High Wages or Abolition of Wages?
"They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes on them, the present system simultaneously engenders *the material conditions* and *the social forms* necessary for an economic reconstruction of society. Instead of the *conservative* motto: 'A fair day's wages for a fair day's work!' they ought to inscribe on their banner the *revolutionary* watchword: 'Abolition of the wages system!'" Karl Marx, Value, Price and Profit _ As Michael, Doug and others have mentioned the economy of high wages in downloads and previous posts, I wanted to suggest another twist. Otto Bauer, William J Blake and other Marxists have argued that because capital by its very nature only pays for labor power, not labor, it confronts an economic limit to the mechanization process: there may be a specifically Marxian reason for Doug's criticism of the Rifkin/Aronowitz total automation fantasies, which neither they nor their critics have considered. Ricardo reasoned that a machine, to be introduced, must cost less than the workers it is designed to replace. But Marx had different system of calculation: A machine replaces labor power power but labor power is than than value it creates. The machine's money value represents all the labor in its production, in no matter what proportion it represented wages and surplus value. Hence the real economy of a machine is the difference between its value and only the labor-power it replaces, not the total value added by labor. Dead labor is less, then, than the living labor it replaces. Since the difference is computed as between the cost of the machinery and merely of the labor power it replaces, it follows that where labor power costs little it may not pay to buy any machinery. (Note for example GM's reversion to more labor intensive technique in its plants in the newly industrializing world.) Low wages can indeed become regressive from the point of view the development of social knowledge, embodied in fixed capital, as a direct force of production. A Marxist would argue, in addition, that the answer to this is not really higher wages but the abolition of wage labor itself (the costing of labor in terms of labor power). It's bourgeois economics or what Jerry Levy would call (accurately) petty bourgeois empiricism to only point out the obvious: the higher the "labor cost" in any country, the more likely the utilization of machinery. Doug--along with the authors of the inanely titled *Judas Economy*--has suggested in previous posts that low wages may account for the low capital/output ratio in the US. However, only if surplus value or the wage form is abolished can the labor basis for replacing machinery be greatly augmented and the advances in mechanization correspond fully to the full technical knowledge of humankind: as Marx, Korsch and Mattick have put it, the proletarian revolution would be the greatest of productive forces by destroying capitalist relations of production. This fundamental, earth-shattering and revolutionary insight can only be gained on the *strict basis* of Marx's basic value-theoretic concepts. Though Mattick's argument is broader (and perhaps different) than mine, I shall quote him: "For Marx, the development of fixed capital indicated 'to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life it have come under the general control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it.' [Grundrisse]. Yet this side of the development of the productive frorces, and its immense acceleration through the capitalist relations of production, always remain subordinated to the value relationships between necessary and surplus labor and to their changes as determined by the accumulation of capital. Technological and scientific development by itself, as the determiner of the conditions of social existence, may have validity for a future society, but it has no independent meaning with regard to the capitalist system. It is for this reason, according to Marx, that the forces of production cannot be reduced to a matter of technological development, for they embody as well the social activities released by their class determined course. Just as it is not science and technology but capital that represents the productive forces and their historical boundaries in modern society, *the proletarian revolution would be the greatest of productive forces by destroying the capitalist relations of production.* History is the history of class struggle, not technology." Marxism: last refuge of the bourgeoisie? (ME Sharpe, 1983;p. 102, my emphasis) Best, Rakesh Otto Bauer ideas are related in Rosdolosky's *Making of Marx's Capital* (I don't have my copy with me); William J Blake closes his chapter on relative surplus value in Marxian Economic Theory and Its Criticism (1939) with this idea (as usual, I have drawn al
Re: High Wages or Abolition of Wages?
For once I disagree with Rakesh: Mattick fell into productivist error,
which Marx defintiely did not (and I remember the strong terms in
which Alfred Sohn-Rethel, who knew Mattick, criticised him for this).
Better to read the Grundrisse than Wages, Prices and Profit, and then
to put Mattick's quote in context, and the context is indeed 'the
abolition of the wages system', ie, the supercession of labour-
time as 'the miserable measure' of value. But that means to end
value itself AND THEREFORE THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN
PRODUCTION- CONSUMPTION which the capitalist labour-process
CONSTITUTES.
This is the core of Marx's thought in the whole Grundrisse, and
therefore the whole of Marx! So the value-critique of the
composition of capital APPLIES ONLY WITHIN CAPITALISM
and provides no yardstick for SOCIALIST appropriation of nature
WITHIN WHICH BY DEFINITION there can be no distinction
between production-consumption ('consumptive production, productive
consumption') and THEREFORE no such THING as 'fixed capital',
which is EXACTLY not more or less than the middle term between
society and nature, the thing which CONSTITUTES
the space dividing production from consumption, within which the
labour-process is sited.
As for low wages, low capital/output ratios, it is simply senseless to
look at the US economy in isolation and if even Marx in his day was not so
constrained, why must we be? It is pure fetishism not merely of the
nation-state instance/level but of 'the economy' as a reified form of
labour-time allocations. In any case, as we have just been discussing,
US wages are NOT low in PPP terms.
And why are low wages socially regressive in themselves? They are only low
relative to the costs of labour in other sectors. The model Rakesh gives is
low-pay workers in the South producing consumer goods; science-based, capital-
goods industries with high-value labour-power is located in the metropoles.
If per contra the low wages were being paid to scientists or workers in
producer-goods industries, the effect would be to increase the profitability
of investment in fixed plant.
If however wages are relatively higher in knowledge-based sectors, or in capital-
equipment sectors, it must be because the cost of reproduction of labour-
power in those sectors is disproportionately high, ie, because capital
in those sectors has a relatively high OC or because the unproductive
(in marxian value terms) labour deployed in universities, research facilities
etc, does not produce a flow of innovations sufficient to lower the value of
its own inputs directly or of the outputs of consumer good sectors (Branch 2)
which might indirectly lower the value of labour-power in unproductive sectors.
Ending wage-labour would not, on this reading, free up new sources of
productivity or hidden sci-tech resources. There is a strict conection
between value-composition and technical-composition of capital. It is
not a matter of inter-sectoral value relations betwen Branch I and Branch
II alone. Each provides the other's inputs in any case. More fundamentally,
it is a matter of the productivity of science itself. I believe that what
I have said here answers the charge the capitalism is fundamentally inimical
to science; it is only inefficient at the margins, where misapplication of
capital or conflict between (imperial) relations and (scientific-technical)
forces of production produce cycles of slow-growth, with perhaps some
positive feedbacks. In that situation, 'socialist planning' as we have
known it, might indeed be an 'answer' to chronic cyclical depressions,
but would be unable to liberate qualitiatively new productive forces.
That is the precise history of Soviet planning, from its early heroic
Leontieff days to its shameful end.
So the idea that the CMP is inimical to science because it is based on
labour-time commensuration is surely wrong. On the contrary, the essence
of the matter is that classical(Galilean) physics (cf Koyre, Cassirer,
Sohn-Rethel) arose as the adequate knowledge-base of laisser-faire
capitalism, capable of objectifying process within machinery and
forming the substrate of the capitalist labour-process. Before the
labour process could be constutited as a space whose poles were production
and consumption, it was first necessray to constitute Kantian space-time
as an external continuum within which human intersubjectivity could be
fixated.
The breakdown of the Newtonian synthesis exactly coincides with the rise
of monopoly capitalism in which process production gradually reduces
the worker to the status of bystander, as Marx predicted in Grundrisse
(the quote is a long one, and in it Marx makes the point that the totalising
quality of science, which is what capital seeks to implement, nevertheless
took place in an opposite form, thru detail labour):
In machinery, the appropriation of living labour by capital achieves a direct
reality in this respect as well:
Re: Class Warfare in the Information Age
> Perelman's strength is that his overview is historical as well as social. Mark, I would add that this seems to be the strenth of everything Michael writes, e.g., The End of Economics Best, Rakesh
Re: a proposed leading indicator II
On Sat, 21 Mar 1998, MScoleman wrote: > In a message dated 98-03-20 12:56:27 EST, you write: > > >Increases in antidepressant use, 1995-1996, by teens and pre-teens > > > > > > Drug 1995 1996 Increase > > > > Prozac: > > 13-18 148,000 217,000 47% > >6-12 56,000 203,000 298% > > >> > > And we are horrified at the idea that nineteenth century women drugged their > children with laudanum and alcohol when they had to go out and work 12 hour > days. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Only the length of the workday has changed; otherwise it's Goodbye and hello again, Charles Dickens! valis
Re: US real earnings boom
To whom.., Born in '64, I come at the end of the American baby boom. When I am 55, expect trouble. The blip may last 20 years, at which point the cry will be heard "A blip! a blip! my kingdom for a blip!" peace
Re: Chase Manhattan responds
Mr. Phillips, I hope I made it clear that the CMB response was entirely unofficial. I forgot to mention that Chase's high-tech response to the Canadian clearing problem is to put all the checks in a big envelope and mail them back to Canada to clear them or convert them into wires on that side of the border. As for my own position on Canada, I'm all Canadian on my mother's side. I feel Canada - English, Native and Francophone - is an unheralded civilizing influence in the world. My only "problem" with Canada (if you could call it that) is by no means unique to Canada. After living in the melting pot of the NYC metro area my whole life, I become increasingly nervous being somewhere where there are so many white people. I get a sort of Stephen King-Stepford Wife feeling like they must be up to something or there would be more brown people around. peace
Chase Manhattan Responds
I don't know when Boddhisatva was last in Canada, but at least here in Winnipeg, the percentate of aboriginal peoples in population is approximately equal to the percentage of blacks in the american population -- and this does not include the peoples of east asian origin -- Filipinos, Vietnamese, Chinese -- nor the admittedly much smaller percentages of East and West Indians, African and Latinos, none of which would be classified as he does as 'white'. Indeed, in recent years the majority of immigrants to Canada has been 'non-European' while the highest fertility rate in the country has been among the aboriginals. So don't give us any of this guff about 'white Canada'. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Re: High Wages or Abolition of Wages?
William S. Lear wrote: > And how, exactly, is the marginal cost of info-production zero? I can > understand how this might be very small, for certain "info". But even > replicating electronic messages carries a cost that is non-zero (ever > try to administer a busy, high-speed network or a mail server? Ever > try to add a new node?). What sort of "info" do you have in mind > here? 'The marginal cost of information is effectively zero'. Perelman, M, Class Warfare in the Information Age p88. I agree that effectively zero isn't exactly zero, if you want to quibble. But the marginal cost of MS Works is the few cents a CD costs. Netscape and Linux are free. I can log onto Murdoch newspapers for free. I can listen to the radio. Once networks are running, the marginal cost of a byte is infinitesimal (how much does this email cost?) If initial investments are high and marginal prices vanishingly small, what is the ROI going to be in the absence of cartelisation and privatisation of knowledge? Mark
Re: High Wages or Abolition of Wages?
> > And how, exactly, is the marginal cost of info-production zero? I can I presume what Prof. Perelman meant was that once created, information can be used by additional persons or additional times without cost, unlike depreciable capital or 'exhaustible' consumption goods. Conveying or preserving said information via the printed page or the byte is another matter and possibly not zero in cost. You might be alluding to the point, with which I don't disagree, that the MC statement is trivial in light of the definition of information, sort of like saying a firm arse tends not to sag. 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: Is Inflation Dead?
Jay writes: >I wanted to take a quick survey of whether inflation remains an "economic issue." I'm helping Bob Carson update his "Economic Issues Today," ... >I've been trying to formulate a reasonable "radical" position on the inflation issue, drawing from work by Dean Baker, Bob Pollin, Doug. From what I can tell, prior to the last decade or so, there really hasn't been a left consensus on inflation. < On the causes of inflation, you might want to see the URPE publication THE IMPERIL LED ECONOMY (macro volume), one of whose articles is by yours truly. I think a left consensus on then proximate causes of inflation can be summarized by an equation brought to the fore by Otto Eckstein and more recently embraced by Robert J. Gordon: inflation = demand inflation (SR Phillips curve) + supply-shock inflation + inertial or built-in inflation Most economists (except die-hard monetarists) see the first two terms as generally accepted. There is little debate except about the details. The last term -- what David Gordon called "structural inflation" -- is typically called "inflationary expectations" by the neoclassicals. As an "expectations" term, it can be abolished pretty quickly. In the left lit, on the other hand, it refers to the unresolved conflicts over the production and distribution of the product; it is also called the "wage price spiral" theory. (As Albert Hirschman pointed out in his essay on inflation in Chile (in JOURNEYS TOWARD PROGRESS), having inflation avoids overt class conflict over distribution, though it can in turn intensify class conflict. See also Rowthorn's article in the first issue of the CAMBRIDGE JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS.) Because these conflicts are persistent, inertial inflation doesn't go away over night the way some neoclassical theories have it. In the left conflct theory of inflation, there seem to be several ways to abolish structural inflation under capitalism: 1) victory over labor organizations and the like that are one basis for conflict theory. A general increase in market competition also helps here, since part of any inertial inflation theory is that many economic units have some price-setting power. 2) incomes policies, which often mean the same as #1. 3) a social-democratic type pact that institutes incomes policies without repression. 4) reliance on falling oil prices and the like (beneficial supply shocks) to counteract inertial inflation. 5) labor-market policies can lower the inflation-threshold rate of unemployment (a.k.a. the NAIRU) by bringing in new supplies of labor-power, abolishing structural unemployment, etc. >Moreover, Doug and Bob P disagree on an elected vs. non-elected FRB (if I've got this wrong, please elucidate). < That's an issue on the demand side of inflation, and I'll leave it to Doug & Bob. But if someone can figure out a way to solve inflation on the supply-side, the Fed loses some of its role. That seems be a good thing. >If Marx were alive today, what would his policy prescription for dealing with inflation?< Marx didn't advocate policies, unless the workers were actually in power (e.g., the CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAM). I doubt he would advocate any of the list I produced above and I wouldn't blame him; absent democratic control over the state (or at least a lot of pressure on the state from outside by mass popular movements), almost any policy is likely to turn out to be anti-worker. But maybe the messages received at our seance were inaccurate representations of his true views. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Re: a proposed leading indicator
Dear Doug: On indicators. Since you put out the call for input, I've been trying to come up with suggestions that would the indicators have a healthy internatinoalist content. By that I mean they consider the role of the US in the worl (in shaping things as varied as trade polciy, cultural practices, etc.); the interelatedness of livelihoods, etc. And, especially, the projection of US power about the globe. Perhaps because of intellectaul laziness on my part, I haven't though up any good ones yet. But it seems your indexes will need such content. Any ideas out there? Something like Hollywood exports of movies in relation to how much capital is shipped north to service and pay off debt? Distribution of non-1st world internet access around the globe? Immigration stats? Scapegoating on the international level? Tom Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
free information, free software
By the way, Bill Lear's company is quoted in another part of this article. Sandberg, Jared. 1998. "Apache's Free Software Gives Microsoft, Netscape Fits." Wall Street Journal (19 March): p. B1. Apache, it turns out, doesn't come from a company at all. It's the loving labor of a loose confederation of programmers who, working in their spare time over gin and tonics at home and collaborating on the Internet, wanted to build a better way to serve up Web pages to the millions of people who want to see them. Once they had completed this server software three years ago, they triumphantly released all of the technical details on the Internet, letting any Web site use it gratis. "Direct remuneration itself wasn't an interest," says Brian Behlendorf, one of the chief organizers of the Apache Project -- so named because the team started with university-lab software and "patched" it with new features and fixes. Today Apache is said to have a 47% share of the Internet server market compared with 22% for Microsoft and about 10% for Netscape, according to Netcraft Ltd., a British consulting firm. Other sources reject those figures for several reasons, including that among the private internal "intranets" that companies install, Microsoft and particularly Netscape hold the lead. Still, even Microsoft's newly acquired subsidiaries -- Hotmail Corp. and WebTV Networks Inc. -- use Apache software on their Web sites. Apache server software is used by an impressive range of companies and organizations to run their Web sites, including Kimberly-Clark Corp., McDonald's Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc., as well as the New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves. By some estimates, Apache is in place at close to half of the two million Web sites on the Internet, more than double the share held by Microsoft Corp. or Netscape. he Apache project began informally in early 1995, when a handful of Web developers were searching for robust and flexible software that could deliver Web pages to users' desktops quickly and reliably. Microsoft hadn't yet created a server program. Netscape had an early version that lacked sophisticated features the Apache contigent wanted. So Mr. Behlendorf and a few colleagues started zapping e-mail to and fro about how to create new features and work through problems. An original circle of eight programmers began working on some existing software code from a program written at a university lab, communicating via an Internet mailing list that updated everyone on each designer's progress. The list grew to 150 people, and 200 more contributors have pitched in, many of whom have never met face to face. The first version of Apache was ready in April 1995, and by year end it had become the No. 1 Web server program. One reason Apache came into its own is that the source code, the basic software coding that most developers keep secret, is readily available on the Internet. That allows users to make improvements and eliminate any bugs that emerge. Proponents of such "open" software believe that revealing a program's inner workings entices more outside programmers to devote their creative energy to building an even better version. "Apache is our biggest competitor," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates declared at a Wall Street gathering over a year ago. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: High Wages or Abolition of Wages?
Rakesh Bhandari wrote: > Why is the theft of alien labor time a miserable foundation for creation of > wealth? I have a somewhat different interpretation of miserable. My reading of the passage is, that as direct labor becomes a smaller and smaller part of the entire production process of a commodity -- and as scientific or what Marx called universal labor becomes more important -- it makes no sense [miserable] to concentrate on squeezing the last elements of economic efficiency out of the production process. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
zero marginal costs
The idea of a zero marginal cost of information [in the sense that once produced it costs little to reproduce] is an old one. Marx discussed the discovery of the binomial theorem, which once discussed cost nothing to reuse. In an earlier book, I emphasized the point that many manufactured goods are becoming, like information, trivial marginal costs goods. The physical cost of producing a computer is small. Our retail cost is mostly payments for intellectual property and the overhead of the distribution system. Books cost virtually nothing to produce. We even send the publishers disks that eliminate the cost of typesetting, yet prices skyrocket. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: a proposed leading indicator
You might recall that the lynching of blacks was inversely correlated with cotton prices. In bad times, scapegoating becomes more prevalent. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
indicators: prisons
Dear Doug: If the "incarceration as solution to social problems" school is going to be part of your indicators, some suggested sources and websites. A good introduction on international comparisons of incarceration rates (data from 1992-3) can be found at: http://www.soros.org/lindesmith/library/sentence/behndbrs.html The report is on The Lindesmith Center site, but was prepared by folks at the Sentencing Project. Apparently they don't have their own site (more on them below). For prison/incarceration related stats, The Lindesmith Center -- focused primarily on drug issues -- has other useful webpages. The site was also the source for my table on % of Fed. prisoners there for drug charges, sent in a post yesterday. Below please find the "Harper's Index" style page they did. Each line/citation is linked to the DOJ (or other) stat source, making it a great resource for "criminal justice" stats generally. Find it at: http://www.soros.org/lindesmith/quick/prison2.html (That's right: Soros -- I understand he gives major $ to the Lindesmith Center). -- Prisons Number of people incarcerated in jail or prison in the United States in 1996: 1,630,940 Percentage of federal inmates in 1995 who were serving a sentence for a drug offense: 60% Percentage of state and local inmates who were serving a sentence for a drug offense: 23% Percentage of the increase in the federal prison population from 1985 to 1995 that was due to drug convictions: 80% Percentage of the federal prison population in 1993 who were low-level drug violators with no history of violence or prior incarceration: 21% Percentage of the total prison population in 1993 who were drug offenders with no criminal histories: 17% Estimated percentage of federal inmates in 1995 who were serving a sentence for a violent offense: 13% Percentage of sentence served by drug offenders and violent offenders in federal prison, respectively, in 1995: 84%, 78% Average time spent in federal prison by drug offenders and violent offenders, respectively, in 1995: 32.7 months, 56.4 months Percentage of federal inmates serving mandatory minimum sentences who were first-time offenders in 1991: 50% Average drug sentence in 1985 (before the advent of mandatory minimum sentences) and 1995, respectively: 23.1 months, 70 months Estimated number of times more effective treatment is in stemming serious crime than mandatory minimum sentences: 15 Percentage of a cohort of parolees who participated in both prison and community-based drug rehabilitation programs 18 months after release from prison and remained "arrest free" and drug free, respectively: 77%, 47% Percentage of those parolees who did not participate in such programs who remained "arrest free" and drug free, respectively: 46%, 16% Number of privately run prisons in the United States: 126 Number of prisoners serving time in private prisons in 1997: 47,600 Number of jail and prison inmates known to be positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 1993: 22,713 Prison vs. Education Annual amount spent on corrections in the U.S. by federal, state and local governments in 1992: $26.2 billion Annual amount spent on higher education by federal, state and local governments during the same period: $236.32 billion Amount federal taxpayers spend per year to incarcerate one inmate: $20,804 Amount federal taxpayers spend per year to educate one child: $5,421 Percentage increase in state government expenditures on prisons from 1987-1995: 30% Percentage decrease in state government spending on higher education for the same period: 18% Dollar amount of the increase in state bond fund allotment for corrections in FY 1994-1995: $926 million Dollar amount of the decrease in state bond fund allotment for higher education in FY 1994-1995: $954 million Number of prisons constructed in California from 1984 to 1996: 21 Number of colleges or universities constructed in California from 1984 to 1996: 1 Percentage of the FY 1996-1997 California State budget appropriated for corrections: 9.4% Percentage of the same budget appropriated for higher education: 8.7% Notes: 1. Although there are now approximately 100 separate federal mandatory minimum penalty provisions located in 60 criminal statutes, only a small minority of these laws are applied. Four statutes (manufacture and distribution of controlled substances, possession of controlled substances, penalties for the importation of controlled substances, and minimum sentence enhancements for carrying a firearm during a drug or violent crime) account for 94% of the cases sentenced under mandatory minimum statutes. (See Citations). 2. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "while the controversy continues [over privately run prisons] the prison business is booming. The number of people behind bars in the United States has tripled to 1.63 million in the past 20 years even as crime rates have remained fairly s
Is Inflation Dead?
Folks, I wanted to take a quick survey of whether inflation remains an "economic issue." I'm helping Bob Carson update his "Economic Issues Today," which Sharpe expects to publish in December. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the text, but it covers 15 issues (7 micro, 7 macro, 1 market vs. planning) from a "conservative," "liberal," and "radical" perspective. The issues are covered from a non-technical but "advocacy" perspective. In the 1980s, the book had a good following among teachers of economics from a "heterodox persuasion." I've been trying to formulate a reasonable "radical" position on the inflation issue, drawing from work by Dean Baker, Bob Pollin, Doug. From what I can tell, prior to the last decade or so, there really hasn't been a left consensus on inflation. Moreover, Doug and Bob P disagree on an elected vs. non-elected FRB (if I've got this wrong, please elucidate). Hilferding, Sweezy, Baran, et. al. never really developed a "radical" theory of inflation - probably because most of theory was formulated during a period (1900-1950) of low inflation or outright deflation. Of course there late MC/stagflationist argument of the late-1960s-1970s is not very persuasive for today's situation. Anyhow, everyone's 2 cents wouldbe appreciated. So, take a chance and give me your best "puch line" (5 sentences or less) to the following: If Marx were alive today, what would his policy prescription for dealing with inflation? Thanks so much for you help. Jason
Re: a proposed leading indicator
On Fri, March 20, 1998 at 12:28:36 (-0500) Doug Henwood writes: >Speaking of indicators, The Nation has asked me to put together a set of >economic/social indicators, to be published quarterly, that would be >revealing, interesting, and against the grain of conventional thinking. > >Any suggestions? Mental health, including suicide rates? Child abuse? Wife abuse? Learning disorders? Eating disorders? Cholesterol levels? Caffeine intake? I would be particularly interested in child health stats, including something like how many kids are in an intellectually and physically healthy/stimulating environment, and how many are left to develop in a pinched and miserable environment. Related to this: public school enrollment vs private. Public school funding. How bout percentage of population professing belief in literal word of bible? The devil, heaven and hell? I find stats like percentage of Black children under 18 who live in poverty to be eye-openers, though the totals across races are monstrous, too (in 1994, 43.3% Black children under 18 lived in poverty, 16.3% White, 41.1% Hispanic, 21.2% total; this from '96 Statistical Abstract of US, table 731, p. 472). Over 1/5 of our children grow up in poverty. Sad. Number of children 18 and younger in prison? How about also something like park space per capita in various cities? Square feet of public space that is not commercialized? Number of wiretaps authorized? Bill
Re: Chase Manhattan responds
> Oh, and about the annexation of Canada. I should note that > the US citizens of the NorthWest Angle of the US on lake > of the Woods are petitioning congress to secede and join > Canada because of the rotten treatment they are getting > from the US. I just hope the US Government gives them the > same support in their seccession movement as it gives to > the Kosovo terrorists. Better to have Canada annex the U.S. Just don't make us talk funny or adopt ridiculous rules for our football games. MBS
Re: High Wages or Abolition of Wages?
On Sat, March 21, 1998 at 11:42:31 (+) Mark Jones writes: >... the era of so-called informatics, >which, as Rob Schaap and I and Michael Perelman and many many others >have been and are pointing out, contains a radical internal >contradiction, in that the marginal cost of info-production is zero. And how, exactly, is the marginal cost of info-production zero? I can understand how this might be very small, for certain "info". But even replicating electronic messages carries a cost that is non-zero (ever try to administer a busy, high-speed network or a mail server? Ever try to add a new node?). What sort of "info" do you have in mind here? We should remember that most software systems, on the back of which rides the era of informatics, are not scalable. That is, this dominant scale relation of software (decreasing returns to scale) exists not only in software production itself (because it in turn uses software), but characterizes the software products that are produced. Though I don't have empirical evidence to support this, this is something I deal with professionally on a day-to-day basis: one of my skills is in writing scalable high-performance software systems and believe me, it can be miserably difficult to get right. It is much easier to write one-off, non-scalable software which is costly and inefficient for the end-user. Bill Gates in fact sells little, individualized, non-scalable factories (Excel, Word, etc.) for producing knowledge that are made out of software. Once in the hands of the end-user, they must then exert considerable effort to create new information, as any user of even a word processing system knows. Gates is rich not because of the supposed zero marginal cost of info-production. Gates is rich because he was able to help create an inefficient market based on atomized computers which ran atomized software, both of which (computer platform and software) could then more easily be made "obsolete" with a flick of the corporate wrist. Just as the prescriptions of the market are not for the powerful, so too the fantasies of the "liberative" potential of a personal computer on every desk are not for serious (corporate) computer users, who have long realized the benefits of large-scale and scalable client/server computer systems (not to mention true multi-tasking operating systems, such as UNIX as opposed to that Lockean toy OS, Windows). One of the reasons that Gates hates the Internet is that it makes his pathetic PC-based operating system irrelevant, and allows users to create a much more efficient network of information-sharing on their own, wiring it as it suits *their* needs, not the needs of Microsoft. I claim that attention must be paid to the technologies that are actually used to produce and propagate information, because they determine to what extent and with what ease you can create information: the act of information creation is not simply when you think it up, but when it arrives in the hands/minds of those who will use it, hence transmission mechanisms are socially integral to its production, hence absence of scalable computer systems (software and hardware) which provide the transmission mechanisms are to me evidence of non-zero marginal costs. Bill
Re: Class Warfare in the Information Age
At 05:50 p.m. 3/21/98 +1100, Rob wrote: >... There's an inbuilt crunch in all this, but one senses bad years lie before us as capitalism insists on chasing down those errant externalities until all is capital and nothing anything else.< there's an asymmetry here: capitalists try mightily to capture and internalize external benefits -- but they also figure out ways to identify and externalize internal costs. >Having captured us as individuals, capitalism now begins to capture the relationships that constitute us. I suppose the idea is to make sure the forces of production actually become the same thing as the relations of production. Bingo, the end of history, eh?< Of course this scenario assumes no resistance from workers and other oppressed folks. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html "Life is like a shit sandwich. But if you've got enought bread, you don't taste the shit." -- Jonathan Winters.
Re: Chase Manhattan responds
To whom.., I quoted the bank employee directly, feeling that one should give the person the opportunity to characterize himself before he was characterized. However, his technical point was not made clear. Inside national borders, checks are cleared *through* the central banks. Cross-border check clearing would require domestic banks to open up accounts with foreign central banks (and vice-versa) or it would require central banks to clear through each other. I explored the question in a subsequent conversation and elicited more detail of a banker's world. According to my pal, *no* central banks clear checks across borders, even in Europe. In addition, Americans are considered to be backwards in that we use so many checks to do business. Wire transfers and letters of credit are the world standard. When I made the point that wire transfers are a little bit inconvenient in this country, my capitalist friend retorted that there is no way that banks are going to do *anything* that might increase check volume. Credit and debit cards (which are effectively analogs to wires and letters of credit) will take over the role of checks if banks have any say. Parenthetically, there have been several attempts to create private cross-border clearing houses, but these have not been generalized successes. Ultimately, Mr. Sokolowski's point (and one that I made) is valid - bankers are not concerned with what could or should be when it comes to cross-border check clearing. Bankers also have a point: checks are antiquated, inefficient transfer mechanisms. However, turning over one's finances to a credit card company has uncomfortable implications that the simplicity of a check transaction does not. This points to the need for an alternative banking system that is actually concerned with working people. Convenient methods of transfer without the usurious rates associated with credit cards, micro-lending and community-based lending are necessary functions that capitalist banks simply will not perform. The process may begin with what Americans refer to as a credit union (I don't know what they might be called elsewhere), but one imagines the possibility of direct citizens' access to centralized clearing mechanisms. But then, what would the banks do? peace
Re: US real earnings boom
In a message dated 98-03-20 17:06:27 EST, Doug writes: << Is this a blip, shortly to be squashed by Alan Greenspan, or a real reversal of the downtrend in real hourly earnings that began in 1973? >> if we're voting, i vote for blip. Also, I was thinking about why they increase in real wages hasn't led to inflation (yet). Perhaps, it is because wages were so far behind everything else, that their real rise is simply still in the catch up stage with other prices? Also, I think consumer debt may be part of the answer. This rise in real wages does not mean an absolute rise in consumption -- people may be using the real rise in income to pay off already incurred debts, which is not new consumption spending. F'rinstance, last December, even with the rise in real wages and low unemployment, consumer spending was not stellar. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: a proposed leading indicator
In a message dated 98-03-20 12:56:27 EST, you write: << >Increases in antidepressant use, 1995-1996, by teens and pre-teens > > > Drug 1995 1996 Increase > > Prozac: > 13-18 148,000 217,000 47% >6-12 56,000 203,000 298% > >> And we are horrified at the idea that nineteenth century women drugged their children with laudanum and alcohol when they had to go out and work 12 hour days. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: a proposed leading indicator
In a message dated 98-03-20 12:40:19 EST, Doug writes: << Speaking of indicators, The Nation has asked me to put together a set of economic/social indicators, to be published quarterly, that would be revealing, interesting, and against the grain of conventional thinking. >> Yeah -- previous sarcastic remarks aside: To study quality of life: 1. Number of children in poverty. 2. Number of African American males in jail. 3. Pension statistics -- who has incomes other than social security. 4. Some kind of estimates about grey market jobs (illegal seamstress operations, unlicensed day care for children and elders, etc.) 5. Housing costs as a percentage of income. 6. Number of non-whites and minorities entering college, finishing college, and obtaining entry level jobs in corporations. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Class Warfare in the Information Age
Good review, Mark! You've sold one. And congratulations, Michael. I agree with every word Mark says you say - the commodification of information may yet attain undreamed-of proportions, I think. The citizen has become the consumer, democracy the market, uncodified information codified and privatised, and the ties that bind us torn from us to be divided up between Bills and Ruperts. There's an inbuilt crunch in all this, but one senses bad years lie before us as capitalism insists on chasing down those errant externalities until all is capital and nothing anything else. Having captured us as individuals, capitalism now begins to capture the relationships that constitute us. I suppose the idea is to make sure the forces of production actually become the same thing as the relations of production. Bingo, the end of history, eh? Can't see it meself ... Cheers,Rob.
