Re: Fast Track Down, Not Out/Progressive Populist 12/97
At 07:09 PM 12/2/97 -0600, you wrote: Not all of the Reform Party positions are compatible with progressive populism. But progressive populists ought to work with the Reformers on common issues such as opening the ballot to alternative parties, campaign finance reform, fair trade laws and encouraging small farmers, small businesses and American manufacturing. Excuse me, but if the "progressive populist" movement has not enough moral imagination to oppose free trade agreements and the MAI because of the destitution these policies/laws/institutions wreak upon workers and peasants in "developing countries," and instead gets all up in arms embattled textile firms in the Piedmonts and gracious U.S. "sovereingty," then I don't see much difference between "progressive populism" and Buchanan's crypto-fascism, or other crypto-fascisms in Europe. Politics makes stranger bedfellows than people I'd want to sleep with. It reminds me of the dominant wing of the U.S. anti-Gulf Slaughter movement, bandying about the slogan, "Bring Our Boys Home," when the techno-savagery unleashed upon the Iraqi citizenry registered a body count ratio of about 2000:1 (not to mention all of the subsequent deaths of malnourished and diseased children from the imperialist embargo, under the guise of the "sanctity of international law"). These sentiments do not spring from the elitism of the left professoriat. They spring from a senstitivity to basic human decency, in the context of a "New World Order" which still indistiputably has a imperialist dimension. (Not that vast segments of the American working class aren't being swindled to defend and extend empire, but let's call the spade of U.S. imperialist domination of this hemisphere, at least, a spade). John Gulick Ph. D. Candidate Sociology Graduate Program University of California-Santa Cruz (415) 643-8568 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: utopias
Bill Lear wrote,
Although Anders, Doug, and Tom all object to Robin's passing on the
question of laws and enforcement, I sympathize somewhat with Robin's
position. To the extent that any of this can be planned in advance,
there is, or should be, a certain freedom to see things in separate
compartments, to make assumptions that problems of law are somewhat
separate from economic problems . . .
I have to confess that I can also sympathize somewhat, although it can still
be useful to overstate the contrasts in opinions. Right now I'm researching
a case in which the "separation" of law and economics is central. The case
concerns a possible constitutional challenge of recent "employment
insurance" reforms in Canada. There is no protection under law against
discrimination as a result of belonging to a particular economic class ("The
law in its majesty forbids both rich and poor to sleep under bridges"). The
courts are also loath to interfere at all with governments' prerogative on
matters of "policy". By the same token, economists assessing the likely
consequences of various policy options don't consider whether those policies
might also have legal consequences (why should they, given the legal
nonexistence of class?).
However, there remains a possibility of demonstrating defacto discrimination
against groups that are entitled under the Charter to legal protection:
women, aboriginals, visible minorities, people with disabilities. There also
remains a possibility of establishing that the government's actions are not
a matter of "policy" but concern actuarial principles and thus may be
subject to review by the courts. So, it may be possible in this case to
build a demographic-actuarial bridge over the gap between the economics and
the law. What the economists tell us and what the lawyers tell us will be
very useful in building that bridge, but the strategy is extra-disciplinary
(not multi-disciplinary or interdisciplinary).
Finally, yes Tom, I do think "the transition problem" needs to be
addressed too, but I do think that feedback here again operates (I
refuse to use the word "dialectics", which I think might also work here
--- so shoot me) in a way that makes the transition problem easier to
see if you know towards what you are transitioning.
Again, I may be overstating the contrasts to make a point. I see the
question of popular mobilization as absolutely preeminent. So my focus is
not on what precisely things should be like in the future but on how can we
get moving in the right general direction, now.
It's a bit like saying that if you're in New Jersey and you want to visit a
friend who lives in Fresno, gazing at the Fresno city street map is not
going to give you the direction you need. This is not to say that at some
point in the future discussions of "the logistics of workers' self
management" (or whatever) won't become strategic nor to argue that such
questions should be entirely ignored until they become strategic. It's even
possible that discussing such issues now might help them become strategic or
that ignoring them entirely might lead to a dead end (bang, bang -- there, I
shot you ;-)).
Regards,
Tom Walker
^^^
knoW Ware Communications
Vancouver, B.C., CANADA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(604) 688-8296
^^^
The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Utopias + localism
At 01:53 PM 12/2/97 +, John wrote (replying to David): I would think that communities would control their basic needs and interests while joining in federations, both industrial and geographical, in order to take advantage of economies of scale. At least that seems to be the crux of Bakunin-type aspirations as well as the example given by Spain. O.K., suppose that I buy the argument that the way to go is for "communities" to self-provision clothes, shelter, food, according to local ecological conditions and customs, and to engage in voluntary exchange w/other "communities" for more sophisticated goods and rare items (this opens up a huge can of worms which I won't get into). What are the territorial/functional boundaries of the "community" in the first place, given that today in advanced capitalist countries most "communities" neither produce most of what they consume nor consume most of what they produce (with the exception of personal services) ? Is the whole Bay Area (where I live) a community ? The city of San Francisco ? My neighborhood ? Most people don't even work in the neighborhood where they live (to the extent that neighborhoods, as opposed to "planned developments" demarcated by planning technocrats, landowners, and real estate developers). For that matter, assuming you can define "local," what's so great about starting locally? Obviously, any truly participatory system will have lots of local participation. But there are so many issues that require making decisions at a larger level--technological advancement, dealing with global ecological issues, funding universities, etc.--because either they require lots and lots of people/other resources to make them happen. In many areas, economies of scale are so crucial to guaranteeing basic needs (esp. given climate changes and natural/man-made disasters) that treating federations as a side-thing, something that's an adjunct to local control, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And then there are countless examples of how local control can stomp on minorities or dump a community's crap on its neighbors if it isn't strongly counterbalanced by larger entities. So, what's so great about starting locally, as opposed to starting locally _and_ regionally _and_ nationally _and_ internationally? Anders Schneiderman
Re: Utopias + localism
Wrote Anders: And then there are countless examples of how local control can stomp on minorities or dump a community's crap on its neighbors if it isn't strongly counterbalanced by larger entities. So, what's so great about starting locally, as opposed to starting locally _and_ regionally _and_ nationally _and_ internationally? Right. It can also become a sink hole for ALL political energies, at the expense of engaging "larger" issues. The government here passed a law in 1994 calld the Law of Popular Paricipation which in effect decentrailized social spending and created local governments for the first time thorughout the entire country. This is not insignificant when you consider that lots of such monies are flowing into indigenous/peasant communities, in turn producing varied, but interesting results in terms of local control and administration. Example: the Guarani of the eastern lowlands (Chaco) are talking serious turkey with Enron Corp. about compensation for running a gas pipeline to Brazil through their land. Their forthrightness and general smarts are in some measure a result of the lessons learned in managing affairs locally through the Law of Pop. Particip. YET, at the same time the same the government implementing the Law of Pop. Particip. it was also selling off national industries (parts of gas and oil, airlines, etc.) at fire sale prices. As one observer noted, the policy seems to be "los centavos para nosotros, los millones para ellos" -- "the cents for us, the millions for them". (Or: "structural adjustment with a social face".) Not to suggest that what is being discussed here is the kind of decentralized social spending alluded to. My point: in general political terms we're seeing that attention to the local comes at the expense (deliberately?) of addresing some big issues. Tom Tom Kruse / Casilla 5869 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: utopias
At 10:41 PM 12/1/97 -0800, you wrote: John Gulick: what about the partial correlation between the production of surplus (and I'm not talking about superfluous luxury goods here) and increasingly sophisticated and specialized technical and industrial divisions of labor ? What about it? I don't see a difficulty with divisions of labour in anarcho-syndicalist type economies. By "don't see a difficulty" what exactly do you mean ? That you don't have a philosophical problem with divisions of labor, as long as institutions of democratic planning and management allow for the reskilling of labor (i.e. re-attaching conception and execution), job rotation, etc. ? 2) Matters of political jurisdiction. What do we embrace as the fundamental organizational-territorial units of planning and management ? Neighborhoods and their hinterlands in a small-scale urban/rural balance ? Worker-governed industrial associations ? Phony nation-states ? All of the above w/gradually diminishing levels of direct democracy culminating in some sort of international assembly ? I would think that communities would control their basic needs and interests while joining in federations, both industrial and geographical, in order to take advantage of economies of scale. At least that seems to be the crux of Bakunin-type aspirations as well as the example given by Spain. O.K., suppose that I buy the argument that the way to go is for "communities" to self-provision clothes, shelter, food, according to local ecological conditions and customs, and to engage in voluntary exchange w/other "communities" for more sophisticated goods and rare items (this opens up a huge can of worms which I won't get into). What are the territorial/functional boundaries of the "community" in the first place, given that today in advanced capitalist countries most "communities" neither produce most of what they consume nor consume most of what they produce (with the exception of personal services) ? Is the whole Bay Area (where I live) a community ? The city of San Francisco ? My neighborhood ? Most people don't even work in the neighborhood where they live (to the extent that neighborhoods, as opposed to "planned developments" demarcated by planning technocrats, landowners, and real estate developers). 3) Being more or less ecological Marxist in my outlook, a so-called libertarian socialism shouldn't err too far in the direction of "workerism." What about non-production related issues and the political identities they imply, e.g., land and resource use, neighborhood environmental quality, etc. ? I.e. anarcho-communism as the supercession of anrcho-syndicalism. I've always understood that the term anarcho-communism is chiefly used for agrarian economies (as Kropotkin envisioned for much of Russia), while a-syndicalism generally refers to a more industrialized system. Neither, it seems to me, imply more or less local conrol, such that a-communism could never "supercede" a-syndicalism unless an area deindustrialized. By "supercede" I meant that a libertarian socialism would have to focus not just on issues revolving around the the production and distribution of surplus, but on the human-nature metabolism, links between production and collective consumption, and so on. (Sorry to have confused you -- I don't know much about the etymology of the terms). In many ways it boils down to even more fundamental matters of what constitutes a household and what the relation is between households and work. E.g. In advanced bourgeois society workers might work in a factory that spews pollutants on the local populace, but don't know or at least care about it because they don't live where they work. A libertarian socialist society would have to guard against this by means of one or many options -- a) because more-or-less self-sufficient communities are small-scale, production and reproduction issues are conjoined, b) workers in anarcho-syndicalist workshops are ethically self-motivated to take into account the environmental ramifications of their production processes, c) one's home is geographically and functionally connected to one's work site (this begs the question of what about other household members -- friends, children, lover, spouse, partner, whatever the set-up is), d) there is _neighborhood_ representation in production planning and management decisions. Anyway, enough for now. As for land and resource use, would you not agree that such an issue is NOT a "non-production-related issue"? It seems quite germaine to production to me. I suppose though that today it is considered "non-production-related". At any rate, this resource use issue will likely never be an easy one. However, i think the point as far as anarchism is concerned is that such a system would eliminate the obvious injustices of control of resources by a co-ordinator class or by the inefficient market mechanism. Inefficient, that is, because resources are valued according to criteria sharply at
contingency
Continuing a discussion from several months ago, the opening of a BLS news release published today. The full text is on the BLS web site at http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/conemp.toc.htm. I welcome discussion as to what it all means. Doug Technical information: (202) 606-6378 USDL 97-422 Media contact:606-5902 Tuesday, December 2, 1997 CONTINGENT AND ALTERNATIVE EMPLOYMENT ARRANGEMENTS, FEBRUARY 1997 The proportion of U.S. workers who hold contingent jobs--basically those jobs that are not expected to last--declined slightly in the 2 years between February 1995 and February 1997, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. Using three alternative estimates (table A), contingent workers accounted for 1.9 to 4.4 percent of all employment in February 1997; the range was 2.2 to 4.9 percent in February 1995. The analysis in this release is focused on the broadest estimate of contingent workers.
Karl Marx: Western Europe is not a model
Karl Marx: The chapter on primitive accumulation [in Marx's Capital] claims no more to trace the path by which, in Western Europe, the capitalist economic order emerged from the womb of the feudal economic order. It therefore presents the historical movement which, by divorcing the producers from their means of production, converted the former into wage-labourers (proletarians in the modern sense of the word) and the owners of the latter into capitalists. In this history 'all revolutions are epoch-making that serve as a lever for the advance of the emergent capitalist class, above all those which, by stripping great masses of people of their traditional means of production and existence, suddenly hurl them into the labour-market. But the base of this whole development is the expropriation of the agricultural producers. Only in England has it so far been accomplished in a radical manner...but all the countries of Western Europe are following the same course' etc. (Capital, French edition, p. 315).. At the end of the chapter, the historical tendency of production is said to consist in the fact that it 'begets its own negation with the inexorability presiding over the metamorphoses of nature'; that it has itself created the elements of a new economic order, giving the greatest impetus both to the productive forces of social labour and to the all-round development of each individual producer; that capitalist property, effectively already resting on a collective mode of production, cannot be transformed into social property. I furnish no proof at this point, for the good reason that this statement merely summarizes in brief the long expositions given previously in the chapters on capitalist production. Now, what application to Russia could my critic make of this historical sketch? Only this: if Russia is tending to become a capitalist nation like the nations of Western Europe--and in the last few years she has been at great pains to achieve this-- she will not succeed without first transforming a large part of her peasants into proletarians; subsequently, once brought into the fold of the capitalist system, she will pass under its pitiless laws like other profane peoples. That is all. But it is too little for my critic. He absolutely insists on transforming my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into a historical-philosophical theory of the general course fatally imposed on all peoples, whatever the historical circumstances in which they find themselves placed, in order to arrive ultimately at this economic formation which assures the greatest expansion of the productive forces of social labour, as well as the most complete development of man. But I beg his pardon. That is to do me both too much honour and too much discredit. Let us take an example. At various points in Capital I allude to the fate that befell the plebeians of ancient Rome. They were originally free peasants, each tilling his own plot on his own behalf. In the course of Roman history they were expropriated. The same movement that divorced them from their means of production and subsistence involved the formation not only of large landed property but also of big money capitals. Thus one fine morning there were, on the one side, free men stripped of everything but their labour-power, and on the other, ready to exploit their labour, owners of all the acquired wealth. What happened? The Roman proletarians became, not wage-labourers, but an idle mob more object than those who used to be called 'poor whites' in the southern United States; and what opened up alongside them was not a capitalist but a slave mode of production. Thus events of striking similarity, taking place in different historical contexts, led to totally disparate results. By studying each of these developments separately, and then comparing them, one may easily discover the key to this phenomenon. But success will never come with the master-key of a general historico-philosophical theory, whose supreme virtue consists in being supra-historical. [Karl Marx: a letter to the Editorial Board of Otechestvennye Zapiski. This appears in "Late Marx and the Russian Road: Marx and 'The Peripheries of Capitalism" by Teodor Shanin, Monthly Review 1983] Louis Proyect
Re: utopias
On Tuesday, December 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: but i want to know which of our current jobs are good ones, which could be mde into good ones (for our future good society), which would have to be eliminated altogether or done by machines, etc? Do you think a good first step would be to concentrate instead on which goods and services we would want to support, and derive the jobs from that? Can we even begin to ask/answer such questions with a realistic hope of a concrete agenda? Bill
Re: utopias
friends, but i want to know which of our current jobs are good ones, wqhich could be mde into good ones (for our future good society), whihc would have to be eliminatedaltogether or done by machines, etc? michael yates
Re: utopias
michael yates wrote, but i want to know which of our current jobs are good ones, wqhich could be mde into good ones (for our future good society), whihc would have to be eliminatedaltogether or done by machines, etc? I suspect that most of the people on this list have jobs (or work) that they like. There's usually one or two aspects to the job that make it considerably less than ideal. That "job satisfaction" is probably more generalizable than we'd like to believe. Certainly the polls, flawed as they are, usually reflect high levels of js. Most of the negative side has to do with exits and entrances -- perhaps even more so than pay. It can even be o.k. to do routine, low-payed work for a while as long as you're not "stuck for life" in the rut. I know at least one tenured professor who hates her job because she feels trapped. Where else could she make that much income or even any income at all? Machines cannot eliminate jobs. What they do is automate processes. People eliminate jobs. 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: utopias
R. Anders Schneiderman wrote (responding to Robin Hahnel): One great thing about participatory planning is it eliminates the free rider problem for expressing desires for public goods. What about other free rider problems? And how exactly does it eliminate the FR problem for expressing desires for public goods? As anyone who's spent time slogging through endless planning meetings has probably seen firsthand, it's quite possible--easy, even--for people who are participating in the planning to want to have everything without making any compromises, or to participate in such a way that everyone else has to do all the real work involved in planning (such people are ususally referred to as "men"). I think participatory planning is a good thing, but I don't see how it gets rid of free riders. And what about the critique, as succinctly put by Nancy Folbre, that this model turns life into one long student council meeting. Some people like meetings, and others sleep through them. Enforcement? I'm an economist. Ask lawyers and criminologists about a desirable system of law enforcement. Er, no. If you're proposing this as a serious alternative, you can't just say, "I'm just an economist and can't say anything about crime" and expect folks to take such a radical, sweeping proposal seriously. No kidding. It's reminiscent of Herb Gintis' claim that as an economist, he's just a technician - like a "plumber," not an architect, and therefore not responsible for what a house looks like. Isn't participatory planning supposed to overcome the compartmentalization of responsiblity that comes with a division of labor? Doug
Fast Track Down, Not Out/Progressive Populist 12/97
___ THE PROGRESSIVE POPULIST: A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF THE HEARTLAND December 1997 -- Volume 3, Number 12 ___ EDITORIAL Fast Track is Down, But the Game's Not Over The people won a round last month when President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich called off the push for a "Fast Track" vote in the House of Representatives. Clinton was unable to persuade House Democrats to grease the trade rules. He even found himself dickering with Republicans to get them to sign onto the legislation that was designed by Big Business for Big Business. Clinton may have done the GOP a favor when he threw in the towel. Polls show an overwhelming number of voters - Democrats, Republicans and independents - oppose the legislation to strip Congress of its ability to amend trade deals negotiated by the President. A record vote on Fast Track would have focused popular resentment against a Big-Business-oriented Congress in the next election. Labor unions got much of the credit for stopping Fast Track - and they apparently did their job in mobilizing members - but Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, also credited an electorate that is alarmed at the flow of jobs out of the United States since the passage of NAFTA. "If labor contributions were the only factor, NAFTA would have been defeated in 1993. This victory demonstrates a sea change in U.S. politics with trade and globalization as hot political issues on which voters nationwide carefully follow their elected representatives." Ralph Nader added: "As repeated polls demonstrate, [the American people] will not accept further degradation of their standards of living so that global mega corporations can increase their already record profits." The pro-NAFTA press depicted the vote as a devastating blow to President Clinton as protectionist Democrats turned against him, but that ain't necessarily so. "The real question before us now is whether we connect our values of environmental quality, worker and human rights to our economic policy," House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said. "We've tried it the Republican way and it's being rejected. I hope now we'll have a chance to work for a trade policy that puts American values squarely into future negotiations." "This was not a debate about protectionism versus free trade," said House Democratic Whip David E. Bonior. "Those of us who opposed this fast track have altered the terms of the trade debate ... [and] stand ready to work with the president to shape a new trade policy, one that addresses worker rights, food safety, consumer protection and the environment." Is Fast Track dead? Don't count on it. It will be harder to kill than Dracula. It may come up again next spring, after corporation executives have had time to work on resistant members of Congress. Too many multinational corporations are counting on the benign-looking global trade deals - negotiated in secret - to be dumped on Congress for a quick up-or-down vote. Only later will the public at large realize that the deals authorize international groups such as the World Trade Organization to dismantle local, state and federal regulations that, in the eyes of the WTO, "restrict trade". In practical terms, these global trade deals will have much the same effect as the federal courts had earlier in this century when they expanded the commerce clause of the Constitution to overrule state regulation of corporations. For example, the Fast Track legislation could enable the President to send the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) to Congress for a quick up-or-down vote. MAI is an international agreement to allow corporations to sue state, local and federal governments to overturn regulations that restrict trade. But this trade deal is practically unreported in the nation's corporate press. Few Americans know about this potentially fundamental transfer of power, because they depend on the corporation-dominated media to tell them about it. A search of the Nexis database of news stories shows only 14 mentions of the MAI in national or big-city U.S. newspapers since 1992, and many of those mentions turned out to be letters to the editor. As of Oct. 30, Nexis listed only one citation for the MAI in the New York Times, on September 14, 1997. There were only two mentions of MAI in the Washington Post, on June 3, 1995, and September 26, 1997. (Thanks to Ellen Dannin of San Diego for the research.) To the dismay of the business establishment, free trade is reeling. The House voted 356-64 in September to require U.S. trade representatives to better protect local, state and federal governments threatened by the WTO. (That was an implicit repudiation of the MAI.) Then on Nov. 4 the House voted 234-182 against the Caribbean Basin Initiative, which the GOP leadership had
Re: utopias
On Tue, December 2, 1997 at 12:37:26 (-0500) Robin Hahnel writes: One great thing about participatory planning is it eliminates the free rider problem for expressing desires for public goods. Laws? Enforcement? I'm an economist. Ask lawyers and criminologists about a desirable system of law enforcement. No private property at all. Not really any money either. People get effort ratings from their peers at work that entitle them to consumption rights -- which they can save or get advancements on (borrow). Although Anders, Doug, and Tom all object to Robin's passing on the question of laws and enforcement, I sympathize somewhat with Robin's position. To the extent that any of this can be planned in advance, there is, or should be, a certain freedom to see things in separate compartments, to make assumptions that problems of law are somewhat separate from economic problems (though of course, once we get past abstract design, so to speak, we've got to connect the two domains and start "fitting" them together --- I find this quite appealing, since this is sort of the way much of computer programming works). I don't find it particularly troubling that Robin feels that he has no real expertise (or, perhaps interest) in areas of law --- after all participatory planning is about overcoming the *necessity* of "the compartmentalization of responsibility that comes with a division of labor", but that doesn't mean that Robin can't say he could care less about issues of law or spot welding --- but I do find it somewhat curious. Nevertheless, of greater interest to me is the contention that there will be "No private property at all", which I claim is quite literally impossible and therefore it is a question of how you limit (or just plain "deal with") private property that should be addressed. Let's review what private property is --- at least my (probably naive) conception of it --- just to be sure we are on the same track. Contrary to what Locke believed, there is no "natural" a priori basis for property, since property is simply a right (to use/dispose of something exclusively) conferred by people, and is therefore socially contingent. This means that property is something which can arise with the mere act of human recognition, and we can, if we wish, recognize that those who create are thereby conferred ownership rights --- but this is a matter of social choice, not an ironclad law of nature. Property is something with innumerable scopes (individuals and groups may recognize property rights of other individuals and groups, under many different circumstances, with or without the support of a ruling state), often conflicting with other conceptions of property recognition. For example, suppose we recognize that a person has a right to the exclusive use of a toothbrush --- that nobody has the right to walk along and snatch the toothbrush or to use it without permission. We have just created property. The Post Keynesian Randy Wray writes that "The development of private property destroys the collective security of tribal or even command society and makes each member of society responsible for his own security." (L. Randall Wray, *Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies*, Edward Elgar, 1990, p. 6). I feel that though this is a bit of a muddy way to express the historical genesis of property and the destruction of collective society (outright physical and legal destruction of relatively cooperative forms was itself an important way in which private property was instituted, I believe), I do feel that the whole process of introducing threat into a society works via feedback --- that is, outright destruction of cooperative forms turns people to private property to protect themselves, this in turn forces others to do the same, ratcheting up the levels of fear and need for individual security found in property. Property acts as a poison to community. If this is so, then we should be concerned with the ways in which property can come to exist wholly outside the scope of conscious plan, and how its spread might work to insidiously undermine collective security. This, I think, echoes Marx somewhat, who writes so vividly in the *Grundrisse* that money (incidentally inseparable from property in my opinion) acts as "a highly energetic solvent" which "assists in the creation of the *plucked*, object-less *free workers*". So, if I bake an apple pie and give it to Doug to munch on, we might reasonably agree that Anders has no right to snatch it up and give it to Tom and Robin. If we agree on this, then we agree that property will arise, quite "naturally", in any form of human society we can imagine. If property indeed, as Wray claims, "destroys the collective security" of society, then we should be aware of the ways in which it arises, and we should be prepared to deal with it, if only to say, "Yeah that will happen, but it won't be a problem because ...". Finally, yes Tom, I do think "the transition problem" needs
Discussion: The Limits Imposed Demand That The Working Class Acts In A New Way
If workers shut down a factory or a whole sector of the economy in the course of waging the struggle for their rights they soon find that their struggle reaches the limits imposed by the capitalist system. These limits are based on the private ownership of property and the political power it wields. These limits ensure that while certain rights exist, such as the right to strike, they do so only to the extent that they do not threaten the right of the capitalists to maintain their control of the situation. At the stroke of the pen these rights are taken away - as in the case of back-to-work legislation which has been used against workers in important sectors of the national economy such as the railway and post office. These limits also ensure that rights exist entirely within the context of the supremacy of private property. Thus, in a strike or other struggle workers often find themselves facing the courts or labour boards which dictate what will be the boundaries to any struggle. For example, the courts routinely intervene to grant injunctions limiting the right to picket, and the right of workers to organize (and also to maintain their organizations) falls within the limits determined not by the workers, but by the labour laws and labour boards. Contrast this to a situation in which thousands of workers are laid off as the result of a single decision by a corporation or a government, or the anti-social offensive, which has seen the governments at all levels launch their attacks on social programs and the most vulnerable, all in the name of protecting the profits of the monopolies and the financial oligarchy. There is no limit to these rights enjoyed by the monopolies and financial oligarchy. In fact, they become policy through actions taken by the governments at every level to recognize that paying the debt and deficit cutting are a priority over providing for the social needs of the people. Privatization of existing social services is another measure which goes hand in hand with the anti-social offensive. In other words, the cards are all stacked against the working class. The limits imposed can only lead to the intensified exploitation of the working class. The crisis of unemployment is one example. Another is the anti-social offensive. Such things are happening because the working class is confined to the limits acceptable to the present ruling class of the monopolies and financial oligarchy and its political representatives. What it is clearer with each passing day and each new struggle is that the working class must act in a new way. Whether it is the deepening economic crisis or the anti-social offensive which is eliminating any responsibility of society to provide and care for the well-being of its members, the necessity is for the working class to change the situation. It has to advance its pro-social program on the basis that society must provide for the interests of all working people. It has to enter the political arena not on the basis of electing this or that political party but from the consideration of electing its own representatives to defend its interests and set the pro-social agenda. TML DAILY, 12/2/97 Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: contingency
Doug Henwood wrote, Continuing a discussion from several months ago, the opening of a BLS news release published today. The full text is on the BLS web site at http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/conemp.toc.htm. This is good news. It gives the lie to hype about "job shift" and the "entrepreneurial new economy". Contingency is *not* a new reality, but is itself contingent on high unemployment. As unemployment comes down, employers see employees as less expendable and absorb contingent workers into permanent positions. Obviously, the turnover in contingent jobs and the workers in those jobs has to be much larger than the marginal changes in numbers of jobs, especially under the definition of contingency where the job is expected to last less than a year. The self-employment numbers are in marked contrast to the situation in Canada where, with persistant high unemployment there has been an explosion in se, much of it involuntary self-employment (ten percent of the self-employed in 1996 gave "couldn't find a job" as the reason for being "self-employment"). I suspect that the same contrast would hold for the more broadly defined contingent employment. 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: utopias
Perhaps I should have made the point explicit. Tom alluded to Gomper's oft cited speech in which he describes labor's aspirations as wanting "more." Rarely do those who use the reference actually provide the entire quote from which "more" is taken. I tried to dig it up, but could not. The quote I found came pretty close, however. The fact that I posted a paragraph from Gompers should not lead you to presume, if you have, that I therefore embrace a) the content of the quote, b) the record of the AFL, c) business unionism, or d) Gomper's philosophical views or record as the "father of business unionism" (just who was its mother?). I am delighted, however, that you were able to devine the gender/race implications of this paragraph without any elucidation on my part or even my failure to put "wisdom" in quotation marks so that everyone would know that I really did not hold it up as real wisdom (which I don't seek from Gompers but do look for in the erudite contributions of the sage contributors to PEN-L). In solidarity, Michael At 01:14 PM 12/2/97 +, john gulick wrote: At 08:11 PM 12/1/97 -0800, Michael Eisenscher wrote: I spent part of the day looking for the entirety of that quote from Gompers, but did not find it. I'm sure someone out there has it at hand. But I did find the following Gompersian wisdom: "The aim of our unions is to improve the standard of life; to foster education, and instill character, manhood (sic), and an independent spirit among our people; to bring about a recognition of the interdependence of man (sic) upon his fellow man. We aim to establish a normal workday, to take the children from the factory and workshop; to give them the opportunity of the home, the school and the playground. In a word, our unions strive to lighten toil, educate the workers, make their homes more cheerful and in every way contribute the earnest effort to make their life better worth living." (Presidential Report to the 28th Annual AFL Convention, 1908) Did you mean Gompersian "wisdom" or Gompersian wisdom ? The whole sordid history of AFL racial exclusivism aside (and the fact that Gompers can safely be considered the father of business unionism), I don't find much in the above quotation taken on its own terms too compelling. The main theme appears to collective defense of the white male family wage so that the white working class man can be king of his castle. In solidarity, John Gulick Ph. D. Candidate Sociology Graduate Program University of California-Santa Cruz (415) 643-8568 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: More! More!
I am left architecturally speechless -- more or less. At 12:05 AM 12/3/97 -0800, Tom Walker wrote: Michael Eisenscher wrote, I spent part of the day looking for the entirety of that quote from Gompers, but did not find it. . . Mies van der Rohe is credited with having said "Less is more." Here's a slightly expanded text: "The office building is a house of work . . . of organization, of clarity, of economy. Bright, wide workrooms, easy to oversee, undivided except as the undertaking is divided. The maximum effect with the minimum expenditure of means. The materials are concrete, iron, glass." Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
