[PEN-L:12985] Re: Re: The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday,19 Oct 1999 --3:85 (#343)
I am not exactly sure what particular issue(s) J. Devine was trying to make in his response on this thread. I could perhaps accurately intuit or reason through them, but it is easier and the results more accurate to ask him to present them in a clearer form. Too often -- especially on the net -- people too quickly present points that are too ambiguous. -- tallpaul PS: In answer to an earlier post I focused on "no free speech for fascists" as those ideas might be held by lawyers outside the U.S. Constitutional system. Actually, several important lawyers in essence argued that the defamatory quality of fascist organizing is not protected by free speech in the U.S. Those were the conservative 1952 Supreme Court which upheld criminal group libel laws in: Beauharnais v. Ill., 343 U.S. 250 (1952). There they held, in essence, that defamation, like obscenity was an exception to the normal protections of free speech. In the meantime, I had occasion to read of the David Irving case in Germany. Irving, a Holocaust revisionist, was convicted under German law that was also essentially "criminal group libel."
[PEN-L:12984] The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 26 Oct 1999 -- 3:88 (#348)
See ftp supplements below for extended news coverage of KKK in NYC __ The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 26 October 1999 Vol. 3, Numbers 88 (#348) __ STAY ISSUED FOR MUMIA Judge William H. Yohn of the Federal District Court has just issued a stay on the planned 2 December execution of Mumia. This is to permit additional hearings to be held. The defense will submit additional motions in December and the prosecution will then have two months to respond. The stay does not mean that Mumia is free or even that a new trial will be held. It simply means that no execution can even be planned until some time in the year 2000. -- ACTION: BENEFIT FOR E. TIMOR AND CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Thursday, October 28, 7:30 p.m. Art Greenwich Theatre, 97 Greenwich Ave. at 12th St., New York Showing of the film "Punitive Damage" followed by a panel discussion with Allan Nairn, Constancio Pinto, filmmaker Annie Goldson and attorney Beth Stephens. Tickets are $25 and may be purchased in advance (via credit card) or at the door. For inquiries or advance ticket purchases, please call Meaghean Murphy, Center for Constitutional Rights; 212-614-6472 666 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10012 Please make checks payable to the Center for Constitutional Rights. -- JOE HILL'S BIRTHPLACE BOMBED via kurt svensson (23 Oct 99) Approximately at 1 am this morning a powerful explosion rocked Gaevle, a middle-sized town in central Sweden. The Swedish syndicalist union, SAC-Syndikaliisterna's local offices were the target. The building housed not only the Local Federations and Industry Secretary's offices but was also the birthplace of the well-known syndicalist agitator, Joe Hill. Joe Hill left Sweden and immigrated to the United States where he earned a name for himself within the ranks of American syndicalist union IWW- Industrial Workers of the World. The explosion coincides with today's manifestations across Sweden and Europe against fascist violence in response to the fact that a union activist within the SAC, Bjoern Soederberg, was brutally assassinated by three nazis on 12 October 1999. This fascist-aggression has stirred the hearts and minds of the Swedish working class, as well as that of unions, organisations and groups across the globe. KAMPEN FORTSAeTTER! -- 100th BIRTHDAY FOR ARTHUR LEHNING, DUTCH ANTI-FASCIST via Joris Smeets (22 Oct 99) Saturday 23 October Dutch anarchist Arthur Lehning will celebrate his 100th birthday. This year at the age of 99 he won the P.C. Hooftprijs, an important prize for writers in the Netherlands. Lehning was born in Utrecht in 1899, studied history and economics in Rotterdam en finished his education in Berlin, Germany. There he discovered anarchism through Russian anarchists who had fled from the Soviet Union. He is one of the founders of the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam. Lehning went to Catalonia during the Spanish civil war to support the social revolution. In Spain the most important experiment in this century with 'socialism without a state' took place, according to Lehning. He published articles and a diary about the civil war. He is mentioned (in the preface) as one of the readers of the manuscript of 'The Spanish Labyrinth' (1943), the classic book by Gerald Brenan on the history of Spain before the civil war. After WO II Lehning wrote an important study on Russian anarchist Bakunin. This saturday there will be an 'Anarchistiese Boekenmarkt' (Anarchist Bookfair) in Utrecht, where the life and works of Arthur Lehing will get some attention. He won't be able to be present. 'Arthur Lehning never changes his mening [opinion]' --- BLACK SOLIDARITY NOW MORE THAN EVER! Black Solidarity Forum The history of aggression--physical, psychological, spiritual, cultural, and economic, against people of color by Europeans, from enslavement to the end of the 20th century--has never stopped. It is manifested in the many incidences of police violence, racial profiling, and in the decaying status of urban institutions--schools, hospitals, etc. And it is clearly visible in the unemployment rate that exists amongst African from the Diaspora. Monday, November 1, 1999 marks 30 years since the cry for Black Solidarity Day was uttered. It was a cry for Africans in the Diaspora to come together regardless of their religion, politic
[PEN-L:12987] A rebuttal to that post
This is the message I tried to send yesterday... Dear Bruce, First of all, we all know and can take as a given that the Cuban Revolution did not, in 40 years, wipe out all vestiges of racism, that it is an ongoing process. We've also observed that, not surprisingly, the sharp setbacks of the last decade brought about by the sudden demise of the Socialist bloc in E. Europe which had provided a buffer against the US blockade and provided relatively equitable terms of trade, and the resulting need to permit various elements of a "market" or capitalist economy, also had a sharp impact in social as well as economic terms, leading to increases in expressions of racism, sexism and other forms of defiance of the revolutionary norm. But it's a long way from there to the statements and conclusions put forth in the article you sent me. The article by Sidney Brinkley sounds so much like the slick stuff put out by the professional CIA disinformation hacks that it is hard to know whether this is just a seriously misinformed individual who brings his Americans-know-best attitude (which the Left is, sadly, often prey to) to Cuba or in fact someone who is paid well for what he is writing by the Right or by a government agency or corporation. I hesitate to venture a guess as to which, since I don't want to point an unfair finger at someone if he is just mistaken, but I can certainly point out some discrepancies and some lines that will give you an idea as to why I am suspicious, and try to clarify or correct some of his misstatements. 1. " As with TransAfrica, the CBC delegation saw what Castro wanted them to see, talked with whom Castro wanted them to talk and came away with the 'facts' that Castro wanted them to know." That's one of the oldest lines in the book. For 30 years now I and others who write favorably about Cuba have been hearing and reading that description. If we weren't commie symps we were dupes. To some people, due to their arrogance or ideology, there is simply no other explanation why anyone would present an overall positive view of Cuba. In general, these attacks ignore or downplay any honest criticisms we may have made or the criticisms Cubans make of themselves which we have repeated, and focus exclusively on the good things we say in an attempt to deny them or to make them irrelevant. Needless to say, this form of attack is incredibly offensive and insulting to any intelligent, honest person who has not been led around by the nose, who is capable of thinking for himself or herself, and who has in fact talked with a wide variety of people of all opinions, colors, and walks of life. Since Mr. Brinkley was not here with either of the two delegations he claims were so docilely led around, one wonders where he got his information, on what he bases his allegations that they saw and talked to no one other than who and what Fidel Castro wanted them to. Isn't he just taking this for granted based on his disagreement with their conclusions? I happen to know for a fact, for instance, that the Congressional Black Caucus delegations that have been here have each had more than one meeting, formal and informal, with the US Interests Section chiefs and with the only African-American officers of the section. Certainly they were not hand-chosen by Fidel Castro, and you can be sure the Black Caucus got an earful of negative comments very similar to what Sydney wrote. It's part of the official line. 2. Mr. Brinkley is similarly upset that Randall Robinson "lambasted the U.S. government embargo, saying it was the sole blame for the plight of Afro Cubans. There was no mention of the role the Cuban government plays in that suffering, and they do indeed play a part. Castro is invariably portrayed as victim but Castro is also victimizer." Nowhere does Mr. B. actually give us evidence of Mr. Castro as "victimizer". There is a big difference between contending that the Cuban Revolution (which superficial writers or those with an ax to grind usually personify in the name of Fidel Castro) has not been able to eliminate in 40 years all vestiges of the 500-year history of racism it inherited, and saying that Fidel Castro himself "victimizes" Blacks. Especially when he has quoted Fidel himself acknowledging that the Revolution has not done enough and should do more. At what point do we jump from not having performed the miracle of eliminating all vestiges of racism to being the "victimizer" of Black Cubans? 3. Mr. B. is also upset because Mr. Robinson's "criticisms" didn't go far enough when he said that "Cuba has a one-party system and suppresses dissent", because Mr. Robinson qualified that comment by the (unarguably true) statement that "it still has a better record with respect to human rights than many Latin American governments the United States has steadfastly supported". I would in fact go much further than Randall Robinson
[PEN-L:12986] Blacks in Cuba
This was forwarded to me from somewhere. Any comments from pen folk? Steve Subject: A previous article and rebuttal which did and did not appear in BRC.. Hi Dave, I don't know if I sent you or if you read the following, but the rebuttal that was sent to me from Karen is excellent.. Bruce http://www.blacklightonline.com/cubaracism.html Racism in Cuba and the Failure of the American Left by Sidney Brinkley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "All citizens have equal rights and are subject to equal duties. Discrimination because of race, color, sex or national origin is forbidden and will be punished by law." --The Cuban Constitution 1959 "I think we should see more black representation in the higher positions of leadership now. In the middle leadership, for example, in the youth organizations. This is a social problem we have not resolved. But there are economic problems that are critical at the moment, so it's difficult." --Fidel Castro, "Crossroads," October 1993 "What impressed me the most [about the meeting with President Fidel Castro] was the way in which his grounding in the history and reality of Afro-Cubans informs his view of Cuba; the sense of personal outrage he has over racial discrimination; and his willingness to be critical of how the revolution has not done all that must be done about racism and therefore the resolve to figure out what must be done." --Dr. Johnnetta Cole, "The Cuba Report," TransAfrica Forum, January, 1999 The TransAfrica Forum delegation, comprised of fifteen prominent African-Americans, arrived in Havana on January 2, 1999, to begin a five day "fact-finding" visit which concluded with a three hour meeting with Cuban president Fidel Castro. In addition to Dr. Cole, the delegation included Drs. Alvin and Tina Poussaint, author Walter Mosley, actor Danny Glover and Randall Robinson, president of TransAfrica Forum. The visit was described as a "watershed" event. It's no surprise the Dr. Cole would be "impressed" by her meeting with Castro. The American Left are overwhelmingly impressed by Castro, sometimes to a fault. In the Cuba Report that followed the visit, TransAfrica praised the Cuban government for it educational system, its universal health care, its low infant mortality rate. Following close on the heels of the TransAfrica visit, a six member delegation from the Congressional Black Caucus, led by CBC chair Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) arrived in Cuba on February 17, for its own five day fact finding tour. "We have come with our minds open to study the impact of the embargo on the Cuban population," Waters said. "We hope to exercise some leadership, even a modest amount, in the future debates on a resolution about U.S.-Cuban relations." On February 19, the CBC delegation met with Castro for six hours. As with TransAfrica, the CBC delegation saw what Castro wanted them to see, talked with whom Castro wanted them to talk and came away with the "facts" that Castro wanted them to know. In the July 1999 issue of "Essence" magazine Randall Robinson authored a simplistic article titled "Why Black Cuba Is Suffering." He lambasted the U.S. government embargo, saying it was the sole blame for the plight of Afro Cubans. There was no mention of the role the Cuban government plays in that suffering, and they do indeed play a part. Castro is invariably portrayed as victim but Castro is also victimizer but that's a fact that Robinson and most of the Left prefer not to acknowledge. Robinson offered a qualified criticism of Castro's Cuba. "While Cuba has a one-party system and suppresses dissent, it still has a better record with respect to human rights than many Latin American governments the United States has steadfastly supported," Robinson wrote. What kind of reasoning is that? I would imagine the political prisoners languishing in Cuban jails would find little comfort in that statement. The same people that go ballistic over human rights abuses in China, go mute when it comes to Castro's human rights abuses in Cuba. Cuba has a population of over 11 million people. Approximately 60% are Black. However, while the Cuban constitution declares everyone equal, Cuban society is stratified by race and color of skin. Viewed as a pyramid, White Cubans are at the apex, mulattos or mixed race are in the middle and Afro-Cubans are at the bottom. The same position they occupied before the revolution. There are virtually no Afro-Cubans found in the hierarchy of the Cuban government. And they are not found anywhere else in anything close to their numbers in the population. When it comes to addressing Cuba's entrenched racism Castro plays the American Left like a fiddle. He knows that all he has to do is acknowledge the sorry fact and that will be enough to impress the Left. That Castro has done nothing to correct it is overlooked. The truth is, the Black majority is being ruled by the White minority. If that wasn't acceptable in South A
[PEN-L:12983] RE Brenner Book
And in my thesis I defined overinvestment as an increase in productive capacity beyond what reasonable projections of the increase of demand would justify. Jim Levine wrote: The way I defined "overinvestment" in my dissertation (UC Berkeley, 1981)was terms of investment in fixed capital going too far relative to what thecapitalists as a class would desire, depressing the rate of profit relativeto the maximum given technical and societal conditions. The low rate of profit depresses aggregate demand (cet. par.) and causes unused capacity. Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:13004] Re: Business Week confirms the labor theory ofvalue
Is that a 168 % rate of exploitation ? CB >>> michael perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 10/24/99 06:39PM >>> Berman, Dennis. 1999. *What's a Worker Worth?* Business Week (11 October): p. F 4. *What's the true measure of Man? Before you wax philosophical, glean some practical wisdom from Jac Fitz-enz. His company, Saratoga Institute, devises systems for measuring human capital -- in other words, how much economic value employees contribute to their businesses. One of his favorite formulas is what he calls the "human capital return on investment," which calculates dollar-for-dollar profits against pay and benefits.* *On average, companies of fewer than 500 employees sock away $1.68 in profits for each dollar in pay and benefits. "All assets other than people are inert," argues Fitz-enz. "They don't add any value until they're leveraged by a human being*." -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:12980] Skip Gates in Africa
The widely anticipated PBS TV "Wonders of the African World" (http://www.pbs.org/wonders/) series began on Monday night. Hosted by Louis Henry (Skip) Gates, director of the African-American Studies department at Harvard, the two shows I've seen so far seem a curious mix of genuinely interesting historical and cultural insights and Gates' painful almost neurotic grappling with the problem of African racial identity. Monday night's first episode focused on the Nubian Kingdom and the Swahili trading centers of East Africa. The descendants of the Nubian kingdom now live in the territory that overlaps southern Egypt and northern Sudan. They are ethnically related to sub-Saharan peoples, who Gates refers to repeatedly as his ancestors. He is proud of the fact that black Pharaohs ruled over all of Egypt for over a century. In the ancient city of Meroe he wanders through ancient ruins focusing his flashlight on the African features of wall painting subjects. By the same token, he is anxious to blame the Arabs of Egypt for flooding the Nubian valley as a consequence of Aswan Dam construction, thereby making archaelogical riches lost to history. He keeps pressing people who were displaced by the flooding to condemn the "racism" of the Nasser regime, but they firmly uphold some of the social gains that the dam produced. Cultural travelogue mixed with racial introspection continues as Gates makes his way down the east coast of Africa. The Swahilis are historically the ethnic result of inter-marriage between Arab traders and the local African population. When a citizen of Mombasa refers to himself as an "Arab", Gates chuckles and comments to his PBS viewers that the man looked like Mike Tyson rather than any Arab he'd ever seen. In Zanzibar, he finds that many local denizens insist that they have Persian roots. In the Swahili world, many of the more privileged layers possess carefully researched family trees that are valued for their ability to find non-Subsaharan origins. Gates compares this to the racial inferiority complex that causes some African-Americans to refer to their Cherokee or Seminole roots. I found it sad that Gates is incapable of transcending these kinds of "blood" symbols and to focus more on what unites people who have been victims of power and greed. Last night's episode took Gates into Ethiopia where the issue of racial identity--thankfully--did not play much of a role. The Ethiopians not only were never conquered by an outside ethnic group--hence making intermarriage a moot point--they seem refreshingly oblivious to racial identity questions. Gates did manage to grill a Falasha, or Ethiopian Jew, about his Jewish authenticity. Did he speak Hebrew? Did he want to go to Israel? The youth was clearly uncomfortable with Gates's line of questioning. The best part of this segment was the photography of the Ethiopian interior, including the ancient city of Maxum. I imagine that a history of Ethiopia would make for some gripping reading, since the country has such an unusual past. >From Ethiopia Gates travels deep into the heart of the slave trade region in Dahomey, where his angst pours out in huge buckets. It turns out that Africans were deeply involved with the slave trade. He tracks down the descendants of a Brazilian slave trader who had over a dozen African concubines and over a hundred children. They revere him as a esteemed ancestor, but Gates can barely contain his disgust at his African brethren who sold his own relatives into slavery. He walks along the beach with a woman of Benin, who belongs to this family, and interrogates her. Don't you feel bad about what you did? She frowns and says that yes, she does. What this show leaves out entirely is the political economy of slavery. For that you have to go to Basil Davidson. It is too bad that PBS could not find anybody more qualified than Gates to write and direct a show like this. I am sure that Manning Marable could have done a much better job. Upon reflection, that's why Petroleum Broadcasting System must have chosen Gates. Despite the show's obfuscations and Gates's hand-wringing, I urge folks in the US to watch it. Tonight's episode (5 of 6) deals with "The Road to Timbuktu/ Lost Cities of the South." All the episodes will be repeated this Saturday. Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
I agree with Yoshie. Another pattern is that liberals, anarchists and non-descript/generic leftists have a dogma that they are less dogmatic and authoritarian than Marxists. They confuse dogma with any discipline or certainty. CB >>> Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 10/26/99 09:40PM >>> Jim D. wrote: >We should also note that any kind of dogmatism -- including Marxist >dogmatism -- represents a "widely corrupting" force. The problem is that the definition of dogmatism is basically subjective, as most people use the term. When someone holds forth what we think of as a wrong or incorrect position, we say, "he's dogmatic." When someone's view agrees with ours (even if it is expressed with a sense of certitude & even worded in a way that may be off-putting to others), we say, "right on, brother!" And noone notices his or her own 'dogmatism.' We only notice 'other people's dogmatism.' Yoshie
[PEN-L:13002] The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday,19Oct 1999 -- 3:85 (#343)
>>> Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 10/27/99 11:41AM >>> tallpall says: >In this sense we can argue that the Klan is a criminal conspiracy and that >a Klan rally is another form of organizing for that conspiracy. In this >case, neither issues of speech or assembly apply. Not being one who trusts the capitalist state, I fear that they will use this logic to decide that leftist organizations are "criminal conspiracies" and use their repressive power (Guiliani's police, the FBI, etc.) to repress the Left. ( Charles: The contradiction in this argument is that you are trusting the capitalist state when you expect leftist organizations' 1st Amendment rights to be respected by the capitalist state just because the capitalist state is not treating the KKK as a criminal conspiracy. Basically, you are saying, I don't want the capitalist state to treat the KKK as a criminal conspiracy , because if it doesn't treat the KKK as a criminal conspiracy, I can trust the capitalist state to be "consistent" and also not treat leftist organizations as criminal conspiracies. Whence your source of trust in the capitalist state to trust them on that ? I distrust the capitalist state so much that I expect them to respect KKK rights and disrespect leftist rights, as they have throughout actual history. Why does the capitalist state's refraining from treating the KKK as a criminal conspiracy make you trust that it will not treat the left as criminal conspiracies ? Especially when historically the capitalist state has never treated the KKK as a criminal conspiracy , but regularly has treated left organizations as criminal conspiracies. What's new that changes that ? Jim: Oh, they already did a lot of that, as with the Red Scares (Wilson-Palmer and Truman-McCarthy being the most famous) and the COINTELPRO against the Black Panthers. Not to mention the Philadelphia Police's strategic bombing campaign against MOVE. Charles: By the way, the Panthers were not tried in court for their politics in violation of their First Amendment rights. The police acted as outlaws in attacking the Panthers. In the other cases, communists were tried in court for political beliefs and speech. Jim: But those cases are ancient history, aren't they? Now that we've got a Democrat in the White House (like Wilson and Truman before him), the legal profession has come to its senses, and the courts have been packed with rational people, we can trust the state to repress only those forces which truly threaten "the public interest" (as we on the Left define that phrase). With a large and militant left-wing movement on the streets, we can make sure that the state lives up to its promises... Of course, that's a pipe dream (a metaphor that take on new meaning when we realize that the state is much more repressive toward those who smoke cocaine using a pipe). The point is that we shouldn't take legal formalities too seriously. Though if I were in court, I'd take the formalities as seriously as possible in order to get off, the legal system reflects the power of capital when there's little or no countervailing power from the people. Charles: Here you get to the crux. Do you or do you not believe that the Left's speaking out in favor of KKK rights today will translate into an argument that works in court when the Left is brought in ? Do you trust that analogy to work with a real capitalist state court ( which otherwise you say you can't trust in general) when you or another leftist is charged with a crime in violation of your First Amendment rights ? If you really don't think we should take legal formalities seriously, why does your argument for supporting KKK rights so critically rely on a legal formality - the analogy between KKK and Leftist First Amendment rights ? CB
[PEN-L:12976] The Stock Market
Concluding paragraphs of "The rise and rise of the Dow" by Ibrahim Warde (http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/1999/10/?c=12warde) The sacred rule that the price of a share is determined by the company's profits is therefore being challenged, especially in the case of companies involved with the Internet. How, indeed, can you evaluate the price to earnings ratio of a firm whose turnover is insignificant and profits non-existent? The answer is circular and tautological: the market is the only judge of a share's value. On that basis, the flagship company of the Internet economy, the virtual bookseller Amazon, is worth more than all the major American bookseller chains together, but has yet to make a profit. And the day after its floatation, Priceline.com, which sells cut-price airline tickets, was worth $11.7 billion, more than any airline. In short, the value no longer depends on underlying objective data but on public infatuation. This makes accumulated losses almost attractive because they can mean that the company is investing to carve out a lucrative niche for itself, accelerate change or get a few laps ahead of its competitors. In other words, to become the Amazon of tomorrow. Gurus and charlatans are doing well out of this new gold rush. Extravagant promises and superlatives feed the speculative fever. In this virtual world, words often count for more than things. A company only has to add the suffix ".com" or the prefix "e-" to its name for its stock market value to soar (11). "Cybersquatting" (reserving an Internet address in the name of a basic product or a well-known company or personality to sell on at a high price) is all the rage. The designation "drugs.com" was bought for $824,000 by a company that wants to make it the address of a portal site for pharmaceuticals. New Internet companies are also taking advantage of massive stock market valuations to make major acquisitions. Yahoo! (whose shares have gone up in value 250 times in one year) has just paid $5.7 billion for Broadcast.com, a company with a turnover of no more than $22 million and with losses of $16 million -- "a paper transaction representing virtual value for a virtual industry" (12). Could this gigantic house of cards be blown away at any time? Periodically, the chairman of the Federal Reserve continues to voice his fears. And in its annual report on the US economy, the International Monetary Fund refers to the risk of a "sudden and substantial collapse" in the stock market. The similarity between the celebrity share America Online and that of Radio Corporation of America (RCA), which rose from $1 to $573 between 1921 and 1929, is quite striking: both are the companies most typical of the new technologies of their respective eras (13). Are we heading for a repeat of the 1929 scenario? The most optimistic are confident there are plenty of safeguards in place. Then, the markets were almost unregulated, since the stock market policeman, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), did not see the light of day until 1934. It was, for example, possible to buy shares by paying only a 10% deposit (the minimum is now 50%). But with market deregulation, speculative funds like Long-Term Capital Management have invested on the basis of a capital to debt ratio of 1/100 (14). And false rumours, outlawed by 1930s legislation, have assumed an unprecedented scale thanks to the Internet. But the most worrying aspect remains the growing part of the real economy held by the financial economy. While stock market capitalisation accounted for only 50% of America's gross domestic product in 1988, it is now over 150%. The stock market portfolio now represents 25% of the average American's assets, as against only 8% in 1984 (15). In 1997, 43% of adult Americans invested on the stock market, compared with 21% in 1990. Their stock market investment trusts totalled $13 billion in 1990. The present sum is $231 billion (16). The media are full of stories of good fortune. The street sweeper who asked to be paid in the shares of a "start-up" and became a millionaire the day the company was floated. The humble secretary who retired in luxury thanks to a system of stock options. Captivated, some Americans are giving up their jobs to become "day traders" - devoting all their time to speculating, monitoring the performance of their stocks and shares minute by minute. Taxi drivers and hairdressers share their theories and recommendations with their customers. And the singer Barbara Streisand unveils the secrets of her successful stock market portfolio to the financial journals. It was thinking about a similar infatuation that enabled Joseph Kennedy (father of the assassinated president) to avoid financial ruin. One morning in 1929 his shoe-shine boy gave him an investment tip. The seasoned speculator reasoned that if the shoe-shine boy knew better than he did, there was something rotten in the world of finance. The same day, he sold his entire stock market
[PEN-L:12974] An Argentinian comments on the FT article
El 26 Oct 99 a las 14:49, Louis Proyect nos dice(n): > > ARGENTINA: Victory for low-key conservative It is interesting to note that language itself can brilliantly cover up the main trait of a politician from the very title of an article. What is essential with De La Rua is not his conservatism but his basically anti-national cast of mind. The Argentinian conservatives were the degraded heirs of the right wing fraction of the Generation of 1880, and they ruled the country through violence and fraud between 1930 and 1943. They were opposed by the Radical party to which De La Rua belongs (and betrays) during what we know here as the Decada Infame. These years were characterized by direct state intervention in economy to defend the interests of the landed oligarchs and the British enterprises in Argentina. The Radical party, by those years a popular party, was slowly coopted into acceptation of the colonial status of the country thanks to the policies devised by Alvear, its leader after the great popular caudillo Hipolito Yrigoyen (ousted by the 1930 coup that set the Decada Infame in motion). The Radical Party of our times is the degraded version of that already degraded Radical Party of the early 40s that had been incorporated to the arch of the parties acquiescent with imperialist domination of Argentina. In fact, these Radicals of the late 40s (still to the "left" of De La Rua, certainly) were somehow less patriotic than many Conservatives in the sense that their wishy-washy liberalism implied rejection of sate intervention in economy (if such a thing as "economy" could be infused in the wooly and bland ideas that passed for an ideology of this party mainly composed by lawyers). Many of these Conservatives, forming up the bulk of the state apparatus in many inland provinces (Santa Fe is one of the most interesting cases) helped build up Peronism in alliance with the workers at the industrial centers, against the petty bourgeois Radicals who, World War propaganda in the middle, had already become mere mass of action of the imperialist American Ambassador Spruille Braden in 1945. De La Rua is not a "low-key conservative". He is a nulity who will lean to the right in the measure that the inevitable crisis deepens. He is a perfect candidate for imperialists, who are advancing on what remains of Argentina roughshod (I have happened to have in my hands some stationery of the French Embassy, belonging to the Bureau of Economic Expansion in Argentina (!), and have discovered that the Bureau _shares the logo_ with the French managed Telecom Argentina!). It is true that he means a change > in a country that has long favoured flamboyant > strongmen. Whether it will be enough to restore > international investors' faith in Argentina's economic > prospects is less clear. That is, "we have finally got the Argentinians into the den. They could not find some politician who would synthesize the strength of the country and we have forced on them a Mr. Nothing, who will do whatever we like. But perhaps this will not be enough for us!" > > In the short term, things are improving. Mr de la Rua's > commitment to stability and the peso's one-to-one peg to > the dollar are beyond question. What is beyond question is how long will this peg may last. I have stumbled upon a few figures that toll for the parity, which I hope I can post within a few days. > His fiscal stance may be > even tougher than his predecessor's - necessarily so, > since Argentina's budget deficit will rise to about 2.5 > per cent of gross domestic product if left untamed. The > new government is expected rapidly to announce spending > cuts and tax increases that should win warm praise (and > possibly more money, if needed) from the International > Monetary Fund. Happily, the economy appears to have > bottomed out, though it will still shrink by 3-4 per cent > this year. Yes, the problem (and the reasons for suspicion in the international usury) is that this will imply further boosting the unemployment rate. What will happen with the voters of De La Rua then? > > But the long-term outlook is less bright. Without an > absolute majority in Congress and two-thirds of the > provinces controlled by the defeated Peronists, Mr de la > Rua may have trouble pushing through necessary labour and > tax reforms. Interesting. Even after Menem, Peronism is observed by the international finance as a possible bulwark for the few remaining workers and their rights. This is what De La Rua himself can't fail to see. Will he repress us? This program will not go ahead without blood "democratically" shed: > A new revenue-sharing agreement with the > spendthrift provinces is also needed. Yet without > structural progress, Argentina will find it harder to > persuade investors to stump up $17bn next year to cover > its external financing needs. Meanwhile, with a tightening > fiscal policy and no flexibil
pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
"William S. Lear" wrote: > kI don't entirely agree. I don't think it is "basically subjective", > though I do think it can be. Rush Limbaugh is clearly dogmatic on > numerous topics, Calling Rush Limbaugh dogmatic exhibits exactly the subjectivity and loose usage which led Yoshie to call the charge a subjective one. If someone is wrong, say she is wrong and say why. "Dogmatism" in your sense of the word (and it is the usual sense) turns the label into a mere bit of personal abuse, and if replied to in kind on a maillist would almost always ignite a flame war. In traditional marxist practice, dogmatism is a label applied in internal criticism. (I'm leaving it undefined for a moment, but I do *not* mean stubbornness, ignoring of facts, stupidity, intensity of belief, etc.) Dogmatism separates leadership from rank and file, the party from the class. One does not care if one of the wrong-headed sects engages in dogmatism: the more they isolate themselves the better. One cares if those whose politics one shares are dogmatic. Dogmatism is a mistake in how an individual, a collective, a party relates theory to practice. Since a maillist is an essentially individualist practice, and since there is no way of unifying theory expressed on a maillist with a collective practice, the charge of dogmatism is usually fairly silly and exhibits only the irritability of the person making the charge. Even when the charge is quite probably accurate, on a maillist it is usually better not to use it. For example, over on the marxism list there is someone who sits in Dublin and announces bluntly that the war in Columbia is a civil war between factions of the bourgeoisie, that FARC and ELN (he joins the two: FARC/ELN) are petty bourgeois nationalist groups, and that the whole struggle is of no interest to real revolutionaries. Now the main thing about this position is that it is just plain wrong. To call X a dogmatist (though he probably is) is no more useful than calling him a shithead (which he may or may not be). And there is even a negative result of labelling the view dogmatic rather than simply wrong: such a charge (even in the privacy of *your* [the reader of this post} mind has the flavor of "Thank you lord that I am not a sinner" or of other catchphrases of bourgeois smugness. Take another example. I hope I didn't use the term in the debate with Lou Proyect and Jim Blaut over the origins of capitalism -- but because I mostly agree with the politics of both (and agree with their seeing eurocentrism as extremely dangerous political error) I would have been in a position to use that label. Those who, disagreeing with them, used the label would have been merely indulging in their own sense of superiority to the struggle. (The CPC saw dogmatism, sectarianism, commandism, etc. as errors in the style of work. That is a very useful classification, and keeping it in mind can remind one of the inappropriateness of such charges in isolation from practice. In fact it occurs to me just at this moment that the use of such charges in isolation from practice is itself an excellent example of dogmatism: it assumes that an abstract definition of "the dogmatic" can be applied directly to practice -- but the relationship between dogmatism and practice is much more comples than that. So I think in addition to Yoshie's charge of "subjectivism" I will add the charge of reductionism to the list or errors committed in the name of combatting dogmatism.) Carrol P.S. Anti-communists often used "dogmatic" as a dyslogistic synonym for "principled." For example, when I urged that the campaign for abortion rights was ill-served by making its slogan "Choice" rather than Right to Abortion on Demand, at least one poster assumed that I did this not on the basis of my judgment (correct or incorrect) that the latter slogan was in fact more practical but that I had merely subordinated the needs of women to a dogmatic communist principle. One can see a similar thread of red-baiting running through the debates on Yugoslavia and East Timor.
[PEN-L:12982] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Brenner Book
I wrote: >>I was talking about the theoretical stuff at the beginning about the >>importance of fixed capital. Brenner's basic point is that the existence >>of fixed capital messes up the standard story about disequilibrium >>adjustment. Overinvestment may lead to exit in the long run, but in the >>reasonable short term, it implies depressed profits. Brad writes: >But how long can this "reasonable short-term last"? Five years? The >productivity slowdown has (so far) been a twenty-five-year long event >during which total GDP worldwide doubled. Surely any "overinvestment" >as of 1973 has long since been absorbed by growth... I'll let Brenner's book make his own argument, except to note that in his view the unused capacity encourages competitive behavior that encourages further overinvestment. >But then, I'm a Keynesian. I have never seen a situation of >overinvestment or overcapacity, only situations of deficient demand... The way I defined "overinvestment" in my dissertation (UC Berkeley, 1981) was terms of investment in fixed capital going too far relative to what the capitalists as a class would desire, depressing the rate of profit relative to the maximum given technical and societal conditions. The low rate of profit depresses aggregate demand (cet. par.) and causes unused capacity. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/~JDevine
[PEN-L:12979] the origins of dogmatism
I have just come on to Pen-l, probably for a short time, because I learned
there was a debate about ecology. I found the discussion of dogmatism
interesting but rather muddled from my point of view. The meaning of terms
change but it may be interesting to note that the notion of dogmatism was
introduced by the ancient sceptics against all other forms of philosophy.
Hence, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and the Stoics were all referred to by the
sceptics as "dogmatists." Their dogmatism lay precisely in their claims to
knowledge. The sceptics (most notably Sextus Empiricus in the third century
A.D.) were seen by Hegel and other modern historians of philosophy as
representing proficiency at dialectic but lacking any kind of determinate
knowledge. For the ancient sceptics, the Epicureans were seen as
"dogmatists" in their emphasis on empiricism, the Stoics as dogmatists in
their emphasis on the abstract universal, the Platonists as dogmatists in
their reliance on Platonic forms. It is no wonder, then, that Epicurus, in
his critique of the sceptics said (polemically) at one point that it was
essential to be "dogmatic." Nowadays everyone wants to be a sceptic (or a
post-modernist) with the view that the refusal to make determinate knowledge
claims (that is, the confession of knowing nothing) is somehow superior to
all claims to knowledge. But that is of course subject to the critique that
the claim to no-knowledge is itself vulnerable to the very same criticisms
launched by the sceptics. (How do we know that we know nothing?) In my
view, the best philosophers have always bitten the bullet and ultimately
scorned radical scepticism. At any rate, if one should be wary of
criticisms that such and such views are "dogmatic." And one should avoid
making such a charge oneself. It falls short of critique, and simply relies
on the ("dogmatic"?) 0notion that indeterminacy (or philosophical
scepticism) is always a superior point of view. (A very comforting view for
apologists of the existing order who prefer the absolute negative to the
negation of the negation--that is a determinate negation.) Often today we
will hear people on the left say (as I witnessed last week) that all
scientists are dogmatists. The fact that the term "dogmatist" in social
science itself is all too often used a code word for either Marxist or
positivist (and rarely analyzed beyond that) should also give us pause.
John Bellamy Foster
[PEN-L:12969] Research on Organization of AFL-CIO
so, ahhh, dude am i a dude? and ahhh when am i going to get those bottles of scotch!? i won that one fair and square i think. i knew what the basic outlines of the bet was, right? so maybe i don't know all this high-falutin razzmatazz y'all toss around about stock markets and this and that, but i *did* know that mark owed you a case of scotch if all hell didn't break lose in a year--or soemthing to that effect. and look, if i get my self to oz in less than a year, i'll even cart a couple over for rob's [and my, of course] elbow-bending delight! save you some cash, see. kelley Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Max Sawicky) To: Multiple recipients of list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [PEN-L:12969] Research on Organization of AFL-CIO Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 11:42:24 -0400 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Any of you dudes who have written in a scholarly mode about the organization of the U.S. labor movement interested in possible research support (i.e., $), should drop me a line off-list. mbs
[PEN-L:12977] Re: BLS Daily Report
Is there a document that explains the difference between the new and old classification systems and (ideally) demonstrates a crosswalk? Peter Richardson_D wrote: > BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1999 > > Under the new industrial classification system devised by the federal > government, about 114,000 information services businesses employed more than > 3 million people and had receipts totaling $623 billion in 1997, according > to figures released by the Census Bureau. Employment in the four broadest > categories of information services industries was greatest in broadcasting > and telecommunications, with a total of 1.4 million in 1997. There were > about 1 million people working in publishing industries, 349,500 employed in > information services and data processing services, and nearly 276,000 in > motion picture and sound recording industries. Census compiled the > estimates from its 1997 economic census of the information services > industries, using for the first time the new North American Industry > Classification System (NAICS). ... All federal agencies are in the process > of implementing the NAICS. Last March, Census released its first report > using the new system, finding evidence about the importance of technology in > the U.S. economy. ... (Daily Labor Report, page A-7).
[PEN-L:12969] Research on Organization of AFL-CIO
Any of you dudes who have written in a scholarly mode about the organization of the U.S. labor movement interested in possible research support (i.e., $), should drop me a line off-list. mbs
[PEN-L:12968] BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1999 Under the new industrial classification system devised by the federal government, about 114,000 information services businesses employed more than 3 million people and had receipts totaling $623 billion in 1997, according to figures released by the Census Bureau. Employment in the four broadest categories of information services industries was greatest in broadcasting and telecommunications, with a total of 1.4 million in 1997. There were about 1 million people working in publishing industries, 349,500 employed in information services and data processing services, and nearly 276,000 in motion picture and sound recording industries. Census compiled the estimates from its 1997 economic census of the information services industries, using for the first time the new North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). ... All federal agencies are in the process of implementing the NAICS. Last March, Census released its first report using the new system, finding evidence about the importance of technology in the U.S. economy. ... (Daily Labor Report, page A-7). Sales of existing single-family homes fell by 2.1 percent last month, the National Association of Realtors said. Yet association officials said they expect existing home sales this year to set a record, up 4.8 percent from the 1998 record. Americans bought fewer existing homes in September, deterred by higher mortgage rates and Hurricane Floyd. It was the third straight monthly decline. ... (Washington Post, page A2)_Sales of existing homes fell September, amid rising interest rates, continuing a slide that may indicate the beginning of a slowdown in the domestic economy. Economists attribute the decline to the Federal Reserve's recent interest rate increases and argue that it may help show policy makers that the economy can cool enough without a further rate increase when officials meet on Nov. 16 (Wall Street Journal, page A2) A blizzard of stock options is piling up so high it could smother unsuspecting Internet stock investors like an avalanche, contends USA Today (page 1B). By paying below-market salaries, but freely handing out stock options, companies have created a would-be bonanza for people who have landed jobs in the online world. But current shareholders could end up the losers. As employees eventually convert their options into new shares, the value of the shares already in the market will be watered down. The potential dilution in the Internet world is huge. Employees exercising stock options will shrink the value of existing shares by an average of 24 percent in less than 4 years, says a study of the USA Today Internet 100 index companies by New York based Strategic Compensation Research Associates. ... (USA Today, page 1B). application/ms-tnef
pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
On Tuesday, October 26, 1999 at 21:40:27 (-0400) Yoshie Furuhashi writes: >Jim D. wrote: >>We should also note that any kind of dogmatism -- including Marxist >>dogmatism -- represents a "widely corrupting" force. > >The problem is that the definition of dogmatism is basically subjective, as >most people use the term. When someone holds forth what we think of as a >wrong or incorrect position, we say, "he's dogmatic." When someone's view >agrees with ours (even if it is expressed with a sense of certitude & even >worded in a way that may be off-putting to others), we say, "right on, >brother!" And noone notices his or her own 'dogmatism.' We only notice >'other people's dogmatism.' I don't entirely agree. I don't think it is "basically subjective", though I do think it can be. Rush Limbaugh is clearly dogmatic on numerous topics, holding on to ideas in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Those who believe the earth revolves about the sun are clearly not dogmatic, as there is overwhelming evidence that this is so. Bill
[PEN-L:12973] Re: Re: Re: Re: Brenner Book
>At 11:37 PM 10/23/1999 -0700, Anthony D'Costa wrote: > >Thanks, Jim. Your response is very helpful in thinking through the > >course. Not having read the entire issue I am in no position to see the > >parallels you draw with nc micro. > >I was talking about the theoretical stuff at the beginning about the >importance of fixed capital. Brenner's basic point is that the existence >of fixed capital messes up the standard story about disequilibrium >adjustment. Overinvestment may lead to exit in the long run, but in the >reasonable short term, it implies depressed profits. But how long can this "reasonable short-term last"? Five years? The productivity slowdown has (so far) been a twenty-five-year long event during which total GDP worldwide doubled. Surely any "overinvestment" as of 1973 has long since been absorbed by growth... But then, I'm a Keynesian. I have never seen a situation of overinvestment or overcapacity, only situations of deficient demand... That said, Brenner's book was well-argued and very interesting to read. Brad DeLong
[PEN-L:12981] Manager Fired by Company Supports Teamsters on Strike (fwd)
NYTImes October 27, 1999 Manager Fired by Company Supports Teamsters on Strike By STEVEN GREENHOUSE I n an effort to turn up the pressure during its three-day-old strike against Overnite Transportation, the teamsters union deployed an unusual weapon on Tuesday: a former Overnite manager who said the company systematically broke the law by dismissing workers who supported the union. Dale Watson, a former operations manager in Overnite's trucking terminal in Memphis, said the company dismissed "several hundred" workers at the terminal over the last four years because they favored unionizing Overnite, the nation's largest nonunion trucking company. In an affidavit and a telephone news conference, Watson backed the teamsters' accusations that Overnite had brazenly and repeatedly violated the law in seeking to rebuff the drive to unionize its 8,600 drivers and dock workers. Watson said company managers had a "hit list" designed to dismiss union supporters, and he added that he had followed his superiors' orders by helping eliminate more than 40 pro-union workers since 1995. Federal labor law makes it illegal for any company to fire or retaliate against an employee for supporting a union. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has been seeking to organize Overnite since 1994, and has filed dozens of charges with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the company of dismissing or retaliating against union supporters. Overnite officials said on Tuesday that Watson's comments were made out of vengeance for the company's dismissing him last week. Ira Rosenfeld, an Overnite spokesman, called Watson's statements "absolutely ridiculous" and said the company has not fired workers for supporting the teamsters. "There is no hit list, and there never has been a hit list," he said. "This is a gentleman who was fired last week for poor performance." Watson said he had no idea why he was fired. He said that to push out union supporters, company managers often gave them demerits when they arrived at work a few minutes late, but did not do the same to union opponents. "There's too much injustice being done to employees," said Watson, who said he came forward because he was so upset with how Overnite treated its employees. The strike began at the Memphis terminal on Sunday and spread nationwide on Monday. The teamsters said they called the strike to protest unfair labor practices by Overnite. Rosenfeld said the strike was having a negligible effect. He said only 600 workers were on strike, and he asserted that the teamsters picketed fewer terminals on Tuesday than the 40 they had picketed on Monday. Sharply disagreeing, Dave Cameron, a teamsters' spokesman, said more than 2,000 workers were on strike on Tuesday, with the picketing expanding to 109 of Overnite's 166 terminals. Cameron maintained that the strike was disrupting Overnite's operations and costing the company millions of dollars. _ Home | Site Index | Site Search | Forums | Archives | Marketplace Quick News | Page One Plus | International | National/N.Y. | Business | Technology | Science | Sports | Weather | Editorial | Op-Ed | Arts | Automobiles | Books | Diversions | Job Market | Real Estate | Travel Help/Feedback | Classifieds | Services | New York Today Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company [pixel.gif] [pixel.gif]
[PEN-L:12967] Wood on Brenner on Market Dependence
Jim Devine: >The key sentence above is "A tenant could, for instance, remain in >possession of land, but his survival and his tenure could nonetheless be >subject to market imperatives, whether he employed wage labor or was >himself the direct producer." The problem with this statement is that _if >the tenant has possession of the land_, what keeps him or her from using >some of this land to grow the crops needed to produce subsistence, "the >means of self-reproduction"? I didn't have time to prepare a fourth installment on the Brenner debate, which would have dealt with the New World per se, but Wood and Brenner seem to have a very poor grasp of the rather rich variety of class relations in this hemisphere, both between worker and boss and those involving various strata of the peasantry. To cite two interesting instances, Sidney Mintz's classic study of the sugar plantation reveals that slaves throughout Brazil actually raised cash crops on their own land, which were sold in the marketplaces. Furthermore, Steve Stern's discussion of world system theory versus the Brenner thesis points out that neither version gives an accurate portrait of what was taking place in the mines of Peru and Bolivia. It turns out that it was not quite wage labor, nor slavery. Indigenous miners were often skilled artisans who defied the colonists, by insisting to their right to keep a certain percentage of ore to themselves. Because of labor shortages, their class struggles won concessions that do not fall into the rather undialectical category of dependent labor that Wallerstein posits. By the same token, neither was it precapitalist as Brenner defines it. All in all, Marxist scholarship of class relations in the New World is in its infancy. The best thing obviously is to understand this reality on its own terms rather than projecting templates upon it that originate in 13th century Europe. Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:12978] More power for enterprise managers
South China Morning Post Wednesday, October 27, 1999 More power for enterprise managers JOSEPHINE MA The city of Liuzhou, a bastion of the state sector in the Guangxi region, has taken steps to smooth the relationship between Communist Party committees and directors and managers of state firms. The southwestern city's deputy party secretary, Yu Kaijin, said the resident party cells would adopt a relatively low-key form of leadership in enterprises to give managers more leeway in pursuing commercial interests. Since most leaders in state enterprises were Communist Party members, committees could influence the decisions of an enterprise subtly instead of acting like patriarchs, said Mr Yu. The old way of "having everything decided by party committees" would be jettisoned and leadership would be exercised through a kind of moral influence, he said. The tug-of-war between party committees and professional managers has long prevented state firms from adapting to the marketplace. As part of its effort to reform the state sector, the director of the city's economic commission, Yu Zuyi, said Liuzhou had come up with new incentives for managers. In 1993, Liuzhou, Guangxi's industrial base, raised eyebrows by giving one million yuan (HK$930,000) to the manager and factory director of Liuzhou Steel Enterprise as a reward for the company's profits. Now state enterprises which achieved more than eight per cent profit for three consecutive years could enjoy a bonus of up to two per cent of the total revenue, said Mr Yu Zuyi. The city was also looking at introducing fixed annual salaries for managers of state enterprises based on their firms' performance, as suggested by the central Government, he said. These would be much higher than current salaries which were close to those of civil servants. Liuzhou had asked the central Government to allow 16 industrial enterprises to transform their debts, totalling 2.8 billion yuan, into stakes to be held by creditors. It hoped that at least two large enterprises would receive permission to transform their debts totalling 700 million yuan into equity, he said. The enterprises would be asked to buy back their shares from the banks in three years. Debt-equity transformation was suggested by the central Government to bring temporary relief to debt-ridden enterprises. Liuzhou has 166 state enterprises, 45 per cent of which are unprofitable. -- Wednesday, October 27, 1999 Bosses face jail if firms go bust CHOW CHUNG-YAN Legislators have proposed amending the law in an attempt to bring the managers of bankrupt state firms to justice, it was reported yesterday. Under the proposal, a manager would face trial if a firm went into bankruptcy due to "neglect of duty or abuse of power", China Youth Daily said. The penalty for managers of the insolvent state firms could be as much as three years in jail. In some special cases managers could be put behind bars for seven years. "In the past it has been difficult to bring charges against those who cause serious economic loss to the state because of neglect of duty," the paper quoted the National People's Congress (NPC) Law Committee vice-chairman Gu Angran as saying. The "neglect of duty" referred to by Mr Gu includes improper management, stock speculation in overseas markets without approval and providing personal loans with state money. "We need to enhance our laws in these fields to punish those who breach government rules and lead state enterprise to bankruptcy," Mr Gu said. "We have consulted with the Central Commis
[PEN-L:12972] Re: Dogmatism
At 09:40 PM 10/26/1999 -0400, you wrote:
>Jim D. wrote:
> >We should also note that any kind of dogmatism -- including Marxist
> >dogmatism -- represents a "widely corrupting" force.
Yoshie writes:
>The problem is that the definition of dogmatism is basically subjective, as
>most people use the term. When someone holds forth what we think of as a
>wrong or incorrect position, we say, "he's dogmatic." When someone's view
>agrees with ours (even if it is expressed with a sense of certitude & even
>worded in a way that may be off-putting to others), we say, "right on,
>brother!" And noone notices his or her own 'dogmatism.' We only notice
>'other people's dogmatism.
That's a real problem as long as only the people's conclusions can be
judged. In a forum like pen-l, the premises of the argument are presented
and there's a lot of opportunity for discussion. So you can tell a
dogmatist by his or her refusal to accept logical, empirical, or
methodological arguments. More telling is her or his propensity to use
name-calling ("not even as Marxist as Anthony Giddens," etc.), appeals to
authority, etc. as modes of argumentation. I'm not saying that there isn't
room for friendly disagreement, but a dogmatist can be detected by
examining his or her style.
Also, dogmatism doesn't automatically undermine a person's other possible
positive qualities. For example, I found that the late Ernest Mandel clung
dogmatically to a belief in the automatic fall in the rate of profit.
Nonetheless, he provided us with a wealth of insight and useful information.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
[PEN-L:12971] Re: Re: The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday,19Oct 1999 -- 3:85 (#343)
tallpall says: >In this sense we can argue that the Klan is a criminal conspiracy and that >a Klan rally is another form of organizing for that conspiracy. In this >case, neither issues of speech or assembly apply. Not being one who trusts the capitalist state, I fear that they will use this logic to decide that leftist organizations are "criminal conspiracies" and use their repressive power (Guiliani's police, the FBI, etc.) to repress the Left. Oh, they already did a lot of that, as with the Red Scares (Wilson-Palmer and Truman-McCarthy being the most famous) and the COINTELPRO against the Black Panthers. Not to mention the Philadelphia Police's strategic bombing campaign against MOVE. But those cases are ancient history, aren't they? Now that we've got a Democrat in the White House (like Wilson and Truman before him), the legal profession has come to its senses, and the courts have been packed with rational people, we can trust the state to repress only those forces which truly threaten "the public interest" (as we on the Left define that phrase). With a large and militant left-wing movement on the streets, we can make sure that the state lives up to its promises... Of course, that's a pipe dream (a metaphor that take on new meaning when we realize that the state is much more repressive toward those who smoke cocaine using a pipe). The point is that we shouldn't take legal formalities too seriously. Though if I were in court, I'd take the formalities as seriously as possible in order to get off, the legal system reflects the power of capital when there's little or no countervailing power from the people. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
[PEN-L:12966] Re: de la Rúa: a "low-key conservative"
At 14:49 26/10/99 -0400, you wrote: >Comment / Lex (Financial Times) > >ARGENTINA: Victory for low-key conservative > >The victory of Fernando de la Rúa, a low-key conservative, in Argentina's >presidential elections is good for democracy in a country that has long >favoured flamboyant strongmen. Whether it will be enough to restore >international investors' faith in Argentina's economic prospects is less >clear. As indicated in the opening paragraph, I think this article is rather damning with faint praise. Bear in mind that Lex is an expert column on investment decisions and this particular piece can not be taken as a full assessment of the political relevance of de la Rua's victory. LP may well have the advantage on me of a greater study of Latin America. I know little of Argentina, and I thought it wise to scan other FT articles on the Argentinan election. At first sight de la Rua's substantial victory looks like Blair's without the charisma. A strong message of financial sobriety that will do everything to avoid the ill will of the international financiers. Argentina is heavily dependent on incoming loans. A message of consensus politics: de la Rua worked constructively with Peronist politicians when he was mayor of Buenos Ares, and will have to do so again since they remain in control of the Senate till 2001 and of the province of Buenos Ares. And a message against corruption. At the same time a large popular consensus looks to him for some hope about things like health care and education, but without any guarantees of this. One difference is that de la Rua heads an alliance of the old Radical Party and another organisation which is itself an alliance of left groups. Presumably this latter grouping contains one or more organisation with reconstructed members of the old communist party, but I have no knowledge of this. Whether Agentinan marxists can work inside or outside this is an important debate. Since LP advertises his Marxism list as open to all views within Marxism, hopefully he will now also be able to forward a contrasting analysis to that of Julio Fernández Baraibar, so we can see the range of debate. I doubt however whether Michael Perelman wants a long thread about whether one subscriber thinks another is a marxist. Certainly I have some theoretical differences with Louis Proyect that I would say are within Marxism and he does not, such as the nature of the state, the role of stages in strategy, and the importance of the struggle for global reforms. But in view of the subject matter of the Argentinan elections I can see why LP thinks of Anthony Giddens. I understand Anthony Giddens as some sort of intelligent left social democrat. Let us for the sake of the argument, consider that I really am Anthony Giddens, or that Anthony Giddens or someone influenced by him wished to subscribe to this list. Provided he (or she?) abided by the moderator's guidliness, I would have thought that would be a positive point for the list, and would permit the testing in open debate of some important current propositions. This would be an opportunity to show the superiority of a marxist approach to the material and to win some people over and to find ways of cooperating with others. What would not win people over and might in fact damage the atmosphere of the list, and the degree of influence of a marxist approach is if Giddens or his follower was simply criticised for not being a marxist. Indeed such an approach might just increase the number of anti-marxists who could only see dogmatism and sectarianism in marxism. On the substance of LP's comments rather than the tone, I would agree with some of what he says. >De la Rua is a capitalist politician. Argentina is suffering from >capitalism. Socialists are opposed to capitalism. Burford's training in >Stalinism whets his appetite for any bourgeois politician who utters >reformist formulas, from Blair to Clinton, to their Latin American >counterparts. Yes, de la Rua is clearly a capitalist politician and I do indeed have an appetite for looking for contradictions among the bourgeoisie which may be exploitable by the progressive forces. I think the line of demarcation is whether you then tail behind one wing of the bourgeoisie and or the parliamentary system or whether there is a possibility of another strategy. >The Chilean Socialist Party is not the party of Allended. It has virtually >pledged to continue Pinochet's "revolution" in the same manner that Clinton >has dedicated himself to continuing the Reagan "revolution". Although I suspect this is a caricature of the Chilean Socialist Party which does not really get to the essence of the contradictions, I do not doubt that party may have some things in common with de la Rua's alliance as far as I have picked up information from several articles in the FT. What is theoretically more interesting is the implicit suggestion in this argument that Allende was not also a bourgeois politician,
[PEN-L:12957] Futile rearguard of the Lords
I refer to the futile tantrum today by the Earl of Burford (no relation - I do not even know his family name) who jumped onto the Lord Chancellor's Woolsack to denounce the House of Lords Bill. Alas, in vain, for just a few minutes ago the House of Lords itself quietly voted 221 against only 81 to cast over 600 hereditary peers into the dustbin of British constitutional history forever. The mass of official Conservative peers gravely abstained on the government's bill to reduce the number of hereditary peers to 92, in proportion to the present party strength in the Lords, in preparation for their total abolition. But young Burford, a 34 year old stripling, succeeded in getting his hairy face on the front page of all the broadsheets tonight robbing the Conservative Party of its hard won dignity. Hard won indeed, since the Conservative architect of the deal with Tony Blair was summarily sacked by William Hague only to be replaced by a more loyal Conservative Peer, who nevertheless followed the same compromise. Instead, this purple prose from Burford: "Before us lies the wasteland, no Queen, no culture, no sovereignty, no freedom. Stand up for your Queen and country, vote this treason down." Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Conservative leadership in the House of Lords, as they sat meekly waiting to abstain in their hundreds. The Tory Whip Lord Henley blustered about Burford "It really brings the whole thing into ridicule, and the House behaved very well in the event." But undeterred by spin doctors young Burford was outside for the photocalls, and the soundbites. The Earl told reporters: "This bill drafted in Brussels is treason. What we are witnessing is the abolition of Britain." "It concerns the liberty of every individual in Britain. The truth is that Tony Blair is evicting the hereditary peers from Parliament in order to remove what he perceives to be the last obstacle to his plans to surrender our nationhood to Brussels. "Blair has been ordered by his world government masters to bring the British constitution into line with the other European Union countries in preparation for full political union. "And he is doing it in flagrant contempt of both Parliament and the Crown. Indeed the very existence of the Monarchy is threatened. "For if the Lords are stripped of their constitutional powers, then Blair will have presented himself with a prima facie case for revoking the constitutional powers of the Monarchy." His personal problem is rather more technical. Burford is unfortunately only an Earl. And although that is quite an important title there are two degrees of peers above him, Marquess and Duke, and his father is a Duke, of St Albans in fact. The cruelty of fate. So his father has been able to speak in the House of Lords all this time, and because his father is not dead, all that young Burford was allowed to do was to listen to the proceedings from the Steps to the Throne. And within a matter of hours the definitive reading of the compromise bill was to take place, which has now dashed his chances for ever of speaking in the Houses of Parliament. Unless of course he manages to get democratically elected. But that would be an unthinkable ordeal. But is this all the nonsense it appears? No. I suggest that genuine marxists should not overlook how much, even at the height of its capitalist power, the British industrial capitalist class was interpenetrated by landed capital. As Marx pointed out, "wage labourers, capitalists, and land-owners constitute the three big classes of modern society based upon the capitalist mode of production." Sometimes there were contradictions between industrialists and landowners such as over the Corn Laws and the 10 Hours Bill, which the working class took advantage of, much to the approval of Marx. But more often, the landed capitalists, often made fabulously rich, like the Duke of Westminster, from the private ownership of land in areas of cities or their surroundings undergoing economic growth, worked in alliance with industrial capital. The bastion of the power of landed capital was the House of Lords. In a constitution which has kept the Conservative Party in power in the Commons in all but 22 years of the last hundred, there was the additional considerable advantage of a massive majority in the Lords capable of delaying any constitutional amendement seriously challenging the balance of class forces in this country. This violation of bourgeois democratic principles in one of the leading capitalist and imperialist power in the world - certainly one of the most influential - has indirectly but significantly constrained the range of possibilities for progress in the world. The tactical vote to
[PEN-L:12965] Re: talk on teachers
Now I know why I haven't unsubscribed to Pen-L in spite of all the flame wars! There are some valuable posts, and this is one in my opinion. The opening citations are a real eye opener. I assume the "core values" in number 8 include: "greed" "anything can be sold for a profit" and the like. Cheers, Ken Hanly Michael Yates wrote: > Friends, > > The following is a talk I am going to give this Thursday at Jamestown > Community College in New York state. I'd appreciate any comments before > I go up there. The teachers' union there have just rejected the > college's latest offer in negotiations. > > Us Versus Them: Laboring in the Academic Factory > > by > > Michael Yates > Department of Economics > University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown > Johnstown, PA 15232 > > I. Ten Tales from Academe at the End of the Century > > Consider the following items culled from some of the journals, > newspapers, and email discussion groups to which I subscribe: > > 1. Administrators at York University in Toronto solicited corporations > to place corporate logos on online courses conducted by the University, > for $10,000 per course. > > 2. City University of New York canceled most of its remedial classes. > The University of Pittsburgh eliminated special programs for under > prepared (and typically poor and black) students while beginning an > honor's college. > > 3. The University of Pittsburgh, awash in corporate and defense > department money, canceled sabbatical leaves at our campus without > faculty input. The VPAA, formerly just Dean, has begun to unilaterally > implement major changes in tenure requirements. > > 4. Several universities have cut lucrative deals with credit card > companies, allowing them campus monopolies as credit purveyors. At one > campus the credit card company pays for student radio and television > shows. > > 5. The so-called "University" of Phoenix, a private, for-profit virtual > college, now has 98 campuses in 31 states and enrollment of more than > 55,000 students. "It has aggressively applied business strategies such > as convenience, customer service, mass production, and corporate > partnerships on its march across the country." Phoenix has heavy-duty > corporate customers, including Kodak, IBM, and GE and will be > aggressively competing for the millions of adult students preparing for > the multiple job changes former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, says > we will all be making over the course of our working lives. > > 6. The California State University system is preparing to "hand control > of its inter-campus computer and telecommunications system to a private > consortia managed by Microsoft and its hardware allies, GTE, Hughes, and > Fujitsu." This privatization of public education is fueled by the same > forces that have led to the privatization of all sorts of public > services from garbage collection to prisons to college food services and > campus police. > > 7. Historian David Noble tells us that "Educom, the academic-corporate > consortium, has recently established their Learning Infrastructure > Initiative which includes the detailed study of what professors do, > breaking the faculty job down in classic Tayloristic fashion into > discrete tasks, and determining what parts can be automated or > outsourced. Educom believes that course design, lectures, and even > evaluation can all be standardized, mechanized, and consigned to outside > vendors. Today you're looking at a highly personal human-mediated > environment,' Educom president Robert Heterich observed. The potential > to remove human mediation in some areas and replace it with > automationsmart, computer-based, network-based systemsis tremendous. > It's gotta happen'" > > 8. During the first week of this month, in Manhattan's $229 per night > (a special rate!) Millennium Broadway Hotel, a conference was held with > the title, "Market-Driven Higher Education." The blurb for this > conference states, "It's Not Just Business, It's Your Future: Is Higher > Education for Sale? You bet it is. And everyonecorporations, > non-profits, government agencieswants a piece of it. How do you take > advantage of market-driven education?" At this conference one could > hear such luminaries as Benno Schmidt (former president of Yale and > advisor on CCNY for America's Mussolini, Rudolf Giuliani) expound on > such topics as "What the Market Wants," and The University Toolbox," (to > discuss "creating for-profit subsidiaries, finding start-up capital, > structuring deals, solving intellectual property problems, and more.") > Remarkably, the organizers of the conference tell attendees that you > will "learn new ways of doing business, explore innovative deals and > joint ventures, discover what funding sources want for their investment > dollars, cope with resistance on the home front, and still retain your > core values." > > 9. In Silicon Valley, in Cam
