Re: Holiday Blues
The qeustion below was not one we were addressing. The discussion concerned why we should defend the rights of indigeneous people. Are you all really in the position where your only basis for believing that we can do better than capitalism, while preserving the benefits of modernism, is faith? Do the majority on this list seriously no longer see an intellectual basis for believing we can do better than capitalism without giving up antibiotics and indoor plumbing? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Holiday Blues
I've stiched a number of excepts from recent posts together to show how what struck one lurker (me). Are the holiday blues just causing me to take them out of context, or are they meant as depressingly as they sound when arranged in this way? Doug Henwood wrote (in the context of a much large discussion about land rights of native peoples) Maybe there are real positive attractions for most/many people that it would be impossible, and maybe even wrong, to resist. Is it possible to separate the "lures" - the positive aspects of capitalist modernization - from exploitation, polarization, and the destruction of nature? Michael Perelman responded I don't know exactly. I confess confusion on this point. For that reason, I appreciate this thread so that I can get a better handle on this matter. Doug Henwood responded I don't know either, really, which is why I asked a lot of questions, instead of my usual mode of vigorous assertion. Terry Eagleton says in his little book on postmodernism that to a Marxist, capitalism is both the best and worst thing that ever happened to humanity. He's got a point. Sid Shniad interjected Doug, please address this question yourself. If such a separation is not possible, your position becomes one of defending capitalism itself, no? Doug Replied Following in this morning's PEN-L tradition of quoting poets from memory, I'll quote Wallace Stevens' "It must be possible. It must!" I keep hoping that a more humane social system could appropriate the technical and organizational knowledge produced by capitalism and re-deploy it for purposes other than making money and steepening hierarchies. Maybe this is too optimistic. Are you all really in the position where your only basis for believing that we can do better than capitalism, while preserving the benefits of modernism, is faith? Do the majority on this list seriously no longer see an intellectual basis for believing we can do better than capitalism without giving up antibiotics and indoor plumbing?
re: drawing a line
On: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 14:05:31 -0500, Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Except that these international bailouts, unlike the SL resuce, don't cost U.S. taxpayers anything. The Treasury made a profit on the Mexico bailout, and the Bretton Woods institutions are also profit-makers. I know Doug is wary of talk about U.S. capitalism being in economic crisis when profits are up, but don't forget the political end. Here's part of a recent column by the beloved Pat Buchanan (NY Post, 11/29): "How is Mexico to repay the IMF? The devaluation of the peso by 50 percent doubled the price of U.S. goods and cut by 50 percent the price of Mexican exports. Devaluation thus wiped out the tiny U.S. trade surplus. And when U.S. companies saw the price of Mexican labor had been cut in half in dollars, they laid off their workers, shut down their U.S. plants and headed south for the Rio Grande. "This, then, is the great trade-off of the Global Economy. Wall Street gets reimbursed, while Main Street loses its export market, its factories and its jobs, and is put on the hook by the IMF so "investors" on Wall Street do not have to swallow really bug losses. We do it all -- to make the world safe for Goldman Sachs!" I suspect this sort of argument will get a strong response in the wroking class. People do have a sense there's a crisis out there that can hit them, and that they will pay for the financiers' fun and games. If the workers' movement, and left theorists, don't sharply point the finger at capitalism as responsible for enormous economic uncertainty as well as growing working-class misery, then right- wing populists will win with their line and aim U.S. workers' anger at their brothers and sisters abroad. Walter Daum
Re: Canada
Doug Henwood wrote: I hear this from a lot of Canadians - the implication being that Canada didn't have a debt problem. With a structural budget deficit of over 5% of GDP in 1991, net government interest payments also over 5% of GDP, and the second-highest net government debt position in the G-7 (after Italy), I'd say those are numbers too big to ignore. With a net international investment position of -41% of GDP in 1996, I'd say that Canada still has a debt problem. When you've got a big debt, your creditors call the shots, no? Or am I missing something here? I think the OECD numbers include government enterprises, and in Canada this means the provinically owned Hydros, who are very large borrowers, and so skew the comparison a bit if comparable utilities are not government owned. However there is no doubt that Canadian capitalism is a big borrower. It is also true that there was a tendency in the campaign against free trade to promote a near-conspiracy theory that the Bank of Canada interest rate hikes were part of a secret side deal to the FTA itself. In other words, the job losses were blamed on 'free' trade rather than reflecting something more fundamental about Canadian capitalism. Still, the articles at the time (including in the WSJ, that Tom Walker referred to) which compared Canada to Mexico and some other 'third' world countries are absurd. Linda McQuaig's book provides a great description of how this was a deliberate campaign to 'convince' us of the need for austerity. Canada may be a big borrower but it is also itself a major lender. Total outward FDI is only 5% less than inward FDI. And while total foreign liabilities are 1.7 times those of total foreign assets, this ratio has not increased *dramatically* compared to previous decades. Net foreign liabilities were 42% of GDP in 1996, but they also hit 42% in 1961. I don't have the figures at hand, but I'd be surprised if Canada's net foreign liabilities as a share of GDP have increased much more than that of the OECD average. Bill Burgess
REU/Fleeing Indians fear more Vilence in Chiapas (fwd)
Forwarded message: From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Dec 28 16:10:08 1997 From: "NUEVO AMANECER PRESS" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "NAP-E6"[EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 16:05:44 + Subject: REU/Fleeing Indians fear more Vilence in Chiapas Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] By Jesus Ramirez POLHO, Mexico, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Several thousand Indian refugees fled their homes and huddled around this southern Mexican village on Sunday, fearing fresh attacks from armed paramilitaries. Frightened Tzotzil Indians from the heart of southern Chiapas state, often barefoot and in traditional dress, have been running en masse from their villages since gunmen massacred 45 unarmed refugees on Monday. ``The paramilitaries are still armed in our communities. We left because we are afraid that they will kill us like they did the others,'' said Manuel Perez, a 28-year-old refugee who fled his village with his wife and three children. ``There are some 3,500 people who fled on Saturday to Polho because they are afraid of being attacked by the armed men that travel through the mountains,'' National Human Rights Commission President Mireille Rocatti said. But Domingo Perez Paciencia, president of the Indian autonomous council of Chenalho, told Reuters that ``there are more than 8,000 Indian refugees here.'' ``They are comrades who support the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) rebels. They fleeing from armed (ruling party members) who have threatened them,'' he said. The Zapatista rebels burst onto the scene on Jan. 1, 1994 when they staged an armed uprising against the government in Chiapas. Last Monday's violence is the worst that has taken place since the uprising, when at least 140 people died. The refugees spent the cold and rainy night in schools or in makeshift tents made of plastic sheets and wooden poles. Red Cross workers distributed food and supplies but the Indians said they still lacked blankets, clothing and medicine. The arrest of new suspects in Monday's slaughter did not comfort the refugees, who feared plenty of potential aggressors remained at large, said observers in the coffee-rich farming and jungle region. Witnesses and survivors pointed to local members of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) as responsible for the attack. Mexican justice officials on Saturday formally arrested the PRI mayor of Chenalho on charges he supplied machine guns to the paramilitaries. The latest arrests embarrassed President Ernesto Zedillo's PRI, already on the defensive as its support erodes in local, state and congressional elections across the country after seven decades of hardly contested rule. The government and the national PRI leadership have condemned the killings and denied any responsibility. But the PRI governor of Chiapas and Interior Minister Emilio Chuayffet have come under fire for the massacre, which spurred international indignation ranging from U.S. President Bill Clinton to the Pope. Of 605 people polled in a Reforma newspaper survey published Sunday, 47 percent said Chuayffet should resign and 53 percent said Chiapas governor Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro should step down. Both men say they have no plans to leave their posts. ^REUTERS@ 14:34 12-28-97 ___ NUEVO AMANECER PRESS- N.A.P. _ Non Profit organization translating and distributing information in support of the work in defense of human rights. General Director: Roger Maldonado-Mexico Assistant Director: Susana Saravia Ugarte Director Spain: Darrin Wood [EMAIL PROTECTED]
accounting
Tom writes: The struggle over "standards" is about as much proof as you'll ever need that accounting is a conventional, or socially constructed practice -- the "bottom line" is: the bottom line is where you agree it is. 1. I understood the NYT article not to be about "defining the meaning of the bottom line" as much as "making the meaning of the already-generally-accepted bottom line less ambiguous and subject to fraud." 2. However, given the complexity of business and finance, I'm afraid that accounting will always be open to the application of creativity to boost apparent profits. But as I understand it, if you artificially boost profits this quarter, you have to pay for it in some way in a future quarter; creative accounting is usually a form of internal borrowing (or tax evasion). There is some objectivity to the meaning of profit and loss if we take long enough of a perspective. 3. Even if there are ways for individual companies to manipulate accounting to boost their profits with no future cost, on the aggregate level, the meaning of profits is clear (though perhaps hard to measure). The of all the total individual profits received in a given time period for society as a whole corresponds to the amount of surplus-value produced (when measured in the same units). Please correct me if I'm wrong. Jim Devine
Re: Drawing a Line
. . . validating those threatened financial practices. Anyone here want to risk a global deflation? When it goes on a spree, big finance takes lots of hostages. I wouldn't, but I don't think the authorities would either, which ought to create opportunities for concessions. That's why I asked if there is any practical way to dispense financial relief in this context according to precepts of social justice, in the interests of the working class. The question is whether there is a counter-part in this context to alternative SL bailout proposals, such as EPI's. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Drawing a Line
From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] . . . Except that these international bailouts, unlike the SL resuce, don't cost U.S. taxpayers anything. The Treasury made a profit on the Mexico bailout, and the Bretton Woods institutions are also profit-makers. The question is how much profit. The average interest cost of public debt is between six and seven percent. After adjusting for risk (and don't ask me how to do that), the Mexico deal should garner more to be declared a good investment for the U.S. fisc, if we're going to be wearing our green eye-shades. If there really is no cost in the narrow sense, then the right focus would seem to be on how the deal is connected to a coerced restructuring that reduces global labor/environmental standards. But that is not likely to be as prominent a political issue, except in the debtor nations. Walker's post is a gem, but I'd like to hear more on the substance of the accounting issues, which really get my juices flowing. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
MAI COnference 17 Jan, Texas (fwd)
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 13:25:46 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brian Burch) Subject: MAI COnference http://www.compuassist.net/mai.html === MAI Treaty Conference (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) Saturday, January 17, 1998 - Dallas, Texas "We are writing the constitution of a single global economy" -Renato Ruggerio, World Trade Organization Director General (WTO Singapore Ministerial, December 1996) "Because the United States has a federal form of government, many of the laws governing foreign-owned companies are at the state and local level. If a balanced agreement that provides the U.S. with access to substantial new markets is achieved, we are prepared to bind the states and their sub-divisions, subject, of course to Congressional approval." -United States Federal Government Paper, "Multilateral Agreement on Investment," 1996 What is the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)? The MAI Treaty is a new international economic agreement currently being negotiated at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an international body comprised of the world's 29 wealthiest nations. The MAI is designed to ease the movement of capital - both money and production facilities - across international borders by limiting the power of governments to restrict and regulate foreign investment. The MAI is based on the investment provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) but the MAI amplifies these provisions and, unlike NAFTA, which only applies to the U.S., Mexico and Canada, would apply them worldwide. What is the purpose of this conference? To bring the MAI Treaty to the forefront of public discussion. To propose questions and to seek answers to important treaty questions concerning national, state, and local sovereignty, as well as environmental and human rights issues. Conference Information Saturday, January 17, 1998 - Dallas, Texas Hughes-Trigg Student Center, 3140 Dyer Boulevard - Dallas (University Park), Texas 75275-0436 Invited Conference Speakers: - Al Gore, US Vice President - Kay Bailey Hutchison, US Senator - Paul Wellstone, US Senator - Dick Armey, U.S House - Richard Gephardt, U.S House - Pete Sessions, U.S House - Marcy Kaptur, U.S House - David Bonior, U.S House - Peter DeFazio, U.S House - Dr. Pat Choate, 1996 Reform Party Vice-Presidential Candidate - - George W. Bush, Governor of Texas - Garry Mauro, Texas Land Commissioner - Meg Lundsager, US Treasury-Trade International Policy - Jesse Jackson, Rainbow Coalition - Lori Wallach, Public Citizen - Bob Stumberg, Professor of Law Georgetown University - Ronnie Dugger, Alliance for Democracy - Mike McCloskey, Sierra Club - Richard D. McCormick , US Council for International Business - Richard Fisher , Nominee Deputy US Trade Representative for Asia Latin America - Dr. Ravi Batra, Professor of Economics SMU - Dr. Charles McMillion, President MBG Information Services - Don Hodel, President Christian Coalition Co-Sponsors: North Texas Alliance for Democracy, The Reform Party of Texas, Sierra Club of Dallas Regional Group, Dallas Peace Center, DFW Greens, Public Citizen of Texas, Concerned Americans for Reforming the Economy (CARE), SMU College Democrats and Chaplain's Office Conference Chairman: Thomas J. Kemper [EMAIL PROTECTED] Conference Vice-Chairman: Bob Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] Press Information Julia Chaffe [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Drawing a Line
Thomas Kruse wrote: One of my ocncerns is the way bailouts are really cover for "lockins" into free trade regimes, de-regulation, etc. So, concretely, what would a bailout for S. Korea look like that: - protects the most vulnerable small savers and small businesses - lets the big wasters take a fall As much as I'd love to see the big wasters take a fall, wouldn't that practice lead to a bigtime 1870s or 1930s deflationary collapse? There are so many rickety financial structures and practices around the world now that would implode without public sector guarantees. Of course, these structures and practices would never have developed had they not been validated, in Minsky's word, by government indulgence; I doubt the U.S. stock market would be where it is today were it not for the SL bailout or Greenspan's steep yield curve of the early 1990s. But hardly anyone anywhere on the political spectrum is willing to take the risk of not validating those threatened financial practices. Anyone here want to risk a global deflation? When it goes on a spree, big finance takes lots of hostages. Doug
Re: Drawing a Line
James Devine wrote: In a somewhat muddled op-ed article in today's L.A. TIMES, Perotoid Populist Kevin Phillips had an interesting suggestion: that any bail-outs of "elite" financial institutions be paid for by a tax on financial transactions, rather than out of general revenues. He called this "privatizing." Except that these international bailouts, unlike the SL resuce, don't cost U.S. taxpayers anything. The Treasury made a profit on the Mexico bailout, and the Bretton Woods institutions are also profit-makers. Doug
Re: Drawing a Line
A practical response to bailouts requires attention to something the left generally hasn't been too interested in: accounting standards. The New York Times article on the IMF's New Look contains two paragraphs that sum up the contrast between the arcane practices that actually determine the political and social consequences of the bailouts and the dramatic performance of the bailout. The Times article refers to accounting standards as "arcane" and to negotiations as "drama". Taking a hint from the Times, we might say that every bailout has its arcane, occult, private side and its dramatic, theatrical, public side. It's probably poetic license, rather than actual duration, that gives us the "10 hours" of holding up the deal and the "10 days" away from financial catastrophe. The Question that the left typically poses itself is how to confront the public face of the crisis/bailout. It's as if the spectators in the back row seats are day-dreaming about how they might walk on stage and change the course of the performance. But it's not on stage where the line is drawn, it's behind the scenes. Please laugh while I speculate about the ideological implications of the professionalization of accounting and the need to set up study groups on Class Struggle Accountancy. No, on second thought, don't laugh. What I'm trying to say is that the left remains mired in a largely theatrical and increasingly abstract discourse of rights, while the real action occurs within a discourse of accounts. The struggle over "standards" is about as much proof as you'll ever need that accounting is a conventional, or socially constructed practice -- the "bottom line" is: the bottom line is where you agree it is. From the New York Times: So adamant was Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin that the South Korea plan have teeth, people involved in the talks said, that the deal was held up for 10 hours in its final stages before South Korea agreed to such relatively arcane points as implementing accounting standards that would force Korean companies to provide a clearer view of their financial condition. -- snip -- "The drama of this negotiation resulted from the realization when the mission arrived in Seoul on Wednesday, Nov. 26, of the alarming state of the foreign reserves," Mr. Fischer said. "When we were invited in, Korea was possibly 10 days away from a financial catastrophe, and the urgency to compress negotiations into one week required a ruthless concentration on priorities." 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: [OPE-L] NIPA (1): a practical research proposal based on agood discussion
Alan Freeman wrote [in an apparent bit of leakage from the Secret List]: (b) all economic activities which merely circulate existing use-values should likewise be counted as transferred income. In particular this covers the financial sector and that part of the commercial sector confined to the circulation of use-value (thus excluding activities grouped under retail that nevertheless modify use-value, such as transport and warehousing). The accounts should be transformed accordingly. A telling factoid from the U.S. NIPAs: the gross product of the financial (FIRE) sector surpassed that of manufacturing in 1991. In 1996, according to the official stats, FIRE accounted for 19.0% of GDP, and manufacturing, 17.4%. Doug
Re: Drawing a Line
From: James Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a somewhat muddled op-ed article in today's L.A. TIMES, Perotoid Populist Kevin Phillips had an interesting suggestion: that any bail-outs of "elite" financial institutions be paid for by a tax on financial transactions, rather than out of general revenues. He called this "privatizing." Said tax is a good idea in its own right, but there is no reason why the proceeds should be wasted on subsidies to 'fat, dumb and happy' capital. Calling this privatization implies the proceeds in some way 'belong' to the taxpayers in the first place, which does not follow. Obviously, real privatization means the risk-taker eats the losses. But you knew that. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Drawing a Line
And a note: it seems to me that a central part of a progressive "no bailout" policy would be pointing to the record of how such bailouts "structurally adjust" millions outside the US into ever greater instability, vulnerabilty and lower wages. In fact, I would suggest that working out a progressive bailout policy would have to be a multinational activity. Right. The proponents of bail-out have to show that bailing out solves the problem and that failure to bail out makes the problem much worse. Neither is obvious to me. Or to put it slightly differently, but in the same vein, while pciking up your previous thread on protecting small savers: What kind of bailout, for whom, with what costs and benefits accruing to whom? One of my ocncerns is the way bailouts are really cover for "lockins" into free trade regimes, de-regulation, etc. So, concretely, what would a bailout for S. Korea look like that: - protects the most vulnerable small savers and small businesses - lets the big wasters take a fall - does not forclose on the autonomy necessary to determine nationally when and if to exercise some state control over utilities, pensions, etc. - and stateside, how to see that, in fact, it does not become a mechanism for supporting continued exports to the detriment of US workers. Kind of tough. Tom Tom Kruse / Casilla 5869 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Drawing a Line
In a somewhat muddled op-ed article in today's L.A. TIMES, Perotoid Populist Kevin Phillips had an interesting suggestion: that any bail-outs of "elite" financial institutions be paid for by a tax on financial transactions, rather than out of general revenues. He called this "privatizing." Jim Devine
Apologies for erroneous posting
The three last messages from me were meant for the OPE-L list! Apologies to members of both lists. Actually, the NIPA proposal was due to go out to PEN-L anyhow, but I guess the discussion on cats must have been a bit confusing to those not part of the thread. Not to mention the cats. Anyhow, seasons' greetings everyone. Alan Freeman
[OPE-L] NIPA (1): a practical research proposal based on a gooddiscussion
Seasons' Greetings to all and sorry I haven't been able to take part more. The seasons' end also gives me a breathing space to catch up on some of the discussion so expect a few posts end on end. Since several deal with NIPA I'll number these in the order I wrote them to minimise confusion. I very much liked the discussion on NIPA for two reasons: first, because I think it is always more useful to turn outwards to the critique of political economy instead of inwards to the criticism of Marx. I have separately posted a short paper that I wrote on NIPA for a book to be published by a group based in the UK called Radical Statistics. They run a small list and have a regular publication, and an annual conference which Julian Wells and myself went to. Many points made here amplify or repeat points in that article which also applies my proposals to the case of the UK. The discussion seems to confirm what I have thought for some time, that largely as a result of the pioneering work of Anwar and his co-workers, but also because of many individual contributions, particularly Fred's, there is now a substantive consensus about the re-construction of many Marxian quantities from NIPA data, notwithstanding the disagreements about the use of input-output statistics and the transformation of monetary magnitudes into labour magnitudes. This leads me to make a suggestion. I think it should be possible to establish some kind of broad collaboration whose purpose is to produce 'authoritative' transformations of NIPA data according to principles that form a consensus among a large number of researchers working with Marx's categories. I think that such an authoritative data set would have a number of tremendous advantages over the individual studies so far completed, but would build on these individual studies. Above all it would facilitate inter-country *comparisons* and possibly even, for the first time, systematic measurements of inter-country value transfers. Moreover it would provide a clear framework to explore the questions now in dispute among Marxist researchers, and in particular the further transformation of this monetary data into labour-time magnitudes. The basic consensus that I think is emerging is the following: the only source of value-added is waged labour-power engaged in the production of new use-values in the form of commodities. What can we agree on? = I think we would find agreement on the *monetary* measures of value that would result, but not on their transformation into hours of socially-necesary labour-time. That is, I think we could reach agreement (or a clear statement of differences) on such things as the size of variable capital or the unproductive costs of the finance sector expressed in dollars or pounds, even though we cannot agree how much labour these dollars or pounds represent. I think that the only monetary magnitudes on which we would find substantive disagreements (I will define 'substantive' below) would be measurements of capital stock and consequently the rate of profit. Moreover, insofar as there are disagreements questions that I will define as not substantive I think it might well turn out that these can be expressed in terms of a number of 'variant' transformations of NIPA data based on varying assumptions. In short - and it's been a dream of mine for a long time - I think it is a perfectly possible research proposal to produce 'definitive' accounts of a similar status (in terms of scholarly precision and care) to the Penn World Data, although there is a great deal of practical and difficult work involved, since it is by no means simple to produce long time-series of NIPA data which is measured in a consistent manner. I think this would be an enormous contribution to Marxist scholarship. It is also something that by definition no single individual could hope to accomplish, since only a collective endeavour could impose the necessary standards of scholarship (cross-checking, independent verification, etc). A research programme which enforces collaboration and the suppression of individual egos would be no bad thing for Marxists, and no bad example to set to official academic economics. Just to summarise what I think appears to be a possible consensus, more as a Request For Comments than an attempt to legislate: The essential critique to be made of the NIPA presentation is IMO that it incarnates a *theoretical assumption* as follows: that the ownership of land and the ownership of capital constitute an independent source of value added. Accordingly, the NIPA accounts calculate total value added as the sum of all incomes (in some cases imputed) by owners of these 'factors of production', since money income is considered to be the measure of the value-added by the factor. All other money payments (such as state pensions) are treated as transfers. This leads, for example, to the following contradiction: if I save all my
