
product in 2000 - have almost always been followed by sharp falls in
economic growth two years later.

Interest rate cuts from the Fed may yet pull the US economy out of the
dip, particularly if productivity growth holds up and new investment
opportunities are created. Fed officials have signalled that they
expect to keep cutting rates until the economy shows signs of
responding - and markets expect another quarter- to half-point cut.
But the Fed is constrained by the prospect that it could reignite
inflation if it acts too aggressively.

There is little sign of either Japan or Europe taking on the role of
driving global growth. Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's prime minister, has
announced ambitious plans for economic reform and restructuring. But
Japan's partners in the Group of Seven industrialised countries fear
that while these reforms may be good for the country's long-term
health, they reduce the chance of a short-term recovery.

"The weakest global link is likely to be

Re: Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Louis Proyect]

Yoshie:
>Mark should stop putting the question as an oft-thwarted attempt at a 
>prediction -- e.g., "will energy be available at current requirement 
>projections at environmental costs most people can stand and at 
>market prices compatible with those particular requirements within a 
>capitalist context?"  That's a perspective of a political spectator. 

No more so than Marx reading and writing about the soil fertility crisis of
the 19th century. His answer to this was not activism in the narrow sense
but a "maximalist" call in the Communist Manifesto for the reconcilement of
city and countryside. 

>The idea is, instead, to think like a political organizer & ask, "how 
>can we *make* environmental regulations, clean-ups, & thus production 
>& distribution costs of industrial inputs like energy -- as well as 
>the value of labor power -- impossibly costly to capitalists & *push* 
>the system into a crisis & *turn* it into our political advantage?"

No, this is inadequate. The questions we are dealing with exist on an
overarching basis and have little to do with organizing people. For that
matter, you can a completely wrong analysis of the overarching
questions--as David Harvey does--but have the right response on activism,
which he does. In reality, Marxism has failed to keep pace with ecological
questions since the 1920s when early attempts at such an understanding in
the USSR were short circuited during the mad rush to industrialize in the
face of the fascist menace. That being said, some of the outstanding
Marxist ecologists of the 20th century made their mark during this period.

There are important theoretical questions that have to be sorted out. Not
only do you have David Harvey's peculiar take on the question--stating
blandly that there is nothing you can do to destroy the planet through
pollution, etc.--but you also have Jim O'Connor's "second contradiction"
thesis which has been attacked by Burkett and Foster. Although I tend to
agree with these two, I think that much of their analysis revolves around a
scholastic defense of the proposition that Marx was an ecological thinker.
While this is true, it is inadequate to the challenge facing us. In general
the most probing analyses of the environmental crisis comes from
organizations like the Worldwatch Institute. Because of theoretical
failings and institutional weakness, our movement has not been able to
offer a counter-analysis to Worldwatch. This would require scientists with
a leftwing orientation to tackle questions like fossil fuels, water
utilization, industrial farming, environmentally linked illnesses such as
cancer and asthma, deforestation, species disappearance, etc. Not only must
these questions be addressed, they must be related to each other in a
comprehensive materialist fashion. Marxists are not just activists. They
are scientists. While economists obviously have a duty to understand the
financial/economic crisis of the last few years as evidenced by Brenner's
NLR article and all the various responses to it, our movement also needs
people like Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin to write articles in the
popular and specialized press about the mounting ecological crisis.
Ultimately this form of high-level analysis will be linked to activism, but
only in the manner that Marx's writings on the operations of the capitalist
economy became linked eventually to the formation of the First Communist
International.


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org

Re: Re: recession and real estate prices

[Rob Schaap]

Tim Bousquet wrote:
> 
> Local realtors and developers have made much out of
> the high cost of housing in Chico, demanding, and
> getting, a green light on any housing development
> whatsoever in the name of "providing low cost housing"
> (of course, no one ever tracks the actual prices of
> the developments).
> 
> But it's clear to me that we are in the San Francisco
> market. Bay Area residents found that their homes were
> doubling, tripling, quadrupling in value, and they
> could sell them, buy a nice home in Chico next to the
> park for a tenth as much, and live forever on the
> balance. Lots of forty-ish retirees in Chico. This
> obviously drives up the price of housing in Chico as
> sellers market to the incoming retirees.

Bring those speculative greenbacks down here while it's ridiculously valued,
Tim.  That can't last forever, either.  I can do you a nice 4-bedroom,
2-toilet, 1/2 acre job within ten miles of Canberra's 'city' centre for US$
120 000 and the same in Hobart for US$30 000 less than that - and that's at
the peak of our markets (wait a year to buy and you should save a fortune!). 
No dirty air, all-day electricity (you'll be ahead of the game when the same
problems do hit our recently privatised utilities), your kiddies come home
from school without bullets in 'em, no karnal bunt in your loaf, no
earthquakes, a national health scheme, free education up to matriculation,
lager that doesn't taste at all like Budweiser catpiss, a culture which
professes to hate American culture but hangs on every American's words, and
we've only just discovered our big aquifer, so we haven't had a chance to
drain and foul it yet - and if you're prone to homesickness, nearly every job
you can get here will be for the same company you'd work for at home, and
there's just enough American telly to convince you of the wisdom of your
decision.

Nearly every Yank I meet here sez it's just like America used to be (although
they can never quite arrive at a date) but without a sense it's going anywhere
(the more unbearable ones call this naive and unambitious, but the better ones
know a good thing when they see it).

Come to think of it, we still have journalism outlets who respect the likes of you.

Come and get it while it's hot, pen-pals!  Why not pick up a mining company
while you're here?  First-world comfort and complacency at third-world prices
for all holders of the formidable greenback.  

Australia ... the intelligent Californian's new Chico.

Cheers,
Rob.

Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>  > Lastly, what happened to the energy question?  Are fossil fuels soon
>>  running out?  Are alternative energy sources viable given a chance?
>>  :-)
>
>The energy question always runs up against a wall of ignorance, I reckon.  As
>the question is actually (as Mark never tires of telling us) more like: 'is
>energy available at current requirement projections at environmental costs
>most people can stand and at market prices compatible with those particular
>requirements within a capitalist context', it is rather a difficult nut to
>crack - lots of room for error and all that.  That we're going to need the
>contribution of fossil fuels to humanity's energy budget to go down
>significantly over the next twenty years seems obvious to me.  I predict the
>comeback of nuclear reactors, myself, but that probably won't get any of us to
>or from our designated production and consumption zones from and to our
>designated dormitory zones.  In that crucial respect, a sudden surge in prices
>or the intensity of urban inversion blankets (I was on the apex of Sydney
>Harbour Bridge a few months ago, and glamorous Sydney, only a mile away, was
>quite invisible in its turd-like shroud - quite scary to drive into, even for
>an industrial-strength smoker like me) could be hard to handle, short of a
>retreat to government transport systems.  Talk of alternatives should
>encompass something affordable to put under my bonnet (hood) that takes less
>energy to make and less energy to run.  Coz, like most outside the US, I shall
>go through life without ever being able to afford to replace the old steed
>(who drinks and smokes more than I do) with something new.  Haven't heard
>anything convincing in that line yet.
>
>Cheers,
>Rob.

Mark should stop putting the question as an oft-thwarted attempt at a 
prediction -- e.g., "will energy be available at current requirement 
projections at environmental costs most people can stand and at 
market prices compatible with those particular requirements within a 
capitalist context?"  That's a perspective of a political spectator. 
The idea is, instead, to think like a political organizer & ask, "how 
can we *make* environmental regulations, clean-ups, & thus production 
& distribution costs of industrial inputs like energy -- as well as 
the value of labor power -- impossibly costly to capitalists & *push* 
the system into a crisis & *turn* it into our political advantage?"

Yoshie

Re: Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Doug Henwood]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

>>I am pretty sure that we can, but it will require *radical* adjustments
>>including:
>>
>>1. overcoming the city-countryside split as called for in the Communist
>>Manifesto.
>>2. elimination of the automobile and jet plane except for extraordinary
>>reasons.
>>3. promotion of bicycles and trains and other forms of environmentally wise
>>transportation.
>>4. drastic reduction in meat eating.
>>5. sharp cutback in fashion, luxury goods like Rolex watches, Mount Blanc
>>pens, overseas vacations, fancy restaurants and delicatessens--ie.
>>everything that goes into a "yuppie" lifestyle. In exchange for a reduction
>>in these kinds of dubious "goodies" we achieve more free time and a sense
>>of relief that we are not fucking over the rest of the world.
>>6. in general, less is more as Mies van der Rohe put it.
>
>1-6 won't solve the problem, though, if fossil fuels & clean water 
>are soon running out & there is no practical alternative energy 
>source, as Mark says.  How do you make bicycles & run trains without 
>fuels?

Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Mark says:

>The issue is their economic availability to capitalism--and the 
>price the rest of us pays.

Naturally we want to make costs of industrial inputs (fuels included) 
-- as well as labor power -- dearer to capitalists, monkey-wrenching 
the circuit of accumulation, hoping to push capital into a crisis & 
turn it into out advantage.  Hence the importance of environmental 
movements (be they environmental justice, protection of habitats of 
endangered species, or whatnot).  The majority of Greens themselves 
-- even radical ones -- don't have such a strategic understanding, 
however, and it's a job of Marxists to put environmentalist concerns 
back into class politics & vice versa.  Minus the anchor of Marxist 
theory & revolutionary project, Greens naturally gravitate toward the 
ideas of "sustainable capitalism," Zerzan-style anarcho-primitivism, 
moralist anti-consumerism, & other dead ends.  Our job at bottom is 
not to help capitalists manage accumulation in a Greener fashion; our 
job is to make it first harder & then impossible for them to manage 
it in any way.

At 6:25 PM -0400 6/22/01, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>Michael Perelman wrote:
>
>>I don't know what the biggest risk is for capitalism: Third World upheavals,
>>financial implosion, global warming, overcapacity, or resource constraints.
>
>None of the above -- the tendency to overaccumulation inherent in 
>capitalism, supply bottlenecks created by neoliberalism, ecological 
>strains on the conditions of accumulation, etc. -- in itself is a 
>_terminal_ risk for capitalism, nor will be the combination of any 
>or all of the above, I think.  As long as there is no political 
>force to abolish capitalism & establish socialism, capital can 
>always turn a "risk" into a new opportunity for further 
>accumulation.  Stagflation of the 70s was solved by union-busting in 
>the North & debt deflation & deindustrialization in the South & the 
>newly capitalist East, as well as by displacing the formerly 
>partially socialized costs of reproducing labor-power back onto the 
>working class.  Another crisis brewing now can be no doubt solved in 
>favor of capital again (e.g., socialization of costs to write off 
>bad loans in Japan), unless we build unified political agents to 
>reject the anti-working-class solutions (including war & fascism) 
>that capital inevitably presents to us.
>
>Since the neoliberal solution included debt deflation & 
>deindustrialization in the South & the East, naturally we want to 
>reverse them, thereby stopping massive capital outflows from the 
>South & the East to the North which has helped the ruling class.  In 
>the North as well, the working class need to learn to demand more of 
>all goods: higher wages, more free time, more social programs, more 
>environmental cleanups, etc.  The job of the working class, in the 
>North or South or East, in short is to demand more, not because 
>doing so is a viable long-term goal under capitalism, but precisely 
>because it isn't.  The more the working class organize themselves to 
>make demands energetically, the more likely capitalism enters into 
>another serious crisis -- in other words, the working class, by 
>organized demands, must create a crisis & turn it into its favor (= 
>an opportunity to fight for socialism from the position of strength).
>
>Yoshie

That's the political strategy I argue for.

Yoshie

Re: Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Rob Schaap]

> Lastly, what happened to the energy question?  Are fossil fuels soon
> running out?  Are alternative energy sources viable given a chance?
> :-)

The energy question always runs up against a wall of ignorance, I reckon.  As
the question is actually (as Mark never tires of telling us) more like: 'is
energy available at current requirement projections at environmental costs
most people can stand and at market prices compatible with those particular
requirements within a capitalist context', it is rather a difficult nut to
crack - lots of room for error and all that.  That we're going to need the
contribution of fossil fuels to humanity's energy budget to go down
significantly over the next twenty years seems obvious to me.  I predict the
comeback of nuclear reactors, myself, but that probably won't get any of us to
or from our designated production and consumption zones from and to our
designated dormitory zones.  In that crucial respect, a sudden surge in prices
or the intensity of urban inversion blankets (I was on the apex of Sydney
Harbour Bridge a few months ago, and glamorous Sydney, only a mile away, was
quite invisible in its turd-like shroud - quite scary to drive into, even for
an industrial-strength smoker like me) could be hard to handle, short of a
retreat to government transport systems.  Talk of alternatives should
encompass something affordable to put under my bonnet (hood) that takes less
energy to make and less energy to run.  Coz, like most outside the US, I shall
go through life without ever being able to afford to replace the old steed
(who drinks and smokes more than I do) with something new.  Haven't heard
anything convincing in that line yet.

Cheers,
Rob.

Re: Re: Re: Re: THE HISTORY OF DEFORESTATION

[Tim Bousquet]

What you call "forests" in Ontario, we call "weeds" in
California.

tim
--- Ken Hanly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> No the geography is quite different. I am talking
> about areas that were
> mostly native grasses relatively flat or gently
> rolling hills. The tree
> species that settlement let spread are different as
> well mostly quick
> growing, poplar types. What is called white poplar
> here or quaking aspen and
> black poplar. However there are quite a few planted
> spruce and some other
> deciduous trees such as Manitoba maple and ash. I
> was thinking of rivers as
> firebreaks but it is possible that fires jumped them
> often especially in
> late summer when water levels are low. The tree
> growth I am talking about is
> less forest than "woodlots" areas that either were
> not broken after
> settlement, left as pasture with trees, or marginal
> land let go back to
> pasture and woodlot. But before settlement as I
> mentioned much of the land
> was native grassland with some trees in river
> valleys and some other
> specific areas. But the plains were periodically
> ravaged by fire. Usually
> most of the deciduous trees would be burned down and
> these woodlot areas
> could not establish themselves as they could after
> grid roads of settlement
> provided fire breaks.
> Even in the already existing forests in the
> northern shield--outside
> settled agricultural areas- the vast majority of
> trees are completely
> destroyed by fire and this would include the conifer
> such as different types
> of spruce. I gather from the other post I sent that
> some types of pines
> survive or even require fire but I do not think that
> they are native to this
> particular area although shield species may be
> different further south in
> the south part of Northern Ontario.
>   The tree growth spread by settlement is not
> associated with any great
> economic boom. In the early days it no doubt
> provided a source of fuel and
> still does but to a limited extent. Of course some
> of this woodlot was
> subsequently cleared too in many areas- to be used
> to grow grain or forage
> crops. My point is that settlement does not
> necessarily mean deforestation
> that some woodlands are a human artifact produced by
> pioneers.
> 
> 
> Cheers, Ken Hanly
> 
> - Original Message -
> From: Tim Bousquet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 1:12 AM
> Subject: [PEN-L:13929] Re: Re: THE HISTORY OF
> DEFORESTATION
> 
> 
> > Ken,
> >
> > I'm not understanding the geography of your area.
> >
> > Here, in northern California, the forested areas
> are
> > up on the Sierra, while the valley floor was
> > grassland. In between is manzanita bushes, high
> deer
> > concentration.
> >
> > The sugar pine forest of the eastern Sierra around
> > Chico was completely clearcut between 1873 and
> about
> > 1901. In 1877 a 40-mile long flume was built down
> the
> > mountain, connecting the sawmills around the
> sugarpine
> > forests with Chico, which became the lumbering
> center
> > of northern California. The flume caused an
> economic
> > boom that year--1877-- and caused the population
> of
> > Chico to swell to about 7,000, but the flume
> > fundamentally changed the lumber industry such
> that an
> > oversupply depressed prices, and there was a
> boom/bust
> > cycle every few years. Chico population dropped
> down
> > to about 3,000 until well into the 20th century.
> >
> > (It's beside the point, but the flume company
> brought
> > Chinese workers to work the sash and door factory
> > associated with their flume, and the local white
> > population took umbrage, eventually forming a
> secret
> > society that was dedicated to murdering them
> outright.
> > The Chico mass murders of 1877 so revolted eastern
> > society that anti-Chinese sentiment in Congress
> was
> > off-set for a while, and the anti-immigration
> mesures
> > were probably set a decade or two back.)
> >
> > The forested areas east of town eventually were
> bought
> > by the Diamond Match company, which still
> maintains a
> > large tree farm in the area.
> >
> > I have a different take on the fire situation.
> Maybe
> > the canyons are steeper here, but creeks have
> never
> > served as a firebreak, fire just jumps right over
> > them. During the Depression a roadway called
> > "Ponderosa Way" was cut just about right at the
> area
> > where the manzanita land meets the forests-- the
> > purpose of the road was to serve as a firebreak.
> This
> > road stretches from Sacramento all the way to
> Mount
> > Shasta--maybe 200 miles. It's not that the fire
> would
> > run up the hill and just stop at the road, but
> rather
> > that the road allowed access for CCC fire crews,
> which
> > could back burn so that the fire couldn't move
> further
> > up into the forest. I assume that this was a
> taxpayer
> > financed protection of corporate-owned tree farms
> up
> > the ridge.
> >
> > Incidentally, I've found quite a few ac

Re: recession and real estate prices

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>The collapse of the dot.coms has cut real estate prices in San
>Francisco, but the previous momentum is still pushing prices up
>in Sacramento -- about 90 miles away.  Chico prices -- about 160
>miles from San Francisco -- seem to have leveled out, the
>realators in the sauna tell me.  Is there much information about
>how recessions propagate across regions within a single economy?
>
>I read about the synchronization of world economic cycles, yet
>the lags seem relatively long, even within the N. Cal. economy.
>--
>Michael Perelman

How well were dot.coms in the boom time integrated into the rest of 
the N. Cal economy?

Yoshie

Re: recession and real estate prices

[Tim Bousquet]

Local realtors and developers have made much out of
the high cost of housing in Chico, demanding, and
getting, a green light on any housing development
whatsoever in the name of "providing low cost housing"
(of course, no one ever tracks the actual prices of
the developments).

But it's clear to me that we are in the San Francisco
market. Bay Area residents found that their homes were
doubling, tripling, quadrupling in value, and they
could sell them, buy a nice home in Chico next to the
park for a tenth as much, and live forever on the
balance. Lots of forty-ish retirees in Chico. This
obviously drives up the price of housing in Chico as
sellers market to the incoming retirees.

I imagine this process will even speed up with the
dot-com downturn, as people leave the industry
entirely. Can't go on forever, though.

tim
--- Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> The collapse of the dot.coms has cut real estate
> prices in San
> Francisco, but the previous momentum is still
> pushing prices up
> in Sacramento -- about 90 miles away.  Chico prices
> -- about 160
> miles from San Francisco -- seem to have leveled
> out, the
> realators in the sauna tell me.  Is there much
> information about
> how recessions propagate across regions within a
> single economy?
> 
> I read about the synchronization of world economic
> cycles, yet
> the lags seem relatively long, even within the N.
> Cal. economy.
> 
> --
> 
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
> 
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 


=
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Subscribe to the Chico Examiner for only $30 annually or $20 for six months. Mail cash 
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Re: Re: Re: THE HISTORY OF DEFORESTATION

[Ken Hanly]

No the geography is quite different. I am talking about areas that were
mostly native grasses relatively flat or gently rolling hills. The tree
species that settlement let spread are different as well mostly quick
growing, poplar types. What is called white poplar here or quaking aspen and
black poplar. However there are quite a few planted spruce and some other
deciduous trees such as Manitoba maple and ash. I was thinking of rivers as
firebreaks but it is possible that fires jumped them often especially in
late summer when water levels are low. The tree growth I am talking about is
less forest than "woodlots" areas that either were not broken after
settlement, left as pasture with trees, or marginal land let go back to
pasture and woodlot. But before settlement as I mentioned much of the land
was native grassland with some trees in river valleys and some other
specific areas. But the plains were periodically ravaged by fire. Usually
most of the deciduous trees would be burned down and these woodlot areas
could not establish themselves as they could after grid roads of settlement
provided fire breaks.
Even in the already existing forests in the northern shield--outside
settled agricultural areas- the vast majority of trees are completely
destroyed by fire and this would include the conifer such as different types
of spruce. I gather from the other post I sent that some types of pines
survive or even require fire but I do not think that they are native to this
particular area although shield species may be different further south in
the south part of Northern Ontario.
  The tree growth spread by settlement is not associated with any great
economic boom. In the early days it no doubt provided a source of fuel and
still does but to a limited extent. Of course some of this woodlot was
subsequently cleared too in many areas- to be used to grow grain or forage
crops. My point is that settlement does not necessarily mean deforestation
that some woodlands are a human artifact produced by pioneers.


Cheers, Ken Hanly

- Original Message -
From: Tim Bousquet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 1:12 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:13929] Re: Re: THE HISTORY OF DEFORESTATION


> Ken,
>
> I'm not understanding the geography of your area.
>
> Here, in northern California, the forested areas are
> up on the Sierra, while the valley floor was
> grassland. In between is manzanita bushes, high deer
> concentration.
>
> The sugar pine forest of the eastern Sierra around
> Chico was completely clearcut between 1873 and about
> 1901. In 1877 a 40-mile long flume was built down the
> mountain, connecting the sawmills around the sugarpine
> forests with Chico, which became the lumbering center
> of northern California. The flume caused an economic
> boom that year--1877-- and caused the population of
> Chico to swell to about 7,000, but the flume
> fundamentally changed the lumber industry such that an
> oversupply depressed prices, and there was a boom/bust
> cycle every few years. Chico population dropped down
> to about 3,000 until well into the 20th century.
>
> (It's beside the point, but the flume company brought
> Chinese workers to work the sash and door factory
> associated with their flume, and the local white
> population took umbrage, eventually forming a secret
> society that was dedicated to murdering them outright.
> The Chico mass murders of 1877 so revolted eastern
> society that anti-Chinese sentiment in Congress was
> off-set for a while, and the anti-immigration mesures
> were probably set a decade or two back.)
>
> The forested areas east of town eventually were bought
> by the Diamond Match company, which still maintains a
> large tree farm in the area.
>
> I have a different take on the fire situation. Maybe
> the canyons are steeper here, but creeks have never
> served as a firebreak, fire just jumps right over
> them. During the Depression a roadway called
> "Ponderosa Way" was cut just about right at the area
> where the manzanita land meets the forests-- the
> purpose of the road was to serve as a firebreak. This
> road stretches from Sacramento all the way to Mount
> Shasta--maybe 200 miles. It's not that the fire would
> run up the hill and just stop at the road, but rather
> that the road allowed access for CCC fire crews, which
> could back burn so that the fire couldn't move further
> up into the forest. I assume that this was a taxpayer
> financed protection of corporate-owned tree farms up
> the ridge.
>
> Incidentally, I've found quite a few accounts from the
> 1860s when the Yahi and Yana--really the only two
> Indian nations resisting white encroachment-- set fire
> to the grasslands and manzanita lands of the lower
> foothills, with the expressed purpose of destroying
> cattle grazing opportunities for the whites. But those
> fires never caused any real damage to the forest
> further up.
>
> In short, there's far less forest around these parts
> 

Re: Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Michael Perelman]

Again, this discussion is fraught with too many accusations of and
attributions to others on the list.  Please cool it.
-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: recession and real estate prices

[Tim Bousquet]

Is there a parallel between the real estate boom of
Silicon Valley in the 1990s and the real estate boom
of Miami in the 1920s? 

If so, I'm very hopeful that I'll be able to pick up
some land cheap, real soon.

tim

--- Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> The collapse of the dot.coms has cut real estate
> prices in San
> Francisco, but the previous momentum is still
> pushing prices up
> in Sacramento -- about 90 miles away.  Chico prices
> -- about 160
> miles from San Francisco -- seem to have leveled
> out, the
> realators in the sauna tell me.  Is there much
> information about
> how recessions propagate across regions within a
> single economy?
> 
> I read about the synchronization of world economic
> cycles, yet
> the lags seem relatively long, even within the N.
> Cal. economy.
> 
> --
> 
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
> 
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 


=
Subscribe to ChicoLeft by emailing
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChicoLeft

Subscribe to the Chico Examiner for only $30 annually or $20 for six months. Mail cash 
or check payabe to "Tim Bousquet" to POBox 4627, Chico CA 95927

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Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Lou says:

>People who read Utne Reader, wore Birkenstocks and took
>vacations in Costa Rica versus people who concluded from an undialectical
>reading of Karl Marx that the inexorable process of capitalist
>industrialization paves the way for socialism. In fact the inexorable
>process of capitalist industrialization paves the way to ruin and nothing
>else.

Rural electrification & free electricity for the South African 
masses, however, is a pressing political demand today.

>(Sunday Independent, 27 July 1999)
>Power to the powerful:
>Ideology of apartheid energy still distorts electricity sector
>
>by Patrick Bond

>   The 1995 energy policy also argued that `Fuelwood
>is likely to remain the primary source of energy in
>the rural areas.' As if on cue, Eskom began to wind
>down its rural electrification programme and does not
>envisage electrifying the nation's far-flung schools.
>Notwithstanding Eskom's commercialisation fetish, its
>economists had badly miscalculated rural
>affordability. Paying as much as R0,48 per hour
>(compared to a corporate average of R0,06 and bigger
>discounts for the Alusaf), rural women use up their
>pre-paid metre cards within a week and can't afford
>to buy another until the next pension payout.
>   But in pricing power out of reach of the poor,
>the well-paid economists from Eskom, the World Bank
>and government refused to incorporate `multiplier
>effects' that would benefit broader society, were
>people granted a small free lifeline electricity
>supply: better public health, a cleaner environment,
>more SMMEs, infrastructure construction jobs and more
>equal relations between men and women.
>   If Mlambo-Ngcuka cares about such `public goods'
>as much as `getting the prices right' (for
>privatisation?), she now has a chance to transform
>neoliberal electricity policy, muffling that
>suspicious echo of apartheid-era power.

We have to put a stop to indulging in useless alarmist speculations 
that fossil fuels are soon running out & alternative energy sources 
are impossible to find on PEN-l (which thankfully only Mark seems to 
entertain & you don't after all); & get on with present-day struggles 
for electricity for those still without it, against the privatization 
of public utilities, for thorough environmental clean-ups, for 
enforcement of worker & consumer safety standards, etc.  Such 
struggles are important in themselves and at the same time promise to 
make it more difficult for capital to externalize the costs of 
accumulation.

Yoshie

recession and real estate prices

[Michael Perelman]

The collapse of the dot.coms has cut real estate prices in San
Francisco, but the previous momentum is still pushing prices up
in Sacramento -- about 90 miles away.  Chico prices -- about 160
miles from San Francisco -- seem to have leveled out, the
realators in the sauna tell me.  Is there much information about
how recessions propagate across regions within a single economy?

I read about the synchronization of world economic cycles, yet
the lags seem relatively long, even within the N. Cal. economy.

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Lou:

>  >By John's criteria, only the rich who can afford _not_ to eat fast
>>food, shop at Wal-Mart, etc. can live morally correct lives.  What
>>the masses buy is cheap mass products of sweatshop labor; what the
>>truly rich buy, in contrast, is expensive products of relatively
>>well-paid artisanal labor.  Haute couture & formal dining at
>>fashionable restaurants (or better yet, _your own personal cook_,
>>well compensated year-around to provide meals _at home_, to your
>>taste & convenience) are good examples of the latter.  Morally
>>correct consumption is a luxury that only those who don't & can't
>>count their own money can afford.
>>
>>Yoshie
>>
>>   *
>>
>>If you agree more with John Thornton than me, that's fine, but I
>>think that berating people who patronize fast food joints & shop at
>>WalMart & the like, in the absence of requests to boycott them from
>>workers who either work for them or produce inputs for their goods,
>>is counter-productive.
>
>Your problem is that you failed to provide a counter-analysis to John
>Thornton and other middle-class greens on Doug's list. This is not about
>Utne Reader type folks wearing Birkenstocks and taking vacations in Costa
>Rica. It is about ecological imperialism, which never seemed to have
>entered your calculation or Carrol's. No Marxist would call for a boycott
>of Kmart or Macdonalds or any other corporation benefitting from the rape
>of third world countries. On the other hand, it is necessary to educate
>working people about the class questions involved with making cheap
>commodities available. Like this:
>
>As stupid, irrational and self-destructive a system capitalism is, it
>reached new depths when it fostered the development of cattle- ranching in
>Central America in the early 1970s.


I think Greens on Doug's list & elsewhere already have a pretty good 
grasp of the effects of ecological imperialism on the Third World, 
but their understanding of monoculture & cattle-ranching in Central 
America & elsewhere in the Third World isn't necessarily accompanied 
by an understanding of class politics on this side of the North/South 
border, in which, too, workers -- many of whom are consumers as well 
as employees of fast food joints, retail outlets like Kmart, etc. -- 
struggle, beyond Barbara Ehrenreich's _Nickel and Dimed_.  The 
problem is that Green sympathy for the plight of the Third World poor 
under ecological imperialism doesn't in itself translate into a 
conviction that socialism is necessary _here_.  Earnest supporters of 
the Zaps & the like don't particularly go for socialism.  I think 
Americans have done a relatively decent job of organizing Central 
American solidarity groups & activities (relatively decent under the 
circumstances) but little that advances toward socialism _here_ 
(therefore revolutions elsewhere eventually got crushed, though Cuba 
has managed to survive US embargo -- which American leftists have 
been unable to lift -- with herculean efforts & sacrifices of the 
people).

In any case, you might rejoin Doug's list, if you are itching to 
intervene there with your take.

Lastly, what happened to the energy question?  Are fossil fuels soon 
running out?  Are alternative energy sources viable given a chance? 
:-)

Yoshie

Re: BLS Daily Report

[Rob Schaap]

Richardson_D wrote:

"said a senior economist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in Toronto.  "When trade
is falling in both directions, that is a sign that both domestic and foreign
demand are falling."  (The New York Times, page C6)."

Concise, coherent and cogent.  Where would we be without senior economists, eh?

Sigh,
Rob.

BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D]

> BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2001:
> 
> Because productivity growth melts away problems of inflation, budget
> deficits, unemployment and stagnant income, there is great interest in
> knowing whether the upturn reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
> since the mid-1990's will persist.  Thus the 1.2 percent decline in
> productivity last quarter, if it is more than a cyclical blip, is
> worrisome, writes Alan B. Krueger, Bendheim Professor of Economics and
> Public Affairs at Princeton University and editor of The Journal of
> Economic Perspectives, in "Economic Scene" (The New York Times, page C2).
> "But can the numbers be trusted?" he asks.  New research from economists
> at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Affairs
> presented at the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee meeting in
> Washington this month suggests that one potential problem with the
> statistics -- the measurement of hours worked -- is much less of a problem
> than previously believed.  Even small differences matter, so accuracy is
> crucial.  Production grew at an annual rate of 2.7 percent from 1947 to
> 1975, then mysteriously slowed to 1.4 percent for 1975 to 1995, before
> rebounding to 2.8 percent after 1995.  If productivity had grown at the
> higher rate all along, national income would be 30 percent greater today.
> In principal, labor productivity is easy to measure -- simply divide
> economic output by the number of hours used to produce it.  There are only
> two problems:  the numerator and the denominator.  Most attention has
> focused on the numerator. Economic output is notoriously hard to measure
> because the quality of goods changes constantly and because new goods are
> periodically introduced.  But others criticize the measurement of hours
> worked.  Most recently Morgan Stanley's chief economist has argued that
> the Bureau of Labor Statistics undercounts the hours people work because
> employees increasingly perform work after hours on cell phones, beepers
> and home computers. A team of four researchers from BLS and the Bureau of
> Economic Affairs, led by Marilyn E. Manser, head of the Office of
> Productivity and Technology, has investigated his hypothesis.  It came up
> lacking.  Usually it is not newsworthy when government statistics turn out
> to be accurate.  It is just reading tea leaves to forecast from currently
> available data whether the takeoff in productivity growth in the 1990's
> has evaporated.  Still, the latest research suggests the productivity tea
> leaves are worth reading.   
> 
> Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan said yesterday that
> inflation remained modest, though bore careful watching, while consumer
> confidence appeared to be holding up despite a rash of layoffs.  At the
> same time, the New York-based Conference Board said its index of leading
> economic indicators improved in May.  It predicted slow growth during the
> next several months.  During testimony before the Senate Banking
> Committee, Greenspan offered a mixed picture of U.S. business.  He warned
> there were signs of declining asset quality within the banking industry.
> He also said he expected better figures for U.S. productivity, a key
> indicator of the economic growth, in the second quarter of the year.
> Productivity fell in the first 3 months of 2001, after years of rapid
> increase. Asked about the possibility for accelerating inflation,
> Greenspan acknowledged that energy and labor costs had been increasing.
> He added that he saw "no evidence that those costs were being passed
> through into final prices in any material way" but were squeezing
> corporate profit margins.  Greenspan said that despite increasing layoffs,
> consumers still "exhibited a fairly high degree of confidence.  To be
> sure, consumer expenditures have not been going up in any material way,
> but the have held their own."  Consumer spending makes up nearly
> two-thirds of the economy (Sue Kirchhoff, Boston Globe staff,
> http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/172/business/Fed_chief_reports_inflation
> _modest+.shtml 6/21/01).
> 
> The index of leading economic indicators climbed 0.5 percent in May,
> suggesting the slowdown might end in the near future, according to the
> Conference Board.  The rise marked the second straight increase in the
> leading indicators, a sign that "the U.S. economy might be poised for some
> recovery," the Conference Board economist says (Daily Labor Report, page
> D-1; The Washington Post, page E2; The New York Times, Reuters, page C3).
> 
> The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in April, as Americans cut back on
> purchases of foreign-made goods, including TVs, toys, and
> telecommunications equipment.  The Commerce Department reports that the
> trade imbalance shrank by 2.7 percent in April to $32.2 billion.  The
> March deficit, however, was even bigger than the government previously
> estimated, mushrooming to $33.1 billion, according to revised 

BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D]

> BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2001:
> 
> The trade deficit in goods and services narrowed 2.7 percent in April as
> the global economic slowdown reduced both imports and exports, the
> Commerce Department reports.  The improvements in the April trade
> imbalance came about as total imports fell 2.2 percent and exports fell 2
> percent (Daily Labor Report, page D-1; The Washington Post, page E2;
> Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, page A2).  Reduced demand for imported
> goods and the second consecutive monthly decline in exports underscore
> sluggish performance of the United States economy, which is spilling over
> to its trading partners.  "This is just another sign of a weakening
> economy," said a senior economist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in Toronto.
> "When trade is falling in both directions, that is a sign that both
> domestic and foreign demand are falling."  (The New York Times, page C6).
> 
> Industrial production is plunging and layoffs are soaring.  The National
> Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of business cycles, says
> a recession may have already begun.  If so, the first recession of this
> century is different from every other downturn of the last 50 years.  That
> difference can be seen in the housing market, which is going along just
> fine, thank you.  The National Association of Home Builders said this week
> that its housing index is up from a year ago and about double what it was
> in the last recession, in the early 1990's.  By post-World War II
> standards, this is a backward economic cycle.  A normal recession is
> preceded by inflation, which leads the Federal Reserve to push up interest
> rates, which devastates housing, the most economically sensitive of
> industries, before the rest of the economy succumbs.  None of that
> happened this time.  The inflation of the recent boom was in assets, not
> consumer prices, and it led to a huge overinvestment in capital equipment
> as telecommunications companies wasted billions of dollars in laying
> thousands of miles of excess fiber optic capacity.  Now the collapse of
> capital spending is leading to rising unemployment and an economic
> slowdown.  Lower interest rates are the main reason housing has not
> suffered, but an expensive rental market has also encouraged renters to
> buy.  Rental costs rose 4.5 percent in the 12 months ended in May, the
> highest since rental inflation peaked at 4.6 percent in September 1990, a
> few months after the last recession began.  (The New York Times, page C1).
> 
> The belief is growing that the United States is a nation divided into
> "haves" and "have-nots," according to survey results released yesterday by
> the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.  In the survey of
> 1,200 adults taken June 13-17, 44 percent agree America is a nation
> divided into "haves" and "have-nots".  But most, 53 percent, said it was
> not.  The survey report compared the result with a 1999 Gallup survey in
> which 39 percent said the United States was so divided, and a 1988 Gallup
> survey in which 26 percent gave that answer.  The income gap between rich
> and poor widened in the 1980s and 1990s, reaching its widest point in
> 1997, according to a study released by the Congressional Budget Office
> last month (The Washington Post, page E2).
> 
> The economic boom of the 1990s improved the financial outlook for upper
> middle class and wealthy Americans, but it had little impact on the
> outlook or financial condition of those who make less money, a new poll
> says.  The number of people who think the country is divided between those
> who have enough and those who don't has grown steadily and now is at 44
> percent -- up from 26 percent in 1988.  Findings from the poll indicate
> that women were more concerned about rising prices than men, four in 10
> Americans now say there are plenty of jobs available, up from one in 10
> who felt that way 8 years ago.  Those from wealthy households were twice
> as likely to feel that way as those with low incomes.  Blacks, Hispanics,
> and other minorities were more likely than whites to struggle with
> economic issues, even when compared with whites in the same economic range
> (Will Lester, Associated Press,
> http://www.nandotimes.com/business/story/31058p-527439c.html;
> http://www.latimes.com/wires/20010622/tCB00V0594.html).
> 

 application/ms-tnef

Re: Re: Re: Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Louis Proyect]

>Lou, if I could do it with a wave of my hand, I would wipe MacDonalds
>off the face of the earth. The institution of fast food is undoubtedly
>vicious. But attacking _people_ rather than the institutions that
>exploit them is just politically stupid. I don't really remember very
>well the specific thread -- but I have very consistently on LBO attacked
>generic attacks on people.

This is not about attacking "people". It is about educating yourself and
educating others on the nature of ecological imperialism. In the entire
discussion about Macdonalds french fries on Doug's list which seemed to
have gone on longer than the thread on Andrew Sullivan's sex life,
nobody--including you and Yoshie--ever seemed interested in where the stuff
came from. It appeared to be a debate with two contrary but inadequate
positions. People who read Utne Reader, wore Birkenstocks and took
vacations in Costa Rica versus people who concluded from an undialectical
reading of Karl Marx that the inexorable process of capitalist
industrialization paves the way for socialism. In fact the inexorable
process of capitalist industrialization paves the way to ruin and nothing
else.

"All criticism of small-scale landownership is ultimately reducible to
criticism of private property as a barrier and obstacle to agriculture. So
too is all counter-criticism of large landed property. Secondary political
considerations are of course left aside here in both cases. It is simply
that this barrier and obstacle which all private property in land places to
agricultural production and the rational treatment, maintenance and
improvement of the land itself, develops in various forms, and in
quarreling over these specific forms of the evil its ultimate root is
forgotten. 

"Small-scale landownership presupposes that the overwhelming majority of
the population is agricultural and that isolated labour predominates over
social; wealth and the development of reproduction, therefore, both in its
material and intellectual aspects, is ruled out under these circumstances,
and with this also the conditions for a rational agriculture. On the other
hand, large landed property reduces the agricultural population to an ever
decreasing minimum and confronts it with an every growing industrial
population crammed together in large towns; in this way it produces
conditions that provoke an irreparable rift in the interdependent process
of social metabolism, a metabolism prescribed by the natural laws of life
itself. The result of this is a squandering of the vitality of the soil,
which is carried by trade far beyond the bounds of a single country. 

"If small-scale landownership creates a class of barbarians standing half
outside society, combining all the crudity of primitive social forms with
all the torments and misery of civilized countries, large landed property
undermines labor-power in the final sphere to which its indigenous energy
flees, and where it is stored up as a reserve fund for renewing the vital
power of the nation, on the land itself. Large-scale industry and
industrially pursued large-scale agriculture have the same effect. If they
are originally distinguished by the fact that the former lays waste and
ruins labour-power and thus the natural power of man, whereas the latter
does the same to the natural power of the soil, they link up in the later
course of development, since the industrial system applied to agriculture
also enervates the workers there, while industry and trade for their part
provide agriculture with the means of exhausting the soil."

V. 3 of Capital, "The Transformation of Surplus Profit into Ground-Rent"


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org

Re: Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Louis Proyect]

>By John's criteria, only the rich who can afford _not_ to eat fast 
>food, shop at Wal-Mart, etc. can live morally correct lives.  What 
>the masses buy is cheap mass products of sweatshop labor; what the 
>truly rich buy, in contrast, is expensive products of relatively 
>well-paid artisanal labor.  Haute couture & formal dining at 
>fashionable restaurants (or better yet, _your own personal cook_, 
>well compensated year-around to provide meals _at home_, to your 
>taste & convenience) are good examples of the latter.  Morally 
>correct consumption is a luxury that only those who don't & can't 
>count their own money can afford.
>
>Yoshie
>
>   *
>
>If you agree more with John Thornton than me, that's fine, but I 
>think that berating people who patronize fast food joints & shop at 
>WalMart & the like, in the absence of requests to boycott them from 
>workers who either work for them or produce inputs for their goods, 
>is counter-productive.

Your problem is that you failed to provide a counter-analysis to John
Thornton and other middle-class greens on Doug's list. This is not about
Utne Reader type folks wearing Birkenstocks and taking vacations in Costa
Rica. It is about ecological imperialism, which never seemed to have
entered your calculation or Carrol's. No Marxist would call for a boycott
of Kmart or Macdonalds or any other corporation benefitting from the rape
of third world countries. On the other hand, it is necessary to educate
working people about the class questions involved with making cheap
commodities available. Like this:

As stupid, irrational and self-destructive a system capitalism is, it
reached new depths when it fostered the development of cattle- ranching in
Central America in the early 1970s. 

The growth of McDonald's, Burger King and other fast food outlets had
created an insatiable demand for beef. These types of restaurants had no
need for the choice, fat-stuffed grain-fed beef that were found in super
markets. They could get by on the sort of tougher, lower- grade beef that
was typical of cattle that subsisted on grass alone, since the meat would
be ground up anyhow. The free-range "criollo" cattle of Central America
made a perfect fit for this expanding market. 

Historically, the cattle industry in Central America was a very low- tech
operation. Cowboys would drive a herd to a major city where
slaughter-houses could be found. The cattle would be cut up and sent out to
public markets, often in the open air and unrefrigerated, where a customer
would select a piece of meat off of the carcass. However, to satisfy the
external market, a more modern mode of production had to be adopted.
Firstly, roads needed to be created to transport the cattle by truck from
the countryside. Secondly, packing houses had to be created near ports to
prepare the beef for export. Foreign investors made road- building
possible, just the way that British capital made railroads possible in the
US for identical reasons. The "Alliance for Progress" aided in the creation
of such infrastructure as well. 

The packing-houses themselves were built by local capitalists with some
assistance from the outside. It was these middle-men, who stood between
rancher and importer, that cashed in on the beef bonanza. The Somoza family
were movers and shakers in the packing-house industry. As monopolists, they
could paid the rancher meager prices and sell the processed beef at a
premium price since demand for beef was at an all-time high. 

In addition, the Somoza family used its profits and loans from foreign
investors to buy up huge swaths of land in Nicaragua to create cattle
ranches. They had already acquired 51 ranches before the beef-export boom,
but by 1979, after two decades of export-led growth, their holdings and
those of their cronies had expanded to more than 2 million acres, more than
half of which was in the best grazing sectors. It was these properties and
the packing-houses that became nationalized immediately after the FSLN
triumph. 

The gains of Somoza and other oligarchic families in Central America took
place at the expense of campesino and small rancher alike. While the plight
of the campesino is more familiar, the small rancher suffered as well.
Before the export boom started, about 1/4 of all cattle were held by
ranchers with properties less than 25 acres. After a decade of export-led
growth, small proprietors had lost 20 percent of their previous cattle
holdings and owned only 1/8th of the cattle in the region. 

(It should be mentioned, by the way, that this decade of export-led growth
was statistically the sharpest increase in GDP in Central America since
WWII. Yet this growth created the objective conditions for socialist
revolution. "Growth" in itself is a meaningless term. It may satisfy the
prejudices of libertarians, but it has nothing to do with human needs or
social justice.) 

Nicaragua was notable in that the exploitation was home

Re: Re: THE HISTORY OF DEFORESTATION

[Louis Proyect]

> Also, deforestation may eventually result in reforestation. Forest fires
>clear very large areas just as much as clear cutting. The forests eventually
>regenerate through a progressive series of plant and tree species. Traveling
>through a newly burned out area is just as much or more a scene of
>devastation as seeing a clear cut area but over time shrubs appear certain
>species such as birch and as in time the original type of cover..
>
>
>
>Cheers, Ken Hanly

Of course there is reforestration. It takes the form of trees intended for
harvest, grown commercially. From an ecological standpoint, this is
practically useless.

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org

RE: response to Mark Jones Post

[Mark Jones]

Ken Hanly:
>
>
> This is a response to a recent post (included) by Mark that I sent to my
> son, an economist with the Saskatchewan government.

Ken, it's nice to have informed discussion and it would be good if your son
could participate. The post you sent him is light on data so no wonder  your
son had a problem with it. I'd be happy to get into the nitty-gritty. I take
issue with some of his remarks about electricity supply. As for natural gas,
his optimism about world supply is unfounded, the world is not as full of
available gas as that, and the problem with gas is the staggering rates of
decline you get where a play starts to deplete. As for externalities, I have
in mind primarily anthropocentric climate-change. How do you quantify the
now-proven changes to the North Atlantic thermohaline for instance? This
threatens the entire balance of the world climate system.

best wishes, and I'd be glad to discuss this more.

Mark

RE: Re: Current implications for South Africa

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie:

> Is it possible to provide all human beings with food, clean
> water, sanitation, shelter, energy, medicine, education,
> transportation, etc. that are necessary to meet historically
> developed minimum needs (setting aside other needs & desires for the
> time being) under socialism?
>Or is it impossible since we are
> running out of fossil fuels & clean water soon & the population is
> exploding, as Mark says?

Please stop attributing to me views I don't hold, it makes discussion
pointless. Oil, gas and water will never run out. The issue is their
economic availability to capitalism--and the price the rest of us pays.

We discussed population before, and you said the same kinds of things then.
I have one exchange dating from May 1998, when oil was about $10 a barrel
and some people were busy discussing folies du jour like Tulip-o-mania,
Zizek and Butler, and Greenspan's damascene conversion on the New Economy.
Seems like a different era, hey?

-

Subject: Marx on surplus population

Sender: Mark Jones

Date: 17.05.98

Recipient: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> The limits and scarcities that marxists should be primarily concerned
about
> are artificial--not natural--ones.

Why?

> This is not to say that nature places no
> constraint upon social activities, be they labor or anything else. It
does,
> in that the social world is embedded in the natural world. However,
> marxism, both in theory and practice, primarily addresses itself to what
is
> _social_, both in terms of constraints _and_ possibilities.

If this was so, would Marx ever have talked about modes of production,
machinery, agriculture, desertification etc?

> Marxists should
> pay attention to the natural world, but we are _not_ naturalists.

Meaningless.

> Let's think about the politics of food, for instance. Is it because we do
> not produce enough food that there are millions of the working class
people
> who suffer from hunger and malnutrition now? No, it's not, even though the
> ruling class and their media want us to believe that. As of now, we have
> enough food production capacity to feed people all over the world
> comfortably, don't we?

So you think the problem is merely one of distribution? Redistributional
social
justice politics, has nothing to do with Marxism. Environmental justice
politics also has nothing in common with Marxism.

> It is because of social relations of capitalism--the
> contradiction between labor and capital--that masses of people are hungry,
> and how to rid ourselves of those social relations that exploit and
oppress
> people because of their class, gender, race, nationality, and so on is the
> main object and objective of marxist theory and practice.

People are not exploited 'because of their race, class' etc. Just as you
reduce
Marxist politics to a politics of social justice, so you reduce Marxist
economics to a branch of sociology + pursuit of bourgeois right. All 'civil
rights' (from which discourses of social justice derive) depend on bourgeois
right, ie, the primacy and sanctity of property relations: but property
relations, for Marxism, are merely a mystification. They are forms of
production relations, not the presuppositions of production (and therefore
the
material basis of exploitation is not jurisprudential, but rooted in
production). Marxist analysis of the capitalist mode of production is not a
theory of exploitation. Marx specifically criticised such notions. It is a
theory and narrative of value production, and the forms value assumes in the
circuits of capital. This is not an optional extra to a notion of
exploitation;
it is the core of the theory. That is why it is not struggles around
distribution but struggles around production which matter, because
production
is the centre of gravity of capitalism.Specifically, Marxism asserts that
the
production of capital is constrained by its material basis (extent and
limits).
The reason there is hunger in the world is because the rate of accumulation
is
historically too low to prevent the formation of surplus population, and the
reason for that is because the rate of increase of social productivity is
too
low to generate enough capital to give the whole population First World
living
standards.

When Marx wrote of the production of surplus population, he called it 'the
absolute general law of capitalist accumulation'. (Cap I p798, Penguin ed).
It
is impossible to develop Marxism while abandoning core concepts like this.
Who
is defining the political and theoretical terrain? Racists who fear
immigration,
or their liberal opponents who manage to neuter theory in the name of
an apologetic 'political correctness'?

This 'absolute general law' is today central to understanding the
conjuncture,
more even than in Marx's day, and far from avoiding the issue, we need to
relentlessly pursue it: ' The production of a relative surplus population,
or the setting free of workers, therefore proceeds more rapidly than
the techn