Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Nader campaign, part 1 (fwd)
Thanks for the clarification, Mine, I'll bear it in mind. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList - Original Message - From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 12:54 AM Subject: [PEN-L:19914] Re: Re: Re: Re: The Nader campaign, part 1 (fwd) > > Mark, > > I would never put blacks, Indians, women and hispanics in the same > equation with bankers. they are the victim, not the oppresssor.. > > Mine > > > >>>discrete and insular minorities << protected by the "C" were/are who > >exactly? Blacks? American Indians? Women? Hispanics? Bankers? > > >Mark Jones > >http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > >The comments about Jefferson and the Constitution are almost too silly to > > >discuss. J was no great fan of the C, which he did not sign precisely > because > > >of its comparative conservatism, And as for the anti-majoritarainsim od > the > > >C, and especially the Bill of Rights, is that such a bad thing? Some > people > > >might think that it is the anti-majoritarianism of the C that is > precisely > > >its glory, in providing a defense against > > >majoritarianian oppression. --jks > > > > Oh yes, the propertied minority needs vigorous protection against the > > masses. Just ask Madison, Federalist #10. > > > > Doug > > > > > >
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Nader campaign, part 1
Justin, you have a way of telling me things I already know while not answering the real point, which is about your strange affection for the glorious 'C' especially the notably undemocratic bits of it. Is it professional amour propre that disposes you thus, or what? Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList - Original Message - From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 4:12 AM Subject: [PEN-L:19920] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Nader campaign, part 1 > In a message dated 6/5/00 6:34:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > << discrete and insular minorities << protected by the "C" were/are who > exactly? Blacks? American Indians? Women? Hispanics? Bankers? >> > > The phrase is from the famous (to Americal lawyers) footnote 4 of the 1939 > S.Ct case US v. Carolene products, explaining that for bankers and other > objects of what is called social and economic legislation, there is no > special constitutional protection, but for discrete and insular minorities, > which in the context meant primarily blacks, but not only them, the courts > had to offer special constitutional protections because their minority status > meant that would be at a disadvantage in the political arena, This is part of > the basis of the notion that the couers have a special role to play in > protecting individual liberties and minority rights. (Not numberical > minorities, but mainly racial ones.) --jks > >
News: CIA directed to spy on foreign students
Published on Monday, June 5, 2000 in the Times of London Congressional Task Force: CIA Should Spy On Every Foreign Student In U.S. by Ben MacIntyre TO TACKLE the threat of international terrorism, the US should monitor every foreign student within its borders, encourage CIA agents to recruit more "unsavoury" informants and impose sanctions on friendly states who fail to act against terrorists, according to a Congressional report published today. The US National Commission on Terrorism, set up by Congress two years ago after the bombing of US embassies in East Africa, gave warning that US anti-terrorism policies were "seriously deficient" and recommended a series of drastic measures that have angered its allies accused of tolerating terrorism. The most radical element in the report is a proposal to begin surveillance of every foreign student on US soil, since "a small minority may exploit their student status to support terrorist activity". To keep track of potential student-terrorists, government officials should be made aware whenever a foreign student changes academic course suspiciously, say, "from English literature to nuclear physics", the commission said. If the proposal is taken up, Laura Spence, the British schoolgirl rejected by Oxford and now heading to Harvard, could find herself monitored. The report, a blueprint for future counter-terrorism policy that is expected to prove influential on Capitol Hill, argues that Greece and Pakistan, close allies of the US, should be listed with Afghanistan as "not fully co-operating on counter-terrorism". That would bar those countries from buying American military equipment. "The threat is changing, and it's becoming more deadly," Paul Bremer III, a former anti-terrorism expert at the State Department and the commission chairman, said. The investigation found the CIA had become unnecessarily cautious and gave warning that "this has inhibited the recruitment of essential, if sometimes unsavoury, terrorist informants". While not giving the agency "carte blanche to hire thugs and murderers", agents were too restricted by human rights guidelines on recruiting informants, Jane Harman, a former member of Congress and a panel member, said. Bill Harlow, a CIA spokesman, said: "CIA headquarters has never turned down a request to use someone - even someone with a record of human rights abuse - if we thought that person could be valuable to our overall counter-terrorist programme." The ten-member commission, made up of senior security and intelligence officials, singled out Pakistan for providing "safe haven, transit, and moral, political and diplomatic support to several groups engaged in terrorism", and Greece, a Nato ally, for being "disturbingly passive in response to terrorist activities". The US has made inadequate preparations for a "catastrophic terrorist threat or attack" involving biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, the panel concluded. President Clinton should officially designate the US military, rather than the FBI or the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as the body prepared to respond to such an attack, the report said. "We need to take better steps to get ahead of the curve on biological terrorism. We need to be ready, and we're not," Mr Bremer said. Pakistani officials insisted Islamabad was providing "extensive co-operation" on anti-terrorism measures, while Greece rejected the report's allegations as "totally unfair". Copyright 2000 Times Newspapers Ltd.
Re: Re: boring IO profs
G'day Doug, >If there are any Dutch speakers here, or connoisseurs of Dutch >culture, could you explain what an Eetcafe is? I assume it's a cafe >you can eat in, but you never know. Yeah, you have to make distinctions between your cafes in Amsterdam. Eet is eat, and some cafes do sell food. If they're clever they'd locate themselves near the 'rookcafes'. They're the ones you smoke in, betwixt many a Turkish coffee to keep the throat moist, and generally leave with a nibble not a million miles from ones reeling thoughts ... And cast those reddened peepers at the Vlek building across the road and to your left, Doug, I spent a couple of years behind that top window in 1960/61. Not that a three-year-old knew of the options that beckoned below ... Tot ziens, Rob.
Re: Greenspan's Waterloo
Jim Devine wrote: > Rather, as part of the price-wage spiral that characterizes inflationary > persistence in the face of low demand, I'd say that it's the _lack of_ > price competition (i.e., price-setting power) that represents capital's > contribution to the dynamic. . . . > Industry-level Phillips curves are flatter (showing less inflationary > response to changes in unemployment) as industries are more monopolized > and unionized. Was this a typo? It seems to say the opposite of what you are otherwise saying. > It's true that profligate management (hiring nephews > and buying too many corporate jets) do contribute to inflation (by lowering > labor productivity growth) but I don't see how this is the whole story. I meant profligate in their industrial relations and workforce management -- as in negotiating exhorbitant wage increases because they can be passed on to customers and hoarding labour as a way of responding to changes in demand. The joker in this deck is the often overlooked (according to Pfeffer) distinction between hourly labour rates and labour costs per unit of output. Pfeffer says managers typically behave as if rates were a proxy for costs because changes in rates are tractable and changes in costs aren't. (BTW, from what I've seen the economics literature -- namely on labour as a quasi-fixed cost -- typically does the same). If employers are in a position to pass on labour "costs" to the consumer, there may well be an incentive to inflate those costs and pocket the differential between the putative increased costs and the actual increased rates. On the other hand, if competition prevents employers from passing their costs to consumers this doesn't mean they automatically become provident managers. Instead of exercising monopoly power in the market for their products, they may simply shift to exercising monopsony power in the labour market and shift the overhead costs of their labour to society. The labour *process* and the labour market are two very distinct entities that, of course, have profound effects on one another. But one cannot extrapolate changes in the labour process from changes in the labour market. Furthermore, because of interaction between process and market, one can only "predict" one kind of change in the market (wage inflation) from another (unemployment) by holding process constant. Tom Walker
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Nader campaign, part 1
In a message dated Tue, 6 Jun 2000 4:42:38 AM Eastern Daylight Time, "M A Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: << Justin, you have a way of telling me things I already know while not answering the real point, which is about your strange affection for the glorious 'C' especially the notably undemocratic bits of it. Is it professional amour propre that disposes you thus, or what? Probbaly it is. I presume by the "notably undemocratic bits of it" you mean judicial review and constitutional protection for individual rights. But I do nota gree that these are undemocratic. I do not identify democracy with majority rule, but with popular rule. And popular rule can be impeded by majoritarian interference with the conditions for democratic decisionmaking, as it was during Jim Crow, where Southern Blacks were prevented from voting by the white majority. That is why enforcement of the 15th and other Reconstruction Amendments against the majority promotes democracy. The most particularly undemocratic feature of the Constitution I dislike most is the Senate, which gives Wyoming and Rhode Island equal influence in the upper house of the legislature to California or New York. That is a feature I would get rid of. I am also not keen on federalism, as it is now called (states rights), but that is because I think it cuts against policies I like rather than, necessarily, because it undemocratic. --jks
URPE reader book party - June 8
For those of you in the New York City area, THIS THURSDAY EVE: NY Union for Radical Political Economics and the Brecth Forum present: A BOOK PARTY!! for Political Economy and Contemporary Capitalism: Radical Perspectives on Eocnomic Theory and Policy An URPE project - all book sale proceeds benefit URPE Thursday, June 8, 7:30pm Brecth Forum 122 West 27th St. 10th floor Manhattan, NYC $6/8/10 sliding scale entrance fee Join book editors Heather Boushey and dawn Suanders for an evening celebrating URPE's long-awaited new reader on political economy. The reader includes 35 essays by URPE members introducing issues and debates in political economy, including issues in methodology, macroeconomics, and microeconomics, and international concerns, along with a section on policy issues. The essays are non-technical, designed for undergraduates and the interested public. The is the perfect book to supplement an economics course and teach students about issues in political economy. Authors will be on hand to discuss their contributions and sign their chapters.
Re: News: CIA directed to spy on foreign students
This, of course, is why the US is called the "land of the free, home of the brave."[*] At 07:20 AM 6/6/00 -0400, you wrote: >Published on Monday, June 5, 2000 in the Times of London >Congressional Task Force: CIA Should Spy On Every Foreign Student In U.S. >by Ben MacIntyre > >TO TACKLE the threat of international terrorism, the US should monitor every >foreign student within its borders, encourage CIA agents to recruit more >"unsavoury" informants and impose sanctions on friendly states who fail to >act against terrorists, according to a Congressional report published today. >The US National Commission on Terrorism, set up by Congress two years ago >after the bombing of US embassies in East Africa, gave warning that US >anti-terrorism policies were "seriously deficient" and recommended a series >of drastic measures that have angered its allies accused of tolerating >terrorism. [*] for the irony-challenged, this is an example of irony. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: URPE reader book party - June 8
when are my plane tickets coming, so I can attend? ;-) At 11:00 AM 6/6/00 -0400, you wrote: >For those of you in the New York City area, THIS THURSDAY EVE: > >NY Union for Radical Political Economics and the Brecth Forum present: >A BOOK PARTY!! >for >Political Economy and Contemporary Capitalism: Radical Perspectives on >Eocnomic Theory and Policy >An URPE project - all book sale proceeds benefit URPE >Thursday, June 8, 7:30pm >Brecth Forum >122 West 27th St. >10th floor >Manhattan, NYC > >$6/8/10 sliding scale entrance fee > >Join book editors Heather Boushey and dawn Suanders for an evening >celebrating URPE's long-awaited new reader on political economy. The reader >includes 35 essays by URPE members introducing issues and debates in >political economy, including issues in methodology, macroeconomics, and >microeconomics, and international concerns, along with a section on policy >issues. The essays are non-technical, designed for undergraduates and the >interested public. The is the perfect book to supplement an economics >course and teach students about issues in political economy. Authors will >be on hand to discuss their contributions and sign their chapters. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: Re: URPE reader book party - June 8
Jim, That would be great if we could fly all book contributors out, but alack alas, those interested in your signature will just have to mail their copy to you with a SASE since you will be absent. Susan > -- > From: Jim Devine[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 11:29 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:19935] Re: URPE reader book party - June 8 > > when are my plane tickets coming, so I can attend? > ;-) > > At 11:00 AM 6/6/00 -0400, you wrote: > >For those of you in the New York City area, THIS THURSDAY EVE: > > > >NY Union for Radical Political Economics and the Brecth Forum present: > >A BOOK PARTY!! > >for > >Political Economy and Contemporary Capitalism: Radical Perspectives on > >Eocnomic Theory and Policy > >An URPE project - all book sale proceeds benefit URPE > >Thursday, June 8, 7:30pm > >Brecth Forum > >122 West 27th St. > >10th floor > >Manhattan, NYC > > > >$6/8/10 sliding scale entrance fee > > > >Join book editors Heather Boushey and dawn Suanders for an evening > >celebrating URPE's long-awaited new reader on political economy. The > reader > >includes 35 essays by URPE members introducing issues and debates in > >political economy, including issues in methodology, macroeconomics, and > >microeconomics, and international concerns, along with a section on > policy > >issues. The essays are non-technical, designed for undergraduates and > the > >interested public. The is the perfect book to supplement an economics > >course and teach students about issues in political economy. Authors > will > >be on hand to discuss their contributions and sign their chapters. > > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine >
Re: Re: Greenspan's Waterloo
I wrote: > > Rather, as part of the price-wage spiral that characterizes inflationary > > persistence in the face of low demand, I'd say that it's the _lack of_ > > price competition (i.e., price-setting power) that represents capital's > > contribution to the dynamic. and > > Industry-level Phillips curves are flatter (showing less inflationary > > response to changes in unemployment) as industries are more monopolized > > and unionized. Tom W. writes: >Was this a typo? It seems to say the opposite of what you are otherwise >saying. no, I don't think so. In the study of inflation, there are three main kinds of inflation, that add up to the actual inflation rate: inflation rate = Phillips curve inflation + supply shocks + hangover inflation. PC inflation refers to the way in which falling unemployment (rising GDP growth) causes inflation; supply shocks are current-events causes of inflation on the supply side, like the effects of oil shocks or exchange-rate changes; hangover inflation refers to the way in which inflation persists based on events in the past, including the wage-price spiral. This last is often wrongly called "inflationary expectations" by neoclassicals because of their excessive emphasis on subjectivity. Expectations of future inflation do play a role, but only as part of an objective process that the NCs don't pay much attention to (unlike the institutionalists). (BTW, RJ Gordon is associated with the above equation, calling it the "triangle model," but the earliest statement of it that I've seen is by Otto Eckstein. It's so commonsensical that probably nobody deserves the credit.) What I was saying was that the individual corporations' monopoly (i.e., pricing) power is a crucial part of inflationary persistence, i.e., the inflationary hangover. That insulates the current inflation rate from the current unemployment rate (though not totally), making the Phillips curve flatter. Unionization has a similar role. For example, with a three-year contract with scheduled nominal raises and a cost-of-living escalator, the rise in nominal wages is totally independent of the current unemployment rate (unless there's a "reopener"). That encourages price inflation, which in turn encourages nominal-wage inflation in other sectors, either through collective bargaining or COL escalators. So an entire sector can have inflationary persistence, i.e., inflation that's independent of the unemployment rate for significant periods of time. (Boy, is this quaint! Looking at this from the perspective of 2000, it sounds like I'm describing a period when dinosaurs roamed the earth. There are few COL escalators outside of the government sector these days.) > > It's true that profligate management (hiring nephews > > and buying too many corporate jets) do contribute to inflation (by lowering > > labor productivity growth) but I don't see how this is the whole story. > >I meant profligate in their industrial relations and workforce management >-- as in negotiating exhorbitant wage increases because they can be passed >on to customers and hoarding labour as a way of responding to changes in >demand. Right. It takes two to tango. The demand side -- corporations being willing to accept "exorbitant" nominal wage increases -- is just as much part of inflationary persistence as is the supply side -- workers being able to push for nominal wage increase to protect their real living standards from price inflation. In the present-day US, the employers are extremely insecure (and can't depend on their ability to raise prices to compensate for wage increases) and so are much less willing to accept "exorbitant" nominal wage increases. On the other side of the dance, the labor movement has lost a lot of its bargaining power (starting slowly in the 1950s and then accelerating with Reagan, Bush, and Clinton). >The joker in this deck is the often overlooked (according to Pfeffer) >distinction between hourly labour rates and labour costs per unit of output. Economists don't ignore this distinction. >Pfeffer says managers typically behave as if rates were a proxy for costs >because changes in rates are tractable and changes in costs aren't. (BTW, >from what I've seen the economics literature -- namely on labour as a >quasi-fixed cost -- typically does the same). That's mostly true, since businesses treat labor productivity as something that always needs to be increased but is not something they have as much control over as they'd like. (I don't see how the quasi-fixed status of labor is relevant here, though.) >If employers are in a position to pass on labour "costs" to the consumer, >there may well be an incentive to inflate those costs and pocket the >differential between the putative increased costs and the actual increased >rates. On the other hand, if competition prevents employers from passing >their costs to consumers this doesn't mean they automatically become >provid
Re: RE: Re: URPE reader book party - June 8
okay. Just send me a check and I'll sign it. Also, sorry to the list: I thought that this was going only to Susan. At 11:43 AM 6/6/00 -0400, you wrote: >Jim, > >That would be great if we could fly all book contributors out, but alack >alas, those interested in your signature will just have to mail their copy >to you with a SASE since you will be absent. > >Susan Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Nader campaign, part 1
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >In a message dated 6/5/00 6:25:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, >[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > ><< Oh yes, the propertied minority needs vigorous protection against the > masses. Just ask Madison, Federalist #10. >> > >I was thinking more of the 14th Amendment, due process, equal protection, >that sort of thing. --jks Not to be scorned, but we shouldn't forget what Madison & Co. had in mind in designing the U.S. government. The Bill of Rights wasn't part of the original document; it took a Civil War to get the 14th Amendment, and feminism to get the 19th. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Nader campaign, part 1
At 12:54 PM 6/6/00 -0400, you wrote: >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >>In a message dated 6/5/00 6:25:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, >>[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> >><< Oh yes, the propertied minority needs vigorous protection against the >> masses. Just ask Madison, Federalist #10. >> >> >>I was thinking more of the 14th Amendment, due process, equal protection, >>that sort of thing. --jks > >Not to be scorned, but we shouldn't forget what Madison & Co. had in mind >in designing the U.S. government. The Bill of Rights wasn't part of the >original document; it took a Civil War to get the 14th Amendment, and >feminism to get the 19th. and even when we got the 14th, wasn't it interpreted to allow the rise of joint-stock corporations at the same time that Jim Crow laws were allowed to take hold? Also, wasn't the ratification of the original Bill of Rights a response to grass-roots rumblings (e.g., Shay's rebellion) rather than leaping full-grown from the crania of the founding fathers? (BTW, why is it so common to refer to the latter as the "founders"? They were all males, weren't they?) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
14th Amendment & Constitution (Re: The Nader campaign, part 1
On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Jim Devine wrote: > and even when we got the 14th, wasn't it interpreted to allow the rise of > joint-stock corporations at the same time that Jim Crow laws were allowed > to take hold? Worse, it was specifically interpreted not to include the right of the federal government to fight discrimination - its original point. That is why the 1964 Civil Rights Act was authorized under the Commerce Clause rather than the 14th Amendment, and why the Violence Against Women Act was struck down as involving non-commerce and thus outside the ken of the federal government - despite the existence of the 14th Amendment protecting everything from due process to privileges and immunities of citizenship. But protection against rape is apparently not a privilege or immunity protected by American society apparently. -- Nathan
Re: 14th Amendment & Constitution (Re: The Nader campaign, part 1
At 01:20 PM 6/6/00 -0400, you wrote: >That is why the 1964 Civil Rights Act was authorized under the Commerce >Clause rather than the 14th Amendment, ... the Commerce Clause refers to the role of the US federal government in regulating interstate commerce (from the original constitution), right? when was it reinterpreted in a relatively progressive way? what were the political forces and struggles behind that reinterpretation? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: boring IO profs
Rob Schaap wrote: >Yeah, you have to make distinctions between your cafes in Amsterdam. Eet is >eat, and some cafes do sell food. If they're clever they'd locate >themselves near the 'rookcafes'. Never saw the word "rookcafe" in my week in A'dam - they were all "coffee shops" or "coffeeshops," always in English. There was a coffeeshop called Rokerij, which I assume means "smokery." There are these appalling vending machine installations, kind of like the old Automats in the U.S., that dispense hideous looking grease torpedos and dried-out room-temperature hamburgers. I think people who've been roking visit them, but I think I'd have to have been starving before I'd drop a couple of guilders at a Febo. Doug
Re: Re: 14th Amendment & Constitution (Re: The Nader campaign, part 1
On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Jim Devine wrote: > At 01:20 PM 6/6/00 -0400, you wrote: > >That is why the 1964 Civil Rights Act was authorized under the Commerce > >Clause rather than the 14th Amendment, ... > > the Commerce Clause refers to the role of the US federal government in > regulating interstate commerce (from the original constitution), right? > when was it reinterpreted in a relatively progressive way? what were the > political forces and struggles behind that reinterpretation? The Depression and the union movement- no coincidence that the Commerce Clause was reinterpreted in 1937 when the labor movement was pitching the country into upheaval. Before then, national regulation of labor relations or any other controls on industry was considered outside federal power - since all manufacturing was seen as local, with only transit operations like railroads seen as under federal regulatory power. The earlier reference to "Insular minorities" in the Carolene Products decision was a followup case that basically said US commerce power extended basically any damn place it wanted, with a small footnote saying that the only restraint was not the extent of federal reach but whether it might violate the rights of such minorities groups without full access to the political process. The recent Supreme Court decisions - Lopez and now the VIolence against Women Act decision - have basically begun repudiating the 1930s expansion of the commerce clause in favor of a politicized judgement by the court of what issues are properly federal and which ones are reserved tot he states. -- Nathan Newman
Senate
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >The most particularly undemocratic feature of the Constitution I >dislike most is the Senate, which gives Wyoming and Rhode Island >equal influence in the upper house of the legislature to California >or New York. That is a feature I would get rid of. Unforutnately you can't, because the sacred Constitution says that the Senate can only be abolished with unanimous consent of the states, which is obviously never going to happen. So, short of a revolution, the U.S. is stuck with this undemocratic body forever. Doug
Re: Re: 14th Amendment & Constitution (Re: The Nader campaign, part
I have seen this before - the connection between the 14th amendment and the rise of joint-stock corporations. Anybody care to explain this for me? Thanks, Ellen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >At 01:20 PM 6/6/00 -0400, you wrote: >>That is why the 1964 Civil Rights Act was authorized under the Commerce >>Clause rather than the 14th Amendment, ... > >the Commerce Clause refers to the role of the US federal government in >regulating interstate commerce (from the original constitution), right? >when was it reinterpreted in a relatively progressive way? what were the >political forces and struggles behind that reinterpretation? > >Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine >
Re: RE: Re: URPE reader book party - June 8 (fwd)
After you pressed the reply button?? Mine >okay. Just send me a check and I'll sign it. Also, sorry to the list: I >thought that this was going only to Susan. >At 11:43 AM 6/6/00 -0400, you wrote: >Jim, > >That would be great if we could fly all book contributors out, but alack >alas, those interested in your signature will just have to mail their copy >to you with a SASE since you will be absent. > >Susan Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Senate
In practice, this means that legislation can be obstructed by the senators in the 25 smallest states, who represent something like 12% of the population. Joel Blau Doug Henwood wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >The most particularly undemocratic feature of the Constitution I > >dislike most is the Senate, which gives Wyoming and Rhode Island > >equal influence in the upper house of the legislature to California > >or New York. That is a feature I would get rid of. > > Unforutnately you can't, because the sacred Constitution says that > the Senate can only be abolished with unanimous consent of the > states, which is obviously never going to happen. So, short of a > revolution, the U.S. is stuck with this undemocratic body forever. > > Doug
RE: Re: Senate
I wouldn't miss the Senate for a minute, but just to be ornery, let me point out (try and stop me) that in practice the 25th small state can always be bought off on a measure of interest to the larger 25, as long as it doesn't go to the fundamental issue of senatorial representation. The small states are sufficiently diverse to admit of radically different sectional interests (i.e., Delaware and Wyoming). Everybody's got their price. mbs In practice, this means that legislation can be obstructed by the senators in the 25 smallest states, who represent something like 12% of the population. Joel Blau Doug Henwood wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >The most particularly undemocratic feature of the Constitution I > >dislike most is the Senate, which gives Wyoming and Rhode Island > >equal influence in the upper house of the legislature to California > >or New York. That is a feature I would get rid of. > > Unforutnately you can't, because the sacred Constitution says that > the Senate can only be abolished with unanimous consent of the > states, which is obviously never going to happen. So, short of a > revolution, the U.S. is stuck with this undemocratic body forever. > > Doug
Re: Re: Senate
Joel Blau wrote: > So, short of a > > revolution, the U.S. is stuck with this undemocratic body forever. It is as easy to underestimate as to overestimate what can be done "short of a revolution." In practice the Senate has never stood in the way of any cause that generated enough popular struggle actually to frighten the ruling class. Popular struggle could (hypothetically) create situations in which the need for ruling class flexibility generated the necessary pressures inside the "system" to convince 100 Senators to decommission themselves. One could compare it to the status of the Monarchy in the U.K. But it is certainly an effective block to movements that stop short of creating real fright in a sizeable proportion of the ruling class. Carrol
Moses and Monetarism
To claim that inflation is driven (mainly or generally or typically) by wage pressure is to forget that capital confronts living labour as dead labour. In that relationship, neither the chicken nor the egg necessarily comes first. The relative contributions of labour and capital to an wage-price spiral is empirically unknowable. The only way we could PRETEND to have any empirical confirmation one way or the other would be by assuming that outcomes express "revealed performances" on the analogy of measuring utility by revealed preferences. That's a tautology whose only use-value is ideological. The NAIRU story and the Phillips curve story make sense if one assumes that capital's brief is efficiency and labour's is waste. Or, to put less perjoratively, that capital always seeks to maximize the productivity of labour whereas labour just cares about its level of consumption. Thus efficiency is intrinsic to capital and extrinsic to labour. That story sounds plausible only if we also bracket out class rule and assume the neutrality of the state. Why would we want to do that when we're talking about the intentions of the central bank in raising interest rates? Central bank intervention invariably on behalf of one side in an exchange calls off all bets about efficiency. One the one hand, if we assume that market exchange maximizes efficiency, the one-sided intervention could only detract from efficieny. On the other hand, if we assume that the central bank's one-sided interventions increase efficiency, we would have to conclude that without such intervention labour markets would be inherently inefficient. Imagine Alan Greenspan as a kind of capitalist Moses parting the waters, 25 basis points at a time, to enable the chosen people to flee from the Asian crisis to the promised land of the new economy. Then when Pharoah's pursuing reserve army of the unemployed are half-way across the Red Sea, he waves his staff -- again, 25 basis points at a time -- and the army is engulfed. To then say that the preceding sequence of events occured because wetness is an intrinsic attribute of Pharoah's army is to add insult to injury. Tom Walker
Re: Re: The Nader campaign, part 1
> Even aside from the examples of Debs & Gompers jailed for > 'anti-trust' violation, don't anti-monopoly efforts tend to have > anti-union effects? Higher wages for union members, to a certain > extent, must come from higher profits of oligopoly or monopoly. More > competition, lower wages, no? The example of truckers & trucking > companies before & after deregulation may be instructive. > Yoshie True that unionization has historically fared better in monopoly sector than competitive sector but my point was more specific historical one regarding use of Sherman. Severe consequences of injunction, fines, criminal contempt citations, imprisonment forced even Gompers to move away from belief (in no radcial sense, however) that organized labor avoid political involvement. Gompers and John Mitchell (United Mine Workers) sat on board of National Civic Federation (NCF), organization founded by corporate capital vanguard in 1901. NCF supported government regulation of industry and recognition of unions (considered AFL 'friend' in ranks of 'big capital,' it pushed for removal of unions from Sherman jurisdiction). During same period, progressive Herbert Croly argued for legalizing, recognizing and regulating both trusts and unions. According to HC, concentration and combination were not problem, Jeffersonian illusions in industrial era were. Following partial state incorporation during Woodrow Wilson's first term, AFL faced renewed anti-labor business tactics (also brief radical labor challenge) after WW1. In approving Mussolini's repudiation of labor competition (and defending fascist coup as necessary to stop Bolshevism), Gompers gave union expression to US corporatism. Great Depression witnessed return of NCF-type attitude among elements of monopoly capital (GM's Alfred Sloan asserted that industrial unionism would stave off communism) and passage of Wagner Act intended to stabilize politics of production, assist in general economic recovery based on mass consumption, and tie organized labor to rule of administrative law. And while acceptance of industrial relations compact - improved production & enforced production standards in exchange for secure, stable employment - was more likely found in monopoly capital, some segments of competitive sector - such as 'little steel' - eventually signed on as well. As for trucking, I recall deregulation not as 'anti-monoply' effort (hasn't industry generally been a competitive one?) but as one based on conservative argument that costs of government 'interference' outweigh benefits. Of course, 'greater freedom in rate making' by individual truckers produced results to which you point. Michael Hoover
Re: 14th Amendment & Constitution (Re: The Nader campaign, part
Here are some of my notes on the subject. The people on the econ. history list tell me that all of this is too dated to be take seriously. Hacker, Louis, M. 1940. The Triumph of American Capitalism: The Development of Forces in American History to the End of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Simon and Schuster). 387: 14th Amendment, drawn up by congressional Joint Committee of Fifteen, of which Radicals dominated. Unlike other amendments contained more than 1 proposition. Section 1 was much like old Civil Rights Law, but it contained a clause "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Roscoe Conkling, a member of Joint Committee, said that law was intended to protect property rights against state legislatures, thus purposely written "due process" and "equal protection". see Graham, H. J. "The 'Conspiracy Theory' of the Fourteenth Amendment." Yale Law Journal, vol. xlvii (1938), p. 171-94. [Justice Stephen Field asserts 14th Amendment to oppose Munn vs. Ill. 1877, state regulations grain elevators. Munn said that government took property; thus vs. 14th amendment. Illinois Constitution of 1870 declared that all elevators were public; thus state can controlled them. 1871 law fixed price. Munn was the manager of the Northwest Elevator. Munn refused to pay fee, get license, and charge set prices. Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional. Yet Supreme Court supported Illinois. No other country has constitutional provisions that protect rights of business.] ## Moore, Barrington. 1966. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press) 149: "the Fourteenth Amendment has done precious little to protect Negroes and a tremendous amount to protect corporations." ## Scheiber, Harry N. 1988. "Original Intent, History, and Doctrine: The Constitution and Economic Liberty." American Economic Review 78: 2 (May): pp. 140-4. The Property Minded Supreme Court in the era culminating in Lochner v. New York applied the 14th Amendment in ways that denied equality to blacks while developing a highly privatistic version of property rights. McCurdy, Charles. 1975. "Justice Field and the Jurisprudence of Government-Business Relations: Some Parameters of Laissez Faire Constitutionalism, 1863-1897." Journal of American History, 61 (March): pp. 970-1005. ## Beard, Charles and Mary. 1933. The Rise of American Civilization. 2 vols. in one (New York: Macmillan). 112: He describes "a shrewd member of the House of Representatives, John A. Bingham, a prominent Republican and a successful railroad lawyer from Ohio familiar with the possibilities of jurisprudence; it was he who wrote the mysterious sentence containing the "due process" clause in the form in which it now stands; it was he who finally forced it upon the committee by persistent efforts." 112-3: "In a speech delivered in Congress a few years later, Bingham explained his purpose in writing it. He had read he said, in the case of Barron versus the Mayor and Council of Baltimore, how the city had taken private property for public use, as alleged without compensation, and how Chief Justice Marshall had been compelled to hold there was no redress in the Supreme Court of the United States -- no redress simply because the first ten amendments to the Constitution were limitations on Congress, not on the states. Deeming this hiatus a grave legal defect in the work of the Fathers, Bingham designed "word for word and syllable for syllable" the cabalistic clause of the Fourteenth Ammendment in order, he asserted, that "the poorest man in his hovel ... may be as secure in his person and property as the prince in his palace or the king upon his throne." Hence the provision was to apply not merely to former slaves struggling for civil rights but to all persons, rich and poor, individuals and corporations, under the national flag." 113: "Long afterward Roscoe Conkling, the eminent corporation lawyer of New 113: "Long afterward Roscoe Conkling, the eminent corporation lawyer of New York, a colleague of Bingham on the congressional committee, confirmed this view. While arguing a tax case for a railway company before the Supreme Court in 1882, he declared that the protection of freedmen was by no means the sole purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment. "At the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified," he said, "individuals and joint stock companies were appealing for congressional and administrative protection against invidious and discriminating state and local taxes That complaints of oppression in respect of property and other rights made by citizens of northern states who took up residence in the South were rife in and out of Congress, none of us can forget Those who devised the fourteenth Ammendment wrought in grave sincerity They planted in the Constitution
Re: Re: Re: Senate
Carrol: This is a misattributed quote. If you check back through the thread, I think you find it is Doug's. We are stuck with the Senate as a legislative body. Alhough it is clearly responsive to social movements, it has its own institutional interests and may not be as infinitively malleable as you make it out to be. If only we had a powerful enough social movement to put your hypothesis to a proper test... Joel Blau Carrol Cox wrote: > Joel Blau wrote: > > > So, short of a > > > revolution, the U.S. is stuck with this undemocratic body forever. > > It is as easy to underestimate as to overestimate what can be done > "short of a revolution." In practice the Senate has never stood in the > way of any cause that generated enough popular struggle actually > to frighten the ruling class. Popular struggle could (hypothetically) > create situations in which the need for ruling class flexibility generated > the necessary pressures inside the "system" to convince 100 Senators > to decommission themselves. One could compare it to the status of > the Monarchy in the U.K. > > But it is certainly an effective block to movements that stop short > of creating real fright in a sizeable proportion of the ruling class. > > Carrol
Re: 14th amendment
Ellen Frank asked, > I have seen this before - the connection between the 14th amendment and > the rise of joint-stock corporations. Anybody care to explain this for > me? In 1886, in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the US Supreme Court ruled that a private corporation was a "natural person" under the US Constitution and thus was afforded protection by the 14th Amendment. A search on that case will turn up lots of info. Tom Walker
The C
So what's y'alls point? The original Constitution enshrined slavery and was in part designed to protect property owners. It was a bourgeois document in an era of bourgeois revolution. After the more or less completion of the bourgeois revolution in the civil war, a laissez faire Court interpreted the Constitution in a way favorable to corporations (the Lochner era equal protection jurisprudence) and turned a blind eye to Jim Crow. So it didn't have an immaculate conception. That doesn't mean it isn't, or can't be made, a good government framework. By analogy, the writings of Marx, and (someone whom some here admire) Lenin were interpreted to justify horrific repression and savage cruelty on an unimaginable scale; Lenin himself expressly advocated one party rule, repression of dssent, and force without the constraints if law against class enemies. Setting aside those who might thing that those are good and justified and addressing myself just to those wo have qualms about those purposes and such a history, I ask you, do those ourposes and history mean you want to deep six Marx and Lenin? (In my case, I say yes, for Lenin, but that's another story.) --jks >> >>I was thinking more of the 14th Amendment, due process, equal protection, >>that sort of thing. --jks > >Not to be scorned, but we shouldn't forget what Madison & Co. had in mind >in designing the U.S. government. The Bill of Rights wasn't part of the >original document; it took a Civil War to get the 14th Amendment, and >feminism to get the 19th. and even when we got the 14th, wasn't it interpreted to allow the rise of joint-stock corporations at the same time that Jim Crow laws were allowed to take hold? Also, wasn't the ratification of the original Bill of Rights a response to grass-roots rumblings (e.g., Shay's rebellion) rather than leaping full-grown from the crania of the founding fathers? (BTW, why is it so common to refer to the latter as the "founders"? They were all males, weren't they?) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine >>
Re: Re: 14th Amendment & Constitution (Re: The Nader campaign, part 1
>the Commerce Clause refers to the role of the US federal government in regulating interstate commerce (from the original constitution), right? when was it reinterpreted in a relatively progressive way? what were the political forces and struggles behind that reinterpretation? This was the struggle around the New Deal. To deal with depression, the government needed to do things like OK labor unions and generally regulate the economy. The old commcer clause and equal protection jurisprudence didn't allow this. The standard, not wholly accurate, story is that after the Court zapped the National Recovery Administration, Roosevelt threatened to "pack the court" by getting more Justices on it. That was shot down, but in response to popular outrage a key swing justice, Owen Roberts "switched" and started voting to uphold New Deal Programs in cases like West Coast Hotel, Carolene Products, and Jones & Laughlin Steel. --jks
Re: Re: Re: 14th Amendment & Constitution (Re: The Nader campaign, part
It's two things, really. In the late 19th century the Supreme Court said that corporations were persons for the purposes of the 14th amendment (they still are). That means they are entitled to equal protection and due process. Then, in the 1890s, a laissez-faire Court started to interpret the due process clause to bar government regulation of business, striking down wage and hour laws and the like. This was done in the name of "substantive" as opposed to "procedural" due process. This was reversed by the New Deal Court I mentione din my last post on the subject. Nowadays, economic legislation will be sustained against a due process or equal protection challenge if there might be a rational basis for it--if it isn't insane. "Substantive" due process is limited to a short list of individual (as opposedto corporate) rights, including abortion, access to contraceptives, and the right to raise your children and speak your own language. The list is not likely to grow in the foreseea! ! ble future. --jks In a message dated Tue, 6 Jun 2000 2:08:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ellen Frank) writes: << I have seen this before - the connection between the 14th amendment and the rise of joint-stock corporations. Anybody care to explain this for me? Thanks, Ellen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >At 01:20 PM 6/6/00 -0400, you wrote: >>That is why the 1964 Civil Rights Act was authorized under the Commerce >>Clause rather than the 14th Amendment, ... > >the Commerce Clause refers to the role of the US federal government in >regulating interstate commerce (from the original constitution), right? >when was it reinterpreted in a relatively progressive way? what were the >political forces and struggles behind that reinterpretation? > >Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine > >>
Re: Re: Senate
The 2 member per state Senate is about the worst feature of the Constitution in my book. It mattered less back at the time of the ratification, when it was a deal for the smaller colonies (RI, DE, VT, ME) to sign on, because the population differentials were smaller and the federal government was weaker. Now it gives veto power over federal legislation to a minority of the most conservative states. And it is textually nonamendable. However, textually schmextually. The 14th amendment was illegally ratified, and no one questions its constitutionality. If there was the political will to do something about it, we'd find a way. Hell, the New deal Court tore up the Contracts Clause, creating a "national emergency" exception. Getting rid of the Senate would take a lot, but it would not necessarily require social revolution, just the recognition that the structure of the Senate posed an intolerable obstacle to legislation and reforms we needed, and a political movement that backed th! ! ose reforms with some oomph. --jks In a message dated Tue, 6 Jun 2000 2:25:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Joel Blau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: << In practice, this means that legislation can be obstructed by the senators in the 25 smallest states, who represent something like 12% of the population. Joel Blau Doug Henwood wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >The most particularly undemocratic feature of the Constitution I > >dislike most is the Senate, which gives Wyoming and Rhode Island > >equal influence in the upper house of the legislature to California > >or New York. That is a feature I would get rid of. > > Unforutnately you can't, because the sacred Constitution says that > the Senate can only be abolished with unanimous consent of the > states, which is obviously never going to happen. So, short of a > revolution, the U.S. is stuck with this undemocratic body forever. > > Doug >>
Re: Re: Re: Re: Senate
Joel Blau wrote: > Carrol: > > This is a misattributed quote. If you check back through the thread, I think > you find it is Doug's. You are correct. I even thought I *had* attributed it to Doug. It seems actually however that the list is nearer to unanimous agreement re the Senate than almost any topic we've ever touched on. Carrol
Re: The C
>So what's y'alls point? The original Constitution enshrined slavery and was in part designed to protect property owners. It was a bourgeois document in an era of bourgeois revolution. After the more or less completion of the bourgeois revolution in the civil war, a laissez faire Court interpreted the Constitution in a way favorable to corporations (the Lochner era equal protection jurisprudence) and turned a blind eye to Jim Crow. So it didn't have an immaculate conception. That doesn't mean it isn't, or can't be made, a good government framework. > >By analogy, the writings of Marx, and (someone whom some here admire) Lenin were interpreted to justify horrific repression and savage cruelty on an unimaginable scale; Lenin himself expressly advocated one party rule, repression of dssent, and force without the constraints if law against class enemies. Setting aside those who might thing that those are good and justified and addressing myself just to those wo have qualms about those purposes and such a history, I ask you, do those ourposes and history mean you want to deep six Marx and Lenin? (In my case, I say yes, for Lenin, but that's another story.) > >--jks Most times I am happy to let Justin's posts go by, but this has to be challenged. The American Constitution and the writings of the founding fathers in general articulates some basic anti-democratic principles. The men who ran this country on the basis of these writings were faithful to the spirit of the writings. Hence, the treatment of black people, women, labor, etc. In contrast the writings of Marx and Lenin were an attack on privilege of any sort. So when rascals such as Romania's Ceaucescu, etc., used these writings in order to excuse their privileges, they were being cynical. In contrast, there is little doubt that when, for example, the administration of Franklin Roosevelt passed legislation that further eroded Indian land rights, he was not being cynical. He was being true to the vision of people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Get it? Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
RE: Re: Re: 14th Amendment & Constitution (Re: The Nader campaign, part
> > I have seen this before - the connection between the 14th amendment and > the rise of joint-stock corporations. Anybody care to explain > this for me? > Thanks, Ellen > > "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." [The Supremes, Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad] There's a great chapter on the emergence of corporation doctrine in Morton Horwitz' "The Tranformation of American Law", from which the above quotation comes. Ian
Re: The C
>The original Constitution enshrined slavery and was in part designed to >protect property owners. It was a bourgeois document in an era of >bourgeois revolution. After the more or less completion of the bourgeois >revolution in the civil war, a laissez faire Court interpreted the >Constitution in a way favorable to corporations (the Lochner era equal >protection jurisprudence) and turned a blind eye to Jim Crow. So it didn't >have an immaculate conception. That doesn't mean it isn't, or can't be >made, a good government framework. this says that the Constitution itself, including the amendments, are not as important as their interpretation. The latter in turn depends on the societal pressure on the capitalist class and its state (as Carroll points out). So why study law? (Yeah, I know: it pays the bills.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: Re: Re: Senate
Much of this thread becomes ado about nothing if it is the case that rarely does a block of the small states frustrate majority popular will. This is not the same as recognizing that the Senate is a conservative institution for other reasons. There have been many close votes in the Senate, but I wonder in how many the line-up was characterized by small-state vs. big-state blocs. mbs The 2 member per state Senate is about the worst feature of the Constitution in my book. . . .
Re: Moses and Monetarism
In a passage which seems to summarize his message, Tom Walker wrote: >The NAIRU story and the Phillips curve story make sense if one assumes >that capital's brief is efficiency and labour's is waste. Tom, that sure seems like you're mixing normative concepts (efficiency) and positive concepts (NAIRU, Phillips curve) in a strange way. Are you saying that if we reject the normative view that "capital's brief is efficiency and labour's is waste," we should reject both the Phillips Curve and the NAIRU, _even if_ they fit the empirical data? (Mind you, I am quite conscious that the empirical data reflect the power of capital and institutional framework of the country being studied. But we live under that power and that framework.) Are you saying that one should reject a positive theory based on the fact that you don't like its moral implications? But the positive/normative mix could be very different: it seems to me that the NAIRU theory could easily be interpreted as an argument for overthrowing capital. "Capitalism requires a reserve army THAT BIG to keep it from punishing us with accelerating inflation??" I am no positivist, but I think that _trying_ to separate positive and normative concerns is a useful step in many cases (as is being aware of the way in which one's moral commitments shapes the questions one asks, the data one looks at, the research methods one uses, etc.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, JUNE 2, 2000 __Much weaker private payroll employment growth than was expected in May, coupled with other recent reports, suggest that the U.S. economy has shifted into a period of more moderate expansion. But most analysts said that the latest job figures are ambiguous as to the extent of a slowdown. Employers outside of agriculture added a total of 231,000 jobs in May, a figure that includes a huge gain of 357,000 temporary workers hired by the Census Bureau for the population count, according to BLS. Excluding the Census workers, private industry businesses reduced their workforces by about 116,000 in May, a drop that followed even larger gains than first were estimated in March and April. It was the first drop in private-sector employment since January 1996, when unusually bad weather held down the total. Manufacturers trimmed their payrolls last month, as did construction firms and others in a broad spectrum of service industries. "Job losses occurred throughout much of the private sector in May," BLS Commissioner Katharine Abraham said at a briefing. ... Hourly earnings continued to show moderation in May, as average weekly pay rose 3.5 percent from a year earlier. ... (Pam Ginsbach in Daily Labor Report, page D-1; statement, page E-1; briefing materials, page E-3). __Add the job market to the growing body of evidence suggesting the economy finally may be cooling. Just a month after hitting a 30-year low, the nation's unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.1 percent in May, surprising many analysts expecting the rate to remain unchanged. Excluding a burst of hiring relating to the 2000 census, BLS said, the number of private-sector jobs fell by 116,000 after gaining 296,000 jobs in April. It was the first such decline in more than four years. ... Average hourly earnings, meanwhile, edged up just 0.1 percent, suggesting that many companies were able to keep wage growth -- a key inflation driver -- largely under wraps. ... (Yochi J. Dreazen in Wall Street Journal, page A2). __The Labor Department surprised the experts by reporting that the nation's extremely tight labor markets loosened a bit last month, setting off rallies on Wall Street with investors cheered by signs that runaway U.S. economic growth is finally slowing. The unemployment rate rose to 4.1 percent in May from 3.9 percent in April, which had been the lowest in 30 years. The number of people with jobs fell by nearly 1 million, the largest monthly decline in history. ... (John M. Berry and Sandra Sugawara in Washington Post, June 3, page A1). __In the strongest signal yet that the booming economy is finally slowing, the Labor Department reported that the nation's private sector employers shed 116,000 jobs in May. It was the largest drop in more than eight years and the first decline since the economy began to soar in the mid-1990's. The unemployment rate edged up to 4.1 percent from 3.9 percent, with blacks and Hispanics absorbing most of the loss. Wage increases, which had accelerated in the early spring, eased in May, reducing concerns about inflation. Jobs disappeared in almost every sector of the economy, except government, where the hiring of 357,000 census takers for the once-a-decade population count offset the decline in business jobs. The report came on the heels of a half-dozen other indications this week that a still very strong economy is beginning to cool off, responding to the Federal Reserve's six interest rate increases over the last year. Car sales and home sales have dipped recently, partly because of higher car loan and mortgage rates. Construction spending is off, and manufacturing production appears to have weakened in May. ... (Louis Uchitelle in New York Times, June 3, page A1). In a bid to bring the nation's economy in for a soft landing, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan at least has the landing gear down. Friday's employment report capped a week of statistics that paint a picture of an economy that's slowing, but not precipitously. Although the evidence is still tentative, it looks like exactly what Dr. Greenspan ordered: slower growth, to head off inflation. The six interest-rate increases engineered by the Fed since last June are beginning, albeit belatedly, to cool off interest-sensitive sectors such as housing and construction. And that, in turn, appears to be inspiring a more general slowdown in economic activity. ... (Wall Street Journal, page A1). The 1.2 million college graduates in the nation's class of 2000 are entering an unusually strong job market that is a result of a flourishing economy and, especially, the boom in high technology. Engineering students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other universities in the East have been flown to Silicon Valley and Seattle for audiences with billionaire executives, while investment banks have flown Stanford University students to New York for high-priced dinners accompanied by job
BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2000 RELEASED TODAY: The revised seasonally adjusted annual rates of productivity change in the first quarter were: 1.8 percent in the business sector and 2.4 percent in the nonfarm business sector. In both sectors, the first-quarter productivity gains were the same as those reported initially on May 4. In manufacturing, the revised productivity changes in the first quarter were: 7.3 percent in manufacturing, 11.3 percent in durable goods manufacturing, and 1.9 percent in nondurable goods manufacturing. ... The Producer Price Index for May, to be released by BLS on Friday, is forecast to increase 0.3 percent, the same as in April. The core PPI is forecast to increase 0.1 percent, also the same as the previous month (Wall Street Journal, June 5, page A2). The growth rate in the economy's nonmanufacturing sector slowed in May, with some respondents to a National Association of Purchasing Management survey saying they are trying to reduce inventories in anticipation of a slowdown in sales. ... New orders, backlogs of new orders, employment, and prices increased at a slower rate than in the previous month. Conversely, new export orders increased at a faster clip. ... Although the rate of price increases moderated, respondents continued to voice concern over the cost of purchased materials and services. ... (Daily Labor Report, page A-1). Business investment in information technology is likely to propel the current U.S. economic expansion well into the future, the Commerce Department says. "In the era of the Internet and other information technologies, the American economy may be able to achieve rates of economic growth that are higher and more sustained than in the past, with stronger income gains and lower inflation and unemployment than we have seen for a generation," Undersecretary of Commerce Robert Shapiro told reporters. In its third annual Digital Economy Report, the Commerce Department said investment in information technology is responsible for more than half of productivity growth since 1995 and has pulled down annual inflation rates by 0.5 percentage points per year during that period. Although this industry accounted for only 8 percent of the overall U.S. economy in 1999, it was responsible for 32 percent of growth, it said. Rising productivity and low inflation are two of the most important reasons the U.S. economy has continued growing for the past 9 years and that should continue, Shapiro said. ... Shapiro dismissed concerns that rising interest rates and the rise in unemployment evident in the May jobs report might signal a more serious slowing in economic growth. The most recent jobless figures are suspect because of difficulty in seasonal adjustment during May, a month when teenagers and college students traditionally enter the workforce, Shapiro said. On an unadjusted basis, the U.S. work force grew substantially, he said (Washington Post, page E2). The costs of running employee pension and retirement plans fell last year for many of the nation's largest companies, as the strong stock market continued to swell pension-plan assets. ... For some companies, the equation was aided by employee layoffs that reduced total pension exposure, as well as cuts in benefits to tens of thousands of workers who remain on payrolls. ... (Wall Street Journal, page A2). Although just 16 percent of workers say their employers offer telecommuting, four in 10 say they can do their job away from the office with phone, fax, and Internet access, according to a graph in USA Today (page 1B). Source of the data is Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, Rutgers University. DUE OUT TOMORROW: Employment Situation of Vietnam-Era Veterans application/ms-tnef
boring IO profs
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The proof of the coffee is in the drinking. The proof of the cigar and related stuff is in the smoking. The anti-proof of facts is in empiriocriticism. (oops) The proof of theory is in relating it to its underlying social process. The proof of Amsterdam is in visiting this nice town... ... and doing a side-trip to Duesseldorf for a pint of Altbier. See you, Hinrich. Rob wrote: >G'day Doug, > >>If there are any Dutch speakers here, or connoisseurs of Dutch >>culture, could you explain what an Eetcafe is? I assume it's a cafe >>you can eat in, but you never know. > >Yeah, you have to make distinctions between your cafes in Amsterdam. Eet is >eat, and some cafes do sell food. If they're clever they'd locate >themselves near the 'rookcafes'. They're the ones you smoke in, betwixt >many a Turkish coffee to keep the throat moist, and generally leave with a >nibble not a million miles from ones reeling thoughts ... > >And cast those reddened peepers at the Vlek building across the road and to >your left, Doug, I spent a couple of years behind that top window in >1960/61. Not that a three-year-old knew of the options that beckoned below >... > >Tot ziens, >Rob.
Beyond Eurocentrism
H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (June, 2000) Peter Gran. _Beyond Eurocentrism. A New View of Modern World History_. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1996. xii + 440 pp. Bibliographical References and Index. $19.95 (paper), ISBN 0-8156-2693-2; $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8156-2692-4. Reviewed for H-World by Boris Kagarlitsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Center for Comparative Politics at the Russian Academy of Sciences Peter Gran's book, as evidenced by its title, promises to lead us beyond Eurocentric paradigms. Gran sees Western authors consciously or unconsciously universalizing their own experience to others. Contrary to authors insisting on a non-European approach, though, Gran insists there is no unified "Western" approach anyway. He finds the whole notion of Western vs. non-Western vague. Instead, he compares regions whose social and economic development is similar. Thus, Russia is compared with Iraq, Italy with India and Mexico, and Albania with the former Belgian Congo. Finally, he lays waste to the idea that democratic regimes are based on harmony and consensus with his comparison of England and the US. Indeed, his rejection of hypergeneralizing models appears attractive. In fact, this is exactly the approach Soviet historians followed in their rejection of official dogma on history at the cusp of the USSR's collapse. Yet, comparisons often hobble, and a book built on comparisons hobbles on two square wheels instead of one. I found Gran's first chapter on Russia puzzling. I suspect this is because he relies only on the scholarship of US "Sovietologists." He carries on polemics with these authors, but again, the range of debate is narrow, like the sources. Some nations are "luckier" than others, as Gran shows great expertise with Iraq in plumbing the depths of Arabic scholarship. Yet, again, other regions, such as Italy, contain no national scholarship of the state under study. Limited use is made of Spanish language texts on Mexico. India fares well with heavier reliance on the work of Indian historians and sociologists. Granted, Albanian is a bit obscure, but much work on Albania has been done by Italian and Russian scholars, and Gran would have benefited from reading it. To be fair, few of us can be expected to master this range of languages. Yet, the relevant question is whether it is possible to formulate reasonable comparative theories about Russia, Albania, or Italian history without knowing their literature? This strikes me as being quite Western, and to be more candid, even hinting at the very American self-assurance that Gran himself condemns. A good rule to follow is the less one's knowledge of original sources, the more careful the historian should be in their judgments. Peter Gran does not heed this caution and it leads to problems. For example, he informs us that foreigners saw Russia as a paradoxical, half-European, half-Asian, etc. (p. 8). Yet, this is false. In fact, the idea that Russia was mysterious and difficult to understand came from Russia itself and not Europe. Eighteenth century French educators in Russia reported nothing odd about it. But, by the same token, it was Russians themselves who stated that Russian institutions, such as serfdom, were problematic. Russian philosophers as early as the time of prince Kurbski in the 16th century commented on this problem. Westernizers in Russia condemned this peculiar institution. Slavophiles, by contrast, held it to be a source of Russian strength. And, this is another problem with this chapter on Russia in a book discussing Eurocentrism, why ignore this central theme to understanding Russian history, the ongoing conflict between Westernizes and Slavophiles? Also, he has a weak understanding of Russian philosophers. One philosopher he does focus on, in detail, is M. Pkrovski. Yet, he mischaracterizes him as part of the liberal tradition of world history, instead of understanding that instead he was Russia's early world-systems theorist. I also found problematic his focus on Roy Medvedev's _Let History Be The Judge_ to highlight historian dissidents in Russia. Medvedev is not a world historian, and his book is merely a collection of accounts about the Stalinist terror. Yet, it is readily available in English. Better works putting this topic in world historical context, such as Mihail Gefter's, are ignored. Again, rather than thorough knowledge of his subject, I sense that simple availability of sources seems to have guided his research, and thus conclusions, on Russia. Use of terms also presents problems. For example, Gran uses caste in relation to Russia. In one sense, the term is used metaphorically in the Russian context, but then again more directly in reference to India. Certainly, the meaning of any term can be widened beyond its strict definition, but here we risk having words lose all meaning in their overly broad application. For example, to refer to the Soviet nomenklatu
Beyond populism
BEYOND POPULISM By Joel Kovel Today, one of the most influential models on the left is that of Populism. As the word suggests, Populism stems from the "people," which is to say, the common citizenry, without respect to structural dividing lines like class, gender and ethnicity, who come together to address a mutually perceived social evil, most commonly, concentrated economic power. The term has a rich history in the US, where populist movements became quite substantial toward the close of the 19th century and have continued to play a role in politics right up through the present. Although these forces were originally concentrated in rural areas, populist movements today encompass very diverse sections of the population. It is this element of diversity and spontaneity, along with the hostility to established power, the search for justice, and the sense of rootedness in American democratic tradition, that leads many greens to consider themselves populists. There is no question that much good has come out of populism (for example, it played an important role in the passage of anti-trust legislation early in the last century), and that many good people have been, and continue to be, attracted to its banner. However, there are also a number of compelling reasons why populism is not in itself an adequate basis for a coherent and comprehensive green strategy. Populism builds on resentment and anger against abusive power. That is its primary motivating force and a considerable source of its appeal. The populist has, in effect, a free ticket of entry into the political arena, where he can count on powerful emotions to bring his points forward. That can be all to the good--but it can also have some noxious side effects. We can sort these into two kinds: First, the politics of resentment can easily turn into the politics of exclusion, scapegoating and demagoguery. That is why, along with the many virtuous people who have marched under the populist banner, have come more than a fair share of dubious characters who, exploiting a charisma that is itself utterly foreign to green values, combine populist virtues with various malignant tendencies. Some of these, like Louisiana's Huey Long, enacted benefits for the poor, but at an unacceptable cost of demagoguery and corruption. Others, like Father Coughlin, had some profound insights into the evils of finance capital, but ended up an anti-semite and ardent fascist. Others still, like George Wallace, were vicious racists who had a change of heart, but surely not one of character sufficient to make him a model for green politics. Today, the most successful populists in America are Jesse Ventura and Pat Buchanan: the mix of resentments and good insights will vary, but again, their utter unsuitability as models for green politics should require no further comment. In Europe, meanwhile, Joerg Haider has slithered into the Austrian government. People call attention, correctly, to his fascist past and potentials, but do not sufficiently draw the implication that Haider (like Hitler) is also a genuinely populist politician, combining charisma and the ability to mobilize mass hostility to a corrupt regime. Many will now say, well, those are the bad populists; we, the greens, can get behind a good populism based upon firm democratic values. Now there are plenty of good populists, as I have said. However, so long as they remain populist, they cannot rise above the implications of its basic method, which is to personalize politics. The racism and scapegoating can be restrained, but the need to focus upon some personnification of evil remains. In this case, history has thrown a suitable villain into the fray, one capable of representing the personal dynamic of populism: the capitalist corporation, created by a legal sleight of hand as a fictive individual. In this way arises the prevailing populist mythology, that the People against Corporations comprises the main ground of contemporary struggle. Why is this a myth? Surely, corporations are the principal malefactors in the world today, whether as polluters, the cutters of old growth forests, the blood-sucking HMO's or indeed the entire corporate apparatus that buys politicians, sets up its WTO's, and the like. Why should it not be the corporations that are the prime movers of the world's evil, as economic populists like David Korten, Richard Grossman, Paul Hawken, and Ralph Nader, have held? Clearly, corporations are there to be fought, in all the above roles, and more. But they are to be combatted as the currently constituted armies of the system, and not the system itself. When fascism was fought in WWII, the German Wehrmacht had to be defeated, yet we recognized the German army as the instrument of fascism, and not fascism itself. Similarly, the corporations are the armies, or instruments, or embodiments of capitalism. If capital, which is the moving force behind the current world crisis, is to be defeated, corporat
Re: Senate
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >The most particularly undemocratic feature of the Constitution I > >dislike most is the Senate, which gives Wyoming and Rhode Island > >equal influence in the upper house of the legislature to California > >or New York. That is a feature I would get rid of. > > Unforutnately you can't, because the sacred Constitution says that > the Senate can only be abolished with unanimous consent of the > states, which is obviously never going to happen. So, short of a > revolution, the U.S. is stuck with this undemocratic body forever. > Doug Article V says that 'no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. Clause was adopted by convention delegates at behest of NY's Roger Sherman who expressed concern that amendment process could allow 3/4ths of states to deprive particular states of said equality or even abolish them altogether. But while it is often touted (and taught) as only amendment that cannot be proposed, there is not agreement among constitutional scholars. Those who hold that provision is amendable suggest it could be repealed by amendment, and then another amendment could be adopted establishing unequal representation in Senate. Would appear to be daunting task but... fwiw: Former William F. Buckley acolyte turned liberal (I guess) Michael Lind has written in favor of using Article IV, Sec. 3 to create several states out of existing large states so that population ratio of California to Wyoming, for example, would not be 66-1 even as both jurisdictions have 2 members. Process requires consent of legislatures concerned and of Congress. Five existing states were formed in this manner: Vermont from NY (1791), Kentucky from VA (1792), Tennessee from NC (1796, Maine from Mass (1820), West Virginia from VA (using rump legislature) in 1863. Michael Hoover
Re: Moses and monetarism
Jim Devine wrote, > In a passage which seems to summarize his message, Tom Walker wrote: > >The NAIRU story and the Phillips curve story make sense if one assumes > >that capital's brief is efficiency and labour's is waste. > > Tom, that sure seems like you're mixing normative concepts (efficiency) and > positive concepts (NAIRU, Phillips curve) in a strange way. No, I'm saying that the supposedly positive concepts are covertly grounded in normative judgments and they simply don't wash if you make those judgments explicit and challenge them. BTW, this is not something I dreamed up by myself. There is a rich literature on it ranging from critical theory to hermeneutics to deconstruction. > Are you saying that if we reject the normative view that "capital's brief > is efficiency and labour's is waste," we should reject both the Phillips > Curve and the NAIRU, _even if_ they fit the empirical data? 1. The Phillips Curve and the NAIRU do not unambiguously "fit the empirical data". 2. Fitting the empirical data is not prima facie evidence of a causal relationship. 3. We should reject the Phillips curve and the NAIRU if a. they don't fit the empirical data or b. we can find a better explanation for why they do (if and when they do). 4. The SOP in economics has been to assume that the geocentric theory is right and to search for subsidiary explanations for the "perturbations" in the orbits of the planets. One can explain away quite a bit that way. > (Mind you, I am > quite conscious that the empirical data reflect the power of capital and > institutional framework of the country being studied. But we live under > that power and that framework.) Are you saying that one should reject a > positive theory based on the fact that you don't like its moral > implications? This last question simply restates your initial normative judgment that _I_ am mixing normative and positive concepts as a positive statement that I _am_ mixing the normative and the positive. Thanks for illustrating how it's done. > But the positive/normative mix could be very different: it seems to me that > the NAIRU theory could easily be interpreted as an argument for > overthrowing capital. "Capitalism requires a reserve army THAT BIG to keep > it from punishing us with accelerating inflation??" That faint hope relies on your substituting the normative "capitalism" for the positive "the economy". Nice finesse if you can pull it off. I'll stick to going for the juglar. > I am no positivist, but I think that _trying_ to separate positive and > normative concerns is a useful step in many cases (as is being aware of the > way in which one's moral commitments shapes the questions one asks, the > data one looks at, the research methods one uses, etc.) That's what I was talking about, looking at the hidden moral judgments underlying the allegedly positive claims about unemployment and inflation. And frankly, if you go back just a bit in the history of American teaching of political economy -- good old late 19th century laissez faire social darwinism -- the moral judgments are not hidden in the slightest. Unemployment is unambigously a sign of the unemployed's sinful habits. Have a look at the 1909 book by J. Laurence Laughlin, _Latter Day Problems_, in which he talks about the Christ-like "sacrifice" (abstinence) of the capitalist as the creative source of wealth. I'm not exaggerating. Or see the 1938 labour economics textbook by Royal Montgomery in which he scrupulously presents the unions' *stated* position on the hours of work followed by what he coyly advises the reader is their *real* motivation. My point -- and I've made it over and over again -- is that if you do a historical read through of a lot of these "positive concepts" you find out that they started as explicit and quite extreme moral judgments that over time got "moderated" by expunging some of the more defamatory or laudatory premises. But to do such a historical read would lead us into the temptation of quoting from old books. Tom Walker
The C (fwd)
Justin wrote: >So what's y'alls point? The original Constitution enshrined slavery and >was in part designed to protect property owners. It was a bourgeois >document in an era of bourgeois revolution. After the more or less >completion of the bourgeois revolution in the civil war, a laissez faire >Court interpreted the Constitution in a way favorable to corporations >(the Lochner era equal protection jurisprudence) and turned a blind eye to Jim Crow. So it didn't have an immaculate conception. That doesn't mean it isn't, or can't be made, a good government framework. >By analogy, the writings of Marx, and (someone whom some here admire) >Lenin were interpreted to justify horrific repression and savage cruelty >on an unimaginable scale; Lenin himself expressly advocated one party >rule, repression of dssent, and force without the constraints if law >against class enemies. Setting aside those who might thing that those are >good and justified and addressing myself just to those wo have qualms >about those purposes and such a history, I ask you, do those ourposes and >history mean you want to deep six Marx and Lenin? (In my case, I say yes, >for Lenin, but that's another story.) >--jks Justin, if the writings of Marx and Lenin were misinterpreted to justifty repression and stupidities, the blame should not be put on their ideas that were essentially democratic and critical of class priviliges. Their ideas can not be responsible for the misdoings of the Soviet regime. As opposed to the writings of Marx, the constitution set by the founding fathers of the United States is a piece of work designed to establish the ruling hegemony of the white, male, propertied classes. By any standarts, it can not be misinterpreted. It is fundamentally a non-democratic establishment to begin with. With the political economic developments precipitating after the civil war (bourgeois democratic revolution you are mentioning), new social groups, professional, financial, and industrial elites, began to take control of of the political, cultural and economic power. They were the new ruling/ hegemonic block, to use a Gramscian terminology. In accordance with the political pricinciples set by the bourgeois democratic government, these new political economic elites, including the municipal reformers, rejected citizenship as the basis for public participation. Consititution of the United States was/is a deliberate piece of work written to reinforce the class hegemony of the bourgeoisie. These people issued innovations to public meetings "only to tax payers, property holders, the most respectable citizens or even capitalists. The Economic interest of the affluent but parsimonious tax payer was now the measure of public virtue" (Mary Ryan, "Gender and Public Access: Women and Politics in 19th century America", Calhoun eds., Habermas and the Public Sphere, p.277). As lower classes claimed access to political power and resisted significantly, they were deliberately pushed behind the scenes by their social superiors. The regime that was being formed and consolidated by the constitution was racist and sexist. For example, the republican demand for a family wage abided by laissez-faire principles was used as a "countersymbol to Chinese immigration" which was pictured "as a flood of bachelors and prostitutes. According to this gender logic, immigration from Asia robbed working class women of jobs as domestic servants and bred Chinese prostitution, which was especially offensive to ladies" (p.278). The political economic context that shaped the Constitution for years has not been radically altered. Although there is equal protection clause, marginalized groups, such as women, blacks, Indians, working classes still find it difficult to find a voice in the formal political sphere. They are structurally excluded, as capitalism renforces their powerlessness. The constitution is set to channel their interests in a reformist, moderate direction (especially with the feminist movement), but not in a revolutionary direction. The Constittion is set to block social upheavel, and to rearticulate the interests of the minority elite (white male property owners )! Mine Doyran SUNY/Albany
Re: Moses and Monetarism II
I can't help mentioning an article that I view as the classic statement of the moral sentiment underlying NAIRU, J. Laurence Laughlin's "The Unions Versus Higher Wages," _Journal of Political Economy_, Vol. 14, Issue 3 (March 1906) pages 129-142. Laughlin's *positive* argument can, I believe, be summed up in the following series of extracts: 1. "the unions, while seeming to be working in favor of the working-men, have been acting against the real interests of the laborers, and against the future improvement of their standard of living." (130-131) 2. "the rate of wages for all in any one occupation can never be more than that rate which will warrant the employment of all -- that is, the market rate." (134) 3. "if law and order were enforced, if an employer were allowed without hindrance to hire any man he chose, if these men could go peacefully to work and be unmolested in the streets, if their families were not boycotted, a strike would almost never succeed." (135) 4. "the unions act as if an increase in the rate of wages could be determined by demands upon the employers, when in reality it is prevented by the actual facts of the supply of labor." (136) 5. "Productivity, or efficiency, is a reason for higher wages." (138) 6. "The escape from the influence of over-supply, let me insist, can be effected solely by adopting the principle of productivity." (139) 7. "A sympathetic relation and a helpful attitude between laborers and employers is an absolute essential to productivity." (140) 8. "In these days few people realize the grinding, eager, intense, and minute competition which goes on between producers in the same business. It is about as impossible for a laborer who looks out for his own interests, to escape being rewarded for growing efficiency, as for a man who is honest to escape the respect of his neighbors." (141) Tom Walker
AUT: The AFL/CIO, a new friend of Immigrants?
-- Forwarded Message -- From: INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED], INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] TO: Angela, INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: autopsy, INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] "Neil C.", 74742,1651 DATE: 6/5/00 4:39 PM RE: AUT: The AFL/CIO, a new friend of Immigrants? Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from mail.virginia.edu (mail.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.9]) by sphmgaae.compuserve.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/SUN-1.9) with SMTP id TAA17671 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:39:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: from lists.village.virginia.edu by mail.virginia.edu id aa09469; 5 Jun 2000 19:35 EDT Received: (from domo@localhost) by lists.village.virginia.edu (8.9.3/8.9.0) id XAA38858 for aut-op-sy-outgoing; Mon, 5 Jun 2000 23:34:47 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: lists.village.virginia.edu: domo set sender to owner-aut-op-sy@localhost using -f Received: from mail.virginia.edu (mail.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.9]) by lists.village.virginia.edu (8.9.3/8.9.0) with SMTP id TAA35268 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:34:39 -0400 Received: from jefferson.village.virginia.edu by mail.virginia.edu id aa08639; 5 Jun 2000 19:34 EDT Received: from sphmgaaf.compuserve.com (hs-img-6.compuserve.com [149.174.177.155]) by jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU (8.9.3/8.9.0) with ESMTP id TAA19288 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:34:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from mailgate@localhost) by sphmgaaf.compuserve.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/SUN-1.9) id TAA09461; Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:33:40 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:31:00 -0400 From: neil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: AUT: The AFL/CIO, a new friend of Immigrants? To: Angela <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: autopsy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Neil C." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Angela; Sorry you had problems finding the leaflet nailing the AF of L. --but it is posted on Internationalists Web (http://www.ibrp.org) both as new update material dtd 6/5/00 and in the LA Workers Voice section too. so i will send you a copy as well as one for the Autopsy List. Comments and debate are welcomed. Neil Communist-left IBRP -- Forwarded Message -- From: neil, 74742,1651 DATE: 6/4/00 12:38 AM RE: Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from mail.virginia.edu (mail.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.9]) by sphmgaae.compuserve.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/SUN-1.9) with SMTP id TAA17671 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:39:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: from lists.village.virginia.edu by mail.virginia.edu id aa09469; 5 Jun 2000 19:35 EDT Received: (from domo@localhost) by lists.village.virginia.edu (8.9.3/8.9.0) id XAA38858 for aut-op-sy-outgoing; Mon, 5 Jun 2000 23:34:47 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: lists.village.virginia.edu: domo set sender to owner-aut-op-sy@localhost using -f Received: from mail.virginia.edu (mail.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.9]) by lists.village.virginia.edu (8.9.3/8.9.0) with SMTP id TAA35268 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:34:39 -0400 Received: from jefferson.village.virginia.edu by mail.virginia.edu id aa08639; 5 Jun 2000 19:34 EDT Received: from sphmgaaf.compuserve.com (hs-img-6.compuserve.com [149.174.177.155]) by jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU (8.9.3/8.9.0) with ESMTP id TAA19288 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:34:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from mailgate@localhost) by sphmgaaf.compuserve.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/SUN-1.9) id TAA09461; Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:33:40 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:31:00 -0400 From: neil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: AUT: The AFL/CIO, a new friend of Immigrants? To: Angela <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: autopsy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Neil C." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Angela; Sorry you had problems finding the leaflet nailing the AF of L. --but it is posted on Internationalists Web (http://www.ibrp.org) both as new update material dtd 6/5/00 and in the LA Workers Voice section too. so i will send you a copy as well as one for the Autopsy List. Comments and debate are welcomed. Neil Communist-left IBRP -- Forwarded Message -- From: neil, 74742,1651 DATE: 6/4/00 12:38 AM RE: The AFL/CIO, a new friend of Immigrants? After supporting most all repressive US government anti-immigrant regulations and actions for many decades , the AFL/CIO trade union federation's executive council is seemingly doing a 180 degree turn and now
Re: The Nader campaign, part 1
jks: > TJ was at best ambivalent about the Constitution. so you've gone *from* saying he didn't signing constitution (which I pointed out he couldn't have done because he wasn't in Philly...btw: my friend Bobbie, big fan of radical Jefferson, didn't sign document either) *to* saying he indicated that he wouldn't have signed it (he might well not have although I've never seen evidence that he said such, rather, as I pointed out, he initially indicated to some folks that he opposed ratification at same time that he was telling others he'd support it) *to* saying that was at best ambivalent. I suppose fact that he didn't actively participate in ratification process in support or against could be indication of his ambivalence. However, his 'neutrality' (if that's what it was) was crucial for supporters of document. Madison's acceptance of Jefferson's concern for absence of bill of rights was first step. As I pointed out, Jefferson indicated to Madiso that, despite misgivings, he'd support adoption and rely upon amending process when needed. And I pointed out that Jefferson, upon reading amendments proposed by Mass. convention, indicated to Carrington that adoption was preferable. Point of above? Madison and Federalists had to deal with George Mason, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee in Virginia. Add Jefferson to that most formidable groups of antis, state would not have ratified. And if VA hadn't ratified, New York probably wouldn't have either (as it was, NY ratified by only 3 votes, 30-27, with 8 abstentions). Madison's success in preventing Jefferson from throwing his considerable influence to oppositon was key. Hence, TJ's 'ambivalence' placed him on side of those who supported constitution. I'll repeat myself one more time: Jefferson never attempted to dispel myth propagated by 'founders' that 1787 was culmination of 1776. btw: You'd have been on solid ground if your initial comment about not signing constitution had been about George Mason since he did attend, was one of most active participants, and refused to sign it when delegates refused to include Bill of Rights. Of course, Mason had written Virginia's Declaration of Rights (which Jefferson both modelled and paraphrased in Dec. of Ind. & Madison relied upon for Bill of Rights). As was case with Jefferson, GM had other complaints about constitution besides absence of bill of rights. His dislikes led him to actively oppose ratification at Virginia convention to which he was a delegate. Moreover, he refused to accept 1790 appointment to Senate because he refused to swear oath to support constitution as Article VI requires of officeholders. Today, few people know who he was (although they may have heard of George Mason University, existence of which dates only to 1957). GM is by no means beyond reproach (he was slaveowner, for example), but in contrast to Jefferson's status as a 'founder,' Mason, when he is mentioned, is some cantankerous old guy who opposed *The Big C*. Silly Me (aka Michael Hoover) One Last Time
Go down, Moses, laissez my corporations faire . . .
Cross threading right along, a triumphal Lochner era ring is evident in Laughlin's title, "The Unions v. Higher Wages". The Lochner verdict (striking down a unamimous New York State law to regulate the hours of work in bakeries) was rendered in 1905, the same year Laughlin gave his address to the Citizens' Industrial Association of America, which was published in the JPE the following year. Tom Walker
Go down, Moses, laissez my corporations faire . . .
Cross threading right along, a triumphal Lochner era ring is evident in Laughlin's title, "The Unions v. Higher Wages". The Lochner verdict (striking down a unamimous New York State law to regulate the hours of work in bakeries) was rendered in 1905, the same year Laughlin gave his address, which was published in the JPE the following year. Tom Walker
Re: Re: Moses and Monetarism II
The timing of this quote is extraordinary, since it comes after the great merger wave put an end to much competition. Combinations work for industry; not for workers. Timework Web wrote: > 8. "In these days few people realize the grinding, eager, intense, and > minute competition which goes on between producers in the same > business. It is about as impossible for a laborer who looks out for his > own interests, to escape being rewarded for growing efficiency, as for a > man who is honest to escape the respect of his neighbors." (141) > > Tom Walker -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: The C
In a message dated 6/6/00 4:29:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << his says that the Constitution itself, including the amendments, are not as important as their interpretation. The latter in turn depends on the societal pressure on the capitalist class and its state (as Carroll points out). So why study law? (Yeah, I know: it pays the bills.) >> The Constitution "itself"--what's that? It is what the courts say it is, that is, how it is interpreted. Just like any other law. So why study law? To understand, use, and change how the courts interpret the law. --jks
Re: Re: Senate
In a message dated 6/6/00 6:04:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << Those who hold that provision is amendable suggest it could be repealed by amendment, and then another amendment could be adopted establishing unequal representation in Senate. >> Sure. After all, the 2 Senator a State clause is super-entrenched, but maybe not the super-entrenchment cklause. Anyway, if there is a political will to get rid of it, the lawyers will find a way. That's what we do for fun and profit. --jks
Re: Re: Moses and monetarism
>
> > But the positive/normative mix could be very different: it seems to me
that
> > the NAIRU theory could easily be interpreted as an argument for
> > overthrowing capital. "Capitalism requires a reserve army THAT BIG to
keep
> > it from punishing us with accelerating inflation??"
>
The way the PC gets explained in macro textbooks, though, there's no reserve
army, and there is no "it" that punishes "us." The PC is a graphic
representation of empirical evidence supporting an economic law. If you
start using a different lexicon ("capitalism," "reserve army," "punishment,"
etc.), you're not talking PC any more. You're talking about the uses of PC,
which is a different kettle of fish.
How do people who believe in PC make sense of Japan? Does it work all that
well with European numbers?
Christian
Re: The C (fwd)
IMine says, and Louis agrees with her: << If the writings of Marx and Lenin were misinterpreted to justifty repression and stupidities, the blame should not be put on their ideas that were essentially democratic and critical of class priviliges. Their ideas can not be responsible for the misdoings of the Soviet regime. As opposed to the writings of Marx, the constitution set by the founding fathers of the United States is a piece of work designed to establish the ruling hegemony of the white, male, propertied classes. By any standarts, it can not be misinterpreted. It is fundamentally a non-democratic establishment to begin with. >> Apparently the Marxist classics were immaculately conceived and float free in their purity of historical context, unsullied by the misuse that has been made of them. But this is doubly unhistorical. The Constitution was the work of the bourgeois revolution, and therefore sought to establish bourgeois hegemony in all its gloryt and with all its limits. That means it was meant to establish the rule of the white male propertied classes. It also was meant to put a republican system of popular rule and individual rights on a stable footing. It did both of those things. They are dialectical opposite sides of the coin. Moreover, the Constitution was and is not a static thing. Like every real world political enterprise, it embodied some nasty compromises on its own terms, notably slavery, whoch was even at the time seen by most of the framers as an obscenity that could not be legislated away. They put it off for another day, and when that day came in 1860, it was not pretty. The legal resolution of that conflict brought us the Reconstruction Amendments, which, despite the comoplicated, contradictory, and limited (certainly not socialist!) intentions of the framers, are a priceless heritage, as is the republicanism of the original constitution. The long and short of it is that the Constitution was ot "fundamentally antidemocrtic to start with." It was a revolutionary democratic threat to the ancien regime. And the values that it animate it still are, although the ancien regimes is now a bit different. Likewise you cannot take Marx or Lenin out of context. I agree far more with the total package of values espoused by Marx than I do with those espoused by Madison or John Bingham (framer of the 14th Amendment). But Marx had his limitations, and some of these made it a lot easier for people like Lenin, and worse, to make his own name a bogeyman; he cannot be wholly exonerated from these because he had good intentions. Nor would he want to be made a plaster saint or holy father whose writings are quoted as holy writ. There's no point getting into the debate over Lenin. You can have him. But he at least recognized that what he was doing involved nasty compromises, and refused to apologize for that. He was a better materialist than his defenders here. --jks
Re: Go down, Moses, laissez my corporations faire . . .
In a message dated 6/6/00 8:57:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << ross threading right along, a triumphal Lochner era ring is evident in Laughlin's title, "The Unions v. Higher Wages". The Lochner verdict (striking down a unamimous New York State law to regulate the hours of work in bakeries) was rendered in 1905, the same year Laughlin gave his address to the Citizens' Industrial Association of America, which was published in the JPE the following year. >> What is a unanimous NYS Law? Btw the Lochner case prompted the most famous dissent in US S.Ct history, where Holmes fulmigated that "the 14th Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's _Social Statics_., presaging modern economic regulatuion jurisprudence. --jks
Re: Moses and Monetarism II
Michael Perelman wrote, > The timing of this quote is extraordinary, since it comes after the great > merger wave put an end to much competition. Combinations work for industry; > not for workers. It would be petty of me to point out that Laughlin was a paid spokesman on behalf of the Chicago traction monopoly. Of course, previously unions were outlawed as "combinations in restraint of trade". Presumably, monopoly corporations are combinations for the promotion of trade. I sometimes wonder if Thorstein Veblen was aiming some of his sarcasm in _The Higher Learning in America_ and _The Engineers and the Price System_ at his former mentor, Laughlin. > Timework Web wrote: > > > 8. "In these days few people realize the grinding, eager, intense, and > > minute competition which goes on between producers in the same > > business. It is about as impossible for a laborer who looks out for his > > own interests, to escape being rewarded for growing efficiency, as for a > > man who is honest to escape the respect of his neighbors." (141) Tom Walker
Writing History (fwd)
"Writing History" http://fbc.binghamton.edu/iwchv-hi.htm by Immanuel Wallerstein [Key-text for Session on "Writing History," at the Colloquium on History and Legitimisation, "[Re]constructing the Past," 24-27 February 1999, Brussels] The problem about writing history can be seen in the very title of the colloquium, which exists in three language versions. In English it is "[Re]constructing the Past." This version indicates an ambivalence between construction and reconstruction, the latter term fitting in more with an evolutionary, cumulative concept of knowledge than the former. In French the title is "Le Passé Composé." No reconstruction here, but the title permits an allusion to grammatical syntax, and refers to the verb tense that denotes a past that continues into the present and is not yet totally completed. In French, this form is distinguished from the Preterite, which is sometimes called "Le Passé Historique." In everyday conversation, one normally uses "le passé composé." Finally in Dutch/Flemish, the title is "Het Verleden als Instrument," a far more structuralist title than the others. I do not know if the organizers intended this ambiguity deliberately. But it is hard to speak about history, especially these days, unambiguously. Let me raise still another ambiguity. In English, "story" and "history" are separate words, and the distinction is thought to be not only clear but crucial. But in French and Dutch, "histoire" and "geschiedenis" can have both connotations. Is the distinction less clear in these linguistic traditions? I hesitate to answer. I do notice that the organizers have charged us collectively, at least in the English-language version of their announcement, with the task of conducting "a large-scale meditation on the usefulness and disadvantages of history for life." This seems to me a wise starting-point, since it recognizes that what we are about might not necessarily be useful; it might possibly be unuseful, actually disadvantageous for life. And a final comment on the title. This is said to be a "Colloquium on History and Legitimisation." Is the legitimation of something the instrumental goal that was mentioned in the Dutch title? Are we to be very Foucauldian, and assume that all knowledge is primarily an exercise in legitimating power? I am tempted to say, of course, what else could it possibly be? But then it occurs to me that, if this is all that it were, it could not possibly serve its purpose very effectively, since knowledge is most likely to succeed in legitimating power if the people, that is those who consume this knowledge produced by historians, thought that it had independent truth-value. It would follow that knowledge might be most useful to those in power if it were perceived as being at most only partially respondent to power's beck and call. But of course, on the other hand, it might not be useful at all if it were entirely antagonistic to power. So, from the point of view of those with power, the relation they might want to have with intellectuals purporting to write history is an intricate, mediated, and delicate one. I propose to discuss what are, what can be, the lines between four kinds of knowledge production: fictional tales, propaganda, journalism, and history as written by persons called historians. And then I wish to relate that to remembering and forgetting, to secrecy and publicity, to advocacy and refutation. Fictional tales are the earliest knowledge product to which most people are exposed. Children are told stories, or stories are read to them. Such stories convey messages. Parents and other adults consider these messages very important. There is considerable censorship by adults of what children may hear or read. Most people rate possible stories along a continuum running from taboo subjects to highly undesirable subjects to subjects that are considered innocent to tales with a virtuous moral. The form of such stories may vary, from those that are sweet and/or charming to those that are frightening and/or exciting. We frequently assess and reassess the effect of such stories on children, and adjust what we do in the light of such assessments. Such stories are of course fictional in the sense that a person named Cinderella is not thought by the adults telling it to have actually existed, and the place where the tale occurs cannot be located on a standard map. But the story is also considered to be about some reality - perhaps the existence of mean adults in charge of a child's welfare, perhaps the existence of good adults (fairy godmothers) who counteract the mean adults, perhaps the reality of (or at least the legitimacy of) hope in difficult situations. Is children's fiction different from fiction that is said to be intended for adults? If we take a work by Balzac or by Dickens, by Dante or by Cervantes, by Shakespeare or by Goethe, we are aware that each is describing a social reality via invented characters. And we evaluate the
Re: The C (fwd)
To be fair: Louis wrote and I agreed with him, since he wrote before me... Just a small note... Mine Justin wrote: >Mine says, and Louis agrees with her: <>< If the writings of Marx and Lenin were misinterpreted to justifty repression and stupidities, the blame should not be put on their ideas that were essentially democratic and critical of class priviliges. Their ideas can not be responsible for the misdoings of the Soviet regime. As opposed to the writings of Marx, the constitution set by the founding fathers of the United States is a piece of work designed to establish the ruling hegemony of the white, male, propertied classes. By any standarts, it can not be misinterpreted. It is fundamentally a non-democratic establishment to begin with. >> >Apparently the Marxist classics were immaculately conceived and float free in their purity of historical context, unsullied by the misuse that has been made of them. But this is doubly unhistorical. The Constitution was the work of the bourgeois revolution, and therefore sought to establish bourgeois hegemony in all its gloryt and with all its limits. That means it was meant to establish the rule of the white male propertied classes. It also was meant to put a republican system of popular rule and individual rights on a stable footing. It did both of those things. They are dialectical opposite sides of the coin. Moreover, the Constitution was and is not a static thing. Like every real world political enterprise, it embodied some nasty compromises on its own terms, notably slavery, whoch was even at the time seen by most of the framers as an obscenity that could not be legislated away. They put it off for another day, and when that day came in 1860, it was not pretty. The legal resolution of that conflict brought us the Reconstruction Amendments, which, despite the comoplicated, contradictory, and limited (certainly not socialist!) intentions of the framers, are a priceless heritage, as is the republicanism of the original constitution. The long and short of it is that the Constitution was ot "fundamentally antidemocrtic to start with." It was a revolutionary democratic threat to the ancien regime. And the values that it animate it still are, although the ancien regimes is now a bit different. Likewise you cannot take Marx or Lenin out of context. I agree far more with the total package of values espoused by Marx than I do with those espoused by Madison or John Bingham (framer of the 14th Amendment). But Marx had his limitations, and some of these made it a lot easier for people like Lenin, and worse, to make his own name a bogeyman; he cannot be wholly exonerated from these because he had good intentions. Nor would he want to be made a plaster saint or holy father whose writings are quoted as holy writ. There's no point getting into the debate over Lenin. You can have him. But he at least recognized that what he was doing involved nasty compromises, and refused to apologize for that. He was a better materialist than his defenders here. --jks
Post Cold War Cuba-US Relations (fwd)
>I have a graduate student doing research on Cuba-US relations after the >end >of the Cold War. Can anyone suggest some good material in journals, >books >or the web? I teach in North Cyprus, and our library has very limited >resources, so I would appreciate any information on resources available >over >the net. >Any sources will be greatly appreciated, >Leopoldo Rodriguez Leopoldo hi! I did not know you were in pen-l so I was almost sending this info to IPE. I think I understand your concern about your library's limited resources, since I had similar experiences back to my country. On the other hand, any information you will find over the internet on Cuba-US relations may not be reliable, unless it is published in a well known journal or magazine, either critical or mainstream. Besides, the topic is fishy. Personally, I always find it difficult to have access to articles on the net for the simple fact that some journals just name the articles without posting them on their web pages. So I go with the classical method and visit the library. Why don't you consider the following sources to see if your library owns them? Halliday, Fred., 1986, The Making of the Second Cold War, London, Verso. Gill, Stephan., 1990, American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Cuba and the United States : will the cold war in the Caribbean end? / Publisher: Boulder, Colo. Cuba : confronting the U.S. embargo / Author: Schwab, Peter, 1940- Edition: 1st ed. Publisher: New York :St. Martin's Press,1999. McCormick, T.J., 1989, America's Half Century. United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press. Graham T. Allison, _Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis_ Boston: Little Brown, 1971. Mary Caldor, "After the Cold War", _New Left Review_, 180, March/April, 1990:5-23. Enrico Augelli and Craig N. Murphy, "Gramsci and International Relations: A General Perspective and example from recent US policy toward the thirld world" in Stephan Gill ed., _Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations_, Cambridge Press, 1993. hope this helps, ps: regarding our discussion on crisis, in addition to your useful readings, I have found Kees Van Der Pijl's book _The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class_ quite helpful. It does a very good job with 70s. I don't know if you have had a chance to look at it though (University of Amsterdam, phd,1984). cheers, Mine Doyran SUNY/Albany
Auto Industry
Somebody was asking info about auto-industry a few days ago. As I was surfing over the net, I accidently found these articles in _Journal of World System Research_. I don't know if this is still useful for your purposes: "International Division of Labor and Global Economic Process: An Analysis of International Trade in Automobiles" Journal of World-Systems Research, Vol V, 3, 1999, 487-498 ISSN 1076-156X by Lothar Krempel and Thomas Pl|mper. http://csf.colorado.edu/jwsr/archive/vol5/vol5_number3/krempel/krempel_print.ht ml "Cross-Border Labor Organizing in the Garment and Automobile Industries: The Phillips Van-Heusen and Ford Cuautitlan Cases" by Ralph Armbruster University of California, Riverside http://csf.colorado.edu/jwsr/archive/vol4/v4n1a3.htm Cite: Armbruster, Ralph. (1998). "Cross-Border Labor Organizing in the Garment and Automobile Industries: The Phillips Van-Heusen and Ford Cuautitlan Cases." Journal of World-Systems R Mine Doyran SUNY/Albany
