Hard times on the farm
New York Times, April 2, 2000 As Life for Family Farmers Worsens, the Toughest Wither By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF TRYON, Neb. -- Walking across the prairie, stepping carefully around cow pies, Mike Abel confesses that he has told his son and daughter not to follow in his line of work. He sounds for a moment like a repentant bank robber. But Mr. Abel, 45, is in an even less promising field: He is a cattle rancher. Ranchers like Mr. Abel on the lovely desolation of the Nebraska prairie near this hamlet, miles and miles from nowhere and nothing, evoke the gritty determination and toughness of John Wayne on a good day. These days the ranchers evoke something else -- poverty. This rural area, McPherson County, is by far the poorest county in the country, measured by per capita income. Federal statistics show that people in McPherson County earned an average of $3,961 in 1997, the most recent year for which statistics were available, compared with $5,666 for the next poorest county, Keya Paha, also in Nebraska. The richest, New York County, better known as Manhattan, had a per capita income of $68,686 in 1997. Cowboys like Mr. Abel might seem the last people to cry. But with much of the agricultural economy in deep distress, with dreams of family farms fading like old cow bones on the prairie, even the cowboys' lips are sometimes trembling. "What always hurt us was when we're at the table trying to figure out how to make a land payment, and the kids are seeing us crying as we wonder what happens if we can't make the payment," said Mr. Abel, a sturdy man with flecks of gray in close-cropped hair. "We'd always hoped this would be a family operation. But why should my son, Tyler, struggle and make money only two out of five years when he could get a good-paying job in the city somewhere?" While most of the American economy is going gangbusters, many rural areas are undergoing a wrenching restructuring that is impoverishing small ranchers and farmers, forcing them to sell out, depopulating large chunks of rural America and changing the way Americans get their food. The gains in farming and ranching efficiency are staggering, but so is the blow to the rural way of life. Just a few years ago, the United States thought it had a plan to revitalize the agriculture economy: the Freedom to Farm Act. Passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1996, the law aimed to phase out subsidies but ease regulations and promote exports to make farming profitable without government aid. Almost everyone agrees that the law has not worked (although there is also a consensus that it is the other guy's fault). Direct federal payments to farmers last year rose to a record $23 billion. That is far more than the federal government spent on elementary and secondary education, school lunches and Head Start programs combined. With the failure of American farm policy, no one has much of a plan anymore, even though the present course appears unsustainable. The growing cost of federal farm programs, the replacement of small family farms with huge factory farms, the fading of rural hamlets -- all these point to historic changes under way in American agriculture. Yet the changes are happening without anyone guiding them or the nation paying them much heed. The poverty statistics can seem misleading to city dwellers, for the poor farming areas rarely have homeless people or anything like a slum, and in any case cattle and hog prices are rising this year. But prospects look dismal, adding to the pressure on many rural areas. The depopulation is evident in the grade school in Ringgold, a crossroads village in the east end of McPherson County. Leah Christopher, an effervescent eighth grader who is an outstanding gymnast, will graduate from the school in a few months at the top of her class, and at the bottom. She is the only eighth grader. The entire school, from kindergarten to the eighth grade, has only one teacher and seven students, four of them from Leah's family. Another grade school in the county has just four students and will drop to three next year. "I took a training course once where the other teachers were talking about using the school psychologist and other resources like that," said Elnora Neal, the teacher at the Ringgold school. "Well, I'm everything. At this school, I'm teacher, nurse, psychologist, P.E. teacher and janitor." McPherson County had 1,692 people in 1920, and since then its population has been steadily falling, to about 540 today. At its peak, it had 20 post offices, 5 towns and 63 school districts; now it has 1 post office, 5 schools and, if one is generous enough to include Ringgold, 2 towns. The average age in the county is in the late 50's, the average American farmer today is 54. Complete article at: http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/farm-poverty.html Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Hard times on the farm
I find this post somewhat unusual. The paradigm of agricultural poverty around here would not be ranchers but grain farmers. Cattle prices are relatively good and ranchers are on the whole much better off than straight grain producers. Perhaps Nebraska has had specific problems that impact on ranchers. In looking at net farm incomes it is important to note that these are businesses and are able to deduct all sorts of expenses unlike wage incomes. Even in the best of times net farm incomes do not look good and in terms of return on invested capital they almost never look good. Consolidation of farms does not mean necessarily that the remaining farmers are not doing OK just that margins require larger units to make a reasonable income. It is certainly true though that for a young person to start farming by purchasing land, machinery, etc. is out of the question for most. If a young person had that much money it would make more sense to invest it and retire at 21. Of course poverty stricken farmers hereabouts drive around in 4X4 pickups that cost more than I could ever afford and I couldn't even muster a down-payment on a combine. They have lots of assets but they belong to the bank or credit union. Cheers, Ken Hanly Louis Proyect wrote: New York Times, April 2, 2000 As Life for Family Farmers Worsens, the Toughest Wither By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF TRYON, Neb. -- Walking across the prairie, stepping carefully around cow pies, Mike Abel confesses that he has told his son and daughter not to follow in his line of work. He sounds for a moment like a repentant bank robber. But Mr. Abel, 45, is in an even less promising field: He is a cattle rancher. Ranchers like Mr. Abel on the lovely desolation of the Nebraska prairie near this hamlet, miles and miles from nowhere and nothing, evoke the gritty determination and toughness of John Wayne on a good day. These days the ranchers evoke something else -- poverty. This rural area, McPherson County, is by far the poorest county in the country, measured by per capita income. Federal statistics show that people in McPherson County earned an average of $3,961 in 1997, the most recent year for which statistics were available, compared with $5,666 for the next poorest county, Keya Paha, also in Nebraska. The richest, New York County, better known as Manhattan, had a per capita income of $68,686 in 1997. Cowboys like Mr. Abel might seem the last people to cry. But with much of the agricultural economy in deep distress, with dreams of family farms fading like old cow bones on the prairie, even the cowboys' lips are sometimes trembling. "What always hurt us was when we're at the table trying to figure out how to make a land payment, and the kids are seeing us crying as we wonder what happens if we can't make the payment," said Mr. Abel, a sturdy man with flecks of gray in close-cropped hair. "We'd always hoped this would be a family operation. But why should my son, Tyler, struggle and make money only two out of five years when he could get a good-paying job in the city somewhere?" While most of the American economy is going gangbusters, many rural areas are undergoing a wrenching restructuring that is impoverishing small ranchers and farmers, forcing them to sell out, depopulating large chunks of rural America and changing the way Americans get their food. The gains in farming and ranching efficiency are staggering, but so is the blow to the rural way of life. Just a few years ago, the United States thought it had a plan to revitalize the agriculture economy: the Freedom to Farm Act. Passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1996, the law aimed to phase out subsidies but ease regulations and promote exports to make farming profitable without government aid. Almost everyone agrees that the law has not worked (although there is also a consensus that it is the other guy's fault). Direct federal payments to farmers last year rose to a record $23 billion. That is far more than the federal government spent on elementary and secondary education, school lunches and Head Start programs combined. With the failure of American farm policy, no one has much of a plan anymore, even though the present course appears unsustainable. The growing cost of federal farm programs, the replacement of small family farms with huge factory farms, the fading of rural hamlets -- all these point to historic changes under way in American agriculture. Yet the changes are happening without anyone guiding them or the nation paying them much heed. The poverty statistics can seem misleading to city dwellers, for the poor farming areas rarely have homeless people or anything like a slum, and in any case cattle and hog prices are rising this year. But prospects look dismal, adding to the pressure on many rural areas. The depopulation is evident in the grade school in Ringgold, a
Re: Hard times on the farm
In the US, the feed lots pretty much set the price for cattle. They are highly concentrated. Farmers are suing them for price fixing, but have not won so far. Al Krebs' Agbiz Examiner has covered this in detail. Ken Hanly wrote: I find this post somewhat unusual. The paradigm of agricultural poverty around here would not be ranchers but grain farmers. Cattle prices are relatively good and ranchers are on the whole much better off than straight grain producers. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Fwd: CDINFO: hidden costs of animal factories]
Ken Hanly wrote: This is a serious problem and nothing much is being done to solve it. This is a much greater risk, in my view, than GM foods but it does not seem to be in the press very much. From glancing at the post I'm prepared to agree with Ken that the problem is serious -- but I'm not willing (or even able) to struggle with the text with its broken lines and multiple s. Is it available in more readable form? Carrol
bounced article on white collar crime
WHITE COLLAR CRIME. THE CRIMINALS ARE ADMITTING THEY STOLE TAX PAYERS MEDICARE FUNDS BUT OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM IS NOT CRIMINALLY PROSECUTING THEM OR COLLECTING ALL THE MONEY THEY STOLE. WHY? *If the FACT that nursing homes are killing and seriously injuring 30% of their patients, and only 3% of nursing facilities are giving a standard of care that meets the State and Federal Standards of the law, if this doesn't upset the public enough for them to demand something be done: (See GAO Report HEHS-98-202) and If the FACT that major nursing home chains are filing bankruptcy but still pay their CEO's 67 figures in salaries and bonuses and still contribute millions of dollars to the politicians, if this doesn't make the public demand seizure of all assets from these nursing home chains: and If the FACT that many of these nursing home chains have admitted to defrauding our Medicare System but they are still collecting huge amounts of monies from Medicare Funds to provide a humane level of care that meets both state and federal standards of the law but daily they fail to fulfill these requirements. If this doesn't make the public angry enough to demand a full accountability from our politicians who are receiving the millions in contributions from these nursing home chains: Does the FACT this nursing home industry is not being forced by our Justice System to pay back all of the millions of dollars in Medicare funds they admitted they "SCHEMED TO DEFRAUD" and STEAL FROM US TAX PAYERS. Does this make the public want to demand a full investigation of this system that is failing to do their jobs ?. Does the FACT this for profit industry has now sucked so much money from our Medicare system for their FOR PROFIT BUSINESS, that Medicare may not be around when you and I need it. Is this enough to move the public to write letters to the President, demanding that our Justice System put these criminals behind bars, force them to pay back the money they have stolen from our public funds and place these nursing homes in the hands of our cities and counties to be run as a non- profit community service. HOW MUCH MORE WILL IT TAKE, to get the public to rise up and demand accountability from our politicians, our Justice System, our Department of Health and our President ? WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE This is NOT another nursing home horror story, it is about fraud. One of the biggest rip-off's of taxpayers funds in U.S. history. Fraud that has had a serious detrimental effect on the care of our elderly in our nations nursing homes. It's about the failure of our government to recover the million of our stolen tax dollars. It's about the failure of our Justice System to criminally prosecute, when the laws of our land have clearly been broken, over and over again. We want some straight answers, WHY? We want to put an end to the suffering of our elderly. I am cutting and pasting in a few lines from recent stories, about all this fraud. When the total amount of the fraud is added together, it's one of the largest rip off's of public funds in our history. These few nursing home owners provide about 20% of the nursing home beds in the U.S. Many admit they "schemed to defraud Medicare." Yet they are not being held criminally accountable for their intentional acts. Fraudulent charting showing nursing staff on duty when they were not. The shortage of staff leads to neglect, elder abuse and death of our nursing home patients. I have the death certificates of over 24,000 deaths in California nursing homes, showing 10,000 deaths from Urinary Tract Infections, 7,000 deaths from starvation, 2,500 deaths from bedsores, 4,500 deaths from dehydration, 1,000 deaths from fecal/bowel obstructions. There are thousands of deaths where you see 'fractured hip in nursing home' then 30 days later the patient dies from pneumonia, because they are left lying in their bed, unattended, no breathing therapy and very little care, due to shortage of staff. The patients lungs fill with fluid and they die. How many of these falls could have been prevented, if there was sufficient staffing? Many of the charts show the patients were found on the floor, no one saw what happened. Where was the staff? Is the missing staff, part of the phony nurses on the sign-in sheets? Where is the government, and why are they not taking actions against these nursing homes for these preventable deaths? $13.5 Billion in Medicare Losses Reported Inspector General Offers Offenders Leniency March 10, 2000 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Medicare program losses -- money wasted through fraud, mistakes and other problems -- inched up to $13.5 billion in 1999 after falling for three consecutive years, government auditors reported. The figure means that nearly 8 cents out of every dollar paid by Medicare last year was wasted. The program paid out $169.5 billion last year. Inspector General June Gibbs Brown renewed an offer on Thursday to go easy on health-care providers who
Re: [Fwd: CDINFO: hidden costs of animal factories]
Ken, the disease resistance is only part of the problem. These animal factories produce huge lagoons of manure, which also threaten human health, especially when floods spread the manure over large areas. The manure also seems to be responsible for the outbreaks of pfisteria. Pretty nasty business. But then getting our hamburgers from the Central American rainforests is not recommended either. Ken Hanly wrote: This is a serious problem and nothing much is being done to solve it. This is a much greater risk, in my view, than GM foods but it does not seem to be in the press very much. --- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Sorry and statistics question
Rob Schaap wrote: And, btw, (following Joel Blau's post of the other day), is there a table of (actually comparable) comparative international unemployment statitics available on the Net? And are there other salient statistics around that are differently calculated in different (eg OECD) countries? Doug? Cheers, Rob. There's always the ERP (http://www.gpo.ucop.edu/catalog/erp99_appen_b.html) I don't know how comparable its series are. -- Barnet Wagman email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Current (heterodox) thinking on interest rates?
Perhaps someone could summarize (or supply citations on) current (heterodox) thinking on interest rate determination (in the U.S.). Seat of the pants empiricism suggests that everything just follows the discount rate but there's probably a better story. I'm woefully behind the times on this subject. Thanks, Barnet Wagman email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Marx's materialism
Title: Marx's materialism Perhaps a discussion of the relation of Marx's materialism to scientific materialism will be less emotionally provocative than a discussion of the scientific materialist explanation of schizophrenia. What follows examines the consistency of a particular kind of materialist history of ideas - a kind having much in common with scientific materialism - with Marx's materialism. I will use the treatment of Aristotle's ideas by such histories to illustrate my interpretive argument. These reduce Aristotle's ideas to his class location. To begin with, the idea that ideas can be fully reduced in this way is mistaken. It is, for instance, self-defeating since the idea must apply to itself. It isn't Marx's idea. He, in fact, explicitly points to the problem I've just raised. In the third thesis on Feuerbach he says: The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice. Aristotle's ideas include the ideas that rational action involves building something in the mind before building it in reality and that the full development of a capacity for doing this requires time free from necessary labour (leisure). Materialist interpretations of Aristotle that explain these ideas away by reducing them to Aristotle's class location are inconsistent with Marx's treatment of them. This is made evident in the first volume of Capital. There Marx uses the first idea to define the essence of human labour. We presuppose labour in a form in which it is an exclusively human characteristic. A spider conducts operations which resemble those of the weaver, and a bee would put many a human architect to shame by the construction of its honeycomb cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is that the architect builds the cell in his mind before he constructs it in wax. At the end of every labour process, a result emerges which had already been conceived by the worker at the beginning, hence already existed ideally. Man not only effects a change of form in the materials of nature; he also realizes his own purpose in those materials. And this is a purpose he is conscious of, it determines the mode of his activity with the rigidity of a law, and he must subordinate his will to it. Capital, vol. 1, pp. 283-4 Further on in vol. 1, the other idea is explicitly embraced as a true idea, as a testament, in fact, to Aristotle's greatness as a thinker. The capitalist application of machinery on the one hand supplies new and powerful incentives for an unbounded prolongation of the working-day, and and produces such a revolution in the mode of labour as well as the character of the social working organism that it is able to break down all resistance to this tendency. But on the other hand, partly by placing at the capitalist's disposal new strata of the working-class, partly by setting free previously inaccessible to him, partly by setting free the workers it supplants, machinery produces a surplus working population, which is compelled to submit to the dictates of capital. Hence that remarkable phenomenon in the history of Modern Industry, that machinery sweeps away every moral and natural restriction on the length of the working-day. Hence too the economic paradox that the most powerful instrument for reducing labour-time suffers a dialectical inversion and becomes the most unfailing means for turning the whole lifetime of the worker and his family into labour-time at capital's disposal for its own valorization. 'If,' dreamed Aristotle, the greatest thinker of antiquity, 'if every tool, when summoned, or even by intelligent anticipation, could do the work that befits it, just as the creations of Daedalus moved of themselves, or the tripods of Hephaestos went of their own accord to their sacred work, if the weavers' shuttles were to weave of themselves, then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master craftsmen, or of slaves for the lords.' And Antipater, a Greek poet of the time of Cicero, hailed the water-wheel for grinding corn, that most basic form of all productive machinery, as the liberator of female slaves and the restorer of the golden age. Oh those heathens! They understood nothing of political economy and Christianity, as the learned Bastiat discovered, and before him the still wiser MacCulloch. They did not, for example, comprehend that machinery is the surest means of lengthening the working day. They may perhaps have excused the slavery of one person as a means to the full human development of another. But they lacked the specifically Christian qualities which would have
Re: Marx's materialism
Ted Winslow wrote: To begin with, the idea that ideas can be fully "reduced" in this way is mistaken. It is, for instance, I agree that Ted has chosen extremely important passages from Marx, but I don't have the slightest ideas what this post is about because (a) I don't know who said that ideas can be "fully reduced" or in what context, and so (b) I don't know what "this way" means, and so (c) I don't know what ther relation of the quoted passages to any topic on this list is. In so far as I can understand it, I think I agree with the post. This is interesting because I consider Ted's ideas on psychology not so much wrong as not worth discussing. I wonder if we can find a common ground which will enable us to state our disagreements. I could perceive no common ground in his post on Freud/Klein etc. Carrol
Re: Marx's materialism (fwd)
Ted, I loved the topic, and I will jump in, but tonight. I am under time pressure now. Unlike others, somehow, I did not relate it to the recent topic on psychology, and I thought you offered a *new* debate on ideas and materialism in relation to Aristo and Marx. May be I misunderstood your intention, but here you go. I will continue.. thanks, Mine Aysen Doyran Phd Student Political Science SUNY/Albany Albany/NY -- Forwarded message -- Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2000 15:04:14 -0500 From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:17644] Re: Marx's materialism Ted Winslow wrote: To begin with, the idea that ideas can be fully "reduced" in this way is mistaken. It is, for instance, I agree that Ted has chosen extremely important passages from Marx, but I don't have the slightest ideas what this post is about because (a) I don't know who said that ideas can be "fully reduced" or in what context, and so (b) I don't know what "this way" means, and so (c) I don't know what ther relation of the quoted passages to any topic on this list is. In so far as I can understand it, I think I agree with the post. This is interesting because I consider Ted's ideas on psychology not so much wrong as not worth discussing. I wonder if we can find a common ground which will enable us to state our disagreements. I could perceive no common ground in his post on Freud/Klein etc. Carrol
Notes on a talk I will give on Wed.
Here are the rough, rough notes for a talk that I will give Wednesday. It is the first time I've ever tried to dictate something this long using voice recognition so they're probably some really stupid mistakes from the program over and above my own lapses. Any comments will be very welcome. My job tonight is very difficult. We're still in the midst of the longest peacetime expansion in history of our economy. While problems persist, few of us here tonight have to face the awful problems of the minority who been left behind during this period of economic expansion. My task is more challenging because when one to say goes against what most of you have heard about the economy. I will assume that most of you have heard that for the 10 percent of the population that are truly poor the prospects for the future are grim indeed. I will also assume that you have heard their present economic organization is pushing the limits of what the environment can sustain. Perhaps the most familiar consequence is the disruption of weather patterns that lead to an increasing frequency of catastrophic events. As a result, insurance companies have become very frightened about the future prospects. I suspect that even though most a few have been exposed to discussions about the problems of inequity and environmental disruption that repeating them tonight would not serve much purpose. Instead, want to pose 5 questions and then to offer a few short observations that may help you to think about our present economy in a different light. First, how does the economy work in theory? How does the economy work in practice? Why has the economy worked as well as it has? What can we expect in the future under capitalism? What could we expect if we were to move on to something better? With respect to the first question, markets are supposed lead to the most efficient allocation of resources in such a way that nobody can be made any better off without hurting somebody else. This theory, however, is very abstract. It can only work if everybody knows the future, which is impossible. With respect to the second question, the economy the United States has grown significantly although, depending on how you measure income, countries such as Norway and Singapore have higher standards of living. Although all comparative measurements of economic welfare among countries are questionable, I suspect that it's safe to say that I would be a citizen of Norway if I were to be at the bottom of the distribution of income and I would rather be in United States if I were lucky enough to be in the upper end of the distribution of income. In taking account of the manner in which United States economy works, we need to pay some attention to how the economy grew as much as it did. A great deal of controversy swirls around questions about how United States has come to enjoy the prosperity that we now take for granted. Certainly, we would have to factor in the sacrifices of both Native Americans and Africans in explaining the rise of United States economy. We would also have to take into account the role of the United States military in providing our economy with cheap materials and ready markets for the products that this economy produces. In addition, United States economy enjoyed access to inexpensive raw materials because miners, loggers, and farmers were free to exploit the land without regard for environmental consequences. Finally, any evaluation of the history of United States economy would have to recognize the hard work and sacrifices made by generations of workers, many of whom risk life and limb in order to eke out a modest standard of living. Even granting this very partial list of problems and inequities associated with the growth of the economy, the fact remains that the economic achievements of the economy are significant. However, for much, if the most, of the history of United States, the economy has experienced either recession, depression, or war. I would suggest that recession, depression, or war is probably the natural state of a pure market economy. Markets, especially markets with highly capital intensive production, have a deflationary tendency -- meaning that prices tend to fall too fast for investors to recoup their outlays, causing widespread bankruptcies. As economies fall into depressions, the temptation to expand markets through aggressive action becomes almost irresistible. The mystery remains, what accounts for the extended periods of prosperity when deflation remains in check. I propose that a number of non-market forces tend to create the stability that give markets a certain degree of respectability. To some extent, you may be familiar with some of these factors. For example, extensive military spending creates demand that helps to offset deflationary pressures. So do expansionary monetary policies. In addition, whenever deflationary pressures threat to break out, companies engage in vigorous policies
Re: Re: Marx's materialism
I would add that to discuss Marx's materialism, one would have to take into account the twentieth century contributions to the understanding of 'matter' and 'energy' Second, it not an unusual position in twentieth century social science to admit the dialectic between matter and idea. There are those who occassionally go overboard (strict structuralists, sociobiologists, etc.) but Carrol is right, very few deny the relationship. The task is to get the mix right. How much are human behaviours determined by the physical structure of the brain, (and even here it is common to the plasticity of the brain of infants in response to experience.) and how much is behaviour the result of experience and choice. The best recent book I have read on the subject is Terrence Deacon's The Symbolic Species: The co-evolution of the brain and language. Rod Carrol Cox wrote: Ted Winslow wrote: To begin with, the idea that ideas can be fully "reduced" in this way is mistaken. It is, for instance, I agree that Ted has chosen extremely important passages from Marx, but I don't have the slightest ideas what this post is about because (a) I don't know who said that ideas can be "fully reduced" or in what context, and so (b) I don't know what "this way" means, and so (c) I don't know what ther relation of the quoted passages to any topic on this list is. In so far as I can understand it, I think I agree with the post. This is interesting because I consider Ted's ideas on psychology not so much wrong as not worth discussing. I wonder if we can find a common ground which will enable us to state our disagreements. I could perceive no common ground in his post on Freud/Klein etc. Carrol -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Marx's materialism
At 08:05 PM 04/02/2000 -0400, you wrote: I would add that to discuss Marx's materialism, one would have to take into account the twentieth century contributions to the understanding of 'matter' and 'energy' Second, it not an unusual position in twentieth century social science to admit the dialectic between matter and idea. I think that there are two matter vs. idea dialectics that are often confused. IMHO, Marx's more important dialectic of this sort has little or nothing to do with "matter in motion." Rather, it's the materialism of the THESES ON FEUERBACH and the GERMAN IDEOLOGY. This is the dialectic between consciousness and practice. Ted was talking about this. There are those who occassionally go overboard (strict structuralists, sociobiologists, etc.) but Carrol is right, very few deny the relationship. The task is to get the mix right. How much are human behaviours determined by the physical structure of the brain, (and even here it is common to the plasticity of the brain of infants in response to experience.) and how much is behaviour the result of experience and choice. The best recent book I have read on the subject is Terrence Deacon's The Symbolic Species: The co-evolution of the brain and language. I think dialectical methodology helps here (as in Lewontin Levins' DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST) but it's not really what Marx focused on. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine/JDevine.html
Re: Notes on a talk I will give on Wed.
Michael Parelman wrote: Today, United States depends on the sale of goods protected from competition by intellectual property rights. Not surprisingly, three of the four richest people in this country are associated with one of these companies. Intellectual property rights, however, are monopolies that violate the principles of the free market. michael, i thought intellectual property rights were central to the principles of the free market. what makes capitalism capitalism is the recognition of property rights as inalienable individual rights, the notion of private possession, so to speak. Am i wrong? i don't see how they constitute a monopoly in the free market or violate the principles of the free market. well, capitalism is a monopoly regime of property owners to begin with. what is equally interesting is that monopoly seems to be intrinsic to capitalism, rather than accidental. there are capitalist regimes without intellectual property rights fully established or somewhat established, like those economies in the periphery or semi periphery of the world system (i.e.., Turkey). they are nonetheless still capitalist by virtue of their integration into the world capitalist system. The state often justifies monopolies on the grounds that they are necessary for achieving economics of scale in order to privilege corporate interests, i.e, private sector monopoly or public sector monopoly. how does this differ in the US? In addition to the "formal freedom" market, is there a monopoly capitalism? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Mine Aysen Doyran PhD Student Department of Political Science SUNY at Albany Nelson A. Rockefeller College 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102 Albany, NY 1
Re: Re: Notes on a talk I will give on Wed.
Mine Aysen Doyran wrote: michael, i thought intellectual property rights were central to the principles of the free market. Not really. People, such as Hayek, were against intellectual property rights, since they granted a monopoly to the supposed owner. Although here is Ayn Rand 125: "Patents and copyrights are the legal implementation of the base of all property rights: a man's right to the product of his mind." 128: "Today, patents are the special target of the collectivists' attacks -- directly and indirectly, through such issues as the proposed abolition of trademarks, brand names, etc. While the so- called "conservatives" look at those attacks indifferently or, at times, approvingly, the collectivists seem to realize that patents are the heart and core of property rights, and that once they are destroyed, the destruction of all ocher rights will follow automatically, as a brief postscript." Am i wrong? i don't see how they constitute a monopoly in the free market or violate the principles of the free market. well, capitalism is a monopoly regime of property owners to begin with. according to the mythology of capitalism, they compete with each other. what is equally interesting is that monopoly seems to be intrinsic to capitalism, rather than accidental. yes, but they pretend otherwise. there are capitalist regimes without intellectual property rights fully established or somewhat established, like those economies in the periphery or semi periphery of the world system (i.e.., Turkey). they are nonetheless still capitalist by virtue of their integration into the world capitalist system. Germany and Switzerland did not have patentsin the 19th century. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dialectics
Actually Jim D. the dialectic of society has any number of moments, and if you take the hegelians and marxists seriously, these moments can only be separated intellectually. And then at the risk of rendering them meaningless. In my previous message I had at less two moments in mind. The material and ideal nature of human beings. And the relation of the individual to society. The theoretical-practical dialectic operates in the second but it is not independent of the first. The ideal nature of human kind, is partially the product and the producer of both theory and practice. Rod -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Re: Notes on a talk I will give on Wed. (fwd)
That is Ayn Rand, not me. Rod Hay wrote: Please explain. This is new to me, unless you mean something other than what I would by the word 'patents' Rod [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Since patents are the basis of all property rights, -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Notes on a talk I will give on Wed.
The model of efficiency and Pareto optimality in neo-classical economics within a perfectly free market assumes perfect knowledge by participants. If there are patents then this condition will not be met. The introduction of patents is usually justified as producing some type of dynamic efficiency rather than the efficiency of a static equilibrium. If there were no patents it is argued that there would be no incentive to develop new processes etc. since everyone would have access to that knowledge and the developer would not recoup his or her investment -plus a bundle. Some have suggested medals, and monetary awards by government etc. for inventions rather than privatising this knowledge. Even Milton Friedman suggests that the 20 year period of patents is too long and inefficient. Cheers, Ken Hanly Mine Aysen Doyran wrote: Michael Parelman wrote: Today, United States depends on the sale of goods protected from competition by intellectual property rights. Not surprisingly, three of the four richest people in this country are associated with one of these companies. Intellectual property rights, however, are monopolies that violate the principles of the free market. michael, i thought intellectual property rights were central to the principles of the free market. what makes capitalism capitalism is the recognition of property rights as inalienable individual rights, the notion of private possession, so to speak. Am i wrong? i don't see how they constitute a monopoly in the free market or violate the principles of the free market. well, capitalism is a monopoly regime of property owners to begin with. what is equally interesting is that monopoly seems to be intrinsic to capitalism, rather than accidental. there are capitalist regimes without intellectual property rights fully established or somewhat established, like those economies in the periphery or semi periphery of the world system (i.e.., Turkey). they are nonetheless still capitalist by virtue of their integration into the world capitalist system. The state often justifies monopolies on the grounds that they are necessary for achieving economics of scale in order to privilege corporate interests, i.e, private sector monopoly or public sector monopoly. how does this differ in the US? In addition to the "formal freedom" market, is there a monopoly capitalism? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Mine Aysen Doyran PhD Student Department of Political Science SUNY at Albany Nelson A. Rockefeller College 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102 Albany, NY 1
Re: Re: Re: Notes on a talk I will give on Wed. (fwd)
Rod wrote: Please explain. This is new to me, unless you mean something other than what I would by the word 'patents' Rod [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Since patents are the basis of all property rights, Rod, I was implicitly referring to Micheal's quote from Rand. Rand says that " 125: "Patents and copyrights are the legal implementation of the base of all property rights: a man's right". According to the quote, I agree with Rand rather than with Hayek.The reason is that Hayek idealist notion of capitalism and free market society disregards the fact it *is* the intellectual property rights (patents, copyrights) that make capitalism what it is, as opposed to what it is not.It is not the absence, but the very "presence" of those rights that give capitalism a unique charecter. There is no "pure capitalism" without any legal basis that is instrumental in legitimizing private property. From Hayek's pro-market perspective, patents are unaccaptable since they are a form of monopoly (non-capitalist). From Rand's perspective, it seems to me, patents constitute the _legal_ basis of property rights, and hence necessary for capitalism to institutionalize itself. Here is the definition: Michael Parelman wrote: People, such as Hayek, were against intellectual property rights, since they granted a monopoly to the supposed owner. Although here is Ayn Rand 125: "Patents and copyrights are the legal implementation of the base of all property rights: a man's right well, I am no economist. I am looking from political economy and sociology perspectives due to my training. The idea that patents are non-capitalist monopolies still susbcribes to the notion of free market orthodoxy, as if free market supersedes all monopolies. On the contrary,it is in the ironic nature of capitalism to maintain capitalist and non-capitalist formations as a mixture (at certain historical instances, of course). Immanuel Wallerstein explains this quite explicitly from a world sytemic Marxian perspective: "It is always easy to find presumed instances of non-capitalist behavior in a capitalist world all over Europe 1650 and 1750 but also in 1850 and 1950. The mixture of such non-capitalist behavior, firms and states with capitalist behavior, capitalist firms, or (the least happy usage of all) capitalist states within a capitalist world economy is neither an anamoly nor transitional. The mixture is the essence of the capitalist system as a mode of production, and it accounts for how the capitalist world economy has historically affected the civilizations with which it has coexisted in social space" (The Modern World System II, p.32). Mine Aysen Doyran Phd student Political Science SUNY/Albany Albany/NY -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Re: Notes on a talk I will give on Wed. (fwd)
yeah, exactly, I reminded this, but I may misinterpret Rand too since I am not quite sure about the context of his discussion.. Mine Micheal wrote: That is Ayn Rand, not me. Rod Hay wrote: Please explain. This is new to me, unless you mean something other than what I would by the word 'patents' Rod [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Since patents are the basis of all property rights, -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
