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Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: > From: Tom Walker <timew...@telus.net> > Date: November 7, 2010 4:02:27 PM EST > To: SWT <s...@lists.riseup.net> > Subject: [SWT] Fifty-four hours > > http://www.scribd.com/doc/41436595 > > At the above URL, I've uploaded my abridged and updated version of John > Burnett's 1872 pamphlet on the Newcastle engineers' strike for the nine-hour > day. The original pamphlet was over 50,000 words long and my version is less > than 10,000 words also includes commentary and analysis from today's > perspective. I can't emphasize strongly enough the importance of this strike > and its documentation in the pamphlet. This is the mother lode. The strike > began on May 29th, 1871, the day after the final defeat of the Paris Commune. > In contrast to the Commune and its aftermath, the Newcastle strike was > non-violent and ended in a historic victory for the workers. Everyone has > heard of the Paris Commune but the Newcastle strike is a neglected footnote > buried in a dusty archive. That needs to change. > > The strike and its context teaches many urgent lessons. I emphasize three of > them in this paper. First is the connection with the Jevons Paradox, the > "curse of efficiency". Newcastle is synonymous with coal. "Carrying coals to > Newcastle" is like "selling refrigerators to Eskimos." Sir William Armstrong, > the spokesman for the Newcastle employers during the strike first raised the > question that led William Stanley Jevons to his examination of the coal > question and discovery of the Jevons Paradox, which today dogs the > technological optimists' faith of finding a technological fix, through > radically increased energy efficiency, to carbon emissions and mitigation of > climate change. > > In the course of a newspaper public relations battle between Armstrong and > Burnett, Sir William presented a calculation, justifying the employers' > position that clearly demonstrates the tendency to double counting error that > arises in any superficial attempt at social accounting. Armstrong's > percentage estimate of projected employers' loss from the move to a 54-hour > week was off by an order of magnitude. It makes "Senior's Last Hour" look > like it was calculated with the precision of a Swiss watch. Multiply > Armstrong's category mistake by a few billion and you get an idea of the > faulty architecture of national income accounting, such as the GDP. > > Jumping ahead to the analytical implications of Armstrong's Double Count, in > place of the simpering, apologetic Pigouvian shoulder shrug of > "externalities," I propose the surgically-precise, Veblenian descriptor of > "predatory pecuniary trespass" or PPT to describe what happens with a > dominant accounting unit compels a subordinate one to expend ever greater > time and energy resources just to stay in the same place. PPT is similar to > John Ruskin's concept of "illth," with one important distinction. While the > quantification of illth would require myriads of subjective judgments about > whether something or other is a "good" or a "bad," quantifying PPT needs only > the specification of the appropriate boundary condition in any given > performance of social accounting. Armstrong's Double Count provides an > elegantly clear template for drawing that line. > > Last but not least, "our old friend, the lump-of-labor." In a newspaper > dispatch filed on the day the strike ended (but anachronistically reporting > that no end was in sight), the London correspondent for the New York Times > invented what I am for now content to declare the locus classicus of the > lump-of-labor fallacy claim. This version of the claim's claim to fame is > that rather than an innocently-foolish populist delusion, the theory "that > the amount of work to be done is a fixed quantity" represents the alleged > core belief underlying the nefarious "ulterior design" by the Unionists to > systematically strangle production, extort higher wages and thereby impose a > tyrannical Socialist regime. Yes, folks, the mild-mannered oh-so-respectable > and mainstream textbook fallacy claim made its debut as a wild-eyed, > foaming-at-the-mouth vast right-wing conspiracy theory with all the grace, > subtlety and truthyness of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. It is > a hoax, a slander and a plagiarism, which doesn't say much for the > intellectual rigor and integrity of an economics profession that continues to > dole out the fallacy claim to students as if it is the wisdom of Solomon (nor > for that matter for the trade union officials who spout the slogan, > supposedly to demonstrate their economic policy "pragmatism"). > List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:sy...@lists.riseup.net?subject=unsubscribe%20swt> > List-Post: <mailto:s...@lists.riseup.net> List-Owner: > <mailto:swt-requ...@lists.riseup.net> List-Archive: > <http://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/swt> ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
