[PEN-L:1951] Duration Model Advice

[ZAHNISER STEVEN SCOTT]

I would like to thank everyone who responded to my query about 
programming a two-state proportional hazards model.  I have decided to 
try doing the programming myself in gauss.

Thanks again, and to everyone, a very happy holiday season!

Steven Zahniser
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:1950] Miscelaneous

[PHILLPS]

To Bill M,
  Bill, one of the reasons I haven't been on the net for some
coupleof months is that I was chief negotiator for the U of M
faculty in our negotiations with the administration.  We settled
a few weeks ago and I have been trying to catch up with my research
and teaching because we were on the picket line for three weeks.
At the beginining of the strike, I put a message on pen-l and
pkt explaining our situation.  Many of you responded from around
the globe petitioning our university president and our provincial
premier to respect academic freedom and negotiate.  In the end,
thanks in large part to the support of the international community,
we won.  We didn't win money -- we gave up decreases for three
years except for junuior faculty who got what we think was a
significant wage in recognition. (I should point out, that after
income taxes, some of our juniour colleagues made more on strike
benefit than they did in wages.  They would hav e been prepared to
stay out all year.)
  What we did win was the right and dignity, that when the axe falls
from our conservative government, we have the right to negotiate
what gets cut.  Now this might not seem like much -- but at least
we can protect individuals from being targeted -- like the economics
department (like yours) that was declared to be dominated by
Marxist-Leninists by the vice-president of the university (I was
insulted as a member of the department and a dedicated anarcho-
syndicalist (:-)).
  The interesting thing was that, when we asked support from
the other unions -- the bus drivers, the auto workers (who represent
our janitors), the municipal, provincial, and federal civil servants,
the city labour council, the provincial labour council  -- who did I
miss __, they did not question what us overpaid, underworked,
over perked were asking -- they just asked, are you being targetted
by the Conservatives -(well they knew that already, since all public
sector workers were).  When we asked for their support, they said
yes -- do you need money.  We said no, just support.  When we put
up picket lines we were joined by workers from around the city, from
amoung our janitors, our secretaries, our bus drivers, who took off
their lunch hours, coffee breaks and weekends to join us on the line.
They never asked us what our wages were -- many of us make in a week
what they make in a month.  Some of the bus drivers even got
suspended when they refused to drive their buses through the
picket lines.  While some of our conservative academic colleagues
crossed the lines because they did not feel it was coposetic for
professionals to  strike (what crap!).
  I was never so proud of my fellow workers in my life.  They did
not ask for justification -- just, were we sincere in our beliefs
that academic freedom was threatened -- i.e. were our demands
justified.  When we said yes, they said, we trust you, how can we
help.  In all the years I have taught, worked, spoken at
conferences, etc., I have always felt more comfortable with my
labour friends, often more comfortable than with my academic
colleagues, and always more comforable than with business and
government officials.  Labour, ever when wrong (in my opinion) have
a dignity, nobility and purpose that I don't see in many other
segments of society.
  So maybe the French strikers aren't perfect.  Maybe we weren't.
But thank God they had respect for us as I have come to have
respect for workers, here and around the world.

To Doug,
  I don't think you understand the generation of the deficit in
Canada.  I am working on a book with a couple of my colleagues on it
at the moment but to be brief:  The deficit in Canada can be traced
to two causes (as, in fact, Statistics Canada did), to a reduction
in taxes to corporations and the rich, and to a rise in interest
rates on government debts due to monetarist policies by the
Bank of Canada.  Though the debt appears large, it would
decline rapidly with relatively moderate changes in fiscal and
monetary policy -- see the econometric projections proposed by
alternative economists in the alterntive budget from last year
with this year's version out shortly.  The long and short of it
is that Canada's debt problem is a deliberate creation of the
rentier/multinational class -- and is suseptible to relatively
easy reversal.  As to your comments upon the dependence of
Canada for its standard of living on American largesse, well
perhaps we should say, what a crock ...(:-))

It was - 37C yesterday, though a baumy -13C today in a blizzard,
so we can't complain about dirty streets.

Keep warm,

Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University College,
University of Manitoba.

If you like this weather, keep in touch.  The University of
Winnipeg may be going out on strike on the same issue some
in the new year.  We would welcome you on the picket lines.
Join the working class!

[PEN-L:1949] Correct thoughts

[Tom Walker]

After much stenuous typing (the OCR wouldn't touch this stuff) I can only 
wonder: why did I do it? Here is the alleged "proposed resolution" I 
promised. As mentioned previously, the date on it is June 1969 and a 
printer's bug on the back page indicates it was printed by the IWW printing 
co-op of Chicago, Ill. Although it doesn't use the phrase "politically 
correct", the connection is clear, with citations of a "correct position", 
"correct thinking" and "correct revolutionary thought".
I believe the popularity of the maoist phraseology came from Mao Tse-Tung's 
_On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People/Let a Hundred 
Flowers Bloom_.

In skewering "correct thought", this satirical piece painstakingly 
reproduces the tedious pseudo-scholarship of late sixties maoist 
"revolutionary" cults. In fact, the imitation is so painstaking that the 
satire is itself a model of tedium. This is indeed a "shaggy dog story", 
complete with deadpan punchline in the very last sentence. There are a few 
minor giggles along the way, but it's mainly just a build-up to the punch 
line. (By the way: if you skip to the punchline, it's not as funny without 
the build-up).

Please note: "Durruti" is not the name of an "Amerindian tongue" but was the 
name of a Spanish anarchist from the 1930s.

I realize that I am taking an enormous risk of mistaken attribution in 
posting this historical artefact. I can see the messages now, "On Wed, Dec 
13, Tom Walker wrote: >yadda, >yadda >yadda"... and then proceeding to take 
issue with something the correspondent thinks I said.

So here is the disclaimer: the following is SATIRE, it is DATED and I DIDN'T 
WRITE IT.
__

 PROPOSED RESOLUTION
 ON
THE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY NATURE
 OF
 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

It is clear that our movement has come a long way in the last two 
years. Beginning from a preoccupation with essentially liberal issues like 
student power and peace, we have arrived at a perspective through which we 
have aligned ourselves with the revolutionary working class against American 
capitalist imperialism.

The achievement of a correct position does not, however, mean that 
our intellectual struggle is over. We must explore the implications of 
working class politics for every area of our activity, in order to reinforce 
those politics and free them from contamination by bourgeois individualist 
thought. This proposal is a modest contribution to this effort.

Concern with correct thinking and proper expression of that thought 
is a hallmark of the true revolutionary. Our vehicle for thought and 
communication is language; to be concrete, it is the English language. Now 
it has never occurred to us that this language is by its very nature 
counterrevolutionary and that truly correct revolutionary thought in English 
is therefore impossible. Yet we intend, through careful analysis, to 
establish that the English language is little more than a tool of 
imperialism designed to stifle genuinely radical ideas among the 
English-speaking masses.

We can talk about language from the standpoints of meaning and 
structure. Although bourgeois linguists introduce complex terminology into 
their discussions of meaning, chiefly in order to prevent us from 
understanding what they mean, we shall consider it only in terms of words. 
Now English has a great many words, and this in itself is suspect: what it 
suggests is that no matter how hard the worker tries to educate himself, the 
bosses and their lackey politicians can always produce new words from their 
lexical grabbag to confuse him. Even in our own movement this elitist 
duplicity manifests itself in the use of esoteric words like "chauvinism," 
"reification," "dialectical materialism." and so on. It is almost axiomatic 
that the revolutionary status of a language is inversely proportional to the 
weight of its dictionary.

Lest this sound farfetched, we may cite the pioneer linguist Otto 
Jesperson in _The Growth and Structure of the English Language_. He notes 
that the Norman invasion and subsequent domination of England for centuries 
by descendants of the French-speaking conquerors produced a class division 
of the English vocabulary, with the French imports reserved chiefly for the 
upper classes. The other great influx of foreign words came during the 
Renaissance when scholars, not content with the language of the people, 
imported quantities of Latin and Greek, thus widening the semantic gulf 
between the educated elite and the masses.

Significant though consideration of meaning be, it is in the area of 
language structure that our analysis is most fruitful. Structure or syntax 
is the sum of all those rules which govern the ways the words in any 
language can be put together to mak

[PEN-L:1948] Re: the state of the labor movement

[glevy]

>I'm inclined to strike a somewhat optimistic tone.   
> michael yates

In matters of analysis, be neither optimistic nor pessimistic. Realism 
should prevail.

Jerry

[PEN-L:1947] the state of the labor movement

[MIKEY]

Dear friends,

I have been asked to write an article for Monthly Review on the state 
of the U.S. labor movement.  I'd be interested to know what others 
think.  What things will determine the extent to which the labor 
movement will be renewed?  Is there anything special I should read?  
Are there people with special  insights to whom I should speak?  I'm 
inclined to strike a somewhat optimistic tone.  Am I a fool?  Is this 
my anti-depression medicine talking?

in solidarity,


michael yates
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:1946] address of covert action

[MIKEY]

Dear friends,

A week or so ago, someone posted a recommendation that we read 
the fall issue of the magazine "Covert Action."  Does anyone have an 
address and phone number?  I'll be gateful to anyone who can send 
these to me.  Thanks.

in solidarity,


michael yates
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:1945] Re: Something completely different

[Louis N Proyect]

On Wed, 13 Dec 1995, bill mitchell wrote:

> 
> louis (author of the above) - please develop an argument rather than assertion
> to tell me why the things i am saying about france are "pretty anti-Marxist"
> and perhaps while you are at it, please develop a brief vision of what marxism
> means in the 1990s rather than the 1950-60s.
> 

Louis:

I think your view of the French strike is undialectical. Rather than 
seeing it as an advance in the class struggle directed against the 
perogatives of capital, you dwell on issues that are entirely secondary. 
The class-struggle never appears in a pure form where the working class as a 
whole stands on one side of the barricade and the bosses on the other. It 
is always shifting and filled with all sorts of contradictions. 

For example, in the United States today the militia movement contains within 
it all sorts of reactionary impulses while also reflecting the genuine 
grievances of small ranchers and farmers against big capital. It has this 
in common with the Populism of the 19th century in its early stages. The 
Populist resistance of the small farmers against Wall St. did not have an 
entirely progressive thrust at the beginning. One of the leaders from the 
state of Texas was a advocate of race supremacy. It took some years for this 
movement to develop a clear anticapitalist dynamic. At its height it united 
black and white farmers against racist institutions and powerful 
corporations.

During the 1960's, American student radicals thought the US working class 
was an undifferentiated conservative bloc because of its home 
ownership, high wages, and steady employment. This working class was 
viewed as being "pro-war". The Archie Bunker stereotype was rampant among 
SDS types. A Marxist analysis of the working-class would have revealed an 
entirely different conclusion. Most of the soldiers were working-class 
and by 1970 many of them were beginning to identify with the students and 
support the antiwar movement. Many of the students themselves were 
working-class. The state universities were mostly working-class. The 
SDSers were fixated on superficial features of American society.

I believe you are making the same kind of mistake with respect to the 
French working-class.

As far as a Marxism for 1995 is concerned, this is a Marxism that must 
return to its classical roots. It must dump all of the nostrums that 
coincide with the prosperity of the mid 1980s: that we are in a postmodern 
age, that identity is just as important as class, that civil society is the 
arena for struggle, not the state. In a word: the sort of stuff that Hillary 
Wainwright is promoting in "Toward a New Left" must be dumped if we are 
to move forward. 

Actually, this "New Left" is starting to look pretty dated right now with 
the spreading strike in France. People dropped their Marcuse in 1968 and 
started taking a look at Trotsky and Lenin. My guess is that something like 
this will be happening pretty soon.

[PEN-L:1944] Re: French movement situation

[Mason A. Clark]

I gotta butt in here with a comment.

Strange as it seems it may be in support of Bill Mitchell.

The unions in France may suffer from the same problems
as those in the United States:

   1. Corruption 2.  Over-reaching

The demise of the unions in the U.S., and they are indeed
demised, came about because they earned a reputation among
both workers and employers of being run by criminals.

And being irrational in their demands, driven by the ambition
of those corrupt union leaders.

Some of them succeeded in overreaching; they gained an unfair 
share for their members in particular industries.  Unfair in 
relation to other workers.  Perhaps the situation in France.

The best thing for unions, and their workers, would be laws
requiring public auditing of union books and supervised 
democratic elections.   I would go so far, though others would
not, of requiring all companies with more than 100 employees
to be unionized.  And not "company unions."

With such a worker's union environment maybe Bill would not need
to destroy the whole world to give it a fresh start.


== Mason A. Clark  [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==
== At what wealth distribution do revolutions begin?==

[PEN-L:1943] A PC Treat!

[Tom Walker]

Do I have a treat for PEN-Lers! I have rummaged through my files and come up 
with the venerable "PROPOSED RESOLUTION ON THE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY NATURE 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE"

I will scan or type in the document and post it to PEN-L when I have the 
time (I might have to type the whole thing in). The "Proposed resolution" 
was allegedly submitted to the June 1969 convention of the Students for a 
Democratic Society by the "Louis Lingg Memorial Chapter". An IWW printers 
bug may be a more precise clue as to the identity of the authors.

Just this short teaser for now (please imagine this with the full ironic 
force of a '60s wobbly imitating a capped and little red book waving student 
maoist): 

>Concern with correct thinking and proper expression of that thought is a 
>hallmark of the true revolutionary. Our vehicle for thought and 
>communication is language; to be concrete, it is the English language. Now 
>it has never occurred to us that this language is by its very nature 
>counterrevolutionary and that truly correct revolutionary thought in 
English >is therefore impossible...




^
"Only in mediocre art does life unfold as fate." -- Michael Ignatieff

Tom Walker
knoWWare Communications
http://mindlink.net/knowware/

[PEN-L:1942] problems with pen-l archive.

[James Devine]

Since I won't be at the computer at all tomorrow, I'll count this 
as my posting for tomorrow, so that I can stick with my weaning 
from pen-l and non-essential e-mail in general. (Slippery slope 
alert! slippery slope alert!)

Anyway, something's wrong with the hypertext archive at 
cns.colorado.edu. If I click on the place for Paul Zarembka's 
note on "the history of PC," for example, I don't get that 
article. It looks like some postings are combined. It's 
confusing.

On the other hand, if you access the normal gopher archive, 
there's no problem. 

No, I'm not going to be goaded by Sid S. to get into the PI vs. 
PN debate again. No time. 

in pen-l solidarity,

Jim Devine   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ.
7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA
310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
"Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way
and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.

[PEN-L:1941] Re: Something completely different

[bill mitchell]

>
>Now, as far as "unserious" contributions are concerned. MIM's Maoism was 
>pretty anti-Marxist, but I have to say that he or she was basically 
>saying the same sort of thing that Bill Mitchell has been saying about 
>the French strike. It is a variant on SDS/Weathermen politics from the late 
>60's. You know, white skin privilege and all that.

louis (author of the above) - please develop an argument rather than assertion
to tell me why the things i am saying about france are "pretty anti-Marxist"
and perhaps while you are at it, please develop a brief vision of what marxism
means in the 1990s rather than the 1950-60s.

i have to tell you in advance (and the others) that i see myself as a very
dedicated working class marxist - academic and activist.

kind regards
bill
--
 ##William F. Mitchell
   ###     Head of Economics Department
 # University of Newcastle
   New South Wales, Australia
   ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   ### Phone: +61 49 215065
#  ## ### +61 49 215027
   Fax:   +61 49 216919  
  ##  
WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html   

[PEN-L:1940] Re: Norway and Canada

[Doug Henwood]

At 11:10 AM 12/12/95, D Shniad wrote:

>In response to my comments about his original posting, Doug
>then added insult to injury, saying "...I wonder what Norway
>and Canada would be like if there were no MNCs and
>imperialist monsters like the UK and US around, the
>countries that created and maintain the modern global
>division of spoils.  I sometimes think that people in
>these countries want it both ways -- First World
>incomes, but without the moral stigma that comes
>with being a global bully."
>
>Doug made this last comment presumably in response to
>the positions that Trond (a Norwegian) and I (a
>naturalised Canadian) have been saying in the context of
>the PI-PN debate.  I haven't heard logic [sic] comparable to
>this since I resisted the Vietnam war in the 1960s; at
>that time, pro-war folks insisted that I had no right to
>oppose the war unless I was willing to serve in the US
>military.

I don't see this as a relevant analogy at all. I'm glad you resisted the
draft and wish lots of others had too. My point is that the "progressive
nationalists" don't take a sufficiently skeptical view of sovereignty.
Haven't Canadian nationalists long used the phrase "branch-plant economy"
to describe Canada, and others criticized the "rocks & trees" model of
development; so where were the HQ of those branches or the customers for
primary products exports if not in the US? While Canadians lament their
dependency on the US, they are less quick to admit that their prosperity
has in no small measure been powered by the extraordinary propserity of the
US. Sovereignty is a slippery concept in a world as interdependent as this.

Leo Panitch is right that the national state has been essential to the
development of capitalism, and that struggle over the state is what a good
bit of politics is about, but that isn't all it's about; if you're fighting
the national state, you don't have to do it nationally. Sometimes capital
needs & uses the national state, sometimes it doesn't. Why should
anticapital be any different?


Doug

--

Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217
USA
+1-212-874-4020 voice
+1-212-874-3137 fax
email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
web: 

[PEN-L:1939] Re: Something completely different

[Louis N Proyect]

On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 
> It took Marx nearly 25 years to write _Capital_.  It's a great expression
>  of his serious concern with ideas and his patience in *developing* thought
>  in a painstaking, methodical way.  The Marxism list was not very
>  conducive to that.  Marx was by no means retreating or becoming an ivory-
> tower "academic" because he sat in the library and thought and read and
>  wrote--he certainly did not do it *instead* of political work, but as 
> part of his political work, and to suggest that everyone who left the
>  Marxism list did so because they're retreating from politics is ludicrous

Louis: Andrew, the best place for you--and I told you this when I saw you 
last-- *is* PEN-L. Your interest and work in LTV and FROP, etc., which I 
have the highest regard for, is best done on a list like PEN-L which is 
populated with serious economists like yourself.

However, when it comes to a discussion of issues such as Bosnia, fascism, 
the Scargill proposal for a new labor party, the NEP and neo-NEP 
formations, the Million Man March, etc., the Marxism is an exemplary place. 
When, for example, you have political activists with decades of experience 
from four continents trying to figure out what the prospects are for a new 
worker's party are in England are, you see something that is unprecedented in 
socialist politics. It could represent the embryonic form of a new 
socialist international.

Now, as far as "unserious" contributions are concerned. MIM's Maoism was 
pretty anti-Marxist, but I have to say that he or she was basically 
saying the same sort of thing that Bill Mitchell has been saying about 
the French strike. It is a variant on SDS/Weathermen politics from the late 
60's. You know, white skin privilege and all that.

The problem with the Marxism list for someone like yourself is that it is 
simply a *high-volume* list. I subscribed to an Opera list for one day 
and was swamped. There's an art to learning how to get the most out of an 
internet mailing-list. I don't read the NY Times from cover to cover. 
Neither do I read every message on the Marxism list. I, for example, 
would delete everything from MIM unread.

I do have a slight problem with somebody who is both on the Marxism and 
PEN lists who once confided to me in private e-mail that he was fed up 
with the Marxism list. He wanted to find articles on the LTV, but had to 
wade through all that stuff about "revolution" and "class-struggle". I 
have a feeling that that might be one of the reasons a tenured professor 
who hasn't been to a demonstration in 20 years would get fed-up with the 
Marxism list.

[PEN-L:1938] Re: history of "PC"

[Paul Zarembka]

On Wed, 13 Dec 1995, James Devine wrote:

...

> I've noticed that the "PC" terms tend to take on bad -- racist -- 
> connotations if the objective conditions aren't changed (as with 
> the term "Black," which is why many supported the introduction of 
> "African American").
> 

Why didn't the Black Power movement call itself the "African 
American Power movement"?

Paul

[PEN-L:1937] Re: SSA & Regulation Theory

[Doug Henwood]

At 12:15 PM 12/13/95, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>I was very interested in Terry McDonough's comments about Sam Bowles
> being a "one-man crisis of Marxism," and the general drift to the Right
> of a lot of left economists.  I've found the discussion of the Regulationists
> interesting, but Terry has highlighted a broader phenomenon.  What
> explains it?  Things are getting worse and worse, and its no time for
>intellectuals to be in retreat.  Have people really become convinced by
> the Fukuyama line that we've reached the end of history, that capitalism
> is unbeatable?

Yeah, and while we're at it can someone explain what happened to Bowles's
colleage Herbie "The Plumber" Gintis?

Doug

--

Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217
USA
+1-212-874-4020 voice
+1-212-874-3137 fax
email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
web: 

[PEN-L:1936] Re: SSA & Regulation Theory

[Louis N Proyect]

On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> I was very interested in Terry McDonough's comments about Sam Bowles
>  being a "one-man crisis of Marxism," and the general drift to the Right
>  of a lot of left economists.  I've found the discussion of the Regulationists
>  interesting, but Terry has highlighted a broader phenomenon.  What
>  explains it?  Things are getting worse and worse, and its no time for 
> intellectuals to be in retreat.  Have people really become convinced by
>  the Fukuyama line that we've reached the end of history, that capitalism
>  is unbeatable?
> 
> Andrew Kliman
> 

Louis: Well, we were at the end of history about 7 years ago when the 
Berlin Wall fell, but it seems to have started up again with the French 
strikes. Edward Luttwak, the conservative ideologue, seems to have 
noticed this. I hope the left intelligentsia will catch up. Perhaps it's 
about time to stop worrying about whether the East Germans will be happy 
with the amount of bananas and x-rated videos a "command economy" can 
deliver and start to take a closer look at the disquietudes (is that a 
word?) under global capitalism.

[PEN-L:1935] Re: Something completely different

[akliman]

I left the "Marxism" list.  I work as an academic, but I'm a Marxist and
 an activist.  I resent the notion that one is not much of a Marxist or
 an ivory-tower type if one leaves the list because of its "grittiness"
 and "informality."  I do not think that Dana Thorpe and MIM are just
 examples of "informality."  They are the worst examples, but a lot of
 junk clogged up my mailbox.  It became too *time-consuming* to sort
 through all the junk in order to find the one or two messages of the
 day (out of maybe 30) that had something interesting to say.  And once
 a good discussion did get going, it would tend to degenerate very
 quickly--sometimes through name-calling, but mostly because some
 people on the list were so unserious as to fixate on a tangent in other
 people's discussions and divert the whole thing.  

It took Marx nearly 25 years to write _Capital_.  It's a great expression
 of his serious concern with ideas and his patience in *developing* thought
 in a painstaking, methodical way.  The Marxism list was not very
 conducive to that.  Marx was by no means retreating or becoming an ivory-
tower "academic" because he sat in the library and thought and read and
 wrote--he certainly did not do it *instead* of political work, but as 
part of his political work, and to suggest that everyone who left the
 Marxism list did so because they're retreating from politics is ludicrous
 (although in some instances it's undoubtedly true).  Had Marx thought
  of spending his time on things like the Marxism list, would there have
 been _Capital_?  Would there have been an International?  Or would the
 whole thing have gone up in flames ;-)?

Andrew Kliman

[PEN-L:1934] Re: French movement situation

[bill mitchell]

Doug writes:
>
>I'm saddened to see Bill Mitchell taking the line he has on France. This
>conflict isn't about the specifics of Juppe's proposals, which are quite
>mild by US standard. As Daniel Singer told me, everyone recognizes that
>these are the "thin edge of the wedge," the overture to a long process of
>making the EU more like the US, with "flexible" labor markets and a
>crummier welfare state. It may not be like the romance of '68, and the
>unions might not be exemplars of political sophistication, but this is a
>struggle over real stuff that's important on a global scale. It may be
>crude to reduce one's position on the strikes to a binary for/against
>choice, but sometimes politics is that way. Sorry to see that Bill is
>trying to straddle the virgule.


i am not straddling anything doug. i just don't know sometimes who my mates
are. as capitalism has divided the workplace and the workforce up, it has also
given some workers more than others. the workers who have taken more are doing
the work of the bosses as far as i am concerned. i am concerned more for things
bigger than an excessively lucrative pension for a train driver. that group
have taken at the expense of their mates. they are doing the work of the bosses
in keeping others in poverty and compliance and insecurity.

if the left can't be self-critical what bloody hope is there?
>
>Actually I don't really know what position the French unions have taken on
>immigrants, but I don't doubt that immigrants will be worse off if Juppe's
>austerity plan goes through.

so maintaining the privilege of one group who doesn't care for the other is
acceptable b/c the change will not benefit the poor anyway? no way.

>
>I also don't know the details of the French fiscal situation over the long
>term. I do know that the dire projections of the US being swamped by
>dependent geezers in 2020 are highly exaggerated, and part of a long-term
>plan to chip away at our public retirement system. I'd be very careful
>about believing official projections uncritically. But even if they're
>true, that doesn't mean that Juppe's approach is right, does it? Aren't
>there democratic & egalitarian ways to solving this problem that may not
>really exist?

the projections are somewhat open to question. the demographic trends are not
really open to dispute. the assumptions made about the pension gaps and debt
levels are entirely reasonable. 

the general point to emerge from this specific discussion is that there are
many people on the list who despair at any criticism of the sacred working
class. where is this class? divided, at odds with itself, and represented by
institutions who care little for the real battle and more for themselves. i
personally don't see these institutions as being of much relevance to the
future of the socialist struggle. they will have to broaden their horizons and
embrace demographic and ethnic groups which they seem to have trouble doing.
and they will have to see that there is not enough environment to go around and
that means a non-material dimension has to be the focus of the working class
movement. capitalism requires the population to think in material terms. it
divides workers on those terms and it reaps profits on those terms. it wants to
have these little tiffs with workers about wages and benefits (either directly
or through the state) b/c that way it avoids having to deal with the workers on
issues like control. it knows that sooner or later the call of petty debt
(mortgages) will force the workers back. wait it out and maybe throw a penny
out and call it a compromise.

the real issue is when the working class is going to talk about control. and
clearly the vast (and increasing) majority of workers are not seeing their
future in terms of unionism. the unions through there own actions are becoming
a redundant feature of capitalism. 

so doug is sad about me. i am sad that we don't have working class vehicles
that embrace the issues and give people (generally) some hope.

kind regards
bill
--
 ##William F. Mitchell
   ###     Head of Economics Department
 # University of Newcastle
   New South Wales, Australia
   ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   ### Phone: +61 49 215065
#  ## ### +61 49 215027
   Fax:   +61 49 216919  
  ##  
WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html   

[PEN-L:1933] Re: SSA & Regulation Theory

[akliman]

I was very interested in Terry McDonough's comments about Sam Bowles
 being a "one-man crisis of Marxism," and the general drift to the Right
 of a lot of left economists.  I've found the discussion of the Regulationists
 interesting, but Terry has highlighted a broader phenomenon.  What
 explains it?  Things are getting worse and worse, and its no time for 
intellectuals to be in retreat.  Have people really become convinced by
 the Fukuyama line that we've reached the end of history, that capitalism
 is unbeatable?

Andrew Kliman

[PEN-L:1932] Turbo-charged capitalism

[Louis N Proyect]

Louis:

"The acute sense of insecurity uncovererd by the Union of Aerospace 
Workers' survey is therefore abundantly justified. The jobs of Boeing 
employees are indeed especially precarious, and if the employees are 
tossed out they are likely to find themselves unwanted by an 
oversupplied labor market that offers mainly low-paid service jobs. For 
the workforce of a premier corporation that pays everyone rather well 
and also provides good fringe benefits, that is a catastrophic downfall 
entailing the possible loss of high-mortgage homes, the withdrawal of 
children from college education, and stress-induced sickness, without 
Boeing's health-insurance benefits to pay for it (health-cost trauma 
should become a recognized medical syndrome -- it is certainly more 
genuine than its Gulf War counterpart). Almost all Boeing employees 
emphatically view themselves as belonging to the middle class, but 
that is a conceit as precarious as their jobs.

Mr. [Robert] Reich and countless others by now have noticed that 
today's 'turbo-charged' capitalism condemns the less skilled to a 
lifetime of declining earnings, and that it has eliminated many of the 
low-paid but respectable jobs that once allowed a striving section of 
the underclass to rise into the working class. What Reich and others 
have failed to grasp is that the upheavals and disruptions of 'turbo-
charged' capitalism (= accelerated structural change) condemns most 
working Americans of all skill levels to lives of chronic economic 
insecurity. As entire industries rise and fall much faster than before, as 
firms expand, shrink, merge, separate, 'downsize' and restructure at an 
unprecedented pace, their employees at all but the highest levels must 
go to work one day without knowing whether they will still have their 
job the next.

That is true of virtually the entire employed middle class, professionals 
included. Lacking the formal safeguards of European employee-
protection laws or prolonged post-employment benefits, lacking the 
functioning families on which most of the rest of humanity still relies 
to survive hard times, lacking the substantial liquid savings of their 
middle-class counterparts in all other developed countries, most 
working Americans must rely wholly on their jobs for economic 
security -- and must therefore live in conditions of chronic acute 
insecurity."

(From Edward Luttwak's "Turbo-Charged Capitalism and its 
Consequences" in the London Review of Books, November 2, 1995. 
Luttwak is a right-wing intellectual who in the past has written 
frequently about what he considers the "evils" of Communism. His 
strong critique of the effects of capitalism today is notable for that 
reason. While he focuses on the Boeing strike, it seems to have 
anticipated recent events in France.)

[PEN-L:1931] Re: Decentralism and straw men

[John William Hull]

On Tue, 12 Dec 1995, Trond Andresen wrote:

> I have no admiration for hippies, or "organic famers " in the U.S. also
> being exploitative bosses. So what, I ask...

Trond, as the first line of my message indicated, my comments were primarily
directed at the "US liberal/left," not Norweigans.  My educated opinion is
that most US decentralists do not understand that small-scale operations
can be just as exploitative as large-scale operations--they believe that
smaller is necessarily better (see, e.g., Kirkpatrick Sale's _Dwellers
in the Land_).  This is especially true in the case of organic agriculture. 

> > What does "national autonomy" mean in a case like the US agricultural 
> > labor market?  There is no feasible way to eliminate undocumented 
> > border crossings, so I do not see "autonomy" as even an option.
> >
> 
> What about MEXICOs national autonomy then?
> 
> I am no expert on the U.S. and Mexico. But I humbly am an
> expert on Norway and the EU.

Like I said before, my comments were directed at the US context.  Re:
Mexico's national autonomy.  It has little.  In the specific case of
agricultural labor, the US labor market serves as something of a safety
valve for the serious Mexian unemployment problem.  Since the Bracero
program (circa 1940's) the US and Mexican ag labor markets are 
inextricably tied together.

> For what it is worth, my view on national autonomy for the U.S. is that
> it ought to broken up into its separate states...

This still doesn't address the issue of permeable borders.  Tens of 
thousands of undocumented workers are going cross over from Mexico
to border states regardless of the sovreignity of the individual states.
In the absence of federal money/infrastructure/border cops/etc. the
flow of immigration would most likely increase.
 
> > My sense is that the vast bulk of decentralists are not opposed to 
> > capitalism per se--they believe the problem is monopoly capitalism 
> > (especially on a global scale) and they want to return to a mythical era 
> > of self-earned capital.  I.E. their political ideals are essentially petty 
> > bourgeois. 
> 
> First: This is sectarian: Participants in a struggle for
> autonomy have to pass an exam in marxism, too be worthy of support.

Huh?  Who said anything about espousing "marxism" as a precondition of 
support?

> Secondly, it is also wrong in the sense that it ignores marxists and
> reds and communists and revolutionaries and socialists and what have
> you, that fight against f.inst. the EU and NAFTA. The whole of the
> Norwegian left fought against EU membership.

Once again, my comments specifically regarded the US context.  I stand
by my charaterization.  Note that I wrote that the "vast bulk", not ALL,
decentralists oppose monopoly capitalism, not capitalism per se.
 
> > it's common to see slams against "corporations" but 
> > only rarely is "capitalism" mentioned.
> >
> 
> Seems I have to take the oath again. So be it: "I believe in Marxism, I
> am against capitalism per se, not only corporations..etc. etc."

Huh?  Who said anything about oaths.  I think you may be having flashbacks
to your sectarian days, Trond.
 
> Seriously, should we be happy that so many non-marxists are willing to
> participate in activity against corporations even if they aren't
> socialists, or should we sniff at all the non-correct participants? I
> know one thing for sure: If that sectarian attitude had been typical
> for the socialist part of the No-to-EU-movement in Norway, we would have
> lost resoundingly.

If people want to oppose corporations so that they can own their own
smaller-scale enterprise in order to make money off of other people's
work, I do not support them.  That hardly makes me sectarian.  The standard
organic agriculture bumper sticker in California reads "Support Organic
Farmers."  I say "Support Organic Farm Workers."

Will Hull
Sociology Graduate Program
University of California, Santa Cruz

[PEN-L:1930] Re: Something completely different

[Louis N Proyect]

This is far too sophisticated for me. Tom has to bring it down a level or 
two for me to appreciate.

Louis


On Wed, 13 Dec 1995, Tom Walker wrote:

> Lord, forgive us our montages. As we forgive those who montage upon us. I 
> couldn't help but reframe Louis and Jim's "us prols against the perfessers" 
> thread in the context of the high falutin' casuistry of "identity politics. 
> So I've sampled some of Jim Jaszewski's remarks and follow them with Terry 
> McDonough's ironic commentary on the capriciousness of the identitarians. 
> IMHO, it shows how easy it is to step over the line from class analysis to 
> oppression fetishism. 
> 
> Informality and grittiness::marxism
> as
> Socially constructed identity::non-whiteness
> 
> Jim Jaszewski wrote:
> 
> >It's become clear to me (and
> >others) that `academic' marxists/marxians/whatever suffer from an ACUTE
> >case of lack of grounding in the reality of class struggle.
> snip, snip
> >Anyone who leaves a marxism List because they don't like the
> >informality and grittiness of it all isn't much of a marxist, IMO...
> 
> Terry McDonough wrote:
> 
> >Two comments from Americans in
> >the audience said that this notion was "dangerous" because it
> >threatened to make socially relative the essential categories of
> >identity politics.  Being white must be an empirically objective
> >category even if all others are the result of the endless play of
> >differences.
> 
> ^
> "Only in mediocre art does life unfold as fate." -- Michael Ignatieff
> 
> Tom Walker
> knoWWare Communications
> http://mindlink.net/knowware/
> 
> 
> 
> 

[PEN-L:1929] history of "PC"

[James Devine]

Terry McD writes: >>Political correctness was not a Maoist term, 
politically incorrect was a Maoist phrase ... It was used to 
describe propositions which were thought to be wrong for one 
reason or another. [The] use [of the phrase "politically 
incorrect"] was meant to emphasize on the one hand that 
conclusions should be reached as the result of 
analysis rather than the unthinking application of abstract moral 
principles and on the other hand that analysis inevitably has 
political consequences.<<

It's interesting that the actual PCites on the left (I've met a 
few) tend to have conclusions that were _not_ "reached as the 
result of analysis rather than the unthinking application of 
abstract moral principles"; they also tend to ignore the 
political consequences. The actual PCites tend to be more 
liberal, tending toward idealism, than Marxist (though they are 
radical). 

They tend to be obsessed with correct terminology and the 
alledged positiv effects of its use. For example, there is the 
view that using the "correct" term (e.g. "Native American") is a 
major step forward, even if we never get rid of the objective 
conditions that make life for American Indians so difficult.  But 
I've noticed that the "PC" terms tend to take on bad -- racist -- 
connotations if the objective conditions aren't changed (as with 
the term "Black," which is why many supported the introduction of 
"African American").

I'm all in favor of being polite (except in extreme situations), 
and thus use the term "African American" when appropriate.  But I 
don't think use of the term really can change objective 
conditions unless other factors change. Further, my wife works 
with Indians (in a public health education project) and tells me 
that most of them see "Native American" as an academic term, 
preferring to be called "American Indians" or simply "Indians." 

in pen-l solidarity,

Jim Devine   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ.
7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA
310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
"Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way
and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.

[PEN-L:1928] Something completely different

[Tom Walker]

Lord, forgive us our montages. As we forgive those who montage upon us. I 
couldn't help but reframe Louis and Jim's "us prols against the perfessers" 
thread in the context of the high falutin' casuistry of "identity politics. 
So I've sampled some of Jim Jaszewski's remarks and follow them with Terry 
McDonough's ironic commentary on the capriciousness of the identitarians. 
IMHO, it shows how easy it is to step over the line from class analysis to 
oppression fetishism. 

Informality and grittiness::marxism
as
Socially constructed identity::non-whiteness

Jim Jaszewski wrote:

>It's become clear to me (and
>others) that `academic' marxists/marxians/whatever suffer from an ACUTE
>case of lack of grounding in the reality of class struggle.
snip, snip
>Anyone who leaves a marxism List because they don't like the
>informality and grittiness of it all isn't much of a marxist, IMO...

Terry McDonough wrote:

>Two comments from Americans in
>the audience said that this notion was "dangerous" because it
>threatened to make socially relative the essential categories of
>identity politics.  Being white must be an empirically objective
>category even if all others are the result of the endless play of
>differences.

^
"Only in mediocre art does life unfold as fate." -- Michael Ignatieff

Tom Walker
knoWWare Communications
http://mindlink.net/knowware/

[PEN-L:1927] Re: French movement situation

[Doug Henwood]

I'm saddened to see Bill Mitchell taking the line he has on France. This
conflict isn't about the specifics of Juppe's proposals, which are quite
mild by US standard. As Daniel Singer told me, everyone recognizes that
these are the "thin edge of the wedge," the overture to a long process of
making the EU more like the US, with "flexible" labor markets and a
crummier welfare state. It may not be like the romance of '68, and the
unions might not be exemplars of political sophistication, but this is a
struggle over real stuff that's important on a global scale. It may be
crude to reduce one's position on the strikes to a binary for/against
choice, but sometimes politics is that way. Sorry to see that Bill is
trying to straddle the virgule.

Actually I don't really know what position the French unions have taken on
immigrants, but I don't doubt that immigrants will be worse off if Juppe's
austerity plan goes through.

I also don't know the details of the French fiscal situation over the long
term. I do know that the dire projections of the US being swamped by
dependent geezers in 2020 are highly exaggerated, and part of a long-term
plan to chip away at our public retirement system. I'd be very careful
about believing official projections uncritically. But even if they're
true, that doesn't mean that Juppe's approach is right, does it? Aren't
there democratic & egalitarian ways to solving this problem that may not
really exist?

Doug

--

Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217
USA
+1-212-874-4020 voice
+1-212-874-3137 fax
email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
web: 

[PEN-L:1926] Property Right Cops on the Internet --Bounty hunters next?

[Harry M. Cleaver]

Is anyone, anywhere undertaking the serious work of attacking 
"intellectual property rights" --besides the pro-indigenous groups who 
are trying to keep them from getting ripped off?

Harry


Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 10:42:16 -0500 (EST)
From: JB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Copyright Holders Patrol the Internet

fyi

-- Forwarded message --

   Money and Investing Update 
   Navigation to other Update sections Wednesday, December 13, 1995 
   
Copyright Holders Patrol the Internet
With Vigilance, Looking for Violations
   
   By ROSS KERBER
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal 
   
   Matt Carlson's home page on the Internet used to feature pictures of
   Winnie-the-Pooh. But last June, after Dutton Children's Books said the
   images violated its copyright, the New Mexico State University student
   removed them. ''I didn't want to mess with Winnie's high-powered
   lawyers,'' he says. 
   
   Copyright owners used to pay little heed to unauthorized on-line use
   of their material by nonprofit users like Mr. Carlson. While copyright
   holders have to defend protected material or risk losing their rights,
   nonprofit on-line use was considered too arcane. In addition, it isn't
   entirely clear that such use is illegal. 
   
   But now, with the spread of the Internet -- and especially its World
   Wide Web segment, which includes audio and video -- copyright holders
   are going after fans and other noncommercial reproducers. Never, they
   say, has there been a threat quite like the Internet. It is a medium
   capable of making endless copies of any material -- songs, software,
   text, films -- at virtually no cost. 
   
   ''To lose control over the material can be death,'' says Eileen Kent,
   Playboy Enterprises Inc.'s vice president for new media. Playboy
   complained to about a dozen universities after it found that students
   were posting its photos on the Internet using their university
   accounts. 
   
   Tyco Toys Inc. sends a letter a week to stop home pages from
   displaying images that resemble its fortune-telling Magic 8 Ball toy.
   Paramount Pictures started several years ago trying to stop the many
   technically adept fans of ''Star Trek'' from spreading photos from the
   TV series and the movies. And Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. recently
   ordered the removal of sound clips of ''Blue Suede Shoes'' and ''Hound
   Dog'' from a fan's home page, along with images she had scanned from
   Graceland postcards. 
   
   ''We don't want carpetbaggers putting up the digital equivalent of
   Elvis on black velvet,'' says Mark Lee, a Los Angeles attorney for
   Presley Enterprises. 
   
   Christopher M. Franceschelli, president of Dutton Children's Books,
   New York, says the company applies the same rights-protection
   standards to the Web that it uses in the print world. Dutton is also
   concerned about how characters like Pooh are depicted. Mr.
   Franceschelli says Dutton staffers have found Web pages showing A.A.
   Milne characters taking part in murder and suicide rituals. 
   
   In the past, most on-line copyright suits have targeted for-profit
   enterprises that were peddling software programs or pornographic
   photos. But the law is murky when money or sex isn't involved. 
   
   Last year, a federal prosecutor in Boston brought criminal fraud
   charges against a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
   who ran a bulletin board for users to copy and exchange copyrighted
   software. Because the student wasn't making money, his actions weren't
   criminal violations of copyright law, ruled U.S. District Judge
   Richard Stearns, who threw out the case in December 1994. 
   

Copyright lawyers say that cases involving nonprofit entities are
   likely to be decided on such grounds as what portion of a work is
   copied, whether the use cuts into a copyright holder's sales and
   whether the copying should be protected as a ''fair use'' purpose such
   as parody, criticism, comment or review. ''You don't have the
   God-given right to put everything you feel like up on the Internet,''
   says Bruce Sunstein, a Boston intellectual-property lawyer. ''But
   there's still a lot of freedom in what you can do.'' 
!
   
   Worries about alienating their fans complicate matters for some
   entertainment companies that want to retain their copyrights. Sony
   Music Entertainment Inc. has sent notices to creators of Web pages
   honoring Pearl Jam, one of its bands. But the company says it may
   allow sites to use its images free by license, as long as they agree
   that they won't alter images. 
   
   Besides unleashing lawyers, publishers are pushing Congress to pass
   copyright-law changes proposed by a Clinton administration working
   group. The group backed defining digital transmission as a form of
   publication and supported electronic coding of all copyrighted
   material tha

[PEN-L:1925] Re: TA Grade Strike at Yale --Profs as strike breakers

[Blair Sandler]

At 7:53 AM 12/13/95, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>(2) The condescending and elitist way in which some faculty view TAs,
>part-time faculty, support staff, etc. is connected to the above and
>presents one of the major obstacles to union solidarity and collective
>action.

This problem extends into the supposed left, as well. At UMass Amherst,
noted leftist faculty (one in particular, now no longer at UMass) in the
econ dept. were among the worst offenders in this regard -- arrogant,
disrespectful, and undemocratic, reviled by secretaries and hated by at
least some grad students.

After I left there, one grad student reported to me, in regard to this
faculty member, that students had discussed "tying him up and reading his
work to him."

This same professor, on becoming dept. chair, attempted to revoke various
informal privileges that had been enjoyed for years by the secretaries.

Blair

[PEN-L:1924] Re: TA Grade Strike at Yale --Profs as strike breakers

[glevy]

Harry C.'s post on this thread was _very_ interesting and well worth 
discussing on PEN-L.

Some preliminary notes/assertions:

(1) This story is really a very old story often told and too frequently 
repeated. Until faculty and other "professionals" at colleges stop 
thinking of themselves as "professionals" who have a mutuality of 
interest with college administrators/management, it will be very hard in 
practice to either organize unions on the campus or orchestrate effective 
collective bargaining, work stoppages and/or slowdowns. 

(2) The condescending and elitist way in which some faculty view TAs, 
part-time faculty, support staff, etc. is connected top the above and 
presents one of the major obstacles to union solidarity and collective 
action.

(3) ABOLISH GRADES (as Harry suggests) AND EDUCATION AS COMMODITY PRODUCTION.

Jerry

[PEN-L:1923] TA Grade Strike at Yale --Profs as strike breakers

[Harry M. Cleaver]

Friends:

Check this out!

Harry

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 09:15:26 -0600 (CST)
From: Harry M. Cleaver 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Grade Strike

Eve:

Please put me on your mailing list for any and all information about this 
strike. You have all my support. I am a professor at the University of 
Texas at Austin.  I am attaching a letter I wrote to Stanford last year 
about grades/wages. I hope you may find it of some use.

Harry


Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 442-5036
   (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://www.eco.utexas.edu:80/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/index.html


-- Forwarded message --
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 00:39:45 -0600
From: Seth Wigderson, H-Labor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Forwarded mail...yale ta strike

I recently received this post.  I thought that H-Labor subscribers
might be interested in this partisan report.
Seth Wigderson, H-labor Moderator
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark E. Wilkens)

Dr. Wigderson,
  As you might have heard, the ta's at Yale have been trying to organize
for the last several years.  Despite their efforts, including two brief
demonstration strikes, the university has stonewalled, refusing to
negotiate in any way, shape or form with their union, the Graduate
Students and Employees Organization (GESO).  Just recently, GESO voted
to initiate a grade strike, refusing to grade final exams until the
university recognized them.  This evening, I received the following post
from a good friend of mine in the poly sci department, asking me to
spread the word about the abominable threats some faculty are making
against their students.  While I understand some faculty might oppose
the strike, it is contemptible that some would seek to sabotage their
students' careers because they are doing what they can to get Yale to
recognize them as a union.  Could you please post something about this
matter on h-labor?  In this case, the opinion of the academic community
can actually count for something.
  People can register their opinion with the following numbers:

Office of the President:  (203) 432-2550
Office of the Provost:(203) 432-
Department of History:(203) 432-1366

  Apparently, the English department is being particularly bad, their
number is (203) 432-1366.

  People wanting further information can contact a spokesperson for
GESO, her email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED] (her name is Eve
Weinbaum)

  If anybody should be offended by this sort of behavior, it is
certainly the subscribers of h-labor.  As a post of yours noted last
week, some of the faculty of Yale have already demonstrated that they
are willing to engage in McCarthyite tactics to crush the ta organizing
effort.
 Mark Wilkens, A.B.D.
 Univ of Pennsylvania
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

P.S. Eric gave permission to quote from his post.

Eric Schickler
wrote: > From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Dec 12 16:28 EST 1995
> Posted-Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 16:28:07 -0500
> Received-Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 16:28:07 -0500
> Date: Tue, 12 Dec 95 16:23:23 EST
> From: Eric Schickler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Organization: Yale University
> To: Mark Wilkens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Content-Type: text
> Content-Length: 712
>
> Hey mark.  The University is greeting our grade strike with strong arm, nasty
> tactics.  Actually, central administration is quiet, except for asking faculty
> quietly to grade in place of their ta's.  BUT individual faculty in a lot of
> depts are threatening their TA's--with expulsion, academic probation,
> "poisoned academic advising" relations, refusal to write letters of
> recommendation, and intention to write nasty letters of recommendation that
> blackball students for their activities.  Any help you can give with your
> labor history mailing list pals, and with spreading the word, would be
> appreciated.  WE NEED SOME PRESS!!!  This really sucks .
>
> Eric
>



WORRIED ABOUT GRADE INFLATION? ABOLISH GRADES!
by Harry Cleaver*
(Stanford Ph.D., 1975)

Special to the Stanford Daily

Austin, Texas., May 31 -- 6:30am.  Bleary-eyed, I sip my caffeine and flip 
through the morning NEW YORK TIMES looking for inspiration, some sign of 
grassroots struggle, maybe even a victory to get the adrenlin flowing.  
Finally, on page 7, a title jumps out at me: "At Stanford, A Rebellion On 
Grades".  All right! Something's stirring at my old alma mater!   

"The grade F does not exist here", I read, "The C is fast becoming extinct."  
Hmm!  The current generation has things well in hand, I think to myself.  
Maybe they are

[PEN-L:1922] Re: chase manatthan bank (fwd)

[Harry M. Cleaver]

I sent Nello a reference to the Chase materials accessible through the 
Chiapas95 homepage.

Harry


On Tue, 12 Dec 1995, Jim Jaszewski wrote:

> 
>   I'm forwarding this to the erudite crew in PEN-L.  Perhaps y'all
> can help: 
> 
> 
> -- Forwarded message --
> Date: Mon, 11 Dec 95 23:05:57 +0100 (CET)
> From: Aniello Margiotta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: chase manatthan bank
> 
> Hi,
> I need a report about Chase manatthan bank,because in my area Bagnoli-Naples,
> where there are the headquarter of NATO which drive militar operation in Bosnia,
> after closing a big steel farmer, a speculative project for VIP tourism has
> been prepared with financial support of US bank.
> Every news are accepted expecially about interestings of the bank in tourist
> projects in foregn countries in support of military operations.
> Thanks
> Nello
> 
> 
> *
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.synapsis.it/uw/amargiotta/nello.htm
>  
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Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 442-5036
   (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://www.eco.utexas.edu:80/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/index.html

[PEN-L:1921] Re: SSA & Regulation Theory

[Terrence Mc Donough]

Much like comparing Jim D.'s sense of humour with Howard Stern's, 
Jim's characterization of SSA theory may be largely accurate but 
still unfair.  There is ample evidence of ideological and theoretical drift
 on the part of many of the SSA framework's original proponents.  
(Sam Bowles is a one-man crisis of Marxism [I don't know where this 
description fits on the Jim Devine - Howard Stern scale of high 
praise - condemnation].)  The unfairness arises because unfortunately 
much the same can be said for any school of Marxist thought in the 
current period as the recently discussed history of Regulation theory 
demonstrates (to take another instance Marxist feminism has recently 
degenerated into individual agency theory cf. Folbre and McCrate [hi! 
if you're out there]).  Thus most frameworks of thought will have 
more Marxist and less Marxist practitioners with the more Marxist 
disproportionately concentrated in the past.  (Fundamental [not a 
term of abuse] Marxism is relatively immune to this as to depart from 
the fundamentals over time is to be separated from the fold.)
 It is to uncritically 
accept the notion of progress with time to regard the latest 
statement of a framework as necessarily that which is most true to 
its theoretical essence.  I think Stavros M.'s working out of the 
implications of a theory's innovations over time to be a useful 
Marxist methodology but it gives a onesided picture in a period of 
overall ideological retrenchment. (In any case, the work which Kotz, 
myself and Reich did in the first section of _SSAs_ , CUP, 1994 
postdates Beyond the Wasteland.)

To Eric N.s specific points.  Eric is correct to say that capitalists 
do not necessarily desire stability.  It is one of the classic 
contradictions of capitalism that competitive strategies pursued by 
individual capitalists may create economy-wide and society-wide 
instability.  It is also true that economic instability is not even 
necessarily inconsistent with overall growth - the US economy from 
1875 to 1895 is a case in point.  The point is only that such 
instability when extended over time tends to create a period of 
crisis for a capitalist social formation either because it is 
incompatible with growth (likely if not necessarily so) or for other 
reasons.  Since capitalism tends toward instability (through class 
struggle and capitalist competition), these forces must be 
suppressed, moderated and channelled if surplus extraction is not to 
be threatened.  This can be done, short of 
reorganizing the mode of extraction of surplus value, through class 
struggle at the level of  the 
institutions of coercion and consent - the state and ideology.  Thus 
politics and ideology are at the heart of a Marxist analysis of 
capitalist dynamics over time and do not exist at a lower 
intermediate level of analysis.  Eric is right that class struggle 
changes institutions all the time (but not in a continuous 
incremental way!) and therefor too much has been made of the 
opportunities in a crisis period.  The basic point however is the 
opportunities in a crisis period are DIFFERENT from those in a period 
of stability and you must know what kind of period you are in.  One 
of the problems is that at the current time the answer to this 
question is unclear.  Knowing the answer to this would throw light on 
the questions surrounding the French strikes for instance.  I must 
read Eric's article.

Terry McDonough

[PEN-L:1920] Re: A history of PC

[Louis N Proyect]

Louis:

Random notes on PC:

1. At the Brecht Forum in NY last monday, I heard Joseph Buttregieg, a 
blue-chip Gramsci scholar, speak on "Popular Culture in the US: A 
Gramscian Perspective". He commented that it is interesting that Allen 
Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind" became a best-seller. That such a 
scholarly book could become a best-seller indicates that cultural 
illiteracy is not such a problem that the right-wingers posit. He said 
that the left has not had a proper rebuttal to the "PC" right-wing 
assault because it is simply mired in Yale and Duke-styled "theorizing" 
and can't even reach a mass audience with its message. He thought that a 
cultural studies perspective that is grounded in Gramsci's Marxism might 
do the trick, however. 

The best book on "political correctness" from the left, by the way, is 
Russell Jacoby's "Dogmatic Wisdom". I urge everybody to rush out and buy 
a copy or two. It makes a great Christmas gift.

2. My first exposure to "political correctness" was at my uncle Irving's 
house in Brooklyn in 1956 or so. Irving was a member of the furrier's 
union and had a picture of Krushchev on the living-room wall. I was 10 
years old and wanted to watch "Amos and Andy". He said,"We don't watch 
that show in this house--it's prejudiced". Isn't it possible that one of 
the original thrusts behind "PC" was from the CP? Isn't it possible that 
Popular Front culture (folk-dancing to Spanish Civil War songs, etc.) 
would throw a damper on any culture that wasn't "politically correct"? 

3. The Socialist Workers Party, in its internal meetings, would 
consistently use the term "politically correct", not in reference to 
movies, music, etc., but in reference to which faction to support in 
Angola, etc. A few years after I left this dreadful cult, I placed a 
personal ad in the New York Review of Books (when you try to put together a 
social life after 11 years in such a group, you resort to desperate 
measures) and said that I was looking to get married and raise "politically 
correct" children. This was in 1980. I was being ironic at the time. 
Perhaps my ad was what started the whole controversy.

[PEN-L:1919] Re: A progressive European Union?

[Terrence Mc Donough]

I suspect Hugo's support for the EU stems from the same basis that it 
does in the rest of the Anglophone world (US and unfortunately 
Ireland).  Even a watered down EU social charter is better than what we 
could do in our own countries.  Thus Europe may be a more fruitful 
terrain of class struggle for us than little Britain, Ireland, etc.  
even with the Bundesbank.  The French may be forgiven, however, if 
they do not reach the same conclusion.  The strikers must be 
supported if only as the frontline against monetarism in Europe.  
Bill M.'s points will however need to be made as self-critique if the movement
survives the present moment or as post-mortem if, as is more likely, it 
doesn't.

Terry McDonough 

[PEN-L:1918] Re: A history of PC

[Terrence Mc Donough]

I don't know what's in Marty's reference but it is remarkable how 
short the cultural memory is here on the left (pen-l anyway).  
Political correctness was not a Maoist term, politically incorrect 
was a Maoist phrase (I'm probably giving away my political history 
here).  It was used to describe propositions which were thought to be 
wrong for one reason or another.  It's use was meant to emphasize on 
the one hand that conclusions should be reached as the result of 
analysis rather than the unthinking application of abstract moral 
principles and on the other hand that analysis inevitably has 
political consequences.  After a while it was realized that 
politically incorrect had no positive counterpart (much like the word 
disgruntled).  Thus one could describe something as politically 
correct to convey a tone of faint irony in much the way you might 
describe someone who is content  as 'gruntled.' Political 
Correct'ness' was a right wing invention which abandoned the position 
of basic sympathy  and  intensified the irony.  Because of this the 
left should probably avoid the use of the term PC.  It can only be 
taken back from the right in its right wing usage.  Nevertheless, 
the positions of a lot of the pomo left make this tempting.  A 
marxist influenced Irish post-colonial theorist recently gave a talk here 
in Galway  in 
which he referred to some recent American historical writing on the 
social construction of "whiteness".  Two comments from Americans in 
the audience said that this notion was "dangerous" because it 
threatened to make socially relative the essential categories of 
identity politics.  Being white must be an empirically objective 
category even if all others are the result of the endless play of 
differences. :]  

Terry McDonough 

[PEN-L:1917] Re: French movement situation

[glevy]

Bill M. asked:

>I recall that it was Harlan or Paris - one struggle one fight, Jerry . whatever
>did that mean other than an allusion to a dichotomy - union person or scab?

The allusion to "Which Side Are You On" was in in support of two (what I 
viewed as uncontroversial) propositions:

(1) In class conflicts, the first question that must be asked is: which 
side are you on? Do you support the bosses and the state or do you 
support the workers in struggle against them? This doesn't mean, though, 
that we have to uncritically support such struggles. Many of the issues 
that Bill raises are valid and I would certainly not be the one to say: 
let's forget about the real limitations and problems with a particular 
conflict and the "leadership" of that conflict. While an important 
question, though, it is a secondary question to: do you support or oppose 
that struggle? From my class perspective, the answer is clear.

(2) internationalism. The struggle in France is related to struggles in 
other countries around the world against austerity and budget cuts. That 
struggle also has relevance for countries that are less developed 
capitalist economies where workers and others are opposing IMF 
"structural adjustment" policies. What goes on in France, in other words, 
will have international repercussions just as surely as peasants and 
workers in struggle in Chiapas, Mexico has international effects. I 
support both struggles despite their limitations. If we had to wait to 
support a struggle whose total perspective and leadership we supported, 
we would end up not supporting any major struggles. "I am a citizen not 
of Athens or Greece, but of the world" -- Aristotle. 

Jerry 

[PEN-L:1916] Re: French movement situation

[bill mitchell]

BINARY CHOICES
>
>Micheal challenged:
>
>>  glevy 12/12, overcome by nostalgia, cites "Which Side Are You On?" for 
>> the proposition that it would be wicked indeed to challenge the motives, 
>> good faith, need, or relevance of whoever happens to claim to be on the 
>> side of The Union.
>>
>Jerry replied:
> 
>Michael: You need to read more carefully. Other than citing the song, I 
>said _none_ of the above.
>
>I recall that it was Harlan or Paris - one struggle one fight, Jerry . whatever
>did that mean other than an allusion to a dichotomy - union person or scab?
>
SID ON WHAT DOES THE UNION HAVE TO DO TO GET SUPPORT
>
>[PEN-L:1907] Response to Bill Mitchell

Sid said:
>
>I don't agree, Bill, that "In this context...the strikes are dismal failures 
>[which] only show some sectors of the trade union movement grasping 
>for more for themselves without fighting for the environment, the 
>migrant workers, or even other non-migrant workers (with whom they 
>have a privileged position in relation to)." I contend that if this were the 
>case, the strikers would not be enjoying such a high level of public 
>approval in France, despite the best efforts of the government and the 
>capitalist press to paint them in much the same terms that you have 
>used. In several interviews with folks on the street in Paris that I have 
>heard, people have expressed the view that the unions are defending 
>France's social safety net against neo-liberal incursions.


the population of france is greater than "several interviews". the disputes are
being organised by a very small part of the union movement (and the total union
movement is only about 8 per cent of the labour force). the disputes are
confined to trains, metro, buses and some postal services. the students are
irrelevant. other transport (private sector) is functioning, distribution to
shops etc (private sector) is functioning and most people in france are going
to work as before. the alleged degree of impact of the strikes is over done.
the society is not as affected as CNN might tell you. this is why the
population are largely ambivalent. hardly supportive. the majority of unions
have not supported the actions.

>It's true that the French unions didn't go on strike when the french 
>dropped the bomb. Ergo? Progressives withhold their support until 
>they take the right position on this issue? 
>
yes definitely. any group that does not use what influence it has to stop this
sort of horror show is suspicious as far as i am concerned. you USA and
Canadian people might not get upset about the nuclear stuff but in OZ a french
embassy was burned down.

>You state that "they are happy to waste resources in a bloated health 
>system." What evidence do you have that these workers are "happy" 
>about the wastage of these resources, or that they are in any way 
>responsible for that wastage? I have every confidence that the Canadian 
>public health care system needs improvement, but the cure for what ails 
>our health care system does lie neither in the gutting of the funding for 
>that system nor in the privatisation of this system along American lines 
>-- both of which our (neo-) Liberal federal government has been 
>promoting in the name of deficit reduction. 
>
ever lived in france Sid? the workers go to the hospitals for a sniffle. it is
an endemic part of the welfare system. there is no hint in the proposed french
reforms to the health system that they are planning to "gut" the system or
"privatise" it. don't use events that have happened in the american economy to
describe events going on in france to glide over the issue.

and moreover, the USA does not have a maastricht accord to meet.

>I know nothing one way or the other about whether these unions stand 
>up to protect exploited migrants. If, in fact, it is the case (that they have 
>failed to stand up in this manner), then what? You withhold support in 
>the current situation until these unions stand up to protect exploited 
>migrants? 

yes definitely. i prefer to be in institutions that reflect my values. if the
unions cannot protect as their highest priority the least protected workers
(the migrant workers in france) then what substance have they got? none really
in my opinion. to me if they don't do this then they are as bad as the
capitalists and deserve to be ignored.


>
>I'm curious, Bill. Do you, personally, make unions in your country 
>undergo a political litmus test prior to bestowing your solidarity when 
>they ask for it?
>
yes definitely. the union movement in OZ have historically been major centres
of myopia, racism, sexism and have usually taken the easy way out and accepted
pittances (relatively) from the bosses as "rewards for bargaining". they have
become corporatised and built luxurious national offices in salubrious
surrounds. if they are not prepared to protect women, aboriginals, ethnic
minorities, take stances on environmental issues, etc etc, then we better
replace them with organis