Re: scale economies
I looked at this a bit during the summer and this sounds more or less correct. in things like steel, lates wave of technology has drastically reduced the minimum efficient scale. and the classic lit on minimal scale says that in most American industries the existing concentration is not mainly a result of efficiency concerns. can you tell us who wrote this so we can get whatever hard data they have? Thad At 07:29 PM 11/15/97 -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: >Someone posted this to another list: > >>Scale economies--the savings (in unit costs) that come with higher >>volumes of output--are typically exhausted rather rapidly in most >>industries. The common estimate in the auto industry, for example, is that >>there are no cost savings beyond 7.5% of the U.S. car market. At that >>volume, unit costs are as low as they can be driven with the existing >>technology. There are virtually no industries in which a market share >>greater than 10% of the U.S. market is required to exhaust all scale >>economies--to reach the lowest (technologically) attainable cost per unit. > >Does anyone know how true this is? > >Doug > > > Thad Williamson National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives (Washington)/ Union Theological Seminary (New York) 212-531-1935 http://www.northcarolina.com/thad
Re: Query: Parents-children income relationship
How about "Schooling In Capitalist America" that I think comes out of Harvard? on the question of the myth of the meritocracy... Ellen >Anyone have good references on the relationship between the incomes of >children and their parents. Said differently, are their any good >empirical pieces on intergenerational class mobility? > >Jeff Fellows >Prevention Effectiveness Fellow >Division of Violence Prevention >NCIPC, CDC >Atlanta, GA
Re: scale economies
Charles Mueller likes Adams, who is the probable source: Adams, Walter. 1986. The Structure of American Industry, seventh edition (NY: Macmillan). 133-136: The minimum efficient scale is about 300,000 vehicles per year. > > Someone posted this to another list: > > >Scale economies--the savings (in unit costs) that come with higher > >volumes of output--are typically exhausted rather rapidly in most > >industries. The common estimate in the auto industry, for example, is that > >there are no cost savings beyond 7.5% of the U.S. car market. At that > >volume, unit costs are as low as they can be driven with the existing > >technology. There are virtually no industries in which a market share > >greater than 10% of the U.S. market is required to exhaust all scale > >economies--to reach the lowest (technologically) attainable cost per unit. > > Does anyone know how true this is? > > Doug > > > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: scale economies
Thad Williamson wrote: >can you tell us who wrote this so we can get whatever hard data they have? It was from Charles Mueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Editor, ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW, http://webpages.metrolink.net/~cmueller. I've already written him asking for his sources; I'll forward what I hear. Doug
Re: Question
David Gordon's latest and unfortunately last book, Fat and Mean, should do the trick. For the trends and some analysis, Edward Wolff's latest paperback (I forget the title now.) Or the EPI annual, state of working america, of course. thad At 09:26 PM 11/15/97 -0800, Tom Walker wrote: >Peter Bohmer wrote, > >>Is there a recent book you would recommend as a good recent left analysis on >>the causes of the growing inequality of income and wealth in the United >>States for an undergraduate program in political eocnomy. > >Simple. The rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. That's the >cause of the growing inequality. Who needs a book to tell 'em that? Of >course, I'm no eocnomist. > >Regards, > >Tom Walker >^^^ >knoW Ware Communications >Vancouver, B.C., CANADA >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >(604) 688-8296 >^^^ >The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/ > > Thad Williamson National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives (Washington)/ Union Theological Seminary (New York) 212-531-1935 http://www.northcarolina.com/thad
Dialectical materialism and the environmental crisis
Some reading over the past couple of days has convinced me that it is time to reconsider dialectical materialism, the unjustly maligned attempt by Marx and Engels to provide a unified analysis of society and nature. Dialectical materialism has gotten a bad reputation from its use in Soviet apologetics, but, despite this, an updated version can provide insights into the environmental crisis that historical materialism simply can not. Jean-Guy Vaillancourt's essay "Marx and Ecology: More Benedictine than Franciscan" is contained in the collection "The Greening of Marxism" (Guilford, 1996) raises this question in a most perceptive way. (By the way, there's an essay by this guy named Michael Perelman titled "Marx and Resource Scarcity" in there as well. It's pretty gosh-darned good.) Vaillancourt singles out Engels's "Anti-Duhring" and the "Dialectics of Nature" for special consideration since they are more directly concerned with nature and ecology than any of the previous writings of Marx and Engels. They are also considered bulwarks of dialectical materialist thought. The "Dialectics of Nature" contains the famous chapter "The Role of Work in Transforming Ape into Man." Most people are quite familiar with the paragraph that describes how the "conquest" of nature can have unexpected results: "Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that by removing along with the forests the collecting centres and reservoirs of moisture they were laying the basis for the present forlorn state of those countries. When the Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests on the southern slopes, so carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so they were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry in their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of water for the greater part of the year, and making it possible for them to pour still more furious torrents on the plains during the rainy seasons. Those who spread the potato in Europe were not aware that with these farinaceous tubers they were at the same time spreading scrofula. Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature -- but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly." What is less frequently quoted is the paragraph which immediately follows: "And, in fact, with every day that passes we are acquiring a better understanding of these laws and getting to perceive both the more immediate and the more remote consequences of our interference with the traditional course of nature. In particular, after the mighty advances made by the natural sciences in the present century, we are more than ever in a position to realise, and hence to control, also the more remote natural consequences of at least our day-to-day production activities. But the more this progresses the more will humanity not only feel but also know their oneness with nature, and the more impossible will become the senseless and unnatural idea of a contrast between mind and matter, humanity and nature, soul and body, such as arose after the decline of classical antiquity in Europe and obtained its highest elaboration in Christianity." When Engels states we will know our "oneness with nature", he is really hearkening back to the classical materialist roots of Marxism. After all, Marx wrote his PhD thesis on the philosophy of nature in Democritus and Epicurus. These philosophers are in the materialist tradition begun by Parmenides and Heraclitus, who lived a century before. This tradition is continued in the philosophy of Hippocrates, Aristotle and Theophrastus, who are the forerunners of the science of nature and even of scientific ecology itself. The opposed philosophical tradition of Plato, which posits a duality between mind and nature, is certainly at the root of Christian theology itself which Engels attacks. Was Engels's studies of the dialectics of nature something that he did while Marx's back was turned? There is a tendency to blame Engels for everything that has gone wrong in Marxism. While the Frankfurt School thinks that everything went wrong after 1844, when Marx and Engels supposedly dumped "humanism", it is the Althusserites who put the blame on Fred himself. They set the date when everything
Re: scale economies
Michael Perelman wrote: >Charles Mueller likes Adams, who is the probable source: >Adams, Walter. 1986. The Structure of American Industry, seventh edition >(NY: Macmillan). > 133-136: The minimum efficient scale is about 300,000 vehicles per year. Bingo, Michael. So what do you think of this? It seems right up your alley. Why is GM so damn big then? Doug
Re: Question
Peter Bohmer wrote, >Is there a recent book you would recommend as a good recent left analysis on >the causes of the growing inequality of income and wealth in the United >States for an undergraduate program in political eocnomy. Simple. The rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. That's the cause of the growing inequality. Who needs a book to tell 'em that? Of course, I'm no eocnomist. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Question
Is there a recent book you would recommend as a good recent left analysis on the causes of the growing inequality of income and wealth in the United States for an undergraduate program in political eocnomy. Thanks, peter Bohmer
scale economies
Someone posted this to another list: >Scale economies--the savings (in unit costs) that come with higher >volumes of output--are typically exhausted rather rapidly in most >industries. The common estimate in the auto industry, for example, is that >there are no cost savings beyond 7.5% of the U.S. car market. At that >volume, unit costs are as low as they can be driven with the existing >technology. There are virtually no industries in which a market share >greater than 10% of the U.S. market is required to exhaust all scale >economies--to reach the lowest (technologically) attainable cost per unit. Does anyone know how true this is? Doug
Arab Nations Oppose Use Of Force Against Iraq
In the face of the growing tensions in the Middle East caused by the threats of the United States to use military force against Iraq, Arab nations have expressly stated their opposition to the use of force against Iraq. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said "The use of force is not appropriate." Official government statements in Syria oppose military action and call for an end to the U.N. sanctions against Iraq. Kuwait announced that the crisis "between Iraq and the Security Council is an issue related to them and Kuwait has nothing to do with it." In other words, Kuwait will not support military action against Iraq. The Arab League is on record as opposing the use of force against Iraq. In a statement issued following the criminal U.S. missile attack against Iraq on January 14, 1993, the Arab League stated: "The Arab League rejects the use of force to solve conflicts between countries and regrets the policy of escalation against Iraq...which extended to include bombings of Iraqi civilian targets inside Bhagdad, inflicting civilian casualties amongst the brotherly Iraqi people." The statement also stressed "once again its strong keeness on the sovereignty, territorial integrity and safety of Iraq and its people." The Arab League urged the international community not to use double standards in applying UN Security Council resolutions, "so that this method will not cause a loss of confidence and trigger negative reactions in the Arab and Islamic world regarding the credibility of international legitimacy." TML DAILY, 11/97 Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo [EMAIL PROTECTED]
