Re: Global Financial Crisis II
Quoth Tom re Max: If the bubble breaks, there is some disruption and often some socialization of the losses, but life more or less goes on. Where's the apocalypse? The disruption and the socialization of the losses are not random processes. Life goes on more or less for some people and just less for others. While Chossudovsky may have been hyperventilating, Max's and Doug's sanguine comments about the "low rate of unemployment" reveal a quaint U.S.-centric parochialism. I wouldn't worry about the apocalypse -- bedlam's as bad as it gets. Good one, Tom. Sometimes I think a few of this list ought to be paradropped into Bangladesh -or even just Spain - without a passport; nothing permanent, one purgatorial week should do. A full fridge and certain basic structural assurances can be corrosive of ideological moorings, it seems, and all of us are susceptible. ^ valis
Re: Failure of high tech welfare bashing in California
Having just read this report, words simply fail me. This is a seamless network of interlocking ironies and a candidate epitaph for our civilization. Save your Ebola rockets, Saddam; we're doing it all by ourselves! valis Well, our combined genetic intelligence can no longer be externalized in the primitive, attack-muscled mind set which builds munitions factories while babies starve. We are in the Information Age now. (Well, maybe not a few former marines I know, but most of us anyway.) We are in an age where nimble wit and negotiations are the only acceptable tools for resolving the differences of a burgeoning world population expected (with God's help) to reach 6 billion souls by the turn of the century. Systems must be managed, but people must be led. Where are our LEADERS? Men of moral courage of music of values of vision and dreams? Everywhere I look, from government building to government building, I see merchants. Businessmen. Who are these fucking accountants who manage our destinies as if mankind were the private stock room of the trilateral commission and the pentagonal shoe clerks? Who are they to share the hegemony of the Third World as if there really was more than one? Who are these old men who look at the world map as if they were considering a merger of K-mart and Sears and see the young men of the world sweeping their floors gratefully? Life is not a business and cannot be run for profit. We (you and I) have brothers in jail whose sons are hungry-- our government embraces dictators and sends them millions and millions (later they will send the sons) God, if they pass the prayer amendment, what should the kids pray for? Food? or Favorable winds? Damn. -- from Angry Little Poem Of Spring - Steve Mason, former Captain, US Army, Poet Laureate of the Vietnam Veterans of America
Re: Global Financial Crisis II
Colin Danby wrote, No, increased labor force participation by itself will raise the unemployment rate not lower it. Look up the definition of unemployment. Colin, I'm not impressed with this facile hair splitting. Why don't _you_ go look up the definition of solipsism. You might have understood from the example I gave that I'm wasn't talking about increased labour force participation "by itself". If I wanted to say "by itself" I would have said it. Maybe what I should have said, instead of "increased labour force participation" is "more people working". Where has Doug argued *anything* resembling the proposition that "working people are 'better off' if they're working more hours for less income"? Where have I said that Doug argued anything resembling the proposition? I might have implied that by failing to criticize the self-evident "meaning" of unemployment stats that Doug was letting the odious proposition stand unchallenged. That's not the same thing as saying that Doug agreed with the proposition. Failures in logic and careless use of data, which riddled the Chossudovsky piece, should not be excused because one sympathizes with the writer's politics. By the same token pointing out these problems is not tantamount to agreeing with "supply siders" or other political adversaries. Are you saying that _I_ sympathize with Chossudovsky's politics or excuse failures in logic and careless use of data? Or are you just setting up a bogus dichotomy as a platform to pontificate from? I simply was pointing out that Doug and Max were citing low unemployment data as if the significance of that data was self-evident. That doesn't make me a Chossudovsky "sympathizer" or an "adversary" of either Henwood or Sawicky. Jeez, Colin, what a thin-skinned exercise in guilt by non-association. I sure hope Doug and Max take my points more constructively. I will say, however, that pooh-poohing the apocalypse can be as much of a pose as apocalypticism itself. It might even be interesting to ask whether apocalyptic pooh-poohing isn't itself just a variation on the theme of apocalypse. In other words, Sawicky's rhetorical labelling of Chossudovsky's tract as "apocalyptic" was itself an apocalyptic gesture. Think about it. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: Global Financial Crisis II
Tom W on Doug: A family in which two adults have to be working full time to earn a similar level of income contributes twice as many participants to the labour force and thus "improves" the employment picture. It's magic: lower incomes + higher labour force participation = a lower rate of unemployment. No, increased labor force participation by itself will raise the unemployment rate not lower it. Look up the definition of unemployment. ... According to supply side economics, working people are "better off" if they're working more hours for less income. You don't buy the former set of lies, why should you buy the later? Where has Doug argued *anything* resembling the proposition that "working people are 'better off' if they're working more hours for less income"? Max Doug pointed out numerous factual errors in the Chossudovsky article, including assertions about the U.S. economy which the author clearly had not checked. Where was the "quaint U.S.-centric parochialism," to quote a previous Tom W post, in pointing out these errors? Failures in logic and careless use of data, which riddled the Chossudovsky piece, should not be excused because one sympathizes with the writer's politics. By the same token pointing out these problems is not tantamount to agreeing with "supply siders" or other political adversaries. Best. Colin
technical change
Because Ajit's most recent missive in our discussion of the issue of technical change and its implementation in practice (and related issues such as the absolute vs. relative immiseration theory) got into extreme repetition, insults, and the like, I've decided to respond to Ajit off-list. If he wants to respond to my missive on-list, that's fine. If anyone wants a copy of my contribution, I can send you one. in pen-l solidarity, 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: Global Financial Crisis II
Doug Henwood wrote, I know it's sometimes thrilling to mount a moral high horse and declaim, but I was responding specifically to the assertions in the original histrionic document that there was something fishy about U.S. employment numbers. There's nothing fishy about the *numbers* -- they measure what they're intended to measure. There is something fishy about the *relevance* of those numbers in terms of the lives of working people. A family in which one adult is working full time and earning enough to support the entire household contributes one active participant to the labour force. A family in which two adults have to be working full time to earn a similar level of income contributes twice as many participants to the labour force and thus "improves" the employment picture. It's magic: lower incomes + higher labour force participation = a lower rate of unemployment. This precisely confirms the right-wing nostrum that there is no such thing as involuntary unemployment. At a low enough wage, there is a job for everyone who wants to work. Kick out the "barriers" to "labour flexibility" and unemployment will fall. Lies, damned lies and statistics. Comparing unemployment statistics is like comparing IQ scores. According to racist IQ arguments, black people are inherently inferior. According to supply side economics, working people are "better off" if they're working more hours for less income. You don't buy the former set of lies, why should you buy the later? And, no, this is not to blame the BLS for the interpretation (or lack of interpretation) of their statistics. By the way, there's plenty of misery about 40 blocks north of where I sit that I don't really need to be parachuted anywhere to see it first hand. Probably more misery than there is among the unemployed of Spain, in fact. Maybe the interpretive problem, Doug, is that you're spending too much time SITTING 40 blocks south of where the misery is, looking at numbers. Believe me, I'm on no moral high horse here. I'm simply talking about analysis and interpretation, not about motivation and intention. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: Global Financial Crisis II
valis wrote: Quoth Tom re Max: If the bubble breaks, there is some disruption and often some socialization of the losses, but life more or less goes on. Where's the apocalypse? The disruption and the socialization of the losses are not random processes. Life goes on more or less for some people and just less for others. While Chossudovsky may have been hyperventilating, Max's and Doug's sanguine comments about the "low rate of unemployment" reveal a quaint U.S.-centric parochialism. I wouldn't worry about the apocalypse -- bedlam's as bad as it gets. Good one, Tom. Sometimes I think a few of this list ought to be paradropped into Bangladesh -or even just Spain - without a passport; nothing permanent, one purgatorial week should do. I know it's sometimes thrilling to mount a moral high horse and declaim, but I was responding specifically to the assertions in the original histrionic document that there was something fishy about U.S. employment numbers. By the way, there's plenty of misery about 40 blocks north of where I sit that I don't really need to be parachuted anywhere to see it first hand. Probably more misery than there is among the unemployed of Spain, in fact. Doug
re: technology
At 08:59 24/11/97 -0800, Jim Devine wrote: I had written: I think it would be more accurate to say that Marx's "fundamental theoretical position" involves a belief in the falling secular trend in real wages _relative to labor productivity_, i.e., a falling _value of labor power_. There's a large literature (which I will not attempt to summarize) that seems to agree that Marx predicted the _relative_ immiseration of the working class, not _absolute_ immiseration. He did suggest that working conditions could get worse. (This, of course, assumes that workers don't fight to resist the worsening. Cf. Lebowitz, BEYOND CAPITAL.) Ajit answers: I think there is a strong tendency among Marxist scholars to make Marx convenient. The thesis that Marx had a *relative* immiseration rather than *absolute* immiseration thesis is just one of those attempts. I don't want to get into yet another futile and boring Marxological Citation-Slinging Match. __ By the way Jim, it was you who started the "futile and boring" Marxological debate when you attributed a particular reasoning to Marx and even cited CAPITAL VOL.1. The problem with you is that you like to be the unchallanged marxologist of pen-l. Once you get challanged the issues get "futile and boring" etc. etc quite quickly. My point is about serious scholarship about Marx or whoever. In your previous message you authoritatively suggested that "it would be more accurate" to say that Marx had relative immiseration rather than absolute immiseration thesis. You did not provide any evidence or argument for it. You only suggested that there is a "large literature" on it which you have no interest in summarising. Now, who do you think I'm? Your undergraduate student or something? Now, when I responded that your only citation and authority on this issue, Mike Lebowitz, is not conviencing to me, and our debate on the issue is in public space which anybody can go and check and make up their mind on, the issue has immideately become "futile and boring", and that you do not wanna get involved in "citation-slinging". By the way, I do not sling citation, you do that. I interpret citation, and I think I do a decent job with it. ___ Jim: But I will correct myself: in Marx's early studies of political economy, it sure does seem that he posited an absolute immiseration. But in CAPITAL, it doesn't show up. Instead, it's a rise in the rate of surplus-value, i.e., relative immiseration. This fits with his dominant assumption in CAPITAL, i.e., that real wages are constant (_not_ falling as in the absolute immiseration vision). Of course, as I noted, there is some indication that Marx saw immiseration as occuring inside the realm of production. Vintage Jim Devine! Back tracking, and kicking dust along. _ Jim: I had written: _Most_ of vol. I assumes constant wages. But in ch. 25, he weakens that assumption [of a constant real wage], talking about such things as "Either the price of labor [power] keeps on rising, because its rise does not interfere with the process of accumulation... [or] accumulation slackens accumulation slackens ..." In ch. 33, he talks about wages being too high from a capitalist perspective and being forced down. Ajit responds: I disagree with your interpretation. You have to keep in mind that there are three different time periods on which Marx's theory works: (1) the period of the business cycle, (2) long-term period, and (3) secular period. Wages fluctuate up and down during a business cycle; however, this fluctuation is arround a given long-term real wages, as market prices fluctuate around the 'natural' prices or the prices of production. It is this long-term real wages which is assumed to be fixed for most of Marx's analysis, and not the wages during the business cycle. Sure. I didn't say otherwise. But the cyclical fluctuations of wages contradict your earlier assertion that Marx assumed real wages constant (just as the constancy of real wages contradicts absolute immiseration). ___ First of all, once in a while you should give credit to other people for saying things which you had not thought off, or had not said. My position is not contradictory. I maintain that fundamental Marxist theoretical structure works on long-term perspective. The constancy of real wage assumption also works on the same time period. Again the assumption of constancy of real wage does not contradict the absolute immiseration thesis, because this thesis works on the secular time perid and not long-term time period. Moreover, the absolute immiseration thesis is a prediction about historical tendency of wages and not not a theoretical assumption. ___ Jim: BTW, it's a misnomer to talk about the "natural" price of labor-power, since the price of production of labor-power includes the moral historical elements. __ Why should it be a "misnomer" to talk about "natural price of labor power"? If moral and historical
