[PEN-L:8319] Re: Re: The Theory of Cultural Racism
Rod Hay wrote: > My remarks had a very simple message. If Henry is going to accuse people on > this list of racism, he had better back it up. As I said several times: Now, the individuals on the list that you referred to did not at first accused me of being a reverse racist. Their first line of attack was to ridicule Chinese socialist language as evidence of a collective defect that precludes clear thinking. It is when I pointed out that offensive ridicule as culturally racist that they launched the reverse racist accusation. At any rate, Jim Blaut's paper never once mentioned my name. So why didn't you just attack me. Why attacked his paper? Am I now permanently and personally tied to every racism debate? > And stop copping out everytime by saying. "I am Chinese I can say anything I > want with out being challenged." "Disagreeing with me is racism" or telling > people to calm down after he has throwned a bundle of offensive accusations. Are those direct quotes? Please point out where I wrote that. I welcome your challenge. But please challenge what I said not what I am. I suggest you calm down in your reaction to Jim's paper. You do recognize you are distorting facts in the above statements, I hope. > > So far as I have seen no one on this list has said one racist thing and > Henry has refused to document his accusations. Hmm, that's revealing. > > So far as Mao Thought is concerned, it not a cultural difference. I know > several people of chinese background who see all this crap about "our glorious > leader" as being as ridiculous as it appears to western eyes. And it is not > socialist no matter what language it is in. Some of your best friend are Chinese? Obviously none of your friends are socialists. Try to convince me with your eloquence rather than distortion. Henry C.K. Liu
[PEN-L:8322] racism
Henry wrote: "Some of my best friends are Chinese." Henry This is just the type of provocative accusation that I am talking about. It serves no purpose but to antagonise. If you are accusing me or anyone else on this list of being a racist, I demand more evidence that the fact that I do not think that Mao-Tse-Tung Thought is the height of Chinese intellectual accomplishment. Racism is a serious charge that should not be thrown around lightly. Hero-worship is the antithesis of socialism. Perhaps you should read what Marx said about Carlyle's On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History. If your undying faith is not shared, perhaps you should rethink it rather that denouncing the heretics and naming the sinners. I have always preferred reason to proclamations of faith (but that is of course an enlightenment idea that is out of favour today). Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:8321] Re: curbing the power of the World Bank...
Viva viva, Robert. This is the spirit that in South Africa (as well as many other places) translates into the slogan, "WB, quit SA!" The Bank has in virtually every single one of its adventures here sided with rich white folk. Many details can be provided to anyone even slightly doubtful. Whether we can accumulate enough such South campaigns to finally awaken the Northern inside-Beltway NGOs to take this seriously as a campaign remains to be seen. But I'm doubtful, because so many of the people working around WB reform -- here I definitely don't mean Robert's Preamble Center, the Naderites or 50 Years is Enough -- are so damn opportunistic and ineffectual. So that means that the US grassroots has to kick in. Sanctions against apartheid -- and, ultimately, a deep crevice between capital and the Boer regime -- only came about because of earlier and simultaneous "divestment" strategies in municipalities, states and universities. Kevin D. is absolutely right, strategically, about translating the strategy to WB work. I hope US comrades commit to helping him deepen this crucial line of attack... (If anyone wants, off-list, I have a paper, submitted to the Jnl of World Systems Research, about this problem: do we seek fruitlessly to reform... or, better, seek to shut down... the embryonic global state?) Yours, Patrick > Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 13:50:11 -0400 > To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > From: Robert Naiman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [PEN-L:8289] curbing the power of the World Bank... > Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Doug's posts on the Summers memo -- to the effect in the privacy of his own memo >Summers was being honest about the logic of the institution he represented, and "we >should face up to that" -- provoke> > It seems to me that there are campaigns to block particular Bank projects, there are >campaigns to force the Bank to adhere to its own environmental standards, and there >is a fight going on about the > > But no-one is campaigning to curb the power of the Bank, except insofar as the above >campaigns can be understood as curbing the Bank's power. > > This is particularly troubling given that something like 65% of Bank loans are now >structural adjustment loans, that the Bank's loans in health care and education are >tied to things like increased us> > What can we do? > > Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange suggests a campaign to get institutions to pledge >that they will not purchase World Bank bonds. This seems like just the sort of thing >that PEN-Lers could help with, > > -Robert Naiman > > --- > Robert Naiman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Preamble Center > 1737 21st NW > Washington, DC 20009 > phone: 202-265-3263 > fax: 202-265-3647 > http://www.preamble.org/ > --- > > Patrick Bond email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * phone: 2711-614-8088 home: 51 Somerset Road, Kensington 2094 South Africa work: University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management PO Box 601, Wits 2050, South Africa email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 2711-488-5917 * fax: 2711-484-2729
[PEN-L:8275] Re: Whites and Capitalists
A rambling response to some aspects of this conversation that seem, well,
ambiguous to me, Henry ...
>The term "whites" remains a very valid
>social scientific category and generalization. The fact that something is
>socially constructed does not make it indefinite or invalid as a
>generalization. Nor does the complex interaction with class make this
>generalization inaccurate or unclear.
>Henry's use of the generalization regarding whites frequently treating
>people of color as lesser humans (racism) , e.g. sending into danger
>zones in war or in mines as human fuses is not at all casual , but every
>bit as valid as all kinds of other social and economic generalizations
>made on this list and elsewhere.
Complex stuff, this. Oz didn't send Aboriginees up the cliffs of Gallipoli
in 1915 because they didn't rate enlistment for front-line duties at the
time. And, of course, we didn't send women, either. And, significantly
too, it was Australians and NZers who went up those cliffs, sent by the
same Churchill who later sent Canadians on that daft foray into Dieppe in
1942. Colonials were the bottom of the barrel as far as the imperial core
was concerned in those days.
And you gauge the ladders in the hierarchy by how (and if) things get
remembered. America killed a few white protesters at Kent State in 1970
and a couple of black ones elsewhere at the same time - Kent State is
almost forgotten, but the other event is absolutely so - to the extent I
can't even remember exactly where it happened (though someone here
mentioned it last month). But then again, the spectacularly violent death
of a woman (such as that of Constable Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan
embassy in London a few years ago) hits most of us harder than that of a
man (whose 'job' it is to be at the frontline, I guess). Power manifests
in very funny ways, eh?
>Some more tolerant whites on the list try to argue that not all whites are
>racists. Yet I have heard the expression: a few rotton apples will ruin a
>>whole barrel, but never a few good apples will save a rotting barrel.
Yep. That's because a few rotten apples will ruin, and a few good 'uns
won't save. The barrel has to go. Fortunately, the analogy is not all
that apposite. A materialist gets to posit that revolutionised relations
revolutionise the people there-in. But whence come the revolutionised
relations in this picture? Perhaps how we define those good 'uns, and how
those good 'uns define the scope of possible relations, is quite important.
Okay, one problem is that race politics are real and materially grounded in
experience. The racialised 'other' can generally point at daily outrages,
experienced as specifically and entirely racialist events, yet is told
'forget that for now; you are proletarian, too. As proletarian you have
more potential clout than you do as racial other.' But this goes against
their daily imperative altogether. After all, being the object of race
hatred is a much much more tangible and obvious thing than being the
exploited object of a particular (but apparently natural) mode of social
wealth creation. Some of the good 'uns don't appreciate this. If racism
is not explicitly addressed (complicatedly as materially real yet also as
based on the untenable category of 'race') at the same status and urgency
as class (and gender) - we have no way of linking the people we need and we
have no likelihood of making a better world anyway (not very orthodox of
me, but I'm with Albert and Hahnel on this).
But. It's no good telling me ('white') that I've inevitably internalised
the racism that constitutes the cultures that have constituted me. To
begin with, I don't want to be thought a racist, and am not inclined to
make common cause with people who accuse me of something I think it is so
important not to be. I need not be perfect (or perfectly self-knowing) to
be a useful good 'un. While 'blackness' or 'browness' can only go when
'whiteness' does, I've been 'white' for 41 years and, to the degree I have
unwittingly internalised that, am unlikely ever to be otherwise in my
lifetime. Just as a socialist revolution must be made by people whose
identity was formed within capitalism (proletarians), so must a
deracialising revolution be made by people with 'racial' identities
('blacks', 'browns' and 'whites'). The former has happened to a decisive
degree (enough to prove it can happen, anyway), and the latter can, too.
If, as many here convincingly argue, humans were once not racist, we can
also hope to become so again. But not if we make demands of each other
that can simply not be met. More on this below.
>The more hostile whites accuse me of reverse racism, as if my being a
>racist will absolve White racism.
The relative power of 'white' racism and that of other racisms is a huge
issue, sure, but ...
I hope I'm not being offensively obvious, but to be a socialist is
logically to oppose capitalism. That's the *content* of socialism. Whi
[PEN-L:8316] Bengali famine
Brad DeLong: >>Neoclassical economists confuse the issues. > >No we don't--at least those of us in the >Samuelson-Arrow-Sen-Stiglitz-Summers tradition don't. This is what I was driving at: In a March 28 New York Times article, Thomas Friedman wrote: "For globalization to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is... The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist - McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." Are Bill Clinton and Thomas Friedman in the Samuelson-Arrow-Sen-Stiglitz-Summers tradition? I would guess so... Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:8315] Globalism's first victim
NATIONAL POST, Wednesday, June 23, 1999 COMMENT p. A18 Globalism's first victim by David Orchard In March, the most powerful military force in history attacked tiny Yugoslavia (one fifth the size of Saskatchewan) and after seventy-nine days of flagrantly illegal bombing forced an occupation of Kosovo. Admitting its intention was to break Yugoslavia's spirit, NATO targeted civilian structures, dropping over 23,000 bombs (500 Canadian) and cruise missiles in a campaign of terror bombing, described recently by Alexander Solzhenitsyn as follows: "I don't see any difference in the behaviour of NATO and of Hitler. NATO wants to erect its own order in the world and it needs Yugoslavia simply as an example: We'll punish Yugoslavia and the whole rest of the planet will tremble." The idea that NATO attacked Yugoslavia to solve a humanitarian crisis is about as credible as Germany's claim in 1939 that it was invading Poland to prevent "Polish atrocities." The United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported the first registered refugees out of Kosovo on March 27th - three days after the bombing began. Civilian casualties after twenty-one days of bombing exceeded all casualties on both sides in Kosovo in the three months before the war. In an all out effort to convince public opinion that Yugoslavia deserved the onslaught, Western politicians and media are churning out endless accusations of Serb atrocities, while the proven and infinitely greater atrocities of NATO - launching an aggressive war, using internationally outlawed cluster bombs and firing depleted uranium ammunition into Yugoslavia - are buried. Why did NATO attack Yugoslavia and why are Serbs - Canada's staunch allies in both World Wars, with 1.5 million dead resisting Hitler's Nazis and Italian Fascism - being demonized? Most 19th century wars were over trade. When the U.S. invaded Canada in 1812, Andrew Jackson declared, "We are going to... vindicate our right to a free trade, and open markets... and to carry the Republican standard to the Heights of Abraham." In 1839, Britain demanded China accept its opium and attacked when China said no. When Thailand refused British trading demands in 1849, Britain "found its presumption unbounded" and decided "a better disposed King [be] placed on the throne... and through him, we might, beyond doubt, gain all we desire." In 1999, NATO said it was attacking Yugoslavia to force it to sign the Rambouillet "peace agreement" (even though the Vienna Convention states that any treaty obtained by force or the threat of force is void). Significantly, Rambouillet stipulated: "The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles" and "There shall be no impediments to the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital to and from Kosovo." During the war, Bill Clinton elaborated: "If we're going to have a strong economic relationship that includes our ability to sell around the world Europe has got to be the key; that's what this Kosovo thing is all about... It's globalism versus tribalism." "Tribalism" was the word used by 19th century free trade liberals to describe nationalism. And this war was all about threatening any nation which might have ideas of independence. Yugoslavia had a domestically controlled economy, a strong publicly owned sector, a good (and free) health care system and its own defence industry. It had many employee owned factories - its population was resisting wholesale privatization. It produced its own pharmaceuticals, aircraft and Yugo automobile. It refused to allow U.S. military bases on its soil. According to the speaker of the Russian Duma: "Yugoslavia annoys NATO because it conducts an independent policy, does not want to join NATO and has an attractive geographic position." Ottawa, cutting medicare, agricultural research, social housing and shelters for battered women, spent tens of millions to bomb Yugoslavia and is spending millions more occupying Kosovo, while abandoning its own sovereignty to U.S. demands, from magazines to fish, wheat and lumber. It is expropriating part of British Columbia for the U.S. military and considering the U.S. dollar as North America's currency. Now, the Liberals have thrown our reputation as a peace keeper into the trash can, along with the rule of international law, by smashing a small country to pieces at the behest of Washington. In a March 28 New York Times article, Thomas Friedman wrote: "For globalization to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is... The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist - McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." As NATO troops entered Kosovo, the same newspaper announced Kosovo's new currency will be the U.S. dollar or
[PEN-L:8313] Bengali famine
Brad DeLong: >A market economy is--with no externalities, no increasing returns, no >market power, et cetera, et cetera--a very nice and effective way of >achieving the goal of maximizing a particular objective function that is >weighted sum of individual utilities, where each individual's weight is a >function of wealth: as Mr. Orr said, if you don't have any wealth your >preferences are simply not registered in the marketplace. The problem is how to define an economy. In countries like India we are not really dealing with Robinson Crusoe and his island. From the little I know of free market ideology--from courses I took as an undergraduate in 1961-65, the model is always geared to a nation-state with England usually serving as the concrete example, even in some respects in Marx. But what use is that when the buyer and sellers are operating under the rules that the British navy and Viceroy establishes? The advantage of Marx and Marxism is that it highlights the manner in which historical inequalities are established. Marx, Capital V. 1, chapter 31, "Genesis of the industrial capitalist": Of the Christian colonial system, W. Howitt, a man who makes a speciality of Christianity, says: "The barbarities and desperate outrages of the so-called Christian race, throughout every region of the world, and upon every people they have been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by those of any other race, however fierce, however untaught, and however reckless of mercy and of shame, in any age of the earth." [4] The history of the colonial administration of Holland -- and Holland was the head capitalistic nation of the 17th century -- "is one of the most extraordinary relations of treachery, bribery, massacre, and meanness" [5] Nothing is more characteristic than their system of stealing men, to get slaves for Java. The men stealers were trained for this purpose. The thief, the interpreter, and the seller, were the chief agents in this trade, native princes the chief sellers. The young people stolen, were thrown into the secret dungeons of Celebes, until they were ready for sending to the slave-ships. An official report says: "This one town of Macassar, e.g., is full of secret prisons, one more horrible than the other, crammed with unfortunates, victims of greed and tyranny fettered in chains, forcibly torn from their families." To secure Malacca, the Dutch corrupted the Portuguese governor. He let them into the town in 1641. They hurried at once to his house and assassinated him, to "abstain" from the payment of £21,875, the price of his treason. Wherever they set foot, devastation and depopulation followed. Banjuwangi, a province of Java, in 1750 numbered over 80,000 inhabitants, in 1811 only 18,000. Sweet commerce! The English East India Company, as is well known, obtained, besides the political rule in India, the exclusive monopoly of the tea-trade, as well as of the Chinese trade in general, and of the transport of goods to and from Europe. But the coasting trade of India and between the islands, as well as the internal trade of India, were the monopoly of the higher employés of the company. The monopolies of salt, opium, betel and other commodities, were inexhaustible mines of wealth. The employés themselves fixed the price and plundered at will the unhappy Hindus. The Governor-General took part in this private traffic. His favourites received contracts under conditions whereby they, cleverer than the alchemists, made gold out of nothing. Great fortunes sprang up like mushrooms in a day; primitive accumulation went on without the advance of a shilling. The trial of Warren Hastings swarms with such cases. Here is an instance. A contract for opium was given to a certain Sullivan at the moment of his departure on an official mission to a part of India far removed from the opium district. Sullivan sold his contract to one Binn for £40,000; Binn sold it the same day for £60,000, and the ultimate purchaser who carried out the contract declared that after all he realised an enormous gain. According to one of the lists laid before Parliament, the Company and its employés from 1757-1766 got £6,000,000 from the Indians as gifts. Between 1769 and 1770, the English manufactured a famine by buying up all the rice and refusing to sell it again, except at fabulous prices. [6] The treatment of the aborigines was, naturally, most frightful in plantation-colonies destined for export trade only, such as the West Indies, and in rich and well-populated countries, such as Mexico and India, that were given over to plunder. But even in the colonies properly so called, the Christian character of primitive accumulation did not belie itself. Those sober virtuosi of Protestantism, the Puritans of New England, in 1703, by decrees of their assembly set a premium of £40 on every Indian scalp and every captured red-skin: in 1720 a premium of £100 on every scalp; in 1744, after Massachusetts-Bay had proclaimed a certain tribe as reb
[PEN-L:8273] Legal theft, chapter umpteen
G'day Pen-pals, Am loving the info rev. thread - Harrison's finance 'spiders' v. production nodes analogue with concentration v. purportedly 'post-fordist' decentralisation (thanks Pete and Jim) kicks some potentially serious bottom, for mine. Anyway, to something else altogether ... was watching telly last night (it was either that or mark exams) and copped a beaut argument from our current Minister for industrial warfare (one Peter Reith). The conversation was about severance pay and leave entitlements and such. You see, lots of employers are winding up without paying same to their erstwhile employees. The employer simply cries poor (often whilst simultaneously investing in other factories or mines through other corporate identities), and has a friend in the minister, who, whilst agreeing entitlements were already *morally* the property of workers, tells us it's unrealistic to expect employers to keep aside this money as s/he is then unable to carry on a business. In other words, without using money that morally belongs (according to the morality of capitalist relations, mind) to unconsenting others, employers are unable to employ. Changing the law to meet the moral requirements would result in unemployment, you see. Not much translation required, eh? It's in workers' interests to have their money stolen. Without theft, there can be no business. Simple. Rarely has our minister been so clear in his pronouncements. Of course, no-one in media-land has found it very interesting, and that's an end to that ... Listers may remember the buzz about the Patrick company during the wharfies' strike of last year. As I understand it, Patrick's proprietor started up a company, transferred the ownership of Patrick's employment contracts to that company, but did not transfer any Patrick funds to that company. The workers suddenly discovered they were no longer Patrick employees and that their new employer was penniless. All the while, Minister Reith was waving millions of public dollars before the suddenly desperate. Make trouble, and you're stuck with a wound-up employer and consequent penury. Go along, and the government will pay you off. Of course, such public largesse is not available to the bemused and forlorn of today. Is this familiar stuff in the US? And if not, why not? Chers, Rob
[PEN-L:8318] Re: Bengali famine
Louis: You have to be careful going down this road. Sure there are elements of monopoly, coercion, etc. But neoclassical economists (accrording to Brad, the not so good ones) often point to these elements when someone says that their theory does not match the results observed. The great achievement of Sen and others like him is to show that even if the conditions of the theory are met, the results are undesirable. In effect they have taken the last hiding spot away. And forced them to face up to the fact that their "best of all possible worlds" (pareto optimality) is often not so nice. Is it possible to separate the ideology from the technique. The more intelligent try but I don't think that they are completely successful. Sen and Arrow are the best at it (both are probably closet socialists). The less talented don't even try. Original Message Follows From: Louis Proyect The problem is how to define an economy. In countries like India we are not really dealing with Robinson Crusoe and his island. From the little I know of free market ideology--from courses I took as an undergraduate in 1961-65, the model is always geared to a nation-state with England usually serving as the concrete example, even in some respects in Marx. But what use is that when the buyer and sellers are operating under the rules that the British navy and Viceroy establishes? The advantage of Marx and Marxism is that it highlights the manner in which historical inequalities are established. Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:8317] Re: The Theory of Cultural Racism
My remarks had a very simple message. If Henry is going to accuse people on this list of racism, he had better back it up. And stop copping out everytime by saying. "I am Chinese I can say anything I want with out being challenged." "Disagreeing with me is racism" or telling people to calm down after he has throwned a bundle of offensive accusations. So far as I have seen no one on this list has said one racist thing and Henry has refused to document his accusations. So far as Mao Thought is concerned, it not a cultural difference. I know several people of chinese background who see all this crap about "our glorious leader" as being as ridiculous as it appears to western eyes. And it is not socialist no matter what language it is in. Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:8310] The Theory of Cultural Racism
Rod Hay wrote: >Cultural differences are not racism. Jim Blaut's paper doesn't say that they are. In fact, it explicitly says, "It is one thing to respect culture, and to appreciate cultural differences, and quite another thing to rank human groups on cultural criteria, and to claim then that you have explained history" (emphasis mine). The paper points out that a newer racism (that Blaut says has supplanted a biological racism) tends to argue that non-Europeans are poor because they are (unlike Europeans) culturally backward. (From a marxist point of view, culture is of course not the prime mover of history.) One hopes that disagreement comes from a correct reading. Otherwise, there can't be any debate. Yoshie
[PEN-L:8306] Economists challenge Fed's inflation 'hunch'
The Christian Science Monitor June 21, 1999, Monday SECTION: FEATURES; WORK & MONEY; CAPITAL IDEAS; ECONOMIC SCENE; Pg. 17 LENGTH: 744 words HEADLINE: Economists challenge Fed's inflation 'hunch' BYLINE: David R. Francis, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor DATELINE: BOSTON BODY: Economists have had a hard time predicting inflation rates this decade. "The record hasn't been great," says Dean Baker, an economist with the Preamble Center, a Washington think tank. So the Federal Reserve is taking something of a gamble if it raises interest rates to slow the economy in a "preemptive" action against inflation. The risk is that a rate hike - or hikes - could damage the nine-year-old economic expansion in the United States and its accompanying prosperity. It also could clobber stock prices. But in testimony to Congress last Thursday, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan all but announced that a "modest" rate hike would be taken at a monetary policy session June 29-30. To Mr. Baker, the Fed's expected hike in short-term rates of 0.25 percent to 5 percent would be based on a mere "hunch" - not any solid predictive power. In the minutes of a Fed policymaking session of last February, some participants acknowledged that they had been constantly surprised that inflation had not picked up as unemployment steadily dropped to its present 4.2 percent rate. Further, in the Fed's semiannual reports to Congress in the last few years, its inflation predictions have been too high. "Fed officials have been pretty clear in saying that traditional methods of forecasting inflation are not serving us well," notes Thomas Schlesinger, executive director of the Financial Market Center in Philomont, Va. Mr. Greenspan admitted that guiding monetary policy by its present models of the economy "would have unduly inhibited what has been a remarkable run of economic prosperity." But many in the financial community have great confidence in the judgment calls of Greenspan. Both stock and bond prices rose after his strong hint of a rate hike ahead. "If the goal is to prevent or limit a rise in inflation, since monetary policy works with a lag, it is prudent to start imposing some restraint now," says Paul Kasriel, an economist with Northern Trust Co., Chicago. Even those Fed watchers keen on low interest rates as a way to help low-income workers win bigger wage increases praise Greenspan for letting the jobless rate fall so low. Greenspan's rationale for a preemptive move is that "certain imbalances" in the economy pose a risk to the longer-run outlook. But he acknowledged that an acceleration in productivity resulted in an underprediction of economic growth and an overprediction of inflation, and that labor-market tightness has not yet put the expansion at risk. "Inflationary pressures still seem well contained," he said. Nonetheless, he saw a danger that a growing scarcity of workers could provoke large inflationary wage gains. And, he added, because higher interest rates take time to slow the economy, "we have to make judgments ... about how the economy is likely to fare a year or more in the future under the current policy stance." In effect, he pronounced a speed limit for the economy of 3 percent growth in national output after inflation. But output grew almost 4 percent last year and even faster than that in the first quarter of this year. Those hoping the Fed will not put on the brakes, offer at least three counterarguments: 1.The lag between Fed braking and the economy slowing is short. So the Fed can afford to wait for more inflation to appear. Some impact of an interest-rate hike takes place in two months, though the full impact may take 18 months or two years, says Baker. 2.Rapid inflation doesn't spring forth full-blown. "It grows incrementally," says Mr. Schlesinger. So the Fed has some time to restrain it. James Galbraith, an economist at the University of Texas, Austin, says the Fed could allow the unemployment rate to fall even further, 0.1 percentage point at a time, and then see if inflation starts to accelerate. "Watch what happens," he says. 3.Though there are some signs of recovery abroad, the world economy is still shaky. "The US cannot consider itself in isolation," says Gordon Richards, an economist of the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington. "It must create dollar liquidity for the world." But Greenspan sees inflation as a danger to prosperity. "Our responsibility," he said, "is to create the conditions most likely to preserve and extend the expansion." GRAPHIC: PHOTO: GREENSPAN: The Fed chief hints of a rate hike. Someeconomists disagree with the idea. BY JOE MARQUETTE/AP LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: June 20, 1999 -- Neil Watkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Preamble Center 1737 21st Street, NW Wa
[PEN-L:8307] CSM: G-7's debt proposal criticized
a nice piece, except that "structural adjustment" is equated to "more spending on social needs"[!] and he misses the point on 3 years -- no way they will back date it, the IMF gambit is that "debt relief will now come after 3 years, not 6" but under the IMF scheme 6 years of structural adjustment are still required and the debt relief can be revoked in the final 3 years if the IMF is not complied with. -Robert Naiman - The Christian Science Monitor June 24, 1999, Thursday Rich man's plan seen as stingy David R. Francis, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor G-7's program to forgive $50 billion in debt in 33 countries criticized BOSTON -- A new plan by the world's richest nations to cut the official debt of the world's poorest nations is getting bad reviews. On the face of it, the plan announced last weekend in Cologne, Germany, by the G-7 group of industrial nations is aimed at helping 430 million people in some 33 highly indebted countries. Most of these are in sub-Saharan Africa. The US claims it provides for slashing up to 70 percent of official debts. But to some economists and to those activists who lobbied the G-7 for debt relief, the plan itself is highly deficient, partly a political document, and still fuzzy as to how it will be implemented. "It is not a significant reduction," charges Charles Aniagolu, spokesman in London for the Jubilee 2000 Coalition, a worldwide alliance of nongovernmental organizations and religious groups pressing for debt relief. The coalition presented the G-7 leaders with a petition signed by 17 million people from rich nations urging debt cancellation. "There is a lot less [in the plan] than meets the eye," holds Mark Weisbrot, an economist at a Washington think tank, the Preamble Center. "You have to always read the fine print." "Big step forward ... but about half of what is needed," says Seth Amgott, spokesman for Oxfam, another member of the coalition. That, of course, is not how the G-7 - the US, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Canada - see it. A fact sheet offered by the United States Treasury describes the Cologne initiative as providing "deeper, broader, and faster debt relief in return for firm commitments to channel the benefits into improving the lives" of the people in the debt-burdened nations. To critics, the plan's requirements for "structural adjustment" - more spending on social needs, less on military - in countries getting debt relief will do damage greater than the benefits. But to the G-7, the economic guidance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are vital if their money isn't to go down the tubes in corruption and unwise management. "If a country doesn't have the right economic policies, it isn't going to help much to get debt forgiveness," says William Cline, chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, a Washington group representing the world's largest private financial institutions. In today's dollars (net present value), the US figures the amount of debt relief would more than triple from $ 13 billion under the current framework to as much as $ 50 billion. Total debts in nominal dollars would fall from about $ 127 billion to as low as $ 37 billion. Moreover, the number of countries expected to qualify for relief would rise from 26 to 33. These would include such nations as Ethiopia, Niger, Nicaragua, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Rwanda, Benin, Honduras, Laos, Senegal, and Mozambique. Another G-7 goal is to reduce the time needed for a nation to qualify for relief from six years to three years if it has been implementing reforms. But details are unclear. For instance, will the time be back-dated for countries already engaged in IMF-approved programs? Besides relief on government-to-government debts, the IMF and World Bank will be required to ease the burden of the debts owed to them. However, these two multilateral agencies have policies prohibiting any debt forgiveness. As a way out of this quandary, they are expected to grant fresh long-term loans at a rate below inflation - 0.5 percent. The plan calls for the IMF to sell as much as 10 million ounces of its gold reserves to raise the money it needs. This has alarmed the gold industry. The sale would require approval of Congress, and some members from mining states are threatening to block the deal. But an IMF spokesman says that 10 million ounces amounts to a mere three hours of trading on the London gold market. If phased in over some years, it should have little impact, he says. Some members of Congress are pushing bills that would require the US to do more on debt relief. "The Cologne approach is not as comprehensive as the need demands," says the backer of one such bill, Rep. James Leach (R) of Iowa, who chairs the key House Banking Committee. "Countries such as Bangladesh and Haiti might be 'redlined' from participation, and from an Africa
[PEN-L:8311] Re: Economists challenge Fed's inflation 'hunch'
What is happening? How can a major paper quote Baker, Schlessinger, and Galbraith at the same time? Where are the rest of the bank economists? The article quotes only one? Who speaks for Wall Street? What biased reporting! I don't think that this reporter will be on the job long. He/She might end up on pen-l. Robert Naiman wrote: > The Christian Science Monitor > > June 21, 1999, Monday > > SECTION: FEATURES; WORK & MONEY; CAPITAL IDEAS; ECONOMIC SCENE; Pg. > 17 > > LENGTH: 744 words > > HEADLINE: Economists challenge Fed's inflation 'hunch' > > BYLINE: David R. Francis, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor > > DATELINE: BOSTON > > BODY: > > > Economists have had a hard time predicting inflation rates this decade. > > "The record hasn't been great," says Dean Baker, an economist with the > Preamble Center, a > Washington think tank. > > So the Federal Reserve is taking something of a gamble if it raises > interest rates to slow the economy > in a "preemptive" action against inflation. > > The risk is that a rate hike - or hikes - could damage the nine-year-old > economic expansion in the > United States and its accompanying prosperity. It also could clobber stock > prices. > > But in testimony to Congress last Thursday, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan all > but announced that a > "modest" rate hike would be taken at a monetary policy session June 29-30. > > To Mr. Baker, the Fed's expected hike in short-term rates of 0.25 percent > to 5 percent would be > based on a mere "hunch" - not any solid predictive power. > > In the minutes of a Fed policymaking session of last February, some > participants acknowledged that > they had been constantly surprised that inflation had not picked up as > unemployment steadily > dropped to its present 4.2 percent rate. > > Further, in the Fed's semiannual reports to Congress in the last few years, > its inflation predictions > have been too high. > > "Fed officials have been pretty clear in saying that traditional methods of > forecasting inflation are not > serving us well," notes Thomas Schlesinger, executive director of the > Financial Market Center in > Philomont, Va. > > Mr. Greenspan admitted that guiding monetary policy by its present models > of the economy "would > have unduly inhibited what has been a remarkable run of economic prosperity." > > But many in the financial community have great confidence in the judgment > calls of Greenspan. > > Both stock and bond prices rose after his strong hint of a rate hike ahead. > > "If the goal is to prevent or limit a rise in inflation, since monetary > policy works with a lag, it is prudent > to start imposing some restraint now," says Paul Kasriel, an economist with > Northern Trust Co., > Chicago. > > Even those Fed watchers keen on low interest rates as a way to help > low-income workers win bigger > wage increases praise Greenspan for letting the jobless rate fall so low. > > Greenspan's rationale for a preemptive move is that "certain imbalances" in > the economy pose a risk > to the longer-run outlook. But he acknowledged that an acceleration in > productivity resulted in an > underprediction of economic growth and an overprediction of inflation, and > that labor-market > tightness has not yet put the expansion at risk. > > "Inflationary pressures still seem well contained," he said. > > Nonetheless, he saw a danger that a growing scarcity of workers could > provoke large inflationary > wage gains. > > And, he added, because higher interest rates take time to slow the economy, > "we have to make > judgments ... about how the economy is likely to fare a year or more in the > future under the current > policy stance." > > In effect, he pronounced a speed limit for the economy of 3 percent growth > in national output after > inflation. But output grew almost 4 percent last year and even faster than > that in the first quarter of > this year. > > Those hoping the Fed will not put on the brakes, offer at least three > counterarguments: > > 1.The lag between Fed braking and the economy slowing is short. So the Fed > can afford to wait for > more inflation to appear. > > Some impact of an interest-rate hike takes place in two months, though the > full impact may take 18 > months or two years, says Baker. > > 2.Rapid inflation doesn't spring forth full-blown. > > "It grows incrementally," says Mr. Schlesinger. So the Fed has some time to > restrain it. > > James Galbraith, an economist at the University of Texas, Austin, says the > Fed could allow the > unemployment rate to fall even further, 0.1 percentage point at a time, and > then see if inflation starts > to accelerate. "Watch what happens," he says. > > 3.Though there are some signs of recovery abroad, the world economy is > still shaky. > > "The US cannot consider itself in isolation," says Gordon Richards, an > economist of the National > Association of Manufacturers in Washington. "It must create dollar > liquidity for t
[PEN-L:8301] Re: Re: Peter Dorman's letter appeared in
>> The last sentence was the important one, making the main political point (about democracy) and needling the Times for the implicit bias in their coverage. *They never received my permission to print this revised version.* . . . " The Post is the same way. You're at the mercy of the letters editor, their biases, politics, preferences, and space constraints. I wrote a letter once trashing George Will and they printed most of it, but w/o some of my choicest insults. My sense is that criticism of the paper's policies and ad hominem remarks about their writers have a low probability of finding their way into print, which should not be surprising. If you insisted on a verbatim reprint, you would disqualify your letter from consideration. Them's the rules. The man w/the gold makes 'em. In any case, getting most of the letter in is an accomplishment for which congratulations are in order. As a political matter, I would have emphasized more the absurdity of the language about economic liberalism in light of the laughable adherence to such principles by the U.S. and the EU, to name a few. Then the implicit proscriptions against market socialism have even less moral standing. EPI makes it a practice to assist colleagues in writing and placing op-eds on issues of mutual interest (economics, trade, and aid, but not foreign policy). This includes feedback on drafts, and pitching the piece to newspaper editors. Interested parties can e-mail me off-list for details. mbs
[PEN-L:8314] Re: Re: Re: Re: California Gree -Reply -Forw
Yes, this same critique was posted on pen-l a few years back. Without posing as an expert on this issue, I would like to say that it is probably not a case of either/or. If GM suffered a planned loss on its transit acquisitions, that means that its actions were probably not neutral. In addition, we can't take the politics of transit levies in the 1920s (much less the prices of transit systems during the depression) as givens; after all, not all cities went this route at that time. Milwaukee retained its trolleys for several decades, and many European cities have excellent transit systems to this day. To say that GM done it would be overly simple, but there was and is very much a political economy of transportation investment, of which GM was a part. Peter Tim Stroshane wrote: > > Forwarded mail received from: PERMIT1:NAL1 > > I forwarded some of the discussion on California/transit to a > colleague here at the City of Berkeley, one of our transportation > planners, and this is his comment, with his permission. > > > > Subject: Re: Re: Re: California Gree -Reply > Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 10:08:15 -0700 > From: Nathan Landau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > The GM conspiracy theory has little or no credibility in > transportation circles. It's true that a GM-owned company bought > up trolley- based transit systems and converted them to bus > operation. But if it hadn't been GM, it most likely would have > been someone else. Trolley systems were suffering from > disinvestment, and politically it was very hard to raise trolley > fares. Trolleys were increasingly being blamed for blocking > traffic. Large cities could have created off-street rapid transit > systems, but the voters of Los Angeles voted down the Rapid > Transit Plan in, I think, 1927 (even so, about a mile of subway > tunnel was built to bring trolleys into a Downtown Los Angeles > terminal). > > The changing dynamics of passenger transportation under American > capitalism did in the trolleys. That's a harder target to blame > than a nice juicy conspiracy, but that's the way it is.
[PEN-L:8312] RE: The Theory of Cultural Racism
-Original Message- From: Yoshie Furuhashi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, June 24, 1999 4:11 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:8310] The Theory of Cultural Racism Rod Hay wrote: >Cultural differences are not racism. Jim Blaut's paper doesn't say that they are. In fact, it explicitly says, "It is one thing to respect culture, and to appreciate cultural differences, and quite another thing to rank human groups on cultural criteria, and to claim then that you have explained history" (emphasis mine). The paper points out that a newer racism (that Blaut says has supplanted a biological racism) tends to argue that non-Europeans are poor because they are (unlike Europeans) culturally backward. (From a marxist point of view, culture is of course not the prime mover of history.) One hopes that disagreement comes from a correct reading. Otherwise, there can't be any debate. Yoshie Response: This is not a "newer" form of racism; it is the same old shit. This has been the argument in Development literature since the inception of "Development" as a separate specialty and indeed has been the argument of racists all along--you are not like us that is why you are poor. The neoliberal globalists have their own little version of this form of racism with a slightly slicker veneer. Imperfections and market failures of capitalism are due to not enough "pure capitalism" and excessive government or the wrong type of government intervention. Underdevelopment is due to not having/adopting enough capitalism and not looking/acting enough like the US. Since pure capitalism requires the requisite sociocultural "capital", value systems, property rights, derivative institutions and "proper" role/scope of government (like that mythologized about the US and not the de facto situation), cultures and social capital not like that of the US are backward because they are not like that alleged to be in the US. Hence "conditionality" in IMF, World Bank etc "loans" and "aid" etc. It is all racism albeit in a slick package. The "radical" neoliberals then, can still play neoclassical games, operate within a fundamentally bankrupt, reifying, objectivfying , formalistic and ultra-reductionistic paradigm, designed to obscure or divert attention from the critical issues (said to be non-operationalizable and therefore not within the focus of "economics") through tautologies and contrived syllogisms, still get published and rack up the old CV in the "accceptable" journals (neoclassical run) and academic media, and, once in awhile, drop in on progressive academia and play parlor radical for a day or two. When I think about the neoliberals and neoliberal globalists, I am reminded of the passage from "The Book of Counted Sorrows": Evil is no faceless stranger Living in a distant neighborhood Evil has a wholesome hometown face With merry eyes and an open smile Evil walks among us, wearing a mask Which looks like all our faces. _ Jim Craven _ _
[PEN-L:8297] Nato hit only 5 percent of Serb tanks in Kosovo (but lots oftrains and buses?)
The Times (London), June 24, 1999, Thursday Nato dropped thousands of bombs on dummy roads, bridges and soldiers...and hit only 13 real Serb tanks Michael Evans, defence editor, in Pristina NATO'S 79-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, which involved thousands of sorties and some of the most sophisticated precision weapons, succeeded in damaging only 13 of the Serbs' 300 battle tanks in Kosovo, despite alliance claims of large-scale destruction of Belgrade's heavy armour. With Nato's Kosovo Force (Kfor) now spread out into every area of the province, troops from all the different nationalities taking part in the peacekeeping operation have been searching for destroyed or damaged tanks and artillery. They have, so far, come across only three crippled tanks. During the air campaign, elaborate claims were made by Nato officials that hundreds of Serb tanks, artillery pieces, mortars and armoured personnel carriers had been struck. It was also suggested this was one of the main reasons why President Milosevic decided to cave in and agree to a ceasefire and the deployment of a large international peace-keeping force in Kosovo. Now some Nato officials are baffled about why he did surrender. It was claimed that up to 60 per cent of Serb artillery and mortar pieces had been hit and about 40 per cent of the Yugoslav Army's main battle tanks had been damaged or destroyed. There were even reports of an attack by B52 bombers on a Serb brigade which was drawn out into the open by Kosovo Liberation Army fighters, leading to the death of up to 700 Serb soldiers. However, before the Serbs finally withdrew three days ago, they informed Kfor that Nato had managed to hit 13 of the 300 or so tanks that they had deployed in Kosovo - most of which have been removed from the province on low-loaders. Kfor troops have found just three damaged T55 tanks left behind in Kosovo. "What we have found is a huge number of dummy tanks and artillery," one Kfor source said. The Yugoslav Army used well-practised Russian camouflage techniques which involved placing dummies around the countryside, some of them next to dummy bridges with strips of black plastic sheeting across fields as fake roads to delude Nato bombers into thinking they had a prime target to hit. "When you're travelling at 500mph at 15,000ft, it is easy to be fooled," another Kfor source said. When the Serbs finally withdrew from the province, at least 250 tanks were counted out, as well as 450 armoured personnel carriers and 600 artillery and mortar pieces. Travelling around Kosovo, one sees many destroyed army barracks, state police buildings and oil terminals, firm evidence that the Nato bombers were successful in hitting these prime targets. However, apart from the wrecks of a few trucks left behind by the Serbs, it is virtually impossible to spot a destroyed tank. © 1999, LEXIS®-NEXIS®, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:8309] California Green Party Question
Interesting topic. My comments do not represent official City of Berkeley positions. That said, like Henry Liu, I am also a planner, though a housing planner. However, working regionally, planners, designers, architects, land use lawyers and a lot of forward looking environmental thinkers of all hues of green are interested in trade-offs between land use densities, urban design strategies (the manner in which streets and land parcels are configured), transportation, and housing development (including low-income housing). As Henry and Brad point out this is difficult, but it is not impossible. Brad, as I recall, mentions a bit heavy-handedly that it would take "tearing down Berkeley bungalows" for dense apartment buildings. This is misleading as to the nature of creating density. Our first draft General Plan is calling for major increases in downtown housing density, economies of scale from which can be used to internally subsidize affordable housing units. But it is not necessary to raze whole neighborhoods to create the density transit needs, in order to improve matters in Berkeley. It is important to realize that urban density creates markets: for housing, street life, cultural outlets, retail businesses, and transit. We have a BART station downtown and about a half dozen major AC Transit bus routes that converge on downtown. The key to making density work is to reduce parking for street-jamming cars in favor of increasing people's reliance on transit (as well as other travel modes like bikes and feet). The key to making transit work is to limit auto parking while encouraging people to live near where they shop and work. The wild card in all of this is UC Berkeley (which is exempt from local property taxes and zoning), which tore down a parking structure three blocks from campus and wants to rebuild it instead of putting in MORE HOUSING. More housing would not only help take pressure off the Berkeley housing market, it would take pressure off the city's street system because more students could live closer to campus, rather than commute in from surrounding suburbs of Berkeley. (Other universities elsewhere are wildcards too - I believe Columbia and Univ of Chicago have also behaved like bulls in china shops over the years.) Doug, there are many people in California - north and south - who are interested in transit; I know, rhetorically and statistically the numbers are on your side, but the transportation snarls out here are bad going to worse (and beyond). Poll data out here indicate that Bay Area residents want something done about housing shortages and highway snarls. My response to Ms. Bock's inquiry is to suggest she look into the proposals coming out from groups that are advocating for "smart growth." These groups include Planners Network, California Futures Network , Urban Habitat Program (which produced a nice pair of volumes on regional inequities and tax base revenue sharing, and on transportation investment inequities), all of whom are interested in building a constituency for land use and property/sales tax reform to address sprawling suburban development (which DOES continue almost unabated). Even corporate Bay Area is getting interested in a regional approach to dealing with "sustainable development" of our cities here. I would also commend to Ms. Bock Myron Orfield's excellent report on the Bay Area (available from Urban Habitat) and his book METROPOLITICS for the Lincoln Institute on Land Policy (Cambridge, MA). More on this in an article I'm writing for Terrain magazine of the Berkeley Ecology Center, due out in August.
[PEN-L:8308] RE: Re: Re: Bengali famine
As was Ireland... ian > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Sam Pawlett > Sent: Thursday, June 24, 1999 10:45 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:8287] Re: Re: Bengali famine > > > Brad De Long wrote: > > Your fight is with Amartya Sen--not me. > > > > But my strong impression is that you have lost the argument already. > > > > Sen is not dumb, is careful, and rarely makes mistakes... > > > > He uses the most amount of footnotes I've seen too. If I remember, > didn't Sen point out that India was actually exporting food during > its famines? > > Sam Pawlett >
[PEN-L:8305] MR "debate" on Brenner
In the June 1999 issue of MONTHLY REVIEW, there's a "debate" on Bob Brenner's book THE ECONOMICS OF GLOBAL TURBULENCE. It's not really a debate, since the two authors (David McNally & John Bellamy Foster) don't address each others' articles, but it's worth reading at least one of them. The article by McNally is the one worth reading. It has the right attitude: instead of the academic or sectarian approach of slashing and burning the book in order to prove the validity of McNally's own view, his point is to put Brenner's book in the broader perspective of Marxian political economy, linking Brenner's "middle-level" theory with more high-level (or hifalutin') theory. At the same time that he points up some limitations of Brenner's book, he also provides a complementary perspective that gives us a greater understanding of the stagnation of the last 25 years in the advanced capitalist countries than Brenner's book can do on its own. It's also well-written and tries to deal with current events (though "current" seems to mean 1998 due to normal publication delays). I like how McNally brings in some theory from David Harvey to clarify his presentation of Brenner's work. Foster's article has the more traditional style in debates about crisis theory. Though he makes some valid points against Brenner (some that are also made by McNally), Foster basically aims to discredit Brenner's book and to build up his own perspective, an underconsumptionist-stagnationist theory based on the normal capitalist tendency toward the overexploitation of labor. Though his theory has some validity in the current era and he is correct to say that Brenner really didn't address the Baran-Sweezy-Foster theory, I found that he didn't have much to say except that Brenner left issues out, like those to the "third world." He is right that Brenner doesn't deal with the normal capitalist tendency toward the concentration and centralization of capital, but Foster doesn't address the fact that this tendency has been largely overwhelmed by increasing international competition in many cases during the last 25 years. I also got a little tired of his appeal to authority, e.g., "Kalecki, Steindl, Baran, Sweezy, and Magdoff." Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
[PEN-L:8294] Pacifica protests
NEWS June 21, 1999 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Coalition for a democratic Pacifica Andrea Buffa 415-546-6334 x309 or mobile phone 415-303-3540. KPFA Air Goes Dead as Programmers, Listeners Protest Pacifica Arrests Nine Peaceful Demonstrators BERKELEY, CA - On the morning of June 21 Berkeley Police arrested nine peaceful demonstrators at community broadcaster KPFA at the request of Pacifica Radio Director Lynne Chadwick. Over 300 outraged KPFA listeners and staff gathered on Sunday June 20 to protest the firing of veteran programmer Robbie Osman. They vowed to camp out in front of the station until Pacifica agreed to KPFA staff demands for mediation of the deepening crisis at the station. Those arrested include Andrea Buffa, executive director of Media Alliance, and Barbara Lubin, a former Berkeley School Board member and director of the Middle East Children's Alliance. KPFA's signal went dead for two hours Sunday as KPFA staff refused to replace fired programmer Osman. 22 year KPFA veteran Osman is the third KPFA staffer to be fired by Chadwick for violating the so-called gag rule, which prohibits station staff from commenting on KPFA matters on the air. "Lynne doesn't have the situation under control," Buffa of Media Alliance said. "She's desperately, and aggressively, trying to make KPFA's loyal staff and supporters go away. But it's not going to work: we have kept this station alive for 50 years. We won't stand by and watch it be taken from the diverse community that supports it -- financially, politically and creatively." At 5pm on Monday June 21, at KPFA, the Coalition for a democratic Pacifica will continue protesting. At 4:30 pm on Tuesday June 22 a press conference will be held. Osman's firing is the most recent outrage in the crisis at KPFA, the oldest listener-sponsored radio station in the United States. The crisis began on March 21, when Chadwick dismissed respected station manager Nicole Sawaya. After two months, Chadwick and Pacifica still refuse to explain why they fired Sawaya. Pacifica also fired veteran programmer Larry Bensky and disciplined at least six other staffers for discussing Sawaya's termination on the air. KPFA supporters and staffers will stay at the station until the Pacifica Radio board of directors agrees to staff demands to: 1) Rehire Nicole Sawaya; 2) Participate in mediation of the dispute; and 3) Reverse disciplinary or adverse action taken against KPFA or Pacifica staff since Sawaya's termination. The Pacifica Radio board meets June 25-27 in Washington DC. For more information, see www.savepacifica.cjb.net SAVE PACIFICA BULLETIN ON ARRESTS 6/21/99 URGENT ARRESTS CONTINUE IN BLOCKADE OF PACIFICA OFFICES...AFTER HUNDREDS DEMONSTRATE IN SUPPORT OF FIRED KPFA PROGRAMMERS...KPFA OFF AIR DURING ROBBIE OSMAN'S PROGRAM TIME...URGENT NEED TO FAX PACIFICA BOARD MEMBERS IN D.C. THIS WEEK! Fourteen people were arrested today outside of Pacifica radio's downtown Berkeley headquarters, after an all-night vigil. The demonstrators were demanding the immediate presence of Pacifica radio's board chair, Dr. Mary Frances Berry, who has refused to come to Berkeley to discuss the foundation's actions in firing Nicole Sawaya, and afterwards firing programmers Larry Bensky and Robbie Osman for discussing the crisis on the air. Pacifica executive director Lynn Chadwick and members of her staff were seen removing boxes of material from the Pacifica offices after the latest arrests took place. KPFA news reported that Chadwick and her staff may be moving their headquarters elsewhere, to avoid further protests. KPFA news also reports that Berkeley police had refused to arrest the protestors, but were forced to do so when Chadwick did "citizens arrests" herself. A DEMONSTRATION IN SUPPORT OF THOSE ARRESTED...AND IN SUPPORT OF THE KPFA STAFF'S DEMANDS...IS SCHEDULED FOR FIVE O'CLOCK TODAY...MONDAY...IN FRONT OF THE PACIFICA/KPFA OFFICES...1929 MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. WAY (NEAR UNIVERSITY) IN BERKELEY. On Sunday, hundreds of outraged KPFA listeners and supporters picketed the station for four hours beginning at 11 a.m., the time when Robbie Osman's "Across the Great Divide" is usually broadcast. Osman, a volunteer KPFA music programmer for 22 years, was fired by Pacifica's Lynn Chadwick on Friday, ostensibly for breaking the "gag rule" against discussing Pacifica's current crisis on the air. Chadwick was unable to convince/coerce anyone from KPFA's staff or management to go on the air during Osman's time period, so the station's transmitter was turned off for two hours. It's the first time since 1974 - when KPFA was off the air for a month, due to a dispute between station staff and Pacifica - that the station was silent during normal programming hours because Pacifica could not provide engineering or broadcast personnel willing to cross picket lines. PACIFICA'S NATIONAL BOARD MEETS THIS WEEK IN
[PEN-L:8293] Peter Dorman's letter appeared in the NY Times today
To the Editor: In your report on the Cologne G8 meeting, you refer in general terms to the "democratic and economic reforms" Balkan governments must agree to in order to receive economic assistance from the US and the European Union. This aid is desperately needed to repair the damage caused by years of conflict in the region and months of NATO bombing. The full condition for this aid, however, went unmentioned. At this meeting the G8 reaffirmed the June 10 G7 stipulation that Balkan governments adopt "market economies based on sound macro policies, markets open to greatly expanded foreign trade and private sector investment, effective and transparent customs and commercial/regulatory regimes, developing strong capital markets and diversified ownership, including privatisation..." This doctrinaire formula would be presumptuous anywhere, but it is especially so in a region whose last 40 years of economic development has been based on market socialism and an element of worker management. Apparently we have strayed so far from the view that a nation's economic institutions should be democratically chosen by its people that it is no longer news when this principle is overruled. Peter Dorman Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:8304] Re: Re: Bengali famine
>There are two separate issues. >1. Is the market economy desirable? >2. Is neoclassical economics usefull in analysing a market economy? > >Neoclassical economists confuse the issues. No we don't--at least those of us in the Samuelson-Arrow-Sen-Stiglitz-Summers tradition don't. A market economy is--with no externalities, no increasing returns, no market power, et cetera, et cetera--a very nice and effective way of achieving the goal of maximizing a particular objective function that is weighted sum of individual utilities, where each individual's weight is a function of wealth: as Mr. Orr said, if you don't have any wealth your preferences are simply not registered in the marketplace. Thus a market economy is desirable if and only if its distribution of income is such that the particular objective function that the market maximizes is close to the true social welfare function (and if externalities, increasing returns, market power, et cetera, et cetera, can be minimized or compensated for). Is neoclassical economics useful in analyzing a market economy? It's a useful tool but it's not the only useful tool. I would argue that it is more useful than other tools (I have a hard time thinking of a great Marxist economist more recent than Hilferding, for example, in large part because I think that the toolbox isn't so great). But I wouldn't recommend that anyone throw their other tools away: the social world is big, complicated, and confusing... Brad DeLong -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- "Now 'in the long run' this [way of summarizing the quantity theory of money] is probably true But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. **In the long run** we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." --J.M. Keynes -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- J. Bradford De Long; Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley; Co-Editor, Journal of Economic Perspectives. Dept. of Economics, U.C. Berkeley, #3880 Berkeley, CA 94720-3880 (510) 643-4027; (925) 283-2709 phones (510) 642-6615; (925) 283-3897 faxes http://econ161.berkeley.edu/ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[PEN-L:8303] Re: Re: Bengali famine
>In an earlier missive in this thread, I wrote: >>Sen and de Long are saying >that even with close-to-perfect markets (or even perfect ones), people can >starve, simply because they don't have enough money to buy food when the >price goes up. That's a pretty damning indictment of markets, but it >doesn't explain why people don't have the money. << > >After writing this, the little neoclassical homunculus in my head (a result >of college and graduate school indoctrination) woke up and said: "wait a >'sec. If markets were _really_ perfect, as in the Arrow-Debreu Walrasian >General Equilibrium Model, no-one could starve. After all, the potentially >starving person could borrow money on the perfect futures market, taking >advantage of his or her potential to earn wages in the future if you are going to earn wages in the future, then yes. But even in a perfect-capital-markets world there are two rational-expectations equilibria: one in which the money lenders think that you are likely to be dead, hence don't loan you any money, and you die; a second in which money lenders think that you will remain alive (and will be able to find employment at some wage), lend you money to buy foo, and you live. These two equilibria both maximize different objective functions--different weighted sums of individual utilities. But they are both equilibria: there is nothing in the formalism to say that the market will attain the "nice" one... Brad DeLong -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- "Now 'in the long run' this [way of summarizing the quantity theory of money] is probably true But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. **In the long run** we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." --J.M. Keynes -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- J. Bradford De Long; Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley; Co-Editor, Journal of Economic Perspectives. Dept. of Economics, U.C. Berkeley, #3880 Berkeley, CA 94720-3880 (510) 643-4027; (925) 283-2709 phones (510) 642-6615; (925) 283-3897 faxes http://econ161.berkeley.edu/ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[PEN-L:8302] Re: Bengali famine
>Doug Orr: >>I am not sure about India, but Ireland exported food throughout the >>potatoe famine. So you see Louis, it really is the free market at work. > > >I'll tell you the truth. After answering DeLong on the Bengali famine, it >dawned on me--particularly after reading Jim Devine's interesting >follow-up--that I really wasn't sure about the point DeLong was trying to >make. He is awfully good at what is called misdirection, kind of like the >backcourt play of a good NBA point guard the NY Knicks need. Was he saying >that the absence of markets or the presence of markets was the cause of the >Bengal famine? I frankly don't have a clue. Maybe you could actually read what I wrote. But probably not. As I wrote: ...the Walrasian equilibrium of a market economy maximizes a particular social welfare function: a weighted sum of individuals' utilities, where each individual's utility is weighted by the *inverse* of his or her marginal utility of income. If indirect utilities as a function of income are roughly logarithmic... [then] the market weights your well-being ...in proportion to your income No income, a zero weight. That's how market economies generate things like the Bengal famine of 1942. Brad DeLong -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- "Now 'in the long run' this [way of summarizing the quantity theory of money] is probably true But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. **In the long run** we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." --J.M. Keynes -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- J. Bradford De Long; Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley; Co-Editor, Journal of Economic Perspectives. Dept. of Economics, U.C. Berkeley, #3880 Berkeley, CA 94720-3880 (510) 643-4027; (925) 283-2709 phones (510) 642-6615; (925) 283-3897 faxes http://econ161.berkeley.edu/ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[PEN-L:8292] Bengali famine
Doug Orr: >I am not sure about India, but Ireland exported food throughout the >potatoe famine. So you see Louis, it really is the free market at work. I'll tell you the truth. After answering DeLong on the Bengali famine, it dawned on me--particularly after reading Jim Devine's interesting follow-up--that I really wasn't sure about the point DeLong was trying to make. He is awfully good at what is called misdirection, kind of like the backcourt play of a good NBA point guard the NY Knicks need. Was he saying that the absence of markets or the presence of markets was the cause of the Bengal famine? I frankly don't have a clue. Part of the problem with these neoliberal economists is that they tend to view capitalism as some kind of ideal that is struggling with anti-market imperfections. But hasn't capitalism (and imperialism) historically been wedded to anti-market mechanisms? Wasn't the British East India Company antithetical to Adam Smith's ideals, as he even stated explicitly? Isn't the Bengali famine an outgrowth of these policies dating back to the 17th century? On the other hand, is the cure laissez-faire capitalism? If the capitalist is free to invest, and the state does not interfere with his decisions, isn't the result famine just the same? Export agriculture in Latin America might proceed by the "Wealth of Nations" textbook, but the result is hunger and premature deaths from malnutrition. The answer is to be found in what Marxists have always called for, production for human need rather than profit. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:8289] curbing the power of the World Bank...
Doug's posts on the Summers memo -- to the effect in the privacy of his own memo Summers was being honest about the logic of the institution he represented, and "we should face up to that" -- provoke me to pose the question: given that in fact this is a fair representation of what the World Bank is doing, what are we doing to curb the power and influence of the World Bank? It seems to me that there are campaigns to block particular Bank projects, there are campaigns to force the Bank to adhere to its own environmental standards, and there is a fight going on about the Inspection Panel. But no-one is campaigning to curb the power of the Bank, except insofar as the above campaigns can be understood as curbing the Bank's power. This is particularly troubling given that something like 65% of Bank loans are now structural adjustment loans, that the Bank's loans in health care and education are tied to things like increased user fees and privatization, and that the movement of the Bank into lending in health care and education may be exacerbating the hard currency debt problems of developing countries, etc. What can we do? Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange suggests a campaign to get institutions to pledge that they will not purchase World Bank bonds. This seems like just the sort of thing that PEN-Lers could help with, concentrated as they are in universities, which are the logical starting place for such a campaign. What do PEN-lers say? How could we get this rolling? -Robert Naiman --- Robert Naiman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Preamble Center 1737 21st NW Washington, DC 20009 phone: 202-265-3263 fax: 202-265-3647 http://www.preamble.org/ ---
[PEN-L:8285] Re: California Green Party
> LA, with all its problems, is still my favorite city, although I only lived > there a little more than 4 years and in the late 60's, a period my friends > there now tell me was the golden era for LA, and in fact for much else in the > world. > > During that time, anyone arriving LA in the morning would have three jobs to > choose from by afternoon and in three different sectors: defense, media or > real-estate. I agree, urban capitalism can sometimes be glorious.
[PEN-L:8288] Re: Re: California Green Party
But the 60s was the period where there was real trickling down, not like now. There was so hope for a brief moment that the age of socialism was dawning and America, the richest nation was leading the way. There are different faces (and phases) of capitalism. But then, corporate restructuring and downsizing occurred to cut the "fat" (but instead only cut the trickling down) and globalization was devised to squeeze American workers, among other things. There was also a golden age of monarchy. Yet it went to the graveyard of history. Henry C.K. Liu Ricardo Duchesne wrote: > > LA, with all its problems, is still my favorite city, although I only lived > > there a little more than 4 years and in the late 60's, a period my friends > > there now tell me was the golden era for LA, and in fact for much else in the > > world. > > > > During that time, anyone arriving LA in the morning would have three jobs to > > choose from by afternoon and in three different sectors: defense, media or > > real-estate. > > I agree, urban capitalism can sometimes be glorious.
[PEN-L:8286] Re: Re: Here we go again!
Unfortunately, Greenspan still has a great deal of reserve monetary power at his dispoasal. It is highly unlikely that the US economy will crash before the next election. But Greenspan would have to pay a high price for postponing the inevitable. We have shifted from the goldilock economy (just right) to the yo-yo economy (sequential lossening and tightening globally). Wealth is created by lifting the depressed sectors with high tech glamour and the bailing out disappointing high tech with IT hope, all the time multiplying P/E ratios, with the Fed providing the liquidity to finance it all. There are now so many internet paper millionaires who are spending on credit collateralized by stocks that they cannot and dare not sell. The average formula for internet companies is to mushroom a $300k cash investment into a $300 million market caotialization at IPO in three years and hit the billion dlloar mark shortly thereafter. That is over 300% compounded return per year with no cash flow to justify it. Now, it takes a Phd in economics to avoid seeing the invitable bust. Greenspan says no big deal, he is ready to pull another rabbit out from his hat like in 1987 or 1998. The only reaons the US has low inflation are because equity price is not in the inflation basket and because the US has been exporting deflation globally for the past two years, and the trickling down of wealth has been minimum. Bush won the war over Iraq and lost the economy. Gore is not about to make to same mistake, (he will make other mistakes instead). Henry C.K. Liu Rob Schaap wrote: > >Here we go again, setting Asia and Latin America up for another financial > >crisis a year from now. The average timing will be one crisis every two > >or three years to repatriate all surplus value from the periphery back to > >the core. > > Might be quicker than that, Henry! My (admittedly simplistic) take on this > is that if too much money leaves America too quickly (pre-hike escapes and > concomitant bouncing Asian markets in general, all combined with the whiff > of a fragile but rapid Japanese rejuvenation), that changes the > significance of the current account, the reliability of Wall St projections > (against and for which much borrowing has been done), the faith put in > hedge funds (still ever-so-secretive regarding their investments, but now > with a big dark precedent planted in the public mind), and the value of the > greenback. If America's heroic consumer suddenly pulls her head in, we'll > get pretty dramatic capital destruction everywhere, no? > > I persist in amateurly manic bearishness, I know, but what else can a bloke > do when nothing makes any sense and the whole world economy seems to be > predicated on one over-extended economy sucking in everybody else's > product? That's balancing an awfully big angel on a very thin pin, no? > > Night all, > Rob.
[PEN-L:8300] Re: Bengali famine
In an earlier missive in this thread, I wrote: >>Sen and de Long are saying that even with close-to-perfect markets (or even perfect ones), people can starve, simply because they don't have enough money to buy food when the price goes up. That's a pretty damning indictment of markets, but it doesn't explain why people don't have the money. << After writing this, the little neoclassical homunculus in my head (a result of college and graduate school indoctrination) woke up and said: "wait a 'sec. If markets were _really_ perfect, as in the Arrow-Debreu Walrasian General Equilibrium Model, no-one could starve. After all, the potentially starving person could borrow money on the perfect futures market, taking advantage of his or her potential to earn wages in the future (after the food shortage) to pay the interest & principle, smoothing life-time consumption of food over the life cycle, so that there would be no significant dip in food consumption in the short run due to a bad harvest or other factors that limit the supply of food. In any case, any inadequacy on the supply-side of the food market are clearly due to tariffs or other trade barriers. Given free trade, the borrowed money could buy food at reasonable prices. (The idea of a world-wide bad harvest and food shortage is almost impossible.) So the problem is that markets aren't perfect _enough_." I'm surprised that Brad didn't bring the issue of futures markets up. I "forgot" to assume away perfect futures markets (without which the rest of the story doesn't work). But that's the difference between neoclassical economics and realistic economics. Pure neoclassicals use the Arrow-Debreu model (or some other equally ideal theory) as their baseline, bringing in one or two "imperfections" (i.e., real-world facts) to try to come up with something relevant. On the other hand, realistic economists like Adam Smith and Karl Marx started with the empirical world as their baseline, trying to develop valid abstractions based on empirical reality. (Some of the nominal or pragmatic neoclassicals are also this way.) The pure neoclassical necessity of "assuming away perfect futures markets" is like a physicist being compelled to "assume away God" when doing cosmology. Perfect futures markets are absurd (like the existence of God in my book), given (among other things) our fundamental uncertainty concerning future events. Louis writes: >... hasn't capitalism (and imperialism) historically been wedded to anti-market mechanisms? Wasn't the British East India Company antithetical to Adam Smith's ideals, as he even stated explicitly? Isn't the Bengali famine an outgrowth of these policies dating back to the 17th century?< In theory, the only non-market mechanism that capitalism is "wedded to" is the state, which enforces property rights (along with the inequality of such rights). In theory, therefore, mercantilism can go away. It's been going away for the rich capitalist countries (more for the US than for Japan, for example). Classical mercantilism in Europe was linked to domestic absolutism and efforts to engage in primitive accumulation. It resulted in the polarization of classes (and the sometimes fast, sometimes slow abolition of self-employment) and the wealth distribution, which has since been preserved by "normal" state activity, such as busting or taming unions. Recent famines are due to wars, weather, and the like disrupting food supplies (something we should expect more of as global warming kicks in) at the same time that rural populations become increasingly dependent on the market -- rather than their own gardens -- for food. The commercialization of agriculture (and such events as the "Green Revolution") is almost always linked to proletarianization of the small-holders, so that these people become vulnerable to famine. Again, this isn't in Sen (as far as I know) but doesn't contradict his work. > On the other hand, is the cure laissez-faire capitalism? If the capitalist is free to invest, and the state does not interfere with his decisions, isn't the result famine just the same? Export agriculture in Latin America might proceed by the "Wealth of Nations" textbook, but the result is hunger and premature deaths from malnutrition. The answer is to be found in what Marxists have always called for, production for human need rather than profit.< In theory, eventually stable commercial agriculture with a steady work-force will settle in, as the process of primitive accumulation and proletarianization swallow up the last of the world's rural populations. Agriculture, in theory, will be like the automobile industry, perhaps even able to insulate itself from the seemingly growing swings of weather conditions. But it seems to me as if commercial agriculture aims to promote pesticide and herbicide use, the use of chemical fertilizer, and the development of hybrid and genetically-altered crops. Though profitable to individual capitalist-farmers and to chem
[PEN-L:8298] Re: Re: Re: California Gree -Reply -Forw
Forwarded mail received from: PERMIT1:NAL1 I forwarded some of the discussion on California/transit to a colleague here at the City of Berkeley, one of our transportation planners, and this is his comment, with his permission. The GM conspiracy theory has little or no credibility in transportation circles. It's true that a GM-owned company bought up trolley- based transit systems and converted them to bus operation. But if it hadn't been GM, it most likely would have been someone else. Trolley systems were suffering from disinvestment, and politically it was very hard to raise trolley fares. Trolleys were increasingly being blamed for blocking traffic. Large cities could have created off-street rapid transit systems, but the voters of Los Angeles voted down the Rapid Transit Plan in, I think, 1927 (even so, about a mile of subway tunnel was built to bring trolleys into a Downtown Los Angeles terminal). The changing dynamics of passenger transportation under American capitalism did in the trolleys. That's a harder target to blame than a nice juicy conspiracy, but that's the way it is.
[PEN-L:8299] Re: Re: Peter Dorman's letter appeared in the NY Timestoday
Yes, and I'm peeved. The last sentence was the important one, making the main political point (about democracy) and needling the Times for the implicit bias in their coverage. *They never received my permission to print this revised version.* Peter Arun Chandra wrote: > > it's a good letter, but the Times left out the last paragraph. > > arun chandra > > On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, Louis Proyect wrote: > > > To the Editor: > > > > In your report on the Cologne G8 meeting, you refer in general terms to > > the "democratic and economic reforms" Balkan governments must agree to > > in order to receive economic assistance from the US and the European > > Union. This aid is desperately needed to repair the damage caused by > > years of conflict in the region and months of NATO bombing. > > > > The full condition for this aid, however, went unmentioned. At this > > meeting the G8 reaffirmed the June 10 G7 stipulation that Balkan > > governments adopt "market economies based on sound macro policies, > > markets open to greatly expanded foreign trade and private sector > > investment, effective and transparent customs and commercial/regulatory > > regimes, developing strong capital markets and diversified ownership, > > including privatisation..." This doctrinaire formula would be > > presumptuous anywhere, but it is especially so in a region whose last 40 > > years of economic development has been based on market socialism and an > > element of worker management. > > > > Apparently we have strayed so far from the view that a nation's economic > > institutions should be democratically chosen by its people that it is no > > longer news when this principle is overruled. > > > > Peter Dorman > > > > Louis Proyect > > > > (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html) > > > >
[PEN-L:8296] Re: Peter Dorman's letter appeared in the NY Times today
it's a good letter, but the Times left out the last paragraph. arun chandra On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, Louis Proyect wrote: > To the Editor: > > In your report on the Cologne G8 meeting, you refer in general terms to > the "democratic and economic reforms" Balkan governments must agree to > in order to receive economic assistance from the US and the European > Union. This aid is desperately needed to repair the damage caused by > years of conflict in the region and months of NATO bombing. > > The full condition for this aid, however, went unmentioned. At this > meeting the G8 reaffirmed the June 10 G7 stipulation that Balkan > governments adopt "market economies based on sound macro policies, > markets open to greatly expanded foreign trade and private sector > investment, effective and transparent customs and commercial/regulatory > regimes, developing strong capital markets and diversified ownership, > including privatisation..." This doctrinaire formula would be > presumptuous anywhere, but it is especially so in a region whose last 40 > years of economic development has been based on market socialism and an > element of worker management. > > Apparently we have strayed so far from the view that a nation's economic > institutions should be democratically chosen by its people that it is no > longer news when this principle is overruled. > > Peter Dorman > > Louis Proyect > > (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html) > >
Re: [PEN-L:8291] Re: Bengali famine
Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Comparative International Development University of Washington 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA Phone: (253) 692-4462 Fax : (253) 692-5612 On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, DOUG ORR wrote: > Sam Pawlett wrote: > > Brad De Long wrote: > > Your fight is with Amartya Sen--not me. > > > > But my strong impression is that you have lost the argument already. > > > > Sen is not dumb, is careful, and rarely makes mistakes... > > > > He uses the most amount of footnotes I've seen too. If I remember, > didn't Sen point out that India was actually exporting food during > its famines? > _ > I am not sure about India, but Ireland exported food throughout the > potatoe famine. So you see Louis, it really is the free market at work. > The Irish and the Indians didn't have sufficient income to make their > "preferences" (i.e. not starving) apparent in the market place, so they > did not receive any food. The market efficiently allocated it to those > with sufficient income. Now all that stuff about the colonialist military > setting up the landholding property rights which denied the colonists of > any access to income, THAT occurred prior to the current market period, > and thus is irrelevant to the current market analysis. If you want > to discuss that, you should be discussing political science or history, > but not economics. ;). > But this is a naive discipline-based argument, not at all unlike what nc economists profess: if it's not part of the discipline don't explain it. What sort of approach is this? Do realities come packaged in "disciplines"? With regard to the famines, the changing class character in India (Bengal) did introduce the commercialization of grain trade leading to shortages. But we also know the British were ensuring supplies for the war effort that added to the shortages. Would not prices be lower and affordable had the British not diverted food grains? We have another relevant example: Korean exports of rice to Japan was very high when the average Korean was barely getting enough to eat. Was this because of the market or was it due Japanese policy of maintaining low industrial wages in Japan? This is a political issue and cannot be explained away by market logic. > Summer's memo is neoclassical economics at its best, not its worst. > > Doug Orr > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
[PEN-L:8295] Re: Bengali famine
There are two separate issues. 1. Is the market economy desirable? 2. Is neoclassical economics usefull in analysing a market economy? Neoclassical economists confuse the issues. to question (1) they argue that ideally a "free market economy" is optimal. It appears to me that Sen is arguing that even if it is "optimal" in the neoclassical sense it is often not desirable in the ethical sense. Brad seems to be discussing the second issue, and saying that neoclassical economics properly done is useful as an analytic tool. For instance Sen uses that method of analysis to show the immorality of some market outcomes. Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:8283] Here we go again!
Here we go again, setting Asia and Latin America up for another financial crisis a year from now. The average timing will be one crisis every two or three years to repatriate all surplus value from the periphery back to the core. Henry C.K. Liu Business Times On Line June 24 1999 Whopping US$6b from US set to flood global funds this month Amount is almost as much as for whole of last year From Meera Tharmaratnam in Hongkong ATTRACTED by soaring returns in Asian and Latin American markets, investors in the US are on course to put as much money into international stock mutual funds this month alone as they did for the whole of last year, according to a published report. US investors are expected to put as much as a net US$6.6 billion (S$11.2 billion) into funds that invest in foreign stocks, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday, citing figures from Trimtab.com, a California-based research firm. The newspaper said even though that would be half what is expected to flow into US stock funds, it represents "almost as much net new money as investors put in international funds all of last year". Investment Company Institute, the fund industry's chief trade group, was also quoted as saying that if the June projection holds, it would be the largest monthly inflow into international funds since January 1997. Markets in Asia have posted a huge rally this year. Since January, Hongkong's share market has risen 39 per cent while Singapore and Korea have risen 56 per cent and 58 per cent respectively. "Our revenues have been running ahead of budget. Institutional investors have been putting a lot of money into Asia all year," Simon Maughan, regional financial services analyst at WI Carr, told BT, adding that there has been a lot of interest in Korea and Singapore banks. According to investment managers here, interest from US-based institutional investors has been growing since January. Hongkong, Singapore and Korea have been prime beneficiaries of the new inflows. That's reflected in the data. Asia-Pacific funds excluding Japan saw inflows of US$161 million this quarter, compared with US$207 million in outflows in the first quarter of 1999, according to AMD Data Services. The new inflows bring total investments in Asia-Pacific funds to US$9 billion as at June 16, up 24.5 per cent from the figure six months ago. Funds for emerging markets as a whole, including Latin America, have risen 22.5 per cent to US$26 billion from six months ago. Hongkong-based analysts say most of the money so far has been from institutional investors. US-based retail investors have just been slower to catch on. "We do see some increased interest in Asian markets. Our customers are looking at mutual funds as a vehicle to invest in Asian markets," said Fanny Lum, marketing director at Charles Schwab HK. Charles Schwab, which operates one of the largest mutual fund supermarkets in the US, said international stock funds have attracted more new money so far in June than any other stock fund category. Just about half of all net inflows into stock funds at Schwab this month have gone into international stock funds, LAT reported the firm as saying. Strong Funds in Milwaukee reported that its Asia Pacific fund has seen its total assets double thus far this year, the paper said. More than half of the new money arrived in the first 17 days of June. Franklin Templeton, American Century and Newport Funds also reported increased foreign fund buying in recent weeks, the report said. The current rally helps. The typical US stock fund is up 7.9 per cent. By contrast, average emerging markets funds, which embrace markets in Asia and Latin America, are up 31.6 per cent year to date.
[PEN-L:8282] Re: Re: The Theory of Cultural Racism (posted originally toleninist-internationalmail-list)
Calm down, you'd hurt yourself. Rod Hay wrote: > This is just so much crap that it is hard to believe that someone could put > it forward seriously. We have a crime without a perpetrator. Without > evidence. Without a trial. But everyone accused is guilty because they > belong to a certain group. It does not matter what they have done, they are > guilty. And what is the penalty? Grovelling, accepting uncritical every > thing that is said. Why when there is no release from guilt? Perhaps it is > too liberal of me to insist that individuals are responsible for their own > actions. If anyone on this list has said or done anything racist point it > out. Don't make accusation without evidence. It is stupid, divisive, > irresponsible and counterproductive. > > Cultural differences are not racism. > > Others besides whites can be racists. One of the most vicious racist > episodes I have witness was perpetrated by a person of chinese descent on > one of Malayasian descent. > > Does any one remember Richard Prior's attack on the chinese in his concert > film? > > Was the attack on Korean shopkeepers during the riots in Los Angeles not > racist? > > Original Message Follows > From: Louis Proyect > > Reprinted from Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 23(1992): 289 299. > > The Theory of Cultural Racism > > By J. M. Blaut, Department of Geography University of Illinois at Chicago > > i. Theory and Practice > > Very few academics these days consider themselves to be racists, and > calling someone a racist is deeply offensive. Yet racism in the > universities is just as pervasive, just as dangerous, as it was a > generation ago. Nowadays we seem to have a lot of racism but very few > racists. How do you explain this paradox? > > Rod Hay > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > The History of Economic Thought Archives > http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html > Batoche Books > http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ > > __ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:8291] Re: Bengali famine
Sam Pawlett wrote: Brad De Long wrote: > Your fight is with Amartya Sen--not me. > > But my strong impression is that you have lost the argument already. > > Sen is not dumb, is careful, and rarely makes mistakes... > He uses the most amount of footnotes I've seen too. If I remember, didn't Sen point out that India was actually exporting food during its famines? _ I am not sure about India, but Ireland exported food throughout the potatoe famine. So you see Louis, it really is the free market at work. The Irish and the Indians didn't have sufficient income to make their "preferences" (i.e. not starving) apparent in the market place, so they did not receive any food. The market efficiently allocated it to those with sufficient income. Now all that stuff about the colonialist military setting up the landholding property rights which denied the colonists of any access to income, THAT occurred prior to the current market period, and thus is irrelevant to the current market analysis. If you want to discuss that, you should be discussing political science or history, but not economics. ;). Summer's memo is neoclassical economics at its best, not its worst. Doug Orr [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:8280] China/US Confrontation Continues
China Stops Landing of U.S. Plane HONG KONG (AP) -- Chinese authorities have stopped a U.S. military airplane from landing in Hong Kong, the latest display of anger following the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. The South China Morning Post reported today that the move has thrown doubts over U.S. congressional delegations' plans to come to Hong Kong aboard U.S. Air Force jets this summer. The move also comes after China refused to let some U.S. warships dock in Hong Kong, a popular port. The U.S. consul general's office in Hong Kong confirmed today that several warships were banned and that one U.S. airplane was recently stopped from landing in Hong Kong on a routine training mission. A consulate spokeswoman, who declined to be identified, said she could not say whether any congressmen were hoping to come here this summer or whether their movements would be affected in any way. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Zhang Qiyue, was asked about the matter today in Beijing. ``Under the present circumstances, it is only natural that China does not allow the U.S. ships or planes to port or land in Hong Kong,'' she said. The U.S. consul general in Hong Kong, Richard Boucher, told business leaders Wednesday that several warships had been denied permission to dock, but apparently on a case-by-case basis. ``These have been individual denials,'' Boucher said. ``We have no indication of a permanent ban. I would expect we will continue to apply for visits, and I am confident at some point they will be approved.''
[PEN-L:8287] Re: Re: Bengali famine
Brad De Long wrote: > Your fight is with Amartya Sen--not me. > > But my strong impression is that you have lost the argument already. > > Sen is not dumb, is careful, and rarely makes mistakes... > He uses the most amount of footnotes I've seen too. If I remember, didn't Sen point out that India was actually exporting food during its famines? Sam Pawlett
[PEN-L:8279] Re: Re: Whites and Capitalists
Rob, The fact that we are discussing the issue rather than denying it is progress. I admit that I, as an Asian non-white, have a special prospective, although such perspective is not "a priori" based, but rather on Lamarkian experience. And it is more accurate to call it reactive racism, rather than reverse racism, because as I have said before, non-white reactive racism toward whites is a mirror, not a heat source, not oppressive but defensive, not ideological but experiencial, not voluntarily from us but imposed on us. It is based on fear rather than power. Now, the individuals on the list that you named did not at first accused me of being a reverse racist. Their first line of attack was to ridicule Chinese socialist language as evidence of a collective defect that precludes clear thinking. It is when I pointed out that offensive ridicule as culturally racist that they launched the reserve racist accusation. Jim Blaut and Andy Austin and Yoshie F. have all pointed out in their own language, the need for caucasians to stop identifying themselves as "white" which is a term with heavy historical and political racial meaning. I think that is a very important point and it contributes insightfully to this debate. When I think of you, Rob Shaap, as a Caucasian Australian, I do that with neutrality, even a bit of fondness, but if I think of you as a whiteman, it is not possible to deny any association of hostility. I am not unique in this respect among non-whites. As you know, all over former British colonies in Asia, while the socio-political tension between Australians and the English, (or the Irish, or Scots and the English,) tends to render these also oppressed Britisher more sympathetic to indigenous native aspiration for equality and independence, the British victims of in-group prejudice tend instinctively to close rank with their home society oppressors as fellow "whites" against non-whites. To this day, the residual self-image of white Australia has worked against Australia's national interest by denying the need to view itself as an Asian economy, not on racial terms, but geo-political terms. Of course, the issue is highly complex and is full of exceptions. Fortunately, humans, time and again, do rise above their social conditioning. But those exceptions testify only to the nobility of the human spirit rather than to the absence of racism in society. Henry C.K. Liu Rob Schaap wrote: > A rambling response to some aspects of this conversation that seem, well, > ambiguous to me, Henry ... > > >The term "whites" remains a very valid > >social scientific category and generalization. The fact that something is > >socially constructed does not make it indefinite or invalid as a > >generalization. Nor does the complex interaction with class make this > >generalization inaccurate or unclear. > >Henry's use of the generalization regarding whites frequently treating > >people of color as lesser humans (racism) , e.g. sending into danger > >zones in war or in mines as human fuses is not at all casual , but every > >bit as valid as all kinds of other social and economic generalizations > >made on this list and elsewhere. > > Complex stuff, this. Oz didn't send Aboriginees up the cliffs of Gallipoli > in 1915 because they didn't rate enlistment for front-line duties at the > time. And, of course, we didn't send women, either. And, significantly > too, it was Australians and NZers who went up those cliffs, sent by the > same Churchill who later sent Canadians on that daft foray into Dieppe in > 1942. Colonials were the bottom of the barrel as far as the imperial core > was concerned in those days. > > And you gauge the ladders in the hierarchy by how (and if) things get > remembered. America killed a few white protesters at Kent State in 1970 > and a couple of black ones elsewhere at the same time - Kent State is > almost forgotten, but the other event is absolutely so - to the extent I > can't even remember exactly where it happened (though someone here > mentioned it last month). But then again, the spectacularly violent death > of a woman (such as that of Constable Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan > embassy in London a few years ago) hits most of us harder than that of a > man (whose 'job' it is to be at the frontline, I guess). Power manifests > in very funny ways, eh? > > >Some more tolerant whites on the list try to argue that not all whites are > >racists. Yet I have heard the expression: a few rotton apples will ruin a > >>whole barrel, but never a few good apples will save a rotting barrel. > > Yep. That's because a few rotten apples will ruin, and a few good 'uns > won't save. The barrel has to go. Fortunately, the analogy is not all > that apposite. A materialist gets to posit that revolutionised relations > revolutionise the people there-in. But whence come the revolutionised > relations in this picture? Perhaps how we define those good 'uns, and how > those good 'uns defin
[PEN-L:8278] Re: Re: Re: The National Endowment for Democracy and the
> As long as the predominant world system > remains imperialism, any country which breaks away from that system > and attempts to preserve a bourbeois-like parliamentary democracy > will not be able to resist outside subversion. Even in a revolution > involving the maximum active participation of the citizenry a large > majority will be untouched (i.e. inactive) by either the revolution or > the reaction. That more passive majority can always be mobilized > for anti-revolutionary purposes in so passive an exercise as casting > a vote, provided that sufficient material aid is available, as Michael > shows was the case in Nicaragua. > Carrol appears likelihood of any country making attempt to break away is minimal in short run but internal/external dialectic in post- revo Nicaragua is noteworthy... what political leadership in its 'right mind' would hold elections under the circumstances that Nicaragua's 1990 elections were held? US-backed war and US-led economic destabilization certainly didn't allow for 'free' choice (specter of then-US Secretary of State stating that embargo would continue if FSLN won is indicative)... and allowing mass media and political groups supporting armed aggression to received foreign funding (from the grotesquely mis- named NED) carried a psychological message relative to national dignity...so one might ask how FSLN managed to receive 41% of votes cast in elections that were scrutinized closer than any held anywhere in world and carrried out amidst economic chaos and on the terrain of imperialist-supported counterrevolution... Sandinistas 'in government' had been speaking in national rather than in class terms for some time as the regime pursued accomodation with intransigent opposition in name of 'reconciliation'...disagreements within FSLN - of which commitment to mixed economy was prominent - could not be resolved in circumstances in which it held state power during economic and military warfare (a time unconducive to any kind of democracy)... the FSLN had taken over a country in ruins and initiated a project directed at improving the lot of the impoverished majority while allowing for continued participation by privileged classes... emphasizing national character of revolution, mixed-economy strategy was - in part - intended to reduce class conflict... Sandinistas aimed economic incentives at capitalists and large landowners because they held a large share of what FSLN wanted produced...control of agricultural export, livestock, manufacturing, & construction would ostensibly occur through state controlled credit...moreover, state investment would facilitate development through projects with long-term gestation periods - textile combine, sugar refinery, deep-water port, irrigation... FSLN was left open to criticism when large, private producers proved reluctant to invest and state enterprises could not overcome poor management...broad, popular support from artisans, peasants, and workers stemming from distribution of confiscated Somozo properties, health, housing, and literacy programs, and recognition of mass organizations was weakened amidst Sandinista concessions to domestic exporters, landlords, and foreign capital that never generated support by latter... the government's position often resembled bureaucratic-productivist approach that made it appear antagonistic to labor, particularly in state-run enterprises...artisans, peasant, & workers often came to be viewed as 'important political constituencies' but they held little economic and political power...the burdens of the contra war forced mass organizations to perform 'patriotic'functions, turning grassroots groups into top-down structures...state-enterprise management and worker participation were inadequate, but the FSLN did not have sufficient plans to upgrade them, and if they had, the war would have blocked effective implementation...then from 1987 on, the government liberalized the economy at expense of poor, peasantry, and workers in shift from regulated activity to free-markets... signs of declining popular support for the Sandinitas had been evident by 1986 as US-backed war began taking its toll...and the FSLN would come to acknowledge that it had lost touch...grown distant from an increasingly disorganized population, important segments of the FSLN were apparently unaware of the level of dissatisfaction...reports, for example, had Ortega receiving word of the results as he was writing his acceptance speech...yet, several Sandinista leaders met with Chamorro and UNO advisers a couple of days prior to the election to dicuss possible transfer of power...in this instance, as in others, key FSLN members may have been publicly united and privately divided... some Sandinistas had begun to accept features of liberal-democracy at time of 1984 elections that, despite Reagan administration's attempts to discredit them, were widely held to be free and fair... FSLN only received 6
[PEN-L:8277] BLS Daily Report
> BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1999: > > Today's BLS News Release: "Average Annual Pay by State and Industry, > 1997" indicates that the average annual pay of all workers covered by > state and federal unemployment insurance (UI) programs was $30,336 in > 1997, a 4.8 percent gain over the 1996 national average. The annual pay of > private industry workers, comprising 84.4 percent of the nation's > employment, rose 5.1 percent in 1997, while pay for government workers > rose 3.2 percent. In 1996, the increase in pay for private sector > employees was 4.2 percent and for government workers, 3.1 percent. > > "Let's celebrate a quiet revolution: The return of 'full employment'," > writes Robert J. Samuelson in The Washington Post (page A21). In the > 1960s and 70s, politicians and economists clamored for it, defining full > employment as an unemployment rate of 4 percent. They were repeatedly > disappointed, because whenever joblessness dipped so low, inflation > accelerated. Now look: Low unemployment and inflation coexist, Samuelson > continues. The jobless rate has been below 5 percent since mid-1997, but > inflation remains tame. In 1998, the CPI rose a mere 1.6 percent. > Probably no one economist in a hundred would have predicted this 5 years > ago. The reason is that most economists subscribe to a theory called the > "natural rate" of unemployment. It holds that, below a certain > unemployment rate, the job market becomes so tight that wages and > inflation inevitably surge In the early 1990s, most economists put the > natural rate of unemployment at about 6 percent. Optimists went down to > 5.6 percent or a bit lower. It now seems that even the optimists were too > pessimistic -- with wondrous results. The old natural rate seemed to > preclude a job boom from ever reaching the poorest and least skilled > workers. This is less true now, which is one cause of the early success > of welfare reform. What's occurred in the U.S. is that refashioned pay > practices to cushion the conflict between rising wages and higher prices. > Economists Lawrence Katz of Harvard and Alan Krueger of Princeton argue > that the natural rate has fallen by about a percentage point since the mid > 1980s for three reasons: (1.) Older workers. Since the late 1970s, the > share of the labor force under 25 has shrunk from about 25 to 16 percent. > Older workers change jobs less often. This reduces their bargaining > power. It also cuts unemployment. (2.) Temporary-help agencies: In > 1998, they filled about 2 percent of all jobs, up from 0.5 percent in the > early 1980s. As a result, many unemployed workers get jobs quicker. And > companies can attract new workers without resorting to across-the-board > wage increases to all workers. (3.) The prison population. Since 1980, > it's quadrupled from 316,000 to 1.3 million in 1998. About 90 percent are > men. Before prison, they had abnormally high jobless rates. Samuelson > continues: "The Fed has concentrated on containing inflation. Hardly > anyone talked about full employment, but the silence improved the odds of > its realization. The determination to hold prices in check forced > companies and workers to change their behavior in ways that made it easier > to expand employment without causing inflationary bottlenecks. Even with > business cycles, this elevates everyone's lifetime job prospects." > > The financial benefits of the Internet and high technology extend beyond > the quick riches they have brought high-profile entrepreneurs and > investors in recent year to the Nation's economy as a whole, a new > Government study shows. The information technology industry generated at > least a third of the Nation's economic growth between 1995 and 1998, the > Commerce Department says in a report released today. Those goods and > services also got cheaper, and allowed businesses to become more > productive, cutting inflation by .07 percent in 1996 and 1997. "The > improvement in technology, in productivity, is what has made the economy > so incredibly attractive in the last couple of years, William J. > McDonough, president of the Fed of New York, said in a speech in New > Jersey. Today's Commerce Department report says workers in information > technology have been at least twice as productive as other workers from > 1990 to 1997 and nearly 78 percent more than other workers (Bloomberg > News, in The New York Times, page C8). > > Buoyed by a robust economy and a surging stock market, more Americans, > particularly duel-income couples, are paying others to cook, clean, mow, > weed, drive, and mind the children, among many other chores. Last year, > the number of servant-type jobs -- nannies, maids, gardeners, pool > cleaners, butlers, cooks -- grew 8 percent to almost 1.8 million, more > than 5 times the rate of overall job growth, according to BLS and that > probably undercounts the use of domestic help, since it doesn't count > illega
[PEN-L:8276] The Theory of Cultural Racism (posted originally toleninist-international mail-list)
Reprinted from Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 23(1992): 289 299. The Theory of Cultural Racism By J. M. Blaut, Department of Geography University of Illinois at Chicago i. Theory and Practice Very few academics these days consider themselves to be racists, and calling someone a racist is deeply offensive. Yet racism in the universities is just as pervasive, just as dangerous, as it was a generation ago. Nowadays we seem to have a lot of racism but very few racists. How do you explain this paradox? The place to begin is to notice the essential difference between racist theory and racist practice. Racism most fundamentally is practice: the practice of discrimination, at all levels, from personal abuse to colonial oppression. Racism is a form of practice which has been tremendously important in European society for several hundred years, important in the sense that it is an essential part of the way the European capitalist system maintains itself. Racist practice, like all practice, is cognized, rationalized, justified, by a theory, a belief-system about the nature of reality and the behavior which is appropriate to this cognized reality. (The word "theory" is better in this context than the word "ideology," because we are talking about a system of empirical beliefs, not about the cultural bindings of belief.) But theory and practice do not have a one- to-one relationship. One form of practice can be underlain by various different theories. Since racism-as-practice, that is, discrimination, is an essential part of the system, we should not be surprised to discover that it has been supported by a historical sequence of different theories, each consistent with the intellectual environment of a given era. Nor should we be surprised to find that the sequent theories are so different from one another that the racist theory of one epoch is in part a refutation of the racist theory of the preceding epoch. Putting the matter in a somewhat over-simplified form, the dominant racist theory of the early nineteenth century was a biblical argument, grounded in religion; the dominant racist theory of the period from about 1850 to 1950 was a biological argument, grounded in natural science; the racist theory of today is mainly a historical argument, grounded in the idea of culture history or simply culture. Today's racism is cultural racism. I will try to show, in this paper, what cultural racism is all about and how and why it has largely supplanted biological racism (at least among academics). To start things off, I'll explain the paradox that, today, in universities, we have racism but few racists. Generally, when we call a person a racist in the academic world of today we are accusing this person of believing in the hereditary, biological superiority of people of one so-called race over people of another so-called race, with the implication that discrimination is justified, explained, rationalized, by the underlying biological theory. But hardly anybody believes in this theory anymore. Most academics believe that the typical members of what used to be called inferior races have a capacity equal to that of other so-called races, but they have not been able to realize this capacity. They have not learned the things one needs to know to be treated as an equal. They have not learned how to think rationally, as mental adults. They have not learned how to behave in appropriate ways, as social adults. The problem is culture, not biology. And, naturally, the inequality will disappear in the course of time. But in the meantime, discrimination is perfectly justified. Of course it is not called "discrimination" in this newer theory. It is a matter of treating each person in a way that is appropriate to his or her abilities. The people of one race -- pardon me: one ethnic group -- demonstrate greater abilities than those of other ethnic groups, abilities in IQ, ACT, and SAT test-taking, in "need achievement motivation," in avoidance of criminality, and so on. Given that they have these higher realized abilities, they should be given greater rewards. They should be admitted to college, be granted Ph.D.s and tenure, and the rest. And so racist practice persists under the guidance of a theory which actually denies the relevance of race. The differences between humans which justify discriminatory treatment are differences in acquired characteristics: in culture. Another way of putting this is to say that cultural racism substitutes the cultural category "European" for the racial category "white." We no longer have a superior race; we have, instead, a superior culture. It is "European culture," or "Western culture," "the West" (see Amin 1989). What counts is culture, not color. ii. Religious Racism The notion of European cultural superiority is not a new one. Early in the 19th century, Europeans considered themselves to be superior because they are Christians and a Christian god must naturally favor His own
[PEN-L:8281] Re: The Theory of Cultural Racism (posted originally to leninist-internationalmail-list)
This is just so much crap that it is hard to believe that someone could put it forward seriously. We have a crime without a perpetrator. Without evidence. Without a trial. But everyone accused is guilty because they belong to a certain group. It does not matter what they have done, they are guilty. And what is the penalty? Grovelling, accepting uncritical every thing that is said. Why when there is no release from guilt? Perhaps it is too liberal of me to insist that individuals are responsible for their own actions. If anyone on this list has said or done anything racist point it out. Don't make accusation without evidence. It is stupid, divisive, irresponsible and counterproductive. Cultural differences are not racism. Others besides whites can be racists. One of the most vicious racist episodes I have witness was perpetrated by a person of chinese descent on one of Malayasian descent. Does any one remember Richard Prior's attack on the chinese in his concert film? Was the attack on Korean shopkeepers during the riots in Los Angeles not racist? Original Message Follows From: Louis Proyect Reprinted from Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 23(1992): 289 299. The Theory of Cultural Racism By J. M. Blaut, Department of Geography University of Illinois at Chicago i. Theory and Practice Very few academics these days consider themselves to be racists, and calling someone a racist is deeply offensive. Yet racism in the universities is just as pervasive, just as dangerous, as it was a generation ago. Nowadays we seem to have a lot of racism but very few racists. How do you explain this paradox? Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:8274] ten commandments in public schools?
forwarded by Michael Hoover > House OKs Posting of 10 Commandments > WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted today to allow the Ten > Commandments to be posted in schools and other government > buildings. By 248-180, lawmakers approved Rep. Robert Aderholt's > amendment to a juvenile crime bill that would allow states to > decide whether to permit such displays on government property. The > amendment, Aderholt said, was a ``first step'' for government in > reinstilling the value of human life in children influenced by > violent culture.
