Urban and Regional Course
Hi, I'm starting to think about the fall :^( and redesigning my course on urban and regional theory. It's an introductory course for graduate students in community planning who have no economics or social science prerequisites. The course is called "Spatial and Fiscal Relationships of Communities" and I generally teach it as a course in urban theory, covering such "classic" things as Christaller's central place theory, the Chicago School's concentric zone theory, etc. and more recent and radical stuff like flex-spec, and the like. Generally, I've used Dicken and Lloyd's _Location in Space_ combined with Mike Davis' _City of Quartz_ the past few years. I'm a bit dissatisfied with the course covering too much and covering things in too little depth. Does anyone out there teach a similar course and/or have suggestions? Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
bond market fetishism
Any comments about the flurry of publicity about the new Woodward book, showing Clintion's abject grovelling before the bond market? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 916-898-6141 messages E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
pen-l problems
Some of you may have been trying to post to pen-l since Friday. Unfortunately the system has been down. If your message did not get through, just repost it. Sorry. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 916-898-6141 messages E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: pomo (again)
(This is a reposting of a message I sent last week; I did not see it come on the network, so I assume it got lost the first time around). Alan Isaac, two points in response to your concerns: If I thought a pomo perspective would make it impossible to argue against exploitation, I would certainly reject it altogether; but, on the contrary, I think it can allow me to strengthen the argument against exploitation. Pomo does not tell me that I cannot have an identity as a worker, that there cannot be a community of labor, for which exploitation is a key analytical and moral/ethical issue. rather, it only says that people have--or are subject to, or can participate in--a number of different identities. To go back to the example of gender, one can argue that the joining of class and gender (exploitation and patriarchy) makes the struggle against both (also egainst exploitation) stronger; for, if I can argue that the relation of capital, the subsumption of labor, is and was historically constituted through metaphors of patriarchal construction of labor/nature/order, then it seems to me that, to the extent the argument is persuasive, I will be doing something to bring into the struggle against exploitation people who may have started out being concerned about patriarchy but not about exploitation (and it must work the other way around too, or it will not work at all). That, seems to me to be a more politically sensible and respectful way of trying to convince people who are not where we are to begin with, concerned with exploitation, that they should also be concerned with it (and viceversa, again)--the alternative is to tell them what? that they should be concerned with exploitation because . of what? because WE think it is important? who are we? because when we end exploitation, we will also end other forms of oppression? that was tried once and will no longer hold. There is also a second line of thinking about exploitation that is relevant here: I'll just mention it. There are many roots to Marxism; the one that thinks about exploitation as a matter of justice referring back to a certain construction of the human subject (the laboring subject who produces value in the state of nature) is a Lockean root: it itself is infused with many bourgeois notions of property, of justice, etc.. [and I think that Marx, although he used it, also criticized it--especially in the section on commodity fetishism]. So, the critique of exploitation that needs to be based on a notion of the subject is also a critique that shares some grounds with bourgeois notions of justice. I have no qualms with using such an approach at times; but I think we cannot reduce Marxism, and the critique of exploitation, to only this line; we must go beyond it, and if pomo can help philosophically to get us beyond bourgeois notions of the subject (and construct a different notion of humanity and of duties, one based on a recognition of difference, rather than sameness), that's why it can be very helpful. We can then be able to radically differentiate democracy and community from the bourgeois (I mean this in its philosophical sense) constructions of the same terms. Antonio Antonio, Well I am at least persuaded that you have found pomo thinking personally useful, and useful in a way that I can begin to sympathize with. For example, I can accept that modernism (which I take to be the Enlightenment heritage) has had a tendency to seek ahistorical explanatory frameworks, which can hinder analysis. For example, I think we can say that neoclassical analysis has no theory of capitalism for this reason. (I probably shd note that for me this circumscribes neoclassical analysis rather than completely vitiating it.) However, I fear that pomo throws out the baby with the bath water when claiming that the subject is _radically_ historical. (And let me say that I find your distinction between a discursive/prescriptive concept and a metaphysical presumption to be a mighty fine conceptual line that is unlikely to amount to anything in practice.) Cutting to the chase, from a pomo perspective I do not see how to explain why exploitation is unjust (except to attempt to persuade people to use the word justice this way). In contrast, Enlightenment thought persistently hung on to the notion that _the very fact of our humanity implied certain duties toward each other_. --Alan G. Isaac Antonio Callari E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] POST MAIL: Department of Economics Franklin and Marshall College Lancaster PA 17604-3003 PHONE: 717/291-3947 FAX:717/399-4413
Is this pen-l pomo?
Sam Lanfranco writes: The interesting thing about PEN-L, in contrast to most LISTSERVs, is that it operates with two or three specific threads at the same time, plus to small flare-ups and individual postings. It is like watching TV with an overly active channel zapper on the remote control. The various threads co-exist with out much trouble. This was just a little after Antonio Callari wrote on Wed, 01 Jun 1994 11:20:40-0700 that: The notion of a "decentered subject" says that humans are not reduced to any one center, dimension, but are always assemblages of dimensions / identities--and that these assemblages are themselves shifting, variable, reconstitutable (the reconstitutability is the window for political effectivity, by the way, I think). So am I correct in inferring that pen-l is a decentered cyber-subject? (I had thought that reconstitutability was more applicable to milk products, but if humans, why not discussions among same?) Virtually, Bruce McFarling, Pellissippi State [EMAIL PROTECTED]
IR conference: repeat call new dates
SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT -- CHANGE OF DATES FOR CONFERENCE The following message is a repeat, except for the change in dates: not the Thanksgiving weekend but the Remembrance Day weekend in Canada. If you replied to the earlier announcement, please confirm that you are available on the new dates. If you had not (yet) replied and are interested in coming in some capacity (speaker, workshop participant, attendant), please let us know. Our grant application must be finalised by 8 July, so please send us your suggestions and/or confirmation before that date. Thank you. Paul Phillips, programme chair Jesse Vorst (convener) The rise and demise of collective bargaining: 50 years PC1003 Conference 10-13 November 1994 -- Winnipeg Secretariat: 361 University College, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg MB R3T 2M8. Phone 204-474-9119. Fax 204-261-0021. E-mail: Internet/NetNorth [EMAIL PROTECTED] June 1994 Dear friend, To commemorate the landmark PC1003 we are planning a conference around the history and state of collective bargaining in Canada and other western industrialised countries. The text of the conference description, as submitted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, is enclosed. We hope to have some thirty speakers at the conference from various walks of life and work: unionists, academics, students, activists. Perspectives will be provided from a number of areas: labour industrial relations, economics, politics political science, law, history, sociology, and others. If early contacts are any indication, there is considerable interest to attend this event. The proceedings of the conference will form the basis of a publication, to be available in the spring of 1995. Formal plenary sessions (with research papers), round-tables and workshops are planned. With this letter we invite you to submit a proposal for your participation -- hopefully in the form of the presentation of a paper; please fill out (typed) the enclosed SSHRC form and return to the above address by 30 June. We have to submit our session line-ups by 8 July to SSHRC who (we hope) will provide financial support to the conference. Note that your submission does not, at this stage, commit you to formal participation. We need it to complete the SSHRC application and to get some idea of the interest for the conference. We also enclose a preliminary participation form; please return that at your earliest opportunity. It is designed to find out whether you are interested to participate in any type of of the various events planned -- or to just attend without active involvement. The weekend of 10-13 November has been chosen for a number of practical reasons, and is now the definite time for the conference. We hope to hear from you soon. With greetings of peace, Jesse Vorst Conference convener TEXT OF CONFERENCE PROPOSAL AS SUBMITTED TO SSHRCC: In 1944, as the 2nd World War was drawing to a close, the Canadian government propelled by worker unrest and a new liberal-left political ethos emanating from revulsion of fascism, passed Order-in-Council PC1003, legislation that revolutionized industrial relations in Canada. The Order-in-Council incorporated union recognition and compulsory collective bargaining provisions borrowed from the United States' Wagner Act with Canadian-British union legalization provisions and government intervention provisions that date back to the 1872 Trades Union Act and the 1907 Industrial Disputes and Investigation Act. PC1003 was incorporated in Federal Legislation in 1948 and ultimately in provincial legislation shortly thereafter. The era that followed in industrial relations has been labelled in the US as the era of the "labour-management accord" though the general characteristics are more or less common to the "Anglo" economies (Canada, US, Britain). The central principles of the accord were a) acceptance by the employers of collective bargaining, unions and the right of labour to a "fair" share of national income; b) acceptance by unions and labour of the rights of capital to manage and introduce technological change; and c) acceptance by government of its obligation to maintain full employment (Keynesian demand management) and provide a basic welfare state to insure labour against the vagaries of industrial capitalism. The Accord appeared as a great success for over two decades, until the 1970s, when a combination of economic and political events/forces resulted in a gradual unravelling of the concensus and an increase in class conflict. The dismemberment is perhaps best documented in Leo Panitch and Don Shwartz's multi-edition book ** The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms **. What is not well explored are the economic and political factors leading to the collapse of the "accord", nor of the industrial relations regime and ideology that has replaced the system introduced 50 years ago. This involves a multi-disciplinary approach -- economics, industrial relations,
No Subject
Alan Issac asks if price competition might not be the motive force behind innovation. My objection to the term price competition is that it is a superficial concept drawn from a problematic that focusses on the interaction between agents buying and selling goods on the market. But the fact that there are such agents, that there are laws governing prices, and laws governing the possible rates of change of prices can never be deduced from an analysis at this level. Only an analysis of the process of material production can help here. I do not see anything fundamentally wrong with the analysis of the production of relative surplus value in Capital, which does not need to invoke 'price competition'. The effect of the production of relative surplus value is to lower prices, but this is not necessarily the aim of the participants. The important structural feature is that a reduction in the labour time required to produce a commodity increases the amount of surplus value taken by the owners of the capital of the firm that does the innovation. Paul Cockshott ,WPS, PO Box 1125, Glasgow, G44 5UF Phone: 041 637 2927 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Subject
Marx's analysis of mechanisation focuses on the process of real subordination of labour to capital, the process by which the labour becomes subordinate to the machine. The analysis divides the machine into three parts, a motive source, a tool or active part, and a guiding mechanism. The decisive point in comparison with manufacture is that the motive source and guiding mechanism are taken out of the control of the worker and embodied in the machine. The skills of the worker become embodied in the machine. Freed from the human hand, the tool can either become monstrous ( the steam hammer for instance ), or move with unnatural speed. "Along with the tool, the skill of the worker in handling it passes over to the machine. The capacities of the machine are emancipated from the restraints inseperable from human labour-power" (Cap I, 545) "As soon as a machine executes, without mans help, all the movements required to elaborate the raw material, and needs only suplementary assistance from the worker, we have an automatic system of machinery, capable of constant improvement in its details". These basic concepts remain a very accurate characterisation of mechanisation and automation, and in this century have been further developed by Braverman (Labour and Monopoly Capital), Vonegutt (Player Piano), and Giedion (Mechanization takes Command). What I am saying is that the process that develops productivity in the computer industry is not really of this type. Of course one can point to instances of classic automation and mechanisation in the industry. I think in particular of the development by IBM in the late 50's of automatic wirewrap machines controled by punched cards, or the development again by IBM of automatic core threading machines, and more recently of pick and place machines for the populating of PCBs, but these have been secondary to the overall process. If these were the underlying mechanisms at work, the growth of productivity in the computer industry would have been no faster than in the car industy, sewing machine industry or washing machine industry. What is qualitatively distinct about the computer industry is that all its major improvements have arisen through the replacement of serial contsruction techniques by printing techniques - first with the printed circuit board and then with the IC. This has the potential to produce growth in a geometric rather than arithmetic progression. If feature sizes on ICs are reduced from the 6microns of the mid 70's to a 0.6microns today, the number of components made per square millimeter goes up 100 times, and the components work 10 times faster, giving me a 1000 fold improvement. This means that productivity goes up exponentially as the third power of an improvement in resolution. There is no comparable process in the classical history of automation. This is not to say that the process is without precedent. Two come to mind: 1) The original development of the printing industry produced a similar orders of magnitude reduction in labour costs. 2) The development of mass production techniques based upon casting to replace those based on forging or hand forming. The first european instance of this was the mass production of oil lamps and other ceramics in 'Samian Ware' industries of Roman Gaul, the next great development of this came with the cast iron industry of the early industrial revolution. What is characteristic of these processes is that a parallel process of information transfer is used to inform the product. There is, as far as I can recall no mention of this in Capital or Grundrisse. Paul Cockshott ,WPS, PO Box 1125, Glasgow, G44 5UF Phone: 041 637 2927 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Urban and Regional Course
On Tue, 7 Jun 1994, Marshall Feldman wrote: I'm starting to think about the fall :^( and redesigning my course on urban and regional theory. It's an introductory course for graduate students in community planning who have no economics or social science prerequisites. The course is called "Spatial and Fiscal Relationships of Communities" and I generally teach it as a course in urban theory, covering such "classic" things as Christaller's central place theory, the Chicago School's concentric zone theory, etc. and more recent and radical stuff like flex-spec, and the like. Generally, I've used Dicken and Lloyd's _Location in Space_ combined with Mike Davis' _City of Quartz_ the past few years. I'm a bit dissatisfied with the course covering too much and covering things in too little depth. Does anyone out there teach a similar course and/or have suggestions? One strategy might be to pick one or two urban areas or urban problems (or 1 or 2 problems in 1 urban area) and then alternate between theoretical and empirical approaches--perhaps even breaking the class into teams who are supposed to produce parts of a larger report. I've used this strategy successfully in teaching computer courses (and with mixed success in teaching about the welfare state). I found that by building the course around a task that's very tangible and very bounded, I could interweave different theoretical approaches, issues, etc. without leaving the students feeling too overwhelmed. However, it does require a lot of thinking/daydreaming about the structure of the course well in advance. Anders Schneiderman UCB Sociology / Center for Community Economic Research
Re: Price of Computers
On Tue, 7 Jun 1994 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But of course, Novell just bought WordPerfect and Borland's Quattro Pro spreadsheet, so oligopoly simply be moving from hardware to software. Novell might be attempting to improve Quattro Pro and WordPerfect, OfficePerfect, and the other WP Corp apps so that they are better able to compete with the offerings of Microsoft and Lotus. At that point, Novell will presumably sell of WP and Quattro Pro. Novell actually has a history of doing this sort of thing in other product lines, such as network interface cards, when it sees a market failure that hurts its core business -- network operating systems. Still, I'd agree that the software industry is becoming oligarchical. There will be fewer firms in the software industry in the future, even if Novell plays the game I think it will. Andrew __ Andrew W. Hagen [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Do not look for what you find.
GATT ALERT! 6-3-94
/* Written 12:01 PM Jun 3, 1994 by iatp in igc:trade.news */ /* -- "GATT ALERT! 6-3-94" -- */ GATT ALERT! Friday, June 3, 1994 ___ HEADLINES: -Gingrich Reasserts WTO Opposition in NYT Editorial -Sneaky, Sneaky ... Canadian Gov't Begins Filing Secret GATT Case Against EU Animal Protection Law ... Another Tuna/Dolphin Case in the Works? -Sutherland -- Click Your Heels Three Times and Wish -Tax Officials Oppose GATT/WTO Preemption -Nader Calls on California Candidates to Take Stand on GATT -Textile Executive Says Budget Waiver Bad for Economy -Pro-GATT Alliance Urges Support Calls to Congress -United We Stand Sponsors GATT Protest ___ Gingrich Reasserts WTO Opposition in NYT Editorial House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich defended his stance on the World Trade Organization in a recent NEW YORK TIMES editorial, calling the proposed WTO a "politicized institution" with serious concerns for the U.S. Gingrich affirmed in his letter that he "strongly" supports freer trade, but said he would continue "trying to find a way to write the implementation agreement that will protect America while promoting world trade." Call Gingrich to let him know you support his efforts to draft implementation language that preserves U.S. rights within the WTO (202) 225-2800 or write the Office of the Republican Whip, Room H-219, The Capitol, Washington, D.C. 20515-0007. ___ Sneaky, Sneaky ... Canadian Gov't Begins Filing Secret GATT Case Against EU Animal Protection Law ... Another Tuna/Dolphin Case in the Works? Canada's Humane Society discovered recently that its government has taken secret steps to file a GATT complaint against a proposed EU directive banning the import of fur from wildlife caught in leghold traps. "The complaint filed before GATT encourages other nations to launch similar challenges," said the Humane Society's Michael O'Sullivan. "Canadians have no wish to join the ranks of those who encourage environmental damage, the drowning of dolphins, and the slaughter of elephants for ivory." Repeated federal surveys have shown that 8 out of 10 Canadians support animal protection, not the killing of wildlife to support industries such as the fur trade, which O'Sullivan said has no economic future or prospects for job creation. For more information contact Michael O'Sullivan or Barbara Turnbull at 1-800-641-KIND. ___ Sutherland -- Click Your Heels Three Times and Wish GATT Chief Peter Sutherland continues to praise the merits of GATT, almost daily, in a rush to secure early ratification of the Uruguay Round. During his latest GATT push, Sutherland said members' claims that the WTO would threaten nations' sovereignty are "unfounded." "The WTO's individual members are protected against the imposition of an obligation to establish trade relations under the WTO with another state on terms they do not wish to accept," he said during a speech this week. ___ Tax Officials Oppose GATT/WTO Preemption Sutherland should save his speech for U.S. state tax officials who lodged a new complaint Thursday claiming the WTO could invalidate state tax laws that otherwise would be acceptable under the Constitution. Officials representing the Federation of Tax Administrators and Multistate Tax Commission said during a press conference in Washington June 2 that the WTO could overturn state laws if it found "unjustified discrimination" against foreign entities. "We believe that the Constitution establishes a standard of equal treatment for foreign and domestic taxpayers alike, and the Constitution should continue to be the standard against which state laws are judged," said Dan R. Bucks, executive director of the commission. "GATT threatens to establish a second set of rules for foreign taxpayers that will favor them over U.S. tax payers." Tax officials demanded language in the GATT implementing bill to preserve states' taxing authority. For more information contact the Federation of Tax Administrators (202) 624-5890 or the Multistate Tax Commission (202) 624-8699. ___ Nader Calls on California Candidates to Take Stand on GATT Ralph Nader, founder of the U.S. consumer group, PUBLIC CITIZEN, is calling on California gubernatorial candidates to take a stand on GATT in light of a recent EU report threatening U.S. environmental and California laws. Laws cited by the EU as "barriers to trade" and therefore challengeable under GATT include: -Proposition 65. The California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act; -Lead Standards for Wind, Ceramics; -Glass Recycling; -Defense, Agricultural Policies; and -Unitary Tax. "California voters deserve to know where
2nd Largest Software Company in the World
Just for the record. While we desktop endusers are watching the "big bird" Microsoft, just who is the second largest software company in the world? ANSWER: Computer Associates International Inc., which just paid .3BillionUS for the ASK Group Inc.. Not exactly a desktop name? That is because they are leaders in client/server offerings such as OpenIngres, OpenRoad, Manman/X and Sim/400. Electronic Data Systems Inc (EDS) and Hewlett-Packard Co. tendered shares of ASK amounting to 27% of all outstanding shares. If one uses con- centration ratios, rather than numbers of players on the field, as a measure of market concentration, the Oligopoly "done come", as they used to say about the train where I grew up. There are reasons to bet against Microsoft for non-market reasons. I will post that under a different Subject: Justice Dept Ploy Targets Microsoft Sam Lanfranco, York University, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Justice Dept Ploy Targets Microsoft
As the U.S. Justice Department is researching its anti-trust case against Microsoft, it is looking at applying the "essential facilities doctrine". The doctrine holds that a company owning an essential facility for a par- ticular market, such as electric power lines or the only bridge over a river, cannot use that monopoly to hurt competitors relying on the essential facility. The doctrine has historically been applied to electric utilities. Novell and others are arguing that Microsoft's dominance of the desktop operating systems market makes it an "essential facility" so it should share details such as undocumented calls and other information about the DOS and Windows Application Programming Interfaces. Software dominance may well be similar to food dominance, the optimum strategy being a stable of power applications to saturate a large segment of the market. The ownership of a key element, the operating system, may be of less use if the courts rule that the undocumented capabilities (giving an advantage to the Microsoft programmers) have to be documented and distributed to competitors. One would suspect that both the liberal Democratic and conservative Republican strains in U.S. public policy would be pulling the same direction on this one. One against monopoly and the other in support of competition at Bill Gates' expense. Sam Lanfranco York University [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Urban and Regional Course
I'm starting to think about the fall :^( and redesigning my course on urban and regional theory. Treacy: Sometimes it is fun to use something like Von Thunan's Der Isolated State and compare it to the modern stuff. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
