[PEN-L:2916] Re: Tobin-Nordhaus "Measure of Economic Welfare"

[Michael Perelman]

Nordhaus, William, and James Tobin. 1972. "Is Growth Obsolete?" in Milton 
Moss, ed., The Measurement of Economic and Social Performance, National 
Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth, No. 38 (New 
York: Columbia University Press). 

> 
> Does anyone know where Tobin-Nordhaus' 1972ish article on developing a
> "Measure of Economic Welfare" appeared in print?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Blair Sandler
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 
> 


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

Tel. 916-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:2915] Re: Anthony Giddens

[Justin Schwartz]

Eric says that the duality of structurea nda gency is unproductive when we
realize that we cannot do without either pole. But this is the very idea
he conceded was old hat, that we cannot doi without either pole. Very few
theories insist on structurew ithout agency or vice versa. Certainly not
the classic trio of Marx, Weber, or Durkheim. Ceriantly not rational
choice theory or marginalist economics. A few superstructuralists of
recemt vintage do without agency (perhaps). It's hard to think of someome
who does without structure. Somehow I do not think that insistence on the
old hat is Gidden's contribution.

Nor is the stricture against reification of structure. Marx insists quite
early on that, for example, "History fights no battle, makes no profits,
etc. It is men, living men who do these things." (Paraphrased from The
Holy Family.) This sort of thought is pretty common to most social
theories. y ) Giddens objects that Marx is some sort of narrow
structuralist who denies agency, but this is manifestyly wrong. Anyway,
this sort of thought is pretty common to modern social theory. I mean the
anti-reification line. 

Callinicos objects taht Giddens actually tends the other way, collapsing
structure into agency and in effect denying the reality of structure. G
is, he thinks, methodologically individualist in an eliminative way.
Structure for G, accoirding to C, is nothing but the unintended
consequences of individual actions. There may be some merit to the charge
that G goes to far against structure.

Well, more later.

--Justin


On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Eric Nilsson wrote:

> Justin Schwartz writes,
> >Why is this a false duality?
> that is, between agency and structure.
> 
> Accepting that people make their own history but not
> in conditions of their own making does not imply that
> one must understand structure as being "apart from" or
> "above"  people.
> 
> Maybe "false duality" is not quite the proper phrase;
> maybe "a no longer productive duality" is better. We
> have incomplete theories of agency (which ignore
> structure) and incomplete theories of structure (which
> give little room to agency). While these theories might
> be instructive, they might have reached deadends.
> 
> A theory based on the perspective that 
>  structure=patterns of interaction 
> opens up doors that otherwise might not be seen.
> As Giddens notes, this approach underlines the
> problematic nature of the reproduction of structure
> as people can always give up past patterns of interaction.
> 
> It also addresses the complaint that standard structuralist theories
> grant to abstract notions (apart from people) the powers
> that properly rests with agency.
> 

[PEN-L:2914] Tobin-Nordhaus "Measure of Economic Welfare"

[Blair Sandler]

Does anyone know where Tobin-Nordhaus' 1972ish article on developing a
"Measure of Economic Welfare" appeared in print?

Thanks.

Blair Sandler
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:2913] Re: manufacturing vs. services

[Justin Schwartz]

Lisa:

In Marx's political economy, commodity production is a necessary condition
for the creation of surplus value. That is because value as a concept and
as a quantity (exchange value) is well-defined only for market economies.
Surplus. of coursde, does not require markets. But in feudalism and
slavery it does not take a value form. It is merely physical surplus. That
is because there is nothing that makes the labor content of different
products (or services) commensurable. All labor is concrete, i.e.,
incommensurable with other labor elsewhere, thus expressing value only in
the abstract sense that its products are the result of human effort. It
requires the existence of markets in which the products of labor are
exchanged for the mere fact of these being the product of effort to become
objective, that is, to make a difference in their production and exchange
on a systematic basis. Or so Marx tells us.

Services in a market economy can embody value just as products can. There
is no analytical difference between them. They are commodities just like
goods. They are sold, in the first approximation, at their cost of
production mesaured in labor time. 

The issue of how skilled labor, like that of superstar actors (not a
central example for Marx) is to be handled is rather knotty. Marx slides
over the issue by treating all labora s abstract, i.e., unskilled, and
taking skilled labor as a multiplicand of abstract labor. So in the case
of actors, the idea is that the labor of de NIro or Pacino is valued an n
times the labor of the hewert of wood or drawer of water. This is not
veryu plausible. It was not even plausible in Marx's day. That is in part
because it misses the particular contribution different incommensurable
skills make to the economy. Back then this may have seemed less apparant
because so much of the labor necesasry to run early capitalism was in fact
unskilled. (Although that of engineers and other skilled workers was in
fact essential even then.) Today this treatment is even more obviously
inadequate. Various attempts have been made to deal with this problem.

Perhaps Marx should best be understood as giving a model of an economy inw
hich there really is no skilled labor. The purpose of this model, a
simplified abstraction, is to answer the problem posed to which the
special character of labor power as a unique source of more value than is
necessary to create it is suggested as an answer. This problem is: if all
commodities exchange at value, how is profit prossible? Answer: in virtue
of the exploitation of labor power, because it alone produces surplus
value. Unfortunately this approach is rather question-begging,
partricularly if we face models onw hich profit is at least partly due to
differential returm to skill. 

In addition, the general exploitation
theorem shows that any commodity may be exploited in the relevant sense.
Thus while profits are positive if and only if labor is expoloited, it is
also mathematically true that they are positive only if corn, iron, etc.
is exploited. To grasp this nontechnically, consider that labor power acts
mathetmatically like any other commodity. Clearly the exploitatioon of
labor has a moral and political significance that the exploitation of corn
or iron does it, but from an austreley explanatory perspective as far as
political economy goes, this creates difficulties for Marx's claim that
labor power is a unique commodity.

Well, I am sure that this will provoke discussion.

--Justin 

[PEN-L:2912] Re: a question about Austrailia

[bill mitchell]

Doug from Amerika asks:


>Subj:  [PEN-L:2909] a question about Austrailia
>
Well i live in a place called Australia so i am not sure if that is close to
Austrailia but it sounds near enough.

>
>I sent out the following request about a month ago and got no response.  I'm
>thinking it never went thru, so I am trying again.

it did not come through or i missed it.
>___
>I am hoping our friends in OZ can answer a question. In macro, I was doing the 
>standard rap on how the measure of GDP ignores HH production and one of my
>students raised an interesting point.  She has a sister who lives in OZ,
>and she claims her sister receives a pmt from the gov't to stay home and
>take care of her kids.
>
>Is this really true?  If so, since the gov't is apparently putting a dollar
>value on raising the kids, are these pmts included in the measured GDP?
>

There are payments under our welfare system to families based on children:

(a) child endowment - per kid up to a certain age - fairly modest
(b) Family income supplement - means tested, expands with family size and quite
significant.
(c) single parent pensions - same as unemployment benefit - survivable in its
own right. but just.
(d) a raft of concessions such as exemption from medicare levy - significant.

all of them would be treated in the same way as any transfer for national
accounting purposes. they show up only when they are spent. of-course, they act
to bolster agg. demand b/c most of the transfers go to people with an MPC of
one, and are funded disproportionately (given tax evasion at the top) by people
like me who have lower MPCs.

i don't know if this is what you wanted to know doug.

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:2911] (Fwd) Conference of Socialist Economists -Forwarded

[Lisa Rogers]

Forwarded Mail received from: Lisa Rogers

  Mon, 29 Jan 96 10:53:04 GMT
From: John Armitage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: University of Northumbria
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 10:52:50 GMT
Subject: (Fwd) Conference of Socialist Economists
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

From:  Self 
To:   owner- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:   Conference of Socialist Economists
Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date:  Mon, 29 Jan 1996 10:47:12 GMT

Could you please put out the following announcement on the Spoon 
List?

  University of Northumbria at Newcastle
   Conference of Socialist Economists 96
Friday-Sunday 12-14 July 1996
at
  University of Northumbria at Newcastle

  RESTRUCTURING THE LEFT

Call for Papers on Radical Respoonses to the Following:

 Fordism, post-Fordism and Flexible Production
  New Technologies and the Labour Process
   Global, National and Regional Restructuring
  The Changing Functions of the Capitalist State
Modern and Postmodern Culture
New Social Movements
   New Politics : New Agendas

Contact : Lorna Kennedy-CSE 96, School of Social, Political and Economic 
Sciences, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Northumberland 
Building, Northumberland Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United 
Kingdom (UK).

Tel: 0191-227 4937, Fax: 0191-227-3189, E-Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]





 --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---

[PEN-L:2910] Re: manufacturing vs. services

[glevy]

Lisa Rogers wrote:

> Lisa asks:  I don't get it, Jerry.  Is "commodity production"
> required for the production of surplus value?  Can a service be
> treated as a 'commodity'?

Yes to both questions.

>  How does one address the movie star
> question in terms of "abstract labor"?

The movie star is an example of concrete labor where the value of labor 
power is above the social average in that branch of production. 
Abstract labor, rather than concrete labor as such, creates surplus value 
(according to M).

> How does the question of the "relationship
> between the distribution of surplus value among capitalists and
> individual capitalist profitability" come into the question?

Employing the movie star is obviously profitable from the standpoint of 
the movie studio. That does not, however, mean that the value created by 
the movie star is equal to the wage she is paid.

Sorry for the short reply. I'm busy now.

Seeya,

Jerry

[PEN-L:2909] a question about Austrailia

[DOUG ORR]

I sent out the following request about a month ago and got no response.  I'm
thinking it never went thru, so I am trying again.
___
I am hoping our friends in OZ can answer a question. In macro, I was doing the 
standard rap on how the measure of GDP ignores HH production and one of my
students raised an interesting point.  She has a sister who lives in OZ,
and she claims her sister receives a pmt from the gov't to stay home and
take care of her kids.

Is this really true?  If so, since the gov't is apparently putting a dollar
value on raising the kids, are these pmts included in the measured GDP?

Doug Orr
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:2908] Re: the cost of 'peace'

[Mike Meeropol]

Eugene Coyle wrote:
> 
> Lisa Rogers listed all the possible wars to fight except the one we 
> never fought:  the war on poverty.  Or was that the one we won, and I 
> wasn't at the victory parade?
> 
There are certain wars that involve government action that CUTS INTO private
profit.  That's why the war on poverty had to be surrendered.  Can't have
those workers with too high a floor under their income.

Cheers, Mike

-- 
Mike Meeropol
Economics Department
Cultures Past and Present Program
Western New England College
Springfield, Massachusetts
"Don't blame us, we voted for George McGovern!"
Unrepentent Leftist!!
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[if at bitnet node:  in%"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" but that's fading fast!]

[PEN-L:2907] Re: Anthony Giddens

[GC-ETCHISON, MICHAEL]

Eric Nilsson writes 2/12:

>The fact that Bill Gates came to play the role he did and the rise of 
Microsoft is a perfect example of "path dependency" aka historical 
contingency--IBM could have easily chosen an operating system to use in 
their PC that was not Gates' DOS. Absent this choice by IBM (and the 
later success of Lotus 123) Microsoft and its impact (or perhaps "role")  
would not have come into being. The software market might have been quite 
different.<

Actually, what became MS-/PC-DOS was not Gates's development.  He bought 
the rights to a CPM version developed by Seattle Software (which actually 
retained rights to produce at least one more generation of the system).  
CPM was developed by, if I remember, Gary Kildall.  IBM chose not to 
adopt CPM as its favored OS because Kildall annoyed them by not being 
sufficiently button-down.  Gates knew how to present himself so as to 
reassure IBM (and knew enough to do it, instead of valuing his 
individuality above all).  However, IBM did try to sell CPM -- at a 
higher price than PC-DOS -- for some time before giving up.

Lotus 123 was a refinement/competitor of VisiCalc, developed by Dan 
Bricklin and someone else whose name just escaped me.  I don't remember 
if 123 was ever available in a CPM or other non-MS-/PC-DOS version.  The 
fact that I can't remember suggests that by the time Lotus came along, 
the contest to be the dominant OS was pretty much over.  That is, I don't 
think Lotus had all that much effect on Microsoft's position.  Indeed, 
Microsoft's development of 123-alternative Excel (including its being 
relatively easy to learn and use by users of other MS applications) was, 
I think, much more significant in Gates's company's ascendancy.

Which goes to show that it is not creating or writing software, but 
bringing it to market in a way which most nearly matches what the market 
wants (with guidance), which is Gates's true contribution -- that, and 
his ability to recognize, hire, develop, encourage, and keep developers 
and so on who are up to the challenges he continually throws at them, as 
he continuously reads the market.

Which is to say that there was no structure to which Gates responded, 
which was not also a structure which he in part created.   Gates defined 
the role in filling it.  But he did so by recognizing and adapting to 
those structures and roles which he found existing in the world in which 
he wanted to move.  How much he internalized the existing structure, and 
how much only used it, is so unknowable that it may not even be a 
sensible question to ask.

Michael Etchison

[opinions mine, not the PUCT's]

[PEN-L:2906] CBA and evolutionary theory

[Lisa Rogers]

Ken Hanly wrote something about CBA and economic theory that made me
think of this...
Not that it is what you had in mind, Ken.

Perhaps a little off-topic, but some of you may be interested to know
that Cost-Benefit analysis is alive and well in neo-darwinian
evolutionary theory.  It compares alternative states / behaviors /
structures in terms of their fitness [utility], from an individual's
point of view.  The comparison of states then implies the
intercomparison of expected fitness [expectations _not_ generally
referring to psychology / cognition].

There are plenty of useful complications, such as risk-preference,
time-discounting, etc.  We also use methods of game theory,
optimization, etc.  It might be the only / most appropriate place to
be using these ideas.  Instead of subjective utility, the bottom line
is always some proxy for ultimate reproductive success, problematic
though that is, in its own way.

Now for the really controversial bit - much of human behavior can be
usefully addressed in this way, including the foraging behaviors of
foraging people.  Funny thing about those non-capitalists, they still
tend to do things that increase their harvest rates per time spent...
and the times that they _don't_ seem to be doing that raise very
interesting questions.

What?  A 'primitive communist' acting in one's own self-interest? 
Don't all living things do some of that?  If not, they wouldn't have
made / make it.

Lisa
anthro grad stu

[PEN-L:2905] Re: the cost of 'peace'

[Eugene Coyle]

Lisa Rogers listed all the possible wars to fight except the one we 
never fought:  the war on poverty.  Or was that the one we won, and I 
wasn't at the victory parade?

[PEN-L:2904] NAFTA An Environmental And Health Calamity

[Lisa Rogers]

I've been following bits in the mainstream news about health problems
along the border for a long time, but haven't looked up all the
epidemiology studies and such.  I know that the toxic soup which may
be involved is very difficult to detect and decipher.  One cause that
should be included in all studies of health/birth defects is degree
of poverty/malnutrition.

One of the very few specific 'chemical' causes of a specific birth
defect which is now well established is that folic acid deficiency
increases neural tube defects.  General undernutrition as well as
specific malnutritions, physical work effort [physiological energy
budget], and frequency of pregnancy all clearly affect birth weights.
 These all have medical/social/economic sequelae for the babies,
mothers and others, and are all part of the reason that poverty
amounts to murder.

Lisa
with my biologist once-was-premed hat on
From: D Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: E;Public Citizen: NAFTA An Environmental And Health Calamity

> /* -- "Nafta's environmental problems" -- */
>  > By C. Gerald Fraser
> Earth Times News Service
[snip]
> Public Citizen says "the incidence of neural tube birth defects has
not> improved since NAFTA took effect in 1994, and may actually be
increasing."
> Neither the cause nor the reason for the abnormalities' location
> along the border is known. The rate of anencephaly--a rare birth
defect in> which full-term babies are born with incomplete or missing
brains and/or> skulls--has declined nationally in the U.S. but
increased in Texas. Cameron> County, Tex., in which Brownsville is
located, is particularly affected.
[snip]
 > Another health issue is the low birth-weights of border-community
babies. > Public Citizen cites a study published in the Journal of
Industrial Medicine> in December 1993 that says women working in
garment and electronics> maquila plants in Tijuana, Mexico, had
babies with lower birth weights> than babies born to women working in
service-related industries.
[snip]

[PEN-L:2903] manufacturing vs. services

[Lisa Rogers]

Subject: Re: manufacturing vs. services

On 5 Feb, Jerry wrote: Some "services" might not be consumer goods,
but are purchased by  capitalists as inputs or are required for the
circulation of commodities.

LR:  I agree.

>> > 3) How is the surplus-value created in services and how can be
>> measured? Is> there a surplus-value when a movie star earns
millions
>> of dollars only with> one movie? Is this a redistribution of
>> surplus-value created somewhere???

> lisa's suggested answer: The surplus-value is the difference
between what the star brings in  > and what she gets as 'wages'.  The
surplus accrues to the owner of> the means of producing movies - the
studio.  I think.

Jerry wrote:  First we have to ask: in what branches of production is
surplus value  being created? Commodity production involving the
production of surplus  value can take place in *some* "service
industries", but not all. This is  then an important question when it
comes to calculating the magnitude of  surplus value and its
distribution.

As for the "star", I think the above is mistaken since it identifies
the  source of surplus value as individual, concrete labor rather
than  abstract labor. Of course, from the perspective of the studio,
employing  the "star" is profitable. There is a question, though, of
the relationship between the distribution of surplus value among
capitalists  and individual capitalist profitability.

Lisa asks:  I don't get it, Jerry.  Is "commodity production"
required for the production of surplus value?  Can a service be
treated as a 'commodity'?  How does one address the movie star
question in terms of "abstract labor"?  Or, how is that different
from my suggestion?  How does the question of the "relationship
between the distribution of surplus value among capitalists and
individual capitalist profitability" come into the question?

(I didn't really plan for this question to expand very much.)

Thanks,
Lisa

[PEN-L:2902] the cost of 'peace'

[Lisa Rogers]

Mike Meeropol wrote:
[snip]
The incredible effort to delay "necessary" cuts in defense spending
are part and parcel of the (dim) recognition on the part of policy
makers that the only employment policy the US has is spending on
preparing for war.

But as Jim Devine made clear last year, help is on the way in the
form of a "prison-industrial complex" which could be the substitute
for the military industrial complex that we don't "need" [we never
did, but that's another story!]

However, there is no way in this modern world for the US having "won"
the Cold War to spend as we did in the 1980s preparing for World War
III.  That's one of the downsides for US capitalism of the victory in
the Cold War.

Maybe they ought to make sure Zhiranovsky wins in Russia so we can
rearm!
***

Who needs Zhir?  I think Jim was right about the 'prison-industrial
complex', which presumably includes the entire 'war on crime'.  

Also, we can always supply arms for other wars, such as entailed in
the favored trade status with China and the giant Boeing deal that
compensated some of its lost profits from the end of the cold war.

Our war, their war, war on drugs, hot war, cold war, domestic war,
foreign war, still a lot of profit to be made by war; including of
course the war on workers that is part of every other war.

Lisa

[PEN-L:2901] Re: Anthony Giddens

[Eric Nilsson]

Justin Schwartz writes,
>Why is this a false duality?
that is, between agency and structure.

Accepting that people make their own history but not
in conditions of their own making does not imply that
one must understand structure as being "apart from" or
"above"  people.

Maybe "false duality" is not quite the proper phrase;
maybe "a no longer productive duality" is better. We
have incomplete theories of agency (which ignore
structure) and incomplete theories of structure (which
give little room to agency). While these theories might
be instructive, they might have reached deadends.

A theory based on the perspective that 
 structure=patterns of interaction 
opens up doors that otherwise might not be seen.
As Giddens notes, this approach underlines the
problematic nature of the reproduction of structure
as people can always give up past patterns of interaction.

It also addresses the complaint that standard structuralist theories
grant to abstract notions (apart from people) the powers
that properly rests with agency.

RE >We don't need Bill Gates. If he were to disappear tomorrow,
  > someone else would fill his role.

I disagree. The fact that Bill Gates came to play the
role he did and the rise of Microsoft is a perfect example of
"path dependency" aka historical contingency--IBM could 
have easily chosen an operating system to use in their PC 
that was not Gates' DOS. Absent this choice by IBM 
(and the later success of Lotus 123) Microsoft and its 
impact (or perhaps "role")  would not have come into 
being. The software market might have been quite different. 

What exists does not exist just because a "role" was determined 
by structure. I think people often mistake historical contingency 
for historical inevitability. Perhaps some structuralist thinking
leads to this mistake.

Eric
.. 
Eric Nilsson
Department of Economics
California State University
San Bernardino, CA 92407
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:2900] Re: Rousseau on property

[Justin Schwartz]

I agree with much of what Terry says here. But he underestimates the
degree to which the common law tradition and its conception of private
property, in which LOcke is most definitely operating, is distinct and on
many points opposed to the civil law tradition that prevailed on the
continent. 

Moreover there is the much-remarked upon and quite valid correlation
between capitalism and liberal democracy. The latter is the historical
condition for political freedom. (We may be able to supersede it with a
socialist democracy: so far it hasn't been done.) The correlation is
imperfect, as Terry remarks. There was slavery and there are the
ambiguities of wage labor on which Marx remarks. But nonetheless the
correlation is real and important. 

I think we have to conclude that private property had had a great deal to
do with political freedom. We may reasonbaly conclude that its
contribution to freedom is past. But that is not reason to deny that its
past contribution is real.

--Justin

On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Terrence Mc Donough wrote:

> Justin S. turns my rhetorical take on property rights  into a 
> syllogism which he then argues is false.  This is a little unfair 
> though certainly not completely out of bounds as itself a rhetorical 
> strategy.  The tradition of private property which descends to those 
> of us in the West begins with the Roman ius civile.  De Ste. Croix 
> describes this as one of the two areas in which the Roman genius was 
> superior to the Greek. Locke et al. certainly contribute to that 
> tradition.  That private property may have developed 
> earlier elsewhere, I would have to concede.   Ellen Woods argument 
> about the importance of the free peasant-citizen in Athenian 
> civilization is probably correct though it does not obviate de Ste. 
> Croix's larger argument that the more democratic ('free') the polis, 
> the more reliant it was on slavery as a labour system.  My contention 
> is that in the the tradition of Western 'civilization' private 
> property rights in and of themselves both as a concept and as 
> concrete institution were not inconsistent ab initio with the most 
> gross and systematic denials of freedom.   While it is unlikely that 
> private  property rights had nothing to do with freedom at any time 
> anywhere, Marx's argument about the dual character of 'free' labour 
> as being free of both feudal obligation and means of subsistence is 
> sufficient to emphasize the perhaps universal ambiguity in practice  of the 
> relationship of freedom and  property rights.   Closer to home the 
> existence of individual rights forced the ideology of slavery to deny 
> the humanity of the African, thus leading to a harsher form of 
> African slavery in Anglophone areas of the New World, than in the 
> more feudal traditions of Latin America.
> 
> In watching the results of recent elections in the West I become more 
> than ever convinced that while socialism without some form of 
> democratic control of the state is at the very least unstable, the 
> converse is at least as true.  Democracy without the absence of 
> exploitation rapidly collapses into meaningless formalities.  To 
> emphasize Justin's original point about the labour theory of 
> property, there are much more powerful objections to capitalism than 
> the theft of the rightful property of the working class.
> 
> Terry McDonough
> 
>  

[PEN-L:2899] Re: Anthony Giddens

[Justin Schwartz]

Of course structure is in a sense the pattern of human interactions. It
does not follow from this, by the way, that structure does not exist in a
sense over and above the activities of the people whose pattern of
interactions constitute it. They are in a sense replaceable by functional
equivalents. We don't need Bill Gates. If he were to disappear tomorrow,
someone else would fill his role. That's what makes it sensible to talk to
structure rather than just agency. This doesn't mean that structure is a
thing that could exist if there were no agents in those relations. It is
not something over and against the agents. But it is in the sense
specified over and above them.

If you like, you can say that the pattern of agent's interactions is
something apart from them and to a certain extent beyond their control.
But this is just to replace "structure" with "patter of interactions." If
that helps, that's OK. 

I think the question of which is more salient, structure or agency, is a
perfectly good question in a great many contexts. Agents act and their
actions make a difference. How much difference is the question. Since
actions are constrained by circumstances (another word, even more general
than structure or pattern!) and since the choice of actions, that is,
which ones are contemplated is itself constrained, we want to know how
constrained. If only a few actions are possible or even thinkable,
structure does a lot of the explanatory work. Likewise if you get thesame
outcome regardless of how wide the range of actions or possible or
thinkable actions. Otherwise, agency does a lot more work.

Why is this a false duality?

--Justin

On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Eric Nilsson wrote:

> 
> 
> Justin Schwartz writes
> > The idea that in thinking about structure and agency we have to remember
> > that people act ("Men make their own history") within structural
> > constraints ("but not just as they choose") is, described at that level of
> > abstraction, old hat. 
> 
> Indeed it is old hat. I've obviously not made my concerns clear.
> 
> The key question is where is the "structure"? and what
> form does structure take? Is it "above" or "apart" from 
> people? Or, is it within peoples' minds (e.g., habits of thought).
> Does structure create roles which people then fill and so
> people really don't have to be discussed? These three approaches
> are very common. Gibbens, I think, offers yet a different way
> of thinking about agency/structure.
> 
> Most thinking about agency and structure assumes a duality: 
> agency OR structure. For instance, Justin Schwartz writes
> 
> > But mainly the debate revolves around which explains how much of what in a
> > given case.  
> (speaking here of how much of agency/how much of structure)
> 
> As I read Gibbens, he is saying this duality is false: the practice 
> of agents IS structure. In particular, structure IS the pattern of interaction
> between agents. Structure doesn't exist apart from interaction of 
> agents.
> 
> Eric
> .
> Eric Nilsson
> Department of Economics
> California State University
> San Bernardino, CA 92407
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:2898] E;WSJ, Mexican Bailout Propaganda Campaign, Feb 2 (fwd)

[D Shniad]

> > Path: 
>netnews.upenn.edu!dsinc!ub!csn!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!nntp.coast.net!zombie.ncsc.mil!news.missouri.edu!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
> > From: LOU PAGNUCCO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
> > Subject: The "Mexican" Bailout
> > Followup-To: alt.activism.d
> > Date: 6 Feb 1996 01:06:54 GMT
> > Organization: MCI/News Corp.
> > Lines: 51
> > Approved: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Distribution: na
> > Message-ID: <4f69je$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > NNTP-Posting-Host: pencil.math.missouri.edu
> > Resent-From: rich
> > Originator: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > 
> > In today's Wall Street Journal (Feb 2, p. A11), Allan Meltzer notes that
> > the Mexican Bailout was accomplished by a successful propaganda campaign
> > which deceived the American Public.  
> > 
> > He writes:
> > 
> > " After the Mexican government devalued the currency, the IMF and the 
> > U.S. government loaned money to Mexico on the pretext that they were 
> > (1) helping Mexico and (2) preventing an international financial crisis.
> > Both claims are false.   Most of the loans were used to repay holders
> > of Mexican government bonds who were speculating on the currency while
> > raking in large spreads over the lower-risk G-7 bonds.  The loans mainly
> > enriched speculators.  The Mexican population suffered a decline in 
> > wealth and income.
> > 
> >   A global financial system that had survived several devaluations of the
> > British pound, the French franc and the U.S. dollar was surely able to
> > cope with the consequences of another in a series of Mexican devaluations.
> > Arguments to the contrary were never more than a propaganda barrage from
> > the U.S. government and the financial services industry to get a reluctant
> > U.S. Congress and a generally hostile U.S. public to approve new loans to
> > Mexico, thereby bailing out speculators."
> > 
> >   
> >   Whether Congress was truly "reluctant" is debatable.  Certainly our
> > elected representatives were at least duplicitious.
> > 
> >   The "financial services industries" included Goldman-Sachs, the former
> > home of Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin.  Robert Rubin made $50 million
> > the year he left to "serve the public."  Goldman-Sachs has over 100 
> > members who make over $10 million a year.  (Thank you U.S. taxpayers.)
> > 
> >   This scam was pulled off with the collusion of the Republicratic party
> > especially abetted by the efforts of that Establishment shill, that 
> > Judas goat, Rush Limbaugh.  Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal
> > Reserve Board, called Limbaugh off the record to ask him to martial the
> > opinions of the ditto-heads in favor of this Wall Street bailout.
> > Limbaugh dutifully complied.  When asked by the press whether this
> > conversation had taken placed, he forcefully denied it.  As his lie
> > became apparent, Limbaugh admitted it and said he was being a "gentleman."
> > 
> >   Mr. Limbaugh has also denied commercial time on his show (just like
> > the Establishment pillars ABC, CBS and NBC) for opponents of the 
> > sovereignty give-aways, NAFTA and GATT.
> > 
> >   BTW, Limbaugh now favors Dole and Forbes (among likeminded clones).
> > I trust him, though.  He has assured his listeners that his radio show
> > is just his form of altruism (toward Goldman-Sachs and Morgan-Stanley
> > perhaps?)
> > 

[PEN-L:2897] Media & Democracy Congress in SF 2/29-3/3/96 (fwd)

[D Shniad]

> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE).
> Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below.
> You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use
> the "redirect" command.  For information on RRE, including instructions
> for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> 
> Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 16:03:23 -0800
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Felix Kramer)
> Subject: Media & Democracy Congress in SF 2/29-3/3/96
> 
>   FIRST EVER MEDIA & DEMOCRACY CONGRESS TO BE HELD
>  IN SAN FRANCISCO, FEBRUARY 29-MARCH 3, 1996
> 
> Hundreds of journalists, producers, activists, students, and media makers
> of all kinds are coming together for an unprecedented national independent
> media conference.  The Media & Democracy Congress is being coordinated by
> the San Francisco-based Institute for Alternative Journalism and has been
> called to respond to the recent tidal wave of media mergers and its
> implications for the future of journalism.
> 
> "The runaway pace of media concentration is undermining our country's
> democratic traditions," said Ben Bagdikian, former dean of the UC Berkeley
> School of Journalism and the author of The Media Monopoly.  "Quality
> journalism -which includes news that informs and enlightens, a full range
> of political opinion and coverage of ordinary Americans -is seriously
> endangered as media properties merge, budgets are slashed, and independent
> news outlets fold."
> 
> Hundreds of journalists, editors, and producers are expected to attend from
> across the U.S.  Featured speakers include:  Barbara Ehrenreich (author),
> Jim Hightower (commentator), Denise Caruso (New York Times columnist),
> Urvashi Vaid (author), Salim Muwakkil (journalist), Ben Bagdikian, Farai
> Chideya (MTV News), Susan Faludi (author), Frank Rich (New York Times
> columnist), Suzanne Pharr (activist/writer), Juan Gonzalez (NY Daily News
> columnist), Robert Bray (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) and George
> Gerbner (Dean Emeritus, Annenberg School of Communications).
> 
> The Congress main focus will be on strategizing ways to strengthen
> independent media and build future collaborations.  Other highlights
> include the consideration of an "information Bill of Rights," proposing ten
> basic principles of a more equitable, participatory, and accountable media
> system, and an on site Training Institute and Cyber Cafe to provide tools
> to foster independent news media.
> 
> For more information about the Congress, send email to:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED], or call 415-284-1420.  All program and registration
> information available on the World Wide Web:
> ; or
>  skips the opening graphic
> page.
> 
> --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --
> Felix Kramer/Kramer Communications   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> web: http://www.nlightning.com (now with 1,000 bookmarks)
>   Online promotion & marketing / web-site development
>   Clickshare: http://www.clickshare.com/clickshare/
> voice: 212/866-4864 fax: 212/866-5527
> --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --
> 
> 
> 

[PEN-L:2896] Mexico City?

[Trond Andresen]

I am going to Mexico City in the period Sunday 18 February to Monday 26
February, to give some talks at the University Autonoma Metropolitana,
hosted by David Barkin.

If anyone of you guys happen to be in Mexico City in that
period, tell me, and we could possibly meet.

regards,

Trond
__
Trond Andresen  ([EMAIL PROTECTED])  | phone (work) +47 7359 4358
Department of Engineering Cybernetics | fax (work)   +47 7359 4399
Norwegian University of Science and Technology| private ph.  +47 7353 0823
N-7034 Trondheim, NORWAY  | cellular ph. +47 9016 6930
http://www.itk.unit.no/ansatte/Andresen_Trond  ___

[PEN-L:2895] Private property rights

[Lisa Rogers]

From: Terrence  Mc Donough <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Rousseau on property

TM: [snipped bit on Roman slavery.]  Private property rights have
never  guaranteed freedom of any sort.

LR: Of course it does, it's just "freedom" of a particular sort for a
particular class of people.  "Freedom" should always be properly
qualified.  In common usage I think it rarely means "freedom" from
literal slavery, rather "freedom" to economically enslave others, and
so on.  Also, I suspect that "private property rights" are part of
the formalization of a deal between the rich and the government [the
ruling class with itself] about the division of the spoils of
exploitation.

TM: I've long  thought that the 'theft' of surplus by the capitalist
class is not  really the moral (or practical) problem with
capitalism.  The problem  is the collective disempowerment on
economic, political, and cultural  levels which this appropriation
leads to.

LR: Puzzling.  Such theft could not occur if the workers were not
already "disempowered" by the current creation and enforcement of the
capitalist version of private property "rights", through both legal
and extra-legal means.  So which way does the causality run?  

Capitalist theft also seems to be the immediate, direct cause of
workers being much poorer than owners, with all the problems that
poverty entails, including a much shorter life expectancy, even when
violence is not included.  That's one of the reasons that 'theft'
seems like a "problem" to me.

[PEN-L:2894] Anthony Giddens

[Chris Merrett]

Anthony Giddens, as a sociologist, is also a closet geographer. His ideas about
structure versus agency have lead him to think about the social construction of
place. This has lead him to ponder the epistemological dilemma of linking
global processes to local outcomes in a theoretically informed way that is not
empiricist in nature. I believe that he has contributed to the social sciences
by transcending disciplinary boundaries to tackle economics, geography,
sociology and philosophy. I would also like to hear what other people think
about Anthony Giddens.
Cheers,
Chris Merrett
Western Illinois University
Macomb, IL 61455
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:2893] Re: Buchanan a fascist? -Reply

[Lisa Rogers]

>>> Bryan A. Alexander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  2/10/96, 11:04pm >>>
Then again, Buchanan might be considered a prot-fascist actor within
a  time period not readily amenable to fascism: a character for the
active  repression of insurgent labor when such measures are not
needed.Tragic,  really...

Bryan Alexander Department of English email:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  University of Michigan phone: (313)
764-0418Ann Arbor, MI  USA48103 fax: (313)
763-3128http://www.umich.edu/~bnalexan

>  > Fascism implies bonapartist and rightwing elements by
definition, so the  > above characterization fails to distinguish
Buchananism from fascism.
>  > I would propose that Buchanan is a transitional "democratic"
fascist - a  > fascist transitionally deploying (or being deployed
beyond his own  > ideological consciousness of himself) a "democratic
 > (counter)revolutionary" tactic.  All smart European neofascists
(Fini,  > etc.), deploy this tactic today, even "denouncing Hitler". 
Also, note the  > transition of forms between Franco, Mussolini and
Hitler.
>   -Brad Mayer
>  >  >  --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---



 --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---

[PEN-L:2892] Re: Rousseau on property

[Terrence Mc Donough]

Justin S. turns my rhetorical take on property rights  into a 
syllogism which he then argues is false.  This is a little unfair 
though certainly not completely out of bounds as itself a rhetorical 
strategy.  The tradition of private property which descends to those 
of us in the West begins with the Roman ius civile.  De Ste. Croix 
describes this as one of the two areas in which the Roman genius was 
superior to the Greek. Locke et al. certainly contribute to that 
tradition.  That private property may have developed 
earlier elsewhere, I would have to concede.   Ellen Woods argument 
about the importance of the free peasant-citizen in Athenian 
civilization is probably correct though it does not obviate de Ste. 
Croix's larger argument that the more democratic ('free') the polis, 
the more reliant it was on slavery as a labour system.  My contention 
is that in the the tradition of Western 'civilization' private 
property rights in and of themselves both as a concept and as 
concrete institution were not inconsistent ab initio with the most 
gross and systematic denials of freedom.   While it is unlikely that 
private  property rights had nothing to do with freedom at any time 
anywhere, Marx's argument about the dual character of 'free' labour 
as being free of both feudal obligation and means of subsistence is 
sufficient to emphasize the perhaps universal ambiguity in practice  of the 
relationship of freedom and  property rights.   Closer to home the 
existence of individual rights forced the ideology of slavery to deny 
the humanity of the African, thus leading to a harsher form of 
African slavery in Anglophone areas of the New World, than in the 
more feudal traditions of Latin America.

In watching the results of recent elections in the West I become more 
than ever convinced that while socialism without some form of 
democratic control of the state is at the very least unstable, the 
converse is at least as true.  Democracy without the absence of 
exploitation rapidly collapses into meaningless formalities.  To 
emphasize Justin's original point about the labour theory of 
property, there are much more powerful objections to capitalism than 
the theft of the rightful property of the working class.

Terry McDonough

 

[PEN-L:2891] Re: Anthony Giddens

[Eric Nilsson]

For some unclear reason I spelled  Giddens' name wrong in
my last message. I think I may have been watching too many 
of my son's animal videos in recent weeks (in which gibbons appear). 

Eric
..
 
Eric Nilsson
Department of Economics
California State University
San Bernardino, CA 92407
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:2890] Re: Anthony Giddens

[Eric Nilsson]

Justin Schwartz writes
> The idea that in thinking about structure and agency we have to remember
> that people act ("Men make their own history") within structural
> constraints ("but not just as they choose") is, described at that level of
> abstraction, old hat. 

Indeed it is old hat. I've obviously not made my concerns clear.

The key question is where is the "structure"? and what
form does structure take? Is it "above" or "apart" from 
people? Or, is it within peoples' minds (e.g., habits of thought).
Does structure create roles which people then fill and so
people really don't have to be discussed? These three approaches
are very common. Gibbens, I think, offers yet a different way
of thinking about agency/structure.

Most thinking about agency and structure assumes a duality: 
agency OR structure. For instance, Justin Schwartz writes

> But mainly the debate revolves around which explains how much of what in a
> given case.  
(speaking here of how much of agency/how much of structure)

As I read Gibbens, he is saying this duality is false: the practice 
of agents IS structure. In particular, structure IS the pattern of interaction
between agents. Structure doesn't exist apart from interaction of 
agents.

Eric
..
Eric Nilsson
Department of Economics
California State University
San Bernardino, CA 92407
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:2889] Dwight Macdonald: An Appreciation NYC 2-15

[Bill Koehnlein]

The Brecht Forum

The New York Marxist School
122 West 27 Street, 10 floor
New York, New York 10001
(212) 242-4201
(212) 741-4563 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (e-mail)


Dwight Macdonald: American Rebel

a talk by Michael Wreszin

Thursday, February 15 at 8 pm


"Every man has a right to be stupid on occasion, but Comrade
Macdonald abuses it."

So spoke Leon Trotsky after one of Macdonald's attacks on "the
old man" for his role in Kronstadt. Writer, editor, publisher,
intellectual street fighter, and intermittent political
activist, Macdonald was a quintessential American rebel, a
native-born dissident individualist but at various times a
socialist, a Trotskyist, a pacifist, and an anarchist.

Michael Wreszin, Professor of History at Queens College and
the CUNY Graduate Center, is the author of _Dwight Macdonald:
A Rebel in Defense of Tradition_.

Admission is $6.

*

All Brecht Forum lectures are available on audiotape for $8.
To order, make check or money order payable to *The Brecht
Forum* and mail to The Brecht Forum, 122 West 27 Street, 10
floor, New York, New York 10001. For orders outside the U.S.,
please send an international money order or bank check payable
in U.S. funds and enclose an additional US$5 to cover the cost
of air postage.

//30