Re: FW: / BI: Harry Pollard and Philosophy
Robert, At 18:41 17/04/00 -0400, you wrote: Keith, in commenting on my response to Harry Pollard, wrote: "This is a crude way of interpreting history." I was not interpreting history. I was criticizing the idea of the use of philosophy as a methodology of solving very immediate and practical problems. It is true that certain philosophic ideas have had an enormous effect over the centuries, but, in terms of our present situation - or the situation that has accelerated since the Industrial Revolution - they are of no use in solving any aspect of our current predicament. I would agree if we confine ourselves to traditional linguistic philosophy which, like music, art and poetry has already flowered and reached the end of its intrinsic potentialies. Such philosophic ideas -- from, let us say, Socrates or Lao Tze through to Wittgenstein -- are still magnificent achievements of humankind and, like the other art forms, deserve to be treasured and practised. However, they no longer engage the best minds. What we have instead (and this is where I disagree with you), is philosophy which was kicked off by quantum physics in the early part of the last century. This has given rise to a quite new form of thinking, otherwise known as cosmology or futurology as elaborated by Wheeler, Freeman Dyson, and a handful of others. Despite the fact that their language is mathematics-based rather than words, they are still involved in the most important question of all which will have a very real impact on the activities of mankind. This is the matter of significance. Do we have significance? Do we have a future? We have a sense of curiosity far beyond anything that our species needed for mere survival vis-à-vis other life forms on earth. These matters of significance have always been at the core of man's religious/philosophical impulses and practices. A sense of this significance needs to be maintained. Otherwise, we will not survive. We will simply give up and be overwhelmed by the immense problems that are all around us -- ecological devastation, starvation, AIDs, possible nuclear disasters and so forth. Mankind has to have a philosophy of survival at a very deep level, far beyond matters of everyday existence. cut to . . Further on you say, "Basic Income should more exactly be called "Indiscriminate Income For All." .This is not so. As the litertaure shows, there are many variatons on the idea of a basic income. Whether or not it should be the same for all, how the income is determined, etc. are all quetsons to be discussed. Finally, you say that Basic Income will never get off the ground "because tax payers will not stomach it." One comment on that: Persons in need will certainly welcome it, as will those whose income is marginal. And if a Basic Income became a reality, I am sure that those who opposed its passage on principle will not turn down their share because it goes against their principles. You're right -- I don't know the many variations of Basic Income. But I don't need to know because its statutory imposition in any form would be unfair and immoral in principle. Even if I as an individual were forced to share some of my (fairly ordinary) income with others (some of whom may need it, some of whom are free-loaders) by means of increasing my personal taxation then the situation would be: (a) unfair because a proportion of rich people get away with paying very little tax at all. At present levels of taxation this situation is just about sustainable at the present time. Any further increase in taxation of ordinary incomes (and it would have to be a sizeable increase) would cause even more tax avoidance and evasion by the better-off. Taxpayers wouldn't stand for it any longer. It's no use saying that better legislation must be devised. This is tried every year by all western governments, but the rich can always buy better brains than politicians' and civil servants' and new ways of avoiding tax are always discovered -- often within days of new legislation; (b) immoral because people who talk of basic incomes for all are not prepared to spread the benefit around the world. When I consider the plight of many people in the Third World, I would rather be taxed for their benefit than I would for several (highly intelligent) free-loaders (whom I know well) in my city who have no intention of working at any time because they can survive comfortably on all the different government benefits that they already receive. To be taxed further so they could continue to laze about would really stick in my craw. - Basic Income would really only extend the notion and powers of nationalistic governments in Western countries. Yet (as I've already suggested) they have now reached the end of their period of usefulness (if, indeed, historians will grant them that). Nation-statism is plainly no longer working in the advanced countries. We are moving into a totally different world. I haven't got the answers to the
Re: Sweatshops
Ed, At 17:57 16/04/00 -0400, you wrote: (Arthur) Maybe I missed it, but have we adequately explored the creation of strong trade unions in these countries, trade unions that are part of a movement aimed at upward harmonization of living standards?? cut to (Ed) We mustn't forget that unions are a distinctly western phenomenon, the product of a long history of social change and experimentation. They are possible where there is a fundamental belief in the equality of man and a willingness to bargain and negotiate. They are far less likely to be possible where the fundamental assumption is inequality and force or corrupt backroom deals can be used as means of suppression. I have a more pragmatic view on this point. It is true that a highly oppressive, hierarchical social system can inculcate extreme deference in segments of a population to the extent that even the poorest will accept that the system is "natural" and even desirable, and will be more likely to obey the establishment rather than resist. (We had a supreme example of that in the UK in 1914 when millions of poor people volunteered to fight against millions of other poor people in a war which should never have been started.) Nevertheless, notions of fairplay and justice arise spontaneously in any social system where supervision is not too pervasive. Poor people anywhere in the world do not need to have read Tom Paine to acquire these 'fundamental' beliefs. The real progenitor of trade unionism is communication -- and thus opportunity to discuss strategy and organise themselves -- as on the factory shopfloor or coal mines. At the turn of the last century, the workers in the newly-created Japanese factories did not need, or even had knowledge of, trade unionism in the west in order to create militant trade unions de novo. However, this may be pre-emptied in the future (see my remarks below) . . . (Ed) Simply assuming that third world countries can adopt our systems and standards or even that they would want to adopt them will not get us very far. When I was in India, I saw ever so many poor children begging on the street. Some of them had been maimed, deliberately I was told, to give them an upper hand as beggars. Third world poor families knowingly sell their daughters into prostitution. If there are no options other than begging and prostitution, wouldn't working in a Nike sweatshop be preferable? Well perhaps not for everyone, but if one asked the little kids who are begging on the street or the little girls who are bound for prostitution (or their parents), I believe I know what the answer would be. Yes, indeed. This is why the more responsible charities such as Oxfam do not support embargoes on goods made by child labour. Often these children are the only breadwinners in the family. If they're prevented from working then the next stage is for their parents to sell their children into bonded labour or prostitution -- sometimes hundreds of miles away so the children.have no chance of escaping from their bondage. Like Ed, I saw this in India and Nepal when I went there as a tourist three years ago. On scores and scores of building sites I saw hundreds of beautiful young girls of 14, 15, 16 (originally from Rajasthan 400 to 1,000 miles away) carrying heavy loads and working like navvies. There were none above about 25 years of age. They had died from their labours. The lucky girls in Rajasthan were those who stayed at home and worked in local sweated labour factories. However, one great problem which is now looming is that although cities and largish areas in India and China are able to lift themselves up by means of sweated labour (e.g. making footballs, footware, light bulbs, etc) and the chance of trading with the West and bringing money into the area, some industries (such as those mentioned) are now jumping straight into automated production and missing out the stage of the large factory shop floor where they would have had a chance of organising and raising their standard of living fairly uniformly and fairly quickly -- as tended to happen in the West and in Japan. The quantum jump into automated production will mean that large numbers of people in Asia will be left out in the cold totally for, probably, at least a couple of generations before prosperity begins to diffuse into the general population. My apologies to the Washington protesters. I'm sure many of them are there out of deep conviction and high ideals. However, what upsets me a little is that going after agencies such as the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF has become something of a blood sport. Not everything these agencies do is bad, and I for one do not believe they are totally in bed with the MNCs. Perhaps partly, but not totally. They are responsible to governments, and many governments continue to be responsive to the whole of their constituents. But in saying that, perhaps I'm simply revealing that I'm Canadian, and therefore naive. The recent
Re: FW: / BI: Harry Pollard
porter of welfare -- so long as it is applied at the lowest possible level so that free-loaders are not supported. Hopefully, as nation-states decline and politicians continue to lose credibility, then we have a chance of seeing both developments over the coming decades. Keith Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FW: The structure of future work and its consequences
Bill, Thanks for your comments. Let me add some more of my own and clarify a few things: At 16:12 16/01/00 -0500, you wrote: Keith, while I agree with a lot of what you have written, I have added some notes of my own. --- Bill Ward Research Director Arthritis Research Institute of America [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** Keith Hudson wrote: Happy New Year to all FWers. (I'm assuming that Futurework is operational now!) Here's something I wrote over the break and which will appear in a new type of Internet encyclopedia starting in about a month (www.calus.org) - THE STRUCTURE OF FUTURE WORK AND ITS CONSEQUENCES Keith Hudson The structure of future employment will not be compatible with the distribution of talent -- In human history there have been four distinctly different types of economies, each requiring different working structures, or intellectual inputs. The four phases are: 1. Hunter-Gatherer; 2. Peasant Agriculture; 3. X Manufacturing Industry; 4. Post-industrial Service Society. You might add that these types have co-existed and all 4 types are fund somewhere in the world today. Plus, ith technology, you may see horticultural, matriarchal societies in places like rural Ghana jump over #2 and #3 and go directly to a fiber-optic network which allows them to write software program code in their village and sell it by internet thousands of miles away. To say that all four types of job societies have co-existed is muddying the water somewhat. Yes, at present they co-exist on a world-wide basis but, at successively finer scales (e.g. down to hamlet level, for instance), the society involved is quite distinctly one or the other. Generally (that is, in 99% of cases), societies have proceeded step-wise through the first three stages and some (such as Silicon Valley, London and the South-east of England and one or two other spots) are now seriously dipping their toes into the Post-industrial Service Society. I wouldn't deny that some small societies (the Ghanaian example) are theoretically able to jump through an intermediate stage, but I doubt if this can be achieved very often. I'm not so sure that this example (that is, without a cultural memory of previous stages) can be consolidated over the longer term and I'd like to know more about this one. 1. Hunter-gatherer. Homo sapiens emerged from primate origins several million years ago and became indistinguishably human at about 50,000 years ago. Most of man's food was collected by the females, but topped up with animal protein from the hunting expeditions of the males. Their daily life was perilous because predators could easily attack their primitive camps and hunting groups, and the unintelligent or incapable would be easily culled. By definition, the normal genetic distribution of abilities that man's predecessors had evolved over millions of years precisely matched the 'job structure' of early man. For our purposes, this genetic distribution may be considered to be a diamond shape in which the abilities of the broad mass of the population lie across the widest part of the diamond, with decreasingly fewer people of much higher or lower abilities occupying the top and and bottom parts of the shape. 2. Peasant Agriculture: From the time when man had finally extinguished most slow-moving large game at around 10,000BC, he had to resort increasingly to settled agriculture. Generally, this required far less intelligence than hunting. However, the ability to store cereals and the development of metal products (including coinage) which then followed meant that wealth could be passed on within families and, from then onwards, society became dynastic and intensely hierarchical. The various civil and religious authorities ensured that the peasantry were well and truly conditioned to accept their role and not to develop their inborn abilities. While suppression of this sort could be maintained for quite a long time within a hierarchical society it could not be maintained for ever. The bad fit between the distribution of abilities and the nature of work/opportunities and the subsequent tensions have been the cause of repeated strife and savagery in every agricultural civilisation from about X 5,000BC until the present day. This type of society emerged due to a sufficiency of food. In the Hindus and Mesopotamian river valleys, the need to regulate irrigation gave rise to some of the higher orders of bureaucracy. Yes, indeed. 3. Manufacturing Industry. The first successful long-term development of manufacturing industry from about 1700 onwards in Europe meant that the uneducated peasants were forced off the land and into the factories. Here, a higher skill level was necessary and many new skills had to be acquired. In addition, the industrial society required a considerable extension in the number of professional and academic
FW: The structure of future work and its consequences
Happy New Year to all FWers. (I'm assuming that Futurework is operational now!) Here's something I wrote over the break and which will appear in a new type of Internet encyclopedia starting in about a month (www.calus.org) - THE STRUCTURE OF FUTURE WORK AND ITS CONSEQUENCES Keith Hudson The structure of future employment will not be compatible with the distribution of talent -- In human history there have been four distinctly different types of economies, each requiring different working structures, or intellectual inputs. The four phases are: 1. Hunter-Gatherer; 2. Peasant Agriculture; 3. Manufacturing Industry; 4. Post-industrial Service Society. 1. Hunter-gatherer. Homo sapiens emerged from primate origins several million years ago and became indistinguishably human at about 50,000 years ago. Most of man's food was collected by the females, but topped up with animal protein from the hunting expeditions of the males. Their daily life was perilous because predators could easily attack their primitive camps and hunting groups, and the unintelligent or incapable would be easily culled. By definition, the normal genetic distribution of abilities that man's predecessors had evolved over millions of years precisely matched the 'job structure' of early man. For our purposes, this genetic distribution may be considered to be a diamond shape in which the abilities of the broad mass of the population lie across the widest part of the diamond, with decreasingly fewer people of much higher or lower abilities occupying the top and and bottom parts of the shape. 2. Peasant Agriculture: From the time when man had finally extinguished most slow-moving large game at around 10,000BC, he had to resort increasingly to settled agriculture. Generally, this required far less intelligence than hunting. However, the ability to store cereals and the development of metal products (including coinage) which then followed meant that wealth could be passed on within families and, from then onwards, society became dynastic and intensely hierarchical. The various civil and religious authorites ensured that the peasantry were well and truly conditioned to accept their role and not to develop their inborn abilities. While suppresion of this sort could be maintained for quite a long time within a hierarchical society it could not be maintained for ever. The bad fit between the distribution of abilities and the nature of work/opportunities and the subsequent tensions have been the cause of repeated strife and savagery in every agricultural civilisation from about 5,000BC until the present day. 3. Manufacturing Industry. The first successful long-term development of manufacturing industry from about 1700 onwards in Europe meant that the uneducated peasants were forced off the land and into the factories. Here, a higher skill level was necessary and many new skills had to be acquired. In addition, the industrial society required a considerable extension in the number of professional and academic jobs, and there were huge opportunities for able and enterprising individuals. The pyramidal structure of jobs of the previous agricultural era would no longer do. The requirements of industrial society were much more akin to the diamond-shaped distribution of abilities and, generally speaking, industrial societies have been somewhat more peaceful than the wars and revolutions that characterise peasant societies. 4. Post-Industrial Service society. Since about the middle of the 20th century, the types of industry which needed large numbers of workers of average abilities have seriously declined. Automation, plus an even faster growth of brand new service occupations, means that people with high abilities are at a premium. At the same time, there is a considerable dumbing down of many traditional service jobs. The job structure in the developed countries is thus rapidly becoming more akin to an hourglass rather than a pyramid or a diamond. The shape of an hour-glass is very different from that of the diamond. The mismatch betwen abilities and requirements will undoubtedly lead to renewed civil problems in developed countries and, as some aver, a widening gulf between two parts of the human population. Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Moving on.
Tim and anybody else on Futurework to whom it may apply, Please stop this diatribe against Ed Weick. Calm down please. He is not at all what you are imagining him to be. I have been reading Ed's messages ever since this list started four/five years ago and he is far from being the person that he has been described recently by one or two. He is civilized, sensitive, too long in the tooth, too intelligent and the very last person on this list to harbour any prejudices on racist or ideological grounds. It's unfortunate that he's Canadian, that's all. Keith Hudson At 20:26 09/12/99 -0500, you wrote: Now, I admit I might have missed part of the beginning of this jew=capitalist thing during the turmoil of switching ISP's, but Ed's attempt to apologise about the shmazzozzle is even more offensive than the stuff I have read. He tried to turn jew=capitalist into protester=brownshirt and he thinks that should fix it. That is so whacked that I would not know where to begin in debunking it if I were to bother trying. I have been noticing Ed Weick for awhile. He is the poster boy example of somebody with a complete lack of good sense trying to be a philosopher. It isn't that he 'offends sensibilities;' personally I love offending 'sensibilities.' It is that he shoots off his mouth about whatever pops into his head because he is either incapable of, or can't be bothered with, first working out the implications of what he is saying. Thus he keeps laying eggs faster than a leghorn hen on estrogen and wondering why he is being 'misunderstood.' No, people understand what you are saying, Ed. It is that you yourself don't understand what you are saying, which should suggest to you that perhaps you should shut up. That is the end of my contribution to this, although it doesn't seem to be moving on very fast. Tim R. Agree. -- From: Tim Rourke It is time this whole putrid 'string' about whether jews are capitalists dissapeared. It should never have gottern started. If it does not I am going to contact the Jewish anti-defamation league. Blech. Tim R. But please allow me one last word. I feel as though I've been misunderstood, or at least understood by only a few people. I personally was not calling Jews anything. What I was talking about was the groundless persecution of the Jews or indeed of any people, a process that usually begins and becomes justified by repeatedly labeling them "capitalist", "infidels", "unbelievers", "terrorists" or whatever the anthithesis of the dominant set of beliefs happens to be and scares people enough to make them react. In doing so I was reacting to some of the news coming out of Seattle, where being "capitalist" was a very bad thing, and where some small franchisees had windows smashed. I know that what happened in Seattle was nothing like Krystalnacht, but I couldn't help thinking of that fateful event and the awful things that followed it. I apologize if anyone has been offended. I will move on and refrain from using an ironic style of writing again. However, I do hope it was the style and not the substance of what I wrote that bothered people. Ed Weick
FW: Re: torn
To comment on just one sentence in Andrew's contribution: In my opinion, after listening to the many distinguished voices on this list, we are in a period of turbulence which will last for some time--perhaps another 20 years? Yes, I agree, but I think the turbulence will last for much longer than 20 years--probably at least another two or three generations. It won't really stop until the whole world has arrived at similar standards of living. I follow with my summary of a recent article from The Independent by Hamish McRae. This condensation will be one of many short articles that will appear in a new type of Web site that will start life in the next few weeks. 3. FIVE NIGGLES ABOUT FREE TRADE Keith Hudson On balance, and over the longer term, free trade is immensely beneficial but, over the short to medium term, there are understandable worries and these must be paid attention to - The violence of protestors at the meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at Seattle means that the WTO is not seen as an obviously benign organisation by some of the young. In order to avoid the crippling protective measures and competitive devaluations of many national governments in the 1920s and 1930s, which caused so much unemployment and economic suffering, three new international bodies were planned at Bretton Woods in 1944, even before World War II had come to an end. These were the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the WTO. The first two were established quickly but the last never got off the ground at the time because nation-state governments continued to quarrel among themselves. An interim body was foundedthe General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)and this was able to stagger along and achieve some reforms until WTO was finally launched in 1995. However, there are are at least five real concerns which should not be ignored. They are: 1. A freeing up of trade of any particular good will cause temporary unemployment at a particular time and place before the workers concerned find new employment; 2. Increased free trade adds to the pressure on world resources, and if every country were to try and live at the present standard of living of North Americans and in their present style, then this would be impossible; 3. Some countries have such a lack of resources, and such low standards of education and technological know-how that they cannot get even a modest share of increased trade in the foreseeable future; 4. Increasing global trade also involves increasing capital and investment flows but these, given the nature of modern financial systems, can be rapidly withdrawn from particular sectors or countries at the first sign of trouble causing unexpected unemployment; 5. The world economy is becoming increasingly dependent on information and this, at present, is unequally available to people in different parts of the world, effectively isolating many people from any immediate share of increased trade. Summarised from "Five reasons to worry about free trade" by Hamish McRae (The Independent, 2 December 1999) Many types of reforms are implied in the above article, but competitive protectionism by one country after another is not one of them. If the youthful protestors at Seattle had their way they would certainly bring about a repetition of the 1920/30s in which tens of millions of people would suffer -- that is, additional to those who are already suffering (for quite different reasons than trade) -- and only hurt multinational corporations marginally. (One or two of them might fold up, of course, but then multinationals are being formed and are dying all the time -- it's their natural state of existence.) Keith Hudson At 13:03 03/12/99 -0500, you wrote: I must admit that I am often torn between supporting those who want freer trade and those who are interested in protecting workers in core countries like the US. On the one hand, laborers in the US have fought for decades to attain fair wages and reasonable benefits for the hard work they do. Making trade freer gives management a huge leverage and bargaining tool: either take our offer or we will do a serious cost/benefit about whether we should move to Juarez/Singapore/Thailand, etc. Of course this is a threat to the livelihood of core-country laborers and their unions. I think of it as macro-level union busting. On the other hand, providing good jobs in other countries is not such a bad thing either. How many workers in SW Indiana complained when Toyota built a factory there? People were lining up to work there because jobs are scarse in such rural areas. The same happens when an American company moves to a rural part of another country: they line up for those jobs because for them, they ARE good jobs. If the jobs paid a relatively awful wage in that country, there would not be such a demand to become an employee. In my opinion, after listening to the many distinguished voices on thi
Re: FW The power of women
, from $40,683 to $40,253. It probably would have fallen much further if it had not been for two factors, a substantial increase in female labour force participation during the 1986 to 1996 decade and a rapid rise in the income of women. In real terms, women's average income rose by 10.4% between 1986 and 1991 and by 1.7% between 1991 and 1996. In marked contrast, men's income rose by slightly under 3% between 1986 and 1991 and actually fell by over four percentage points between 1991 and 1996. While increasing labour force participation was significant, rising real female income may have been the most important factor in maintaining real family income at approximately its 1991 level. This should not be taken to mean that, on average, women now earn as much or more than men. Though it may be closing, a very large gap remains. In nominal terms, men, on average, earned $31,117 in 1996, whereas women earned only $19,208, less than two-thirds as much. It would seem that we are still a long way from achieving pay equity. Ed Weick Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: God save us from .pdf files!
e arts). What's necessary now is getting rid of protective practices in education/skill training on the one hand, and the knowledge of job vacancies on the other. The mobile phone will take care of the latter, though the former, like trade protection generally, will still take generations to reform, I'm afraid. Keith Just a thought, Ray Evans Harrell Christoph Reuss wrote: So I would say make more and better attachments! REH, no point in argueing about this: Sending attachments to a list violates the official Netiquette, is a waste of bandwidth and clutters up the harddisks of hundreds of users, many of which can't decode the attachment anyway and/or don't even have a clue how to locate/delete the clutter from their harddisk. If someone *needs* to visualize content, then put it on a website and send the URL to the list. Chris ________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: (ed keith) Marx, Keynes and Ancestors)
Ray, Thanks for your latest. Please forgive me if I don't reply in detail -- I think we both know where we stand on a number of issues and we're unlikely to persuade each other. But you mention something at the end which has intrigued me enormously for some years -- though I suspect that I will disturb your artistic sensibilities and you'll consider me a Philistine. This is where you write: Keith Ed. I have questions. Is this duality virus related to the issue of wave and particle in Quantum Mechanics? Is it possible that all of this yes and no in economics and politics, this right and left as the only possibilities, is really a wave result from the earthquake of Quantum theory in science and math and it's consequent effect on Western languages?A question for the next Dr. Freud or Jung perhaps. It could also explain why so much of the discussion about work seems so emotional and unconscious. The short answer to the question as you've put it is No. The human race, being tribal, has always considered most questions of politics and economics from the point of view of whether it benefits one's own group or not. The duality was there long before Quantum Theory. QT has obviously had huge effects in science and technology, and will continue to do so (what with quantum computers being seriously developed and so forth) but I believe that it has also affected the arts (including religion and philosophy) in a considerable way. What I mean is that, by the turn of this century, the arts (visual, musical, literary), plus organised religion, plus philosophy had left the practical world where ordinary people could enjoy them and were becoming extremely sophisticated. But, essentially, they had reached the end of the Newtonian world, and could go no further. Nothing really new (beyond temporary gimmicks) was going to happen and be as successful as in the past. Technically, they had all reached a high level, but they had nothing further to say. Then along comes QT and opens up a whole new mystical world of a depth far beyond anything that the arts/religion/word-based-philosophy could express. In short, here is a double whammy. The arts/religion/word-based-philosophy can no longer be taken any more seriously than, say, flint knapping, morris dancing, or pottery. They are all crafts (extremely interesting, no less) that have reached their expressive limits. At the present time, they are all being used as sophisticated class "badges" (particularly "serious" music and poetry) by those who want to have something to make themselves distinctive and to keep the hoi polloi in their place. Here I was going to write a little further about the effect of all this on the world of work (and of its quickly changing nature), but I have no more time today, and will have to leave it for now. Perhaps someone else would like to take this theme further. Keith ________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: Free Trade vs. Culture
Christoph, At 02:05 28/07/99 +0200, you wrote: On Sat, 24 Jul 1999, Keith Hudson wrote: For better or for worse, we recreate society much as it was before whenever we have passed through technological/economic change. OK, we might well lose picturesque customs and metaphors (such as 7 or 70 different names of snow -- and it's important for scholarly reasons that records are kept of these), but we recreate new ones which are equivalent. In England during the last couple of centuries the typical medieval village has entirely disappeared and there has been much wailing and nashing of teeth about its demise. But in its place today a vigorous and attractive new type of village is emerging -- together with modern equivalents of ancient customs. (CR) The above notion that "picturesque customs" come and go, and always did so, ignores what's fundamentally new in the current process of globalization: That old local/regional customs are not being replaced by new local/regional customs, but by GLOBAL "customs" -- by a McDonalds/Coca-Cola mono-"culture" that is the same everywhere. What is being lost isn't just "old customs", but the cultural diversity of this planet. If we are, in fact, losing cultural diversity then it would be a great shame. However, I'm not so sure that this is happening. True, 70% of the populations of the advanced countries seem to be passive customers of the same sorts of inane things and, true, most cities look exactly the same as one another. To this extent there is a global culture. Nevertheless, cultural diversity may be growing. Perhaps we are looking in the wrong places for it. For the active, curious, intelligent 30% of the population there have never been as many different sorts of specialist organisations as today. For example, in Bath 50 years ago there was only one choir (that is, a secular choral society as opposed to church choirs). Today, even though there hasn't been any significant growth in the number of active singers, there are over 20 choirs -- each one with a different type repertoire. (KH continued on 27-Jul): There is a lot of historical confusion here because you are repeatedly associating merchants and traders with the military. OK, there's collusion sometimes (particularly in the defence industries) but the big lesson of human history from post-tribal times onwards shows that merchants (who need freedom) and governments (who want to establish control over their populations) are basically antagonistic. (CR) I think the U$A is a great example that - merchants and governments are NOT basically antagonistic (just think of the current U$--EU trade wars on bananas and hormone beef, or the wars in Iraq, Kosovo etc. etc.) - merchants do NOT need freedom (just think of the most successful merchant in history, Bill Gates, and his coercive monopoly that enabled this success in the first place) Yes, one can always find examples (particularly in the US where there is such a well-developed lobby system) where some industries have got an inside track with government departments and are able to persuade the government to help them with subsidies, protection from imports, etc. But, by and large, most business steers away from involvement with government, even from asking favours, because as soon as they do so, civil servants start meddling in their affairs. (REH) Keith, if you want to know what you are losing with the death of the languages then consider the following: it ultimately won't effect the outcome because the battle over this is not scientific or economic, (efficiency is cheaper) but political and cultural imperialism. (KH) Yes, I appreciate this, and, yes, nation-state politicians in all countries ^ have tried to stamp out minority languages for the sake of establishing firmer control. But they don't always succeed and whether a language survives or not is very much more to do with whether it's in the interests of the people within the relevant region. (CR) Please don't confuse "nation-state" with "imperialist state". I think it's being pedantic to differentiate between "nation-state" with "imperialist state". Whether a country is inimical to its domestic populations or to both its domestic populations and foreign ones, either state is undesirable. There is all the world of a difference between politicians and civil servants who are truly answerable to the people and those who have wrapped themselves up in cosy departments of state and seek to make themselves as independent as possible from the people. Instead of calling one country a "nation-state" and another an "imperialist state" I would place them both along the "state" axis rather than the governance axis. (CR) For the record: *Not* "all countries [or their "nation-st
Re: FW: Free Trade vs. Culture
Christoph, I'm glad you've replied to this because I think I'd rather brushed you off regarding how one would classify Switzerland. Since I wrote last I'm now unsure as to whether Switzerland could be regarded as a nation-state in the fullest meaning of the term. What characterises a nation-state more than anything (IMHO) is a large and autocratic civil service which is fairly independent from the politicians (who come and go), and I'm not so sure that Switzerland has this. How does the size of the civil service in Switzerland compare with other advanced countries? With all the different languages, is the civil service unified and heirarchic? (It is tremendously so in the UK, Germany and France) At 00:49 29/07/99 +0200, you wrote: On Wed, 28 Jul 1999, Keith Hudson wrote: To this extent there is a global culture. Nevertheless, cultural diversity may be growing. Perhaps we are looking in the wrong places for it. For the active, curious, intelligent 30% of the population there have never been as many different sorts of specialist organisations as today. For example, in Bath 50 years ago there was only one choir (that is, a secular choral society as opposed to church choirs). Today, even though there hasn't been any significant growth in the number of active singers, there are over 20 choirs -- each one with a different type repertoire. It's clear that 4 years after WWII, the people of Bath had more basic things to do than singing in a choir... Also, I would suggest that the increase in opportunities is largely due to technology and increased leisure-time. To some extent this is correct. There are quite a lot of retired people in Bath who make up these choirs. I'm not so sure about the effect of technology, though. I don't think this increases leisure time particularly -- in my experience it tends to use it more intensively at the expense of other activities. The question is, are the 20 choirs of Bath much different from the 20 choirs of other towns ? Not really. However, since starting my choral music business two years ago and getting to know a little more about choral singing in other countries, I am intrigued by just how parochial choirs are -- despite the apparent internationality of choral singing. For example, I recently organised a visit of the Moscow University Choir to this country and they had never heard of many extremely well-known English composers. The same applies to choirs of other countries. A German conductor recently had never heard of Elgar, for example. (KH) Yes, one can always find examples (particularly in the US where there is such a well-developed lobby system) where some industries have got an inside track with government departments and are able to persuade the government to help them with subsidies, protection from imports, etc. But, by and large, most business steers away from involvement with government, even from asking favours, because as soon as they do so, civil servants start meddling in their affairs. I guess the larger problem is that it's increasingly *vice-versa* -- corporations are meddling in the state's affairs... so they don't steer away from it, but actively meddle more and more (not only in the U$ -- just think of the thousands of industry lobbyists in Bruxelles..). As I've already suggested, there'll always be some industries which want to benefit from preferential treatment by their government and will make overtures. This is particularly so in Brussels -- or has been so until recently, anyway. The European Commissioners has been handing out so many favours in recent years (as a sort of bribe to mover public opinion in favour of the EC) that not only do thousands of firms queue up to receive special grants but many spurious companies are invented purely for the purpose of receiving EC money. The amount of food, for example, that's shipped backwards and forwards across frontiers just in order to receive subsidies (and sometimes both ways) is nobody's business and amounts to billions (pounds, dollars, euros etc) every year. (CR) Please don't confuse "nation-state" with "imperialist state". I think it's being pedantic to differentiate between "nation-state" with "imperialist state". Whether a country is inimical to its domestic populations or to both its domestic populations and foreign ones, either state is undesirable. The question is whether this nation-state is "inimical to its domestic populations" in the first place. You're right, though, that an imperialist state is likely to be inimical to both its domestic populations and foreign ones... Anyway, the problem of our time is that *corporations* are increasingly inimical to populations... No, I don't agree with this in the conspiratorial sense. By and large, and increasingly so, large corporations seek to satisfy their customers. There are, of course, some rogue companies, even large ones, but by and large the
Re: (TL) Marx, Keynes and Ancestors
ship with their food supply which was a product of agriculture and domestic animals rather than wildlife. No . . . there's no difference. Both Europeans and North American Indians (and people everywhere else in the world) destroyed all the large species that they could. Keith ________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: (REH) Marx, Keynes and Ancestors second of II
has so devastated the world wherever the Europeans have wandered. Yes, we've created a lot of mess around the world, but it's also a fact that most nations of the world aspire to a European/american way of life. David Bohm the physicist wanted to create a new language that could encompass the ambiguity of uncertainty . . . David Bohm is one of my heroes and I've read most of his work -- if not all -- in times past. It remains to be seen whether his view of reality is better than the quantum view (I believe that it will be). I won't comment on what you've written below because, mostly, there's no dispute -- except that I don't believe that there's any conspiracy against Algonquin! Best wishes, Keith He said that the standard languages that he knew could not and therefore needed to be adjusted. As physicist David Peat points out: "even language itself is viewed through the perspective of European languages and world view."Thoughts are inseparable from language and with the invention of writing, dumbing down the subtlety of sound, thoughts become intimately tied to the linearity of writing. But reality is not linear. This is why Bohm needed his language. I forget what he called it but he didn't succeed. He did, however, just before he died, discover a human language that encompassed what he had needed for his science. It was when a group of indigenous Algonquin scientists visited him that he found that they simply understood his concepts. It was imbedded in their language. So, will the world progress into quantum speech by abandoning English and learning Algonquin? Not on your life. They will just assure their survival by making sure that Algonquin doesn't survive instead and struggle to squeeze these new concepts into old wineskins not made for such a thing. That is what it is all about IMHO and not trade or economics or any of those other rationalizations for destroying your neighbor. If this doesn't do it, I give up. I have much to much to do as a private impresario and teacher to put this much work into any of this. But I just can't stand by and let the mis-conceptions pass for science or historical reality. Obviously there will be those who think I am the prejudiced bigot but I have put bibliographies written by non Indian scholars on this list many times in the past. I just don't have time to do it now, but thanks anyway. I like both Keith and Ed but I think you are both wrong on these issues. I also know that Ed has worked with native people in Canada. That is why I am surprised by some of his opinions but I don't like all of the people that I have worked with either and I have difficulty with some of their cultures as well so..As for the native land in Canada, why should any of us ever believe that a country would give back land to a sovereign people without strings. They don't do it in Iraq or Turkey or anywhere else. Why should it be done here? REH Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Marx, Keynes and Ancestors
Thomas, I don't disagree with most of what you have written below. But the matter of the effects of direct confrontation between invaders and indigenous people is really only confusing the issue. The real influence is that of trade and the availability of new goods. This is the moment when customs start to change. This moment is when goods actually cross into the market places of indigenous peoples and can often be years (or decades) before they ever meet new settlers or are directly affected by them. (Steel blades made in Birmingham and Sheffield reached the tribes of central New Guinea more than a century before these tribes were "discovered" by white man.) Earlier still, look at the speed at which the atlatl (and, later, its development as the bow-and-arrow) was accepted by the *whole* of mankind as it was then (circa 15,000BC) -- because it instantly raised hunting productivity many many times over. This totally transformed the customs and social structures of pre-atlatl hunter-gatherers. Probably, only a trace of their oral history survived the transition. Would we really want to preserve their customs, too? (The atlatl and the bow-and-arrow wiped out most of the big game species that were alive then. Before that time, many of their customs and folklore would have included these animals in their pantheon. How could their pre-bow-and-arrow customs have continued in a realistic way when the objects of their veneration had become extinct?) You say you respect the culture of North American Indians. This implies that I don't respect them. Of course I do. All I am saying is that large chunks of their culture (such as languages) have disappeared because they're irrelevant in modern-day practice and that no amount of artificial encouragement (unless it be for the tourist trade) will save it. New customs will arise in due course, and those will be respected, too. Keith At 09:27 25/07/99 +, you wrote: ------ From: Keith Hudson [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'm not so sure about all this. I used to think the same as Ed. I think, now, that this point of view romanticises our ancestors. I rather think that if their society had been as natural/stable/satisfying as is often implied then it would have been a great deal more robust when faced with modern society. Thomas: It is not that their society was not robust. It was, in my opinion, that disease knocked the robustness out of their society. I think we often skim over the effects of what might happen to a culture when %30 - %90 die. There was no way to fight the disease's of white culture - they mysteriously came, decimated families, tribal groups, specialized skills and left the remainder in a state of shock and forced to survive at the most primitive level. At the same time, a culture that valued land through ownership, disenfranchised their tradional ways, isolated them to reservations, made promise they did not keep and exploited them shamelessly. And finally, there was gunpowder. Keith wrote: True, in many places, indigenous society and modern settlers both needed the same land and couldn't possibly co-exist, but in many other places the original culture could have survived more or less intact if they'd wanted it to. Instead, when faced with all the gewgaws and temptations (including strong liquor) that modern man had to offer, then most indigenous societies folded up quite quickly -- voluntarily, as it were. Thomas: I find this most patronizing. Settlers did not "need" the land, they wanted the land to create wealth. The Indians, in many cases were willing to share but the white man wanted exclusive ownership. As to their susceptability to temptations, look in our own back yard at alcholism, drug abuse - not only among the poor, but among our professional classes as well, cocaine is not a poor man's drug. As to folding up, as you put it, I would choose to say overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Just as parts of England have been overwhelmed by immigration from previous colonial peoples. What I would say is that they often survived despite these crippling situations and in many cases have competed with us and succeeded. The culture of the Native North American Indians is growing, adapting, changing the ways of European immigrants today. I respect them immensely. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde ________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Marx, Keynes and Ancestors
Ed, Thanks for your reply. I'm well aware of genetic isolationism and the subsequent devastating effect of disease upon an indigenous population. I'm also aware of the various nasty ways by which indigenous peoples are deprived of their land -- as is still happening in South America. My point was a different one -- that we shouldn't romanticise the customs of the past. Record them, enjoy them in hindsight, investigate why they arose -- but don't accord them any special sanctity. They were merely decorations that grew around the basic technology of the time. You (or Ray Harrell) mustn't imagine that, because I'm English, that I regard the sufferings of American and Canadian aboriginals as being of little importance, historically or ethically. But we went through exactly the same process in this country two or three centuries ago -- except that it was a case of indigenous people in their millions being swept away from their land, occupations and customs and into terrible deprivation, not by invaders, but by other indigenous people who happened to live just down the road. Keith At 17:34 24/07/99 -0400, you wrote: In response to my posting about cultural loss, Keith Hudson said: I think, now, that this point of view romanticises our ancestors. I rather think that if their society had been as natural/stable/satisfying as is often implied then it would have been a great deal more robust when faced with modern society. True, in many places, indigenous society and modern settlers both needed the same land and couldn't possibly co-exist, but in many other places the original culture could have survived more or less Instead, when faced with all the gewgaws and temptations (including strong liquor) that modern man had to offer, then most indigenous societies folded up quite quickly -- voluntarily, as it were. "" Massimo Livi-Bacci, in his Concise History of World Population "" With a loss of population this large, or even half this large, very little robustness in dealing with advancing European society would have been possible. The following is a quotation from that study: " " "" """" "" """" Several references to 1888 - 1890 period indicate a scarcity of fish and game, with people sick and starving in the vicinity of both Rapid River and at Pelican Narrows. There is no way of knowing what the respective roles of disease and famine were in the situations described. We cannot know, for example, whether game resources periodically failed because of natural cycles or the pressures of the fur trade, or whether the hunters were simply too sick to hunt because of diseases introduced through contacts with non-aboriginals. That significant numbers of people died every few years is likely, however. Given such circumstances, it is not surprising that aboriginal people signed treaties. From the perspective of white society, the treaties represented an important step in bringing a backward region and its peoples into the growing nation state. The fur trade was becoming anachronistic, and aboriginal people who had provided the muscle and backbone of the trade were rapidly becoming irrelevant to the new economic staples, large-scale agriculture and major resource development. The aboriginal people were in a state of desperation, and those who were not yet under treaty were anxious to sign in the hope of obtaining badly needed relief. They have rebounded since, and currently about a million Canadians identify themselves as aboriginal. Ed Weick Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Marx, Keynes and Ancestors
Ray, Well . . . we obviously differ here. You would like to hang onto old customs. I say that we should say goodbye to them when circumstances have obviously changed. I'd say that, in fact, this is what has always happened but, because economic/technological change has been relatively slow hitherto, the changes in customs haven't been significant within a lifetime. But now, change is taking place so rapidly that it is bewildering -- and indeed frightening. But this doesn't alter the fact that the new economic conditions will, in due course, produce new customs that will probably be every bit as satisfying and meaningful as those of the past. Keith At 03:45 24/07/99 -0400, you wrote: How's your library Keith? The issue with all of this is that it is inaccurate. I grew up in an indigenous community. My sister is Aleut and an actress with the likes of Peter Brook, Andre Serban etc. has played Clytemnestra with them, helped bring a Aleut Antigone from Upik to New York City and critical acclaim. There is a lot of misery and most of it has to do with the private sector of non-indian society. They preach and sell laziness. It is easier to live in a pre-fab house than to deal with snow but it is not necessarily smarter. It is also easier to become an addicted consumer surrounded by a culture that raises buying to a sacred act. We have a wonderful piece from Alaska written by the winner of the Lerner and Lowe Award on Broadway from a prize winning book about the Inuit on a rock in the Bering Sea called King Island. They had made both Christmas and the Native Religion a part of their lives and one year they carried their long boat over the thousand foot rock to the other side of the Island to save Christmas. It was threatened by the ship bringing the Priest and supplies being cut off by the ice. David Friedman and Deborah Brevoort wrote the book and music and presented it to a group of Broadway folks. One person found great problems with the fact that there was so much positiveness in the work and thus no "conflict." I caught her at the elevator and explained that the Inuit consider positiveness as essential to keeping the blood flowing so the body won't freeze. There is a famous song of the Inuit sailor cut off from the land by a 100 mile iceberg broken away and pushing him out to sea. It begins with "The great sea has cast me adrift" and describes the situation and ends with "and fills my heart with joy." His discipline would not allow him to take the negative route. She informed me that she knew better because her husband had spent a couple of weeks in Alaska. What could I say? REH Keith Hudson wrote: Regarding Ed Weick's latest contribution: What is sad about 'progress', or whatever one wants to call it, is that something is gained but something is also lost. Some fifty years ago, the Inuit of northern Canada still lived migratory lives on the land. An anthropologist friend told me that on northern Baffin Island, where he spent a year among them, they had some seventy different words for snow. Inuit now live in fixed villages. They still venture out in hunting parties, but do not spend nearly as much time on the land as they once did. Many young Inuit can barely speak their language, let alone name snow in seventy different ways. In our Indian villages, I've seen old grannies scold children in the native language, which the children no longer understand, and besides, it's alright to ignore old grannies now. At one time, it was strictly taboo. The gains have been many. The ill-mannered children stand a much greater chance of survival to a ripe old age, being educated (as we understand education) and earning a good living than their ancestors of even a generation ago. Yet much that is irreplaceable has also been lost. That is the price people pay, usually without knowing it, for something they think we are getting without any real idea of what it is. I'm not so sure about all this. I used to think the same as Ed. I think, now, that this point of view romanticises our ancestors. I rather think that if their society had been as natural/stable/satisfying as is often implied then it would have been a great deal more robust when faced with modern society. True, in many places, indigenous society and modern settlers both needed the same land and couldn't possibly co-exist, but in many other places the original culture could have survived more or less intact if they'd wanted it to. Instead, when faced with all the gewgaws and temptations (including strong liquor) that modern man had to offer, then most indigenous societies folded up quite quickly -- voluntarily, as it were. For better or for worse, we recreate society much as it was before whenever we have passed through technological/economic change. OK, we might well lose picturesque customs and metaphors (such as 7 or 70 different names
Marx, Keynes and Ancestors
Regarding Ed Weick's latest contribution:
What is sad about 'progress', or whatever one wants to call it, is that
something is gained but something is also lost. Some fifty years ago, the
Inuit of northern Canada still lived migratory lives on the land. An
anthropologist friend told me that on northern Baffin Island, where he
spent a year among them, they had some seventy different words for snow.
Inuit now live in fixed villages. They still venture out in hunting
parties, but do not spend nearly as much time on the land as they once did.
Many young Inuit can barely speak their language, let alone name snow in
seventy different ways. In our Indian villages, I've seen old grannies
scold children in the native language, which the children no longer
understand, and besides, it's alright to ignore old grannies now. At one
time, it was strictly taboo. The gains have been many. The ill-mannered
children stand a much greater chance of survival to a ripe old age, being
educated (as we understand education) and earning a good living than their
ancestors of even a generation ago. Yet much that is irreplaceable has
also been lost. That is the price people pay, usually without knowing it,
for something they think we are getting without any real idea of what it is.
I'm not so sure about all this. I used to think the same as Ed. I think,
now, that this point of view romanticises our ancestors. I rather think
that if their society had been as natural/stable/satisfying as is often
implied then it would have been a great deal more robust when faced with
modern society. True, in many places, indigenous society and modern
settlers both needed the same land and couldn't possibly co-exist, but in
many other places the original culture could have survived more or less
intact if they'd wanted it to. Instead, when faced with all the gewgaws
and temptations (including strong liquor) that modern man had to offer,
then most indigenous societies folded up quite quickly -- voluntarily, as
it were.
For better or for worse, we recreate society much as it was before whenever
we have passed through technological/economic change. OK, we might well
lose picturesque customs and metaphors (such as 7 or 70 different names of
snow -- and it's important for scholarly reasons that records are kept of
these), but we recreate new ones which are equivalent. In England during
the last couple of centuries the typical medieval village has entirely
disappeared and there has been much wailing and nashing of teeth about its
demise. But in its place today a vigorous and attractive new type of
village is emerging -- together with modern equivalents of ancient customs.
The important features of man and society are not the customs and
ceremonials but the fact that we are at one and the same time a creature
that is capable of being both viciously cruel and selfish but also helpful
and altruistic (a form of sensible long-term selfishness). Given a
sufficiently long period of economic stability, then most societies learn
to accommodate both extremes within some similar sort of "democratic"
society. In doing so, they will decorate their procedures with newly
developed customs and ceremonials which are useful to keep most of the
population (which normally doesn't want to think things out for itself) on
track. But let's not sanctify these customs. They're useful as pedagogic
devices and it's sad when they start disappearing ('cos this signifies
change -- always uncomfortable), but they don't have anywhere the basic
importance that some intellectuals give to them.
(I haven't written to Futurework for a long time -- it's good to see Ray
and Ed slanging it out still.)
Keith
____
Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FW Futurework begins its fifth year
Sally and Arthur, At 10:06 20/12/98 -0500, Ed Weick wrote: Sally: Fours years ago, on Dec. 19, 1994, Futurework was launched from csf.colorado.edu. This is hard to believe! It's still one of the best things that happened to the Internet. I do hope that everyone on the list, all of their relatives not on the list, and everyone else, has the happiest of holidays and that all are allowed one more good year before the end of time approaches this time next year. Ed Weick As a long-term subscriber myself, I'd also like to send my good wishes to one and all. And as for Ed's comment: "It's still one of the best things that happened to the Internet", I'd like to add: "and Ed's postings are still among the best things that have happened to FW". Thank you Ed for your lucid, sensible and often very patient postings. They are a delight to read. Keith ________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
The next IMF loan to Russia
It seems certain that, even if only for humanitarian reasons, the IMF will have to give a further tranche of money to Russia -- and pretty soon, too. However, no coherent policy has emerged from Primakov so far. If such a policy does emerge in the next week or two, which is unlikely, it is highly questionable whether it would be practicable and, indeed, whether the IMF could realistically appraise it. The two immediate dangers facing Russia are that: (a) Primakov is unable to form a government of ministers with the economic insight and courage to force through necessary changes; (b) the next tranche would be as completely wasted as before. It seems to me that the next tranche from the IMF should be based on one simple principle: It should be applied to the lowest possible level, in order to short-circuit the multiple layers of corruption, administrative and private. The only practical method of doing this is to lend it to the Regional Governors in proportion to their populations. In the first instance this would only be a percentage game, of course and a great deal of the money would undoubtedly be wasted. Some would be lost completely, some would be partially wasted, but some regional loans might find their way more directly to the population, improve local services and, with simultaneous regional de-regulation for small and medium business, stimulate enterprise. I suggest that there should be only one condition for the loans. This is that a small team of IMF observers should be based in every region in order to record the effect of the loan on price levels and public services. This would necessarily be a rough-and-ready estimate in the first instance, but the benefits (or non-benefits) of a loan in any particular region would be pretty quickly apparent. Further regional loans would then be given according to the effectiveness of the first one -- some regions, one would guess, not receiving any further help at all. Of course, this strategy would be interpreted as political interference in the internal affairs of Russia leading, as it would, to further administrative independence of the regions. This I see as inevitable anyway, but perhaps, as a sweetener, a proportion of the overall loan could be applied to the central government. However, once the conditions of the proposed loan were known to the regions, it would be politically impossible for the central government to resist. Such a strategy would also meet with objections from Western statesmen because it would appear to undermine the integrity of Russian nation-statehood -- and thus, by implication, their own amour propre -- and also weaken the central control of Russian nuclear weapons. Both of these are deeply serious considerations, of course, and I wouldn't wish to downplay them. But I cannot see any possible IMF policy that would do any good other than the one I suggest above. The IMF has only one more opportunity to help Russia. Subsequent strategies will not be those of statesmen, world bankers, and small cliques of economists, as they have been hitherto, but of the electorates of the Western world. The power of this opinion is already being expressed by Republican Senators in Washington and it is already obvious, too, that European countries will be disinclined to contribute much more, if at all, to the IMF. If the next centralised loan to Russia is seen to be totally wasted, as the last one was, public opinion will simply -- but very powerfully -- say: "No more", and the IMF will become a political and financial invalid. In reality, being pretty close to bankruptcy already, the IMF will have nothing more to disperse in the coming months and years, whether to Russia, South-East Asia or to Latin America. Keith _______ Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is Russia breaking up? (fwd)
I refer to Arthur's posting based on my and Ed Weick's comments on Russia matters: (KH) The curious thought that occurs to me is that, despite the appearance of near-total breakdown, both politically and economically, Russia may possibly short-circuit what would have been its normal development into an orthodox nation-state, and proceed into a post-nation-state somewhat faster than we're doing. As already mentioned, it has a highly-educated workforce and there are resources a-plenty for it to do so. It could pick itself up by its bootstraps pretty quicky once it has a proper financial system. ... (EW) A very interesting piece, Keith. A long shot, but you may be right. The talent is all there, but the glue is missing. If that could be provided ..? Ed is quite right. My above phrase, "proper financial system", was sloppy, to say the least. What I should have written was "a proper currency plus a clutch of other reforms to back it up", the two most important of the latter being: (a) a fair rule of law, particularly of land and property law -- and efficiently administered by the courts and police; (b) deregulation of business creation -- particularly of small business. A fair rule of law would gradually take the steam out of most Mafia activities, and also ensure that crooked banks would go bankrupt. Deregulation would do the same for the inefficiencies of bureaucracy. From these (I suggest), Russia could ease itself pretty quickly into the mainstream. However ... (AC) We have seen nations move from private ownership (markets, etc) to collective ownership of one sort or another. Is there any precedence for the reverse. Not counting the east bloc (who were private until WW2), what hope can there be to put in place the set of institutions, rule of law, respect for private property, contract between persons, etc., etc., that are fundamental to the 'reforms' now sought for Russia. Aren't many of these institutional forms or creations an expression of the national culture and thus difficult to put in place from 'on high'? I'm initially tempted to agree, particularly since I've just returned from holiday in Italy and have observed the fractional nature of Italian government, split in almost every way, and in every policy area, between national, regional and communal bodies. Nation-state government, which seems so "natural" to most of us, is in no way natural to the Italians, having been a national country only since the 1880s. Their communal culture still permeates everything they do and policies are rarely successfuly introduced from "on high". However, Russia's history and culture are quite different. Theirs has been a top-down culture for at least 200 years and the Soviet regime was essentially no different from the Tsarist regime -- as are their present legal and bureacratic structures. Despite having had a so-called revolution in 1917, Russians are not revolutionary. There has hardly been a peep out of the large numbers of intelligentsia in Moscow, St Petersburg and other big cities, despite the fact that they have been by far the worst affected by the recent crisis (that is, in relative terms -- the poor have always been poor). Guidar held a "middle-class" protest meeting outside the Kremlin a couple of days ago and only a few hundred turned up. If Russia succeeds in proceeding to conventional nation-statehood then it can probably only do so by commands from on top. And once again, as they did with Yeltsin, they (the Duma this time) have promoted Primakov, one of the few people, it is said, who has the authority to make government bureaucracies obey him. He is also said to be independent from the oligarchs. We'll have to see. My bet is that Russia will not proceed this way. I don't think Primakov (or any other father-figure/dictator) will succeed. I think the country will fall apart into largely independent countries. (It's very interesting indeed that the most trenchant pronouncement that Primakov has made so far has nothing whatsoever to do with finance or government policies generally, but with the need to get regional Governors under control. The latter, by and large, are not trying to break away for political reasons but simply trying to apply regional control for the sake of the physical survival of their own populations. Well, Yeltsin spoke out similarly when he was first made President and it didn;t make the slightest difference. In fact, he had to yield more authority to Governors as time went on.) _______ Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is Russia breaking up? (fwd)
to a post-nation-state quicker than the rather more slowly crumbling Western nations are already doing so. ... Just a few heretical thoughts before I go to bed. Keith At 14:56 07/09/98 -0300, you wrote: -- Forwarded message -- Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1998 09:05:05 -0700 From: mckeever [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Is Russia breaking up? #1 The Independent (UK) 7 September 1998 [for personal use only] Russia's regions start to rebel as Kremlin's grip weakens By Phil Reeves in Moscow As Russia's political leaders meet today for another attempt to strike a deal in the dispute over President Boris Yeltsin's chosen prime minister, evidence is growing that the Kremlin's grip over the country is weakening. A car bomb at the weekend in the southern republic of Dagestan, an Islamic republic that borders Chechnya, killed 16 and injured 80. It has deepened concern that Moscow is no longer able to impose its will across the land. The blast, described by Mr Yeltsin as "an attempt to tear apart the unity of the Russian Federation", was a reminder of the fragility of the relationship binding Moscow to Russia's regions, which has been placed under acute strain by the economic collapse. Evidence that some of the 89 republics, regions and territories are using the chaos to seize more power has been mounting since the crisis began last month. The upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, made up of regional leaders, last week symbolically voted to support the acting prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, who faces a second vote over his job in the Duma today. But what they say in Moscow and do back home differs. The most stunning example is the decision of the Yakutia republic, in the Far East, to place its gold production under the control of local authorities and limit sales to the federal government and banks. But there are others: the governor of Khakassiya in Siberia is the brother and neighbour of General Alexander Lebed. Comparing Mr Yeltsin to "Genghis Khan and Hitler", Gen Lebed has announced his region will no longer transfer any funds to Moscow. The general himself has imposed a price freeze in his region of Krasnoyarsk, banning increases of more than 10 per cent. The governor of the Kuzbass, the Siberian region that produces half Russia's coal, is threatening Moscow that miners will block rail lines across his turf if federal authorities fail to pay five months of back-pay. One governor, in Saratov, has mentioned introducing his own currency. Under the cover of the crisis, Tatarstan, a republic on the Volga River, has tried to protect local producers by slapping a 10 per cent import tax on flour from outside its borders, violating a federal constitutional clause defining Russia as one market. And in Voronezh, in the Red Belt part of southern Russia, city authorities have been seizing control of semi-privatised enterprises, such as the pharmacies, and returning them to government control. Moscow's sway in the regions has always varied from strong to tenuous, but it was weakened last year when Mr Yeltsin lost the power to appoint governors, who are now all elected. Moscow often seems willing to let them go their own way, no matter how much corruption and illegality abounds, so long as they pay taxes. Now, however, they are in danger of becoming even more remote, and even more cavalier about the constitution and distant hand of federal power. ** _______ Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: (Fwd) God save Mother Russia from free market quackery !!! (fwd)
t; the elected representatives of the Communist Party in the Duma contain an astonishingly wide spectrum of individuals from hard-line Marxist-Leninists (only a small number) to liberal supporters of small and medium businesses who would be called Social Democrats in the UK or Democrats in the US. It [The UK Labour Party] could have countered the Thatcher-Reagan offensive with a modest campaign of its own. It might have sidled up to a few hapless Russian apparatchiks (most of whom were punch drunk from the free market onslaught) and pointed out that the state intervention and controlled financial system such as Britain had in 1945 would be much better suited to a country with no experience of markets whatever. This is where Ian Aitken and pretty well all Western economic journalists, spokespeople, think-tankers and Labour politicians are now charging like sheep to a viewpoint quite opposite from what they were saying only a few weeks ago. They're saying: Russia doesn't need "Western capitalism" or the "Free Market" -- but a good strong dose of state control! But this is what Russians have been trying to escape from! If the Russian do what many in the West are now telling them, they would find themselves with even more bureaucrats on the make, even more government cronies, even fewer decisions made, and needing even more taxpayers' money to keep themselves in perks. God save us - and Mother Russia too - from such quackery. But would it not be a rare irony if it turned out to be the collapse of Soviet communism - and not its success - which precipitated the ultimate crisis of capitalism? Listen! Is that raucous laughter I hear from Highgate cemetery? What a silly note to end on! As Ed Weick pointed out recently on Futurework, capitalism has existed since the earliest days of man -- when he spent time (capital) fashioning flint arrowheads in order to trade with the neighbouring tribe -- and has existed ever since, and will always exist ,'cos capital will always be required for any form of economic development. Throuhgout the history of makind capitalism has never been in any crisis except relatively locally when it was persecuted or over-taxed by governments that exceeded their basic functions (protection of society) and became greedy. Moreover, as long as mankind wants to improve his condition, there never will be an "ultimate" crisis of capitalism. What there will be, however, are crises in various forms of types of governments that have become inappropriate or seriously corrupt. This is what Russia is now facing -- in aces. But don't be complacent. Western nation-state governments are becoming inappropriate, too. There's no immediate crisis, of course, but, little by little over the last few decades, the public is losing faith in the bureaucrats and politicians who are supposed to be serving them efficiently and honestly. They're counting for less and less, particularly among the young. Our present forms of government are numbered and will have to change drastically at some stage -- or be swept away by social protest. Keith ________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Basic Income
I refer to Thomas Lunde's original subject and Ed Weick's comments on it. I'll abstract one para: (EW) This is an idea that goes way back to Major Douglas and the original social credit. I don't think it can happen that way. The reason that the poor have no money is that they are not on anyone's payroll. To get on a payroll people have to produce something of marketable value. To enable them to do that, you need investment.* Once you have investment and payrolls, savings are possible and so is additional investment. Simply giving people money to chase nonexistent goods in the hope that those goods will become existent is extremely risky and potentially highly inflationary. Well said. The * is mine and leads me to say that there is another component needed here also. You also need individuals able to respond to changing skill demands. For this you need good education, for this you need good early socialisation and for this we need a major redistribution of educational resources away from the university end and towards the playschools/ kindergarten end. I don't know about Canada, but in this country and in America, this is just beginning to happen (privately and governmentally) but it will probably take at least two or three generations for this to become well and truly implanted in the social culture. Keith P.S. I hope FWers will forgive me when I sometimes accidentally use my commercial signature. I'm not trying to advertise on the fly. ___ Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Demodernizing of Russia (fwd)
far, back to levels of the 1870s) Yeltsin's Government is having to swim even more strongly against the tide than Western nations in trying to maintain (or in his case, re-impose) centralised national authority. I would question Boris Erasov's view that, unlike western nations, Russia has "lacked the institutions which have melded a variety of minorities into common nationhood". I would say, rather, that the 100-odd ethnic minorities in the USSR -- as well as the sheer physical size of the country, including a large Islam component -- have, at the end of the day, simply proved too difficult for any government to handle. It is indeed questionable whether Western governments have succeeded all that well despite appearances during the course of this century and the acceptance by most people that centralised nation-state governments are somehow "natural" institutions. All over Europe, regional cultures are re-asserting themselves even though they might share national languages. Even nations with small populations, such as the UK, are breaking up. (*The Russian Government would, of course, have to have some form of taxation and one candidate would be an enlargement of value-added tax. This would be much easier to administer. It is rather interesting that some commentators are saying that, in the West, too, future taxation will have to be mainly of this sort. Personal and corporate taxation systems are becoming so complex (and, indeed, may break down altogether with the Y2K bug) that they are overwhelming the intellectual and administrative capacities of revenue departments. Such taxes are also becoming easier to evade. Also, of course, investments [particularly pensions funds of ordinary people] are now being dispersed around the world to avoid high taxation in their home countries.) Some FWers might say that Mike Gurstein's original posting of the article on Russia and Ed and my comments on it are little to do with the purpose of this list. But the tragedy of Russia is everything to do with it because what is taking place there now is an integral part of a vast tectonic-type readjustment of the whole world's economy. What is happening to Russia is an important part of what is happening to us. Matters of unemployment everywhere are willy-nilly part of powerful global trends and thus cannot be solved by clever national policies. (In the UK the only clever thing about the New Deal unemployment policy is the government-sponsored advertising one sees on TV saying it is a glorious success. It is brilliantly done and almost convinces me when I see it, but in fact it is fiction.) Keith Hudson _______ Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Evaluation criteria for UK New Deal on jobs (fwd)
t;There will be robust, open and transparent monitoring of the effectiveness of New Deal in meeting these objectivess, and regular publication of statistics on the numbers and destinations of those moving through the programme. The key questions the evaluation must address are the effects of the New Deal on the youth labour market, on the wider labour market,on individuals, and on employers. We will be assessing the effectiveness of the structure and delivery of New Deal, its impact on public expenditure, tax revenues and the numbers on welfare, and the wider effects on social exclusion, the voluntary sector, the environment and on re-offending levels. The New Deal has been operating in twelve areas since January 5th. From 6th April people aged 18-24 who have been unemployed for six months or more will be eligible to join the New Deal. Press enquiries: Andrew Jones, +44 171 925 5108, Robert Veale, +44 171 925 5104 Public enquiries: +44 171 925 Crown Copyright 1998. Source. UK government press release 06/04/98 ________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Another Response to Thomas Lunde
he hands of individuals. Profits is a good clean word and we should be thankful for it. Without perceived benefits (i.e.profits) none of us would exchange anything -- or indeed do anything at all except basic food-getting in what would in truth be a very small number of favoured localities in the world fortunate enough to have all basic necessities. Without profits and without trade our total world population would be unlikely to be more than, say, chimpanzees or mountain gorillas. And our standard of living would be similar, too. ________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Futurework
Dear All, Futurework List was my first when I came onto the Net and I was probably the most frequent writer in its early year or two. It was quite an education for me and I gradually changed my views radically as time went on. For a considerable time I have been silent, firstly because I started to read economics (a new subject for me) quite widely, sometimes quite deeply, and secondly because I felt that more practical ideas for futurework were needed rather than political or economic nostrums. I don't know how many of the original list are still with Futurework but some may be interested to see what I've been doing in the last few months as a practical endeavour. This is at www.handlo.com and you are warmly invited to visit it and tell me what you think (at my above address please). Although this site is about a minority pursuit I'm quite sure that, in due course, it's going to create new jobs. But, more importantly, there must be dozens, if not hundreds, of other specialisations which could be developed and, taken together, could amount to a transformation of our constantly monopolistic-tending business, governmental and educational institutions. This, of course, will take a generation or so, and the individual endeavours (like Handlo) will take a lot of work to set up, but I'm quite convinced now that all this is going to happen, catalysed by the Net, and that the future of Futurework List lies in encouraging initiatives of a similar sort and acting as a resource base for potential entrepreneurs rather than discussing political prejudices. I don't think anybody, politicians and economists least of all, has any sure remedy for unemployment. But anything that helps to spread money around in a voluntary way is, in fact, creating more work. Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
