Re: CNN on Graham
Stephen Philion writes: I just went to the CNN cite and I didn't see anything that mentioned his bragging about the murder. In fact the article was pretty sympathetic with the argument that had this guy had an even half way alive lawyer he would have been acquitted, forget a good lawyer. What website were you referring to, sure it was CNN? I just visited CNN.com, and I think it's the following article that Michael was talking about: * Guilt of Texas inmate Gary Graham debated as execution draws near Protesters heckle Bush; crime victims talk of terror June 20, 2000 Web posted at: 12:39 p.m. EDT (1639 GMT) http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/06/20/condemned.man.02/index.html * Yoshie
Definition of Political Economy (fwd)
Can someone please comment on whether or not the following is correct?
The meaning of the expression "political economy", as it is used
today, is not identical with the meaning of the expression "political
economy", as it was used by Marx and his contemporaries.
Gert, _political economy_ is relatively a new sub-field in social
sciences, particularly in political science and sociology. I doubt that
it has a strong foundation in economics departments, with the exception
of few radical places may be. Although originally the concept was
invented by Marx and his contemporaries, the definition of political
economy as a "social science dealing with the interrelationship of
political and economic processes" (_Webster's Third New International
Dictionary_) is a new contribution, a product of 60s, brought to our
attention by the proliferation of radical perspectives in social
sciences (world system, underdevelopment, imperialism theories, etc..).
Previously, in the 50s, specialists in the field, particularly
mainstream political scientists, looked at the role of the government
and the state only. They generally emphasized pure politics (let's say
how a bill becomes a law) and overlooked economic considerations. Their
use of political system detracted attention from class society, and was
limited to "legal and institutional meanings" (Ronald Chilcote, p.342)
Economists, on the hand, always found political science less scientific,
and they continue to do so, especially the ones who think that other
social sciences need a strong neo-classical foundation and objectivity. In
the 60s, when radical perspectives began to address the questions of
imperialism and dependency in international politics and emphasized the
politics behind economics, political economy was able to become a coherent
body of knowledge and integrated to the cirriculum of political science
departments. This development also anticipated the growth of international
political economy as a new subfield within political economy.
In today's usage, "political economy" refers to a treatment of
economic problems with a strong emphasis on the political side (the
politics of economics), as opposed to a de-politicized ("economistic")
view of economics.
True. You may like to consider for this distinction Stephen Gill's
book on _Gramsci and Historical Materialism_,or Jeffrey Frieden's edited
volume_International Political Economy: Perspectives on Global Power and
Wealth_. Mind you that economists and other social scientists approach
political economy slightly differently. Economists generally stress the
economic ramifications of political economy (let's say market
inefficiency, supply and demand, price determinations, etc...).
Sometimes this approach develops a tendency towards a "depoliticized",
reified, economistic view of economics, which Marx wholeheartedly
criticized, and then later Gramsci rediscovered by developing a
_politically articulated historical materialism_. Considerably
differently from economists, sociologists, for example, stresss more
vehemently the societal, historical and idelological ramifications of
political economy (class, gender, race issues). I should admit that the
conteporary birth of interest in political economy is more of an effort
by sociologists than of efforsts by other scientists. This effort is
disseminating to other fields of social sciences too.
Origins and evoluton of political economy, however, dates back to much
earlier times. For example, Mandel dated the birth of political
economy " to the development of society based on commodity production".
On the other hand Marx's capital was a "Critique of Political Economy"
and emphasized commodities, surplus value, wages, accumulation of
capital. I generally disagree with the views that reduce Marx to Smith
and other classical economists. These views tend to see Marx the
Economist only, not Marx the revolutionary. Regardingly, Marx criticized
bourgeois economists for basing economics upon illusions of free
competition in which individuals "seemed" to be liberated. Marx reminded
us the fact that this notion of competitive market capitalism and
individual freedom was an historical product, not a natural state of
affairs, and would die one day as it was born.
At Marx's time the discipline of economics had not been ravaged by
scientism yet. At his time "political economy" meant the same as
"public economy" or "Staatswirtschaft" or macroeconomics
(macroeconomy), as opposed to business administration,
business management or microeconomics.
Historically speaking, what you are saying makes sense. Remember that at
Marx's time, in the German nation state, the concept of political
economy was used to refer to a field of government concerned with
directing policies towards distribution of resources, and national
wealth. This is where the concept of "public economy" comes from.
Although the use of political economy was related to economics, it was
still primarily
Re: Altruism
Strict neo-classical models can not handle "concern for others". If it is included, (i.e., if utility functions are not independent) then there is no unique equilibrium position. Not enough independent equations for the number of variables. Rod Sam Pawlett wrote: Altruism can be, and presumably is, used in rat choice theory because you just have to enter "concern for others" into a utility function. It would seem hard to build a comprehensive economic model with altruism though. I guess you could argue that altruism is a preference, a preferred outcome that would influence someone's choice. -- 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: GT
At the risk of sounding somewhat Hegelian. The problem can be looked at like this. Both the individual and the group exist with equal ontological status. Methodological individual gives priority to the individual, while some forms of sociology (including some varieties of of Marxism) give priority to the group. Understanding the outcome of individual situation requires a careful empirical analysis of the interaction. There is no a priori principle that can be applied. The dominant moment of the interaction will change depending upon the situation. Sometimes the group (social forces) will dominate. Other times the individual will. The longer the time period under analysis, the more likely the group will be the stronger moment. Rod Rob Schaap wrote: So I think Yoshie's onto something big, but still feel the thread is some way off neatly articulating the ontological solution to the confontation of the individual with the collective. -- 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: CNN on Graham
Thanks Yoshie. Yeah, i see where it mentions Graham's bragging, but it isn't the author stating that, it's the victim of his rape stating that he had bragged about it to her. The article seemed to give pretty fair play to the supporters of a new trial. The momentum around the death penalty issue is amazing to me, something I didn't think we were gonna see for a while. The focus, if the DP Abolition goal is ever to be reached has to be on the use of the DP to put to death people who would not be put to death if they had a decent lawyer, or put more bluntly, if they were not poor. Thank God for the OJ trial. The pundits keep on hoping that this issue doesn't become a 'campaign issue,' but it looks to be picking up steam despite their wishes. I knew we could have neo-liberalism and free trade with rogue states, gays kissing on prime time TV,... but I didn't see how we could have that *and* an end to the death penalty...Life in a world of globalized capitalist relations only gets more and more interesting Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822 On Tue, 20 Jun 2000, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Stephen Philion writes: I just went to the CNN cite and I didn't see anything that mentioned his bragging about the murder. In fact the article was pretty sympathetic with the argument that had this guy had an even half way alive lawyer he would have been acquitted, forget a good lawyer. What website were you referring to, sure it was CNN? I just visited CNN.com, and I think it's the following article that Michael was talking about: * Guilt of Texas inmate Gary Graham debated as execution draws near Protesters heckle Bush; crime victims talk of terror June 20, 2000 Web posted at: 12:39 p.m. EDT (1639 GMT) http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/06/20/condemned.man.02/index.html * Yoshie
Re: GT
G'day Sam, I've a (confused) quibble with this bit: One of the problems of trying to bring aspects of rat choice theory into Marxism is that the meth individualism and the more wholistic approach of most Marxists cannot both be true simultaneosly. For example, in MI social outcomes are explained as the effects of by-products of individual action but social wholes are not ontologically real. If social wholes exist then meth individualism is false. I hope to return to this theme when I've a little more time, but, at the very least, would argue that MI is a tenable predictor of action (as long as institutional context is present in the premises) for some things (like our conscious buying and selling actions) and not for others (like how we'd behave in a Pommie soccer crowd, or with our family and friends, or with a passer-by who collapses near us). I think the problem with 'altruism' is that it can manifest in MI only as an individual preference - which hides and relegates the social sense of the self that most of us actually assume to be there (and I have recently argued must ever have been there) in our very cellular constitution. That which we are as a matter of essence (not that we are exclusively that; just that it is an essential component) should be reflected in the organising principles of our society, and in a society where so much of our intercourse is captured by the exchange relation, our very being is alienated by our consciousness (hence 'the commodity fetish'). To suggest a crude formulation: people with little money are simply not able to express their humanity (their social being - lack of money where relations are mostly confined to money transactions - denies a fundamental aspect of their human being), and those with much money are probably most alienated from same (their palpably more individualistic consciousness denying said aspect of human being). It all *looks like choice* at work, and MI might well predict a lot of this, but I guess I'm saying it largely ain't. If memory serves, Adam Smith got bogged down on this 'empathy' stuff, too (his 'moral sentiments' self and his 'wealth of nations' self confonting the very mutual incompatibility Sam outlines) - not that most economists seem to remember this ... So I think Yoshie's onto something big, but still feel the thread is some way off neatly articulating the ontological solution to the confontation of the individual with the collective. Cheers, Rob.
[fla-left] Fw: Dying for Growth (fwd)
forwarded by Michael Hoover Common Courage Political Literacy Course - http://www.commoncouragepress.com +-+ C O M M O N C O U R A G E P R E S S' Political Literacy Email Course A backbone of facts to stand up to spineless power. +-+ Thursday June 8, 2000 === Dying for Growth === The ideology most responsible for promoting a vision of economic growth as good in and of itself has also shaped development discourse and policy choices among key international institutions since the late 1970s. Historically, this ideology has been known under various names: "neoliberalism," "the Washington consensus," "Reaganism," "the New Right Agenda," and "corporate-led economic globalization," to name a few. This view asserts that economic growth is by definition good for everyone and that economic performance is optimized when governments refrain from interfering in markets. Thus, for the good of all citizens, governments should grant the greatest possible autonomy to individual market actors--companies in particular. Unsurprisingly, the main advocates of neoliberal policies--governments of wealthy countries, banks, corporations, and investors--are those who have profited most handsomely from their application. The proponents of neoliberal principles argue that economic growth promoted in this way will eventually "trickle down" to improve the lives of the poor. Increasingly, however, such predictions have proved hollow. In many cases, economic policies guided by neoliberal agendas have worsened the economic situation of the middle classes and the poor. Today, per capita income in more than 100 countries is lower than it was 15 years ago. At the close of two decades of neoliberal dominance in international finance and development, more than 1.6 billion people are worse off economically in the late 1990s than they were in the early 1980s. While most of the worlds's poor are dying--in the sense of yearning--to reap some of the benefits of this growth, others are literally dying from the austerity measures imposed to promote it. --From "Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor," edited Jim Young Kim, Joyce V. Millen, Alec Irwin, and John Gershman http://www.commoncouragepress.com/kim_growth.html === === Free Book Online: "Colombia," by Javier Giraldo This book, published by Common Courage Press in 1996, is no longer in print. However, in view of continuing violence in Colombia and recent proposals by the US Government to increase military aid, we are making it freely available online. http://www.commoncouragepress.com/colombia/ === === This is the free Political Literacy Course from Common Courage Press: A backbone of facts to stand up to spineless power. To subscribe (or unsubscribe) for free: http://www.commoncouragepress.com Feedback/Title suggestions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Missed any? Course archive: http://www.commoncouragepress.com/course.html YES! This course is partly advertising for books. But it's also intended as political fertilizer: feel free to spread it around! __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ To subscribe to The Florida Left List, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Read messages you may have missed at http://www.egroups.com/group/floridaleft/
Re: Re: GT
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. Yoshie Hegel (a liberal conservative) rejected social contract theory of state as means of protecting citizens from one another in favor of ethical idea reflecting altruism mutual sympathy of members. T. H. Green (a progenitor of modern/reform liberalism) drew upon Hegel ( Kant) in rejecting early/classical liberal conception of human beings as self- seeking utility maximizers. According to Green, individuals possessing social as well as individual responsibilities are connected to other individuals via ability to care empathize. Various theorists have since suggested that concern for interests/welfare of others is based on 'enlightened self-interest' or belief in 'common humanity.' Michael Hoover
Re: CNN on Graham
Hi Steve: Thanks Yoshie. Yeah, i see where it mentions Graham's bragging, but it isn't the author stating that, it's the victim of his rape stating that he had bragged about it to her. The article seemed to give pretty fair play to the supporters of a new trial. Yes, fairer than Wojtek, Kelley, Marc Cooper, etc.! The momentum around the death penalty issue is amazing to me, something I didn't think we were gonna see for a while. This appeared in a conservative magazine: * NATIONAL REVIEW June 19, 2000 Issue The Problem with the Chair.full text version A conservative case against capital punishment. By Carl M. Cannon, reporter and essayist for National Journal http://www.nationalreview.com/19jun00/cannon-full061900.html * Yoshie
Re: [fla-left] U.S. DROPS ROGUE STATE MANTRA (fwd)
Michael Hoover wrote: hahaha, teeheehee, yuckyuckyuck...tomato, tomawto, potato, potawto, just call the whole thing off Michael Hoover Let's not be too rash. My understanding is that the North Korean dictator is a playboy with mood swings who likes to drink Scotch out of the bottle while listening to the speeches of Stalin played at high volume on a high-end stereo with electrostatic speakers. He is also reputed to be building a Cobalt super-bomb, code-named "Revenge of the Proletariat", that will be propelled by a dirigible. If it finds its proper target, it will blow the planet in half. All of the capitalists and their sympathizers will be banished to one half, and the capital of the other Communist half will be in Pyongyang. At least that's my understanding based on certain discussions I've overheard. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
At 11:43 PM 06/20/2000 -0400, you wrote: the price of orthodoxy is political irrelevance, and having the people you purport to support regard you, if they think of you at all, as deluded fanatics. is it political irrelevance the price of theoretical orthodoxy, or is it the price of dogmatic _a priori_ rejection of all other ways of thinking (and of any arguments that go against the preestablished "line"), together with the arrogant use of all sorts of jargon (either of an academic or a sectarian nature) that is unintelligible or off-putting to the vast majority of people? that is, is the problem with the _theory_ or is it with the theory's adherent's style? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine/AS
Re: Re: Boris Kagarlitsky
The shadowy think-tank Stratfor also made this analysis and threw China into the mix. Some of this seems plausible in light of the Nato bombing of the Chinese embassy. Amusing to here you call Stratfor a shadowy think-tank as it really is neither. Essentially Stratfor.com (as opposed to its mother company Stratfor/Infraworks, a security software and "private intelligence" consulting firm) was part typical "new economy" dot com, part secondary source commercial news agency. It is definitely not a think-tank, all of the writers are mid to late 20s grad school dropouts (like myself) basing probably 80% of their news analysis on articles culled second hand from the internet. The company was run from a cramped cubicle space in an office in downtown Austin--no great mysteries there. I would agree that the consulting side of the mother company and the creepy ex-marxist owner of the company, George Freidman, do fit those characteristics. However the "real" intelligence that the company gathers on that end is not public information. Mostly it takes the form of private, password-protected websites for business clients. I should know as I took off a year from union organizing to work as Stratfor.com's news and copy editor. So back to bus driving for me... Why I have used the past tense in this post is simple Stratfor.com as a seperate entity is no more, thanks to the colossal over-reaching that typifies most dot coms (and has since been "corrected" by the market). The web site is now being run by the mother company again with greatly reduced copy and a subtle focus on countries where the company's clients are doing business. BTW The boss man's layoff speech was the funniest and most maddening such speech I have ever heard. He actually went on this long rant about the rigors of the life of the "bourgeoise" (no shit his actual word choice). Needless to say the Gen X writers and editors looked like they wanted to strangle him. Ahh, I taught them well. Salud, Chris Kutalik
Re: Re: Re: GT
At 04:02 AM 06/21/2000 -0400, you wrote: At the risk of sounding somewhat Hegelian. The problem can be looked at like this. Both the individual and the group exist with equal ontological status. Methodological individual gives priority to the individual, while some forms of sociology (including some varieties of of Marxism) give priority to the group. In their THE DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST, a book that everyone on pen-l should read, Lewins and Lewontin describe the dialectical method as follow (to paraphrase): "part makes whole, while whole makes part." That is, individual people make the structure of social relations (though not as they please) at the same time as the structure of social relations makes us who we are (how we think, what we want, etc.) though there are some biological limits to this latter determination (just as there are limits on what kinds of societies can be created). This mutual determination is a dynamic process rather than reaching an equilibrium, BTW. this dialectical view would reject _both_ methodological individualism (because it ignores the feed-back from society to the individual) and radical holism (because it ignores individual agency). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine/AS
Re: Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
G'day Jim, that is, is the problem with the _theory_ or is it with the theory's adherent's style? I don't think it's the theory, Jim. The way I understand said theory, we find out what we should do now by reflecting on what's happening in light of our past practice. Any advocate of that theory who imposes on the rest of us an assessment of the progressiveness of our politics, or tells us what to do - and does so with the moot legitimation afforded by a particular reading of militants and theorists removed from us by much time and many kliks - is asking for particularly ruthless criticism in terms of their own theory, I submit. I may not quite know what democratic centralism might look like, but I know a bureaucratically centralist position when I see one. Yours, A proud admirer of P. Dorman and R. Hahnel both.
Re: [fla-left] Fw: Dying for Growth (fwd)
The ideology most responsible for promoting a vision of economic growth as good in and of itself has also shaped development discourse and policy choices among key international institutions since the late 1970s. Historically, this ideology has been known under various names: "neoliberalism," "the Washington consensus," "Reaganism," "the New Right Agenda," and "corporate-led economic globalization," to name a few. This view asserts that economic growth is by definition good for everyone and that economic performance is optimized when governments refrain from interfering in markets. Thus, for the good of all citizens, governments should grant the greatest possible autonomy to individual market actors--companies in particular. there's a big difference between "economic growth" _per se_ and the neo-liberal view that _marketized_ (profit-led, corporate-run) growth is good in and of itself. Economic growth _might be_ democratically planned to be consistent with the preservation of the natural balance. Of course it isn't at this point, but that doesn't mean that there is no alternative. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine/AS
Re: Definition of Political Economy (fwd)
Although originally the concept [of political economy] was invented by Marx and his contemporaries, * * * I made this mistake once early in grad school, and my political theory teacher humiliated me in front of everyone.. Pol econ was the term for what we call economics, mainly, but also political science with an eye towards material reproduction, for over 100 years before Marx. Rousseau discusses it, Smith thought of himself as doing pol econ. --jks
Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
It's probably both a problem with the theory and the style. The style of orthodox Marxism is of course a guarantee that no one will talk to you who is not already a true believer. But the two are linked. The theory appears to be defective, and retaining a defective millinarian theory in the face of inevitable continued disappointments probably requires an in-group jargon to keep going. --jks In a message dated Wed, 21 Jun 2000 9:57:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 11:43 PM 06/20/2000 -0400, you wrote: the price of orthodoxy is political irrelevance, and having the people you purport to support regard you, if they think of you at all, as deluded fanatics. is it political irrelevance the price of theoretical orthodoxy, or is it the price of dogmatic _a priori_ rejection of all other ways of thinking (and of any arguments that go against the preestablished "line"), together with the arrogant use of all sorts of jargon (either of an academic or a sectarian nature) that is unintelligible or off-putting to the vast majority of people? that is, is the problem with the _theory_ or is it with the theory's adherent's style? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine/AS
Asperger's Syndrome
By mistake, I've been sending pen-l my wrong web-page address, the one that refers to the support group for parents of kids with Asperger's Syndrome (mild autism) that my wife and I run. However, if you're interested, click away. (Hey, it's my life away from pen-l!) The URL appears below. FWIW, the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE had a pretty good article on Asperger's syndrome this last Sunday (June 18, 2000), despite that magazine's blatant and systematic bourgeois-imperialist bias. (It's at http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/2618mag-asperger.html.) Frankly, I think that a lot of people on the left and in on-line discussions have AS or mild versions of it (like I do). (For the irony-impaired, I don't think that the magazine's bias is very important on this subject. Instead, the article reflects the biases of the psychology profession. The fascination with the high IQs of many of those with AS is probably the magazine's most blatant sign of ideology, but that's very common in those who study AS.) Jim Devine -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Los Angeles Asperger's Syndrome Parents' Support Group Home Page: http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine/AS [note the new web-page address. The old one works, too. "liberalarts" or "clawww" can replace "bellarmine."]
Re: Re: Re: Re: GT
At the risk of tooting my own horn, I wrote a piece on MI called "Metaphysical Individualism and Functional Explanation," Philosophy of Science 1993, that I still think is quite good. In the context of the Cohen-Elster debate, I argued that: 1. Functional explanation is legitimate, but Cohen's account of it in terms of "consequence laws" is wrong; you need a mechanical account of explanation, i.e., one that regards explanation as exposing the causal mechanisms. 2. MI has two senses that are not often distinguished: the claim that the individual level of explanation is the only legitimate one, andthe claim that the individual level is a legitimate one, but not the only one. Most of the problems around MI derive from the first version, but this is utterly implausible. Whether the second version is true is an open question, but even if it is, that does not threaten functional explanation or other kinds of explanation that refer to group phenomena in an explanatory way. After all, on the second version, individualistic explanation is merely available, not required. There, now you don't have to read the piece. But you should. --jks In a message dated Wed, 21 Jun 2000 10:11:36 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 04:02 AM 06/21/2000 -0400, you wrote: At the risk of sounding somewhat Hegelian. The problem can be looked at like this. Both the individual and the group exist with equal ontological status. Methodological individual gives priority to the individual, while some forms of sociology (including some varieties of of Marxism) give priority to the group. In their THE DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST, a book that everyone on pen-l should read, Lewins and Lewontin describe the dialectical method as follow (to paraphrase): "part makes whole, while whole makes part." That is, individual people make the structure of social relations (though not as they please) at the same time as the structure of social relations makes us who we are (how we think, what we want, etc.) though there are some biological limits to this latter determination (just as there are limits on what kinds of societies can be created). This mutual determination is a dynamic process rather than reaching an equilibrium, BTW. this dialectical view would reject _both_ methodological individualism (because it ignores the feed-back from society to the individual) and radical holism (because it ignores individual agency). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine/AS
Re: Re: Definition of Political Economy (fwd)
Quoth Mine: Although originally the concept [of political economy] was invented by Marx and his contemporaries, Quoth Justin: I made this mistake once early in grad school, and my political theory teacher humiliated me in front of everyone.. Pol econ was the term for what we call economics, mainly, but also political science with an eye towards material reproduction, for over 100 years before Marx. Rousseau discusses it, Smith thought of himself as doing pol econ. --jks Quoth one Piercy Ravenstone, fiercely taking a three-year-old Karl Marx to pre-emptive task, in 'A Few Doubts as to the Correctness of Some Opinions Generally Entertained on the Subjects of Population and *Political Economy*' (1821): '(Capital) serves to account for whatever cannot be accounted for in any other way. Where reason fails, where argument is insufficient, it operates like a talisman to silence all doubts. It occupies the same place in their theories, which was held by darkness in the mythology of the ancients. It is the root of all their genealogies, it is the great mother of all things, it is the cause of every event that happens in the world. Capital, according to them, is the parent of industry, the forerunner of all improvements ... It is the deity of their idolatry which they have set up to worship in the high places of the Lord; and were its powers what they imagine, it would not be unworthy of their adoration.' Cheers, Rob.
Re: Re: [fla-left] Fw: Dying for Growth (fwd)
Jim Devine wrote: there's a big difference between "economic growth" _per se_ and the neo-liberal view that _marketized_ (profit-led, corporate-run) growth is good in and of itself. Economic growth _might be_ democratically planned to be consistent with the preservation of the natural balance. Of course it isn't at this point, but that doesn't mean that there is no alternative. One form of planned growth could be to consume the (potential) growth in the form of more leisure. The ultimate viciousness of "profit-led" growth would seem to lie in the fact that it is profit-*driven*-- grow or else. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to forecast what, under conditions in which growth was a matter of arbitrary choice (i.e., meaningless or whimsical choice -- choice where it makes no difference what you choose, the only kind of choice which is in material fact free choice) whether people would choose to grow. Carrol
Re: GT
Nancy Breen (Do you remember, Nancy?) and I once met at Davis where we went to a talk by Elster. I had never read anything by him, but understood that he was important. The only thing I recall from the talk was the appalling number of errors about Marx that he propogated with absolute conviction. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: GT
At 08:57 AM 6/21/00 -0700, you wrote: Nancy Breen (Do you remember, Nancy?) and I once met at Davis where we went to a talk by Elster. I had never read anything by him, but understood that he was important. The only thing I recall from the talk was the appalling number of errors about Marx that he propogated with absolute conviction. I use Elster's MAKING HASH OF MARX as a source for common misinterpretations (ones that are often shared by bourgeois critics of Marx and dogmatic followers of the "Marxism of the 3rd International"). By collecting them all in one place, he's done the world a service. But his other work (often in game theory) is sometimes very interesting and instructive. I can't say I'm an Elsterite, but some of his work provides a starting point, if considered critically. where is Nancy these days? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine ["clawww" or "liberalarts" can replace "bellarmine"]
Ronald Chilcote's New Volume on Imperialism (fwd)
Ron Chilcote has edited a new volume titled "The Political Economy of Imperialism: Critical Appraisals" Boston: Kluwer Academic (1999), 260 pp. isbn 0-7923-8470-9. The table of contents contributors: Part I. SImperialism: Its Legacy and Contemporary Significance M.C. Howard and J.E. King, "Whatever happened to Imperialism?" Michael Barratt Brown "Imperialism Revisited" Anthony Brewer, "Imperilaism in Retrospect" Gregory Nowell "Hobson's Imperialism: Its Histoircal Validity and Contemporary Relevance" Part II Imperialism and Development John Willoughby, "Early Marxist Critiques of Capitalist Development J.M. Blaut "Marxism and Eurocentricc Diffusionism" Ronaldo Munck, "Dependency and Imperialism in Latin America: New horizons" Part III: Globalism or Imperialism? Samir Amin, Capitalism Imperialism, Globalization Prabhat Patnaik, On the Pitfalls of Bourgeois Internationalism James Petras, Globailization: A Critical Analysis The book has an astoundingly high price tag so I'll just say: please ask your libraries to order it. Ron Chilcote is trying to get a paperback out with a different publisher (Kluwer is willing). Your emails of support should go to him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] If he gets enough such emails he might be able to include them in packet to help convince a publisher to do the paperback. -- Gregory P. Nowell Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Milne 100 State University of New York 135 Western Ave. Albany, New York 1 Fax 518-442-5298 -- Mine Aysen Doyran PhD Student Department of Political Science SUNY at Albany Nelson A. Rockefeller College 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102 Albany, NY 1 _ NetZero - Defenders of the Free World Click here for FREE Internet Access and Email http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html
Re: [fla-left] Fw: Dying for Growth (fwd)
Jim Devine wrote: there's a big difference between "economic growth" _per se_ and the neo-liberal view that _marketized_ (profit-led, corporate-run) growth is good in and of itself. Economic growth _might be_ democratically planned to be consistent with the preservation of the natural balance. Of course it isn't at this point, but that doesn't mean that there is no alternative. Granted that economic growth doesn't have to be profit-led, corporate-run growth. However, the effort to formulate a "democratically planned alternative" doesn't lead to such a big difference if growth of output remains the ruling criteria. "From all the works I have read on the subject, the richest nations in the world are those where the greatest revenue is or can be raised; as if the power of compelling or inducing men to labour twice as much at the mills of Gaza for the enjoyment of the Philistines, were proof of any thing but a tyranny or an ignorance twice as powerful." -- Anonymous, 1821 Tom Walker
RE: Re: Re: GT
Nancy works for me at the National Cancer Institute. See http://www-dccps.ims.nci.nih.gov/ARP/economics.html -Original Message- From: Jim Devine [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 12:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:20477] Re: Re: GT At 08:57 AM 6/21/00 -0700, you wrote: Nancy Breen (Do you remember, Nancy?) and I once met at Davis where we went to a talk by Elster. I had never read anything by him, but understood that he was important. The only thing I recall from the talk was the appalling number of errors about Marx that he propogated with absolute conviction. I use Elster's MAKING HASH OF MARX as a source for common misinterpretations (ones that are often shared by bourgeois critics of Marx and dogmatic followers of the "Marxism of the 3rd International"). By collecting them all in one place, he's done the world a service. But his other work (often in game theory) is sometimes very interesting and instructive. I can't say I'm an Elsterite, but some of his work provides a starting point, if considered critically. where is Nancy these days? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine ["clawww" or "liberalarts" can replace "bellarmine"]
Krugman Watch: the aging US population
June 21, 2000 / New York TIMES RECKONINGS/ By PAUL KRUGMAN The Pig in the Python ... The "financial" problem [arising from the ageing of the "baby boomers" in the US] is how to pay for Social Security. This problem is a legacy of Social Security's pay-as-you-go past: because the baby boomers' contributions were used to provide generous benefits to earlier generations, there isn't enough money in the system to pay the benefits promised to the boomers themselves. The good news is that solving this financial problem isn't all that difficult. Despite the apocalyptic rhetoric you sometimes hear, affordable injections of money would allow the system to run untroubled for at least 50 more years. It's just a matter of facing up to facts. I wish that more orthodox economists would make this point. The "real" problem is that in a few decades the age distribution of the U.S. as a whole will look like that of Florida today. How will a relatively small number of workers be able to produce enough both to live well themselves and to provide the huge population of retirees with the standard of living it expects? It should be mentioned that changes in medical technology not only allows affluent people to live longer, but makes the quality of their lives better, so that today's geezer is less of a burden than that of yesteryear. This problem is much harder to solve. The only answer -- other than allowing large-scale immigration -- is to make tomorrow's workers as productive as possible. We can hope for a technological fix; with smart enough machines, who needs workers? But a responsible government would meanwhile try to ensure that national savings -- public plus private -- are high, so that future workers are well equipped with capital and not burdened with large foreign debts. It's surprising to see that a macroeconomist from such a prestigious university (MIT) would make such an elementary mistake. As Keynes pointed out, saving doesn't provide capital that raises the "technical fix." Rather, it's (real) investment that does so. Pushing saving (by encouraging consumers or companies to cut back or raising the government surplus) without encouraging investment simply leads to a recession. PK seems to be implicitly assuming the validity of Say's discredited "Law" -- or that the all-wise Federal Reserve will keep excessive saving from causing a recession. The latter assumption seems unfounded. If anything, the Fed prefers high unemployment, though not so high that it hurts profitability. What's wrong with borrowing money from the rest of the world and getting "large foreign debts"? The World Bank and the IMF have encouraged most countries to do so, so it can't be all bad from the orthodox perspective (which PK usually shares). In any event, if the borrowed money is invested productively (rather than gambled on a strategic missile defense or wasted bailing out gambling savings loan crooks or giving tax cuts to the ultra-rich coke-heads) it promotes economic growth. The US majority population did very well during the 19th century by borrowing and investing in manufacturing, infrastructure, and conquest. Even from an orthodox perspective, the question should not be about whether it's wrong to borrow but whether the borrowed money is used productively, i.e., in a way that promotes economic growth. (The quality of that growth is another question, which I'll avoid for brevity's sake.) And what's wrong with "allowing large-scale immigration"? The US in the 19th century did very well based on large-scale immigration. People say that "this nation was built by immigrants" too often, but they're basically right. And the US is currently enjoying a large wave of immigration, which may solve the "ageing baby boomers" problem that PK is discussing, because immigrants are typically younger and hard-working. Alas, the [US presidential] campaign seems to be revolving around a quite different issue: the perception that Americans get too low a return on their contributions to Social Security. As I've explained in earlier columns, the implicit return on Social Security contributions is low only because today's workers are in effect being taxed to pay the system's debts from the past. You may not like that, just as you may not like the fact that 15 percent of your federal tax dollar goes to pay interest on a debt mainly run up in the 80's and early 90's. But in both cases the debts are a fact of life. As I've explained before, this formulation ignores the fact that Social Security is an insurance program. No-one expects a positive rate of return from fire insurance. Yet the salesmanship surrounding George W. Bush's Social Security plan is all about the meaningless contrast between the returns that an unburdened individual can get on investments and the implicit return that a very-much-burdened Social Security system can offer. And Al Gore's new plan for
Re: Re: GT (fwd)
funny, like other religious followers of neo-classical bourgeois ideology, Elster, in _Making Sense of Marx_, attempts to demonstrate that Marx was indeed a founder of rational choice. I am sure Ricardo was the father of socialism then... No No Marx was indeed a spy.. Mine Doyran SUNY/Albany
Famine relief
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Coca-Cola Co. (KO.N) said on Wednesday it had sent a shipment of soft drinks into North Korea, becoming one of the first U.S. companies to crack open the economically isolated totalitarian state. A spokesman for Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, the world's No. 1 soft drinks company, said the shipment was believed to have entered North Korea by truck from the Chinese border town of Dandong. ``I got a message this morning confirming that we had actually moved in,'' said Coca-Cola spokesman Robert Baskin, who added that the world's leading soft drink producer intended to build up its presence in North Korea over time. Coca-Cola, like all other U.S. companies, was prevented from doing business in North Korea for nearly half a century because of U.S. government sanctions against the communist-ruled nation. Most of those sanctions were lifted on Monday following a groundbreaking summit last week between the North and South Korean leaders. Coca-Cola has operated in South Korea for several decades.
Re: Re: [fla-left] Fw: Dying for Growth (fwd)
At 09:44 AM 6/21/00 -0700, you wrote: Jim Devine wrote: there's a big difference between "economic growth" _per se_ and the neo-liberal view that _marketized_ (profit-led, corporate-run) growth is good in and of itself. Economic growth _might be_ democratically planned to be consistent with the preservation of the natural balance. Of course it isn't at this point, but that doesn't mean that there is no alternative. Granted that economic growth doesn't have to be profit-led, corporate-run growth. However, the effort to formulate a "democratically planned alternative" doesn't lead to such a big difference if growth of output remains the ruling criteria. If growth is democratically planned, then it's hard to imagine that growth of "output" would be the only criterion. There would be much more attention to issues of quality -- and issues such as the definition of what in heck is meant by "output." "Output" is measured differently in different societies; I can imagine that in a democratically-planned society, a vector would be used rather than a scalar in defining "output." It's only under capitalism or societies imitating capitalism (as the old USSR sometimes did) that "output" is defined as a single number (GDP) added up using market-defined weights (prices) while ignoring non-market goods and bads. In any event, people would choose their own criteria rather than automatically using criteria left over from the past. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine ["clawww" or "liberalarts" can replace "bellarmine"]
Re: Re: Definition of Political Economy (fwd)
Quoth Mine: Although originally the concept [of political economy] was invented by Marx and his contemporaries, Quoth Justin: I made this mistake once early in grad school, and my political theory teacher humiliated me in front of everyone.. Pol econ was the term for what we call economics, mainly, but also political science with an eye towards material reproduction, for over 100 years before Marx. Rousseau discusses it, Smith thought of himself as doing pol econ. --jks Quoth one Piercy Ravenstone, fiercely taking a three-year-old Karl Marx to pre-emptive task, in 'A Few Doubts as to the Correctness of Some Opinions Generally Entertained on the Subjects of Population and *Political Economy*' (1821): '(Capital) serves to account for whatever cannot be accounted for in any other way. Where reason fails, where argument is insufficient, it operates like a talisman to silence all doubts. It occupies the same place in their theories, which was held by darkness in the mythology of the ancients. It is the root of all their genealogies, it is the great mother of all things, it is the cause of every event that happens in the world. Capital, according to them, is the parent of industry, the forerunner of all improvements ... It is the deity of their idolatry which they have set up to worship in the high places of the Lord; and were its powers what they imagine, it would not be unworthy of their adoration.' Rob. ah yes, political economy, the 'science' of acquisition... I had grad school prof who thought it'd be really good idea for me to read, in addition to Smith, some other 18th century Scottish political economists such as Adam Ferguson, James Steuart. If memory serves, Steuart's book _Inquiry into Principles of Political Economy_ appeared decade or so before Smith's _Inquiry into Wealth of Nations_ (JS may have been first to use term as such but some listers no doubt know more about that stuff than me). Marx. who *critiqued* political economy, refers approvingly to Steuart as thinker with historical view and understanding of historically different modes of production (contrasting him to those positing/holding bourgeois individual to be natural). Early 19th century saw number of books with political economy in title: Say, Ricardo, Malthus, among better known... Michael Hoover
Re: Re: Re: Definition of Political Economy (fwd)
There is also a 19th century American tradition in this vein. People like John Commons of the Wisconsin Progressive School wrote books with "Political Economy" in the title. Of course, all this is before the rise of 20th century American "Political Science," which by splitting economics from politics, tried quite explicitly to provide another explanation besides Marx's dialectical materialism as the motor of history. Joel Blau Michael Hoover wrote: Quoth Mine: Although originally the concept [of political economy] was invented by Marx and his contemporaries, Quoth Justin: I made this mistake once early in grad school, and my political theory teacher humiliated me in front of everyone.. Pol econ was the term for what we call economics, mainly, but also political science with an eye towards material reproduction, for over 100 years before Marx. Rousseau discusses it, Smith thought of himself as doing pol econ. --jks Quoth one Piercy Ravenstone, fiercely taking a three-year-old Karl Marx to pre-emptive task, in 'A Few Doubts as to the Correctness of Some Opinions Generally Entertained on the Subjects of Population and *Political Economy*' (1821): '(Capital) serves to account for whatever cannot be accounted for in any other way. Where reason fails, where argument is insufficient, it operates like a talisman to silence all doubts. It occupies the same place in their theories, which was held by darkness in the mythology of the ancients. It is the root of all their genealogies, it is the great mother of all things, it is the cause of every event that happens in the world. Capital, according to them, is the parent of industry, the forerunner of all improvements ... It is the deity of their idolatry which they have set up to worship in the high places of the Lord; and were its powers what they imagine, it would not be unworthy of their adoration.' Rob. ah yes, political economy, the 'science' of acquisition... I had grad school prof who thought it'd be really good idea for me to read, in addition to Smith, some other 18th century Scottish political economists such as Adam Ferguson, James Steuart. If memory serves, Steuart's book _Inquiry into Principles of Political Economy_ appeared decade or so before Smith's _Inquiry into Wealth of Nations_ (JS may have been first to use term as such but some listers no doubt know more about that stuff than me). Marx. who *critiqued* political economy, refers approvingly to Steuart as thinker with historical view and understanding of historically different modes of production (contrasting him to those positing/holding bourgeois individual to be natural). Early 19th century saw number of books with political economy in title: Say, Ricardo, Malthus, among better known... Michael Hoover
Re: [fla-left] Fw: Dying for Growth (fwd)
I am sorry, please don't forward anything unless it is really something very, very, very important. My e-mail cannot download more than 5-10 mails at a time. If I get too many messages I can't be properly connected and this means putting me out of work for days. Please, please, don't forward me any more files! All the best, Boris Kagarlitsky -Original Message- From: Michael Hoover [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 21 ÉÀÎÑ 2000 Ç. 15:18 Subject: [PEN-L:20456] [fla-left] Fw: Dying for Growth (fwd) forwarded by Michael Hoover Common Courage Political Literacy Course - http://www.commoncouragepress.com +-+ C O M M O N C O U R A G E P R E S S' Political Literacy Email Course A backbone of facts to stand up to spineless power. +-+ Thursday June 8, 2000 === Dying for Growth === The ideology most responsible for promoting a vision of economic growth as good in and of itself has also shaped development discourse and policy choices among key international institutions since the late 1970s. Historically, this ideology has been known under various names: "neoliberalism," "the Washington consensus," "Reaganism," "the New Right Agenda," and "corporate-led economic globalization," to name a few. This view asserts that economic growth is by definition good for everyone and that economic performance is optimized when governments refrain from interfering in markets. Thus, for the good of all citizens, governments should grant the greatest possible autonomy to individual market actors--companies in particular. Unsurprisingly, the main advocates of neoliberal policies--governments of wealthy countries, banks, corporations, and investors--are those who have profited most handsomely from their application. The proponents of neoliberal principles argue that economic growth promoted in this way will eventually "trickle down" to improve the lives of the poor. Increasingly, however, such predictions have proved hollow. In many cases, economic policies guided by neoliberal agendas have worsened the economic situation of the middle classes and the poor. Today, per capita income in more than 100 countries is lower than it was 15 years ago. At the close of two decades of neoliberal dominance in international finance and development, more than 1.6 billion people are worse off economically in the late 1990s than they were in the early 1980s. While most of the worlds's poor are dying--in the sense of yearning--to reap some of the benefits of this growth, others are literally dying from the austerity measures imposed to promote it. --From "Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor," edited Jim Young Kim, Joyce V. Millen, Alec Irwin, and John Gershman http://www.commoncouragepress.com/kim_growth.html === === Free Book Online: "Colombia," by Javier Giraldo This book, published by Common Courage Press in 1996, is no longer in print. However, in view of continuing violence in Colombia and recent proposals by the US Government to increase military aid, we are making it freely available online. http://www.commoncouragepress.com/colombia/ === === This is the free Political Literacy Course from Common Courage Press: A backbone of facts to stand up to spineless power. To subscribe (or unsubscribe) for free: http://www.commoncouragepress.com Feedback/Title suggestions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Missed any? Course archive: http://www.commoncouragepress.com/course.html YES! This course is partly advertising for books. But it's also intended as political fertilizer: feel free to spread it around! __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ To subscribe to The Florida Left List, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Read messages you may have missed at http://www.egroups.com/group/floridaleft/
Re: Re: CNN on Graham
Please don't forward me anything unless it really concerns me. My e-mail system can't download many files. This litterslly puts me out of work for days! All the best, Boris -Original Message- From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 21 ÉÀÎÑ 2000 Ç. 17:32 Subject: [PEN-L:20459] Re: CNN on Graham Hi Steve: Thanks Yoshie. Yeah, i see where it mentions Graham's bragging, but it isn't the author stating that, it's the victim of his rape stating that he had bragged about it to her. The article seemed to give pretty fair play to the supporters of a new trial. Yes, fairer than Wojtek, Kelley, Marc Cooper, etc.! The momentum around the death penalty issue is amazing to me, something I didn't think we were gonna see for a while. This appeared in a conservative magazine: * NATIONAL REVIEW June 19, 2000 Issue The Problem with the Chair.full text version A conservative case against capital punishment. By Carl M. Cannon, reporter and essayist for National Journal http://www.nationalreview.com/19jun00/cannon-full061900.html * Yoshie
Re: Re: RE: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
Doug Henwood wrote: . But as Lenin said, better fewer but better. And he said it at a time when membership in the battered Communist Party (B) was very tempting to those whose motives were strictly careerist, when its best cadre had died in the Civil War . . . . Carrol
Re: Re: Definition of Political Economy (fwd)
M. Hoover wrote: I had grad school prof who thought it'd be really good idea for me to read, in addition to Smith, some other 18th century Scottish political economists such as Adam Ferguson, James Steuart. If memory serves, Steuart's book _Inquiry into Principles of Political Economy_ appeared decade or so before Smith's _Inquiry into Wealth of Nations_ (JS may have been first to use term as such but some listers no doubt know more about that stuff than me). Marx. who *critiqued* political economy, refers approvingly to Steuart as thinker with historical view and understanding of historically different modes of production (contrasting him to those positing/holding bourgeois individual to be natural). This, I agree. _On James Mill_ (McL. _Selected Political Writings of Marx_), Marx refers somewhat "approvingly" to John's father. I have to read the text once again though, since my memory poorly serves me at the moment.. James Mill must belong to the tradition of utilitarianism, sharing a great deal of philosophical ideas with Bentham. Bentham's individualism was later criticized by John, the son who thought that pleasure maximizing principle should not be the sole concern of individualism. So John wanted to extend the scope of utility to areas other than individuals (public education, etc..). I have to open my exam notes for the distinction between James and John Mill to make sense of the debate between James and Marx. It does not seem terrribly clear to me at the moment, but I know Marx talks positively of James, if not very supportively. Mine Doyran SUNY/Albany Early 19th century saw number of books with political economy in title: Say, Ricardo, Malthus, among better known... Michael Hoover
Re: Ronald Chilcote's New Volume on Imperialism (fwd)
Actually, I was thinking of someone else, I'm mistaken in my characterization of Chilcote. In addition to agreeing that Chilcote is a fine progressive thinker, I might add that I think Jim Devine's a real sharp thinker who makes very insightful use of Marx in his writing btw... His web page is great also. Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
Re: Ronald Chilcote's New Volume on Imperialism (fwd)
I don't think that we should continue this unproductive debate about who is who. Ronald Chilcote is well known to be an _established_ Marxist scholar. Actually, in his book, he _vehemently_ criticizes mainstream social theories, including game theory and rational choice as well as those who distort Marxism in the name of defending NC economics. thanks, Mine Doyran Actually, I was thinking of someone else, I'm mistaken in my characterization of Chilcote. In addition to agreeing that Chilcote is a fine progressive thinker, I might add that I think Jim Devine's a real sharp thinker who makes very insightful use of Marx in his writing btw... His web page is great also. Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
Re: Re: Ronald Chilcote's New Volume on Imperialism (fwd)
What debate? I said I agree with you, RC is a fine progressive thinker. I then added I think JD is also. I wasn't debating anything with you. I would also add that trees are known to grow leaves. Steve Mine wrote: On Wed, 21 Jun 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't think that we should continue this unproductive debate about who is who. Ronald Chilcote is well known to be an _established_ Marxist
RE: Re: Altruism
Strict neo-classical models can not handle "concern for others". If it is included, (i.e., if utility functions are not independent) then there is no unique equilibrium position. Not enough independent equations for the number of variables. Rod I don't think so. Suppose A's utility depends on B's consumption (not utility) of X. So there is a demand function for freely-distributed X by both 'donor' A and recipient B, hence some aggregate demand function. Then a supply function, based on the cost of X. Unknowns are quantities demanded and supplied of X, which are equal in equilibrium, and the price of X. Two equations, two unknowns. You don't need utility functions to model altruistic behavior. In public finance there is a fair-sized literature on taxpayer's demand for welfare spending, and on charitable giving's relationship to the tax system. You might say these are lousy models, but you can't say they don't treat the topic. mbs
Re: Re: Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
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." I'm a cynic about the MacArthur Foundation. Giving money to already well-known and highly-respected people who have massive access to grants already doesn't do much to boost useful research. But it does get the MacArthur Foundation a bunch of good publicity... Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Re: Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
I wrote: 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." Brad writes: I'm a cynic about the MacArthur Foundation. Giving money to already well-known and highly-respected people who have massive access to grants already doesn't do much to boost useful research. But it does get the MacArthur Foundation a bunch of good publicity... yeah, but that doesn't reflect on Rabin's worth. Hey, he can afford to drink better wine, if that's what turns him on. Or he can deal with all of his outstanding warrants, if he has any... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: RE: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just to open a small parenthesis here. I was in fact criticizing Dorman and Hahnel against the claim that they were progressive. Excuse me for jumping in here but I just signed onto the list and didn't have access to this discussion earlier. I just wanted to say a few things regarding Hahnel Albert. While I've not read "Looking Forward" I have participated in ZNet can say that Hahnel Albert's anti-Marxism is more anti-Leninism. Trotsky's warm remarks regarding increasing management power quoted by Louis are precisely the kind of centralized control rejected in participatory economics. Perhaps Louis read about balanced job complexes and suddenly saw a future where he might have to help sweep the shop scrub the john. It should be pointed out that Tariq Ali has recently opened a forum on ZNet. This would seem to indicate that Albert's position is a bit more complex than reflexive anti-Marxism. Regarding utopianism, I thought regaining some semblance of vision was all the rage on the Left these days. I realize there remains a great deal of self-consciousness regarding these speculations. Immanuel Wallerstein actually invented a new word, "Utopistics," to provide cover for such indulgences. cheers, joe By this sort of definition, there must be about 347 "progressives" in the U.S., and 5,132 around the world. But as Lenin said, better fewer but better. Doug
Tax the Dead, They Won't Mind
You too can be a much-reviled pundit. On June 8 the House repealed the Federal Estate and Gift Tax, our most progressive tax. Repeal is now up for consideration in the Senate. Everything you need to know aobut it is in the links included herein. Any questions, feel free to drop me a line. If you do a draft, I will be happy to provide comments. mbs http://www.brook.edu/views/papers/gale/2612.htm (paper by Gale and Slemrod) http://www.cbpp.org/5-25-00tax.htm (from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) http://www.ctj.org/html/faq.htm#estate (Citizens for Tax Justice)
Re: Definition of Political Economy (fwd)
M. Hoover wrote: 18th century Scottish political economists such as Adam Ferguson, James Steuart. Steuart's book _Inquiry into Principles of Political Economy_ Marx. who *critiqued* political economy, refers approvingly to Steuart as thinker with historical view and understanding of historically different modes of production (contrasting him to those positing/holding bourgeois individual to be natural). This, I agree. _On James Mill_ (McL. _Selected Political Writings of Marx_), Marx refers somewhat "approvingly" to John's father. I have to read the text once again though, since my memory poorly serves me at the moment.. James Mill must belong to the tradition of utilitarianism, sharing a great deal of philosophical ideas with Bentham. Bentham's individualism was later criticized by John, the son who thought that pleasure maximizing principle should not be the sole concern of individualism. So John wanted to extend the scope of utility to areas other than individuals (public education, etc..). I have to open my exam notes for the distinction between James and John Mill to make sense of the debate between James and Marx. It does not seem terrribly clear to me at the moment, but I know Marx talks positively of James, if not very supportively. Mine Doyran I think there is some confusion here. My comments were about James Steuart, not about James Mill or about John Stuart Mill (who did, however write book with political economic in title). Marx's generally favorable remarks about James Steuart can be found in *General Introduction* to _Grundrisse_ and in first volume of _Theories of Surplus Value_. As for John Stuart Mill, didn't Marx characterize him as someone for whom production was fixed by eternal natural laws independent of history that just happened to bear remarkable resemblance to bourgeois relations? I recall something about attempting to 'reconcile irreconcilables' or some such language by Marx.Michael Hoover (who, for some reason, has spent inordinate amount of time e-listing today)
utopianism.
was: Re: [PEN-L:20499] Re: RE: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd) At 05:36 PM 6/21/00 -0400, you wrote: Regarding utopianism, I thought regaining some semblance of vision was all the rage on the Left these days. I realize there remains a great deal of self-consciousness regarding these speculations. According to Hal Draper's multi-volume KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION (a systematic collection of quotes from Marx and Engels on politics), Karl and Fred weren't against utopian speculation. They saw such speculation as part of the self-education of the working class. They opposed the utopian style of political action, i.e., setting up model communities (typically with a utopian leader as dictator -- see the comment on Owen by Engels in the third thesis on Feuerbach). Or as Ruth Levitas says in her book THE CONCEPT OF UTOPIA, "The real dispute between Marx and Engels and the utopian socialists is not about the merit of goals or of images of the future but about the process of transformation, and particularly the belief that propaganda alone would result in the realization of socialism" (p. 35). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Dawkins and anthropolgy
There goes your grant, Brad. But not all MacA fellows are famous. I had a friend from college who got one shortly into his career as a prof; he crashed and burned. Another college friends who got one is now a Stanford stat prof, a former colleague of yours (Dave Donoho), and famous only among mathematicians. What i want to know is,w4 here's mine? --jks I'm a cynic about the MacArthur Foundation. Giving money to already well-known and highly-respected people who have massive access to grants already doesn't do much to boost useful research. But it does get the MacArthur Foundation a bunch of good publicity... Brad DeLong
utopianism.
Jim, Thanks for the citations. I'll try not to be so loose with terminology in the future. Still, I'm not sure Robin Hahnel's LOOKING FORWARD is in quite the same camp as Bellamy's LOOKING BACKWARD, as was originally charged by Louis. There is quite a bit more political substance to participatory economics than setting up model communities. Parecon, as they say in newspeak, merely tackles a subset of issues involving questions of hierarchy power in the workplace, be it in a market or socialist/state capitalist setting. cheers, joe According to Hal Draper's multi-volume KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION (a systematic collection of quotes from Marx and Engels on politics), Karl and Fred weren't against utopian speculation. They saw such speculation as part of the self-education of the working class. They opposed the utopian style of political action, i.e., setting up model communities (typically with a utopian leader as dictator -- see the comment on Owen by Engels in the third thesis on Feuerbach). Or as Ruth Levitas says in her book THE CONCEPT OF UTOPIA, "The real dispute between Marx and Engels and the utopian socialists is not about the merit of goals or of images of the future but about the process of transformation, and particularly the belief that propaganda alone would result in the realization of socialism" (p. 35). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: utopianism.
At 06:28 PM 6/21/00 -0400, you wrote: Jim, Thanks for the citations. I'll try not to be so loose with terminology in the future. Still, I'm not sure Robin Hahnel's LOOKING FORWARD is in quite the same camp as Bellamy's LOOKING BACKWARD, Bellamy's LOOKING BACKWARD is a classic -- or _the_ classic -- model of an ideal planned economy run totally from above by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats who are presumed to be benevolent. It's the ideological precursor of both Stalinism and social democracy, though the reality varied from Bellamy's ideas in practice. (For example, Bellamy coined the phrase "cradle to grave," which the social democrats used to refer to the ideal benefits of the welfare state.) Albert Hahnel's LOOKING FORWARD is an effort to present a picture of an economy that's planned from below, with the centralized part of planning done by an automatic mechanism (computer program). Even though it has its flaws (like implying endless meetings), it's a noble effort. So is Pat (no relation) Devine's scheme. At the recent national economics and URPE meetings, Hahnel, Devine, David Laibman, and Paul Cockshott Allin Cottrell presented their ideas about participatory planning. It was interesting how their views were converging. I wish I could summarize their conclusions, but I can't. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: RE: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
Joe wrote:, Regarding utopianism, I thought regaining some semblance of vision was all the rage on the Left these days. I realize there remains a great deal of self-consciousness regarding these speculations. Immanuel Wallerstein actually invented a new word, "Utopistics," to provide cover for such indulgences. cheers, joe "The underdeveloped state of the class struggle,as well as their own surroundings, causes of socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class, nay by preference to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see it in the best possible plan of the best possible state of society? Hence they reject all political especially all revolutionary action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endavour, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and the force of example, to pave the way for the new SOCIAL GOSPEL ( Marx, On Utopian Socialism, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Tucker, p.498). good night, Mine Doyran, Phd student, SUNY/Albany, Politics... By this sort of definition, there must be about 347 "progressives" in the U.S., and 5,132 around the world. But as Lenin said, better fewer but better. Doug
Off line for a while
Some virus has struck our campus. I can only read files via telnet, which does not give me easy access. I will only be able to skim a few of the posts. I have a large accumulation of unread notes. If you want to get ahold of me, I can be reached, but please put OFFLIST in the heading. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dorman and Hahnel (fwd)
Pat Devine is a market socialist. Market socialism is an attempt to establish socialism in a capitalist economy. It is an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. Market socialists treat market ahistorically, abstracting it from its capitalist and historical content. Recently, market socialists have used right-wing economist Hayek's arguments about information assymetry in planned economies to suggest that socialism without a market economy is an inefficient economic system. btw, Hahnel and Albert seem to overstate their differences from market socalists, as fas as I can tell from what they post on Z magazine concerning participatory economics. Since they have converged somewhat, according to recent information, I assume they must be the same. Mine Doyran
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
If you view "the theory" as a toolkit that doesn't involve substantive
commitments, it wonm't have the defects of orthodox Marxism, but it also
won't have the inspiring message that gave orthodoxy its power. I doubt that
substantce and method can be prised apart in the way you suggest. Lukacs, for
example, was pretty orthodox in his substantive views. He would have been
horrified by my own substantive views, for example. Anyway, I was attacking
orthodox Marxism of Louis' variety, not a watered-down methodological
Marxism. I regatd Louis, and probably Mine and Yoshie (sorry, Yoshie) as
millenarian Marxists, although not the cultified sort. I am aware that there
are jerks of all political persuasions. Used to be there were more on the
right, maybe still are, if only because the right is so much bigger. --jks
In a message dated 6/21/00 11:12:13 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
The theory
appears to be defective, and retaining a defective millinarian theory in
the face of inevitable continued disappointments probably requires an
in-group jargon to keep going. --jks
That's because some people see Marxism not as a method (a set of questions
for analyzing reality) but as a dogma (a pre-determined set of answers). I
follow Georg Lukacs to go with the former.
Instead of blaming the theory, I'd look at the material (i.e., social)
basis of dogmatism and a dogmatic style. I think the problem is not the
theory that working in isolation (in a small sect, in an academic setting,
etc.) encourages a style where one gets involved in only talking to others
who have extremely similar views, speak a similar jargon, etc. It's similar
to what happens with religious cults.
Nonetheless, I haven't run into very many millenarian Marxists, at least
not recently. Haven't the Sparts gone away?
BTW, a lot of anti-Marxian or non-Marxian types have very obnoxious styles.
Have you ever heard someone from the IMF talk? or a televangelist? A key
difference is that they have the power to impose their will or they are
obnoxious in a way that fits with the dominant social system.
One thing that turns people off from the "left," often encouraging them to
shift to the "right" is the obnoxious style of many on the left, especially
toward perceived apostates ("renegade Kautsky" and all that). But in my
experience, there are jerks randomly distributed across the political
spectrum, while folks who were jerks on the left (e.g., David Horowitz,
former editor of RAMPARTS, whom I used to know) continue to be jerks when
they shift right (as he has done, with a vengeance).
Re: Famine relief
Recall in the McLibel trial that Coke insisted that it was a nutritious drink since it contained water. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GT
Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I think Cohen was right that historical materialism is basically functional explanation,a nd I approve of historical materialism. You mistake functional explanation for teleology if you think it involves reference to the "purpose" of events in a "grander scheme of things." Rather it explains events in terms of their usefulness for phenomena that support them. Thus (in the dated example of my paper), welfare is functionally explained in capitalism because of its function in damping social unrest, stabilizing the capitalist state that is itself functional for capitalist reproduction. There is no suprahuman teleogy here; the only uintentions are of actual political actors, class, state, and individual operating within constraints. But read the paper, it's really quite useful. I will send you a copy if you like. --jks In a message dated 6/21/00 11:18:14 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Justin wrote: Functional explanation is legitimate, but Cohen's account of it in terms of "consequence laws" is wrong; you need a mechanical account of explanation, i.e., one that regards explanation as exposing the causal mechanisms functional explanation isn't the same as seeing the feed-back from the whole to the parts. I don't think functional explanation is reasonable in most cases, at least in social science. We can't explain societal events or institutions in terms of their purpose in some grander scheme of things. They are instead the result of individuals "creating history" within the pre-existing society, based on the ideology that's encouraged and rewarded within that society.
Re: Re: Re: GT (fwd)
In a message dated 6/21/00 1:02:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: funny, like other religious followers of neo-classical bourgeois ideology, Elster, in _Making Sense of Marx_, attempts to demonstrate that Marx was indeed a founder of rational choice. I am sure Ricardo was the father of socialism then... No No Marx was indeed a spy.. Elster is quite right. For a more careful analyses, see Daniel Little, the Scientific Marx, who explains how Marx's analysis in Capital depends on many rational choice presuppositions. It's not surprising,s ince he was analysinga market systrem where those presuppositions are more valid than not. And in a a classic paper from the 30s, Wassily Leontieff credited Marx along with Walras with being a founder of general equlibrium theory. WL was a graet fan of CII in particuklar. What's wrong with those accomplishments? we areto schewthem because some use them apologetically? --jks
Re: Re: Re: Definition of Political Economy (fwd)
James Mill was indeed a classic Benthamite utilitarian, and a very close friend of Bentham's to boot. You are mistaken, though, if you think that John Stuart Mill, the son of James, was opposed to making pleasure the sole good. He just had a more nuanced conception of pleasure, or to use his word, happiness. Of course James M and Bentham extended the principle of utility to politics, education, economics, law, and education, not just individual conduct (which did not much interest them); not for nothing were they called the Philosophical Radicals. There was no debate bewteen James M and Marx, since James M was dead before Marx was up and running, but Marx's attack on James M is hardly what I would call approving. He was likewise dubiousabout son JS, the preeminant political economist of his age. (And later a market socialist, as we would say). --jks In a message dated 6/21/00 4:19:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This, I agree. _On James Mill_ (McL. _Selected Political Writings of Marx_), Marx refers somewhat "approvingly" to John's father. I have to read the text once again though, since my memory poorly serves me at the moment.. James Mill must belong to the tradition of utilitarianism, sharing a great deal of philosophical ideas with Bentham. Bentham's individualism was later criticized by John, the son who thought that pleasure maximizing principle should not be the sole concern of individualism. So John wanted to extend the scope of utility to areas other than individuals (public education, etc..). I have to open my exam notes for the distinction between James and John Mill to make sense of the debate between James and Marx. It does not seem terrribly clear to me at the moment, but I know Marx talks positively of James, if not very supportively.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GT
The other problem with functionalism is the implicit tendency to homeostasis. Whatever happens serves the function of maintaining the whole. Functionalist conceptions of welfare in capitalist society focus solely on its system-maintaining characteristics, when actually between the partial decommodification and independence from the marketplace, the reality is much more ambiguous. Joel Blau [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I think Cohen was right that historical materialism is basically functional explanation,a nd I approve of historical materialism. You mistake functional explanation for teleology if you think it involves reference to the "purpose" of events in a "grander scheme of things." Rather it explains events in terms of their usefulness for phenomena that support them. Thus (in the dated example of my paper), welfare is functionally explained in capitalism because of its function in damping social unrest, stabilizing the capitalist state that is itself functional for capitalist reproduction. There is no suprahuman teleogy here; the only uintentions are of actual political actors, class, state, and individual operating within constraints. But read the paper, it's really quite useful. I will send you a copy if you like. --jks In a message dated 6/21/00 11:18:14 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Justin wrote: Functional explanation is legitimate, but Cohen's account of it in terms of "consequence laws" is wrong; you need a mechanical account of explanation, i.e., one that regards explanation as exposing the causal mechanisms functional explanation isn't the same as seeing the feed-back from the whole to the parts. I don't think functional explanation is reasonable in most cases, at least in social science. We can't explain societal events or institutions in terms of their purpose in some grander scheme of things. They are instead the result of individuals "creating history" within the pre-existing society, based on the ideology that's encouraged and rewarded within that society.
Re: Re: RE: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
While I've not read "Looking Forward" I have participated in ZNet can say that Hahnel Albert's anti-Marxism is more anti-Leninism. Trotsky's warm remarks regarding increasing management power quoted by Louis are precisely the kind of centralized control rejected in participatory economics. Perhaps Louis read about balanced job complexes and suddenly saw a future where he might have to help sweep the shop scrub the john. There is no difference between Marx and Lenin. Marx never wrote blueprints for the future. Neither did Lenin. They were preoccupied about how to built powerful socialist movements. The problem with Parecon is not that it is "wrong" but irrelevant. The conditions facing revolutionary societies are similar to a room in the hospital where a woman is giving birth during an electrical blackout, not a graduate seminar or a chat room on Z Talk. It should be pointed out that Tariq Ali has recently opened a forum on ZNet. This would seem to indicate that Albert's position is a bit more complex than reflexive anti-Marxism. I'd say that this is the perfect place for Tariq Ali nowadays. Regarding utopianism, I thought regaining some semblance of vision was all the rage on the Left these days. I realize there remains a great deal of self-consciousness regarding these speculations. Immanuel Wallerstein actually invented a new word, "Utopistics," to provide cover for such indulgences. cheers, joe The rage on the left? Just what I needed to hear. I am the Lucifer of the kingdom of recalcitrant millenarian Marxists who want to hurl lightning bolts at all of the trendy intellectuals trying to "fix" Marx. That fits in with my moldy fig tastes in music. Bing Crosby rules. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: Re: Definition of Political Economy (fwd)
okey,I have to respond to this. I did not say that Marx personally debated with James Mill.I know that James was dead before Marx was up. Merci. I said that Marx wrote a short article called _On James Mill_, which you can find in in McL's Marx: Political Writings... Mine the Philosophical Radicals. There was no debate bewteen James M and Marx, since James M was dead before Marx was up and running, but Marx's attack on James M is hardly what I would call approving. He was likewise dubiousabout son JS, the preeminant political economist of his age. (And later a market socialist, as we would say). --jks In a message dated 6/21/00 4:19:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This, I agree. _On James Mill_ (McL. _Selected Political Writings of Marx_), Marx refers somewhat "approvingly" to John's father. I have to read the text once again though, since my memory poorly serves me at the moment.. James Mill must belong to the tradition of utilitarianism, sharing a great deal of philosophical ideas with Bentham. Bentham's individualism was later criticized by John, the son who thought that pleasure maximizing principle should not be the sole concern of individualism. So John wanted to extend the scope of utility to areas other than individuals (public education, etc..). I have to open my exam notes for the distinction between James and John Mill to make sense of the debate between James and Marx. It does not seem terrribly clear to me at the moment, but I know Marx talks positively of James, if not very supportively.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Definition of Political Economy (fwd)
Marx's complain against J. S. Mill was that he was mediocre, and looked good simply because the competition was so dreadful. Mediocre because he confined himself to study surface phenomena, rather than to look at the real motor of history. Rod [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: James Mill was indeed a classic Benthamite utilitarian, and a very close friend of Bentham's to boot. You are mistaken, though, if you think that John Stuart Mill, the son of James, was opposed to making pleasure the sole good. He just had a more nuanced conception of pleasure, or to use his word, happiness. Of course James M and Bentham extended the principle of utility to politics, education, economics, law, and education, not just individual conduct (which did not much interest them); not for nothing were they called the Philosophical Radicals. There was no debate bewteen James M and Marx, since James M was dead before Marx was up and running, but Marx's attack on James M is hardly what I would call approving. He was likewise dubiousabout son JS, the preeminant political economist of his age. (And later a market socialist, as we would say). --jks In a message dated 6/21/00 4:19:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This, I agree. _On James Mill_ (McL. _Selected Political Writings of Marx_), Marx refers somewhat "approvingly" to John's father. I have to read the text once again though, since my memory poorly serves me at the moment.. James Mill must belong to the tradition of utilitarianism, sharing a great deal of philosophical ideas with Bentham. Bentham's individualism was later criticized by John, the son who thought that pleasure maximizing principle should not be the sole concern of individualism. So John wanted to extend the scope of utility to areas other than individuals (public education, etc..). I have to open my exam notes for the distinction between James and John Mill to make sense of the debate between James and Marx. It does not seem terrribly clear to me at the moment, but I know Marx talks positively of James, if not very supportively. -- 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: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
Mine, Thanks for the Tucker citation. I'm heartened to see everyone has their Marx anthologies close at hand. As I've said before I was loose with the use of the word "utopian." For a moment I forgot how the word makes the true Marxist cringe. joe smith, former PhD student, SUNY-Binghamton Mine Doyran wrote: "The underdeveloped state of the class struggle,as well as their own surroundings, causes of socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class, nay by preference to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see it in the best possible plan of the best possible state of society? Hence they reject all political especially all revolutionary action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endavour, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and the force of example, to pave the way for the new SOCIAL GOSPEL ( Marx, On Utopian Socialism, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Tucker, p.498). good night, Mine Doyran, Phd student, SUNY/Albany, Politics...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Dorman and RobinHahnel
Title: Re: [PEN-L:20472] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel Greetings Economists, The content about dogmatism in the writings of Jim Devine and jks caught my attention. For example this snippet from jks, jks, The style of orthodox Marxism is of course a guarantee that no one will talk to you who is not already a true believer. Doyle That turn of phrase I recall from the old days of the sixties from the philosopher, Eric Hoffer. Where Hoffer theorized the Marxist left as being true believers. Of course snippets of phrases hardly amount to some sort of theory of anything. Just connecting this theory of the mind from jks to Jim Devine's remarks, Jim Devine, Instead of blaming the theory, I'd look at the material (i.e., social) basis of dogmatism and a dogmatic style. I think the problem is not the theory that working in isolation (in a small sect, in an academic setting, etc.) encourages a style where one gets involved in only talking to others who have extremely similar views, speak a similar jargon, etc. It's similar to what happens with religious cults. Doyle and ... Jim Devine, One thing that turns people off from the left, often encouraging them to shift to the right is the obnoxious style of many on the left, especially toward perceived apostates (renegade Kautsky and all that). But in my experience, there are jerks randomly distributed across the political spectrum, while folks who were jerks on the left (e.g., David Horowitz, former editor of RAMPARTS, whom I used to know) continue to be jerks when they shift right (as he has done, with a vengeance). Doyle What is a Jerk? Is that a term that has something to do with Dogmatism? What is dogmatism? Please give us an account of this cognitive structure. If possible cite where a true believer appears in this cognitive consciousness structure. The reason I ask these questions, is because certainly as Jim says there is a distribution of jerks throughout society. But I think what Jim really is talking about and is really what people refer to as obsessive and compulsive behavior though that is hardly precise either. Therefore a robust theory of what makes these things appear would seem to me to be very scientifically called for if possible. It is also very interesting to put this point out in regard to how mental illness is stigmatized repeatedly this way. The point being, that the word, jerk, is not certainly about a mentally ill person. But that if someone is obsessive, then they belong in the social structure not external to society exactly in the sense that the liberal Democratic law ADA was intended. There is a way in which the sense of these sorts of discussions is that we are healthy functioning people and there are those who aren't and we certainly know the difference don't we. That is the dividing line between us and the dogmatists. I don't think that is so, because if the random sprinkling of individuals tells us anything, group dogmatism is not defined by mental illness, but by a structure which creates a social dynamic. The problem is that the social structure favors kinds of behavior in kinds of settings, but the content of calling something dogmatism is not content nor understanding. That those groups are economically constructed ways of organizing human beings, and that in many cases a dogmatist is more functional than someone who isn't, therefore the idea of dogmatism is the problem is rather strange indeed. In which case that makes the idea of true believers rather hard to justify since the structures that favor kinds of mental behavior are the issue. Within that context one final quote from Jim Devine, Jim Devine, By mistake, I've been sending pen-l my wrong web-page address, the one that refers to the support group for parents of kids with Asperger's Syndrome (mild autism) that my wife and I run. Doyle With regard to this web site, your phrase irony-impaired is offensive. You have a lot of gall to criticize anyone for being irony-impaired. thanks, Doyle Saylor
Jerks, was Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel
Doyle Saylor wrote: Doyle What is a Jerk? Is that a term Actually, Doyle, the current popularity of the term "jerk" (which used to be a rather mild epithet but has become a rather sharp one) is because of the partially successful effort to eliminate sexist, racist, heterosexist, etc. language. "Jerk" is one of the few nasty names left to use. So I would not advise objecting to it. We do need to call each other names at times, and we can't eliminate all the candidates for that sort of usage. Carrol
Re: Jerks, was Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel
Carrol Cox wrote: Actually, Doyle, the current popularity of the term "jerk" (which used to be a rather mild epithet but has become a rather sharp one) is because of the partially successful effort to eliminate sexist, racist, heterosexist, etc. language. "Jerk" is one of the few nasty names left to use. So I would not advise objecting to it. We do need to call each other names at times, and we can't eliminate all the candidates for that sort of usage. Can we still use "wanker," or does that offend Onanists? Doug
Re: Jerks, was Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel
At 10:04 PM 06/21/2000 -0500, you wrote: Doyle Saylor wrote: Doyle What is a Jerk? Is that a term Actually, Doyle, the current popularity of the term "jerk" (which used to be a rather mild epithet but has become a rather sharp one) is because of the partially successful effort to eliminate sexist, racist, heterosexist, etc. language. "Jerk" is one of the few nasty names left to use. So I would not advise objecting to it. We do need to call each other names at times, and we can't eliminate all the candidates for that sort of usage. I agree with the above. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Dying for Growth
Jim Devine wrote: If growth is democratically planned, then it's hard to imagine that growth of "output" would be the only criterion. There would be much more attention to issues of quality -- and issues such as the definition of what in heck is meant by "output." Economic _growth_ is, by definition growth of economic output and is distinct from economic _development_, which may well take into consideration qualitative criteria. "Output" is measured differently in different societies; I can imagine that in a democratically-planned society, a vector would be used rather than a scalar in defining "output." If I measure output in physical units and you measure it in monetary units, does that make me more democratic or qualitative? When you start talking about vectors, you should drop the growth metaphor altogether and talk about development, change, transition or progress instead. A magnitude [scalar] can only grow, but a direction [vector] can change. It's only under capitalism or societies imitating capitalism (as the old USSR sometimes did) that "output" is defined as a single number (GDP) added up using market-defined weights (prices) while ignoring non-market goods and bads. Speaking of which reminds me of an Oskar Lange address in Egypt in the late 1950s where he was extolling the superior virtues specifically of state-directed GROWTH. In any event, people would choose their own criteria rather than automatically using criteria left over from the past. One of the real problems of social transformation is that people often DO automatically use criteria left over from the past, whether or not they are or ever were relevant. Surely, there might be something, which in some future democratically planned society could be conceptualized as "growth". But the problem here and now is with an _ideology of growth_ and not with some abstract, possibly useful future "liberation of the concept". It has been precisely that ideology of growth which has been used to stifle debate about quality, equitable distribution and such "vectors". Consider, for example, Krugman's apoplectic reaction to the Genuine Progress Indicator folks a few years back [which I think was pretty representative of mainstream economists' responses]. The _ideology of growth_ labels anyone who questions that ideology an anti-growth luddite. Saying "we're not anti-growth, we're just anti-capitalist growth" doesn't seem to me to be a persuasive counter-argument, especially when what the growth ideologists MEAN when they say "growth" is precisely expanded reproduction of capital. Tom Walker
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
At 07:45 PM 06/21/2000 -0400, you wrote: If you view "the theory" as a toolkit that doesn't involve substantive commitments, it wonm't have the defects of orthodox Marxism, but it also won't have the inspiring message that gave orthodoxy its power. I don't view Marxian dialectical method as a neutral "toolkit," nor did I say I did. The method of looking at the totality (including the totality of the historical process) encourages the asking of all sorts of questions that encourage skepticism about any existing system of power. The substantive commitment is to supporting the oppressed against the oppressors. That's an ethical thing, but hard to separate from a vision that sees the capitalist system as exploitative (in the sense that some get rewarded because they have power over others, not because they contribute to human welfare) and as made by human beings in a historical process rather than being a "gift" of nature. If I had an inspiring message I'd tell you. No-one has inspiring messages these days except people like Fukayama and the IMF types with their Glorious Capitalist Revolution from Above. And those messages only _sound_ inspiring. I doubt that substantce and method can be prised apart in the way you suggest. It's true: Neoclassical and methodological individualist "tools" almost always are linked to right-wing politics, etc. It's hard to separate method from political commitment. (I'm no positivist.) Lukacs, for example, was pretty orthodox in his substantive views. He would have been horrified by my own substantive views, for example. I don't know if that's good or bad, since I don't know what "substantive views" you have. But the point is that the dialectical method gives a way of questioning existing dogma (substantive propositions, if you will) to adapt to new conditions, new facts, new arguments, etc. It's alternative to the method of mainstream social science, which invariably gives one-sided answers, either conservative, technocratic, or knee-jerk liberal. Not that I think that everything the social science orthodoxy says is wrong, but they almost always give us an incomplete, static, ahistorical, abstract, and/or apologetic viewpoint. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Jerks
Doug Henwood asked, Can we still use "wanker," or does that offend Onanists? I always thought jerk *meant* wanker. Tom Walker
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GT
Justin writes: Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I think Cohen was right that historical materialism is basically functional explanation,a nd I approve of historical materialism. Cohen's version of historical materialism may be totally based on fallacious functionalism, but his version is nothing but a formalized version of what Colletti called the "Marxism of the 2nd International" or what the Stalinists called "histomat." It's a bunch of transhistorical and thus unhistorical abstractions that say little or nothing about real human history. Its connection with Marx's ideas is weak, except for that one little introduction that Marx wrote when he was just starting his economic investigations and was still too much under the influence of Smith and Ricardo (the "preface" to the CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY) -- and which is so abstract that many authors have interpreted that preface in non-Cohen ways. Even so, Marx presents it not as a set of substantive propositions of the sort that the "Analytical Marxists" adore as much as a "guiding principle for my studies" (a heuristic, a method of analysis, a bunch of questions). And his ideas became less Cohenesque as he learned more about history and capitalism. In CAPITAL, vol. III, for example, he shifted his emphasis away from the technological determinism of his early works (the stuff that excites Cohen) to a view that it's the method of exploitation that's key to understanding any society, almost a sociological determinism. You mistake functional explanation for teleology if you think it involves reference to the "purpose" of events in a "grander scheme of things." Rather it explains events in terms of their usefulness for phenomena that support them. Thus (in the dated example of my paper), welfare is functionally explained in capitalism because of its function in damping social unrest, stabilizing the capitalist state that is itself functional for capitalist reproduction. There is no suprahuman teleogy here; the only uintentions are of actual political actors, class, state, and individual operating within constraints. But read the paper, it's really quite useful. I don't think that "welfare" can be seen in this way. Welfare does dampen social unrest (in some cases, but remember the Welfare Rights movement). But in the US, it was simply a result of the conflict between classes (seen concretely, overdetermined by racial issues, in such phenomena as the Civil Rights movement) and the competition within the capitalist class, including that between factions of the government, within (as you say) the constraints of the capitalist system. It may have stabilized the system, but the fact that it did so could only be known _after the fact_. It was not a predetermined outcome. Of course, capitalist elites fought to make it that way, but they don't always get their way. Further, what stabilized the system in the 1960s need not have done so under different conditions (say, the 1980s). Similarly, "welfare reform" may not stabilize the system. Joel Blau writes: The other problem with functionalism is the implicit tendency to homeostasis. Whatever happens serves the function of maintaining the whole. Functionalist conceptions of welfare in capitalist society focus solely on its system-maintaining characteristics, when actually between the partial decommodification and independence from the marketplace, the reality is much more ambiguous. This is right. Though Cohen -- following the lead of the mainstream sociologist Arthur Stinchecombe, though he doesn't cite the man [*] -- can point to various forces that encourage the welfare system to be "functional" (for example, a kind of Darwinian process), there are also mechanisms that encourage results to be dysfunctional. Capitalism is a contradictory system, not a functional-homeostatic system. For example, capitalism produced the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Stagflation of the 1970s, which led to all sorts of problems. They might be interpreted _after the fact_ as allowing the creation of a "new stage of accumulation" that was even better for the system than the ones that preceded these crises. But that result was not predetermined. It depended on the actual, concrete, outcomes of class struggles and competition within the captialist class (including inter-national competition). The basis functionalist fallacy is to read the present as justifying the past. [*] I doubt that Cohen plagiarized. Rather, he suffers from the same disease that inflicts most NC economists, that of only reading recent literature in one's immediate specialty. This often gives an air of spurious originality. I will send you a copy if you like. --jks I have a copy somewhere already. In fact, in moving to my new office, I created a Justin Schwarz pile of papers. But my life is too disorganized to get to it... Jim Devine [EMAIL
Re: Jerks, was Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel
Title: Re: [PEN-L:20521] Jerks, was Re: Peter Dorman and RobinHahnel Greetings Economists, Carrol Cox brings up my wanting a definition about Jerk, Carrol, Actually, Doyle, the current popularity of the term jerk (which used to be a rather mild epithet but has become a rather sharp one) is because of the partially successful effort to eliminate sexist, racist, heterosexist, etc. language. Jerk is one of the few nasty names left to use. So I would not advise objecting to it. We do need to call each other names at times, and we can't eliminate all the candidates for that sort of usage. Doyle The point is not to worry about a name like jerk. If I get mad and intensely feel something any word will do. I could just as well say Christian blah blah. I am not roping off jerks because I want to make the world safe for jerks. I am trying to get across the point about the content of the word used by Jim Devine. It is perfectly obvious (in some ways) what people mean by dogmatism. Where Jim Devine is saying well jerks are evenly distributed throughout all the political spectrum is valid and therefore using that very assertion from Jim the common assumption that what makes dogmatism dogmatism is dogmatic behavior confuses what we are really talking about. I mean they are everywhere how are we going to keep them from making dogmatic sects. What is unstable and with no political content is the description, dogmatist. It rests upon the idea that kinds of cognition don't socially interact as well as others. But if you look at for example, the origin in the Church of dogma, and sectarianism it was a means of power for the Church. It was and is a successful form of social groups practice in many circumstances. It is not clear in a scientific sense what makes someone behave that way thought there are certainly many theories of how to deal with compulsive behavior. And using the word jerk is simply trying to make the point that it isn't a disabled person. But the issue is still the same, what is a dogmatism. And that is a serious question rather than something to sling about casually as if it was obvious that it meant something. And the use of the word jerk does not make it any more clear what constitutes a dogmatic group. One cannot say jerks participate throughout the social spectrum and that jerks are what a sectarian groups are constituted by, because it is like saying that something is a jerk quality and that contaminates the group. Any group will have jerks, but dogmatism must be about something besides the sprinkling of jerks. Furthermore within that, the main thrust of the charge is anti-disabled, because the cognitive behavior of people who are most likely to be what people mean by dogmatists is obsessive and compulsive. You cannot be for disabled rights without then understanding that disabled people have a right to access. If that is so then what makes a group not dogmatism is not about keeping the disabled under control, but what makes the structure of a group dogmatic. That is an important question. It goes to the heart of what and why people feel close to each other and not. To the question of inside and outside. If you look at the structure of Christian religious orders, it is telling us that kinds of behavior are being cultivated as a group process. Those individuals who felt the religious calling were not everyone, and that by regulating and using that mind process the Church was expanding the social horizon of brain work in church social structure. Once that process was set in motion as a successful means of social order, no amount of condemnation of such dynamics can effectively deal with the force of such a group. Except to understand what it is that is actually happening within a group to make a dogmatic process happen. I mean to grasp what it is that is actually happening rather than condemning things in a mindless contentless way. In my opinion, what is going on is that a vast underground of emotions (conscious as feelings but not easily articulated in speech) is what is being managed within dogmatic groups. By taking advantage of these forces, kinds of brain work can be approached that would not be possible otherwise in groups more generally constituted by able bodied people since that sort of groups dampens the emergence of kinds of unusual cognitive patterns of consciousness. The way to understand that is to think about a theory of the mind. That is in my opinion again, that what one sees in obsessive and compulsive disorders is kinds of intense feelings that go beyond the usual range of intensity or perhaps last longer in duration whose qualities can be imagined as more extreme than normal, and therefore point at frontiers of thinking boundaries. Managing these feelings has to be different for those individuals, and at the expense of their social lives because they obviously can't fit in the norms, but is in other ways like the ability to work on the tallest buildings in construction a
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel(fwd)
Dear Doyle, in polemics concerned with red-baiting Marxism, the term "jerk" is used in a way to stigmatize the people on the Marxist left. Additionally, it serves the religious purposes of classifying them as dogmatic. The term dogma refers to religious convinction or faith. Associating Marxism with dogma is to dogmatize Marxism and invite the Church to the discussion. Like Carrol, I would not, of course, advise people not to use jerk. People need to stress out in a polemic, and "jerk" is one of the advisable terms to attack. I always look at the context of the meaning of jerk though. What it means and what it stays for can have class, gender, race and disability connotations, because our language is not always politically correct and neutral. For example, sometimes, drug abusers are called jerks and criticized as being individually responsible for their own victimization. Regarding gender, I don't know how it applies here, but I am sure it must be pretty the same, in my culture, a similar term to jerk is used to stigmatize women who do not follow the traditional feminine practices (cooking, birth giving etc..). Many times Marxist women, feminists on the left have been attacked for being masculine and imitating men--masculinity complex they call-- both by the mainstream culture and women on the far radical front. good night, It is also very interesting to put this point out in regard to how mental illness is stigmatized repeatedly this way. The point being, that the word, jerk, is not certainly about a mentally ill person. But that if someone is obsessive, then they belong in the social structure not external to society exactly in the sense that the liberal Democratic law ADA was intended. There is a way in which the sense of these sorts of discussions is that we are healthy functioning people and there are those who aren't and we certainly know the difference don't we. That is the dividing line between us and the dogmatists. it was written: By mistake, I've been sending pen-l my wrong web-page address, the one that refers to the support group for parents of kids with Asperger's Syndrome (mild autism) that my wife and I run. Doyle With regard to this web site, your phrase irony-impaired is offensive. You have a lot of gall to criticize anyone for being "irony-impaired". thanks, Doyle Saylor
Re: Re: Jerks, was Re: Peter Dorman and RobinHahnel
Greetings Economists, Doug Henwood asks if I give my permission to use the word "Wanker". I grant Doug Henwood permission to use the word Wanker. He must first follow the conditions put out here. His useage must be run by a committee consisting of Bill Clinton, Max Sawicky, and Alan Greenspan. thanks, Doyle Saylor
Re: Re: Re: Re: GT (fwd)
At 07:57 PM 06/21/2000 -0400, you wrote: see Daniel Little, the Scientific Marx, who explains how Marx's analysis in Capital depends on many rational choice presuppositions. It's not surprising, since he was analysing a market systrem where those presuppositions are more valid than not. I think that a market environment encourages individualism, but the application of rat choice came first with Smith, not Marx. And Marx, unlike the rat choice types, saw "preferences" as endogenous. He also clearly rejected methodological individualism, though he saw that something like it was the ordinary consciousness of many people within the system, shaped, constrained, and mystified by commodity fetishism and the illusions created by competition. And in a a classic paper from the 30s, Wassily Leontieff credited Marx along with Walras with being a founder of general equlibrium theory. WL was a graet fan of CII in particuklar. Leontief was wrong to credit Marx with this. Marx's volume II is a non-equilibrium system, while the equilibrium interpretation has hobbled Marxian political economy (showing up in absurd ways in the "transformation problem" lit, seen for example in Sweezy's THEORY OF CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT). Marx did present "equilibrium conditions" for the proportional relationship between sectors, but he did not think equilibrium could be achieved easily. To the extent that equilibrium was achieved, it was the result of crisis, which involved _forcible_ equilibration, which was often quite destructive (small businesses going broke, working people losing their livelihood, etc.) Instead of seeing the results of his reproduction schemes as continually met -- as in input-output analysis -- Marx saw them as regularly being broken and then violently reestablished. An extreme crisis --- like the Great Depression -- might require an extreme solution -- like World War II, though of course the solution's rise is not predetermined. I'm afraid that Leontief wanted to link Marx to his own research, which helped create IO theory. Back then, being associated with Marx was prestigious, at least in some circles. What's wrong with those accomplishments? we are to eschew them because some use them apologetically? I think we should eschew them because they weren't Marx's accomplishments. That's enough. I can't participate in pen-l for a day, since I have participated much too much during the previous 24 hours. Maybe I'll take a week off Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: GT (fwd)
Sometimes, it is interesting to follow the "orientation" of discussion taking place in this list. The intellectual ranks of _Analytical Marxism_ include people like Cohen, Elster, Przeworski, Roemer and Olin Wright. It is increasingly becoming hard for me to understand how one criticizes Cohen's functionalism, and takes a position on Elster's or Hahnel's application of game theory at the same time, given that both disregard the broad conception of history, economy and society in Marx's thought... ohhh well... life! Mine
Enjoying Orthodoxy (was Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd))
Justin wrote: If you view "the theory" as a toolkit that doesn't involve substantive commitments, it wonm't have the defects of orthodox Marxism, but it also won't have the inspiring message that gave orthodoxy its power. I doubt that substantce and method can be prised apart in the way you suggest. Lukacs, for example, was pretty orthodox in his substantive views. He would have been horrified by my own substantive views, for example. Anyway, I was attacking orthodox Marxism of Louis' variety, not a watered-down methodological Marxism. I regatd Louis, and probably Mine and Yoshie (sorry, Yoshie) as millenarian Marxists, although not the cultified sort. I am aware that there are jerks of all political persuasions. Used to be there were more on the right, maybe still are, if only because the right is so much bigger. --jks No apology necessary. I get to play an "Orthodox Marxist" perhaps only in the minds of posters on LBO-talk PEN-L. :) Given my views on sex, gender, sexuality, and many other topics, I couldn't have been called "Orthodox" even a decade ago. If I have really become "Orthodox," perhaps the Marxist tradition has made more progress on what used to be quaintly called the "Woman Question" than I have been aware. As for millenarianism, here's what Doug's favorite thinker of the moment has to say: * Against the old liberal slander which draws on the parallel between the Christian and Marxist 'Messianic' notion of history as the process of the final deliverance of the faithful (the notorious 'Communist-parties-are-secularized-religious-sects' theme), should one not emphasize how this holds only for ossified 'dogmatic' Marxism, not for its authentic liberating kernel? Following Alain Badiou's path-breaking book on Saint Paul, our premiss here is exactly the opposite one: instead of adopting such a defensive stance, allowing the enemy to define the terrain of the struggle, what one should do is to reverse the strategy by _fully endorsing what one is accused of_: yes, there _is_ a direct lineage from Christianity to Marxism; yes, Christianity and Marxism _should_ fight on the same side of the barricade against the onslaught of new spiritualisms -- the authentic Christian legacy is much too precious to be left to the fundamentalist freaks. (Slavoj Zizek, _The Fragile Absolute_ 2) * Needless to say, I disagree with Zizek, in that taking the stance opposite to denial and "fully endorsing what one is accused of" still allow "the terrain of the struggle" to be defined by name-calling. When someone says you are "X (millenarian, dogmatic, Stalinist, you name it)," it's silly to say, "I'm not X"; on the other hand, it's as silly to say, "I _am_ X," unless you really think you are X. Yoshie
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GT (fwd)
Marx in volume II shows that capitalist equilibrium with growth is possible, but that it is unlikely because of the co-ordination problems between the sectors of the economy. Arrow and Debreu using neo-classical modeling techniques show something similar. That static equilibrium is possible. But that the conditions are so onerous as to be unlikely. Leontiev was correct to connect his research with Marx. There is a continuous development of the input-output model from Quesnay to Marx to Leontiev, although each of them put it to a different use than the others. Leontiev was familiar with the efforts in the Soviet Union during the 1920s to develop a model of the economy that could be used for planning purposes, and those planners drew their inspiration from Marx. Rational choice models has a long pre-history, they go back possibly to John Duns Scottus and certainly to Marcellus of Padua. The Bernoulli's were involved and Condilliac should also be consulted. Smith's contribution was actually quite small on this particular question. Rod Jim Devine wrote: I think that a market environment encourages individualism, but the application of rat choice came first with Smith, not Marx. And Marx, unlike the rat choice types, saw "preferences" as endogenous. He also clearly rejected methodological individualism, though he saw that something like it was the ordinary consciousness of many people within the system, shaped, constrained, and mystified by commodity fetishism and the illusions created by competition. Leontief was wrong to credit Marx with this. Marx's volume II is a non-equilibrium system, while the equilibrium interpretation has hobbled Marxian political economy (showing up in absurd ways in the "transformation problem" lit, seen for example in Sweezy's THEORY OF CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT). Marx did present "equilibrium conditions" for the proportional relationship between sectors, but he did not think equilibrium could be achieved easily. To the extent that equilibrium was achieved, it was the result of crisis, which involved _forcible_ equilibration, which was often quite destructive (small businesses going broke, working people losing their livelihood, etc.) Instead of seeing the results of his reproduction schemes as continually met -- as in input-output analysis -- Marx saw them as regularly being broken and then violently reestablished. An extreme crisis --- like the Great Depression -- might require an extreme solution -- like World War II, though of course the solution's rise is not predetermined. I'm afraid that Leontief wanted to link Marx to his own research, which helped create IO theory. Back then, being associated with Marx was prestigious, at least in some circles. I think we should eschew them because they weren't Marx's accomplishments. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Entertaining Dogma (was Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel)
Doyle What is dogmatism? Nothing strengthens the case for scepticism more than the fact that there are people who are not sceptics. If they all were, they would be wrong. Pascal, _Pensees_ Yoshie
Leontief
I suppose that many of you know this already, but when the Soviets took over, they had no practical idea of economic planning. The closest guidence they could find in Marx was his discussion of Quesnay's Tableau. This gave rise to input output type models, on which Leontief worked until he left for the US. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[fla-left] Fwd: Vieques bombing to resume this week! (fwd)
forwarded by Michael Hoover --- Robert Rabin - Nilda Medina [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Subject: Vieques bombardeo Vieques bombing Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 0 Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques PO Box 1424Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765 Tel.fax 787 741-0716 Viequenses acuse officials of agencies responsable for environmental and health protection in Puerto Rico of aiding the Navy in the destruction of natrual resources and the attack against life that will result from the US Navy´s practices announced for the following several days. In documents from the Puerto Rico Planning Board, obtained by the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (CRDV) through environmental advisor Sara Peisch (Environmental Action Center of PR), military officiales admit that the bombing they hope to do this week will have a negative impact on beaches, dunes, coral reefs and adjacent waters. The document also describes the problems with the inert bombs that skip on land and end up in the water. According to the official documents, the Navy plans to drop 130,000 pounds of bombs on Vieques during maneuvers that should begin this week. Rear Admiral J.K. Moran offered the following description of the projectiles to be fired at Vieques: 600 rounds from ships; 400 bombs of 25 pounds; 30 laser guided 50 lb. projectiles; 120 bombs of up to 1000 pounds. Nilda Medina, spokesperson for the CPRDV, commented that "...all Puerto Ricans should denounce the intentions of the US Navy to launch more than 125 thousand pounds of bombs during upcoming practices. Each bomb means more contamination for our people, more cancer, more death. We don´t understand how the Puerto Rican government can permit this genocide against our town. The Special Commission on Vieques, created by the Governor, described in detail the horrible effects on our health from bombing, whether with live or inert bombs." The people of Vieques demand that the Governmental agencies responsable for environmental and health protection do not permit the the Navy to continue the destrction of Vieques. Contact: Robert Rabin, CPRDV 787 741-0716 cel. 787 375-0525
[fla-left] U.S. DROPS ROGUE STATE MANTRA (fwd)
hahaha, teeheehee, yuckyuckyuck...tomato, tomawto, potato, potawto, just call the whole thing off Michael Hoover http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/2619/pl/usa_rogues_dc_1.html 19 June 2000 State Department Drops 'Rogue State' Tag By Jonathan Wright WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran, Libya and North Korea are rogues no longer, the State Department has decided. Now they're just ``states of concern'', Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said in a radio interview. ``Some of those countries aren't as bad as they used to be. They say: 'We've done some stuff so why are you still calling us a rogue state?''' one State Department official said. Or, as State Department spokesman Richard Boucher put it more carefully on Monday: ``It's just a recognition that we have seen some evolution in different ways in different places, and that we will deal appropriately with each one based on the kind of evolution we're seeing.'' Iran, for example, has become more democratic, with presidential and parliamentary elections. Libya has handed over the suspects in the Lockerbie case for trial and North Korea has declared a moratorium on tests of its long-range missiles. Even Iraq, a hardcore ``rogue state'' under the old description, is now ``a state previously known as rogue'', to quote Boucher's jocular formulation. Albright, speaking on National Public Radio's Diane Rehm show, said: ``We are now calling these states 'states of concern' because we are concerned about their support for terrorist activities, their development of missiles, their desire to disrupt the international system.'' Four Groups Of Nations The Clinton administration, and especially Albright as ambassador to the United Nations, was once an enthusiastic proponents of the ``rogue state'' theory. In an April 1994 lecture, she divided the countries of the world into four categories -- international good citizens, emerging democracies, rogue states and countries where a state hardly exists, such as Somalia and Sierra Leone. She defined a rogue state as one that had no part in the international system and that tried to sabotage it. U.S. policy should be to isolate them, she added. For the past year or so, the United States had used the term mainly for countries it thought might be working on long-range missiles. This was the justification for planning a controversial national defense against their missiles. But experience, especially with the isolated Stalinist state of North Korea, has shown that it might be more productive in the long run to engage in dialogue. In the case of Iran, moreover, the United States has been actively seeking a dialogue with the government, despite repeated rebuffs from Tehran. Calling Names Does Not Help Talks between the United States and North Korea, which have no diplomatic relations, have persuaded Pyongyang to freeze its nuclear program, allow the United States to inspect suspect sites and suspend the missile tests. The talks may have been a factor in persuading North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to take part in last week's summit with South Korea. One U.S. official tied the change in terminology specifically to the case of North Korea, one of the countries which the United States calls a state sponsor of terrorism. ``It doesn't help to be calling them rogues one minute and trying to get them to be reasonable the next,'' he said. Boucher said the State Department wanted to move away from putting countries in groups and would not be drawn on whether there were ``states of concerns'' which were never rogues. The term ``rogue'' never had any formal status but Albright initially included Iraq, Iran, Serbia, Sudan, and North Korea. Cuba and Syria have been on the U.S. list of ``terrorism sponsors'' but were rarely if ever called rogues. ``The category has outlived its usefulness...but we're not trying to create new categories. We're trying to deal with each situation in U.S. interests. If we see a development that we think is in U.S. interests, we will respond,'' Boucher said. ``If we're able to encourage them (states of concern) or pressure them or otherwise produce changes in their behavior, and therefore change in our relationship, we're willing to do that,'' the spokesman added. Bruce K. Gagnon Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[fla-left] [activism] Albright speech disrupted at Northeastern U graduation (fwd)
note that below report includes couple instances of 'parentheses' editorializing that may folks may/may not agree... Michael Hoover (en) US, Boston: Albright speech disrupted at Northeastern U graduation From "Matthew Williams" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date Mon, 19 Jun 2000 04:19:57 -0400 A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E http://www.ainfos.ca/ On Saturday, June 17, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spoke at the graduation ceremonies at Northeastern University in Boston and received an honorary degree. Outside of the building where the graduation ceremony was being held, about twenty five to thirty people held signs and distributed over 1,000 leaflets to the huge crowd of Northeastern graduates and their families attending the event; the leaflets detailed Albright's horrible human rights record, highlighting sanctions on Iraq and military aid to Colombia in particular. We brought one complete sound system and several bullhorns and got around the police's ban on using amplified sound by rotating between them, the users of each feigning ignorance of the orders the last set of people had received from the police to not use amplified sound. Given that it was a pretty chaotic, unstructured coalition (groups present included Boston Mobilization for Survival (parent group of the Campaign for the Iraqi People and the Boston Campus Action Network; radical in orientation and includes a number of anarchist members), the Colombia Support Network, the International Socialist Organization (one of the less obnoxious Leninist groups), Food Not Bombs, the Committee for Peace and Human Rights (progressive but really flakey), and the New England War Tax Resisters), this would not have been entirely unbelieveable. The police finally allowed us to use a bullhorn from the concrete traffic island dividing the road near the building, from where the large crowd waiting to get in could still hear us--for police, they were actually being pretty reasonable. Speakers emphasized that we were not there to ruin any one's graduation, but to challenge the US government's abominable human rights record as represented by Albright's actions while in office. Twelve activists from Mobilization for Survival and the Colombia Support Network who managed to get tickets from sympathetic people with extras went into the graduation ceremony. Apparently hoping to prevent the sort of disruptions that have happenned when she has spoken, Albright started her speech while about a thousand people were still waiting to get in the building as everyone was made to walk through a metal detector and have their bags searched. Her speech got disrupted anyway. Four banners were dropped from balconies as she spoke and received her degree. The first banner, displayed as she began her speech, read "Iraq sanctions = weapons of mass destruction"--one woman sitting next to the activists actually helped hold the corner of this banner. Next, a banner that read "Sanctions will kill fourteen Iraqi children during this commencement" was unfurled as Albright was finishing her speech, followed by "No Blood for Oil" as she received her honorary degree. The last banner, which read "Stop U.S. Guns to Colombia" was displayed just afterwards. Ten of the twelve activists inside were escorted out; no one was arrested. Three of the banners were up for thirty seconds or so, but one stayed up for several minutes before the police were able to confiscate it and eject the protesters. Security was the tightest one security guard had ever seen, even "tighter than [a] Clinton" visit. Two of the banners were smuggled in under womens's skirts (they have not yet gotten to the point where they are willing to strip search people to avoid embarrassing Albright); the other two were overlooked when the police searched bags--although one was hidden in a date book that the cops flipped through twice and somehow didn't notice the banner. The activists escorted outside were later interviewed by an Associated Press reporter, and speakers from the rally were broadcast live on local AM news radio. This action was part of a growing trend of actions, organized mainly by activists working against sanctions on Iraq, targeting Albright whenever she attempts to speak publicly, particularly at college graduations. The A-Infos News Service News about and of interest to anarchists COMMANDS: [EMAIL PROTECTED] REPLIES: [EMAIL PROTECTED] HELP: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.ainfos.ca INFO: http://www.ainfos.ca/org To receive a-infos in one language only mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] the message unsubscribe a-infos
[fla-left] Fwd: Vieques Update (fwd)
forwarded by Michael Hoover
--- Robert Rabin - Nilda Medina [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques
Box 1424Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765
Telefax (787) 741-0716 cel 375-0525
Vieques Update
19 June, 2000
Incursions into the military zone and arrests of our
people, screaming a military vehicles and personnel
in the streets of our community, parades,
internation tribunals are part of the activities
organized by the Committee for the Rescue and
Development of Vieques together with compañer@s from
Vieques and the main island over the past two weeks.
From 6 to 9 June, Dr. Doug Rokke, ex Director of the
DOD´s Uranium 238 ("depleted uranium") was in
Vieques and in Puerto Rico as part of the
international campaign to outlaw these radioactive
weapons. Rokke participated on Channell 28 (Vieques
TV) about the horrible health effects of uranium 238
(DU), for civilians and for soldiers in the area
where it is used.
At the Museum Fort Count Mirasol in Vieques, the
scientist from the US gave a detailed account about
DU weapons and the long history of Defense
Department irresponsability with their own personnel
and civilians in terms of health effects of DU.
Rokke emphasized that the dangers of contamination
and the serious health crisis of the Viequenses are
not related only to uranium, but to the multiplicity
of dangerous chemical componentes from over half a
century of bombing with conventional and non
conventional weapons on the Eastern end of Vieques.
Rokke showed visuals of the air transportation of
uranium oxide, clearly demonstrating how the
contaminants in the impact zone easily reach the
civilian sector riding on the constant breezes that
move precisely from East to West.
On the main island, the Caribbean Project for Peace
and Justice organized several meetings with Rokke
and the scientific and medical community of Puerto
Rico and a Press Conference at the PR Bar
Association. After several days in Puerto Rico,
Rokke travelled to New York to continue the
information campaign against uranium 238 weapons
used on Vieques and to participatein the Puerto
Rican Day Parade, dedicated to the Peace on Vieques.
Aproximately 150 people from Vieques travelled to NY
for the Parade on 11 June. The largest contingent
was the 40 or so members of the Committee for the
Rescue and Development of Vieques and the Peace and
Justice Camp. Nilda Medina, Norma Morales and María
Elena Navarro, members of the CRDV, worked for
several months to coordinate the participation of
the group to assure a strong representation of
Viequenses in struggle during the NY parade.
Ismael Guadalupe, representing the CRDV, was the key
speaker at a special dinner by the War Resisters
League, US pacifist organization that recognized the
work of the CRDV awarding the Vieques group its
annual peace prize. Ismael also formed part of the
jury in the International Peoples Tribunal held on
June 10th that considered war crimes committed in
the war against Yugoslavia. During the proceedings,
Ismael brought up the issue of Vieques and received
a standing ovation from the 500 participants
representing 11 countries.
The following week was equally productive. We
received a great number of solidarity messages from
different parts of the world - the Phillipines,
Okinawa, US, Panamá, Hawaii - and commitments of
support and participation in civil disobedience
actions from a large number of Puerto Ricans.
On Tuesday, those arrested on 1 June met here with
lawyers Linda Backiel and Rosa Meneses Albizu
Campos. Lolita Lebron, one of the arrested, also
participated in the meeting to discuss future legal
strategy.
On Thursday, 15 June, the technical-legal team of
Robert Kennedy, Jr., arrived on Vieques. Kennedy
directs a team of envronmental and legal
organizations - the Natural Resources Defense
Council, the Puerto Rico Legal Defense Fund and the
Environmental Litigation Clinic of Pace University -
that prepares a case to end Navy bombing and force
the Navy to decontaminate Vieques. Kennedy arrived
Saturday to meet with community organizations
related to the legal case.
Friday night, 37 Puerto Rican professionals,
including university professors, publiscists, sports
writers and union leaders, entered into the Navy´s
restricted area to denounce the Navy´s presence and
intention to continue bombing. The group
participated earlier in a special vigil at Peace and
Justice Camp, before entering into military zone and
were arrested around 3:00 in the morning. After
being transferred to Roosevelt Roads, the group was
released later in the afternoon.
Saturday evening, Kennedy and his team participated
in the vigil at Peace and Justice Camp, in front of
the Navy´s installation here - Camp
