The [PEN-L]ty box?

[Tom Walker]

Could a five minute [PEN-L]ty for high sticking and a game [PEN-L]ty for
brawling increase the signal to noise ratio on this list?

Regards, 

Tom Walker
^^^
knoW Ware Communications
Vancouver, B.C., CANADA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(604) 688-8296 
^^^
The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/

Fire in the Amazon rainforest

[Louis Proyect]

(LP: This article fails to point out that subsistence farmers are settling
in the rain-forests because most of the prime land in Brazil is devoted to
export production of coffee, beef, tobacco, etc. Otherwise the information
seems not only correct and alarming, but highly analogous to what is
happening in Borneo.)


November 2, 1997

More Fires by Farmers Raise Threat to Amazon

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- In Porto Velho in western Brazil, thick clouds of
black smoke have forced airports and schools to shut down. In southern Para
state near the Amazon frontier, people gasping for air have collapsed and
ended up in hospitals. In the city of Manaus, the sun has disappeared for
days at a time. 

Twenty years after the goal of rescuing the Amazon rain forest first
captured world attention, becoming the pet cause of celebrities and a
regular topic in children's schoolbooks, deforestation and the burning of
vast territories are again climbing. 

Data in recent weeks suggest that the burning going on in Brazil this year
is greater than what has occurred in Indonesia, where major cities have
been smothered under blankets of smoke that spread to other countries. 

Despite the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to
save the rain forest, burnings in the Amazon region are up 28 percent over
last year, according to satellite data, and 1994 deforestation figures, the
most recent available, show a 34 percent increase since 1991. 

"Deforestation has done nothing but go up," said Stephen Schwartzman of the
Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit group based in Washington. "Where
the most money has gone is where the fires have increased the most." The
group noted that half the fires recorded this year were in Mato Grosso,
where the World Bank lent $205 million to save the rain forest in a natural
resource management program. 

Roughly a fifth of the fires that rage annually between June and October
cause new deforestation, and another tenth is burning of ground cover in
virgin forests. Scientists say that the Amazon rain forest may be reaching
a critical level of dryness, in which standing forest could catch fire and
burn out of control. 

A report by the Environmental Defense Fund warned the Amazon "may be edging
closer to catastrophic fire events," and predicted "potentially enormous
global consequences." 

The World Wildlife Fund found that 93 percent of the original Atlantic rain
forest in the northeast had disappeared over the centuries, and some 12 to
15 percent of the Amazon rain forest. The report said that Brazil was
losing more rain forest each year than any other country on the planet. In
addition to the 5,800 square miles a year that satellite images show are
deforested each year, the Woods Hole Research Institute estimates that
another 4,200 are thinned through logging beneath the forest canopy. 

Eduardo Martins, the president of the Brazilian federal environmental
agency, said in an interview that the increase in fires, while worrisome,
did not result in an increase in deforestation, although the two problems
have risen in tandem. He contended that most fires were set by small
farmers who would starve if they could not clear land for planting, and
that the environmental damage paled next to fossil fuel emissions in the
United States. 

Beneath the noxious haze covering much of Brazil every burning season is an
opaque, often contradictory, government policy toward the environment.
"Properly speaking, we still don't have a policy, but we have a start,"
Martins told a Brazilian news magazine earlier this year. 

Lacking enforcement muscle, the government environmental agency ultimately
collects only 6.5 percent of the fines it imposes. The rest are thrown out
in court. 

In a recent interview, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso acknowledged
that the agency needed more money and muscle. A bill to strengthen it,
stalled in Congress since 1991, passed the Senate this year. It is now
idling in the House, where the Federation of Industries is lobbying against
it on the ground that threats of cash fines and prison will open the way
for corruption. 

For now, not surprisingly, the agency is usually ignored by the people it
is supposed to monitor. While permits are required for burning, the agency
has reportedly issued licenses to clear a total of only about 24,700 acres
this year -- an area seemingly far smaller than what would produce the
dense clouds of smoke that have appeared over several states. Martins
disputed that permits were issued for only such an area, but his office
declined to provide another figure, or the number of permits issued last
year. 

While even poorly enforced measures and licensing procedures are intended
to deter deforestation, until recently other government statutes deemed
cleared forest to be "an improvement on the land," which meant it was less
likely to be considered unproductive and seized for agrarian reform. If the
owner sold it for governm

My one and only reply to Levy

[Louis Proyect]

Levy:

>becoming a pro-management snitch).

Levy, I was going to ignore this as I used to ignore your ravings on the
Marxism-International mailing-list. I think most people on PEN-L are
starting to form the same sort of impression of you that people already
have on the Spoons-List. You are a person who forms personal vendettas that
will last with you until go to your grave.

Malecki was on PEN-L so people have a memory of who and what he was. He was
expelled from PEN-L and the Marxism-International list for flame-throwing.
You were expelled from Marxism-International at the same time as Malecki
was. The reason you were expelled is that you were creating a nuisance with
your vendettas against Doug and me.

I will let my posts to PEN-L speak for themselves. What others should find
troubling is that you have said repeatedly that PEN-L is too good for
somebody like me, but your interventions here seem to consist mostly of
savaging Doug's book that you apparently have not read. God--what gall. You
spent a month when I first got here attacking Sozialismus for asking me to
write an article on the Rethinking Marxism conference. How could I do this
when I had decided beforehand that it was an academic conference? For
christ's sake, I saw the conference schedule on the WWW and saw plenary
sessions loaded up with anti-Marxists. You, on the other hand, have been
villifying Doug for a year now. People like James O'Connor and  Doug Dowd
applaud "Wall Street" and you attack it. Have you read the gosh-darned
thing? What about a critique of the text? 

Now to the question of whether or not I am a "snitch" or a "scab". I will
present the facts and let other people decide. Levy once sent me some
private mail that let me in on a secret. Randy Martin, who I considered a
friend and a colleagure, was the person who approved Alan Sokal's spoof at
Social Text. When the controversy over the Sokal affair boiled up on
Marxism-International, I let Randy know that you were talking about him
behind your back. You went ballistic. You seemed to regard the privilege of
gossiping about people to be inviolate. Your retaliation was to turn this
into some kind of deep-going labor struggle. You claimed that Randy Martin
was your boss and that I was crossing a picket-line by "ratting" on you.
What an act! Somebody who is nothing but a malicious gossip transforms
himself into Cesar Chavez.

Let me make this as clear as I can. I know Randy only as somebody who works
at the Pratt Institute in New York City. He gives classes on Marxism at the
Brecht Forum and received the honor of best professor at Pratt a couple of
times. I have no idea of what the organization chart at Levy's college
looks like. I have no idea of who reports to who. But this is not the main
question to me. The Sokal affair was highly embarrassing to the people at
Social Text and they don't need somebody like Levy going around spreading
dirt.

Levy also claimed that I contacted other people's employer to "rat" on
them. This is also a lie that he repeated continually on PEN-L, when I was
not even on the list. He claims that I tried to get somebody fired from the
phone company. As it turned out, the incident that Maggie reported on had
nothing to do with me. Levy never retracted this charge and kept repeating
this lie.

This is all I will have to say on this unfortunate person. He is given the
opportunity to live the life of a scholar. With all the time allotted to
him, he shows scant interest in reading about or discussing history,
politics, economics, etc. He is much more interested in slinging mud at
Doug or me.

I am astonished that Levy would resort to the sort of undignified behavior
that got him thrown off Marxism-International. Perhaps he is just sick of
all these boring discussions about Marx and India, etc. That's too bad. I
suspect that the rest of us will never get tired ourselves. That is why we
are here.

Louis Proyect

Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again

[Gerald Levy]

Stephen E Philion wrote:
 
> Yes, but Jerry you have to explain why you recommend that Doug
> a) choose a liberal school that charges outrageous tution rates that most
> working class students cannot afford instead of the Marxist School, which
> is much cheaper and run by a group of admisitrators who have a much
> greater commitment to Marxism.  

The New School's Economics Department is one of the more (if not the most)
radical of any economics departments in the US.  The Marxist School can
not (and indeed has never claimed that it could) be a substitute for a
graduate training in political economy. [btw, when was the last time you
looked at the Marxist School's listing of course offerings?].
 
> b) retain a liberal faith in education through taking classes in lieu of
> praxis in political activity (i.e. organizing workers..), which would
> reflect a Marxist commitment. 

I don't have a "liberal faith" in education. However, I think that an
understanding of political economy requires deliberate study and will not
come to one automatically as a result of organizing workers. Marx,
evidently, thought so as well (hence his advice in the  1872 "Preface to
the French Edition" of V1).

> c) engage in such activities in order to 'learn' something about 
> value.  

One studies Marx and political economy in order to understand (and change)
the world.  To understand Marx's critique of political economy (whether
one accepts or rejects his method of analysis) requires that one study his
conception of value. This is no easy task ... as Marx himself suggests in
the "Preface to the French Edition."

> Then again, considering how much energy you have
> used to defend the likes of a Malecki, well...

Yes, it is true that I have publicly defended Bob M from the foul and
malicious charge that he is (or was) an FBI agent. Moreover, I take pride
in having challenged the person (and his supporters, like Doug) who made
this accusation. Cop-baiting is a serious issue for those who are serious
about politics. For those that have no sense of personal integrity,
anything goes (including calling someone that you disagree with a cop or
becoming a pro-management snitch). Thank you for bringing this topic up on
PEN-L, Steve.

Jerry

[PEN-L] Re: My one and only reply to Levy

[Gerald Levy]

Louis Proyect wrote:

> >becoming a pro-management snitch).
> Levy, I was going to ignore this as I used to ignore your ravings on the
> Marxism-International mailing-list. I think most people on PEN-L are
> starting to form the same sort of impression of you that people already
> have on the Spoons-List. You are a person who forms personal vendettas that
> will last with you until go to your grave.
> Malecki was on PEN-L so people have a memory of who and what he was.

There is no reason to respond to anything else that LNP wrote in his post
other than the above since it *by itself* condemns him ... forever. 

LNP didn't (and doesn't) like Bob Malecki. Well, OK ... he's not exactly
my favorite person either. But, Proyect decided that since he didn't like
Malecki (a personal grudge), he would [try to] chase him off of cyberspace
by maliciously claiming that he was an FBI agent! There is *absolutely no*
proof for this charge yet LNP has made it over and over and over again on
several lists. 

What are we to make of someone who knowingly attempts to destroy a
person's reputation and isolate him politically by spreading malicious
lies that he (and other Trotskyists over at Spoons like Hugh and Dave B)
is a cop?

For those who have never been politically active, the issue of cop-baiting
may not appear to be such a big deal. For those that have any history of
political activism, though, you know how insidious a form of behavior it
is. Indeed, it was the FBI itself through the COINTELPRO program that
often spread the rumor that members of the Black Panther Party and some
other radical groups were cops (or, more specifically, FBI agents). 

But Proyect didn't do this once -- he did it repeatedly. That makes him
scum in my book and ... yes, I do have a long memory.  If we are serious
about politics, we need to remember who are the snitches and cop-baiters.

Jerry  

Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again

[MIKEY]

Friends,

I do not know why comrade Levy is so bitter.  Who needs this stuff?  I doubt 
Doug needs to go back to school though it would be nice to think of pen-l as a 
school in which we all can learn rahter than make smart aleck remarks.

michael yates

[PEN-L] empiricism in p.e.

[Gerald Levy]

James Devine wrote:

> Being Marx-informed and
> Marx-friendly, his "superficial" or "empiricist" analyses in WALL STREET
> takes for granted Marx's vol. I macro-analysis. 

He has not "taken for granted" the distinction between productive and
unproductive labour and has indeed often explicitly rejected the use of
Marxian categories such as c, v, and s for empirical work. (source:
Internet mailing lists,  e.g. marxism-thaxis). On the other hand, he
wants to use Marxian words like exploitation and surplus value but is
unwilling to define those terms or explain how they are measured. (source:
PEN-L -- numerous occasions).

> Much more charitably to Doug, there's no need to reinvent the theoretical
> wheel in every article or book that deals with empirical issues. This is
> good, since the empirical issues are so important and we need to understand
> them.

One doesn't have to "reinvent the theoretical wheel", but one needs to
know how the wheel operates rather than just assert faith in the wheel.
>From a methodological perspective, it is not sufficient to simply "take
for granted" one level of analysis without *explaining* -- and
systematically developing --  the relation between different levels of
abstraction.

> Further, Doug argues at length for one of Marx's main points (rather than
> simply assuming its truth), i.e., that labor-power the Finance, Insurance,
> and Real Estate is unproductive (and not indirectly productive) to capital.
> This is a good thing to do.

DH has openly and explicitly rejected the distinction in Marx of
productive and unproductive labour. (source: marxism-thaxis). Since he has
done that in an assertive way without explaining why, that is not a good
thing to do.

Jerry

PS: it's not personal, it's political.

[PEN-L] Re: income & race

[Gerald Levy]

Ellen (anzalone/starbird) wrote:

> Is it true that inmates incarcerated in prison are NOT counted as
> households in your data?

To be counted as being employed or unemployed in the US data, one must
first be counted as being part of the labor force. But, the labor force is
defined in such a way that if you are not "working for pay", then you must
be "actively seeking paid employment." Since prisoners are not "actively
seeking paid employment", they are not counted as being part of the labor
force or the unemployed. Aren't bourgeois statistics beautiful?
 
> The white poor are still with us, but the Black poor are in the slammer.

Huh? You don't actually believe that a majority of "Black poor are in the
slammer", do you?

> , the (free) Blacks are (statistically) thriving
> economically under the Reagan-Bush-Clinton administrations.

Huh? In what sense did "(free) Blacks" thrive since 1980?

Jerry

unproductive/productive labor

[James Devine]

According to Jerry Levy, Doug > has not "taken for granted" the distinction
between productive and unproductive labour and has indeed often explicitly
rejected the use of
Marxian categories such as c, v, and s for empirical work. ... On the other
hand, he
wants to use Marxian words like exploitation and surplus value but is
unwilling to define those terms or explain how they are measured<

and > DH has openly and explicitly rejected the distinction in Marx of
productive and unproductive labour<

I can't believe that anyone could get so _excited_ about the issue of
unproductive vs. productive labor; it's a pretty academic issue that should
have no emotional content. Bitter criticism seems out of line. 

Marx never develops the concept completely, never really explains what the
role of the concept is in his crisis theory. It doesn't seem as central to
Marx's thought as say, the theory of surplus-value (though of course they
are related). It doesn't seem as important to Marx as it is for some
latter-day Marxists. 

There are also the well-known criticisms of the concept that lead some
Marxists, such as David Laibman, to reject the concept altogether (as a
remnant of classical bourgeois political economy). Empirically, much
labor-power that is engaged in productive labor (e.g., shipping) is also
engaged in unproductive labor (taking payment for delivery). On top of this,
much of Marx's "unproductive labor" seems to be indirectly productive (e.g.,
public school teachers), i.e., promoting the productivity of productive
labor-power. The concept becomes very fuzzy in practice (though the FIRE
sector seems entirely unproductive). As I said before, I can't see the
reason for including the wages of unproductive labor-power as part of
surplus-value in the calculation of the profit rate. In what other kind of
empirical study are the wages of unproductive labor-power important? Given
that I haven't seen a good answer to this question, I can see why an
empirically-minded political economist might decide that the (un)productive
labor distinction is irrelevant. 

The view of Poulantzas and others that somehow unproductive workers are
really proletarians or have less revolutionary potential not only seems to
be unjustified by Marx's work but takes capital's perspective (after all,
unproductive workers are unproductive of surplus-value). If that view is
flawed, what _is_ the political importance of the concept of (un)productive
labor?

One thing I've noticed is that there's no one-to-one mapping between
different people's theoretical stances and their politics. After all, the
practical implication of any theory is to some extent subjective. 

Though I get involved in academic debates, I can understand why someone
might judge the benefits of such debates to be less than the costs,
especially when the debates get into excessive analysis of obscure texts and
biblical-style quotation mongering (that might distract us from the brewing
war against Iraq). I can't reject the relevance of such debates, but I can
see why someone might be impatient with them. As pen-lers know, I usually
avoid this kind of textual analysis but do not argue that everyone has to
follow my practice. So far, no-one's perfect and can do everything, so that
a division of labor among political economists, between theorists, text
analysts, and more practical types, makes a lot of sense as long as there is
communication amongst us.

Jerry also writes that >One doesn't have to "reinvent the theoretical
wheel", but one needs to know how the wheel operates rather than just assert
faith in the wheel. From a methodological perspective, it is not sufficient
to simply "take for granted" one level of analysis without *explaining* --
and systematically developing -- the relation between different levels of
abstraction.<

I agree with this method, but I can see the benefit of some books (e.g.,
WALL STREET)  that fail to live up this ideal in some ways. (Damn, I wish I
could write a book that good.) I am sure a lot of people are out on the road
driving now who don't know how their cars work. They can be very good
drivers, too. I don't see why total adherence to the methodological ideal
that Jerry states is absolutely necessary to making contributions to
political economy. We're all ignorant about _something_, right?

Also, I think it's a mistake to always work from the abstract to the
concrete and thus to privilege theory over empirical study. Marx, e.g.,
worked both ways.

Jim Devine
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Academic version of a Bette Midler song: "you are the hot air beneath my wings."

Re: [PEN-L] Re: My one and only reply to Levy

[Gerald Levy]

Stephen E Philion wrote:

> This is the problem Jerry. You say you are critical of Malecki, yet you
> have never spent any energy criticizing this guy, 

Where do you get your information from? Just recently, I criticized him 
publicly (and repeatedly).

> Lou's sin was simple and he apologized for it, publicly,

And, *after apologizing*, he made the same charge again and again and
again on several mailing lists.
 
There was simply *NO* excuse for LNP's malicious behavior -- and it is of
a scale far worse than anything that Bob M has ever done. There can be no
forgiving or forgetting such vile behavior.

Jerry

[PEN-L] Re: unproductive/productive labor

[Gerald Levy]

James Devine wrote:

> I can't believe that anyone could get so _excited_ about the issue of
> unproductive vs. productive labor; it's a pretty academic issue that should
> have no emotional content. Bitter criticism seems out of line. 

I was simply pointing out that your claim re Henwood's position on
productive and unproductive labour was false and can be demonstrated as
being false from his many statements on other Net lists.

Jerry

Re: [PEN-L] Re: My one and only reply to Levy

[Stephen E Philion]

jerry,

On M-I and Pen-L you have singled out Doug for your bitter attacks.
I subscribe to these two lists and have not seen you attack anyone else
with such bitterness.  As Michael Yates and James Devine have pointed out,
your criticisms are especially vitriolic, which this list is not 
supportive of.  On this list I have seen people getting into extended
debates with Doug on different issues, but none telling him to go back to
school...you leave your readers with little choice but to believe this is
personal, not political.

Think of it like this.  Maurce Dobb and Paul Sweezy had a very lively
debate in the 1950's.  Their views  were largely irreconcilable, yet
neither party ever sunk to telling the other one "to go back to school to
learn (fill in th eblank)..."  Brenner and Wallerstein likewise had a very
fierce debate in the 80's, again without sinking to such remarks...

Ya wanna debate Doug, fine.  Offer an alternative to his book after
finally reading it? Fine. Great even, this list is for that.  But the
petty personal attacks we can do without.  

 

Re: [PEN-L] Re: My one and only reply to Levy

[Gerald Levy]

Stephen E Philion wrote:

> Think of it like this.  Maurce Dobb and Paul Sweezy had a very lively
> debate in the 1950's.  Their views  were largely irreconcilable, yet
> neither party ever sunk to telling the other one "to go back to school to
> learn (fill in th eblank)..."  Brenner and Wallerstein likewise had a very
> fierce debate in the 80's, again without sinking to such remarks...

We live in a different era: we have the Internet as a resource. What we
write on the Net, we will surely be held responsible for. Unfortunately,
subscribers to PEN can only see the tip of the iceberg as they have not
read what DH has written on other lists. Yet, what he said on those lists
is publicly available. For those who have the ambition to search through
the archives of those lists, I am convinced that they will find my
comments justified (and will also discover a side of DH that they are not
familiar with). 

Jerry

Re: unproductive/productive labor

[James Devine]

I had written:>> I can't believe that anyone could get so _excited_ about
the issue of
unproductive vs. productive labor; it's a pretty academic issue that should
have no emotional content. Bitter criticism seems out of line. <<

Jerry Levy replies: >I was simply pointing out that your claim re Henwood's
position on productive and unproductive labour was false and can be
demonstrated as being false from his many statements on other Net lists.<

I don't know what specific claim Jerry's referring to here and have better
things to do with my time than to search through the archive to figure out
what it is.

However, I notice that in LBO #78, Doug Henwood used the concept of
(un)productive labor in a very productive way. He used Shaikh and Tonak's
categorization of different sectors as productive or unproductive to
calculate the ratio of "nonproductive" fixed capital to GDP (by assigning K
from different industries to that category). Unless "DH" has hired a
ghostwriter, he's doing exactly the kind of thing you want him to do: he's
taking an abstract concept of the sort that you like, Jerry, and using it to
understand day to day, empirical, events. He suggests that the rising ratio
of nonproductive K to GDP might explain the way in which labor productivity
is continuing to grow slowly. Frankly, I think this kind of exercise makes
more sense than the standard use of (un)productive labor-power, which has a
very tenuous connection with the actual behavior of a capitalist economy.

Now I'm sure you can dig up evidence from various list archives suggesting
that Doug has pooh-poohed the utility of the (un)productive labor concept in
the past. But such evidence suggests a willingness to change his mind as he
read new books and got new evidence, a kind of behavior you recently praised
on pen-l. 

This seems a basis for convergence in the Levy vs. Henwood wars.






Jim Devine
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Academic version of a Bette Midler song: "you are the hot air beneath my wings."

Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again

[MScoleman]

In a message dated 97-11-01 21:26:21 EST, you write:

>my vote is that Doug should go to
>>SUNY--Stonybrook.  For game theory.

Hey, hey, hey!  My mother graduated from stony brook in the early 1970s.  Her
graduating class all wore gas masks in protest against the war.  We (her kids
-- only five of the six attended) all wore suitable anti-war attire.

maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: dead girls

[MScoleman]

New York Times, October 30, 1997, p. A31.

"China's Missing Girls" by Bob Herbert.  "There has never been the kind of
international outcry that there should be over the girls who are missing from
the population of China.  The world has largely closed its eyes to this
immense tragedy.
  A cultural preference for boys and China's ruthlessly enforced
childbearing restrictions have resulted in the wholesale destruction of girl
babies through gross neglect, abandonment, infanticide and, in recent years,
the targeted abortion of female fetuses.
  Susan Greenhalgh, an anthropologist from the University of
California at Irvine who has studied this problem for a number of years,
described the situation as "frightening."  In a paper she co-wrote two years
ago with demographer Jiali Li, Ms. Greenhalgh said that little girls were
being eliminated from Chinese society "on a massive scale."
  An American who did volunteer work at an orphanage in Guangzhou,
formerly Canton, reported witnessing the disposal of the bodies of abandoned
girls who had died at the orphanage.  She said they were carted out in
wheelbarrows, tossed into a dumpster and ultimately taken away by municipal
garbage collectors.  The volunteer said she was devastated by the sight.
  No one knows how many girls have been lost but the demographic data
show that the toll has been enormous.  There is now a profound imbalance in
favor of boys in the number of small children in China.
  Normally the number of boys and girls in a society is roughly in
balance,  However, the sex ratios tend to be skewed in favor of boys in those
cultures with a heavy preference for boys.  In China, according to William
Lavely, a demographer and profesor of international studies at the university
of Washington, the ratios of boys to girls have risen dramatically, even for
a society that prizes boys, and are at "very alarming levels now."
  Citing statistics from a Chinese census sampling in 1995, Mr.
Lavely noted that among 4-year-olds there are 115 boys for every 100 girls;
among 3-year-olds, 119 boys per 100 girls; among 2-year-olds , 121 boys;
among 1-year-olds, 121 boys; and among children less than a year old, 116
boys per 100 girls.
  What happened to all those girls?
  Mr. Lavely said there was no doubt that the number of sex-selective
abortions was increasing, but he noted that differences in the mortality rate
for girl babies and boy babies were a substantial factor.  The census data,
he said, suggest "that the infant mortality rate for girls relative to boys
worsened in the 1990s." ...
  A report compiled by Mr. Lavely said census figures showed that
"about 5.8 percent of girls born in 1989-90 went 'missing' from the
population.  Of these, at least 19.5 percent are missing due to female
mortality in excess of [that] expected, and 80.5 percent are missing due to
other unknown causes."
  ""For the 1995 birth cohort," said Mr. Lavely,"9.6 percent of girls
are missing, of which 15 percent of the missing are due to mortality and the
other 85 percent ... are due to unknon causes."

  There was some improvement in the ratio of bous to girls in
1994-95.  A greater international spotlight on the problem would probably
accelerate the improvement.  /but compared with matters like trade,
technological advances and the treatment of dissidents, the slaughter of girl
babied can be a tough sell.

all typing errors are my fault, maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] 

Re: income & race

[anzalone/starbird]

Has there been a decrease in Black teenage unemployment? ellen

>In a message dated 97-11-01 20:09:26 EST, (Doug, er, whoever) writes:
>
>>Obviously an unemployment rate below 5% should help black workers a lot,
>>but why are the bottom quintile of white households losing income (-4.3%
>>between 1989 and 1996) while the bottom quintile of blacks (who are much
>>poorer than whites in the bottom quintile) is up 5.2%. That's a difference
>>of nearly 10 percentage points in just 7 years, which strikes me as pretty
>>significant.
>Just to throw an undocumented thought or two into the fray -- I have to
>assume that a significant portion of the bottom quintile of black households
>are headed by black women.  Could this increase come from: the fact that
>women, particularly black women, are the only increasing demographic category
>in union membership?  From the fact that black women are employed at a higher
>rate than black men (so many of whom are in jail)?  From the increase in
>minimum wage: minimum wage workers being more than 60% female?  From the
>decrease in black teenage unemployment -- adding second incomes to these
>households?
>
>>I have to run & fill out my school application forms now.
>Does LBO provide tuition refunds?
>
>maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: income & race

[MScoleman]

In a message dated 97-11-01 20:09:26 EST, (Doug, er, whoever) writes:

>Obviously an unemployment rate below 5% should help black workers a lot,
>but why are the bottom quintile of white households losing income (-4.3%
>between 1989 and 1996) while the bottom quintile of blacks (who are much
>poorer than whites in the bottom quintile) is up 5.2%. That's a difference
>of nearly 10 percentage points in just 7 years, which strikes me as pretty
>significant.
Just to throw an undocumented thought or two into the fray -- I have to
assume that a significant portion of the bottom quintile of black households
are headed by black women.  Could this increase come from: the fact that
women, particularly black women, are the only increasing demographic category
in union membership?  From the fact that black women are employed at a higher
rate than black men (so many of whom are in jail)?  From the increase in
minimum wage: minimum wage workers being more than 60% female?  From the
decrease in black teenage unemployment -- adding second incomes to these
households?

>I have to run & fill out my school application forms now.
Does LBO provide tuition refunds?

maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Actual US Unemployment Rate??

[MScoleman]

In a message dated 97-10-31 18:46:15 EST, Lawrence Shute writes:

>I may be living in some alternate universe, but I've long thought that the
>actual US unemployment rate was much higher (say, twice as high) as the
>published figures.  Because of under counting of undocumented residents,
>discouraged workers, and plain old missing of large groups of poor.

There's underemployment, involuntary part time, the definition of what
'looking for work' is (in European countries it is different than in the
usa).  Aside from all the undocumented residents, there is all the
non-recorded work performed by legal residents -- for instance, most welfare
recipients have some sort of off the books occupation.  And then there's all
that women's work..
maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Marx on colonialism--names

[MScoleman]

In a message dated 97-10-31 09:37:26 EST, you write:

>OK, I have to confess. I've been posting to PEN-L and other lists under the
>name Jerry Levy to provoke controversy, and with it attention. Because as
>we say in the self-promotional trade, there's no such thing as bad
>publicity.
>
>Doug

Damn, I'd like to confess to wild controversial postings under another name
-- like Suzie Creamcheese or something, but I can barely keep up with
responses to the trash, er commentary, I produce under my own name. 

maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]

p.s. what WOULD be a good alternative name?  "she who must be obeyed?"  Hmm,
no, that's already in use by Rumpole, h

Re: [PEN-L] Re: My one and only reply to Levy

[Stephen E Philion]

On Sun, 2 Nov 1997, Gerald Levy wrote:
> 
> LNP didn't (and doesn't) like Bob Malecki. Well, OK ... he's not exactly
> my favorite person either. But, Proyect decided that since he didn't like
> Malecki (a personal grudge), he would [try to] chase him off of cyberspace
> by maliciously claiming that he was an FBI agent! There is *absolutely no*
> proof for this charge yet LNP has made it over and over and over again on
> several lists. 

This is the problem Jerry. You say you are critical of Malecki, yet you
have never spent any energy criticizing this guy, who as Lou points out,
has been kicked off almost every list he has ever been on.  Now, it is odd
that you spend much more energy attacking Doug or Lou, both of whom have
considerable respect for their contributions to this list (recall Gil's
statement), yet have never spent that kind of energy attacking someone
almost every sane person disdains, namely Malecki.

Lou's sin was simple and he apologized for it, publicly, I don't know what
more he could do to atone for his sin of calling Malecki an agent without
direct proof.  Lou restated his claim that Malecki is  a loonytune who
takes delight in creating disruption on left lists.  That is very obvious
and not something that anyone disagrees with who has the capacity to
discern, at least not on this list.

But clearly Doug's contributions make you angrier than Malecki's. That is
telling...

Steve

Re: income & race

[anzalone/starbird]

Hi Doug!

I'm not sure who makes it into the count of Black households, and so I ask
this as much out of ignorance as I hope, to be of some help on directing
the inquiry on income and race in a positive direction (as I can be no help
in providing a packaged answer, besides idunno.)

Is it true that inmates incarcerated in prison are NOT counted as
households in your data?

If so then the 1986-1997 "War on (Black American men mascarading itself as
a War on) Drugs" might account for a dilution/removal of the most
employment vulnerable from you statistically pool.

If prisoners don't count, then those Black men who would have been most
likely to have "driven down the average" by being unemployed the households
by being listed as the most poor households of your Black community are
simply not on your ledger at all.


And if indeed, the majority of the prison growth which has been astonishing
in the years of your inquiry has been directly largely against the most
economically vulnerable of the Black men, prehaps the mass incarceration
movement known as the war on drugs can be spotted through your income data.


Asuming the Black prisoners are absent from your statistical pool of Black
households. (I believe the U.S. now has more African Americans incarcerated
per capita then the DeKlerk administration of South African apartheid.

The white poor are still with us, but the Black poor are in the slammer.
Thus whites are poorer, the (free) Blacks are (statistically) thriving
economically under the Reagan-Bush-Clinton administrations.

If prisoners ARE counted in your U.S. income figures, then as they say on
Saturday night live, nevermind.

In an effort to be helpful,

Ellen Starbird


>I've just been looking at the 1996 U.S. income figures. Median incomes of
>black households have risen from 58.2% of white ones in 1992 to 63.2% in
>1996, the highest on record. The black poverty rate is also the lowest on
>record. Obviously the gap is still very wide, but has anyone else noticed
>this trend? What's happening?
>
>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: 
>web: 

Re: [PEN-L] empiricism in p.e.

[Doug Henwood]

James Devine wrote:

>So to my mind, Doug may be like Moliere's bourgeois gentleman (without being
>bourgeois himself, of course): he's been speaking Marxian value-theoretic
>prose all his non-lit-crit life without knowing it. Being Marx-informed and
>Marx-friendly, his "superficial" or "empiricist" analyses in WALL STREET
>takes for granted Marx's vol. I macro-analysis.

This stuff is all in my head; I'm not doing it unconsciously. I just don't
see the need to trot out the standard vocab, and make the ritual
obeisances, when I'm not writing for that sort of audience.

Now it's off to the West for a week. I'm not unsub'ing in case you all
solve the value controversy in my absence.

Doug

Re: [PEN-L] empiricism in p.e.

[James Devine]

This discussion of value theory vs. empiricism needs some clarification,
ignoring the personal invective. 

We should start with Marx's value-based analysis of capitalism as a social
system, in vol. I of CAPITAL. (Marx, unlike bourgeois economists with their
"methodological individualism", starts with the big picture.) Surplus-value
is defined in terms of what's good for the capitalist class as a whole (or
for the representative capital, the capital from which all of the particular
characteristics of individual capitalists have been abstracted). S = Y - V -
U, where Y is the total value produced (net of constant capital) by
productive labor, V is the amount of socially-necessary abstract labor-time
(i.e., value) needed to reproduce the productive labor-power, and U is the
amount of value needed to reproduce the unproductive labor-power, assuming
that the two kinds of labor-power can be separated and that unproductive
labor-power isn't indirectly productive. 

While revealing the societal nature of capitalist production, vol. I does
not give us a picture of how it works from the perspective of its
participants; this volume does not provide us with "models" of individual
behavior. (People who were indoctrinated by econ. grad. school almost always
assume that it does. But Marx is not developing a theory of prices in chs.
1-3 but a theory of commodity-producing society, much more historicist and
structuralist than behavioral.) In fact, the fetishism of commodities
(called the illusions created by competition in vol. III) keeps people from
understanding the societal nature of exploitation, etc. I should emphasize
that com. fet. and the illusions created by competition are not a matter of
simple "false consciousness." They are partial perspectives based on the
position that the participants have inside the capitalist system. They
involve mirages (inverted views of real phenomena) rather than
hallucinations, to use Derek Sayer's formulation. 

Even though vol. I totally avoids the issue of relative prices (since it
abstracts from the differences among use-values after ch. 3), it does
approach having a "microeconomic" analysis of _production_ because Marx
deals with capitalist class relations in that very important microcosm. Thus
we can see the relevance of some of the mainstream microtheory that Gil
refers to. As he points out, however, this theory is almost entirely
blinkered by ideology: the standard neoclassical analysis is that production
is a collective goods problem, where workers and capitalists have to get
together to figure out how to punish free-riders, etc., to allow the
collective good's complete production ("efficiency"). The class division and
the capitalist's strategy of divide-and-conquer (which _encourages_
free-riding in the production of the workers' collective good) is dealt with
superficially, as only conjunctural. (It's kind of like Jiang treating the
Tianamen square events as merely an "error" by the Chinese gov't.) 

This neoclassical analysis, BTW, is not totally and utterly wrong: if one
takes competition for granted and looks at matters simply from the
perspective of one company, one might see the workers and management has
having a shared community of interests. Until, at least, management shuts
down the quality circles and moves the plant to Mexico... The "truth" of the
collective goods analysis of capitalist production is also based on a static
perspective, something that infects all or almost all neoclassicals. The
limits on the neoclassical vision also involve their methodological
individualism, their lack of any consciousness of the totality of class
relations that Marx explains using value analysis.

In Vol. III, Marx moves toward presenting a picture of how individuals
perceive the world and act in markets, in circulation (see the first page of
chapter 1). (Vol. II really talks about the structure of circulation rather
than individual roles in that process.) That's where he starts talking about
individual commodities and relative prices and the "transformation problem." 

To my mind, the latter should be renamed the "disaggregation problem": how
is the total value produced by capitalist society as a whole distributed
among the large number of commodity producers, in the form of money prices?
how is the total surplus-value produced by workers as a class distributed
among the various property-owners in the form of individual profits,
interest, and rent? (Fred Moseley's article that I cited awhile back (in his
edited book on Marx's method in CAPITAL) is pretty good on this.) In order
to get to this point, of course, Marx had to first explain the societal
process of the creation of value and surplus-value, which was the main point
of vol. I. On the surface of society, capitalists do roughly follow supply
and demand (and MR = MC) to set prices and to appropriate profits. But to
understand how it is possible for the sum of all of the profits of all of
the capitalists to exceed zero 

Caution

[michael perelman]

We are getting into the personal invective again.  Please, let this drop. 
We have more important things to discuss.
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
916-898-5321
916-898-5901 fax