[PEN-L:9803] Re: Walras vs. Sraffa
My response to Gil continues... Gil: Ajit continues: Gil Claims: the claim that "[i]ncomes are determined by...socio-historical factors (including class struggle" can be expressed with equal legitimacy in the Walrasian framework. Reason: in that framework, income distribution depends ultimately and primarily on the distribution of "endowments" of private property, which is exogenous, or to use Ajit's words, " determined from outside the market." So let us agree that such property endowments are determined by "socio-historical factors (including class struggle)" (as they surely are in real-world capitalism), and Ajit's claims about the determination of income distribution emerge with at least equal force from the Walrasian framework. _ One of the axioms of Arrow-Debreu model is that agents begin with initial endowments, and these initial endowments are large enough so that the agents could survive even if they could be deprived of all trading opportunities. This is an essential axiom to the GE model, explicitly or implicitly, because if it was not the case, then the agents would be *forced* to trade, and the whole idea of trade as a voluntary activity cannot be upheld. I think this criticism is fundamentally misconceived, again for a number of reasons. To begin with, it is not true that the Arrow-Debreu framework includes any such axiom, and appropriately so, since the connection between endowments and the (in)voluntary status of trade is more tenuous than Ajit suggests. First, an individual may not be able to survive *either* on her endowment *or* on the market basket Ajit: My guess is that Gil has not read Arrow-Deberue, all his bravado notwithstanding. Let me quote from Arrow-Debreue's most influencial paper 'Existence of an Equilibrium for a Competitive Economy', Econometrica, 1954, #22. "II. The set of consumption vector Xi available to individual i (= 1,,m) is a closed convex subset of R(L) which is bounded from below, i.e., there is a vector Ei such that Ei(=) xi for all xi belonging to Xi. The set Xi includes all consumption vectors among which the individual could conceivably choose if there were no budgetary restrainsts. Impossible combinations of commodities, such as the supplying of several types of labor to a total amount of more than 24 hours a day or THE CONSUMPTION OF A BUNDLE OF COMMODITIES INSUFFICIENT TO MAINTAIN LIFE, ARE REGARDED AS EXCLUDED FROM Xi." (pp. 268-69). So what do you say Gil? Isn't it a good idea to check the references before saying other is wrong! wrong! wrong! all the time? This is an important assumption, as I explained above. Without it the idea of voluntary exchange cannot be maintain. Gil: this endowment enables her to purchase; thus the presence or absence of "force" is beside the point in this case. Second, "force" is unavoidably a matter of context (context which, of course, the Sraffian framework necessarily omits as well). On one hand, most people will not starve even if they fail to earn labor income for a week--even if that means they have to steal. On the other, someone may feel "forced" to enter the labor market to fund certain compulsive behaviors, even if all one's physiological needs are met. Third, and perhaps most to the point, there is no necessary contradiction between "utility-maximizing exchange" and "necessary exchange"--think of the latter as "utility-maximizing with an exclamation point"--and it is thus a distinction without a difference as far as the formal analysis goes. Ajit: Gil thinks that "stuff happens" is bad theory, but "exclamation mark" is a good solution to a theoretical problem. Now, we can characterize laying as standing with a note of exclamation! Note of exclamation is the hotest formula for solving theoretical problem going folks! The point I have been making is much too serious for a note of exclamation to solve it. Survival is an INSTINCT which all life forms has including bacteria. Once you incorporate the instinct to survival as "utility maximization", then the whole concept becomes vacuous. Would you say bacterias are also "utility maximizers"? Of course, not. Then human subjectivity must be separated from sheer instinct for survival. And once you do that my critique comes back with full force. __ Gil: This is in total contradiction to capitalist reality where the proletariat does not have the initial endowments big enough for its survival. The so-called exchange between the capital and labor is a *forced* exchange. Is the Sraffian system built on such axiom too, Gil? This is another obvious case in which Ajit claims an advantage for the Sraffian system on the basis of what it leaves out, since the Sraffian framework says *nothing whatsoever* one way or another as to whether "the proletariat [has] initial endowments big enough for its survival." Of course, *exponents* of the system may *presume* the relevant
[PEN-L:9805] South Korea's Revised Labor Law Condemned: Workers Determined To Stage
The National Alliance for Democracy and Reunification, in a statement on March 9, branded the reamendment of the labor law agreed to by the ruling and opposition parties of south Korea as the second retrogressive revision and declared it could not accept it. According to Seoul radio reports, the organization said that the amendment in which provisions for "flexible working hours," "layoffs" and other "poisonous articles" are not struck out is the result of political negotiations which ignore the opinion of the people. The organization urged the rewriting of the labor law on democratic lines. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions contended that the reamendment of the labor law agreed to by the ruling and opposition parties on March 8 is barely different than that which was railroaded at the end of last year. The Confederation declared that it would stage a general strike in May to have the articles which threaten the basic rights of the workers withdrawn. The Federation of Korean Trade Unions visited the buildings of the opposition National Congress for New Politics and United Liberal Democrats on March 10 and published a statement denouncing the current reamendment of the labor law as a product of backroom political negotiations. The organization warned that it would stage the third general strike slated for May ahead of schedule unless the reamendment of the labor law is immediately withdrawn and the labor law is rewritten in line with international standards. Shawgi Tell University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9811] Re: Trying to keep focused
D Shniad wrote: Then you apply the coup de grace: "No one disputes that there's lots of furious, pointless, even destructive speculative activity going on. How, precisely, is it malignant, though? Merely describing its magnitude is not to make the case." Forgive me, but aren't we quibbling a bit here? What is the analytical importance of the difference between the terms "destructive" and "malignant"? I was making what I thought was a rather straight forward point: that this manic speculative activity of such a huge magnitude was a symptom of the fact that the power of finance capital had overtaken that of productive capital, thanks at least in part to the breakdown of the internation regulatory mechanism that was Bretton Woods. Quick question: are we in agreement or disagreement here? A bit of both, I think. I agree that financial activity can be destructive, but I don't think that case can be made simply by citing figures about turnover. I think it has to be made a lot more carefully than that (like with a 382-page book on Wall Street, for example). More specifically, I think the corporate indebtedness seen in the U.S. in the 1980s drained resources from investment, and the priorities imposed by increasingly assertive shareholders are inimical to long-term economic growth, not to mention human well-being. But making that point requires looking at the social/political institutions behind financial structures - not just looking at volume numbers. Another complicating example: the European monetary crisis of 1992. You could argue that the commitment to monetary union, and with it the absurd overvaluations of the currencies of the weaker countries, was a reflection of financial interests. Speculators eventually undid this arrangement, allowing the British economy some room for recovery. So, here "speculation" was an act of angels, though in heavy disguise, while the initial arrangement was a reflection of rentier-friendly institutional structures. 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: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:9813] Re: Globaloney
From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] D Shniad wrote: What follows is a response to Doug's call to specify a bit more what we're talking about when we compare the relative magnitude of financial speculation to that of trade and other economic activity. (Caveat: I don't work with or have access to trade stats; what follows is the seat-of-the- pants calculation that I've done based on readings about speculation, etc. I invite those with access to the stats to respond.) The IMF estimates that foreign exchange transactions are more than $1 trillion daily, while trade volumes are in the $3.5 trillion ballpark annually. If trade volumes are 5% of the total of the world's domestic output (a *very* conservative estimate), then the aggregate of the world's real output would be in the neighbourhood of $70 trillion per year. Actually, gross global product was around $25 trillion in 1994, according to the World Bank, making trade around 14% of output. Let's look at some export/GDP ratios for 1980 and 1994 for evidence of some globalizing "revolution." Of course it's always possible the revolution started after 1994; someone check with Ed Herman on this. EXPORTS AS PERCENT OF GDP 1980 1994 "developing" countries23% 22% Latin Amer/Caribb 16 15 Brazil 98 Mexico11 13 S Africa36 24 S Korea 34 36 Canada28 30 Japan 149 Norway47 33 Sweden29 33 UK27 25 U.S. 10 10 source: World Development Report 1996, table 13 (If trade volumes are a somewhat larger portion of domestic production in the aggregate, then the world's aggregate production is somewhat smaller.) By comparison, aggregate international financial transactions come in at more than $300 trillion per year. By these calculations, the aggregate of international *financial* transactions are more than four times the dollar magnitude of *real* production. It was on the basis of this observation that I made the statement that speculative activity had dwarfed the activity of productive capital. No one disputes that there's lots of furious, pointless, even destructive speculative activity going on. How, precisely, is it malignant, though? Merely describing its magnitude is not to make the case. Doug 1) Maybe we have to look at the composition of trade. My sense of the globalization thesis is that trade in manufactured goods has globalized while trade in raw materials has declined relatively. 2) Perhaps one should go back before 1980. Most arguments re. globalization allude to a transition in the SSA/MSR c. 1969. So comparing 1960 and 1997 might be more to the point. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:9814] Re: Rethinking Marxism conference
Antonio Callari wrote: Doug, your reaction to Steve, in addition to being unfair to him--for I don't think he wrote what he did in the sectarian spirit you imputed to him--is unfair and problematic in that it turns into an attack on the journal as a whole. And the level of your critique is simplistic. There is both thinking and rethinking in the journal. For you to use the example of the plenaries to typecast the journal is simply to give free reign to the instincts you, and orthers, to attack! attack! attack! Attack who? us? for not having had balanced plenaries? Well, yes. But I'm really not doing this in the spirit of attack. I'm saying that there should be a conversation happening that's not. The plenaries were full of attacks: by Judith Butler, on (nonexistent) "neoconservative Marxists"; by Sandra Harding, on intellectual rigor; by Vandana Shiva, on Rene Descartes; by Roger Burbach, on me. And Antonio, I believe you told one of the Indian rebels that her criticisms were "disrespecting [your] labor." If that's the case, that's not my idea of how political intellectuals should talk to each other. Did you talk to her about Indian Marxism and the critique of postmodernism it's led her to? Where is the public attack on other conferences that also do not have balanced plenaries, or even as balanced programs as the RM conference had? I wasn't pleased at all with the way Monthly Review held panels on postmodernism at the Socialist Scholars Conference with no postmodernists present. I told Ellen Wood and the rest of the MR staff that that was very bad. I didn't do that publicly because the subject never came up, but I'll do it now. One of the reasons the RM conference was a success, I think, was because of all the interesting ferment at the margins. That should appeal to a postmodernist, no? A rebellious, counterhegemonic movement constituted by the exclusioary practices of the conference authorities? So: let's be kind, let's be friends, let's build together instead of tearing each other apart. Please! Antonio, more tearing apart is done by people sitting on unitary panels, or writing in univocal journals, criticizing people and texts who aren't there, and maybe don't even exist, than when these conversations, rare as they are, happen. As I remember Butler's talk, she denounced all sorts of bad orthodox Marxists who seem to want to send women back to the kitchen and queers back into the closet. That's tearing apart. The same things happen in gatherings of the "orthodox" who caricature "postmodernism" (and I know that it's a complex and diverse assemblage that sails under this banner) as something sillier than it really is. 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: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:9815] Re: Keeping on track
Michael Perelman wrote: Whether you agree with RM, postmodernism, Leninist, Trostskyist, or Stalinist politics is not as important as getting something real done when, as in the U.S., Clinton and the Republicans can sit down in a room and negotiate a budget, leaving Dick Gephart to represent the people. We are in a sorry fix and need to get something done. Michael, I appreciate your call for comradely amity, but these are serious issues that need to be discussed. Is this "sorry fix" we're in a function, even in part, of a bad set of theories that have led to bad political mistakes? Since a great deal of "postmodernism" has been about the denial of political economy - Foucault said it was a 19th century concern, since we've been transformed from beings who labor into beings who speak - shouldn't political economists talk about that? 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: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:9818] Re: RM conference overdetermination
Jim Devine writes: This fits with an insight that Alan Freeman suggested as one part of a longer paper he presented at the recent ASSA/URPE conference: when Marx (or Freeman) talks about "objective conditions," he is not talking about "the forces of production" (as the technological determinists do) or even "the capitalist mode of production" as much as the left-overs, the hangovers, from the past. Jim, I don't think this gets quite out of the woods. First, your notion is very much like Roy Bhaskar's argument for what he calls the transformative mode of social activity. Except for Roy, not only does the past haunt the present, it also allows social institutions to have emergent properties (their own causal efficacy) independent of any given individuals. Second, to say something is overdetermined does not necessarily mean everything determines everything else -- including the present determining the past. All it requires is multiple and contingent causes such that a given outcome is neither necessary nor sufficient evidence of any given cause. Here again I find Bhaskar much better than RW. RW seem to stop at overdetermination, whereas Bhaskar seems to start there. His critical realist theory has us identifying specific causes and their contingent interaction to explain why certain outcomes do or do not appear. If, for example, we do not see a growing reserve army of labor during a period of U.S. history, perhaps it's because gender relations interact with class relations to undermine a tendency that the latter, by itself, would foster. This is a far cry from overdetermination since it explains the "overdetermined" (contingent) outcome rather than hide it behind a 7-syllable word. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:9819] Re: Keeping on track
At 10:57 AM 5/2/97 -0700, you wrote: "And another thing!," he hectored In its mad search for mathematical rigor, economics as a discipline has gotten horribly cut off from the rest of intellectual life. Shouldn't radical economists do something about that? Try to engage with what's going on in other social sciences and in culture? Cultural studies is too important to be left to some of the people who are doing it now. Doug I think the reason that Michael Perleman is anxious to reach foreclosure on the RM thread is that he is concerned about my tendency to flame people. His anxiety is grounded in reality, so at this point I volunteer to ease out of this thread and let cooler heads prevail. I am tempted to make one final observation on the lingering impact of the Sokal Affair whether or not it is related to interest rates. The editors of Social Text have just come out with a new book called "The Science Wars" which is the famous hoax issue minus Sokal's hoax. The introduction of the book of course takes a swipe at Alan. As if that was not enough, they have also hit the stands with the latest copy of Social Text which has a postscript on the Sokal Affair. It's more or less what you'd expect: seven articles taking Sokal apart. This Social Text issue by the way is devoted to sports and includes an article on "Sport and Melodrama: The Case of Mexican Professional Wrestling" by Heather Levi. Boy oh boy, I wish I could see the expression on Stanley Aronowitz and Andrew Ross's face when they see Heather's article in the next Lingua Franca. Louis Proyect
[PEN-L:9804] Over 650 Million Children In Extreme Poverty
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), over 650 million children are living in conditions of extreme poverty. Releasing the report, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said: "Contrary to what the world might expect, the poor are getting poorer, the number of poor is increasing, and the disparity between rich and poor has never been greater." The estimate is based on statistics released by the World Bank in its latest report on World Development Indicators which show that more than 1.3 billion people currently live on less than $1 a day, and a further 2 billion are only marginally better off. UNICEF says children account for at least 50 per cent of the total number of poor people. Shawgi Tell University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9822] Re: US Steel and Finance Capital
Michael-- Your piece on US Steel was interesting. Thanks. It raised a bunch of questions, though: You describe one view of production (unit cost-minimizing) as "industrial" and the other (revenue maximizing through rents) as "financial." While the classification has some aesthetic appeal (your industrial capitalist would spend more time in the shop cutting tools and your financial capitalist in the field analyzing and influencing markets), it seems to me that the difference really just reflects a difference between competitive and monopolistic behavior. Both capitalists are maximizing markups times quantity over capital; the first one assumes little market power and the second one a lot. They certainly adopt different choices of technique, and the "financial" capitalist adopts one that is grossly inefficient. But the "financial" capitalist is still solving a profit-maximization problem based on steel production, not on speculative activity. So it isn't necessarily an explanation of why the nature of work in the steel industry might have changed, unless there are huge numbers of market analysts, which I doubt. Getting back to Louis' original point: It seems an interesting hypothesis that steel companies have switched their operations toward market control and away from production techniques. Your case for the 1920s and 1930s seems clear. In the 80s and 90s, though, the new rage is these mini-mills that produce as much output with a fraction (like a tenth) of the production workers of the previous mills. As far as I am aware, there are a number of these mills and price-fixing has become much more difficult. So we may be back to more "competitive" conditions. Why, then, have firms not dropped non-production workers? Is there more RD to do? Have computer advancements not really been implemented in non-production work? I'm just being pesky. Cheers, Tavis On Thu, 1 May 1997, Michael Perelman wrote: In the extract I posted, the technology in question was from the 1920s and the charge came from Fortune magazine, writing only a few decades after the formation of U.S. Steel. Under Carnegie, new technology came at a furious pace, so much so that Morgan and others wanted to buy out Carnegie who was undermining the value of their invested assets. At one point, he destroyed an unfinished factory because he had just learnt of a better technology. Under U.S. Steel, innovation more or less ceased. Some of the Youngstown plants shut down in the early 70s predated World War I. My point was that the company ceased to have a productionist mentality and adopted a more banker-like mentality. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9823] Re: MAI and Foreign Control in Canada
On Fri, 2 May 1997 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote (**excerpts only** below): Isn't it important to look at specific sectors of the economy rather than just the overall amount of foreign control? I agree, but the tendency has been to look only at sectors with high foreign control and **ignore** how Canadian capital has overal control (as I previously noted, four-fifths of the economy, by assets). In particular, Canadian control in finance sectors has been downplayed because of a long-standing myth that finance capital never developed in Canada; that there are few links between financial and industrial sectors in this country. What would be interesting would be to look at the relative changes in certain areas dominated by foreign control. For example what has happened in the following?:(from Rotstein INDEPENDENCE THE CANADIAN CHALLENGE Mclelland and Stewart 1972) Percentage of Non-Resident Ownership by: Assets Profits Petroleum and Coal99.799.7 Chemicals 81.388.9 Tobacco 84.582.7 I don't have all the sector data at hand, and there have been several changes in how they are defined. The point here is that the large decline in foreign control in the 1970s and 1980s was ***across the board***, in all major sectors, including those always cited, e.g. manufacturing: 58.3% in 1971 to 44% in 1988 mining:69.4%41.9 utilities 8.4% 3.3 petroleum 94.4%65.0 (by revenues) 89.6 59.8 (in 1980 by assets, last data I have) Since it is the US that has always been the nationalists' target, it is worth noting that during these years, US control declined **more** than all foreign control, e.g. US control of manufacturing dropped from the peak of 48.3% in 1970 to a low of 24.4% in 1987. I don't think this can be explained by the mild nationalist measures like Trudeau's Foreign Investment Review Agency. Canadian capitalists **never lost** control of the economy; they accepted massive US FDI and then were able to regain a good chuck of the **now much larger** base for further accumulation. Stats Can reports foreign control under new categories after 1988, e.g: -energy 23.3% in 1988 to 18.4% in 1994 -chemical and textiles 53.8 66.6 -wood and paper 27.227.3 -minerals and metals22.323.2 -transport 5.7 6.7 -deposit accept inst. 12.911. Here is an illustration of the manner in which different measures give a vastly different picture. (Statistics Canada, 1969) COMPARISON OF PHARMACEUTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS OPERATING UNDER FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC CONTROL: (%age) (1969) Under Foreign Control Domestic Control US European Total Number of establishments 34.7 842.757.3 However a different measure gives a radically different picture: Number of production workers 61.210.5 71.7 28.5 or total employees66.2 12.6 78.8 21.2 or value added from manufacturing 74.5 13.1 87.5 12.5 Surely it is these sorts of figures rather than gross percentages that give some idea what is coming down the line. Cheers, Ken Hanly What I see from this data is that it seems like foreign firms in this sector are larger and more capital intensive than domestic firms. This is generally true; most foreign investments are fairly large scale. But what is the point? Are you suggesting that what is "coming down the line" is fewer jobs **because** foreign investors **create fewer jobs** than Canadian investors? THe MAI is just a further step towards assuring that people cannot use the state in ways not approved by international capital. Is this not the case? Burgess seems to rail against bourgeois nationalism and the national bourgeoisie. However, it is not the national bourgeoisie per se that the new policies are directed against it is directed against people adopting a national policy that would conflict with the interests of international capital. We should not ignore that policies like NAFTA and MAI are ***also*** directed by imperialists against their rivals. My plea is to keep our eyes on capitalism and not get drawn into supporting one bourgoisie against the other. And, unfortunately, capitalist governments currently stand in the way of the "people adopting a national policy that would conflict with the interests of international capital". The only place I can think of where this is happening is Cuba. A national policy includes such things as using one's energy resources to serve the needs of one's citizens first and foremost and being able to charge others more if the demand is there or restricting export--all impossible for oil and gase resources under NAFTA if I understand
[PEN-L:9810] Keeping on track
The thread on globalization seems to be very valuable. Much like the debates about the mode of production in developing countries in the 60s, it has important implications for political action. The Rethinking Marxism debate, in contrast, seems to serve no other purpose other than reopening old wounds. We are weak enough that we do not to fight each other. Yes, I realize that bad tactics can also fragment a movement. Recall the repression that would follow Bakunin's periodic announcements of revolutionary takeovers. On a narrow U.S., note: I have been hearing the hoopla about FDR in recent days. I suspect that he was no more courageous nor visionary than Clinton. He had fewer money troubles, but was also a womanizer. FDR and Nixon, for that matter, had strong protest movements that pushed them forward. Clinton gets a free ride. Let us keep our eye on the real enemies. Whether you agree with RM, postmodernism, Leninist, Trostskyist, or Stalinist politics is not as important as getting something real done when, as in the U.S., Clinton and the Republicans can sit down in a room and negotiate a budget, leaving Dick Gephart to represent the people. We are in a sorry fix and need to get something done. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9808] Re: Rethinking Marxism conference
Antonio Callari: For you to use the example of the plenaries to typecast the journal is simply to give free reign to the instincts you, and orthers, to attack! attack! attack! Attack who? us? for not having had balanced plenaries? Where is the public attack on other conferences that also do not have balanced plenaries, or even as balanced programs as the RM conference had? I don't understand why there is such an adamant refusal to engage with the political context which is the Sokal affair. This has opened up a big fault line within academic Marxism. On one side you have a constellation of thinkers like Sondra Harding, Vandana Shiva, Andrew Ross, yourself. On the other you have Meera Nanda, Ellen Woods, et al. What is at stake is the future of Marxism. If the SSC organizing committee neglects to have Stephen Resnick address a plenary, this has more to do I guess with rivalries within academia rather than what the agenda of Marxism should be. But when you have a conference in the name of Marxism, even if it is for "rethinking" Marxism, and have Vandana Shiva as a keynote speaker, the issue is politics not professional courtesy. What does Shiva have to do with Marxism anyway? What you were communicating, especially given the background of the Sokal affair, is that the big tent of Marxism should include her. I find this incomprehensible. Shiva is an ideological opponent of Marxism. Not just "orthodox" Marxism whatever that means, but Althusserite Marxism, post-Marxism, neo-Marxism, or whatever else you want to call it. When she says that there is some link between Rene Descartes and Mad Cow disease, somebody should have used the kind of hook they used to use in vaudeville shows and pulled her off the stage. Her offense was promoting idealistic obscurantism at a nominally Marxist conference. (I guess a hook should have been used for St. Balibar as well for the offense of self-love.) The reason there is so much tension around these questions is that you no longer face a docile audience at these conferences. Graduate students who I have gotten to know on PEN-L and the Spoons Marxism lists absolutely despise the idealist obscurantism of people like Vandana Shiva. Most of them are very reluctant to speak up publicly because they are afraid of getting blackballed when they are looking for a job. They rely on the self-employed like Doug Henwood to speak for them. He doesn't have to worry about tenure. This fear is real. One of the young Indian graduate students who yelled at St. Balibar came to me at the conference and urged me to defend her and her comrades because she was worried that you were going to jeopardize her academic career. As it turns out, her fears were probably an overreaction. In any case, if a graduate student can't speak their mind, then it's not really worth making a career in academia. They should follow the model of Spinoza who knew that his philosophy would never get accepted in official circles. He taught himself lens grinding and spoke truth to power on his own time. If you can't make a living lens grinding nowadays, there is always computer programming. Louis Proyect
[PEN-L:9816] Re: Keeping on track
"And another thing!," he hectored In its mad search for mathematical rigor, economics as a discipline has gotten horribly cut off from the rest of intellectual life. Shouldn't radical economists do something about that? Try to engage with what's going on in other social sciences and in culture? Cultural studies is too important to be left to some of the people who are doing it now. Doug
[PEN-L:9817] Re: Globaloney
Marshall Feldman wrote: Perhaps one should go back before 1980. Most arguments re. globalization allude to a transition in the SSA/MSR c. 1969. So comparing 1960 and 1997 might be more to the point. What then becomes the non-globalized Other of this model? The crisis years 1929-45? The period of nonglobalization ran from 1945, or 1950, to 1969? Doug
[PEN-L:9821] Re: Workers' interests
Question: What are the classic/standard references on the question "What are workers' interests"? (That is, beyond work of Lukacs, Gramsci, Poulantzas) Is there any good recent discussion of this question? Thanks. Eric Revolutionary workers are most interested in the abolition of wage labor or, to put it as Marx did in the German Ideology, the self-abolition of the proletariat; that answer you will get in Moishe Postone's Time, Labor and Social Domination:a reinterpretation of Marx's critical theory. The recent discussion is at the end of the list. But some of the older stuff is really not to be missed. Max Adler, 1933. "Metamorphasis of the Working Class?" In Austro Marxism, ed. Tom Bottomore (1978) Paul Crosser, 1941. Ideologies and American Labor Henryk Frankel, 1970. Capitalist Society and Modern Sociology Paul Mattick, 1983. Marxism: last refuge of the bourgeoisie? Roy Eyerman, 1981. False Consciousness and Ideology in Marxist Theory Guglielmo Carchedi, 1987. Class Analysis and Social Research Rosemary Crompton, 1993. Class and Stratification: An Introduction to Contemporary Debates Stephen Perkins, 1993. Marxism and the Proletariat: A Lukascian Perspective Stanley Aronowitz, 1995. The Jobless Future John F. Sitton, 1996. Recent Marxian Theory: Class Formation and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism. Rakesh Ethnic Studies
[PEN-L:9806] Workers' interests
Question: What are the classic/standard references on the question "What are workers' interests"? (That is, beyond work of Lukacs, Gramsci, Poulantzas) Is there any good recent discussion of this question? Thanks. Eric .. Eric Nilsson Department of Economics California State University San Bernardino, CA 92407 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9812] RM conference overdetermination
I'm sorry that I started a discussion of the Rethinking Marxism conference.
Not having been there, I didn't know that people were so sensitive about
it. Worse, I didn't realize that it would open the Jerry vs. Louis debate.
Anyway, I think that pen-l has said enough about that conference -- because
there's not much more (or anything) left to say!
I agree that we need to avoid sectarian attitudes in the discussion between
the RM school and the various non-RM schools of Marxism. (Among other
things, the discussion of whether or not a school is truly "Marxist" or
not is a pretty sterile one.) It's also good to _welcome_ criticism from
others on the left (though without automatically accepting it as true) as a
way of clarifying or even revising one's ideas. No-one knows the truth, so
getting someone else's perspective on an issue can help one get closer to
an understanding of the truth. Even bourgeois critiques of Marxism can help
sometimes.
So why not keep the discussion at a theoretical level? let's all make an
effort to avoid attaching any personal emotions to the discussion. I am NOT
attacking any individual below. Rather, I am trying to "rethink Marxism"
(to coin a phrase ;-)).
Here goes: as I said in a pen-l missive awhile back (picking up on one of
Robin Hahnel's points about Walrasianism), it's important to know the
limits of any theory, i.e., where it does not apply. One problem with
people like Gary Becker is that he has little or no idea of where he should
stop applying his economic theory and so applies it to issues like
marriage. The same applies to some (though by no means all) versions of
what the RM school terms "orthodox Marxism," which were indeed
"essentialist," seeing class as the be-all and end-all of all social
phenomena. Ignoring the limits of a theory encourages tautological
thinking, among other things (in which, for example, all of society is a
class phenomenon by definition).
So what are the limits of overdetermination? I accept the idea of
overdetermination, for example as Resnick and Wolff [1987:4] define it,
under which: "Each entity only exists as -- or is caused by or constituted
by -- the totality of these different relations with all other entities. "
If I understand RW accurately, this means (for example) that class
relations in society interacts with gender relations, so that the
character of class phenomena is partly determined by gender phenomena and
vice-versa. (Of course, class and gender are only two of many social
phenomena that seem relevant, so the overdetermination process is more
complex.)
That sounds fine by me (in fact, it sounds a lot like Heidi Hartmann's
excellent article a few years back in CAPITAL CLASS, which didn't spring
from the RM school). I've complained in the past that this vision doesn't
help us decide which phenomena are more important than others (capitalism
vs. the Rotarians), but that doesn't concern me here.
Rather, the issue is that of cases where overdetermination does not -- and
cannot -- apply (which I didn't see when reading RW). Specifically,
phenomena ("entities" or social processes) in the PAST cannot be
overdetermined in their relationships with phenomena in the PRESENT or the
FUTURE. The arrow of causation _has to_ go only one way, from past
phenomena to present and future ones. We cannot talk about the present
determining, causing or constituting, the past -- until a time machine is
invented.
This fits with an insight that Alan Freeman suggested as one part of a
longer paper he presented at the recent ASSA/URPE conference: when Marx (or
Freeman) talks about "objective conditions," he is not talking about "the
forces of production" (as the technological determinists do) or even "the
capitalist mode of production" as much as the left-overs, the hangovers,
from the past.
For pen-l's experts on the RM school, is this an accurate statement of the
theory of overdetermination and its limits? are there other limits?
BTW, one of the nice things about having tenure is that I don't have to
teach myself lens-grinding the way Spinoza did in order to speak (what I
perceive to be) the truth.
in pen-l solidarity,
Jim Devine
[PEN-L:9820] Re: Subscribe
At 09:47 AM 4/28/97 -0700, you wrote: subscribe
[PEN-L:9807] Re: Rethinking Marxism conference
There we go again! One of the points Steve Cullenberg made was that we can hardly afford to be fighting about these things. For example, we in RM, both personally and as a group notice when other conferences exclude us, or are not balanced in their plenaries, etc. Yet, as far as I know, none of us has ever attacked them for this, certainly not publicly, and not even privately--Doug Henwood knows that, for example, we discussed the socialist scholars conference in these terms. If there are mistakes made, on all sides, they should be occasions for discussions, not threats, public condemnations, and demonizing strategies. But I see signs of this type of stuff emerging again, in the context of this latest round of postings. A plea: stop this. The left has a tendency to behave as a group of Hyper people who, unable to find ways of putting their energies into productive and effective social change practices, turn their frustation inward and take up the favorite sport of sectarianism. This is not very productive. (Steve Cullenberg was speaking for himself, not for the organizing group as a whole, just as I speak for myself; the views about RM, etc. expressed by people are individual views, and a group, a project, a journal is always more than the positions, the merits, the mistakes, etc. of any one individual, steve cullenberg, or me, or anyone else. Doug, your reaction to Steve, in addition to being unfair to him--for I don't think he wrote what he did in the sectarian spirit you imputed to him--is unfair and problematic in that it turns into an attack on the journal as a whole. And the level of your critique is simplistic. There is both thinking and rethinking in the journal. For you to use the example of the plenaries to typecast the journal is simply to give free reign to the instincts you, and orthers, to attack! attack! attack! Attack who? us? for not having had balanced plenaries? Where is the public attack on other conferences that also do not have balanced plenaries, or even as balanced programs as the RM conference had? Not that I want to see this happen--but it seems to me that the criticism that the RM conference was bad because the plenaries were not balanced is more a cover for an attack on RM than a criticism about the lack of balance itself. And by the way, one simple reason for the lack of balance that I don't think anybody has yet explained, is the quite simple fact that we had some organizational difficulties. I would think people would appreciate the amount of work we did to have this, and other, conferences, and not use a disagreement with us, or a mistake by us, as a jumping basis for attacking us--or worse!) So: let's be kind, let's be friends, let's build together instead of tearing each other apart. Please! Antonio Callari Stephen Cullenberg wrote: Yet, we are not, and never have pretended to be, as ecumenical as say URPE and the RRPE. This then is Rethinking? My first reaction to the conference was too much Re, not enough thinking, but now I'm even questioning the Re. A nonecumenical group of people who agree on fundamental things and view plenaries as a form of preaching to a mixed crowd of converted and unconverted? Did the presence of a large critical minority seem something worthy of ackknowledging as something other than a personal attack? This is exactly what I meant by the plenaries having shown signs of hardening into orthodoxy, which as the postmodernists have taught us well, is defined through exclusion. Is the devotion to polyvocality just another empty signifier? 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: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html Antonio Callari E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] POST MAIL: Department of Economics Franklin and Marshall College Lancaster PA 17604-3003 PHONE: 717/291-3947 FAX:717/291-4369
[PEN-L:9809] Re: MAI and Foreign Control in Canada
Isn't it important to look at specific sectors of the economy rather than just the overall amount of foreign control? In the late sixties and early seventies there was a concerted effort by the left nationalists such as Watkins and Laxer to call attention to the degree of US and foreign control of the Canadian economy. It may very well be that the nationalist policies that developed as a result of the Watkins and Gray report and pressure by those such as the Wafflers in the NDP resulted in a decline in US and foreign ownership. What would be interesting would be to look at the relative changes in certain areas dominated by foreign control. For example what has happened in the following?:(from Rotstein INDEPENDENCE THE CANADIAN CHALLENGE Mclelland and Stewart 1972) Percentage of Non-Resident Ownership by: Assets Profits Petroleum and Coal 99.799.7 Chemicals 81.388.9 Tobacco 84.582.7 Obviously some key sectors are dominated by foreign ownership. This may have considerable policy effects. The National Energy programme for example has been completely gutted and would be impossible under the terms of NAFTA. I realise the data I use is more than 25 years old, but I would like to know what is the situation now in sectors such as I cite. While assets may be a reasonable measure of concentration of foreign ownership, other measures may be revealing as well. Take the pharmaceutical industry. This industry has been successful in lobbying for legislation that benefits TNC drug giants at the expense both of generic manufacturers and of our medicare programme. You surely are aware of some of this. It is not just a question of protecting Canadian generic manufacturers (or foreign ones) it is of assuring that TNC drug giants don't use patent protection to drive drug prices through the roof. Here is an illustration of the manner in which different measures give a vastly different picture. (Statistics Canada, 1969) COMPARISON OF PHARMACEUTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS OPERATING UNDER FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC CONTROL: (%age) (1969) Under Foreign Control Domestic Control US European Total Number of establishments 34.7 842.7 57.3 However a different measure gives a radically different picture: Number of production workers 61.210.5 71.7 28.5 or total employees 66.2 12.6 78.8 21.2 or value added from manufacturing 74.5 13.1 87.5 12.5 Surely it is these sorts of figures rather than gross percentages that give some idea what is coming down the line. Cheers, Ken Hanly PS I agree that there is no reason to protect Cdn Capitalists just because they are Canadian. As even the gbourgeois Trudeau recognised he had to nationalise a large oil enterprise (PEtroCan) as part of a rational national energy programme. We need a similar significant state presence in drugs gas etc. Now Petro Can is gone and the very possibility of a national energy policy is threatened by the terms of NAFTA. THe MAI is just a further step towards assuring that people cannot use the state in ways not approved by international capital. Is this not the case? Burgess seems to rail against bourgeois nationalism and the national bourgeoisie. However, it is not the national bourgeoisie per se that the new policies are directed against it is directed against people adopting a national policy that would conflict with the interests of international capital. A national policy includes such things as using one's energy resources to serve the needs of one's citizens first and foremost and being able to charge others more if the demand is there or restricting export--all impossible for oil and gase resources under NAFTA if I understand it correctly. We now have such things as control of marketing such as the Canadian Wheat Board, marketing boards etc. but new rules and agreements attempt to dismantle them. National policies might involve subsidies if it were thought to be in the public interest etc. and protection from foreign imports etc.etc. But all this is being eroded. I hear nothing from Burgess about such matters or nationalisation. In fact nationalisation and taking into public ownership seems to be the last bloody thing the left ever talks about nowadays. A fucking disgrace. By the way Canadian farmers voted in favor of retaining monopoly marketing of barley just recently. Some light in the gloom.
To Cheryl from Gainsville
I am sorry to clutter the entire list with what is a personal message, but I do not have Cheryl from Ganisville's e-mail address, nor was I smart enough to writer down her last name before I carelessly erased the e-mail message she left me. So Cheryl, I am not ignoring you. I was just technologically incompetant today. I invite you to please contact me again either by phone at 202-547-2500 or by e-mail at resgeneral@acorn and we can discuss welfare/workfare research for the City of Ganisville. Thank you. Nathan _ Nathan Henderson-James, Research Coordinator ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) [EMAIL PROTECTED] 202-547-2500 voice 202-546-2483 fax http://www.acorn.org/community ** Our job is to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. -- Mother Jones ** This Week in History: 4/27/94: South Africa's first all-race elections. 5/1/1830: Birth of Mary Harris (Mother Jones).
[PEN-L:9831] Re: US Steel and Finance Capital
Michael addressed the 20s and 30s and Tavis jumped to the 80s and 90s. I want to insert the 60s. In the mid 1960s European steel makers, and I think the Japanese, were building capacity with new technology, the BOF. US steel companies -- and as I recall, specifically United States Steel as it was still named at the time -- were also adding capacity, but adding what was well accepted as obsolete technology. So the issue wasn't industrial vs. finance, they WERE adding capacity, but obsolete. Just dumb? Unaware? No, not unaware, a lot of people questioned the choice of technology at the time. Michael-- Your piece on US Steel was interesting. Thanks. It raised a bunch of questions, though: You describe one view of production (unit cost-minimizing) as "industrial" and the other (revenue maximizing through rents) as "financial." While the classification has some aesthetic appeal (your industrial capitalist would spend more time in the shop cutting tools and your financial capitalist in the field analyzing and influencing markets), it seems to me that the difference really just reflects a difference between competitive and monopolistic behavior. Both capitalists are maximizing markups times quantity over capital; the first one assumes little market power and the second one a lot. They certainly adopt different choices of technique, and the "financial" capitalist adopts one that is grossly inefficient. But the "financial" capitalist is still solving a profit-maximization problem based on steel production, not on speculative activity. So it isn't necessarily an explanation of why the nature of work in the steel industry might have changed, unless there are huge numbers of market analysts, which I doubt. Getting back to Louis' original point: It seems an interesting hypothesis that steel companies have switched their operations toward market control and away from production techniques. Your case for the 1920s and 1930s seems clear. In the 80s and 90s, though, the new rage is these mini-mills that produce as much output with a fraction (like a tenth) of the production workers of the previous mills. As far as I am aware, there are a number of these mills and price-fixing has become much more difficult. So we may be back to more "competitive" conditions. Why, then, have firms not dropped non-production workers? Is there more RD to do? Have computer advancements not really been implemented in non-production work? I'm just being pesky. Cheers, Tavis On Thu, 1 May 1997, Michael Perelman wrote: In the extract I posted, the technology in question was from the 1920s and the charge came from Fortune magazine, writing only a few decades after the formation of U.S. Steel. Under Carnegie, new technology came at a furious pace, so much so that Morgan and others wanted to buy out Carnegie who was undermining the value of their invested assets. At one point, he destroyed an unfinished factory because he had just learnt of a better technology. Under U.S. Steel, innovation more or less ceased. Some of the Youngstown plants shut down in the early 70s predated World War I. My point was that the company ceased to have a productionist mentality and adopted a more banker-like mentality. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9833] Re: US Steel and Finance Capital
I understand that, in part, the steel companies stuck with their old technology to avoid having to scrap existing equipment. I don't think that there were few greenfield investments. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9826] Re: US Steel and Finance Capital
Tavis Barr wrote: Michael-- Your piece on US Steel was interesting. Thanks. It raised a bunch of questions, though: You describe one view of production (unit cost-minimizing) as "industrial" and the other (revenue maximizing through rents) as "financial." While the classification has some aesthetic appeal (your industrial capitalist would spend more time in the shop cutting tools and your financial capitalist in the field analyzing and influencing markets), it seems to me that the difference really just reflects a difference between competitive and monopolistic behavior. Yes, indeed. The industrialsts did too much competing for the financial types, so they remade the economy at the turn of the century through trust, cartels and outright monopolies. In many cases, it took a different mentality to succeed at the productionist side than to win at the finance side. Getting back to Louis' original point: It seems an interesting hypothesis that steel companies have switched their operations toward market control and away from production techniques. Your case for the 1920s and 1930s seems clear. In the 80s and 90s, though, the new rage is these mini-mills that produce as much output with a fraction (like a tenth) of the production workers of the previous mills. Yes, the minimills came in nearly 3/4 of a century after the formation of U.S. Steel. The company maintained control, as did most of the cartels, by directing their investment to buying up potential competitors. As far as I am aware, there are a number of these mills and price-fixing has become much more difficult. So we may be back to more "competitive" conditions. Yes. Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the nation's second largest steel producer in 1956, employed eleven of the eighteen best-paid executives in the U.S. Every vice president had his own dining room with linen tablecloths and full waiter service. Each Bethlehem plant had its own golf course, and the company employed three individuals whose only job was playing golf with clients. then, have firms not dropped non-production workers? But they have. Is there more RD to do? Have computer advancements not really been implemented in non-production work? I'm just being pesky. There is a great debate over the degree to which computers have and will increase efficiency in the production side. Ed Wolff has recently shown that much of the increase in competitiveness in manufacturing has come via contracting out business services. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9837] whose consumption
I have been wondering why consumption has kept up so well despite stagnant or falling wages for the overwhelming majority of workers. (Of course, rising debt ratios have helped.) An interesting insight comes from the Chase Financial Digest: "Overall, it's the higher-income families that make or break the spending totals--two thirds of which originates with the one in three families with annual incomes in excess of $50,000." June Zaccone, 90 La Salle St., Apt.21A, NYC 10027; 864-4493 [EMAIL PROTECTED] National Jobs for All Coalition, 475 Riverside Dr., Suite 832, NY, NY 10115-0050 212-870-3449; Fax 870-3341 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9830] Re: US Steel and Finance Capital
D Shniad wrote: Michael, isn't your example a definitive refutation of the notion that tech change is incremental? (Seems that way to me.) This is consistent with my experience. Generally, you are correct. As Doug's old buddy, Larry Summers, noted, at this point in time, technical change was fast and furious, more dramatic than what we are seeing today. The US was being wrenched from an agrarian economy to an industrialized one. For Standard Oil, the costs of producing a gallon of kerosene fell from 1.5 cents before reorganization to 0.54 cents in 1884 and 0.45 cents in 1885. The Bessemer process reduced the price of steel rails by 88 percent from the early 1870s to the late 1880s. During the same period, electrolytic refining reduced aluminum prices by 96 percent and synthetic blue dye production costs fell by 95 percent I am not aware of any debates over a productivity paradox at the time. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9840] Re: What are the questions?
Enough to keep wages down. In a message dated 97-05-02 20:30:44 EDT, you write: What is the correct number of idle workers? It is interesting that in the first year following the raise in minimum wage unemployment is at its lowest level in decades. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9836] globalization
It seems to me there are some significant differences in the global economy, though the data are probably somewhat unreliable. For example, the World Bank (1995) reports the following percentages for exports of goods and nonfactor services as a fraction of GDP: 1970 1993 Low income 7% 20% Lower middle income NA 22 Upper middle income 15 21 High income 14 20 Further, in 1995, with 20-25% of the stock of FDI, developing countries received 40% of new flows, concentrated in the ones with a relatively educated but low-paid workforce. Prior to the trade agreements of the postwar era, poorer countries were coerced into becoming and remaining raw materials exporters and FDI reflected that. They are now sometimes getting the equipment, technology, and foreign markets to produce sophisticated manufactured goods that compete with industrial country workers. This must make a difference to their bargaining power, and to the strategies necessary to winning strikes. June June Zaccone, 90 La Salle St., Apt.21A, NYC 10027; 864-4493 [EMAIL PROTECTED] National Jobs for All Coalition, 475 Riverside Dr., Suite 832, NY, NY 10115-0050 212-870-3449; Fax 870-3341 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ps I didn't choose 1970--the WB did.
[PEN-L:9827] NAFTA Nightmare, MAI's potential (fwd)
What follows is a 1600 word briefing paper on the $251 million lawsuit filed by the Ethyl Corporation against the Canadian government. Ethyl used its right to sue national governments established in NAFTA (and included in the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)) to sue Canada for imposing an ban on the toxic gasoline additive MMT. This case will be a test of whether investor rights in agreements like NAFTA and MAI can be used to overturn environmental regulations or other safeguards. Preamble Collaborative/Preamble Center For Public Policy Briefing Paper 1737 21st Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20009 202/265-3263 phone 202/265-3647 fax Ethyl Corporation v. Government of Canada: Chemical Firm Uses Trade Pact to Contest Environmental Law Ethyl Corporation's $251 million lawsuit against a new Canadian environmental law is sure to set off alarm bells throughout the public interest world. The suit, brought under the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement, demonstrates how present and future international economic pacts could pose a danger to environmental regulations and other safeguards. In early April, the Canadian Parliament acted to ban the import and interprovincial transport of an Ethyl product -the gasoline additive MMT- which Canada considers to be a dangerous toxin. Ethyl (the company that invented leaded gasoline) responded on April 14 by filing a lawsuit against the Canadian government under NAFTA. Ethyl claims that the Canadian ban on MMT violates various provisions of NAFTA and seeks restitution of $251 million to cover losses resulting from the "expropriation" of both its MMT production plant and its "good reputation." MMT is a manganese-based compound that is added to gasoline to enhance octane and reduce engine "knocking." Canadian legislators are concerned that the manganese in MMT emissions poses a significant public health risk. In addition, automobile manufacturers have long argued that MMT damages emissions diagnostics and control equipment in cars, thus increasing fuel emissions in general. Ethyl is the product's only manufacturer.1 The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which tracks the use of MMT, reports that the additive is used only in Canada. The United States EPA has banned its use in the formulated gasoline, which includes approximately 1/3 of the U.S. gasoline market. An EDF survey of the remaining producers reports that none use the additive.2 California has imposed a total ban on MMT. Canadian legislators wanted to ban the use of MMT in order to protect the Canadian public. Because they could not do so under Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) provisions, they chose the best available alternative: banning MMT's import and transport.3 NAFTA requires member countries to compensate investors when their property is "expropriated" or when governments take measures "tantamount to expropriation." Ethyl claims that the MMT ban constitutes such an expropriation. The company argues that the ban will reduce the value of Ethyl's MMT manufacturing plant, hurt its future sales and harm its corporate reputation. The case will be an important test of how expropriation is to be defined in NAFTA and future agreements. A key provision of NAFTA makes the lawsuit possible. Under NAFTA's investment chapter, for the first time in a multilateral trade or investment agreement, corporations are granted "private legal standing" - or the ability to sue governments directly and to seek monetary damages. This "investor-to-state" dispute resolution mechanism diverges from dispute resolution systems in previous international economic agreements in two ways: First, previous agreements allow only national governments to bring suits. Second, these agreements do not allow for monetary compensation. The most a government can do if it is successful in a suit is impose tarriffs on the violating nation. This lawsuit is the third, and largest, under NAFTA's investor-to-state dispute mechanism. According to an official at the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the institution that arbitrates most of the world's investment complaints, the $251 million Ethyl seeks is higher than any amount requested in an ICSID investor-to-state proceeding.4 The Ethyl suit raises a host of issues that should be of concern to policymakers- particularly since the U.S. is negotiating the expansion of NAFTA as well as a new multilateral investment agreement (MAI) that would apply NAFTA-like standards worldwide. The Ethyl case could set a precedent where, under NAFTA and similar agreements, a government would have to compensate investors when it wishes to regulate them or their products for public health or environmental reasons. If Ethyl wins its
[PEN-L:9832] What are the questions?
There's an old joke about the professor who always gave the same questions on exams. When asked about this he said "The questions are always the same; it's only the answers that change." My question: What are the questions? Cheers, John Charles Pool PS: For starters the unemployment rate hit 4.9 percent the lowest since 1973. Rueters quoted a broker as saying "all the news was good expept the unemployment rate." That left only 6.7 million "idle workers." What is the correct number of idle workers?
[PEN-L:9838] Re: May Day
Speaking of which, I went to see "Children of the Revolution" for May Day. Did anyone else see it? If so--what did you think? maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a message dated 97-05-02 04:09:49 EDT, you write: Subj: [PEN-L:9802] May Day Date: 97-05-02 04:09:49 EDT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] May I wish you all an affirmative May Day (a happy May Day would be a bit much). There are still so many out there that are suffering from the ravages of capitalism that they deserve our sympathy, but more than that, our organized help. At the moment we are battling the ravages of nature, the flood of the century. But when that battle is over, let us battle the deprivations of inequality, poverty and homelessness! Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba --- Headers Return-Path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu (anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu [132.241.9.84]) by mrin62.mail.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-1.0.1) Fri, 2 May 1997 00:27:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: from anthrax (localhost [127.0.0.1]) Thu, 1 May 1997 21:27:23 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 21:27:23 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Originator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:9802] May Day X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: Progressive Economics
[PEN-L:9834] BOOK PARTY
On Wednesday, May 7th, 5:30pm, the editors and staff of Monthly Review Press will host a reception for Doug Dowd to celebrate the publication of his new book, BLUES FOR AMERICA: A CRITIQUE, A LAMENT, AND SOME MEMORIES. Please join us at 122 West 27th Street, 10th floor, NYC, (212) 691-2555. Advance Praise for BLUES FOR AMERICA: "BLUES FOR AMERICA is a scholar's deft survey of everything that happened between the 1920s and the 1990s related with surprising wit and an amazingly gracious turn of phrase ..."--BARBARA EHRENREICH "A vivid, witty, moving account of much of the history of this century by someone who was there when it mattered ..."--NOAM CHOMSKY "Personal, provocative, and elegantly written, BLUES FOR AMERICA ought to be widely read, and relished ..."--JONATHAN KOZOL "It is rare to find a book written with style and loaded with substance, an education in itself, and a pleasure to read."--HOWARD ZINN In BLUES FOR AMERICA, Doug Dowd has written a narrative filled with incisive observations and biting humor that is at once autobiography and an economic history of the perplexing "American Century." DOUG DOWD is a distinguished economist and professorial lecturer in International Economics at the Bologna Center, Johns Hopkins University, Bologna, Italy. A national figure in the movement to end the Vietnam War, Dowd has taught at the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Santa Cruz; San Jose State and San Francisco State Universities; and Cornell University, where he was Chair of the Economics Department. He has received Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, and is the author of several books.
[PEN-L:9843] Re: MAI and Foreign Control in Canada, Globaloney
Sid Schniad's and Doug Henwood's figures on speculation and foreign investment in the world economy, and Bill Burgess's on Canada were interesting. I'd always had the impression Canada was more neo-colonised than New Zealand. However you might like to consider these figures for New Zealand: A New Zealand Reserve Bank survey in 1996 [1] showed *daily* New Zealand foreign exchange market turnover in 1992 of US$4.2 billion, which had risen to US$7.2 billion by 1995. In 1995 only 56% involved the NZ$. By way of comparison, New Zealand's GDP in the March 1993 year was about US$41 billion and in the March 1996 year about US$59 billion. The *annual* New Zealand Stock Exchange turnover is about US$8.5 billion. Merchandise exports in the year to March 1993 were about US$10 billion, and to March 1996 about US$13 billion, so exports accounted for about 0.9% and 0.7% of currency turnover in the two years. The New Zealand dollar is said to be the 7th most traded currency in the world! To add to Doug's table, New Zealand exports have gone from 24.8% of GDP in 1980 to 23.8% in 1994. The ratio rose more or less steadily from 1961 to 1980 and 81, then began falling until 1990, when it began rising again, peaking in 1993. However, the picture is considerably different in foreign investment, to the extent it can be estimated. The last official figures for foreign ownership of assets (a la Bill Burgess) were in 1982-83, which indicated foreign companies had 25.6% of the paid-up capital of the companies in the survey (which was not complete). 36.8% of tax-assessable income and 32.4% of dividends paid went to these foreign companies. In a paper I completed recently [2], using data from the New Zealand Top 230 companies (including financial institutions) and elsewhere, I concluded that in 1995, over half of company operating surplus (earnings before interest and tax) went to foreign companies in New Zealand. There are no asset figures available for such a comparison. However it appears there has been a substantial increase in foreign control of the New Zealand economy in that period. Since 1989 there have been official statistics on New Zealand's International Investment Position, which shows assets held in New Zealand by foreigners and overseas assets held by New Zealand residents. Foreign investment in New Zealand (including portfolio) has risen from NZ$51 billion to NZ$97 billion from 1989 to 1995 and New Zealand investment abroad from NZ$7.2 billion to NZ$23.4 billion. The net position has gone from -NZ$44.1 billion to -NZ$73.3 billion. By this measure, the ratio of inward FDI to GDP was 14.4% in 1989 and 46.7% in 1995. Outward FDI to GDP was 1.3% in 1989 and 13.4% in 1995, though one wonders whether some of these increases are simply because Statistics New Zealand have got better at measuring. Almost the entire New Zealand financial sector is foreign owned. In 1996, 24 out of the "Management" magazine top 30 institutions, including almost all the biggest ones, were foreign, as were 122 out of the top 200 non- financial companies. Some of the effects: - when the economy "booms" to the extent that company profits increase, the current account goes worse into deficit because of the increasing dividend and interest payments abroad. - a dysfunctional exchange rate. It is set by interest rates attracting foreign investors and foreign investor "confidence" in the New Zealand government rather than "real" transactions. - hence New Zealand has a chronic, worsening, current account deficit (currently 4.2% of GDP) and steadily increasing foreign debt. Private foreign debt has risen from 9.8% to 54.6% of GDP between 1983 and 1996, though government foreign debt has fallen, offsetting the rise. Total foreign debt has risen from 46.7% to 79.1% of GDP in the same period. - funnily enough, it wrecks the monetarist Reserve Bank's attempts to control inflation using the exchange rate (encouraging it to rise to reduce internal prices) and interest rates. Higher interest rates increase the exchange rate because they attract foreign investors, threatening inflation targets and damaging exporters. Importers of course don't reduce their prices when the exchange rate rises. - craven foreign-investor-friendly policies by New Zealand governments, with which you'll be familiar. Why should we protect national capitalists via opposing the MAI, etc, asked Bill Burgess. In New Zealand's case, primarily to reduce dependence on foreign capital, which is demonstrably leading government policy. But a few other figures I calculated from the Top 200 are interesting: - after-tax profit per employee was $20,000 for New Zealand companies, and $29,800 for foreign companies - though they took half the operating surplus, they employed only 18% of the full-time workforce. - turnover per employee was lower for foreign than New Zealand companies in most industrial classifications. New Zealand's overall rate of growth in labour productivity has fallen since
[PEN-L:9839] Re: Keeping on track
I agree: (buut): In a message dated 97-05-02 13:57:57 EDT, you write: "And another thing!," he hectored In its mad search for mathematical rigor, economics as a discipline has gotten horribly cut off from the rest of intellectual life. Shouldn't radical economists do something about that? Try to engage with what's going on in other social sciences and in culture? If we are going to engage in cultural studies aren't we going to have to work with the people already doing the work? Cultural studies is too important to be left to some of the people who are doing it now. Doug maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9835] Re: US Steel and Finance Capital
This financial and industrial distiction is somewhat simplistic, even though the verdict appears to be the former for US Steel. True US Steel was dominant but there were other big players. True USS led oligopoly was more effective in price stability (upward rigid) and high financial returns, but any historical analysis shows that US firms did innovate. See Gold et al, Paskoff, among a few. Otherwise you cannot explain the US dominance in the industry (including technology transfers worldwide). If you believe in path-dependence then there is plenty to say about why US firms have been slow in adopting new innovations (the BOF for example) in the postwar period relative to the Japanese. The structure of the industry is important but so were the actions (and idiosncratic factors like sudden jumps in war-related demand and therefore investment in true and tried technology, the OHF). The assessment of minimills development is largely correct. But higher labor productivity has to do with different technology and therefore different products. scale of operations is about a 10th of the large-scale mills (though there are few in the US). They are mostly in Japan, Korea, etc. The US integrated industry is relatively labor-intensive (although that has been changed quite a bit from the 1980s) whereas the minimill is capital intensive, using state of the art electric furnaces, continuous casting, high-tech process controls. Internal organizational structures and work practices are also very different (more flexible if you will) because of smaller scale. So in some products integrated production cannot compete with minimills. But price fixing still possible even if competition has increased. steel supplies are not that elastic. After getting rid of obsolete capacity the overall supply situation is somewhat belanced but around the world demand is increasing and periodic shortages are common. Price gouging is more common and US steel companies (the large ones are notorious for that). There will be supply shortages in South East Asia, hence the Japanese are reluctant to put out the blast furnaces. Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Senior Fellow Comparative International Development Department of Economics University of WashingtonNational University of Singapore 1103 A Street 10 Kent Ridge Crescent Tacoma, WA 98402 USASingapore 119260 On Fri, 2 May 1997, Tavis Barr wrote: Michael-- Your piece on US Steel was interesting. Thanks. It raised a bunch of questions, though: You describe one view of production (unit cost-minimizing) as "industrial" and the other (revenue maximizing through rents) as "financial." While the classification has some aesthetic appeal (your industrial capitalist would spend more time in the shop cutting tools and your financial capitalist in the field analyzing and influencing markets), it seems to me that the difference really just reflects a difference between competitive and monopolistic behavior. Both capitalists are maximizing markups times quantity over capital; the first one assumes little market power and the second one a lot. They certainly adopt different choices of technique, and the "financial" capitalist adopts one that is grossly inefficient. But the "financial" capitalist is still solving a profit-maximization problem based on steel production, not on speculative activity. So it isn't necessarily an explanation of why the nature of work in the steel industry might have changed, unless there are huge numbers of market analysts, which I doubt. Getting back to Louis' original point: It seems an interesting hypothesis that steel companies have switched their operations toward market control and away from production techniques. Your case for the 1920s and 1930s seems clear. In the 80s and 90s, though, the new rage is these mini-mills that produce as much output with a fraction (like a tenth) of the production workers of the previous mills. As far as I am aware, there are a number of these mills and price-fixing has become much more difficult. So we may be back to more "competitive" conditions. Why, then, have firms not dropped non-production workers? Is there more RD to do? Have computer advancements not really been implemented in non-production work? I'm just being pesky. Cheers, Tavis On Thu, 1 May 1997, Michael Perelman wrote: In the extract I posted, the technology in question was from the 1920s and the charge came from Fortune magazine, writing only a few decades after the formation of U.S. Steel. Under Carnegie, new technology came at a furious pace, so much so that Morgan and others wanted to buy out Carnegie who was undermining the value of their invested assets. At one point, he destroyed an unfinished factory because he had just learnt of a better technology. Under
[PEN-L:9824] Re: Keeping on track
Doug Henwood wrote: Michael, I appreciate your call for comradely amity, but these are serious issues that need to be discussed. Is this "sorry fix" we're in a function, even in part, of a bad set of theories that have led to bad political mistakes? Since a great deal of "postmodernism" has been about the denial of political economy - Foucault said it was a 19th century concern, since we've been transformed from beings who labor into beings who speak - shouldn't political economists talk about that? Yes, I agree. During the first great debates on postmodernism, at one point we touched basis about how to apply postmodernism in practice. Antonio gave a response but the thread did not go very far. I am not convinced by postmodernism, but I see some good people working on it. My concern would be how could we use their energies to fight welfare deform, racism, and most of all capitalism. Cultural studies are very important in the sense that the victor in recent political events seems to have been the side that could define the language. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe the strength from the political side carried over into language, but at least some of the force went the other way. Shiva's work on patenting nature seems very important. What we need to do is to pick up on the strong parts and discard the dross. --- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9842] Canadian unemployment rate question
I seem to remember reading that the official Canadian unemployment statistics do not take into account certain groups; specifically, I believe that either 'status Indians' or people living on reserves are not included in the unemployment rate. Is this true? If it is, why is it done like that? Finally, does anyone know what the unemployment rate would be if these people were included? (I tried-not very hard-to find the necessary numbers at Stats. Canada but couldn't) I imagine it would be quite a bit higher; is this just a way oof keeping the rate artificially low? Thanks very much, T. Scarth [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9825] overdetermination -- a sidetrack
after quoting my remark on something Alan Freeman said, Marsh Feldman writes I don't think this gets quite out of the woods. Marsh, I didn't know I was in the woods. More importantly, which woods am I in (or do you think I'm in)? the overdeterminist/pomo woods? the anti-overdeterminist/determinist woods? (the Evelyn woods? ;-)) First, your notion [or Alan's?] is very much like Roy Bhaskar's argument for what he calls the transformative mode of social activity. Except for Roy, not only does the past haunt the present, it also allows social institutions to have emergent properties (their own causal efficacy) independent of any given individuals. I guess I agree with Bhaskar, but I was _not_ presenting anything but a proposed limit on the role of overdetermination in understanding social processes rather trying to present a _complete_ alternative to the RM school. (Frankly, I find most of Bhaskar's stuff to be opaque, so I rely on secondary sources like Dick Walker and Rajani Kanth.) BTW, I don't think that the idea that "social institutions to have emergent properties (their own causal efficacy) independent of any given individuals" contradicts the RM school. They reject methodological individualism, if my memory serves me well. Second, to say something is overdetermined does not necessarily mean everything determines everything else -- including the present determining the past. I was simply describing what I thought was RW's usage of the concept of "overdetermination." My point was simply that there were clear limits to that concept -- because the present cannot determine the past. I was hoping to get some insight into the RM school's response to this proposed limit. All it [overdetermination] requires is multiple and contingent causes such that a given outcome is neither necessary nor sufficient evidence of any given cause. Here again I find Bhaskar much better than RW. I would agree that critical realism thinking is superior to that of RW. But again, I wasn't aiming to present a complete alternative to RW as much as to have a civilized dialogue about one crucial detail of RW's vision of social processes (I wasn't getting into their epistemology, for example). It seemed a good time to have such a discussion because the organizers of the RM conference on pen-l didn't want to dwell on that event any more. RW seem to stop at overdetermination, whereas Bhaskar seems to start there. His critical realist theory has us identifying specific causes and their contingent interaction to explain why certain outcomes do or do not appear. If, for example, we do not see a growing reserve army of labor during a period of U.S. history, perhaps it's because gender relations interact with class relations to undermine a tendency that the latter, by itself, would foster. This is a far cry from overdetermination since it explains the "overdetermined" (contingent) outcome rather than hide it behind a 7-syllable word. If I understand what you're saying correctly, I agree. Maybe we should have a discussion of the limits of critical realism instead of discussing the limits of overdetermination. I would like to know why the RM school is critical of Bhaskar. (If I remember correctly, the footnote that mentions Bhakskar in RW's KNOWLEDGE AND CLASS was merely dismissive.) But that seems a much larger subject, one that is hard to discuss over pen-l. I think that the concept of overdetermination is important and useful for understanding society, whether it comes from a RM or Bhaskarian direction. But what are its limits? in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] [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:9829] ICFTU and Nike
INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF FREE TRADE UNIONS (ICFTU) ICFTU ONLINE... 110/970425 INDONESIA AND VIETNAM: MORE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST NIKE Brussels, April 30, 1997 (ICFTU OnLine): In a factory in the outskirts of Jakarta which makes shoes for the US multinational Nike, 10,000 workers demonstrated last Tuesday to demand an immediate pay rise to reach to the minimum wage. The management at the factory (PT Hardaya Aneka Shoes Industri) initially refused, which led to stronger action by the workers. The factory was forced to close at the weekend and the management finally agreed to pay the monthly minimum wage. In Vietnam, some 800 workers, mainly women, at the Korean Sam Yan Co. factory, which also makes shoes for Nike, went on strike last week to protest at their working conditions and wages. In recent months several independent sources have denounced the serious violations of workers' rights by the five Nike factories in Vietnam (three South Korean and two Taiwanese). Wages below the legal minimum for the first three months, strictly controlled access to toilet facilities, a maximum of two glasses of water per working day, verbal abuse, sexual harassment and corporal punishment are all practices denounced in these factories. A supervisor at the Taiwanese factory Pou Chen Corp. found himself before a Vietnamese tribunal at the end of March for forcing 56 women workers to run 4km around the factory for not wearing regulation work shoes. Twelve of the women workers had to be taken to hospital. It is the second time that a manager at a factory working for Nike in Vietnam has been charged with ill-treating women workers. Last year, a supervisor at the Korean Sam Yang Co. factory, a Nike sub-contractor, was convicted for hitting his Vietnamese women employees over the head with a shoe. Following the latest accusations, the Nike management simply stated that it could not confirm the events but that it was prepared to work with independent observers to examine and improve working conditions in its overseas factories. In 1992, Nike adopted its own code of conduct, but did not agree to independent monitoring. Last year, Nike created its own department responsible for supervising the application of its code of conduct and charged former US ambassador Andrew Young with studying and evaluating improvements to be made to the code of conduct and supervisory mechanisms. The Nike code of conduct makes no mention of the freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. Only two weeks ago, Nike finally complied with the code of conduct drawn up by the Clinton administration aimed at eliminating exploitation in clothing factories. The initiative received a cautious welcome from the international trade union movement, which points to the absence of monitoring mechanisms. The latest revelations in the Nike factories in Vietnam and Indonesia have underlined the need for such caution. "Given the increasing number of workers' rights violations by Nike sub-contractors in recent months, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that that the code of conduct policy is just a public relations exercise" says Neil Kearney, General Secretary of the international textile workers (ITGLWF). Nike's abundant profits (four billion dollars are forecast for 1997) are based on the huge profit marge between the cost of producing the shoes and their sale price on the market. To safeguard its profit margin at all costs, Nike has transferred production to the lowest wage coufntries and to those where legislation gives the least protection for workers' rights. Nike wins every time. Workers and consumers are the losers. For details contact ICFTU Press at ++322 224 02 12 or the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF) Tel.:++32-2-512-26-02. Other OnLine news on Poptel Bulletin Board ICFTU-Online for geonet users and on the WWW at:http://www.icftu.org
