[PEN-L:3221] In Other Words

1996-03-04 Thread Jim Westrich


Following up other recommendations on the New York Times pieces I decided to
post this  important dictionary.  Note that while the New York Times refers
to "slang" in the introduction there are no actual "worker" based slang in
the article (and there are a few choice and colorful phrases about being
fired from the "other side").  My favorite point of irony to note:   while
all the terms in the above could accurately be called "orwellian" the
NYTimes article singles out a few examples and comments "some terms border
on the Orwellian". =20

N=A9  All copyrights infringed are willful.=20

In Other Words

  For most executives saying flatly that the company is firing
hundreds of people can be unpalatable. So euphemisms have proliferated to
the point where there are nearly as many for firing as there are for death,
according to one dictionary of euphemisms and slang. Here are some examples.

  Instead of "fired":
=20
 bumped
  decruited
 de-hired
  deselected
 destaffed
  discontinued
 disemployed
  dislocated
 displaced
  downsized
 excessed
  involuntarily separated
 nonretained
  nonrenewed
 severed
  surplussed
 transitioned
  vocationally relocated


  Instead of "layoffs":=20

 degrowing
   executive culling
 job separation
   payroll adjustment
 personnel surplus reduction
   reduction in force or "rif" (verb
form:" I was riffed")
 redundancy elimination
   refocusing job the skill mix
 refocusing of the skill mix
   resource reallocation
 reorganization
   right-sizing
 work force imbalance correction

  Some terms border on the Orwellian. Chase Manhattan calls the
people it lays off "saves," as in savings to the bank. ATT's "force
management program" is meant to reduce an "imbalance of skills"; people
almost certain to lose their jobs are "at risk" or "unassigned." At the
opposite extreme is a blunt expression attributed to the Canadian newspaper
magnate Conrad Black: His executives know just what he means by "drowning
the kittens."=20


  (Sources: Rawson's Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk;
"Doublespeak: From Revenue Enhancements to Terminal Living", by William
Lutz; Executive Recruiter News)=20
Jim Westrich
Institute on Disability and Human Development
University of Illinois at Chicago

" . . . they never told him the cost of bringing home his weekly pay
and when the courts decide how much they owe him
how will he spend his money
as he lies in bed and coughs his life away?"

from "He Fades Away" by Alistair Hulett




[PEN-L:3224] Re: Buchanan

1996-03-04 Thread Michael Perelman

I don't think that those who use an appeal to small business are really 
appealing to small business itself, but the failing segments of small
business and the frustrated lower classes who aspire to be part of the
small business sector.  Even so, B. does not seem to be able to appeal to
more than 30% of the minority of the Repubs. who vote in primaries.  He
is not a threat himself except that he makes vile sentiments more respectable
for the other more "mainstream" candidates.
-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

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



[PEN-L:3225] Re: Buchanan, rentier

1996-03-04 Thread Doug Henwood

At 10:35 PM 3/3/96, Blair Sandler wrote:

At 7:55 PM 3/3/96, Doug Henwood wrote:
For those of you who missed this (and I'm only forwarding the first few
paragraphs of this long story so I don't hear copyright infringement
complaints):

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan has extensive stock
holdings in companies that he regularly bashes for putting profits before
people, according to the candidate's financial disclosure statement.
   Buchanan has thousands of dollars invested in such blue-chip companies as
ATT, IBM, General Electric and DuPont, which have laid off workers to boost
profits or invested heavily in building plants outside the United States.
   The candidate earned thousands last year from dividends paid on the
investments, the financial report shows.
[...]

Doug, where is this from?

An AP story, picked off Compuserve. Don't know where it's appeared in
print, though.

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: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html




[PEN-L:3226] Re: MCB overview?

1996-03-04 Thread Eugene Coyle

There is a marvelous book that fits Dale's needs.  It is "A History of 
Banks and Banking from the Revolution to the Civil War."  Author is 
Bray Hammond and it won a prize when published.  I think it was 
published around 1958 or 1959.
It is very readable and it should be a book read by every 
student studying Money  Banking.  It is authoritative and would set 
students right about the objectives of banks -- I found that a lot of 
them believe banks are trying to assist the community in financing jobs 
and housing!



[PEN-L:3227] Re: Classics

1996-03-04 Thread C.N.Gomersall

As a Ph.D. student at Colorado, I didn't even read Smith!

Smith??




[PEN-L:3230] Re: Classics

1996-03-04 Thread glevy

C.N.Gomersall wrote:

 As a Ph.D. student at Colorado, I didn't even read Smith!
 Smith??

Not surprising. Most graduate economics departments don't teach the 
history of economic thought, methodology, or political economy in any 
systematic manner. Why should they? After all, econometrics is what's 
*really* important to learn, right?

... but, don't get me started. If I start talking about the inadequacies 
and prejudices of most economics departments, I could keep talking for 
some time. My blood pressure might go up as well.

Jerry



[PEN-L:3232] Re: Classics

1996-03-04 Thread Justin Schwartz


Michigan had a regular two-semester grad course in history of economic
thought when I was there (1980's--I was in phil and polisci). They also
had a pretty good political economy track, but Tom Weisskopf tells me it's
been destroyed, they won't even let him teach grad students any more. He's
a bitter man. 

Wesleyan, of course, recently hired Gil Skillman, so presumably they teach
history and pol econ there.

--Justin

On Mon, 4 Mar 1996, Mike Meeropol wrote:

 C.N.Gomersall wrote:
  
  As a Ph.D. student at Colorado, I didn't even read Smith!
  
  Smith??
 
 An even more interesting question:  how many graduate programs offer a
 course in the History of Thought every year -- even if it's not required?
 
 -- 
 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:3233] Re: Buchanan

1996-03-04 Thread MIKEY

Dear friends,

I agree with Mike Meeropol about Buchanan.  In a class I was teaching 
to local unionists in Johnstown, PA in labor economics, some students 
expressed some support for Buchanan because he was the only candidate 
talking about thei issues that they were worried about.  When I 
pointed out that Buchanan had made many racist, homophobic, etc 
statements, these students suggested that this is what his enemies and 
the press were saying about him, but this did not mean that they were 
true.  they thought that there was a conspiracy against Buchanan!  Of 
course, most of the unionists did not like Buchanan, but I can see how 
he will appeal to some workers.

in solidarity,

michael yates
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



[PEN-L:3234] Re: Classics

1996-03-04 Thread Tavis Barr


Columbia has the luck of having the Barnard economics department, headed 
by the two pretty heterodox economists Duncan Foley and Andre 
Bergstaller.  Bergstaller is teaching a graduate history of economic 
thought course this semester that I'm taking (I think someone does every 
year) and it's pretty good tho I think he and I interpret Marx 
differently (we're still on Smith; Marx starts next week). Of course this is 
all well within the range of the rather talmudic Marxology debates on Pen-L 
that many of us have to own up to participating in...

Cheers,
Tavis



On Mon, 4 Mar 1996, Mike Meeropol wrote:

 An even more interesting question:  how many graduate programs offer a
 course in the History of Thought every year -- even if it's not required?
 
 -- 
 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:3235] E;NYT, A 2,000-Mile Fence? Mar 3 (fwd)

1996-03-04 Thread D Shniad

   March 3, 1996
 
   Home Improvement: A 2,000-Mile Fence? First, Get
   Estimates
 
   By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK
 
   [H] OUSTON -- If he is elected president of the United
   States, Pat Buchanan vows, "I will stop this massive
   illegal immigration cold. Period. Paragraph."
 
   Or, as he put it to a crowd in Waterloo, Iowa: "I'll
   build that security fence, and we'll close it, and we'll
   say, 'Listen Jose, you're not coming in!"'
 
   Leave aside that any fence, in itself, could only do so
   much to accomplish Buchanan's aim: half of all illegal
   immigrants come to this country legally but overstay
   their visas, according to the Immigration and
   Naturalization Service.
 
   And leave aside that even Buchanan, when pressed for
   details, says he is not REALLY talking about building a
   fence or a wall across all 2,000 miles of the
   U.S.-Mexican border.
 
   But just how much would such a thing cost?
 
   The answer is, anywhere from $166.8 million to $45.2
   billion, a wild range that will make sense to anyone who
   has ever tried to pin down a home improvement
   contractor.
 
   These figures, gleaned from experts ranging from
   professors of civil engineering to industry
   representatives and salesmen vary for several reasons,
   including the cost of materials and of labor.
 
   The on-the-cheap estimate is for a standard chain-link
   fence, using figures from the Chain Link Fence
   Manufacturers Association of America of Washington,
   D.C., and Atlas Fence Co. in Houston.
 
   "Let's see now," said Chris Cashore, Atlas' senior
   estimator, punching some numbers into his calculator.
   "You're talking 2,000 miles by 12 feet high, at our
   standard rate of $15.80 per linear foot." (No offer was
   made of any volume discount.)
 
   "That'd be $166,848,000," said Cashore, letting out a
   low whistle. "Man, I'd love to have that job."
 
   Southwestern Fence Co. ("No job too small or large,"
   says the ad in the phone book) offered a strikingly
   similar estimate, but advised there were no guarantees
   that such a fence could not be cut or torched through. A
   thicker, stronger steel fence would run upwards of $835
   million.
 
   At the other end of the price range, the $45.2 billion
   estimate is for the only kind of barrier that some
   experts said might work: an exact duplication of the
   Great Wall of China, 25 feet high and 20 feet deep at
   its base, tapering to 12 feet up top.
 
   Walter W. Boles, a civil engineering professor at Texas
   AM University, calculated the price using the 1996
   edition of an industry bible known as the Means Building
   Construction Cost Data Manual.
 
   "It's pretty simple to give you an estimate," said the
   professor. The Great Wall job would require 180 million
   cubic yards of concrete, and the industry standard,
   factoring in prevailing union wage rates, is $250 per
   cubic yard. Result: $45.2 billion.
 
   The wall would be longer than China's 1,500-mile
   prototype. (The Great Wall was assembled over hundreds
   of years; in this country, legal wrangling over the
   environmental impact statements alone might take that
   long before concrete was poured.)
 
   It would dwarf any construction project envisioned by
   President Franklin D. Roosevelt, making President
   Buchanan more of a New Dealer, in one sense, than FDR.
 
   Of course, Buchanan, who is running as a fiscal
   conservative, could save the American taxpayer at least
   $18.3 billion on this New Great Wall by doing what many
   contractors do: hire illegal immigrants from Mexico at
   $1.25 an hour, less than one-twelfth the union rate.
 
   Or he could privatize the job. But companies that might
   truly have the resources to do the work -- behemoths
   like the Bechtel Group and Brown  Root -- said it was
   impossible to provide estimates.
 
   "There are fences and there are fences," said a Bechtel
   spokesman. Besides, he added, the company might not even
   bid on the a project: "We're pro-NAFTA."
 
   The only institution with any experience building fences
   along the border, the federal immigration service, said
   there was no way to estimate the cost of a barrier from
   the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. "There are just
   too many variables," said a spokesman. The 

[PEN-L:3237] Re: Classics

1996-03-04 Thread Gilbert Skillman

Justin (hi!) writes:
 
 Michigan had a regular two-semester grad course in history of economic
 thought when I was there (1980's--I was in phil and polisci).

Yes, but it wasn't required, so that most students didn't take it, 
and thus most students never even read Adam Smith.

 They also
 had a pretty good political economy track, but Tom Weisskopf tells me it's
 been destroyed, they won't even let him teach grad students any 
more.
 
Damn good PE track, if you ask me, and Justin's right, the powers 
that be killed it off via intentional attrition.  As for Tom, if he's 
still on the list he can verify this, but it's not so much they won't 
"let" him teach grad students, but that in the absence of the PE 
program he doesn't really want to, and he has consequently redirected 
his energies elsewhere.
 
 Wesleyan, of course, recently hired Gil Skillman, so presumably they teach
 history and pol econ there.

And indeed they--sorry, we-- do.  But despite the "University" in its name,
 Wesleyan doesn't offer regular graduate degrees in the social sciences, including 
econ--so this doesn't constitute an exception with respect to Gina's question. 

Gil 



[PEN-L:3238] Re: Classics

1996-03-04 Thread ZAHNISER STEVEN SCOTT


A follow-up to my earlier comment:

I recently went to a conference where I met with several of my 
predecessor graduate students at Colorado from 10 years ago.  Their course 
work differed radically (I think "radically" here is the right word) from 
my own course work.  Their work included a history of thought course and macro
with an emphasis on rational expectations.  I think the history of 
thought course was killed about six or seven years ago.

Finally, may I close by saying that one of my professors once 
conceded while slightly inebriated, "At Colorado, we've done away with 
thought."

Steven Zahniser
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



[PEN-L:3239] Re: the classics.

1996-03-04 Thread Gilbert Skillman

Gina asks:

   Perhaps this isn't the best crew to ask this question of, but does anyone 
 know if reading the works of the classical economists is -required- in 
 any mainstream, orthodox programs in the country? 

Typically, no.



[PEN-L:3240] Re: Classics

1996-03-04 Thread James Michael Craven

 Date sent:  Mon, 4 Mar 1996 16:01:56 -0800
 Send reply to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 From:   ZAHNISER STEVEN SCOTT [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject:[PEN-L:3238] Re: Classics

 
 A follow-up to my earlier comment:
 
 I recently went to a conference where I met with several of my 
 predecessor graduate students at Colorado from 10 years ago.  Their course 
 work differed radically (I think "radically" here is the right word) from 
 my own course work.  Their work included a history of thought course and macro
 with an emphasis on rational expectations.  I think the history of 
 thought course was killed about six or seven years ago.
 
 Finally, may I close by saying that one of my professors once 
 conceded while slightly inebriated, "At Colorado, we've done away with 
 thought."
 
 Steven Zahniser
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

One of the main reasons for doing away with the "classics"--which was 
done long ago in most cases--is once one reads the originals, many of 
the caricatures are exposed. 
I do not allow my students to quote a quote of an original. They 
must, when quoting an original source, give the references in the 
original. I cannot count the number of polemical articles--mostly 
from the likes of the Chicago School--that quote Marx and the quote 
given is from some right wing hack's quote of Marx; and when you look 
at the Bibliography there is no reference to original works of Marx 
given.
We have a part-time teacher here who is a rabid Libertarian. He once 
walked into my office and pronounced "Marx was all wrong". So I 
inquired "about what" and he said "everything". So I said, well the 
collected works of Marx and Engels comprise 55 volumes with 
approximately 300 to 400 pages in each volume; in these volumes are 
all sorts of works on history, the nature of the state, higher-order 
mathematics, the colonial question, the inner logic and dynamics of 
capitalism, poetry, dialectical processes in nature etc. So what 
exactly was Marx wrong about? He got that icy stare that most 
dogmatic types get when someone intrudes in their fanatical fantasy 
with elementary logic and said "just like I said everything." So I 
asked him what he had read of Marx and he said "part of the first 
volume of Capital"; he also claims to be a specialist in economic 
thought. I asked how he could dismiss even Capital without having 
read all of it and he said "I read enough plus I've read the critics".
So then I asked which critics and how do you know that what you got 
from the critics was not simple caricatures and contrived syllogisms?"
By this time elementary logic and critical thinking was taking its 
toll. I finished with the comment that he was a f---ing disgrace to 
the human race along with being a disgrace to the teaching profession
and that I would give him a lesson in that which he and his neo-
classical buddies purport doesn't exist--power; in other words I 
would exercise seniority and take any classes he might be scheduled 
to teach as I considered inflicting someone with his narrow and
dogmatic attitude on the students to be a form of abuse of 
students. Leftist should take due care to ensure that the origninal 
thoughts--not caricatures--of those schools with which they disagree 
are properly taught with the same applying to other positions on the 
grand spectrum of paradigms and opinion. Let all ideas contend; let a 
hundred flowers bloom; let the students see the originals not the 
simple-minded caricatures--left, right, center or whatever. How 
anyone could obtain a Ph.D. in Economics without serious reading of 
Marx, Marshall, Smith, Walras, Knight, Bohm-Bawerk, Schumpeter,
the Mills, etc etc.--in the originals--is beyond me.

That is why the Nobel Prize in "Economic Science" with winners like 
wannabe Gary Becker should be entitled the "Nobel Prize in Contrived 
Syllogisms, Cooked Data, Single-Sourcing, Elegantly Quantified 
Sophistry and Ultra-Right Ideology Masquerading as Empirically 
Derived and Verifyable Models and Bourgeois Sycophancy in Economics".  
 
 Jim Craven
   

*---**
*  James Craven * "All things have inner meaning and *
*  Dept of Economics*  form and power." (Hopi)   *
*  Clark College*  "In this world the unseen has power." *
*  1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. *  (Apache)  *
*  Vancouver, Wa. 98663 *  "Be satisfied with needs instead of   *
*  (360) 992-2283   *   wants." (Tenton Lakota)  *
*  [EMAIL PROTECTED] *  "The Great Spirit is always angry * 
*   *  with men who shed innocent blood."*
*   *  (Iowa)*
*   *  "It is no longer good enough 

[PEN-L:3241] Re: the classics.

1996-03-04 Thread HANLY

The literary classics have been replaced by classic comics. Economic classics
have been replaced by neo-classical comics.
   Cheers, Ken Hanly



[PEN-L:3242] evolutionary ecology in anthropology

1996-03-04 Thread Lisa Rogers

Here's something you might like, recently submitted to Trends in
Evolutionary Ecology (TREE).  Comments welcome.
Lisa
***

The Behavioral Ecology of Modern Hunter-Gatherers and Human Evolution

Kristen Hawkes
James F. O'Connell
Lisa Rogers

Department of Anthropology
University of Utah 
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112


Key Words: hunter-gatherers, human evolution, foraging, division of
labor, sexes, sharing, hunting, menopause, life histories, fertility


 Recent work on the fitness related tradeoffs people face when
foraging for a living demonstrates key relationships between ecology
and behavior with important implications for human evolution.
Problems posed by the temporal and spatial distribution, capture
costs, morphology and composition, processing requirements and
economic defendability of locally occuring plants and animals engage
direct time and energy tradeoffs. These have associated mating and
parenting costs and benefits and often result in notable conflicts of
interests among individuals. Foraging tradeoffs are linked not only
to changes in subsistence practices, but also to patterns of
cooperation and sharing, the sexual division of labor, the role of
hunting in human evolution, and distinctive features of human life
histories including long post-menopausal lifespans. 

The idea that present-day hunter-gatherers are an important source
of information about human evolution has long been disputed. 
Currently, many anthropologists see modern foragers as part of a
world-wide, dispossessed "rural proletariat" with no special
connections to the distant past.  That view is widely regarded as the
informed alternative to the popular myth that contemporary foragers
are isolated, unchanged relics of the Pleistocene, a proposition
falsified by all of world (pre)history.1  Modern human anatomy does
not evolve until the last 100,000 years; modern behavioral capacities
are reflected in the archaeology only after 50,000 years ago; key
features of recent hunter-gatherer technology and subsistence appear
no more than 20,000 years ago, in some instances even later.2  All
parts of every occupied continent have witnessed massive changes in
the distribution of human populations since the onset of modern
climatic conditions 8-10,000 years ago.  Migration, war, trade, and
conquest have been pervasive.  Many contemporary hunters have recent
farming or herding ancestors.  In light of this historical
complexity, recent global economic and political processes are widely
seen to determine patterns of culture, including those of modern
hunters.  
There is however a baby in the bath of "unchanged primitives."  When
modern people subsist on wild (i.e., non-domesticated) resources,
they encounter problems in daily life broadly comparable to those
confronted by any hominid forager, no matter how ancient.  These
problems, the constraints they pose, and the solutions adopted are
all open to direct observation.  By abandoning the conventional
social science concern with cultural "systems," investigators can
take advantage of this opportunity to focus instead on the daily
behavior of individuals, specifically on the effects of age, sex, and
immediate ecological circumstances on the fitness-related tradeoffs
they face.  Modern actors and environments differ from those of the
past, and represent only a fraction of some larger possible range of
variation.  But each case offers a chance to see whether critical
variables are related in predictable ways.3  If so, results provide a
basis for hypotheses about situations in which those variables take
different values, including some outside the modern range.  

Which resources?
Much research undertaken from this perspective has been directed at
questions of resource choice.1-2,4-7  In general, foragers have been
found to select prey that maximize mean rates of nutrient
acquisition.  They routinely bypass resources yielding relatively low
post-encounter rates when they do better seaching for more profitable
items, but take a broader array of prey when encounters with high
ranked resources are rare.  

Patterns in the archaeological record of resource choice also
reflect this tradeoff between search and handling.8  After the last
glacial maximum, many human populations began to exploit locally
abundant, nutrient-rich but previously unused resources, notably
seeds and other plant foods that require extensive processing to
improve digestibility or remove toxic components.  This "broad
spectrum revolution" probably marks a decline in encounter rates for
higher ranked prey, which is in turn the result of terminal
Pleistocene climatic change, human population increase, human-induced
habitat change, or some combination thereof.2   

The use of resources requiring substantial handling also had
implications for initial experiments in domestication.  Broad
spectrum foragers spend more time 

[PEN-L:3243] Re: Classics

1996-03-04 Thread Doug Henwood

At 4:01 PM 3/4/96, ZAHNISER STEVEN SCOTT wrote:

Finally, may I close by saying that one of my professors once
conceded while slightly inebriated, "At Colorado, we've done away with
thought."

It seems to me the U.S. bourgeoisie - can I use that word? - has botched
its inheritance from earlier European bourg's. High culture has turned into
a cross between a mausoleum and an upscale marketing vehicle, and
intellectual life is in terrible shape, like thought at Colorado. Yale is
run like a mixed stock and bond portfolio. It ain't Marx's bourgeoisie.

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: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html




[PEN-L:3244] evolutionary ecology in anthropology [oops]

1996-03-04 Thread Lisa Rogers

Here's something you might like, recently submitted to Trends in
Evolutionary Ecology (TREE).  Comments welcome.
Lisa
***
Oops, that was supposed to go to Terry.  If anybody wants the rest of
it, let me know, I'll send it out.  There are only two more parts,
including references.
Lisa



[PEN-L:3245] Re: Classics

1996-03-04 Thread Lisa Rogers

I've heard that the UofU has a decent economics department, and I
guess this is evidence.  I'm taking a course in the History of
Economic Thought right now, and enjoying it very much.  It is part of
a 3-quarter series, and I think it's required for PhD, but I'm just
picking up a minor in economics, taking graduate classes to complete
the number of credits.

I thought I was just going to do some economic methods, which have
application in evolution and human behavior, but then I digressed. 
Something like I'm doing right now.

The text for this quarter is E.K.Hunt 1992 _History of Economic
Thought: a critical perspective_ HarperCollins

The instructor is also E.K.Hunt, who is presently the department
chair.  He's really into the history of ideas and social theory
generally.  He was first ABD in philosophy, then switched to
economics.  

The book covers classic political economy and a lot of other ground
besides, from the origins of capitalism and the feudal-capital
transition, through Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, rationalistic
subjectivism, utilitarianism, Marx, Walras, neoclassicals, Veblen,
Hobson, welfare economics, Keynes and more.  

What I like is that it's all from a leftish view and that it's not in
the form of disembodied ideas.  Everything is presented in context of
the times and the political agenda involved.

I'm glad I knew some Marx first, but now this is adding a lot of
perspective on Marx, in terms of the context in which he was
operating, the on-going debates in which he was participating, the
critiques of the classics and his contemporaries that he was
presenting, and the alternative analyses he offered.

Still no economist, 
and never will be,
but more informed than I was last month,
Lisa

p.s. I wrote summaries of 12 of the 19 chapters, and can email one or
more to anyone who might find them useful.



[PEN-L:3246] Classics

1996-03-04 Thread PHILLPS

At Manitoba we require history of thought at the honours level as a
requirement for an honours degree.  Anyone entering the PhD program
is required either to have honours level history or thought and
at least one course in economic history, or if the student doesn't
have them on entry, must take one full year of history of thought and
one full year of economic history.  We, therefore, offer history of
thought at the 4th year honours level every year, and a graduate
course every other year.  But then we also teach graduate and
honours level theory courses in alternative macro (post Keynesian and
Marxian) and alternative micro (Marxian and Neo-Ricardian).  In
all these various courses, the classics are read in the original.

Paul Phillips,
University of Manitoba



[PEN-L:3247] Re: Classics

1996-03-04 Thread William S. Brown (907) 465-6423/789-2448


I have to chime in with a comment re Colorado: When I was there (from 1974 to 
1977), History of Thought was a required course for all Ph.D. students; we even 
had to take preliminary exams in thought. I was lucky enough to take it when 
Boulding was teaching it. And yes, we read quite a bit of Smith--also Ricardo 
and Marx. One interesting bit of trivia: Boulding's final exam in Thought had 
two portions, a take home that asked to trace the history of surplus until 1848 
or after 1848. The in class portion was 100 matching questions! The questions 
were of this variety: Psychic income F. Fetter. Boulding thought this was 
important...  Really. 

Bill Brown
University of Alaska
[EMAIL PROTECTED]




[PEN-L:3248] Re: unions/abortion/Buchanan

1996-03-04 Thread MScoleman

Three things which strike me about Buchanan are this:

His opening of the economic Pandora's box has set Republicans on their ear
because he has refused to organize his political campaign around the red
herring of abortion.  The Republicans don't actually give a damn about
abortion, but it has provided an emotive issue which attracts broad sections
of middle and working class people who might never otherwise vote Republican.
 

Two, Buchanan has addressed the weakest issue in the Democratic Party -- the
economy.  However, one thing which no one has mentioned so far is the
possible direct tie between decreasing security, wages, and benefits in the
job population as a whole and the steady decrease of unionism.  During the
sixties and early seventies many corporations -- for instance IBM --
publically stated their policy of providing high enough benefits, wages and
security to keep unions out of their corporations.  As unions increasingly
weaken in the United States, many of these same corporations feel free to
decrease the level of pay and bennies.  Buchanan is speaking to that section
of the American working class who had come to expect the benefits of unionism
without realizing (in many cases) where the organization and strength of
unions actually came from.

Certainly there is a lot more to the current jobs/globilization/corporate
responsibility argument than this one factor -- but the decrease of unionism
has certainly contributed to the current situation and it is something I have
not heard addressed. 

Three, Ross Perot didn't win the last election, Buchanan may not win this
election, but I think the increasing popularity of dangerous conservatives is
a sign that a leader from the far right may win an election in the next
decade.

maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]