58 dead at Dover
This morning 58 "oriental" people have been found dead in a sealed container on a lorry at Dover, after crossing the English Channel. This is one of the costs of an increasingly mobile global market in labour power, coupled with growing disparities in different parts of the world in the rate of accumulation of capital. Although such events are shocking to host countries, they benefit by the continued arrival of cheap labour power in conditions where the workers have little bargaining power to enforce their basic rights. Some tightening up will no doubt be done. But this degree of exploitation and suffering is intensifying, depite rising material wealth, because of the failure of the World Bank and the IMF to run the global economy in an equitable and balanced way. This is the price of global laissez faire finance capitalism. Chris Burford London
Re: Re: Re: GT [was: Re: McArthur grantee
I have been on pen-l now for 8 years. Calling people racists on this list is infantile to say the least. Storm in a tea cup I hope:) Cheers, Anthony xxx Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor Comparative International Development University of WashingtonTaylor Institute & South Asia Program 1900 Commerce StreetJackson School of International Studies Tacoma, WA 98402, USA University of Washington, Seattle Phone: (253) 692-4462 Fax : (253) 692-5612 xxx
Re: name calling (fwd)
then you should follow the list closely, Micheal, as a moderator. If people have done implicitly racist comments in the past, they should be reminded not to repeat the same mistake again! If you think there is no such a comment, then you should go and read the archieves of the list, which is what the job of the moderator is. I say zero tolerance for racist use of language! Mine >I have to agree with Rod here. I have not been following the list as >closely as I should have for the last couple of days. I have stepped in >sooner. This sort of stuff has no business here. >Rod Hay wrote: > Jim is now the third person that has been called a racist, by our new > champion name caller. > > Mine wrote: > you are being *disgustingly racist*, > > -- > Rod Hay > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > The History of Economic Thought Archive > http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html > Batoche Books > http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ > 52 Eby Street South > Kitchener, Ontario > N2G 3L1 > Canada -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GT
Jim D says: >Someone already pointed out that GT need not involve individualism >or profit-maximizing or egoism. One can apply altruism in making >decisions in the game. Isn't altruism a dialectical twin of individualism? The concept of "altruism" emerged in the English language in the mid-19th century, according to the OED. The word is used in attempts to explain why an individual cares (or should care) about anyone besides himself at all. In other words, under capitalism, regard for others emerged as a "problem" in need of an ethical, philosophical, or scientific explanation, whereas in the world before capitalism (= the world where individualism as we know it didn't exist) no one taxed his brains trying to come up with philosophical or biological reasons why one should care about others, because it was taken for granted -- part of social institutions -- that one did. So it seems to me that whether actors are conceived as profit-maximizing or behaving altruistically, Game Theory is about individuals and their choices in the world of Scarcity & Opportunity Costs (as conceived in neoclassical economics). Are game theorists interested in changing the game at all? I doubt it. If we start with atomized individuals trying to survive (or help other individuals survive) in the world as it exists now, it seems to me that _as isolated individuals_, we -- or at least most of us, very "altruistic" ones perhaps excepted -- don't find it in our (or other individuals') "interest" to exert much efforts & take risks in trying to bring about an alternative to capitalism. Working for radical social change doesn't "pay," and we don't need Game Theory to tell us what common sense can teach us. Struggling for the abolition of capitalism (or any radical social movement, for that matter) only "makes sense" when we don't start with atomized individuals. Therefore, if Game Theory isn't "reactionary," it is at least very conservative. Now, here's what appeared in Randy Cohen's column "The Ethicist" in the New York Times Sunday Magazine (6.18.00): * Q. I teach business ethics for a local university. I wonder how you would respond to this classic moral dilemma: John walks into a village and finds Mary holding 15 people hostage. Mary says that she will kill them all unless John takes a gun and kills one of the hostages. All of the hostages are innocent people. What should John do? -- J. De Pauw, Arlington, VA. A. What kind of business are you preparing these kids for? Microsoft? * Isn't Game Theory at bottom as silly as the "classic moral dilemma" described above? Yoshie
Re: name calling
__ PROPOSED RESOLUTION ON THE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY NATURE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE It is clear that our movement has come a long way in the last two years. Beginning from a preoccupation with essentially liberal issues like student power and peace, we have arrived at a perspective through which we have aligned ourselves with the revolutionary working class against American capitalist imperialism. The achievement of a correct position does not, however, mean that our intellectual struggle is over. We must explore the implications of working class politics for every area of our activity, in order to reinforce those politics and free them from contamination by bourgeois individualist thought. This proposal is a modest contribution to this effort. Concern with correct thinking and proper expression of that thought is a hallmark of the true revolutionary. Our vehicle for thought and communication is language; to be concrete, it is the English language. Now it has never occurred to us that this language is by its very nature counterrevolutionary and that truly correct revolutionary thought in English is therefore impossible. Yet we intend, through careful analysis, to establish that the English language is little more than a tool of imperialism designed to stifle genuinely radical ideas among the English-speaking masses. We can talk about language from the standpoints of meaning and structure. Although bourgeois linguists introduce complex terminology into their discussions of meaning, chiefly in order to prevent us from understanding what they mean, we shall consider it only in terms of words. Now English has a great many words, and this in itself is suspect: what it suggests is that no matter how hard the worker tries to educate himself, the bosses and their lackey politicians can always produce new words from their lexical grabbag to confuse him. Even in our own movement this elitist duplicity manifests itself in the use of esoteric words like "chauvinism," "reification," "dialectical materialism." and so on. It is almost axiomatic that the revolutionary status of a language is inversely proportional to the weight of its dictionary. Lest this sound farfetched, we may cite the pioneer linguist Otto Jesperson in _The Growth and Structure of the English Language_. He notes that the Norman invasion and subsequent domination of England for centuries by descendants of the French-speaking conquerors produced a class division of the English vocabulary, with the French imports reserved chiefly for the upper classes. The other great influx of foreign words came during the Renaissance when scholars, not content with the language of the people, imported quantities of Latin and Greek, thus widening the semantic gulf between the educated elite and the masses. Significant though consideration of meaning be, it is in the area of language structure that our analysis is most fruitful. Structure or syntax is the sum of all those rules which govern the ways the words in any language can be put together to make sense. We use the rules of syntax more of less unconsciously because they are inculcated in early childhood along with religion, patriotism, etc. It is the unconscious nature of syntax which makes its influence so insidious. The foundation of structure is the categories, which are theoretical divisions of human experience imposed on all languages. In English the main categories are tense and number; centuries ago we had gender as other European languages still do. There are many other categories: some languages divide all mater by shape, so that one cannot speak of an object without adding some word ending to indicate whether it is round, square and so on, while others classify things by their tangibility or lack thereof. The categories are classifications of thought; in English we cannot, for instance, speak of anything without indicating number (singular or plural) and time (past, present, future). Bourgeois scholars pretend to make a great mystery of the categories, in order to conceal the perfectly plain facts. Edward Sapir, for example, baldly states in _Language_ that the origin of linguistic categories is altogether unknown. It is crystal clear to the proletarian analyst, however, that the nature of the categories arises directly from the nature of the ownership of the means of production: how else explain the preoccupation of English syntax with time and number? It is the capitalist factory system which necessitates an emphasis on time, and it is the capitalist money economy which causes the obsession with "how much, how many" that pervades our society. Sapir completely gives himself away when, in an unguarded moment, he lets us know that Chinese grammar
BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 2000 RELEASED TODAY: Regional and state unemployment rates were relatively stable in May. All four regions registered little or no change over the month, and 41 states and the District of Columbia recorded shifts of 0.3 percentage point or less. The national jobless rate edged upward to 4.1 percent. Nonfarm employment increased in 30 states in May. ... In 1999, 83.1 percent of U.S. families had at least one member with a job, a 0.5 percentage point increase from 1998, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Fewer families had an unemployed member in 1999 than in 1998. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-8). While they are confident the major yardsticks of economic activity they produce are adequate, officials of the three major federal economic statistical agencies are exploring new approaches to better measure the fast-changing digital economy, the Daily Labor Report says (page A-13; text of paper, page E-4). Officials of the agencies addressed the first meeting of the new Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee. "The challenge to statistical agencies is to keep up with the evolving economy. Does this present new measurement problems, different from those associated with previous periods of change? Even the answer to that question is uncertain," says Thomas Mesenbourg of the Census Bureau. ... Agency officials and committee members say they have some concerns about measuring economic activities in the fast-changing digital economy. ... BLS Commissioner Katharine Abraham told the advisory committee members that "making sure that we're covering e-commerce in our statistics is priority number one." ... While the agency's current budget proposal before Congress does not include new spending on measures of e-commerce, BLS is moving ahead on research to explore possible new measurement approaches for several data programs, including: 1. The employment cost index program is looking into whether to include stock options, which are expected to be a major factor in e-business and other high-tech industries; 2. The producer price program is developing price measures for wholesale trade that might include "wholesale brokerage services" that are part of the digital economy; 3. The consumer price index program is examining whether the agency needs to change data collection procedures to reflect e-commerce activities. BLS will add a question in its point-of-purchase survey asking consumers whether they shop on the Internet. ... New claims filed with state agencies for unemployment insurance benefits decreased by 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 296,000 in the week ended June 10, the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration reports. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-6). U.S. industrial production rose 0.4 percent, lifted by gains in the technology sector and utility increases, data released by the Federal Reserve show. Utility output rose 1.4 percent, while output of factories and mines each increased 0.3 percent. The gain in output was moderate compared with identical 0.7 percent gains in March and April. Still, it was stronger than analysts had expected. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-1; New York Times, page C5; Wall Street Journal, page A2)_ Industrial output unexpectedly increased in May, as production of computers, semiconductors, and other business equipment rose, but fewer consumer goods were produced. ... (Washington Post, page E2) application/ms-tnef
Re: Re: name calling (fwd)
You are walking a thin line. I have not had to boot anybody for many months. This sort of language is not acceptable here. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > then you should follow the list closely, Micheal, as a > moderator. If people have done implicitly racist comments in the past, > they should be reminded not to repeat the same mistake again! If you think > there is no such a comment, then you should go and read the archieves of > the list, which is what the job of the moderator is. I say zero tolerance > for racist use of language! > > Mine > > >I have to agree with Rod here. I have not been following the list as > >closely as I should have for the last couple of days. I have stepped in > >sooner. This sort of stuff has no business here. > > >Rod Hay wrote: > > > Jim is now the third person that has been called a racist, by our new > > champion name caller. > > > > Mine wrote: > > you are being *disgustingly racist*, > > > > -- > > Rod Hay > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > The History of Economic Thought Archive > > http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html > > Batoche Books > > http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ > > 52 Eby Street South > > Kitchener, Ontario > > N2G 3L1 > > Canada > > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA 95929 > > Tel. 530-898-5321 > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: GT [was: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: McArthur grantee (fwd)
At 11:28 PM 06/18/2000 -0400, you wrote: > GT is methodologically on the right. Period. The reason for this is >that the attention to micro foundations through rational choice, game >theoric models and formal modeling of neo-classical economics have tended >to obscure the importance of relations of production and the exploitative >relationship between the capitalist and the worker. GT lacks a progressive >framework to explain systemic inequalities. no, the problem is that GT typically assumes relative equality in "games." It need not do so. > >While I respectfully say that this is A bullshit [a BS what? a BS > argument?], > >supposed "neutrality" of game theory... > > >I think that the very assumptions of game theory--individualism, profit > maximizing agency, egoism, alturism [altruism?] in return for > benefit--are bombastically IDEOLOGICAL. >first of all, don't correct my words or intervene in the text. You are >not the editor here. Actually, I am (and an economist too). One of the frustrating things about threads in on-line discussions is that they rapidly become incomprehensible to the readers. And frankly, I'm not talking just to you but to others who are reading this. I try to make it comprehensible to them. Further, "editing" something allows me to be more careful in my reading of it. Anyway, putting little comments in brackets like "[altruism?]" is not the same as editing. >I write quickly, and sometimes misuse letters. Knowing that English is my >second language, you are being *disgustingly racist*, >like once upon a time you called third world people *irrational* here. As far as I am concerned, you can have any opinion of me that you want. But the fact that you're stooping to calling me names says that this conversation is over. This is my last contribution to this thread. More importantly, I _never_ referred to third world people as irrational. I would like to see documentation of this totally outrageous claim. If you have any evidence, I _will_ respond, to show that it is spurious and libelous. >You should consider an apology to the list, or at least to the >international members of the list! An apology is appropriate only appropriate if I'd done something wrong. >... I am saying that the game theoretical applications of conflict >resolution to international relations and security studies (which I don't >think you are aware, btw) come up with explanations and results that >tend to promote the foreign policy interests of the US. Have you ever >attempted to see where game theorists publish their articles in the >majority of cases? They are the kind of journals such as _Foreign >Affairs_, _Washington Report_ _Strategic Studies_, _Journal of Military >Studies_, etc.. How do you assume that these people having their articles >published in these journals are objective, given that the institutional >basis of these journals is intimately related to the US political system >and the international political order it is trying to endorse. Once I was >reading a game theoretical explanation of military intervention in Haiti >in one of these journals. The study was briefly talking about how to keep >the junta in power with the US help and democratize Haiti in the mean time >without causing social conflict (revolt). The author was constructing a >game theory of how to make democracy work in Haiti without pissing off >the US as well as the junta. If this is not ideology, what is it? This suggests that GT is so empty that it can be used to justify _anything_. Hey, that's a sustantive criticism! > >African Americans have not chosen to be discrimanated by whites. Women > >have not chosen to be beaten by men..Nobody chooses the heads of > >corporations (even in some formal sense). If there is oppression, it is > >because there has been oppression against some others' rights to equality. > > >Again, I can imagine someone could apply GT to model the way in which > >social institutions limit choice. On racism, for example, imagine a black > >person who decides whether to (a) stay with his or her community or (b) > >try > >to fit within white society. > >How can a black "choose" to fit within a white society? you'll notice that I used the phrase "try to fit." A lot of black people had lighter skin have been pretty successful at this. Even the darker-skinned types can try to fit in _culturally_. I didn't say that they would succeed. >If we start the game with this individualistic assumption, then we end up >saying that blacks are responsible for causing racism by consciously >choosing the conditions they live in. One can *not* start the game with >the assumption that blacks and whites share the same circumstances, rules >of the game and the social institutions limiting their choices. >Institutions do not limit >blacks and whites' choices equally. They discriminate... I didn't say that "blacks and whites share the same circumstances, rules of the game and the soc
Re: McArthur grantee
>What's happening on this thread is a microcosm of what generally happens >in 'science'. Nobody posting appears to have read anything by >Rabin. Everyone has an opinion/prejudice on some general issue related to >the fields Rabin is known to be investigating -- game theory, psychology >etc. Whatever contribution Rabin may have made or not made to >understanding gets buried in a rehash of preconceptions. Ultimately, what >will matter is what kind of impression the fellow's manners have made on >the folks with the most influence in the profession (brilliant, good >company). It doesn't matter what you say, it's still the conventional >wisdom at the end of the day. > >Tom Walker I did take a look at Matthew Rabin's home page, etc., and based upon the abstracts of his papers, I'd say his work is not useful for Progressive Economists. See below for sample abstracts (the main points of "Psychology and Economics" -- the article Jim D mentioned, I believe -- may appear mildly interesting if no news to us; the thesis of "Bargaining Structure, Fairness, and Efficiency" looks inoffensive -- in the context of mainstream economics -- but not particularly useful in left-wing practice; and the rest look bad, in that they are implicitly written from the point of view of managers/gov. technocrats setting up structures of rewards & punishments for individuals to achieve efficiency): * "Psychology and Economics," Berkeley Department of Economics Working Paper No. 97-251, January 1997 Abstract: Because psychology systematically explores human judgment, behavior, and well-being, it can teach us important facts about how humans differ from traditional economic assumptions. In this essay I discuss a selection of psychological findings relevant to economics. Standard economics assumes that each person has stable, well-defined preferences, and that she rationally maximizes those preferences. Section 2 considers what psychological research teaches us about the true form of preferences, allowing us to make economics more realistic within the rational-choice framework. Section 3 reviews research on biases in judgment under uncertainty; because those biases lead people to make systematic errors in their attempts to maximize their preferences, this research poses a more radical challenge to the economics model. The array of psychological findings reviewed in Section 4 points to an even more radical critique of the economics model: Even if we are willing to modify our familiar assumptions about preferences, or allow that people make systematic errors in their attempts to maximize those preferences, it is sometimes misleading to conceptualize people as attempting to maximize well-defined, coherent, or stable preferences. * * BARGAINING STRUCTURE, FAIRNESS, AND EFFICIENCY Matthew Rabin Department of Economics University of California, Berkeley First Draft: June 15, 1996 This Draft: February 24, 1997 Abstract: Experiments with the ultimatum game -- where one party can make a take-it-or-leave-it offer to a second party on how to split a pie -- illustrate that conventional game theory has been wrong in its predictions regarding the simplest of bargaining settings: Even when one party has enormous bargaining power, she may [Yoshie: the word "not" seems missing here] be able to extract all the surplus from trade, because the second party will reject grossly unequal proposals. But ultimatum games may lead us to misconstrue some general lessons: Given plausible assumptions about what preferences underlie ultimatum-game behavior, alternative bargaining structures that also give a Proposer enormous bargaining power may lead to very different outcomes. For virtually any outcome in which the Proposer gets more than half the pie, there exists a bargaining structure yielding that outcome. Notably, many bargaining structures can lead to inefficiency even under complete information. Moreover, inefficiency is partly caused by asymmetric bargaining power, so that "fairer environments" can lead to more efficient outcomes. Results characterize how other features of simple bargaining structures affect the efficiency and distribution of bargaining outcomes, and generate testable hypotheses for simple non-ultimatum bargaining games. Keywords: Bargaining, Efficiency, Fairness, Inefficiency, Inequality, Ultimatum Game JEL Classification: A12, A13, B49, C70, D63 * * INCENTIVES FOR PROCRASTINATORS Ted O'Donoghue Department of Economics Cornell University and Matthew Rabin Department of Economics University of California, Berkeley November 17, 1998 Abstract: We examine how principals should design incentives to induce time-inconsistent procrastinating agents to complete tasks efficiently. Delay is costly to the principal, but the agent faces stochastic costs of completing the task, and efficiency requires waiting when costs are high. If the principal knows the task-co
Re: free market in religion
> Some people liken the "left" or Marxism to a religion. Thus, if we want the "left" to grow, maybe we should require the wearing of special beanies or the use of obscure jargon? We don't already?
Rabin
I looked at one Rabin article in preparing my book, Class Warfare in the Information Age. I did not find it particularly useful, but it was nothing to get worked up about. As I mentioned before, Game Theory has not yet yielded any profound insights that I know of, although it was credited with making the auctions of the airwaves more profitable to the government. Rabin, Matthew. 1993. "Information and Control of Productive Assets." Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 9: 1 (April): pp. 51-76. 52: "Because I assume that production is inefficient if the informed party buys the factory, and because information is always revealed in equilibrium, in all the models below inefficiency occurs if and only if the informed party gains control of the factory." 53: "There is a tradeoff for the outside party in revealing her information. If she reveals her private information during bargaining, she overcomes the adverse selection problem. But then owner of the factory can produce without her, using the revealed information. Only if she can contribute to productivity even after revealing her information can she make profits. Thus, a supplier of machines will reveal uses for those machines only if it has a large advantage in supplying these machines; otherwise, a supplier will inefficiently obtain control over those assets used in production along with its machines. A marketing firm would reveal to manufacturers what products to produce only if it is in a unique position to distribute the product; otherwise,it will purchase only the assets to produce the product itself, even if it is inefficient at production. The models suggest, therefore, that firms are more likely to trade through markets when informed parties are also superior providers of productive services that are related to their information. If, on the other hand, information is a firm's only competitive advantage, it is likely to obtain control over assets, possibly by buying firms that currently own those assets." -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Brilliant Economists
Jim Devine wrote: >BTW, who is the MacArthur foundation (that gave Rabin his grant)? is >it related to the late General MacArthur, who helped create the >modern Japanese economic powerhouse (via land reform)? where do they >get their money from? what criteria does the foundation apply in >deciding who's a "genius"? do they give IQ tests? why haven't they >called me? The money comes from a Chicago insurance fortune. Old Man MacArthur was a rightwing crank who hated taxes, and started this foundation to avoid them. His grandson (I think) John MacArthur is the publisher of Harper's. For a while, a bunch of Dissentoids were getting MacArthur grants but they seem to have exhausted their supply of eligible social imperialists. The most radical person to get one was Mike Davis, who bought a house in Hawaii with the proceeds. Doug
Re: Re: Re: McArthur grantee (fwd)
Well, there is a hell of a lot of stuff attacking rational choice models generall. In polisci--Mine is in polisci, no?--there is a book called Pathologies of Rational Choice theory that raised quite a flap a few years ago. In psychology, Kahnemann and Tversky (see, e.g., Judgment Under Uncertainty), or Nisbett and Ross (see e.g., Human Inference), or Johnson-Laid (Mental Models), have carried out long wars arguing that actual humans do not instantiate the assumptions of game theory or rat choice models anyway. Elster, oddly enough, has briefly encompassed many of these objection in a number of books, including his 1982 classic, Sour Grapes. Elizabeth Anderson discusses them as well in her value in Ethics and Economics. All that being said, rat choice and game theory offer a powerful set of tools that is very useful as long as you don't let it run away with your brain. --jks In a message dated Sat, 17 Jun 2000 3:20:37 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Rob Schaap <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: << Game theory has always irritated the hell out of me, too, Mine (artificially bounded, neglectful of interpersonal and cultural norms, and ever in the thrall of that inevitable moment of equilibrium). I'd be most interested to watch you wage your noble war, anyway. Or perhaps, point me at any concise demolition article of which you might be aware. Cheers, Rob. >>
Re: Re: name calling (fwd)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >I say zero tolerance >for racist use of language! Zero tolerance? I love it when Marxists try to sound like Rudy Giuliani. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Brilliant Economists
>Brad De Long wrote: >Why don't you go read something Matthew Rabin >has written?< > >actually, Brad, could you do us a favor? could you please give us >summaries of your two favorite articles by Rabin? what did these >articles contribute? The summaries don't have to be long. 25 words >or less. > >I gave a very short precis of his survey article on economics and >psychology, which people seemed to ignore. Of course they ignored it. Knowing something about Matthew Rabin and his work would limit one's ability to say whatever one likes... Brad DeLong
Re: Re: GT [was: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: McArthur grantee
The PD generates the players' second worst outcome, not the worst one. The worst is generated byL I cooperate, you defect. --jks In a message dated Sat, 17 Jun 2000 11:38:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << I believe Michael Ellman, in his book on Socialist Planning some twenty or more years ago, actually started off the book with the classical prisoners' dilemma, using it to show how it generated the _worst_ outcome. That came about because of the initial assumptions that individuals would seek to maximize their utility, in this instance defined as length of prison sentence. Thus, the classical prisoners' dilemma demonstrated that under such assumptions -- precisely the assumptions of standard economic thinking -- one got the _worst_ of all possible worlds! A delicious and simple demonstration of the conceit of the claims of neo-classical economic thought. There's really nothing in game theory as such that's ideological. Whatever ideology there is resides in the initial assumptions, and those initial assumptions embody the structural constraints. So it depends on how one structures the game, i.e. how one specifies those initial conditions/assumptions. For instance, in that classical prisoners' dilemma, the outcome would change if one added in an assumption of a prior commitment to solidarity arising from, say, membership in a movement for national liberation. In that case, with such a prior commitment, then the rules would be solidarity over imprisonment and, lo and behold!, the outcome would be both would not confess, resulting in the best of all possible outcomes from a straightforward utility point of view, i.e. they _both_ get the shortest sentence. Thus, the oldest and most famous of game theoretic examples illustrates that, e.g., solidarity trumps utility maximization as a strategy!! I can't think of a simpler demonstration of the utility of solidarity and the disutility of individualistic selfishness. Furthermore, in iterative prisoners' dilemma, it turns out that the best course of action is to start off assuming cooperation, not competition. As to whether the fact that unique solutions are available only for two-person (and of course 'person' here is not 'individual person') games is a weakness or not would depend upon how one simplifies the situation to assimilate it to a two-person situation. Such simplifications are common enough in physics where the n-body (n>2) problem remains unsolved, I believe. Basically, mathematical models all depend upon how one specifies initial conditions and parameters, and their use depends upon recognising the adequacy of the model to the issue at hand. It would be foolish to try and apply game theory to everything, but is there a theory of everything, superstrings notwithstanding? KJ Khoo Jim Devine wrote: >At 03:11 PM 06/17/2000 -0400, you wrote: >>I don't understand the antagonism to game theory. It is a logical >>technique--a >>tool that can be used to focus the mind on strategic decisions. It >>has the >>weakness that it can only practically discuss the interaction of >>two people, >>but surely there is nothing inherent in it that would bring out >>this scorn. > >I'm not antagonistic toward game theory, _per se_. I even studied it in >High School (back in 1967 or 1968) and thought it was pretty cool. The >problem, as with all theory, is how it's used and whether the theory is >reified or not. I've been convinced (partly by previous discussions on >pen-l) that there's nothing inherent in game theory that says that >John von >Neumann would automatically apply it to call for a preemptive unilateral >nuclear attack on the USSR. There's nothing inherent in game theory that >says that up-and-coming young economists have to prove their cojones by >using fancy techniques like game theory (GT). What I reject is the >_reduction_ of economics to such formalisms as game theory (so that >empirical research, a historical perspective, non-game theories, >philosophy, etc. aren't necessary). Even worse is _cooperative_ game >theory, which not only gets rid of the more interesting conclusions >of the >theory but represents a Panglossian "best of all possible worlds" >approach. >But we should also remember that other theories have been misused, >including Marxian theory. > >Mine quotes Ronald Chilcote: >Game theory and formal modeling have >generated mathemetical explanations of strategies, especially for >marketing >and advertising in business firms. Game theory has had an impact on >economics and it has been widely used in political science analyses of >international confrontations and electoral strategies. In fact, game >theory >has been extensively used by political scientists in the testing and >implementation of rational choice theory, which assumes that THE >STRUCTURAL >CONSTRAINTS OF SOCIETY DO NOT NECESSARILY DETERMINE THE ACTIONS OF >INDIVIDUALS AND THAT INDIVIDUALS TEND TO CHOOSE ACTIONS THAT BRING >THEM THE >BEST RESULTS.< > >I
Re: Re: name calling
Hey, in personal conversation, I switched over to Newspeak years ago. It's doubleplusgood! At 06:37 AM 6/19/00 -0700, you wrote: >__ > > PROPOSED RESOLUTION > ON > THE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY NATURE > OF > THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE > > It is clear that our movement has come a long way in the last two >years. Beginning from a preoccupation with essentially liberal issues like >student power and peace, we have arrived at a perspective through which we >have aligned ourselves with the revolutionary working class against American >capitalist imperialism. > > The achievement of a correct position does not, however, mean that >our intellectual struggle is over. We must explore the implications of >working class politics for every area of our activity, in order to reinforce >those politics and free them from contamination by bourgeois individualist >thought. This proposal is a modest contribution to this effort. > > Concern with correct thinking and proper expression of that thought >is a hallmark of the true revolutionary. Our vehicle for thought and >communication is language; to be concrete, it is the English language. Now >it has never occurred to us that this language is by its very nature >counterrevolutionary and that truly correct revolutionary thought in English >is therefore impossible. Yet we intend, through careful analysis, to >establish that the English language is little more than a tool of >imperialism designed to stifle genuinely radical ideas among the >English-speaking masses. > > We can talk about language from the standpoints of meaning and >structure. Although bourgeois linguists introduce complex terminology into >their discussions of meaning, chiefly in order to prevent us from >understanding what they mean, we shall consider it only in terms of words. >Now English has a great many words, and this in itself is suspect: what it >suggests is that no matter how hard the worker tries to educate himself, the >bosses and their lackey politicians can always produce new words from their >lexical grabbag to confuse him. Even in our own movement this elitist >duplicity manifests itself in the use of esoteric words like "chauvinism," >"reification," "dialectical materialism." and so on. It is almost axiomatic >that the revolutionary status of a language is inversely proportional to the >weight of its dictionary. > > Lest this sound farfetched, we may cite the pioneer linguist Otto >Jesperson in _The Growth and Structure of the English Language_. He notes >that the Norman invasion and subsequent domination of England for centuries >by descendants of the French-speaking conquerors produced a class division >of the English vocabulary, with the French imports reserved chiefly for the >upper classes. The other great influx of foreign words came during the >Renaissance when scholars, not content with the language of the people, >imported quantities of Latin and Greek, thus widening the semantic gulf >between the educated elite and the masses. > > Significant though consideration of meaning be, it is in the area of >language structure that our analysis is most fruitful. Structure or syntax >is the sum of all those rules which govern the ways the words in any >language can be put together to make sense. We use the rules of syntax more >of less unconsciously because they are inculcated in early childhood along >with religion, patriotism, etc. It is the unconscious nature of syntax which >makes its influence so insidious. > > The foundation of structure is the categories, which are theoretical >divisions of human experience imposed on all languages. In English the main >categories are tense and number; centuries ago we had gender as other >European languages still do. There are many other categories: some languages >divide all mater by shape, so that one cannot speak of an object without >adding some word ending to indicate whether it is round, square and so on, >while others classify things by their tangibility or lack thereof. The >categories are classifications of thought; in English we cannot, for >instance, speak of anything without indicating number (singular or plural) >and time (past, present, future). > > Bourgeois scholars pretend to make a great mystery of the >categories, in order to conceal the perfectly plain facts. Edward Sapir, for >example, baldly states in _Language_ that the origin of linguistic >categories is altogether unknown. It is crystal clear to the proletarian >analyst, however, that the nature of the categories arises directly from the >nature of the ownership of the means of production: how else explain the >preoccupation of English syntax with time and number? It is the capitalist >factory system which necessitates an emphasis on time, and it
Matt Rabin
Well, just to take the things Matt Rabin has written recently that are on my desk... "Inference by Believers in the Law of Small Numbers," Many people believe in the "Law of Small Numbers," exaggerating the degree to which a small sample resembles the population from which it is drawn. To model this, I assume that a person exaggerates the likelihood that a short sequence of i.i.d. signals resembles the long-run rate at which those signals are generated. Such a person believes in the "gambler's fallacy", thinking early draws of one signal increase the odds of next drawing other signals. When uncertain about the rate, the person over-infers from short sequences of signals, and is prone to think the rate is more extreme than it is. When the person makes inferences about the frequency at which rates are generated by different sources-such as the distribution of talent among financial analysts-based on a few observations from each source, he tends to exaggerate how much variance there is in the rates. Hence, the model predicts that people may pay for financial advice from "experts" whose expertise is entirely illusory. Other economic applications are discussed. "Social Preferences: Some Simple Tests and a New Model" Departures from pure self-interest in economic experiments have recently inspired models of "social preferences". We conduct experiments on simple two-person and three-person games with binary choices that test these theories more directly than the array of games conventionally considered. Our experiments show strong support for the prevalence of "quasi-maximin" preferences: People sacrifice to increase payoffs for all recipients, but especially for the lowest-payoff recipients. People are also motivated by reciprocity: While people are reluctant to sacrifice to reciprocate good or bad behavior beyond what they would sacrifice for neutral parties, they withdraw willingness to sacrifice to achieve a fair outcome when others are themselves unwilling to sacrifice. Some participants are averse to getting different payoffs than others, but based on our experiments and reinterpretation of previous experiments we argue that behavior that has been presented as "difference aversion" in recent papers is actually a combination of reciprocal and quasi-maximin motivations. We formulate a model in which each player is willing to sacrifice to allocate the quasi-maximin allocation only to those players also believed to be pursuing the quasi-maximin allocation, and may sacrifice to punish unfair players. "Psychology and Economics" Because psychology systematically explores human judgment, behavior, and well- being, it can teach us important facts about how humans differ from traditional economic assumptions. In this essay I discuss a selection of psychological findings relevant to economics. Standard economics assumes that each person has stable, well-defined preferences, and that she rationally maximizes those preferences. Section 2 considers what psychological research teaches us about the true form of preferences, allowing us to make economics more realistic within the rational-choice framework. Section 3 reviews research on biases in judgment under uncertainty; because those biases lead people to make systematic errors in their attempts to maximize their preferences, this research poses a more radical challenge to the economics model. The array of psychological findings reviewed in Section 4 points to an even more radical critique of the economics model: Even if we are willing to modify our familiar assumptions about preferences, or allow that people make systematic errors in their attempts to maximize those preferences, it is sometimes misleading to conceptualize people as attempting to maximize well-defined, coherent, or stable preferences. "Moral Preferences, Moral Constraints, and Self-Serving Biases" Economists have formally modeled moral dispositions by directly incorporating into utility analysis concern for the well-being of others. But sometimes moral dispositions are not preferences, as connoted by utility analysis, but rather are ingrained as (internal) constraints. I present a model fleshing out this distinction: If moral dispositions are internal constraints on a person's real goal of pursuing her self-interest, she will be keen to self-servingly gather, avoid, and interpret relevant evidence, for the purpose of relaxing this constraint and pursuing her self interest. This gives rise to self-serving biases in moral reasoning. I show that this alternative model has some implications different from a standard utility model. Specifically, because a person seeks to avoid information that interferes with her self-interest, the scope for social influence in moral conduct is greater than it is in the conventional model. Outside parties can improve a person's moral conduct by a) forcing her to receive
Re: Re: GT [was: Re: McArthur grantee (fwd)
>G'day Mine, G'day... I wrote: >Altruism has a pragmatic connotation in cooperative game theory. You give >in order to receive. As Richard Dawkins wrote in _Selfish Gene_, the book >that is a prototype of fascism and sexism, men compete to fuck women in >order to transfer their superior genes to their offsprings. The >possibility of being fucked or selected from the pool depends on how men >are altrustic to women as well as how >much women can offer. >I think there's a lot to Dawkins' theory - and it is a theory that may or >may not be deployed to support fascism and sexism (I think Dawkins >himself >read too much and too little into his theory, especially in his first >edition), but I maintain it is not *necessarily* what you say it is. >Part of the environment within which our genes march through history is >human culture and the particular power relations of the moment - that >makes our genetic history a rather particular and complex business - but >it doesn't deny Dawkins so much as introduce a dialectical relationship >into the mix. Fine. Rob, as the author himself said in many occasions, the main purpose of Dawkin's book is to reject Marx's dialectic and instead to introduce the _primacy_ of genes in determining human behavoir. In other words, Dawkins is not saying the things you would like to attribute to him-- ie., evolution of human genetic structure throughout history. On the contrary, he is saying that social environment, history, power relations have no influence on the development of human nature. He is trying to eliminate the role of external factors to openly say that we (like other non human animals) are "machines created by genes". In the book, Dawkins goes into a deep explanation of what genes are, what they serve for and how they survive. The politically dangerous aspect of this genetic reductionism is that it sees the charecteristics human beings learn in society (competitiveness, selfishness, egoism, possessiveness, private property, rape etc..) in the human genetic make up. His argument is implicity reactionary not only because he sees human nature as fixed and unchanging but also because it ahistorically projects the charectristics of competitive market society (which he *reifies* like neo-classical economists) onto human nature to *imply* that capitalism is what we *naturally* have and it is what we are doomed to have in the future. Accordingly, he is ridiculing at the Marxist agenda of replacing capitalism with socialism or an egalitarian form of society. The man's problem is with equality. >And anyway, experience tells us that women in liberal capitalist polities >compete no less than men when it comes to the mating game (I imagine this >would be true in much, but perhaps not all, of Turkey, too). Correct, but this is not Dawkins. Dawkins is *not* saying that "liberal capitalist policies" force men and women to act in certain ways, though I would still suggest capitalism reinforces traditional sexual practices by disempowering women in the mating game. Yes, women compete no less than men, but when it comes to how women expect men to treat them in certain ways, you will see that capitalism maintains the hierarchial structure of gender relations. Regarding competition and cooperation, many anthropological studies show that these concepts gain their meanings within the form of social organization and type of society individuals live in. It also depends on which historical period we are talking about. We can not expect ancient Athenians, for example, subscribing to the notion of capitalist rationality and competitive individualism that we understand in the modern sense of the term today. They had a different societal structure and property regime.or think about hunting gathering societies; Eventhough in those societies, there was still a division of labor by sex, gender inegualities were not as systemic and cumulative as they are under capitalism. Furthermore, cross-cultural and cross-historical studies have proven variations among how these terms apply given country's situatedness with the capitalist world system. in any case, as somebody's post clarifed about what Rabin's work is and where the source of funding comes from,I see neither Rabin's work nor Dawkin's particulary useful for leftist politics..whoever thinks it is useful is mistaken and does harm to Marxism. DAwkins say: "Each individual wants as many surviving children as possible. The less he or she is obliged to invest in any one of those children, the more children he or she can have. The obvious way to achieve this desirable state of affairs is to induce your sexual partner to invest more than his or her fair share of resources in each child, leaving you free to have other children with other partners. This would be a desirable strategy for either sex, but it is more difficult for the female to achieve".
Re: Matt Rabin
Brad De Long wrote: >"Inference by Believers in the Law of Small Numbers," > >Many people believe in the "Law of Small Numbers," exaggerating the >degree to which a small sample resembles the population from which >it is drawn. To model this, I assume that a person exaggerates the >likelihood that a short sequence of i.i.d. signals resembles the >long-run rate at which those signals are generated. Such a person >believes in the "gambler's fallacy", thinking early draws of one >signal increase the odds of next drawing other signals. When >uncertain about the rate, the person over-infers from short >sequences of signals, and is prone to think the rate is more extreme >than it is. When the person makes inferences about the frequency at >which rates are generated by different sources-such as the >distribution of talent among financial analysts-based on a few >observations from each source, he tends to exaggerate how much >variance there is in the rates. Hence, the model predicts that >people may pay for financial advice from "experts" whose expertise >is entirely illusory. Other economic applications are discussed. For this you need game theory and a formal model? Is there anything here that couldn't be conveyed in three or four sentences of demotic prose? Doug
Dawkins (was Re: GT)
Mine quotes Dawkins: >"Each individual wants as many surviving children as possible" Nowadays, very few men and fewer still women "want" as many surviving children as possible. And that's why Dawkins needs to construct humans as if we were merely vehicles for thinking & desiring genes: "We" may not want as many surviving children as possible, but "our genes" do. Duh. Dawkins, etc. do nothing but depoliticize the question of reproduction of human beings & social relations. Very anti-feminist. Yoshie
Re: Re: Re: GT [was: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: McArthur grantee
Justin wrote: >The PD generates the players' second worst outcome, not the worst one. The >worst is generated by I cooperate, you defect. --jks Justin, I hope you don't mind that I edited what you said here, dropping the extraneous "L." What the "worst outcome" is depends on your perspective. The "I cooperate, you defect" outcome is the worst only from an individual's (my) perspective, whereas the "you cooperate, I defect" would be the worst from the other individual's (your) perspective. From the _social_ perspective, the worst would be "both defect." Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine ["clawww" or "liberalarts" can replace "bellarmine"]
Re: Matt Rabin
Brad De Long wrote: > Well, just to take the things Matt Rabin has written recently that > are on my desk... (snip) > > > "Psychology and Economics" > > Because psychology systematically explores human judgment, behavior, > and well- being, it can teach us important facts about how humans > differ from traditional economic assumptions. In this essay I discuss > a selection of psychological findings relevant to economics. Standard > economics assumes that each person has stable, well-defined > preferences, and that she rationally maximizes those preferences. > Section 2 considers what psychological research teaches us about the > true form of preferences, allowing us to make economics more > realistic within the rational-choice framework. snip > > > Brad DeLong It seems to me that "standard economics" assumes that individual preferences are just that -- not influenced by what others are doing, and further assumes that preferences are fully reversible in time. Without those assumptions NC economics stands in thin air. In other words, close all the econ departments. Duesenberry blew this nonsense away fifty years ago, followed by many others, notably Robin Marris. But even when distinguished economists inside NC economics show that it is nonsense, nothing changes. Gene Coyle
Re: Re: GT
I wrote: >>Someone already pointed out that GT need not involve individualism or >>profit-maximizing or egoism. One can apply altruism in making decisions >>in the game. Yoshie writes: >Isn't altruism a dialectical twin of individualism? The concept of >"altruism" emerged in the English language in the mid-19th century, >according to the OED. The word is used in attempts to explain why an >individual cares (or should care) about anyone besides himself at all. In >other words, under capitalism, regard for others emerged as a "problem" in >need of an ethical, philosophical, or scientific explanation, whereas in >the world before capitalism (= the world where individualism as we know it >didn't exist) no one taxed his brains trying to come up with philosophical >or biological reasons why one should care about others, because it was >taken for granted -- part of social institutions -- that one did. The first part makes sense to me. I think that the concept of altruism (usually meaning self-sacrifice to help others) is impoverished. You are accurate to reject the individualism/altruism duality. People have what Elster calls "mixed motives," though his vision seems limited, too. (Actually, the individualistic homo economicus would probably be diagnosed as either being a sociopath (a.k.a., psychopath) or autistic.) The vast majority of economists don't study psychology (or sociology or political science). Whatever one thinks of Matt Rabin, he should be praised for trying to break down the economics profession's snobbery toward other fields and thus undermining the common Beckerian attitude of "economic imperialism," the view that economics biases can be applied to all fields. >So it seems to me that whether actors are conceived as profit-maximizing >or behaving altruistically, Game Theory is about individuals and their >choices in the world of Scarcity & Opportunity Costs (as conceived in >neoclassical economics). I think it's more than scarcity and oppty cost. GT represents a rudimentary effort to describe society using "rules of the game." It shows at least the possibility of conflict, which doesn't exist in textbook NC economics. BTW, when I was working on my article on Hobbes, Locke, & Rousseau (published recently in POLITICS & SOCIETY, if I may brag), I found that though the "prisoner's dilemma" game had some insights (representing the Hobbesian "war of each against all"), it had to be transcended. First, there are only two "players." I posit a large number of "agents." Second, there are only four results (a Hobbesian war where both defect, a nice result, and two cases where one person defects and the other doesn't). Instead, I posit a continuum of results from ultra-anarchy to ultra-collectivism. Third, the PD model usually ignores the endogeneity of preferences: I see the Hobbesian situation as breeding Hobbesian personalities (i.e., paranoids), just as the "civilized" result breeds public-spirit. Now that I think of it, Locke's silly assumption that in a "state of nature" everyone should -- and will -- respect everyone else's lives and properties (despite the fact that property cannot be defined without a state) is akin to the common neoclassical assumption that games are cooperative. Hey, I should call up the editors of P&S and have them call back the journal and add that insight... >Are game theorists interested in changing the game at all? I doubt >it. If we start with atomized individuals trying to survive (or help >other individuals survive) in the world as it exists now, it seems to me >that _as isolated individuals_, we -- or at least most of us, very >"altruistic" ones perhaps excepted -- don't find it in our (or other >individuals') "interest" to exert much efforts & take risks in trying to >bring about an alternative to capitalism. Working for radical social >change doesn't "pay," and we don't need Game Theory to tell us what common >sense can teach us. Struggling for the abolition of capitalism (or any >radical social movement, for that matter) only "makes sense" when we don't >start with atomized individuals. Peter Dorman (who used to be on pen-l) has used game theory to promote progressive change. >Therefore, if Game Theory isn't "reactionary," it is at least very >conservative. I dunno. It seems to me that it's a poor worker who blames the tools -- or a poor worker who lets the tools determine the work that's done. I blame capitalism, academia, and the economics hierarchy for the way in which GT has been turned into a badge of honor and a tool for rising to the top, so that people let GT take over their minds. Instead, it could have been used to get a small number of insights and then shelved. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine ["clawww" or "liberalarts" can replace "bellarmine"]
Re: Re: Matt Rabin
Gene wrote: >It seems to me that "standard economics" assumes that individual >preferences are just that -- not influenced by what others are doing, >and further assumes that preferences are fully reversible in time. > >Without those assumptions NC economics stands in thin air. In other >words, close all the econ departments. Duesenberry blew this nonsense >away fifty years ago, followed by many others, notably Robin Marris. >But even when distinguished economists inside NC economics show that it >is nonsense, nothing changes. In an earlier incarnation, if I remember correctly, Herb Gintis showed that endogenous tastes undermines all of NC welfare economics. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine ["clawww" or "liberalarts" can replace "bellarmine"]
Berkeley Indisciplinary Economics
If that were the purpose of the McArthur grant, then George Akerlof of Berkeley would have won. He is not particularly leftist, but he does browse in the fields of anthro., sociology, and cognitive psychology. What other economists have won the grants? Heidi Hartman and Michael Kremer are pretty good. Who else has won? Jim Devine wrote: > Whatever one thinks of Matt Rabin, he should be praised > for trying to break down the economics profession's snobbery toward other > fields and thus undermining the common Beckerian attitude of "economic > imperialism," the view that economics biases can be applied to all fields. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Matt Rabin
The demotic prose in question is in chapter one of every introductory probability and statistics text ever written. It's the prediction of the model that astounds me -- "that people may pay for financial advice from 'experts' whose expertise is entirely illusory." I'm getting right to work on a model to predict the religion of the pope and the whereabouts of the bears' bowel movements. Doug Henwood wrote, > For this you need game theory and a formal model? Is there anything > here that couldn't be conveyed in three or four sentences of demotic > prose? > Brad De Long wrote: >> "Inference by Believers in the Law of Small Numbers," >> >> Many people believe in the "Law of Small Numbers," exaggerating the >> degree to which a small sample resembles the population from which >> it is drawn. >> Hence, the model predicts that >> people may pay for financial advice from "experts" whose expertise >> is entirely illusory. Other economic applications are discussed. Tom Walker
Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
the more I think about Dawkins (or at least about what people, including SJ Gould, say about his views), the more it reminds me of Wilhelm Reich. Reich started trying to merge Freudian psychoanalysis with Marxian political economy, but as his book THE FUNCTION OF THE ORGASM shows, he became more and more reductionist. At one point he found a plankton-like creature in sea water and saw it as the basic element of life. Eventually, he went the reductionist route from biology to physics and came up with orgone energy. Will Dawkins move on to physics in response to his critics? Maybe he could develop the concept of econe energy, the physical form of possessive individualism. Didn't Dawkins develop the concept of the "meme," a unit of culture analogous to a gene? The meme sounds like a perfectly good reason to avoid studying anthropology and sociology -- and like a perfectly reductionist way to deal with culture. It's ridiculous. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine ["clawww" or "liberalarts" can replace "bellarmine"]
Re: Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
>... Once the basic building blocks were put in place for a self-sustaining >Marxism movement, no other working-class leaders ever depended on this >kind of funding. It all came from the dues of party members. Our problem >today is that academic Marxism has pre-empted the space that once was >filled by a vibrant Marxist movement. It is funded by foundations, wealthy >individuals, academic departments, etc., all of which have a stake in the >status quo. Luckily the systematic biases that come from such funding sources do not preclude the production of some academic Marxist research that hasn't been totally removed from the needs of working-class movement. Also, how the working-class party is organized (including in collecting dues from the members) might bias the kinds of research done by the party intellectuals. I think it's best to judge someone by her or her own work rather than on the basis of the funding. I was asking about MacArthur funding not because I wanted to trash Matthew Rabin but because I was curious, wondering why anyone would give money to "geniuses." However, I add that since I have limited time (especially because I waste so much of it on pen-l), I do sometimes use funding as a way of prioritizing what I read. I put stuff from the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute (two right-wing groups) at the bottom of the file. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine ["clawww" or "liberalarts" can replace "bellarmine"]
Korean Summit
Korean summit undercuts 'Star Wars' By Tim Wheeler People's Weekly World The June 12 meeting of the two Korean presidents in Pyongyang, capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), was greeted by peace organizations as a step toward ending the 50-year confrontation on the peninsula. The meeting also countered Clinton administration claims that the U.S. needs an anti-missile system to defend against the DPRK, which it brands a "rogue nation." DPRK President Kim Il shook hands with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung during a welcoming ceremony at the Pyongyang airport June 12. Kim Jong Il has unleashed a diplomatic offensive to strengthen the DPRK's relations with countries around the world. He recently visited Beijing. Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to visit Pyongyang this month, rebuffing Clinton Administration attempts to deploy a ballistic missile defense (BMD) in violation of the 1972 ABM Treaty. Joe Volk, executive director of the American Friends Service Committee, said, "This meeting is a very good initiative. What we need on the Korean peninsula is an end to the Cold War through threat reduction, confidence building and identifying areas of cooperation between the north and the south. It might lead to mutual security and in the not too distant future reunification of Korea" He added, "We doubt very much if North Korea poses a real threat to U.S. security that justifies spending billions of dollars for an anti-missile system." Kim Dae Jung served prison terms under successive right-wing regimes in Seoul. A worldwide movement, joined by the DPRK, forced the regime to free him. South Korean trade with the DPRK, which was zero in 1989 reached $333 million in 1999. As of April 7, some 210,000 people from South Korea had visited Mount Kumgang (Diamond Mountain) in the DPRK, among the most beautiful peaks in the world and revered as a symbol of Korean unification. The summit of the "two Kims" comes during a period of agonizing reappraisal of the role of the U.S. in the Korean War. The Pentagon is attempting to discredit an Associated Press report buttressed by eyewitnesses that U.S. soldiers massacred unarmed Koreans whom they had herded under the No Gun Ri bridge. The DPRK's Korean Central News Agency released a report on the history of the Korean War reminding readers that the Pentagon, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, had schemed to escalate the Korean War into World War III by crossing the Yalu River. The plan was to draw People's China and the Soviet Union into the war and then retaliate with nuclear weapons. I.F. Stone provides massive documentation of this plan in his "Hidden History of the Korean War." Half a century later, the U.S. still deploys 40,000 troops and hundreds of nuclear weapons in South Korea. Mary Day Kent, executive director of the U.S. Section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told the World that her group favors negotiations to end the Korean War, "which has been going on for decades." The South Korean section of WILPF "is very concerned about human rights issues in South Korea and also about the process of renegotiation of the 'Status of Forces Agreement.' This is an indication that the U.S. plans to maintain its military forces in Korea into the future", she said. We are extremely concerned and opposed to the revival of an anti-ballistic missile proposal, which is both destabilizing and ineffective." Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Nuclear Weapons and Power in Space, told the World, "There is a fresh breeze blowing. It runs counter to the claim that North Korea is ready to launch a nuclear attack against the rest of the world." He accused the CIA of attempting to whip up hysteria against North Korea. "They have revised their estimates on how long it would take the North Koreans to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile to justify immediate deployment of Star Wars. This has been a fabrication from the start." President Clinton is under mounting pressure to reject the new version of Star Wars. On June 12, 33 eminent scholars of U.S.-Russian relations sent a letter to Clinton initiated by the Council for a Livable World. "We believe the current plans for the National Missile Defense program may undermine U.S. security and further aggravate U.S. relations with Russia," the letter warned. "We urge you not to endorse deployment at this time." Signers include Timothy Colton and Marshall Goldman, leading Russia scholars at Harvard; Arthur Hartman, former Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and John Steinbruner, an arms control expert. Meanwhile, 46 physicists and engineers, organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Congress that the Star Wars scheme should be shelved. "What's on the books at this point is simply not adequate and never will be," said Lawrence Jones, a physicist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Th
Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
Rob: >Marx was funded by a combination of a bourgeois friend's generosity, his >aristocratic wife's legacy, publishers' advances and some payments from >bourgeois newspaper editors - he even played the stock market for a while. >So funding sources are not always decisive determinants of, er, output. I >also suspect Rabin might not be 'particularly useful', and I haven't the >time to pursue the matter. But I know the a priori rejection of Keyneses, >Scumpeters, Dawkinses and Rabins is not quite what Marx meant when he >suggested we be ruthless critics of all things ... This came up on another forum in the context of the Nader candidacy. After I pointed out that Nader's funding model precludes accountability, a rabid Nader defender shot back that Marx was funded in the same manner, alluding to his legacy, etc. This misses the point. If it were not for such support, Marx would have never been able to complete his research. Once the basic building blocks were put in place for a self-sustaining Marxism movement, no other working-class leaders ever depended on this kind of funding. It all came from the dues of party members. Our problem today is that academic Marxism has pre-empted the space that once was filled by a vibrant Marxist movement. It is funded by foundations, wealthy individuals, academic departments, etc., all of which have a stake in the status quo. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: Re: Matt Rabin
And Veblen knew it and said it 100 years ago. Check the Preconceptions of Economic Science. Conveniently available at my web site. http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/veblen/index.html Rod Jim Devine wrote: > > > In an earlier incarnation, if I remember correctly, Herb Gintis showed that > endogenous tastes undermines all of NC welfare economics. > > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine > ["clawww" or "liberalarts" can replace "bellarmine"] -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Matt Rabin
The value of game theory as with any other formal system of logic is that it imposes a discipline on thinking. If one is competent, using the system assures that the conclusions follow from the premises. The system it self has no content. Granted, there are those who practice what Schumpeter called the Ricardian vice--a confusion of the model and reality. I have seen many a piece of 'demotic prose' that was severely logically flawed and no one seemed to notice. (Pick your favourite fashionable French philosopher). Using the language of game theory also has a secondary benefit. It has a rhetorical aspect. Economists will read it. Whereas, the so-called criticism of the discipline has no rhetorical value 'outside a small circle of friends.' Rod Doug Henwood wrote: > > > For this you need game theory and a formal model? Is there anything > here that couldn't be conveyed in three or four sentences of demotic > prose? > > Doug -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
OAS protest in Detroit and Windsor
OAS protest in Detroit Special to the World DETROIT, Mich. * A crowd gathered at Hart Plaza here last week to show support for those protesting against the Organization of American States (OAS) meetings being held across the border in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. About 500 demonstrators marched down Woodward Ave. and joined another 500 gathered at the plaza. More than 4,000 police with mace, dogs and helicopters surrounded the demonstrators. "There are several hundred people here today to show their solidarity with the people throughout the western hemisphere," said Dave Elsila, a member of Newspaper Guild Local 22, "to make sure that any agreement that is signed protects the environment as well as the workers out here," A speaker for the Green Party told the crowd he was committed to non-violence, but at every-day events he sees violence committed by the state powers: city hall and county, state and federal governments. He said the OAS is another effort at globalization. "Globalization is about taking our democratic rights away and giving all to the corporations. It is about a few getting rich while the many suffer poverty." Jason Wade, of Local 58 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, accused the city leaders of spending over $5 million on police for this event instead of repairing and reopening nine schools that have been closed. "Trade is going to have the effect of harmonizing relations and the problem is do we harmonize them upwards or downwards," said Dan McCarthy, president of UAW Local 417. "Those of the OAS have an agenda for harmonizing things downward. We can't have that. We need high wages and a pro-worker strategy if we are to experience any fairness."
Dawkins and anthropolgy
>Rob, as the author himself said in many occasions, the main purpose of >Dawkin's book is to reject Marx's dialectic and instead to introduce the >_primacy_ of genes in determining human behavoir. In other words, Dawkins >is not saying the things you would like to attribute to him-- ie., >evolution of human genetic structure throughout history. On the contrary, >he is saying that social environment, history, power relations have no >influence on the development of human nature. Fine. So you learn from the bits that persuade, and let the rest go. Keynes expicitly ridiculed Marx, too, but didn't persuade me to join him in that. I'm only beginning to see how wise a bloke Keynes could be, though. Same with Schumpeter. We learn lots off him, too (lovely stuff on the railroads, I thought). I haven't read Rabin at all, but I don't doubt we'd be well advised to go that same route with him - er, as Jim was saying. >He is trying to eliminate >the role of external factors to openly say that we (like other non human >animals) are "machines created by genes". In the book, Dawkins goes into a >deep explanation of what genes are, what they serve for and how they >survive. The politically dangerous aspect of this genetic reductionism is >that it sees the charecteristics human beings learn in society >(competitiveness, selfishness, egoism, possessiveness, private property, >rape etc..) in the human genetic make up. He's trying hard to make himself more convincing to himself, I think. He has a new chapter in his new edition - not at all satisfying, mind, but enough to show he'd recognised his one-sidedness was leaving big questions open. And let's not get too Lamarkian/Lysenkoite (although I shouldn't be surprised to find that a kernel of truth lies with those fellas - just not the balance thereof) - most of our genes have been there for a few hundred million years, after all. Anyway, I've seen enough of creches to know we've got everything from Bill Gates to the Tolpuddle Martyrs in us from the off. We've the potential to express a myriad selves, I reckon, and, yeah, our society does not elicit from us, nay, positively discourages, what most of us strangely (but gratifyingly) persist in considering best. >His argument is implicity >reactionary not only because he sees human nature as fixed and unchanging >but also because it ahistorically projects the charectristics of >competitive market society (which he *reifies* like neo-classical >economists) onto human nature to *imply* that capitalism is what we >*naturally* have and it is what we are doomed to have in the future. >Accordingly, he is ridiculing at the Marxist agenda of replacing >capitalism with socialism or an egalitarian form of society. The man's >problem is with equality. The 'selfishness' of the unthinking gene is not itself a potent political position. Whatever they incline us to do is mediated by the where and when of it. What I like about the theory is that, at the outset, it takes us away from the human individual (to focus on the gene is, arguably, usefully close to the young Marx's humanistic/Feuerbachian invocation of 'species being', I dare say). As I said before, Dawkins has to jump some problematic hurdles to get back to that individual. I'm with SJGould in thinking those hurdles are too high. >Regarding competition and cooperation, many anthropological studies show >that these concepts gain their meanings within the form of social >organization and type of society individuals live in. It also depends on >which historical period we are talking about. I got into trouble on Doug's list arguing that there are things about us that meanings alone don't decide. We are creatures of our genetic makeup, but that doesn't necessarily mean we are essentially selfish - slow, clumsy, yummy, soft morsels like us have, typically unwittingly, outcompeted a plethora of tough'n'hungry life-forms. One human with a handy set of tools or a capacity for abstract thought ain't the answer to that riddle. A capacity to learn and teach, reflect and plan, and co-ordinate action - well, it all depends on cooperation - with a cellular structure that must initially have inclined us in that direction (in the circumstances that prevailed in Eastern Africa in 2 million BC), then some symbolic interaction a few hundred thousand years ago, and then topped it off with speech about 130 000 years ago. Those things are not only basic to cooperation, but themselves required cooperation. None of that idle speculation (all of which I find most compelling) is contradicted by Dawkins' gene. It is Dawkins himself who contradicts it. >We can not expect ancient >Athenians, for example, subscribing to the notion of capitalist >rationality and competitive individualism that we understand in the modern >sense of the term today. They had a different societal structure and >property regime.or think about hunting gathering societies; Eventhough in >those societies
Re: Re: Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
>However, I add that since I have limited time (especially because I waste so much of it on pen-l), Dawkins might say you're wasting it, Jim, but you shouldn't! A lefty'd have to weigh the social benefit arising from the private opportunity cost. You're avoiding the worst outcome, Jim! Come to think of it, while the forgone opportunity comprises the reading of Cato and Heritage documents, you're winning the game hands down! And, if my conversion to Game Theory is soundly based, every Devine post to Pen-L evinces so much the more rationality on your part. Keep 'em coming, Jim! Gotta go to the pub to join an arkadas in extracting some utility from the Belgium v Turkey game (watch the football, yet don't give a penny to Murdoch the football thief... another game won!) Yours converted, Rob.
Re: Re: Matt Rabin
Timework Web wrote: >The demotic prose in question is in chapter one of every introductory >probability and statistics text ever written. It's the prediction of the >model that astounds me -- "that people may pay for financial advice from >'experts' whose expertise is entirely illusory." I'm getting right to work >on a model to predict the religion of the pope and the whereabouts of the >bears' bowel movements. Just make sure they're scientific, well-outfitted with Greek letters and subscripts. Lots of people knew that financial advisors are less reliable than monkeys throwing darts, but you needed a model to prove it. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Matt Rabin
Rod Hay wrote: >Using the language of game theory also has a secondary benefit. It has a >rhetorical aspect. Economists will read it. This is a benefit? Doug
Re: Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
Louis Proyect wrote: >This came up on another forum in the context of the Nader candidacy. After >I pointed out that Nader's funding model precludes accountability, a rabid >Nader defender shot back that Marx was funded in the same manner, alluding >to his legacy, etc. > >This misses the point. > >If it were not for such support, Marx would have never been able to >complete his research. Once the basic building blocks were put in place for >a self-sustaining Marxism movement, no other working-class leaders ever >depended on this kind of funding. Marx was mainly a thinker and writer; Nader's a political figure and organizer. Marx really didn't have to be accountable to anyone, but Nader's organizations presume to represent the interest of "citizens" and "consumers." Doug
Re: Re: Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
>Marx was mainly a thinker and writer; Nader's a political figure and >organizer. Marx really didn't have to be accountable to anyone, but >Nader's organizations presume to represent the interest of "citizens" >and "consumers." > >Doug This is not an accurate portrayal of Marx. He was almost continuously involved with trying to organize the socialist movement. For example, the demands of the Communist Party in Germany, written a year after the CM and based on it, were drawn up by Marx and Engels on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist League in Paris during the last week of March 1848. They were published there on 31 March as a leaflet, and at the beginning of April in various left-wing German newspapers. Marx was much more like Ernest Mandel, for example, than like the figures linked with Western Marxism. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: Re: Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
Louis Proyect wrote: >This is not an accurate portrayal of Marx. He was almost continuously >involved with trying to organize the socialist movement. I know all this. But the issue is the relevance of any comparison of Marx and Nader. If Marx had only been an activist, we wouldn't have any idea who he was; his legacy is as a political philosopher. Nader isn't much of a writer, and will be remembered mainly, if at all, as an organizer and activist. Nader's source of funding is directly relevant to evaluating who and what he is; Marx's source of funding is irrelevant. Doug
Re: Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
> Will Dawkins move on to physics in response to his critics? Maybe he could > develop the concept of econe energy, the physical form of possessive > individualism. > Didn't Dawkins develop the concept of the "meme," a unit of culture > analogous to a gene? > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine In late 19th century, Spencer adopted Darwin's theory. According to his social darwinism, Carnegies and Rockefellers were simply fittest survivors in world of ruthless competition over scarce resources. Dawkins is simply update, nothing more, nothing less, he gets sympathetic hearing because of current triumphalism of free-market economics. Nature will back you up if you want its authority, blah, blah, blah...Michael Hoover
Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
>I know all this. But the issue is the relevance of any comparison of >Marx and Nader. If Marx had only been an activist, we wouldn't have >any idea who he was; his legacy is as a political philosopher. Nader >isn't much of a writer, and will be remembered mainly, if at all, as >an organizer and activist. Nader's source of funding is directly >relevant to evaluating who and what he is; Marx's source of funding >is irrelevant. > >Doug I don't want to belabor this, but Marx's main legacy was as founder of the socialist movement. Furthermore, it does not really do this movement justice to speak of it in terms of "activism" versus "political philosophy". Nearly everything that Marx wrote following Capital was geared to political action. It is wrong to neglect works dealing with the problems of the French or German revolution. One of my big complaints, that I've voiced here before, is that if you leave out this latter body of work, you really have no way of explaining his subsequent career. Frankfurters like Erich Fromm would dump everything following the early "humanist" works while others might be tempted to disregard the works dealing with revolutionary strategy. === Dear Bracke, When you have read the following critical marginal notes on the Unity Programme, would you be so good as to send them on to Geib and Auer, Bebel and Liebknecht for examination. I am exceedingly busy and have to overstep by far the limit of work allowed me by the doctors. Hence it was anything but a "pleasure" to write such a lengthy creed. It was, however, necessary so that the steps to b taken by me later on would not be misinterpreted by our friend sin the Party for whom this communication is intended. After the Unity Congress has been held, Engels and I will publish a short statement to the effect that our position is altogether remote form the said programme of principle and that we have nothing to do with it. This is indispensable because the opinion - the entirely erroneous opinion - is held abroad and assiduously nurtured by enemies of the Party that we secretly guide from here the movement of the so-called Eisenach Party [ German Social-Democratic Workers Party ]. In a Russian book [ Statism and Anarchy ] that has recently appeared, Bakunin still makes me responsible, for example, not only for all the programmes, etc., of that party but even for every step taken by Liebknecht from the day of his cooperation with the People's Party. Apart from this, it is my duty not to give recognition, even by diplomatic silence, to what in my opinion is a thoroughly objectionable programme that demoralises the Party. EVERY STEP OF REAL MOVEMENT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN A DOZEN PROGRAMMES. If, therefore, it was not possible - and the conditions of the item did not permit it - to go beyond the Eisenach programme, one should simply have concluded an agreement for action against the common enemy. But by drawing up a programme of principles (instead of postponing this until it has been prepared for by a considerable period of common activity) one sets up before the whole world landmarks by which it measures the level of the Party movement. The Lassallean leaders came because circumstances forced them to. If they had been told in advance that there would be haggling about principles, they would have had to be content with a programme of action or a plan of organisation for common action. Instead of this, one permits them to arrive armed with mandates, recognises these mandates on one's part as binding, and thus surrenders unconditionally to those who are themselves in need of help. To crown the whole business, they are holding a congress before the Congress of Compromise, while one's own party is holding its congress post festum. One had obviously had a desire to stifle all criticism and to give one's own party no opportunity for reflection. One knows that the mere fact of unification is satisfying to the workers, but it is a mistake to believe that this momentary success is not bought too dearly. For the rest, the programme is no good, even apart from its sanctification of the Lassallean articles of faith. I shall be sending you in the near future the last parts of the French edition of Capital. The printing was held up for a considerable time by a ban of the French Government. The thing will be ready this week or the beginning of next week. Have you received the previous six parts? Please let me have the address of Bernhard Becker, to whom I must also send the final parts. The bookshop of the Volksstaat has peculiar ways of doing things. Up to this moment, for example, I have not been sent a single copy of the Cologne Communist Trial. With best regards, Yours, Karl Marx Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: Matt Rabin
>For this you need game theory and a formal model? Is there anything >here that couldn't be conveyed in three or four sentences of demotic >prose? > >Doug I actually believe that model-building is useful. You can make lots of arguments in three or four sentences of demotic prose (or three or four volumes). But many of them don't hang together. Formal model-building imposes a consistency and coherency requirement that can be quite useful... Look, for example, at the trouble Marx got into in _Wage Labor and Capital_... Brad DeLong -- This is the Unix version of the 'I Love You' virus. It works on the honor system. If you receive this mail, please delete a bunch of GIFs, MP3s and binaries from your home directory. Then send a copy of this e-mail to everyone you know...
Re: name calling (fwd)
>*You* *definetly* ARE with your energetic support for socio-biology and >praising people like Wilson who called Ruandan people barbaric creatures >and genetically ill people! > >Mine E.O. Wilson called Rwandans "genetically ill"? Citation please. That's not like him. And if you object to labeling the actions of Rwandan politicians and soldiers in the 1990s as "barbaric," there's something badly wrong with you... Brad DeLong
Murky figures cloud China state sector reform
Murky figures cloud China state sector reform by Jeremy Page FUSHUN, China, June 19 (Reuters) - After a wave of factory closures, mass lay-offs and bankruptcies at state firms, officials in China's northeastern province of Liaoning say they see light at the end of the economic tunnel. But analysts say the actual progress of painful state sector reforms in China's ``rust belt'' is blurred by murky regulations on restructuring and opaque accounting which overnight can miraculously turn basket cases into pillars of the economy. On paper, Liaoning is on track. During an April visit to the province -- home to 10 percent of China's large state firms -- Premier Zhu Rongji declared there was hope of turning round all its loss-making state firms within three years. If Liaoning could do it, Zhu said, the rest of the country would be a walkover. This year, the province aims to slash the proportion of state firms in the red to under 30 percent, from 60 percent at the end of 1998. Analysts are sceptical. ``There are a lot of different ways of making enterprises appear profitable,'' says James Greener, General Manager of Shenyang Corporate Advisory, which helps attract foreign investors to the Liaoning capital of Shenyang. ``Until consolidated accounting comes along, it's going to be quite hard to work out exactly what the situation is in these enterprises,'' says Greener, who helps the city package assets of state-owned firms for foreign investors. GOVERNOR SAYS REFORMS ON TARGET Liaoning governor Zhang Guoguang maintains the reforms are on target. The provincial economy grew 8.1 percent in 1999, outstripping the national rate of 7.1 percent, due mainly to successful restructuring of state enterprises, he says. State firms are now preparing for competition with foreign companies after China's entry to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) expected later this year. ``It's not about how many enterprises are loss-making, it's about how we can increase our competitiveness,'' he says. ``We must develop key industries, develop core products and open up domestic and international markets.'' However, analysts say few have become competitive. Many have been closed or merged, thus reducing the number of firms in the red but doing little to alter the overall balance sheet. Others use nifty accounting tricks to hide losses. Inflating sales orders through subsidiaries in other provinces and disguising major losses as capital expenditure are common practice, says Greener. ``Several of the major expenses related to reform like paying for pensions, paying for redundancies, interest on loans, don't go through the profit and loss,'' he says. ``That way you can make your profit and loss look profitable even when it's not.'' VAGUE RULES ON SURPLUS LABOUR When it comes to trimming payrolls to offload crippling welfare obligations, regulations appear to be equally flexible. In theory, state firms are obliged to give laid-off workers a monthly allowance of about 250 yuan ($30) for three years. But with no unified system covering medical care, housing and pensions -- all formerly taken care of by the Communist Party's ``iron rice bowl'' -- and no social security law to enforce payments, most firms deal with the problem on an ad hoc basis. Many cash-strapped firms simply refuse to pay the allowance, leaving workers to fend for themselves in the private sector. Firms in less dire circumstances offer workers a one-off payment of up to 10,000 yuan instead of the monthly allowance. Many more pass on their liabilities to insurance firms or the government, which launched a drive to reform state enterprises in 1997 through mergers, closures and share-owning schemes. At the other extreme, some simply transfer excess workers to non-core parts of their business, as did Petrochina Fushun Petrochemical Co, a unit of recently-listed Petrochina (PTR.N). When the refinery needed to shed 1,100 workers, it set up subsidiary companies ranging from hotels to shoe factories and staffed them entirely with former workers. ``These enterprises are not run to make a profit,'' says Fushun Petrochemical president Duan Wende proudly. ``They are run to look after the workers.'' He says the subsidiaries are not part of the listed company, and are not a drain on the firm's financial resources. ``They simply fulfil the functions we used to contract out to other companies. As long as their prices are competitive we direct all our business to them,'' he says. WTO TO BE LITMUS TEST While such methods provide a quick fix to the unemployment problem, they do nothing to help the overall streamlining of the state sector, analysts say. The litmus test of Liaoning's reforms will be China's WTO entry, they say. The provincial government has identified almost 500 state firms in trouble. The 60 largest will be given special help. The rest are to be left to sink or swim. Governor Zhang admits many risk bein
Re: Re: Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
I tend to agree with Michael H. on this one. I have never found much of use in Dawkins. Even the strictly scientific stuff is shallow and wrong. On the other hand, Rob has a point if he refers to genetics, rather than to Dawkins. Genetics is part of what we are. So long as we remember that we share 97 per cent of our genes with chimpanzees. And the maximum human variation amounts to 0.1 per cent. Again I will tout Deacon's book -- The Symbolic Species. Rod Michael Hoover wrote: > > Will Dawkins move on to physics in response to his critics? Maybe he could > > develop the concept of econe energy, the physical form of possessive > > individualism. > > Didn't Dawkins develop the concept of the "meme," a unit of culture > > analogous to a gene? > > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine > > In late 19th century, Spencer adopted Darwin's theory. According to > his social darwinism, Carnegies and Rockefellers were simply fittest > survivors in world of ruthless competition over scarce resources. > Dawkins is simply update, nothing more, nothing less, he gets > sympathetic hearing because of current triumphalism of free-market > economics. Nature will back you up if you want its authority, blah, > blah, blah...Michael Hoover -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: name calling (fwd)
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >>I say zero tolerance >>for racist use of language! >Zero tolerance? I love it when Marxists try to sound like Rudy Giuliani. >Doug himm??? Are you confusing me with someonelse? Mine
BLS Daily Report
> BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, JUNE 19, 2000: > > The four U.S. regions and most states showed little or no change in > jobless rates in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. As the > national unemployment rate edged up to 4.1 percent in May, 41 states and > Washington, D.C. recorded shifts of 0.3 percentage point or less in their > jobless rates (Daily Labor Report, page D-5). > > White House Gives Managers New Task: Create Satisfied Workers. "HR is just > as critical to agency management and planning as technology or budget," > Janice R. Lachance, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, > said last week in a speech on the administration's new approach. The > initiative comes at a time when federal agencies find themselves hard > pressed to compete for talented hires in technology, accounting, > scientific and legal fields. In the next five years, about half of the > government's full-time work force will be eligible to retire or take an > "early out." Although not all these employees will bolt for the door, the > government seems assured of a huge talent drain. Lachance, speaking at a > National Academy of Public Administration conference held at Gallaudet > University, said the administration's new approach will help renew efforts > "to recruit, develop and manage a high-performance work force." > (Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com). > > Housing starts fell by 3.9 percent in May to their lowest level since the > summer of 1999, the Commerce Department says. Total starts fell to 1.592 > million units at a seasonally adjusted annual rate from 1.656 million > units in April. The weakness was all in single-family starts, which > dropped 5.4 percent to a pace of 1.25 million units. In April, starts > rose 1.6 percent, not as strong as the previously estimated 2.8 percent > rise (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). > __In the face of higher interest rates, the housing sector showed more > signs of cooling: Construction starts for new homes fell last month, and > a drop in new building permits suggested the trend will continue. New > building permits, an indicator of future building activity, fell 4.3 > percent in May to an annual rate of 1.49 million. It was the fourth > monthly decline in a row, following a drop of 2.4 percent to 1.56 million > in April (The Wall Street Journal, page A15. The Journal's page 1 graph > is of housing starts, 1998 to the present). > > Internet users have almost become an American majority, with 49 percent of > U.S. homes online in May, according to Nielsen//NetRatingsCQ, a service > partnership between Nielsen Media Research, Inc., and NetRatings Inc. The > group estimates that 134.2 million Americans now have Internet access, > compared with 119.2 million in December, a 6 percent increase. "We looked > at age, race, income and even individual cities. They all showed > consistent growth," said the vice president of electronic commerce at > NetRatings here. He attributes this growth to improved technology, such as > lower-cost personal computers and less-expensive high-speed Internet > access, the recent cultural inundation of Internet advertising and news, > and an improvement in the range and quality of service online The trend > shows no signs of abating, either, though the survey did discover that > about one-third of people with Internet access didn't go online in the > past month (The Wall Street Journal, page C22). > application/ms-tnef
Re: Re: GT [was: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: McArthur grantee(fwd)
>> GT is methodologically on the right. Period. The reason for this is >>that the attention to micro foundations through rational choice, game >>theoric models and formal modeling of neo-classical economics have tended >>to obscure the importance of relations of production and the exploitative >>relationship between the capitalist and the worker. GT lacks a progressive >>framework to explain systemic inequalities. >no, the problem is that GT typically assumes relative equality in >"games." >It need not do so. well, my argument is that one can not start with a relative equality assumption to desribe a capital-labor relationship. If you do, you are implying that capitalism is a system of equality, given that it is not. >> >While I respectfully say that this is A bullshit [a BS what? a BS > >argument?], > >supposed "neutrality" of game theory... > > >I think that >the very assumptions of game theory--individualism, profit > maximizing >agency, egoism, alturism [altruism?] in return for > benefit--are >bombastically IDEOLOGICAL. >>first of all, don't correct my words or intervene in the text. You are >>not the editor here. >Actually, I am (and an economist too). One of the frustrating things >about >threads in on-line discussions is that they rapidly become >incomprehensible to the readers. I don't see it. Whoever reads "alturism" above can perfectly understand that it is meant "altruism", if s(he) does not suffer from an acute mental problem of comprehension, of course... >>I write quickly, and sometimes misuse letters. Knowing that English is my >>second language, you are being *disgustingly racist*, >like once upon a >>time you called third world people *irrational* here. >As far as I am concerned, you can have any opinion of me that you want. >But >the fact that you're stooping to calling me names says that this >conversation is over. This is my last contribution to this thread. yuppie! >More importantly, I _never_ referred to third world people as irrational. >I would like to see documentation of this totally outrageous claim. If >you >have any evidence, I _will_ respond, to show that it is spurious and >libelous. I did not say that you were a racist par excellence. Once upon a time, however, you made a comment in this list which I thought had culturally racist implications, despite your own intentions.. In the below passage, you are labeling some people as irrational from the standpoint of rationality you are socialized into. I don't mind quick comments _that_ much and let them go, but when it comes to religious labeling, I strongly disagree. Here is your post: http://csf.colorado.edu/pen-l/2000I/msg02544.html >Non-religious folks have this kind of upbringing, training, faith in the >socialist tradition etc. Either way, there seems to be an "irrational" component, an element of _faith_. Furthermore, you posted and wholeheartedly defended an article published in SLATE magazine by a right wing journalist who was implictly suggesting that blacks were not discriminated in the criminal justice sytem. I am sure you remember the debate. The author is well known to be relating racial inequality to black cultural patterns. Excuse me but the article was a destructive nonsense. I always take a second before posting such articles and seriously think about where the argument of the author politically goes. >You should consider an apology to the list, or at least to the >international members of the list! >An apology is appropriate only appropriate if I'd done something wrong. Fine. If somebody had warned me about an inappropriate use of language (especially with regards to racism and sexism issues), I would have automatically apologized. I don't approach criticism dogmatically. >>... I am saying that the game theoretical applications of conflict >>resolution to international relations and security studies (which I don't >>think you are aware, btw) come up with explanations and results that >>tend to promote the foreign policy interests of the US. Have you ever >>attempted to see where game theorists publish their articles in the >>majority of cases? They are the kind of journals such as _Foreign >>Affairs_, _Washington Report_ _Strategic Studies_, _Journal of Military >>Studies_, etc.. How do you assume that these people having their articles >>published in these journals are objective, given that the institutional >basis of these journals is intimately related to the US political system >>and the international political order it is trying to endorse. Once I was >>reading a game theoretical explanation of military intervention in Haiti >in one of these journals. The study was briefly talking about how to keep >>the junta in power with the US help and democratize Haiti in the mean time >without causing social conflict (revolt). The author was >constructing a >game theory of how to make democracy work in Haiti >without >>pissing off >the US as well as the junta. If this is not
Re: Re: Re: GT [was: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: McArthur grantee (fwd)
>Jim Devine says: As far as I am concerned, you can have any opinion of me that you want. >But >the fact that you're stooping to calling me names says that this >conversation is over. This is my last contribution to this thread. Mine responds: yuppie! Mine, is what it has come down to? It's way over the top. Joel Blau
Re: Re: Re: Re: GT [was: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:McArthur grantee (fwd)
>Mine responds: >yuppie! > > >Mine, is what it has come down to? It's way over the top. Hopefully, that was meant to be a slightly less rude 'yippie', Joel - that 'u''s hanging right next door, just gasping for moments like this. Cheers, Rob.
Re: Re: Re: GT [was: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: McArthur grantee (fwd)
I guess I've got to respond to this message because Mine dug up (spurious) "evidence" to show that I said that third world people were irrational. However, I doubt that anyone has to read this message except Mine. Mine wrote: > GT is methodologically on the right. Period. The reason for this is >that the attention to micro foundations through rational choice, game >theoric models and formal modeling of neo-classical economics have tended >to obscure the importance of relations of production and the exploitative >relationship between the capitalist and the worker. GT lacks a progressive >framework to explain systemic inequalities. I wrote: >no, the problem is that GT typically assumes relative equality in "games." >It need not do so. Mine ripostes: >well, my argument is that one can not start with a relative equality >assumption to desribe a capital-labor relationship. If you do, you are >implying that capitalism is a system of equality, given that it is not. I wasn't referring to capitalism as a system of equality. If Mine reallys thinks that I do, she should read what I say for actual _content_ as much as she looks for (spurious) politically incorrectness. In any event, the topic was GT, not capitalism. I don't think GT has produced a model that reveals much if anything about capitalism, as I've said before. In two separate messages, Mine wrote: > >>While I respectfully say that this is A bullshit [a BS what? a BS > argument?], supposed "neutrality" of game theory... I think that the > very assumptions of game theory--individualism, profit maximizing > agency, egoism, alturism [altruism?] in return for benefit--are > bombastically IDEOLOGICAL. > > >first of all, don't correct my words or intervene in the text. You > are not the editor here. I wrote: >Actually, I am (and an economist too). One of the frustrating things about >threads in on-line discussions is that they rapidly become >incomprehensible to the readers. >I don't see it. Whoever reads "alturism" above can perfectly understand >that it is meant "altruism", if s(he) does not suffer from an acute mental >problem of comprehension, of course... Okay perhaps I did some editing that wasn't necessary. So how does that make me racist? not to mention "disgustingly racist"? (BTW, Justin S. types really poorly too, even though he speaks English as a first language, so I sometimes correct his messages.) Mine had written: >I write quickly, and sometimes misuse letters. Knowing that English is my >second language, you are being *disgustingly racist*, like once upon a >time you called third world people *irrational* here. << I wrote: >As far as I am concerned, you can have any opinion of me that you want. >But the fact that you're stooping to calling me names says that this >conversation is over. This is my last contribution to this thread. Mine now responds: >yuppie! goodness! how do you know I'm urban? It's too bad that that wasn't my last contribution. Actually, I wouldn't call this one a "contribution" as much as a simple defense against lying attacks (or willful misinterpretation or simple ignorance). I wrote: >More importantly, I _never_ referred to third world people as >irrational. I would like to see documentation of this totally outrageous >claim. If you have any evidence, I _will_ respond, to show that it is >spurious and libelous. Mine now writes: >I did not say that you were a racist par excellence. Yeah, but you called me "disgustingly racist." That's not the same as putting me in the same league as Adolph Eichmann (a racist par excellence), but it's the kind of thing which needs more serious justification. Not that I take such charges from you seriously, since you seem to throw words like "racist" about. In European folklore, it's called "crying wolf." Mine writes: >Once upon a time, however, you made a comment in this list which I thought >had culturally racist implications, despite your own intentions.. In the >below passage, you are labeling some people as irrational from the >standpoint of rationality you are socialized into. I don't mind quick >comments _that_ much and let them go, but when it comes to religious >labeling, I strongly disagree. Here is your post: In this infamous message, I wrote: >Non-religious folks have this kind of upbringing, training, faith in the >socialist tradition etc. Either way, there seems to be an "irrational" >component, an element of _faith_. BTW, there is nothing in this quote about the "third world," nor anything about the third world being "irrational." Religion is not the same thing as "third world." You'll note that I put the word "irrational" in quotation marks. That's because _I do not accept_ the standard meanings of the words "rational" and "irrational" but was deliberately indicating to the readers that I was using the standard meanings. Unlike the definition of "rationality" which Mine _presumes_ I was "socialized
Re: Re: Re: Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
>I tend to agree with Michael H. on this one. I have never found much of use in >Dawkins. Even the strictly scientific stuff is shallow and wrong. > >On the other hand, Rob has a point if he refers to genetics, rather than to >Dawkins. Genetics is part of what we are. So long as we remember that we share >97 per cent of our genes with chimpanzees. and 40% with bananas...
Re: :McArthur grantee (fwd)
Jim and others, Mine seems to have backed off. I, for one am grateful. So, I think that we can let this drop. At least I hope so. Jim Devine wrote: > I guess I've got to respond to this message because Mine dug up (spurious) > "evidence" to show that I said that third world people were irrational. > However, I doubt that anyone has to read this message except Mine. > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brad De Long on New Keynesian Theory
Brad De Long made an interesting point about new Keynesian theory in the winter issue of The Journal of Economic Perspectives -- showing the similarities between Milton Friedman's ideas and their own. Does anyone, including Brad, have any comments on his idea? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Brad De Long on New Keynesian Theory
Title: Re: [PEN-L:20421] Brad De Long on New Keynesian Theory Brad De Long made an interesting point about new Keynesian theory in the winter issue of The Journal of Economic Perspectives -- showing the similarities between Milton Friedman's ideas and their own. Does anyone, including Brad, have any comments on his idea? -- Michael Perelman Well, I'm happy that I've *finally* figured out how to get things I write in the history-of-economic-thought actually published: place them in non-refereed journals that I edit. But maybe I should provide an explicit target for people to shoot at, from http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/Econ_Articles/monetarism.html: The story of twentieth-century macroeconomics begins with Irving Fisher (1896, 1907, 1911). Appreciation and Interest, The Rate of Interest, and The Purchasing Power of Money fueled the intellectual fire that became known as monetarism. To understand the determination of prices and interest rates and the course of the business cycle, monetarism holds, look first (and often last) at the stock of money--at the quantities in the economy of those assets that constitute readily-spendable purchasing power. Twentieth century macroeconomics ends with the community of macroeconomists split across two groups, and pursuing two research programs. The New Classical research program walks in the footprints of Joseph Schumpeter's (1939) Business Cycles, holding that the key to the business cycle is the stochastic character of economic growth. It argues that the "cycle" should be analyzed with the same models used to understand the "trend" (see Kydland and Prescott (1982), McCallum (1989), Campbell (1994)). The competing New Keynesian research program is harder to summarize quickly. But surely its key ideas include the five propositions that: 1. The frictions that prevent rapid and instantaneous price adjustment to nominal shocks are the key cause of business-cycle fluctuations in employment and output. 2. Under normal circumstances, monetary policy is a more potent and useful tool for stabilization than is fiscal policy. 3. Business cycle fluctuations in production are best analyzed from a starting point that sees them as fluctuations around the sustainable long-run trend (rather than as declines below some level of potential output). 4. The right way to analyze macroeconomic policy is to consider the implications for the economy of a policy rule, not to analyze each one- or two-year episode in isolation as requiring a unique and idiosyncratic policy response. 5. Any sound approach to stabilization policy must recognize the limits of stabilization policy--the long lags and low multipliers associated with fiscal policy; the long and variable lags and uncertain magnitude of the effects of monetary policy. Many of today's New Keynesian economists will dissent from at least one of these five planks. (I, for example, still cling to the belief--albeit without much supporting empirical evidence--that policy is as much gap-closing as stabilization policy.) But few will deny that these five planks structure how the New Keynesian wing of macroeconomics thinks about important macroeconomic issues. And few will deny that today the New Classical and New Keynesian research programs dominate the available space. But what has happened to monetarism at the end of the twentieth century? Monetarism achieved its moment of apogee with both intellectual and policy triumph in the late-1970s. Its intellectual triumph came as the NAIRU grew very large and the multiplier grew very small in both journals and textbooks. Its policy triumph came as both the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve declared that henceforth monetary policy would be made not by targeting interest rates but by targeting quantitative measures of the aggregate money stock. But today Monetarism seems reduced from a broad current to a few eddies. So what has happened to the ideas and the current of thought that developed out of the original insights of Irving Fisher and his peers? The short answer is that much of this current of thought is still there, but its insights are there under another name. All five of the planks of the New Keynesian research program listed above had much of their development inside the twentieth-century monetarist tradition, and all are associated with the name of Milton Friedman. It is hard to find prominent Keynesian analysts in the 1950s, 1960s, or early 1970s who gave these five planks as much prominence in their work as Milton Friedman did in his. The importance of analyzing policy in an explicit, stochastic context and the limits on stabilization policy that result comes from Friedman (1953a). The importance of thinking not just about what policy would be best in response to this particular shock but what policy rule would be best in general--and would be robust to economists' errors in understanding the structure of the economy and policy makers' errors in im
[fla-left] [news] Mumia supporters face repression (fwd)
Michael Hoover > Village Voice > June 14 - 20, 2000 > > PETTY TO THE MAX > BY C. CARR > Feds Throw the book at Mumia Protesters > http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0024/carr.shtml) > > They were found guilty of petty offenses, charges way too minor to warrant > a jury trial. And now, as punishment for the equivalent of a parking > ticket, a couple of leading activists in the fight to save Mumia Abu-Jamal > face a supervised probation so restrictive they won't be able to do their > political work. They think that that was the whole point. > > C. Clark Kissinger and Frances Goldin were among 95 demonstrators arrested > at the Liberty Bell pavilion in Philadelphia last July 3, the 17th > anniversary of Abu-Jamal's sentencing. He faces execution in Pennsylvania > for the murder of a police officer, and his supporters have long maintained > that he did not get a fair trial. During the July 3 action, protesters > blocked several doors to the Liberty Bell, and park rangers closed the > pavilion for three hours. Some climbed onto the roof to hang banners. Some > sat outside against the bumper of a police van. > > Kissinger and Goldin say they did none of those things. They were out on > the plaza with the third member of their affinity group, Mark Taylor, head > of Academics for Mumia Abu-Jamal. "We sat down in an area where a truck was > coming, filled with already arrested prisoners," recalls Goldin, "and > before we could move, we were whisked away by the park rangers. And cuffed. > They never said 'Move.' They never said anything." > > Charged with "failure to obey a lawful order," Goldin, Kissinger, and six > other activists decided to plead not guilty, and that's where their > troubles began. They are now convinced their real crime was to ask for a > trial. > > During the course of their three days in court, the park ranger who > arrested Goldin could not identify her, and none of the videotapes entered > into evidence showed the two defendants blocking anything or even sitting > down. While the activists were not exactly surprised when the judge found > them guilty anyway, fining them $250, they find the supervised probation > draconian and sinister. > > "This was a fait accompli, that they were going to get probation," says > Jordan Yeager, Goldin's attorney. "In fact, the representative from the > probation department was there in the courtroom waiting to handle the > processing. That was before the case had been closed, before all the > evidence on whether they were guilty or not guilty had been received." > > Under the terms of the probation, they cannot travel outside their home > federal court district (the five boroughs), cannot associate with convicted > felons (Abu-Jamal), have to surrender their passports, must turn in forms > every month listing all sources of income and how it was spent (for > themselves and everyone in their households), all organizations to which > they belong, and everyone they've been in contact with who has a criminal > record. They are also subject to surprise visits from their probation > officers. Goldin's dropped in a couple of weeks ago at 7:30 in the morning > "to make sure I don't have an opium factory on my premises." > > Goldin, who turns 76 next week, is Abu-Jamal's literary agent, has his > power of attorney, and handles all his finances. (She also represents the > Voice's Wayne Barrett.) Kissinger, 59, is a full-time organizer who has > traveled the country to rally support for Abu-Jamal. Both visit him > repeatedly on death row. > > Ron Kuby, the longtime civil rights lawyer who is representing Kissinger, > calls their punishment "unprecedented. These are the most restrictive > conditions I've ever seen in a case that didn't involve a felony. Clearly > the restrictions are designed to impede lawful, constitutionally protected > political activity." > > Andrew Erba, a Philadelphia lawyer who has filed appeals on behalf of > several of the defendants, says that he has never before seen probation > attached to a civil-disobedience arrest. Indeed, the movement foot soldiers > who climbed the pavilion and blocked its doors simply entered their guilty > pleas by mail and paid a $250 fine. > > "I think the federal government is sending out a message," says Erba. "Mix > civil disobedience, Mumia, the potential protest in July [at the Republican > convention], and I think you come out with the message 'Don't demonstrate > on federal property.' " > > However, Richard Goldberg, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the > cases, says it isn't so. "What I argued to the judge in court was that > these people, when they came up for sentencing, denied their guilt even > though they had been convicted," says Goldberg. "They indicated that they > would do the same in the future, and because they did not indicate any > intent to stop illegal conduct, the decision was made to request probation, > and the judge imposed it. So the argument for probation was base
