Re: Re: Marx on value
Chrish Burford wrote: I could not find the footnote, but Marx uses the word "assume" in the sense in which Jim uses it Playing with words. The results already obtained include Marx's logico-historical derivation of the _existent_, equal comodity exchange. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
Re: Re: Re: Marx on value
In fact surely the entire burden of Marx's thesis in all 3 vols of Cap + TSV and indeed in all his mature economics writing, is that profits MUST be explained and CAN ONLY be explained on the basis of EQUAL commodity exchange, not for eg according to Physiocratic notions about wheat harvests or mercantilist mysticism or whatever. The passages Jim Devine cites below exactly encapsulate this central idea. And this is a separate question anyway from the equivalence (or not) of values and prices, no? Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList - Original Message - From: "Jim Devine" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 6:06 AM Subject: [PEN-L:18220] Re: Re: Marx on value I wrote: At this high level of abstraction, the price of production of any commodity equal its value (while the market price of the commodity equals its price of production), if we measure prices and values using the same metric. I could also find the footnote where Marx admits that he's making an assumption, but all my copies of volume I are at work. (The no-realization-crisis assumption is in the preface to the section on accumulation.) what I was thinking of can be found at the end of chapter 5 of CAPITAL Vol. I: The conversion of money into capital has to be explained on the basis of the laws that regulate the exchange of commodities, in such a way that the starting-point is the exchange of equivalents. [footnote: ] From the foregoing investigation, the reader will see that this statement only means that the formation of capital must be possible even though the price and value of a commodity be the same; for its formation cannot be attributed to any deviation of the one from the other. If prices actually differ from values, we must, first of all, reduce the former to the latter, in other words, treat the difference as accidental in order that the phenomena may be observed in their purity, and our observations not interfered with by disturbing circumstances that have nothing to do with the process in question. [this abstraction is similar to making an assumption, though not in the sense of deductive logic. -- JD] We know, moreover, that this reduction is no mere scientific process. The continual oscillations in prices, their rising and falling, compensate each other, and reduce themselves to an average price [the price of production -- JD], which is their hidden regulator. It forms the guiding star of the merchant or the manufacturer in every undertaking that requires time. He knows that when a long period of time is taken, commodities are sold neither over nor under, but at their average price. If therefore he thought about the matter at all, he would formulate the problem of the formation of capital as follows: How can we account for the origin of capital on the supposition that prices are regulated by the average price, i. e., ultimately by the value of the commodities? I say "ultimately," because average prices do not directly coincide with the values of commodities, as Adam Smith, Ricardo, and others believe. The connection between "average prices" [prices of production] and values is on the macro level, as seen in Marx's equation of total prices with total value. In the quote above, Marx does not explicitly assume that prices = value, but this assumption follows directly if we abstract from the homogeneity within the capitalist class, ignoring differences in the organic composition of capital -- as Marx does in vol. I. I remember that Marx makes the assumption explicit somewhere in vol. II, but I don't have the energy to look at this point. [Returning home to Chris Burford's message, again I had no copy of CAPITAL vol. I on hand. (Weirdly, all four of them [!] at work, whereas I have three copies of vol. II here!) However, I remembered that I had a CD-ROM of the "Multimedia Capital." But I couldn't cut and paste a footnote from it -- so I had to find the above on the web. In the process, I found that someone put two folk-type songs on the CD-ROM. Neither has anything to do with CAPITAL! Perhaps the group that produced the CD-ROM includes a singer-songwriter.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: Re: Marx on value
At 22:06 17/04/00 -0700, you wrote:
what I was thinking of can be found at the end of chapter 5 of CAPITAL Vol. I:
...
average prices do not directly coincide with the values of commodities,
as Adam Smith, Ricardo, and others believe.
This argument is why it is unwise to use the term "Labour Theory of Value"
to summarise Marx's economics, since a) this theory was held by the
classical economists, and b) he differentiates himself from them by the
comment above. It is the *social* value of the commodity that is relevant.
Jim D draws attention to Marx's method of abstracting from the fluctuations
to get to the essence of the process of capital accumulation.
We should note in the context of the crisis of world political economy,
that this method of abstraction does not *explicitly* deal with a situation
in which the forces of production are being revolutionised on a daily
basis. Marx deals with that elsewhere and describes the relative surplus
value that a capitalist can achieve by owning a temporary or partial
monopoly of more efficient means of production.
In such a rapidly changing economy, the old forces of production also
suffer from a continual "moral depreciation" ("moral" meaning "social").
This is among other things the fate of the third world countries today, who
are deprived of any chance of building up local or regional surpluses by
the sado-monetarism of the IMF.
Thus the mechanisms by which the imperialist countries exploit the peoples
of the third world are partly hidden.
The anarchists show the courage of their convictions but they muddle the
theoretical basis of their attack on global capitalism by implying that it
is government itself that is at fault.
Chris Burford
London
Re: Re: Re: Re: Marx on value
At 07:55 AM 04/18/2000 +0100, you wrote: In fact surely the entire burden of Marx's thesis in all 3 vols of Cap + TSV and indeed in all his mature economics writing, is that profits MUST be explained and CAN ONLY be explained on the basis of EQUAL commodity exchange, not for eg according to Physiocratic notions about wheat harvests or mercantilist mysticism or whatever. The passages Jim Devine cites below exactly encapsulate this central idea. And this is a separate question anyway from the equivalence (or not) of values and prices, no? I'd say that profits can only be explained in these terms within Marx's framework. However, they still exist once we drop the equal exchange assumption. Then the question comes up of the origin of individual capitalists' profits -- and differences of profitability amongst individual capitalists. That can't be explained in terms of equal exchange, though of course the initial equal-exchange framework that Marx started with tells us where the profits of these capitalists come from originally (exploitation of workers). BTW, I think it's possible to develop a Marxian theory of the origins of profit without equal exchange or even the "law of value." Marx starts with a societal perspective, with "capital as a whole" in vol. I of CAPITAL and moves in the direction of dealing with individuals and individual differences. But I think one can develop of Marxian theory of exploitation even starting from an individualistic, neoclassical perspective, and then moving toward the societal perspective. (See my "Taxation without Representation: Reconstructing Marx's Theory of Capitalist Exploitation." In William Dugger, ed. _Inequality: Radical Institutionalist Views on Race, Class, Gender, and Nation_. Greenwood Press, 1996.) I don't think this would have been possible without Marx's work, however. Unlike Roemer, who simply jettisons Marx's methodology and reduces Marx's theory of exploitation to a static and formalistic theory of scarcity rents, I think that Marx's dialectical method is absolutely necessary (though hardly sufficient). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Marx on value
Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/17/00 07:16PM True a stock market crash could trigger a financial crisis which could trigger an economic crisis particular if US consumers stop consuming as if they never had to save. However only a general political crisis could shift the balance of forces to bring about a qualitative change. There are some signs of that emerging now. "There are some signs of that emerging now." Charles: Like what ? C. Brown
Re: racism, eurocentrism (fwd)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/14/00 05:59PM very true. plus Luxemburg.. Lenin and Trotsky were both champions of arguments against the Second Interntional-Menshevic claim that socialism couldn't take root in 'backward' places. CB: Also, Lenin predicted the revolution in the "East" would be bigger than the revolution in Russia. Today this prediction is valid. CB
Re: Re: Re: Re: Marx on value
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/18/00 11:03AM BTW, I think it's possible to develop a Marxian theory of the origins of profit without equal exchange or even the "law of value." Marx starts with a societal perspective, with "capital as a whole" in vol. I of CAPITAL and moves in the direction of dealing with individuals and individual differences. But I think one can develop of Marxian theory of exploitation even starting from an individualistic, neoclassical perspective, and then moving toward the societal perspective. (See my "Taxation without Representation: Reconstructing Marx's Theory of Capitalist Exploitation." In William Dugger, ed. _Inequality: Radical Institutionalist Views on Race, Class, Gender, and Nation_. Greenwood Press, 1996.) I don't think this would have been possible without Marx's work, however. Unlike Roemer, who simply jettisons Marx's methodology and reduces Marx's theory of exploitation to a static and formalistic theory of scarcity rents, I think that Marx's dialectical method is absolutely necessary (though hardly sufficient). CB: Now there's an interesting thought. Care to elaborate a little ? CB
bounced from Rob Parteneau
From: "Robert W. Parenteau" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: unemployment and the stock market Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Michael - It is a little early for dot.com defections to be showing up in unemployment figures, but not out of the question. Keep in mind the NASDAQ peaked over a month ago, a number of dot.coms have come crashing out of the sky since the turn of the year (Dr. Koop, ValuAmerica, Peapod, CDNow, to name a few), and the venture capital world is not so sure any of these business to consumer (B2C) models are ever going to achieve profitability, so they are being much more selective in this area now. I could send you a couple of links from articles that started showing up last week about the e-rats jumping the e-ships. Since their compensation is so tied to options, and many of these stocks have dropped 60-70% in the past month, the appeal of less risky employment conditions must be growing. Another way to think about this is in financial instability terms. We usually look for companies that have become heavily indebted to gauge financial fragility. But uniquely, in this episode, we have had a version of Ponzi financing going on in these Internet startups. New issues of stock have been used to not only cash out prior owners, in true Ponzi fashion, including venture capitalists who recycle their winnings into new startups, but also to pay marketing expenses for all those wacky ads and to pay for computer equipment, etc. In some cases, we can see that stocks became acceptable form of currency. With the recent carnage in the NASDAQ stocks, we have the equity market equivalent of a severe credit constraint/contraction emerging for this sector. The initial public offering (IPO) pipeline, which was just swollen with new issues that needed to get placed if companies were to have the financing to keep operating, is now getting backed up and clogged. IPO's are getting cancelled. Original owners can't get out by selling their holdings at inflated prices to the public. Alta Vista, no slouch in the search engine universe, had to cancel an IPO due on Monday even though it was priced at such a low level that the original owners would have taken a haircut. Unless the NASDAQ rebounds soon and fast, these companies will burn through their existing cash quite quickly. The money go round will creak to a halt. Barron's had an article projecting cash burn rates about a month or two ago, and Forrester Research, not exactly a bear shop, has recently reported they have found similiarly alarming cash burn conditions. Bankruptcy lawyers in the Valley are apparently starting to get lots of calls. And with stock prices compressed, it will be very difficult for internet companies to tap the convertible bond market as some have in the past. No bank will lend to these risky firms, and they usually face junk bond status when they try to issue debt. The junk bond market has been getting illiquid as well of late as default rates rise, so this is not much of an option either. This is an entirely new variant of financial instability, but it is becoming quite visible to many. The new economy is in the process of getting shaken down, so it is entirely possible this has started showing up in the unemployment figures already. Everything happens faster on internet time, after all. -Rob -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Marx on value
I wrote: BTW, I think it's possible to develop a Marxian theory of the origins of profit without equal exchange or even the "law of value." Marx starts with a societal perspective, with "capital as a whole" in vol. I of CAPITAL and moves in the direction of dealing with individuals and individual differences. But I think one can develop of Marxian theory of exploitation even starting from an individualistic, neoclassical perspective, and then moving toward the societal perspective. (See my "Taxation without Representation: Reconstructing Marx's Theory of Capitalist Exploitation." In William Dugger, ed. _Inequality: Radical Institutionalist Views on Race, Class, Gender, and Nation_. Greenwood Press, 1996.) I don't think this would have been possible without Marx's work, however. Unlike Roemer, who simply jettisons Marx's methodology and reduces Marx's theory of exploitation to a static and formalistic theory of scarcity rents, I think that Marx's dialectical method is absolutely necessary (though hardly sufficient). CB: Now there's an interesting thought. Care to elaborate a little ? one comment (and then I'm going off-line, due to the work-load): What's needed to allow Marx-type exploitation in a neoclassical theory are: 1) macro-level subjection of labor by capital, involving the monopolization of the means of production and subsistence by the capitalists and a persistent reserve army of labor (structural coercion). 2) micro-level subjection of labor by capital, in which capital almost always has labor under control. This involves a more sophisticated view of production than NC economics has. 3) worker's submission, their disorganization and their willingness to accept this system. It should be mentioned that at its best, NC economics is simply supply and demand (not really much of an improvement over Adam Smith's economics). So what I say doesn't contradict SD (just as Marx developed his theory in a way that didn't contradict the assumption of equal exchange). Note also that I ignore micro-level monopoly most of the time, seeing it primarily as a matter of redistribution of previously-produced surplus-value. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: Bolivia, A16, and Bechtel
More on this month's Malefactor of Wealth, Bechtel Corp: . . . Bechtel has long been a WB favorite contractor - naturally since they are infamous for using their heavy handed Repub political clout for getting the big infrastructure projects overseas and in the defense industry. . . ."Although Bechtel did not build the ill-fated Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant, as co-manager of the cleanup operation at TMI it did help make a bad situation worse. The NRC's Office of Investigations found that Bechtel schemed to avoid making the necessary repairs and that the company "improperly classified" modifications to the plant as "not important to safety" in order to avoid safety controls. . . . " from http://www.essential.org/monitor/hyper/issues/1989/10/mm1089_08.html Here's a book cite: Friends in High Places: the Bechtel Story - the Most Secret Corporation and How It Engineered the World, by Laton McCartney (Simon Schuster, 1988). Here's something from Bartlett and Steele in Time Mag: http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1998/11/02/corp.welfare.html "The justification for much of this welfare is that the U.S. government is creating jobs. Over the past six years, Congress appropriated $5 billion to run the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which subsidizes companies that sell goods abroad. James A. Harmon, president and chairman, puts it this way: "American workers...have higher-quality, better-paying jobs, thanks to Eximbank's financing." But the numbers at the bank's five biggest beneficiaries--ATT, Bechtel, Boeing, General Electric and McDonnell Douglas (now a part of Boeing)--tell another story. At these companies, which have accounted for about 40% of all loans, grants and long-term guarantees in this decade, overall employment has fallen 38%, as more than a third of a million jobs have disappeared. Here's a piece on water privatization flap in the Phillipines also involving Bechtel: http://cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/97/0221/biz1.html And another re: Bechtel in India: http://www.essential.org/monitor/hyper/mm0997.04.html In Nevada, Bechtel involved in influence peddling for nuclear waste dumping . . . http://www.lasvegassun.com/dossier/events/yucca/dayfour.html There is also right-wing conspiracy shit which I have not referenced. Interested parties are directed to Eagle Forum and Free Republic. Some of this links Bechtel to the Lippo Group, and from there to you-know-who. mbs
Re: Dollarize This
Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/17/00 04:51PM I'm continually surprized by how little attention there is here to 'dollarization.' CB: What's important about dollarization ? The link below has a number of reports, mixed among other Repug shit http://www.senate.gov/~jec/106list.html mbs
Re: Re: racism, eurocentrism (fwd)
True, Charles, but surely the important thing for a Marxist is a revolution that leads to socialism. And there Marx's contention that it could only occur in an advance capitalist country still holds. Rod Charles Brown wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/14/00 05:59PM very true. plus Luxemburg.. Lenin and Trotsky were both champions of arguments against the Second Interntional-Menshevic claim that socialism couldn't take root in 'backward' places. CB: Also, Lenin predicted the revolution in the "East" would be bigger than the revolution in Russia. Today this prediction is valid. CB -- 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
news flash
NEWS FLASH -- SOME WEB RETAILERS ARE MAKING MONEY! A new study by Boston Consulting Group in conjunction with shop.org shows that 38% of Web retailers are actually making money, and a surprising 72% of catalogue companies that moved into cyberspace now have profitable Web operations. Although the results appear to contradict Forrester Research's predictions last week that most dot-com companies will be out of business by 2001, the two studies are not as contradictory as they appear. Forrester noted that in order to be successful on the Web, e-tailers would need "scale, service and speed," while at the same time keeping their costs down. Both research firms agree that the winners will be hybrid operations (catalogue-Web or bricks-and-clicks), or will be category leaders. Of the predicted shakeout, Boston Consulting senior VP David Pecaut says, "It's washing away a lot of the people who had no sustainable business model and just had me-too concepts." Boston Consulting estimates that online shopping will grow 85% this year to $61.1 billion, down from the 120% experienced in 1999. (Wall Street Journal 18 Apr 2000) 155 lines more (you've seen 36%) -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: racism, eurocentrism (fwd)
Revolution can "only occur in an advance capitalist country?". Which Marxists subscribe to this notion besides vulgar orthodoxs nowadays? This was *not* Marx's contention. Marx's circumstances were entirely different when he came closer to this idea, but he never explicitly put it. History *falsified* this distortion of Marx when Lenin corrected it in 1917. Both were true internationalists, and they were concerned with extending socialist revolution beyond Europe.. i don't see any eurocentricism with this. I agree with Charles, btw.. Mine True, Charles, but surely the important thing for a Marxist is a revolution that leads to socialism. And there Marx's contention that it could only occur in an advance capitalist country still holds. Rod Charles Brown wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/14/00 05:59PM very true. plus Luxemburg.. Lenin and Trotsky were both champions of arguments against the Second Interntional-Menshevic claim that socialism couldn't take root in 'backward' places. CB: Also, Lenin predicted the revolution in the "East" would be bigger than the revolution in Russia. Today this prediction is valid. CB -- 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: racism, eurocentrism (fwd)
I'd say it more this way, Rod. There is no successful socialism without it eventually being a world revolution. But that doesn't mean that the world revolution starts everywhere at the same time. And directly to your point, and proven by the first efforts to build socialism in the 20th Century, even if the revolution first occurs in a "backward" capitalist country, as it did in Russia, that revolution must soon be followed by a revolution in an "advanced" capitalist country; and for the situation right now we might have to say within the G-7 Group, and maybe even the U.S. (given the world configuration now !). For the advanced capitalist bloc can use horrendous warfare based on its advanced mode of destruction, to thwart socialism in the backward countries. I think it was Engels and Marx's presumption that even in an advanced country, the revolution could not last if it did not become a world wide revolution. Anyway, isn't the current circumstance qualitatively different from the 19th Century and early part of the 20th in that inter-capitalist national and inter-imperialist rivalry has turned in to an effective unity, a unified bloc of the "advanced" capitalist countries ? So, to speculate, it may even be that the whole "advanced" bloc would have to be revolutionized, or rather would be in a revolution in that bloc because of its unity. CB Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/18/00 01:28PM True, Charles, but surely the important thing for a Marxist is a revolution that leads to socialism. And there Marx's contention that it could only occur in an advance capitalist country still holds. Rod Charles Brown wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/14/00 05:59PM very true. plus Luxemburg.. Lenin and Trotsky were both champions of arguments against the Second Interntional-Menshevic claim that socialism couldn't take root in 'backward' places. CB: Also, Lenin predicted the revolution in the "East" would be bigger than the revolution in Russia. Today this prediction is valid. CB -- 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: The Political Economy of Famine (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 03:37:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunder Frank [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK [EMAIL PROTECTED], Mark Ritchie [EMAIL PROTECTED], CENES [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: The Political Economy of Famine It has long been establishd that North and South ag producers and consumer DO comp[ete in the SAME world market, which is one reason why the northern ones do subsidize 'family farm' ag production in US,Canada, EU [which latter did all it could to exclude East European ag competition]. And remembver that the major rift at Seattle WTO delegates was b etween the US and Europe because the former kettle is calling the latter pot black, just because one uses price supports and the otehr incopme supports. And the Cairnes [Aussie] group screams a plague on both your houses. All of these are primarily in grain and meat/dairy wich alos depends on grain. Of course it is market UNwise absurd that the US b e the major world grain exporter - also to Europe- and that croded Europe be a meat exporter, and even if not that tehy not be importers of both products, not to mention sugar proedced by highly subsidiezed beets in Europ[e and by subsidized beet sugar in Calif and subsidized cane sugar in Florida and Louisiana - which in turn depend, especially in Calif, on subsidized water that thus is not avaialble to metropolitan areas. Of course this highly subsidized ag production in the North OUTcompetes that from the south both on northern markets and in southern ones [and now East European ones too!]: eg. everywhere in the North, grain and meat from Argentina, Brazil, Central America, West Africa, Egypt; dairy in rthe form of powdered and canned milk anywhere that it undecuts local dairy producers who are driven out of business; since NAFTA very significantly subsidized US corn/maize is undercutting local M exican producers and generating Chiapas uprising; i dont know about cotton, but proabaly also, and definitely tobacco - no smoking in the US is driving US tobacco companies into foreign markets in a big way -; and still sugar. Poor Cuba. No cuota in the US and "world price" only elsewhere. Ah, but what is the 'world' price? it is the low one on the perhaps 20 percernt of wrold sugar production that is sold on the low 'world' market as surplus over and beyond all the controlled/subsidized high price markets on which the bulk of world sugar is 'traded'. That also means that the Soviet days US charge that Cuba was so heavily subsidized by the Soviet Union was a bogus calculation based on the difference between the also alos subsidized high Soviet price and the low world market price, which was low pricsely because the US, EU and Soviets all traded at highly subsidized high prices. No market competition? when Gorbachev prohibited some vodaka, all sugar disappeared from the Soviet market and went into bathtub moonshine instead. It is hard to believe that Putin wants - as recently announced - to make the same mistake again. Anyway, one could go on and on, but ... and another related main issue is genetically altered produce in and from the North competing with 'natural' products from/in the South, also collecting genes there, monopolizing them in the North, and then selling the products back to the South. that is called 'value added'! I am sure that experts like Mark Ritchie in MSP and Manuel Lajo in Lima, which i am not, could supply far more and bvetter evidence with documentation. gunder frank On Tue, 18 Apr 2000, Jeffrey L. Beatty wrote: Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 01:00:32 -0400 From: "Jeffrey L. Beatty" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: The Political Economy of Famine [Apologies for multiple postings] While some on these lists are more concerned with matters of rectitude in the present conflict in the Horn of Africa, I would urge that list members not lose sight of the more basic issue raised in the Sameh Naguib article. Note the following paragraphs. The logic of the world food market is particularly conducive to starvation. Advanced countries in Europe and North America, as well as Japan, produce over three-quarters of the world's exports of foodstuffs. These countries maintain schemes to protect their agricultural production. In general, people in these countries pay vastly inflated prices so that high and stable prices can be guaranteed to the farm and food processing sectors. One of the first results of this system is a decline in imports, which translates as a loss to Third World countries that export foodstuffs. To keep the prices up, governments create massive stocks of foodstuffs, which are then taken off the market. World grain stocks exceed 200 million tonnes, while the shortfall of grain in the Horn of Africa will not exceed 10 million tonnes. The cost of storing food in Europe alone runs in tens of
on Diamond's Guns, Germs Steel
Barkley Rosser (once of pen-l, soon to return) forwards these comments on Jared Diamond's _Guns, Germs Steel_ Remarks on Diamond in light of Devine and DeLong reviews: I think the claim that _Germs, Guns, and Steel_ by Jared Diamond is the greatest work of genius in econ history, or whatever field, of the 1990s is somewhat overdone. Many of its ideas have been around for some time. I would note in particular the book _Plagues and People_ by William O'Neill, 1976, New York: Medallion Press, and the somewhat earlier (sorry, don't have exact pub info, but I first encountered the book in 1966) _Rats, Lice, and History_ by Hans Zinsser, the original classic of this genre, although the latter lacks the grand historical sweep of Diamond. But O'Neill definitely has such sweep and makes many of the points Diamond makes, and others besides, especially about the bubonic plague, originally contracted from wild rats (not domesticated animals) although spread through cities that depended upon reasonably developed ag to exist. What is impressive, correct, possibly even original in Diamond? Mostly the emphasis on the size of Eurasia and the ease of communication throughout it. I think the emphasis on the transmission of disease is way overdone, as I shall discuss below, but the focus on how this led to the diffusion of technology along the silk route and the sea routes, and the economies of scale, etc., kinds of arguments, leading to the guns and steel part of the story, makes a lot of sense. The focus on New Guinea is also original and rather interesting, although this leads to some odd and questionable arguments in the book. In contrast to earlier remarks I made to both Jim and Brad, O'Neill partly agrees with the crop/domesticated big mammal and disease argument that Diamond emphasizes. A key here is to think of the "big three killers," smallpox, flu, and measles, especially in terms of the impact of those diseases when Europeans conquered Austronesia and the Americas, where the resulting epidemics were crucial, as many observers, including [Jim] Blaut, have long noted. Smallpox basically came from cows, flu from pigs, and measles from dogs, although the domestication of dogs occurred prior to crop production and was tied to hunting and herding, but did happen in Eurasia. But, there is a big problem with Diamond's argument and it is Africa. O'Neill and others make it clear that Africa, the likely origin of humanity, has more diseases than anywhere else in the world and many of these came from contact with hunting animals in an non-crop environment. Also, virtually all of the Eurasian origin diseases, such as the "big three" had diffused to Africa at a sufficiently early time so that people there had as much immunity to them as the Eurasians. A sign of this role of Africa is the origin of AIDS, despite the ongoing controversies regarding this matter. The most widely accepted theory is contact with chimpanzees in Africa in a hunting context. I dismiss the "Jewish doctors' plot" and "CIA plot" theories of the origins of AIDS. The most serious charge about European involvement in its initial spread is the recent theory that it got widely spread in Africa as a result of a polio immunization drive that was mismanaged. That theory is deeply contested by some involved in that it, but it is a serious theory. In any case, that theory nevertheless accepts that the ultimate origin was from contact with chimpanzees in a hunting context in Africa, with the spread being due to the botched polio immunization drive in the late 50s that somehow involved tainted chimpanzee blood, allegedly. In any case, I am not nearly as impressed with Diamond's book as some are, although it is quite interesting and provocative. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: on Diamond's Guns, Germs Steel
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/18/00 02:39PMBut, there is a big problem with Diamond's argument and it is Africa. O'Neill and others make it clear that Africa, the likely origin of humanity, has more diseases than anywhere else in the world and many of these came from contact with hunting animals in an non-crop environment. Also, virtually all of the Eurasian origin diseases, such as the "big three" had diffused to Africa at a sufficiently early time so that people there had as much immunity to them as the Eurasians. ___ CB: Yea, that's a wopper of a problem from the reports on the book to this list. - A sign of this role of Africa is the origin of AIDS, despite the ongoing controversies regarding this matter. The most widely accepted theory is contact with chimpanzees in Africa in a hunting context. I dismiss the "Jewish doctors' plot" and "CIA plot" theories of the origins of AIDS. The most serious charge about European involvement in its initial spread is the recent theory that it got widely spread in Africa as a result of a polio immunization drive that was mismanaged. That theory is deeply contested by some involved in that it, but it is a serious theory. In any case, that theory nevertheless accepts that the ultimate origin was from contact with chimpanzees in a hunting context in Africa, with the spread being due to the botched polio immunization drive in the late 50s that somehow involved tainted chimpanzee blood, allegedly. CB: Well, others are saying green monkeys. But the "CIA/MI5" plot is much on the table as Barkley's theory, especially given it may be green monkeys and not chimps. There have been hunting parties there for 10's of thousands of years, but only recently, in that time scale relatively coincident with AIDS popping up, have the CIA been involved in biological warfare and all kinds of nefarious fiddlings with disease. CB
RE: Re: Dollarize This
Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/17/00 04:51PM I'm continually surprized by how little attention there is here to 'dollarization.' CB: What's important about dollarization ? That's what I was hoping others could tell me. Off the top of my head, it would seem to have dire implications for the independence of other countries and the adequacy of their money supply, from the standpoint of employment and investment. mbs
RE: Re: Dollarize This
Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/18/00 03:07PM Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/17/00 04:51PM I'm continually surprized by how little attention there is here to 'dollarization.' CB: What's important about dollarization ? That's what I was hoping others could tell me. Off the top of my head, it would seem to have dire implications for the independence of other countries and the adequacy of their money supply, from the standpoint of employment and investment. __ CB: Wouldn't a stronger dollar likely increase the U.S. trade deficit ? CB
Re: Re: Re: racism, eurocentrism (fwd)
Rod Hay wrote: True, Charles, but surely the important thing for a Marxist is a revolution that leads to socialism. NO! This is to pretend that we access to a crystal ball. The important thing for a Marxist is revolution aimed at socialism. Whether it succeeds in maintaing itself to fit some blueprint is entirely irrelevant. There have been many socialist revolutions: nothing that happened in the Soviet Untion after 1917 or in Vietnam after 1946 or in China after 1949 or in Paris after 1871 can change the fact that these were socialist revoluttions -- and only our distant descendants (at a time when it is only of antiquarian interest) can say whether any of these revolutions failed. I was just reading in Eagleton's *Ideology of the Aesthetic," in which he mentions that Trotsky once claimed, "We Marxists have always lived in tradition" -- We *are* those "failed" revolutions (even those that "failed" before anyone ever heard of them -- and if/when a socialist revolution in one or more of the advanced capitalist countries it will have much to owe to those various "failed" struggles. Carrol And there Marx's contention that it could only occur in an advance capitalist country still holds. Rod Charles Brown wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/14/00 05:59PM very true. plus Luxemburg.. Lenin and Trotsky were both champions of arguments against the Second Interntional-Menshevic claim that socialism couldn't take root in 'backward' places. CB: Also, Lenin predicted the revolution in the "East" would be bigger than the revolution in Russia. Today this prediction is valid. CB -- 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: Dollarize This
talking a break... CB: What's important about dollarization ? quoth Max: That's what I was hoping others could tell me. Off the top of my head, it would seem to have dire implications for the independence of other countries and the adequacy of their money supply, from the standpoint of employment and investment. if by "dollarization" you mean the case of Argentina hooking its currency irrevocably to the US$, what it means is that Alan Greenspan will do their monetary policy. If they're in a recession and Saint Alan decides to hike interest rates, cry for me Argentina! They'd also suffer (or benefit) from the US fiscal stance. It's like the long period of slow growth in California that preceded the last few years of boom. California couldn't use monetary (or fiscal) policy to try to catch up with the rest of the US. Of course, Argentina could secede from the dollar more easily than California could. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
[Fwd: New from the CCPA]
Perhaps some on Pen-L might be interested in this Cheers, Ken Hanly April 18, 2000 NEW FROM THE CCPA Here is a selection of new publications from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Note that they do not, for the most part, include new publications from our provincial offices. For a complete list of our publications, please visit our web site. A REPORT CARD ON WOMEN AND POVERTY By Monica Townson (April 5, 2000 release) Leading feminist economist and CCPA research associate Monica Townson examines the state of poverty for women in Canada. She finds that almost 19% of adult women in Canada living in poverty, the highest rate in two decades. Among her other findings: o There has been virtually no improvement in poverty rates of women since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada issued its report some 30 years ago. o Fifty-six per cent of women heading single parent families have incomes below the poverty line. o Almost half of all women aged 65 or older have low incomes exactly the same poverty rate as that reported by the Royal Commission for this group in 1967. o Most poor people live thousands of dollars below the poverty line. Sole-support mothers average $9,000 below the low-income cut-off, while older women on their own are about $3,000 below, on average. The Report Card can be downloaded from our web site: http://www.policyalternatives.ca Hard copy version is available for $10.00. (Discounts for Bulk orders) FALLING BEHIND: THE STATE OF WORKING CANADA 2000 (April 19 release) By Andrew Jackson and David Robinson with Bob Baldwin and Cindy Wiggins Falling Behind is the most comprehensive and up-to-date reference on the state of working conditions and living standards available in Canada. This is the first of what will be annual publication. It charts major trends in the economic and social well-being of Canadians: the labour market, the social wage: the role of unions, inequality and poverty, taxes, international comparisons etc. It is a valuable reference tool for progressive researchers, policy-makers academics, media commentators and activists. Copies of Falling Behind can be obtained as of from the CCPA for $19.95 each (price includes shipping within North America, handling and GST #124146473RT). It can be purchased (after April 19) directly from our web site: http://www.policyalternatives.ca (Discounts available for bulk orders) A BETTER WAY: PUTTING THE NOVA SCOTIA DEFICIT IN PERSPECTIVE (April 3, release) This is the inaugural publication of the nascent CCPA Nova Scotia office. Produced by a team of researchers and policy analysts, its main thrust is to demonstrate that program spending is not the cause of Nova Scotia's deficit problems, and cuts to spending are not the solution. The biggest reasons for Nova Scotias continuing fiscal problems are: weak economic growth over the past decade and the relatively greater costs of federal spending cuts. While Nova Scotia has 3% of the Canadian population, it took 15% of federal cuts. In addition, the increases in Nova Scotia's "own-source" revenues were the third lowest among all provinces between 1990 and 1999. For more information, contact staff person, John Jacobs [EMAIL PROTECTED] "A Better Way: Putting Nova Scotia's Deficit in Perspective" and its companion piece, "Choices for Nova Scotia's Future," can be downloaded from our web site: http://www.policyalternatives.ca Hard copy version is available for $10.00. (Discounts for Bulk orders.) BRIEFING PAPER SERIES: TRADE AND INVESTMENT The third in this series is now available. "The Cartagena Biosafety Protocol: Opportunities and Limitations," examines the recently concluded international agreement on trade in genetically modified products. The stronger-than-expected environmental protection signals a small but important step away from the dominance of trade over environment, human rights etc. Canada was a reluctant signatory; trade policy remains the preserve of hard-line free trade proponents. The author, Michelle Swenarchuk, is a lawyer with the Canadian Environmental Law Association. Watch for the Scott Sinclair's briefing paper, An overview of the General Agreement on Services (GATS) negotiation, currently in progress. It will be available in early May. The Trade and investment series can be downloaded from our web site: http://www.policyalternatives.ca WHO DO WE TRY TO RESCUE TODAY? CANADA UNDER CORPORATE RULE by Ed Finn (May 1, 2000 release) "Ed Finn's new collection is must reading for anyone concerned about the growing domination of corporate power and the resulting erosion of democracy at all levels of our society." --Mel Hurtig, author of "Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids: The Tragedy and Disgrace of Poverty in Canada" "Ed Finn is uncompromising about the need to challenge corporate power head-on. Who Do We Try to Rescue Today is political
The war on drugs
The New York Times, March 31, 2000, Friday, Late Edition - Final House Passes Bill To Help Colombia Fight Drug Trade By ERIC SCHMITT After two days of debate, the House today approved a $12.7 billion emergency spending bill whose centerpiece commits the United States to train and equip Colombia's security forces to combat drug traffickers in a country where the narcotics trade and guerrilla insurgency have blurred. Not since the Central American civil wars of the 1980's has the United States tried to throw such political, diplomatic and military backing behind a crucial Latin American ally threatened by insurgency. The bipartisan House vote today, 263 to 146, approved an emergency package that also includes money for the Pentagon to pay for the peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, and for flood disaster relief in North Carolina. But most significantly, the House has cast judgment on a plan backed by the Clinton administration to spend $1.7 billion during two years to help Colombia and other Andean countries, despite critics' complaints that the anti-drug plan is ill-conceived and could drag the United States into an open-ended conflict that has already cost tens of thousands of lives during the past 40 years. "This program will strengthen democratic government, the rule of law, economic stability and human rights in that beleaguered country," said Barry R. McCaffrey, the White House drug policy director. (clip) === New York Times, April 18, 2000, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final Colonel Says He Used Cash From Wife's Drug Smuggling By ALAN FEUER A United States Army officer who once oversaw the government's antidrug wars in Colombia admitted yesterday that he had paid his household bills with thousands of dollars he knew his wife had received from smuggling heroin from Bogota to Manhattan and Queens. The officer, Col. James C. Hiett, made his admission in Federal District Court in Brooklyn while pleading guilty to failing to report that he knew that his wife, Laurie Anne Hiett, had been laundering the profits of her drug smuggling. In January, Mrs. Hiett admitted that she had sent six packages of heroin wrapped in brown paper through diplomatic mail. With his chin held high and back straight, Colonel Hiett stood before Judge Edward R. Korman and said crisply and quietly that his wife had given him $25,000 last April after traveling twice between Colombia and New York City. But he insisted that he did not know the money had come from drug smuggling until Army investigators told him. "As a result of my conversations with the Army investigators, I then knew that the cash my wife had previously given me came from drug trafficking," he said. "I then took steps to dissipate this cash by paying bills as possible, and depositing some of the cash in our accounts." (clip) Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
Russian entrepreneurs
New York Times, April 18, 2000 Power-Line Thieves Loot Russia, Often Risking Death or Maiming By PATRICK E. TYLER PROKOPYEVSK, Russia, April 15 -- Maksim Naumenko, a 12-year-old boy with a slight build and a cherub's face, had just stolen a goodly length of copper wire from the Tyrginskaya Coal Mine one afternoon last month when he and his buddy, Sergei, returned to the place where they had spotted a second cable that would add to the day's haul. "The first one was dead and we cut it and hid it, and then we came back to take another one, but it turned out to be live," Maksim said weakly from the intensive care unit where he was recovering last week. When Maksim reached for the wire with his left hand, a "bright explosion" went off before his eyes and the current seized him violently. Somehow he managed to pull his hand away, but when he looked down, all he could see and smell was charred flesh. The electric shock had so burned his thumb and forefinger that they later had to be amputated. That was more than unfortunate, because two years ago, when Maksim was 10, he lost two fingers on his right hand while trying to steal copper wire from a power pole. In an epidemic that has led to 700 electrocutions nationwide and more than 500 deaths from electric shock last year, thieves and pilferers -- among them the desperately poor and homeless like Maksim -- and criminal gangs are shredding Russia's networks of electric transmission lines, communication cables and anything else that can be sold as scrap metal in a market that has surged tenfold to twentyfold in the last five years. Government power engineers estimate that more than 15,000 miles of power lines have been pulled down in recent years from the country's electrical grid, plunging millions of Russian households into darkness for weeks at a time. Thousands of additional miles of line are disappearing from telephone poles, railroad power systems and military complexes. "This is a very serious problem across the country," said Aleksandr V. Trapeznikov, spokesman for the national electric conglomerate, whose engineers have been trying to cope with the calamity. Last year alone, Mr. Trapeznikov said, more than 2,000 tons of high-voltage aluminum cables were ripped off their pylons, at a cost of more than $40 million. Some of the material is melted down into ingots and shipped out of the ports of St. Petersburg and Vladivostok to markets in Europe, the Middle East and China. The rest goes out as heaps and coils. Here among the coal fields of southwestern Siberia, some are calling this phenomenon the "copper rush," but aluminum and other nonferrous metals are also in great demand as strong world prices for scrap metal have added to the incentive in these times of economic depression in Russia to attack the country's foundations and sell the bits for hard currency abroad. The crisis has seen high-voltage lines stripped off their towers and nuclear submarines cut off from communication with their national commanders. Aluminum phone booths have disappeared in some cities, while rocket motors and fuel tanks, torpedo parts and copper shell casings have flooded out of military warehouses and into illegal markets. Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/041800russia-electricity.html Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
Silicon Valley janitors
New York Times, April 18, 2000 Janitors Struggle at the Edges of Silicon Valley's Success By STEVEN GREENHOUSE SAN JOSE, Calif. -- From 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. each night, Guadalupe Herrera cleans offices at that pinnacle of high-tech success, Cisco Systems, and then she heads home to the garage where she, her husband and two sons live. When María Godinez returns late each night from her $8-an-hour janitor's job at Sun Microsystems, she slips into the bedroom she shares with her husband and five children: part of a single-family house where four families and 22 people live. Rosalba Ceballos, who also lives in a garage, vacuums carpets and cleans bathrooms at another Silicon Valley success story, KLA-Tencor, but because her rent comes to three-fourths of that job's monthly pay she juggles two other jobs to support herself and her three children. High-flying companies like Cisco and Sun can rightfully boast that they have created a new class of employees -- stock option millionaires -- but they have given rise to another class of workers as well: the invisible toilers, for the most part janitors, who earn too little to afford decent housing in a booming region. "It's not good that these companies are making so much money, while they're benefiting from the low wages they pay us," said Mrs. Herrera, whose husband works as a $7-an-hour janitor at a nearby nursing home. "It's not fair that they do this with us. In reality, we need more." The janitors, almost all of them immigrants from Mexico or Central America, many of them here illegally, are whipsawed by two powerful forces: the influx of immigrants is putting downward pressures on wages while the region's red-hot economy is pushing housing costs skyward. As a result, the rent that many janitors pay for garages usually exceeds half their monthly take-home pay and often equals what people elsewhere in the country pay for a two-bedroom apartment. Many high-technology companies said they do not have any responsibility for their janitors' wages or living conditions. The janitors, company officials say, are not their employees, but rather those of cleaning contractors hired by the electronics companies that have made this region symbolize the New Economy. Kern Beare, a spokesman for KLA-Tencor, declined to discuss the janitors' situation, saying, "The janitors are not our employees, and we don't comment upon other companies' employees." Mike Garcia, president of a union local that represents thousands of California janitors, called the companies' position indefensible, insisting that they were hiding behind subcontracting rules to dodge their responsibilities to the people who empty their wastebaskets and dust their shelves. Whether the janitors work directly or indirectly for them, Mr. Garcia said, Silicon Valley stars like Cisco and Sun have a moral obligation to make sure these workers do not live in poverty. "These companies have a heavy responsibility," said Mr. Garcia, president of Local 1877 of the Service Employees International Union. "They can try to hide behind their cleaning contractors, but what they should really do is take responsibility for the plight of their janitors and their poorest workers. They should give them a fair wage that will lift them out of poverty." Mr. Garcia, a leader in his union's Justice for Janitors campaign, said something was wildly askew when Silicon Valley's elite raked in millions in stock options, while the workers who hold the grimiest, least desirable jobs earned so little that they lived in garages. Amy Dean, director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s Silicon Valley office, said, "Unfortunately, the New Economy is looking a lot like an hourglass with a lot of high-paid, high-tech jobs at the high end and an enormous proliferation of low-wage service jobs at the bottom." Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/silicon-janitor.html Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
Re: Pacifica board/Nation Magazine collusion
Louis Proyect wrote: [The current issue of the Nation Magazine has an article by John Dignes that supports the NPR-ization of the radical FM radio network that broadcasts Doug Henwood's excellent radio show as well as some other show that at least to me are less than excellent. But radical they are. The Nation article has touched off an interesting series of posts on their bulletin board, including this one by Bob Feldman] Your article fails to mention the role a major investor in The Nation, Alan Sagner, has played in promoting the NPRization/Corporatization process at Pacifica's 5 radio stations. Nation Investor Sagner has been the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board during the 1990s. And he sat on the CPB board during a period when a magazine in which he invests, The Nation, was able to increase its subscriptions by using Pacifica's radio stations to promote the magazine on the Pacifica-aired Radio Nation program. Thanks for the kind words, Lou, but I've been reading Feldman's stuff for years on the FreePacifica lists, and he's really off base on this. Feldman takes a useful technique - tracing board links and such - and goes into overdrive with it. I'm not unfamiliar with the internal workings of The Nation, and believe me, Sagner has no influence on the magazine's content. There are many stories one could tell about The Nation and Pacifica, but that's not one of them. Doug
Re: Re: Pacifica board/Nation Magazine collusion
Thanks for the kind words, Lou, but I've been reading Feldman's stuff for years on the FreePacifica lists, and he's really off base on this. Feldman takes a useful technique - tracing board links and such - and goes into overdrive with it. I'm not unfamiliar with the internal workings of The Nation, and believe me, Sagner has no influence on the magazine's content. There are many stories one could tell about The Nation and Pacifica, but that's not one of them. Doug Actually, that led to further exchanges: posted by Victor Navasky on Apr 17th 2000 02:21:32 PM Not only that but I'm also on the board of the Author's Guild, The Whistle Blower's Project and have served for any number of years on the boards of PEN, Swarthmore College, The Little Red School House and others.. Do you think there's any chance that Ford and/or MacArthur could be persuaded to help any of these worthy institutions? PS I (like The Nation) was against the Gulf war, but don't tell anybody. posted by Louis Proyect on Apr 18th 2000 10:49:18 AM Yes, Victor, you are on many boards. But that is part of the problem, don't you see? The non-profit board is a curious institution. People with access to funds, particularly from the more guilt-ridden trust-fund offspring of one robber baron or another, like to feel good by doing good. Hence, all the foundations setting agendas for the radical movement. My own organization Tecnica lost all its funding after Chamorro was elected president of Nicaragua. We were told by the Funding Exchange that Nicaragua was no longer "sexy". AIDS fightback was. The whole point of Pacifica is to break with that model and make the stations beholden to the grass roots. If Pacifica becomes a leftish clone of NPR, beholden to the philanthropic moods of people like Stewart Mott or Alan Sagner, we're doomed. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: unemployment and the stock market
Michael Perelman wrote: Of the state of California reported today that unemployment is up because of the recent declines in the dot.com stocks -- prior to the big swoon. Dean Baker, who is gracing our campus with his presence today expressed skepticism. It made some sense to me since both acquisition and growth seemed to be driven by stock market prices. Following this logic, perhaps the stock market has more real effects than it previously did. Do you agree, Doug? The whole dot.com thing is fed by the stock market; no irrational exuberance, and the sector's on the ropes. Venture capitalists, bankers, and bondholders who've been financing the losses have all been doing so on the basis of the stock market - so if their share prices tank, the money-burners won't get fresh cash. Word is that the sex site Nerve.com, which has been hoping for an IPO, is laying off one to two people a week. A blow to literate smut on the web, for sure. Doug
Re: Re: Re: racism, eurocentrism (fwd)
This is closer to what I believe, Charles. But even so. It is likely that a revolution that starts anywhere but the US or Western Europe would quickly be bombed to oblivion. Even in US or Western Europe, it must be a mass democratic upheaval, rather than a small group coup d'etat. Rod Charles Brown wrote: I'd say it more this way, Rod. There is no successful socialism without it eventually being a world revolution. But that doesn't mean that the world revolution starts everywhere at the same time. -- 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: Dollarize This
Widespread dollarization, would have a similar effect as a fixed exchange rate, such as the gold standard or Bretton Woods. Except that the degree of fixity would be much greater. (much less opportunity to cheat). And as such it would have the advantages and disadvantages of a fixed exchange rate. Rod Jim Devine wrote: talking a break... CB: What's important about dollarization ? quoth Max: That's what I was hoping others could tell me. Off the top of my head, it would seem to have dire implications for the independence of other countries and the adequacy of their money supply, from the standpoint of employment and investment. if by "dollarization" you mean the case of Argentina hooking its currency irrevocably to the US$, what it means is that Alan Greenspan will do their monetary policy. If they're in a recession and Saint Alan decides to hike interest rates, cry for me Argentina! They'd also suffer (or benefit) from the US fiscal stance. It's like the long period of slow growth in California that preceded the last few years of boom. California couldn't use monetary (or fiscal) policy to try to catch up with the rest of the US. Of course, Argentina could secede from the dollar more easily than California could. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine -- 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
about The Political Economy of Famine (fwd)
On page 109 of his 1984 book "The Politics of the World-Economy", Wallerstein comments on the 1973 oil-crisis: "The result of course was not only to reallocate distribution of world surplus, but to constrain world production. (It is for this reason that political opposition to OPEC in the core states has only been nominal.) In a number of peripheral areas, the world economic squeeze was felt in the form of acute famines, which cleared some rural zones of producers, forcing many of the survivors into a marginalized existence in urban areas. (This involves also a reduction in world agricultural production, to the benefit of the mechanized agrobusiness of certain core areas.)" Marcio R L Paiva Brasilia, Brasil [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: racism, eurocentrism (fwd)
I can not think of any revolution that was not a mass democratic movement, if the meaning of revolution is not conflated with coup-d'etat, of course! Mine it was written: mass democratic movement rather than a small group coup d'etat. Charles Brown wrote: There is no successful socialism without it eventually being a world revolution. But that doesn't mean that the world revolution starts everywhere at the same time.
Re: Re: RE: Re: Dollarize This
Jim, Correct me if I am wrong, but is dollarization any different from in the EMU with fixed exchange rates for the small countries? Paul Date sent: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 12:57:54 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:18246] Re: RE: Re: Dollarize This Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] talking a break... CB: What's important about dollarization ? quoth Max: That's what I was hoping others could tell me. Off the top of my head, it would seem to have dire implications for the independence of other countries and the adequacy of their money supply, from the standpoint of employment and investment. if by "dollarization" you mean the case of Argentina hooking its currency irrevocably to the US$, what it means is that Alan Greenspan will do their monetary policy. If they're in a recession and Saint Alan decides to hike interest rates, cry for me Argentina! They'd also suffer (or benefit) from the US fiscal stance. It's like the long period of slow growth in California that preceded the last few years of boom. California couldn't use monetary (or fiscal) policy to try to catch up with the rest of the US. Of course, Argentina could secede from the dollar more easily than California could. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: [Fwd: New from the CCPA] boundary=------------6517B68DFB8C70A821D50ABF
Ken, I checked the web site for "Falling Behind" and it wasn't listed. A pity since I had intended to order a copy. Paul Date sent: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 15:08:47 -0500 From: Ken Hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: pen-l [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:18247] [Fwd: New from the CCPA] boundary="6517B68DFB8C70A821D50ABF" Perhaps some on Pen-L might be interested in this Cheers, Ken Hanly
Japan: the China of the 1930's
The thirties saw Japan leaping forward from the advanced positions conquered during the World War, when it had consolidated its grip on Eastern markets. Now it expanded into the next ring of countries--India, the Dutch Indies and the British colonies in East Asia. While Britains share of Indias cotton cloth market fell from 97.1 per cent in 1913-14 to 47.3 per cent in 1935, Japans share rose from 0.3 per cent (1913-14) to 50.9 per cent (1935)--taking over the entire British loss. Many of these countries retaliated with quotas and tariffs in the years 1933-34, whereupon Japan moved into Latin America. Exports to Central America increased from 3 million yen in 1931 to 41 million yen in 1936, and to South America from 10 million yen to Y69 million in the same period. . . Even where Japan did not take over a market, the high price of British exports often stimulated the growth of local production, as in Egypt. Moreover, as a percentage of Japans exports, semi-manufactures (including raw silk) fell from 51.8 per cent of the total in 1914 to 26.4 per cent in 1937; and between 1934 and 1936 the percentage of Japans exports which went to free markets rose from 56 to 65 per cent. This economic threat led Western business into startling revelations about factory conditions in Japan, particularly in Britain, which in 1929 had still been labouring under the hangover of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Books attacking working conditions in Japan began to appear. As well as the League of Nations, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) was mobilized in a particularly hypocritical campaign since Britain and France had expressly prevented ILO stipulations being applied to their sweat-shops in China when the organization was originally founded. What incensed the Western powers more than anything was Japans refusal to kowtow to unilateral imperialist self-righteousness: Japanese delegates would turn up at international conferences and harangue the delegates with the history of the extermination of the American Indians or the development of the Lancashire textile industry, or contemporary colonialism in Hong Kong. It was Japans insistence on denouncing inequality among imperialists which angered the West--not least because it was a line to which there was no ready answer. Ordinary imperialists were no problem; anti-imperialists could be written off as terrorists or demagogues; but a fellow imperialist who both refused to abide by the rules and in practice caused grave economic trouble was more than could be tolerated. (From "A Political History of Japanese Capitalism" by Jon Halliday) Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
A Left Politics for the 21st Century? or, Theory and Praxis Once Again*
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/iwleftpol.htm "A Left Politics for the 21st Century? or, Theory and Praxis Once Again"* by Immanuel Wallerstein Fernand Braudel Center 1999 There is said to be a Yugoslav aphorism that goes like this: "The only absolutely certain thing is the future, since the past is constantly changing."1 The world left is living today with two pasts that have almost totally disappeared, and rather suddenly at that. This is very unsettling. The first past that has disappeared is the trajectory of the French Revolution. The second past that has disappeared is the trajectory of the Russian Revolution. They both disappeared more or less simultaneously and jointly, in the 1980s. Let me carefully explain what I mean by this. The French Revolution is of course a symbol. It symbolizes a theory of history that has been very widely shared for two centuries, and shared far beyond the confines of the world left. Most of the world's liberal center also shared this theory of history, and today even part of the world's right. It could be said to have been the dominant view within the world-system throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its premise was the belief in progress and the essential rationality of humanity. The theory was that history could be seen as a linear upward process. The world was en route to the good society, and the French Revolution constituted and symbolized a major leap forward in this process. There were many variants on this theory. Some persons, especially in the United States, wished to substitute the American for the French Revolution in this story. Others, especially in Great Britain, were in favor of substituting the English Revolution. Some persons wished to eliminate all political revolutions from the story, and make this theory of history the story of the steady commercialization of the world's economic processes, or the steady expansion of its electoral processes, or the fulfillment of a purported historic mission of the State (with a capital S). But whatever the details, all these variants shared the sense of the inevitability and the irreversibility of the historical process. This was a hopeful theory of history since it offered a happy ending. No matter how terrible the present (as for example when the fortunes of Nazi Germany seemed to be riding high, or when racist colonialism seemed at its most oppressive), believers (and most of us were believers) took solace in the knowledge we claimed to have, that "history was on our side." It was an encouraging theory even for those who were privileged in the present, since it offered the expectation that eventually everyone else would share the privileges (without the present beneficiaries losing any) and that therefore the oppressed would cease annoying the oppressors with their complaints. The only problem with this theory of history is that it did not seem to survive the test of empirical experience very well. This is where the Russian Revolution came in. It was a sort of codicil to the French Revolution. Its message was that the theory of history symbolized by the French Revolution was incomplete because it held true only insofar as the proletariat (or the popular masses) were energized under the aegis of a dedicated group of cadres organized as a party or party/state. This codicil we came to call Leninism. Leninism was a theory of history espoused only by the world left, and in fact by only a part of it at most. Still, it would be fatuous to deny that Leninism came to have a hold on a significant portion of the world's populations, especially in the years 1945-1970. The Leninist version of history was, if anything, more resolutely optimistic than the standard French Revolution model. This was because Leninism insisted that there was a simple piece of material evidence one could locate if one wanted to verify that history was evolving as planned. Leninists insisted that wherever a Leninist party was in undisputed power in a state, that state was self-evidently on the road to historical progress, and furthermore could never turn back. The problem is that Leninist parties tended to be in power only in economically less well-off zones of the world, and conditions were not always brilliant in such countries. Still, the belief in Leninism was a powerful antidote to any anxieties caused by the fact that immediate conditions or events within a country governed by a Leninist party were dismaying. I do not need to rehearse for you the degree to which all theories of progress have become suspect in the last two decades, and the Leninist variant in particular. I do not say that there are no believers left, since that would be untrue, but they no longer represent a substantial percentage of the world's populations. This constitutes a geocultural shift of no small proportion and, as I have said, has been particularly unsettling for the world left, which had placed most of its chips (if not all of them) on the
Re: Dollarize This
At 07:33 PM 04/16/2000 -0500, you wrote: Jim, Correct me if I am wrong, but is dollarization any different from in the EMU with fixed exchange rates for the small countries? Paul I'm not really the one to ask (not being a international finance expert), but in the case of the EMU, the decision seemed to have been made by peers (more or less). But Argentina's decision to dollarize seems more a matter of a one-sided surrender of national sovereignty. (Ecuador's aborted plan to abandon their currency altogether in favor of the dollar was even more extreme.) It's sort of like the Austrians welcoming the German Anscluss, which made some sense in terms of Austrian national self--interest at the time. (Sorry about the Nazi analogy, which is quite out of proportion to the case of dollarization, which by comparison is no big deal. I'm very tired. Time for bed...) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
