Final thoughts on the Nader campaign
Characterized by catastrophism from its birth, American ultraleftism has been ill-equipped to understand and relate to leftwing third party initiatives. If capitalism is on its last legs, wouldn't an electoral effort amount to a diversion at best, or betrayal at worst? In reality, American capitalism has enormous resilience--based as it is on a vulturistic hold over the Third World. It has the capacity to work its way through one crisis after another. Given this reality, Marxist politics must involve detours and flanking tactics. This is something that any self-respecting ultraleft finds impossible, their main slogan being "March, march--full speed ahead!" Of course, it never bothers them if no army is following them. In some cases, some of the extreme purists feel compromised if they do have a following, even of just a couple dozen. What were they doing wrong? Furthermore much of this kind of ultraleftism is idealist in nature. Each sect has a magic formula that will wake up the masses from its slumber. All that is needed is the right wording on a leaflet to be passed out on the right occasion and BINGO. Not surprisingly, their attitude toward third party candidates is also idealist in nature. Instead of paying attention to union interest in the Nader campaign as a sign of motion in the ranks, they dwell on Nader's speeches as if speeches change history. In reality revolutions only partially involve conscious action; more significant are the powerful mass mobilizations operating on the basis of newly awakened, nearly subliminal thoughts and feelings. This is what the bourgeoisie calls the mob and it is what revolutionaries call free humanity. The purpose of this concluding article on the Nader campaign is to call attention to the underlying class struggle dynamics of some third party campaigns, including Nader's itself. With a two party system in the United States that conspires to bottle up challenges to particularly hated capitalist policies, it is almost inevitable that electoral responses will develop to confront these policies. In every instance the bourgeoisie goes on the offensive against such campaigns, even when the candidate himself has a history in the two-party system. They are not afraid of the candidate, but the example of an electoral formation operating out of their control. The first such initiative in the 20th century, which I reported on in my last post, was the Farmer-Labor Party and LaFollette campaigns of the 1919-1924, that overlapped to a considerable degree. It expressed the resistance of American workers to attacks on their political and economic rights, which had taken the form of the Palmer Raids and other extra-governmental rightist attacks. It also expressed the determination of the black community to beat back racist pogroms and the growth and influence of the KKK. LaFollette sought out the support of the organized left, the trade unions and the NAACP. Unfortunately the Communist wing of the left was hostile to LaFollette's campaign and probably shared some responsibility for its failure to remain viable after 1924. Its defeat undoubtedly played a role in the political retreat of the late 1920s, a period not unlike our own. With the absence of a political alternative to the Democrats and Republicans, nothing in the political arena stood in the way of a ruling class economic transformation that in its way was as sweeping as the "downsizing" of the 1970s and 80s. Mike Davis writes in "Prisoner of the American Dream": "It would be difficult to exaggerate the magnitude of American labors defeat in the 1919-1924 period. For almost a decade, the corporations were virtually free from the challenge of militant unionism. In the interlude of the American Plan employers accelerated the attack on worker control within the labor process, the new mass-production technologies advancing side by side with new forms of corporate management and work supervision. The totality of this transformation of the labor process -- first Taylorism, then Fordism -- conferred vastly expanded powers of domination through its systematic decomposition of skills and serialization of the workforce." During the 1930s there were opportunities for a third party based on the trade union movement, but because of the hegemony of the Communist Party, they were squandered. FDR's New Deal attracted the blind support of the CP, even as the party ran its own ineffective propaganda campaigns for president. Ironically it was the turn of the US ruling class against the New Deal consensus that precipitated a third party initiative in 1948, the Progressive Party campaign of Henry Wallace. In many ways Wallace symbolized the most progressive aspects of the New Deal. As Secretary of Agriculture, he and colleague Harold Ickes played the role of liberal conscience in the FDR cabinet. He took the principles of the New Deal at face value and decided to launch the Progressive Party in the face of what he considered
Long overdue needs
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 30, 2000 Friday HOUSE OKS COLOMBIA DRUG AID, BUT NO FOOD FOR CUBA; Leaders resolved a last-minute snag yesterday and whisked through the House an $11.2 billion emergency package bearing money for Colombia's drug war, the Pentagon and storm victims at home. Months in the making, the bill was approved by a bipartisan margin of 306-110. The Senate was all but certain to give it final approval today, when Congress' Fourth of July break is scheduled to begin. Signaling that he would sign the measure, President Clinton said afterward, "While it contains certain flaws, in total this bill will make our nation safer and more secure by meeting essential and long-overdue needs at home and abroad." (clip) === New York Times, July 14, 2000 Colombians Tell of Massacre, as Army Stood By By LARRY ROHTER EL SALADO, Colombia -- The armed men, more than 300 of them, marched into this tiny village early on a Friday. They went straight to the basketball court that doubles as the main square, residents said, announced themselves as members of Colombia's most feared right-wing paramilitary group, and with a list of names began summoning residents for judgment. A table and chairs were taken from a house, and after the death squad leader had made himself comfortable, the basketball court was turned into a court of execution, villagers said. The paramilitary troops ordered liquor and music, and then embarked on a calculated rampage of torture, rape and killing. "To them, it was like a big party," said one of a dozen survivors who described the scene in interviews this month. "They drank and danced and cheered as they butchered us like hogs." By the time they left, late the following Sunday afternoon, they had killed at least 36 people whom they accused of collaborating with the enemy, left-wing guerrillas who have long been a presence in the area. The victims, for the most part, were men, but others ranged from a 6-year-old girl to an elderly woman. As music blared, some of the victims were shot after being tortured; others were stabbed or beaten to death, and several more were strangled. Yet during the three days of killing last February, military and police units just a few miles away made no effort to stop the slaughter, witnesses said. At one point, they said, the paramilitaries had a helicopter flown in to rescue a fighter who had been injured trying to drag some victims from their home. Instead of fighting back, the armed forces set up a roadblock on the way to the village shortly after the rampage began, and prevented human rights and relief groups from entering and rescuing residents. Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/americas/071400colombia-violence.html Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Jimmy Hoffa Junior
The Nation, July 24/31, 2000 Where's Hoffa Driving the Teamsters? by MARC COOPER There was a time when the very word "Teamsters" evoked some pretty dark images: a bloated and notoriously corrupt union president, carried into the Teamsters convention on a gilded sedan chair by men dressed as gladiators; another mob-tied president disappearing to God-knows-where; millions in pension-fund dollars being used to build Vegas casinos and hotels; hired thugs roaming the California grape fields, beating up UFW strikers and signing sweetheart deals with the growers. But that was then. This is now: Teamsters and turtles together, confronting corporate globalization in Seattle; Teamsters helping to lead the human rights fight against permanent normal trade relations with China and putting 5,000 members on the Capitol steps during the week of the A16 demos to prove they mean it; Teamsters, along with auto workers, refusing to join the rest of labor in an early endorsement of Al Gore and instead conducting an intricate minuet with Green presidential candidate Ralph Nader. The Teamsters, in short, making a bid to become key partners and allies in that progressive blue/green coalition that began to gel out of the gaseous clouds of the WTO protests. Without question, the roots of this transformation of America's largest industrial union, with 1.4 million members, can be traced to an overall reactivation of labor, as well as to the Teamsters' own internal reform administrations of the past decade and, of course, to federal intervention and semi-tutelage of the union that began in 1989 as part of a massive cleanup campaign. But the transformation also shows the effect of 59-year-old James P. Hoffa, general president of the Teamsters for the past year. Some predicted an unmitigated disaster when Hoffa was elected: After all, "Junior," as Hoffa was disparagingly called by his critics, was the son of tainted Jimmy Sr.--the fabled Teamsters boss who was immortalized on the screen by Jack Nicholson and whose body, after his kidnapping, has never been found. So when Jimmy Jr. ran against reformist-backed incumbent Ron Carey, he was seen strictly as the preferred candidate of the Teamsters "barons," the comfy bureaucrats reviled by reformers. To many, the choice at the time seemed stark and simple: Either Carey and continued reform or "Junior" Hoffa and a return to the Bad Old Days. But Carey, after becoming ensnared in a money-laundering scheme in which $750,000 in union funds washed through some Democratic-linked advocacy groups and then back into his union campaign coffers, was removed from the Teamsters presidency by a federal oversight panel and disqualified from standing for re-election. (Carey claimed he didn't know of the scheme; he was never indicted or legally sanctioned.) Hoffa's fundraising practices were also investigated; although he was fined, the violations were not deemed sufficient to disqualify him. He overcame a hastily staged campaign by reform-slate candidate Tom Leedham and won the 1998 election, formally taking office in March 1999. In the year since then, by anyone's measure the world hasn't collapsed. "The moral in this story is that life goes on," quips Elaine Bernard, a progressive labor-studies expert at Harvard. She adds, "It's still too early to make any definitive judgment on Hoffa." But given the sort of hostility that his name evoked on the left, and given the predictions of a royalist restoration should Hoffa actually be elected, even that kind of equivocal evaluation must come as music to Hoffa's ears. Full article at: http://www.thenation.com/ Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Red New York
The Nation, July 24/31, 2000 A City That Worked by ROBERT W. SNYDER The New York of 1945 was the victorious city of the New Deal and World War II, one that can barely be glimpsed today beneath postmodern towers and billboards for dot-com enterprises. New York was a metropolis with a strong manufacturing base that gave it economic muscle and a seaport that gave it a gritty yet cosmopolitan air. Its people were largely immigrants and the children of immigrants. Their sensibility, "savvy, opinionated, democratic," in the words of historian Joshua B. Freeman, "helped set the tone of the nation in the postwar years" through labor leaders such as Michael Quill of the Transport Workers' Union and David Dubinsky of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. In a lucid, detailed and imaginative analysis, "Working-Class New York: Life and Labor Since World War II", Freeman shows how the city's working class, in alliance with leftists, built an urban social democracy that enriched many lives before it fell to the forces of global economics and domestic politics. Anyone who wants to understand the changing fortunes of working people and the left in the nation's largest city should read this book. In Freeman's view the mortal blow to this city on a hill was not McCarthyism but the fiscal crisis of the seventies, which undermined New York's miniature welfare state. The fiscal crisis and the new politics that followed ravaged the public institutions that working people depended on, enshrining a lean and mean city government instead of one that helped cushion the inequalities of the market. "Public institutions once attractive to all sorts of New Yorkers," Freeman writes, "became subnormal institutions of last resort." As a result, all New Yorkers--but, most important, working people--live in a metropolis defined by stark inequalities. The New York of 1945, Freeman argues, was fortified by a red subculture. The Communist Party, legitimated by the Popular Front and wartime antifascism, and represented everywhere from unions to the city council, held substantial power. In the late forties and fifties, this alignment shuddered under the blows of the cold war and McCarthyism. Classroom by classroom, block by block, union by union, Communists were driven to the margins of public life in New York City. Full review at: http://www.thenation.com/ Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: To glib or not too glib?
JKSCHW wrote, there are tens of millions of business bankruptcies a years, and a handful of bailouts. The market real does create incentives to be efficient . . . Circular argument. If we ASSUME that the bankruptcies resulted from inefficiencies, then their occurance may be taken as evidence that the market creates incentives for efficiency. How do we know those bankruptcies aren't randomly distributed, irrespective of efficiency? How do we know those bankruptcies aren't the result of some political machinations by those who stand to benefit from the bankruptcies? How many of these "business bankruptcies" were poor schmucks who've dumped their life savings into some shell of a "franchise travel agency" sold at a "home business fair" by a huckster who DIDN'T GO BANKRUPT BECAUSE HE SOLD A LOT OF FRANCHISES TO SCHMUCKS WHO DID? And how many of those bankruptcies were borderline frauds designed to make a quick buck and stick the suppliers with unpaid invoices and workers with unpaid wages? Temps Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant
Re: Re: To glib or not too glib?
Why would there only be state patronage and bailout in a planned system? At least before the system in the USSR broke down people had a life expectancy of 69 as compared to 59 now, in spite of bailouts and patronage in the planned system. So are tens of millions of bankruptcies efficient? It would be inefficient in strict nc terms to keep the non-productive alive. Assuming they are better off alive there may be no way to keep them alive without making others worse off--costing them money-- without any possible compensation. That is there would be no potential pareto improvement. Why would one make such a concept as efficiency a core value in welfare economics or anywhere else? It is efficient in a market system to respond for millionaires demands for facelifts but not to provide food for penniless millions who are starving unless there are enough benefactors willing to foot the bill. To plan and produce basic foodstuffs on the basis of need not monetary demand would be inefficient. No? If the variety and quality and quantity are poor under planning surely ,as Devine points out, consumer input can help correct that. However in the USSR consumer input was not listened to and was not a significant part of the planning process. Why does planning have to be like that? We have a non-market hospital system in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Hospitals came to be built partly due to planning but also due to patronage and lobbying. In Saskatchewan in particular medical facilities were probably overbuilt in terms of any type of efficiency. But the system works reasonably well, better than the more market oriented US system. Competition in a health care system can be quite wasteful. In the US every hospital needs to have state-of-the-art equipment that is often quite costly. Some equipment could easily be shared by a half dozen or so hospitals. Instead in order to compete every hospital buys the equipment driving up costs. It is not surprising that the market oriented system in US health care is the most expensive in terms of share of GDP going to health but at the same time leaves many without adequate insurance or care. I have always thought of markets as a means of rationing by wealth. Isn't that basically what they are? All the rest is rhetoric and mathematics and libertarian self-deception. Free choice for those with bucks. Charity for those without. The beauty of markets is that they appear non-coercive whereas planning appears coercive. But if there is significant citizen input it represents a free collective choice. Cheers, Ken Hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Why not stop looking for killer arguments and just talk this over? Sure there is stage patronage and bailouts. In a planning system, that is all there is. In a market system, most enterprises lack the power that, e.g., Chrysler could bring to bear to avoid the consequences of its decisions. Bankruptcy is far more common than bailouts--there are tens of millions of business bankruptcies a years, and a handful of bailouts. The market real does create incentives to be efficient, which is why businesses hate it so much, and seek refuge in collusion and government assistance. So your example actually provides very powerful support for market efficiences and planning inefficiences. Adam Smith noted this a long time ago. --jks In a message dated 7/14/00 12:23:54 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: t's not clear to me whether the "too glib" should refer to my previous message or to what follows in Justin's reply. The "context in which there are external market corrections" can as easily become the context in which there is external (and massive) state patronage and bailouts. Ever hear of the military-industrial complex? The plain fact is there is no pure "last instance" where the market prevails [and thus 'corrects'] unalterably. It is all always susceptible to some form of non-market intervention. You want a recent example? Long Term Capital. How does it make it "unplanned" that interventions are restricted to only the richest and most powerful? Here's the litmus: if "external market corrections" were the ultimate arbiter of "competitiveness" then corporate campaign contributions would not be a rational economic activity. Do corporations finance political campaigns? I rest my case.
Conservative Party concedes tax rises
There has been a slight but significant shift of the political centre in Britain this week. As the two main parties adjust their positions ready for the first general election following Blair's 1997 massive victory, the British Conservative Party, under the influence of the new caring Michael Portillo, has stated that it will no longer pledge in absolutely every year never to raise taxes. This is a step away from simplistic sloganising to considering the economy as a long-term dynamic unit. The Conservatives have conceded that during a recession it is inevitable that government revenues would fall, while benefit claims for unemployment would rise. They have interestingly now stated that in such circumstances the state would continue to have a claim for appropriate resources: it would be financially imprudent to imply this would be met by a budget deficit, and it would be preferable to retain the option of raising taxed temporarily. Meanwhile the Blair government has just issued its annual report, in much smaller numbers than last year. It is repeatedly accused of spin, but the report argues that unemployment is the lowest for very many years, and they have brought down the national debt significantly. The latter is not a prominent populist demand but occupies a strangely central role in Blair/Brown's thinking. What has shifted is that both Labour and the Conservatives are talking rationally of managing the economy over a ten or twenty year period. It is also a shift in the Conservative Party from reliance on a reductionist faith in the market. Such limited consensus does reduce the distracting nature of two party fireworks, and slightly enables genuine progressives to argue an alternative case about how the economy should be managed with social foresight. Chris Burford London
The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems A
I think, although I may be wrong, that democratic control can be as or more effective than markets in providing information and a corrective to the mistakes of planning. You seem to assume a centralized bureaucratic planning a la the USSR. If adequate democratic controls are designed, managers who systematically guess wrong can be more easily removed. Providing proper incentives is a problem, but it is also a mistake to assume that the market provides a suitable set of incentives. Where are the incentives to provide adequate food, housing, medical care, or legal assistance to everyone who needs it. A good part of the reason that I am a socialist is that capitalism provides incentives that systematically violate my sense of values. I think socialism can do better, although it won't be easy. Rod -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: The Rise and Future Demise of World-SystemsAnalysis
Mine Aysen Doyran wrote: Anthony DCosta wrote: Wallerstein writes, irrespective of what others write. He doesn't listen--to paraphrase some of his students (who are my friends) and colleagues! Cheers, ohh, definetly, he is very persistent of his own position. That is expectable from a sociologist of grand theory, especially of a marxian variety. If people listened to each other all the time, they would not be different! He is very articulate when he talks, BTW: clear and to the point. I like his style.. Am sure you like his style: no reflection, just sheepish acceptance. But I do wonder how much satisfaction he can get knowing what sort of people accept his "ricity" and "lity". Or, has the third worldist media created a star who like Julia Roberts does not know the crowd who's coming to see her movies? Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of WashingtonBox Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxx -- 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 Free Internet Access and Email_ Download Now http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html Request a CDROM 1-800-333-3633 ___
FW: Apartheid's Killer Legacy
K Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Forwarded from another list: Apartheid's Killer Legacy. By David Kenvyn Matlaweng Mohlala began working at Cape's Penge mine when he was only twelve. For fourteen years he packed asbestos fibre into sacks with his bare hands. He was not warned of the dangers of this work. He lived nearby at the mine hostel. In 1995 he was diagnosed with asbestosis. Amanda Burger grew up near the asbestos mine in Pomfret and Koegas whereher father worked as an engineer. In 1998, at the age of 29, she died of mesothelioma. Her father, who works for the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs said, "It was heartrending to watch her trying to get back to normal. But it was all in vain. We have lost a beautiful child. I feel aggressive towards the parent company [Cape PLC] which could have done much more." Dr. Packard alone diagnosed 900 cases of mesothelioma in the Prieska area, Northern Cape Province, South Africa. As a child his son had played in the asbestos dust that was used on the local golf course. In 1990 Dr. Pickard's son, who was also a doctor, was diagnosed with mesothelioma. The next year, at the age of 36, Dr. Pickard junior died. At Prieska, the heart of Cape PLC's operations, the mill was in the centre of the town, near the school. Local residents describe the thick layer of asbestos dust which covered the houses, and how they had to pick asbestos fibres out of their food,a nd blow it off their drinking water. These dangerous conditions ahve led to thousands of people who lived or worked in the affected areas contracting absestosis or mesothelioma.In 1962 a confidential report about Cape's operations by the Pneumoconiosis research Unit of South Africa noted "an alarmingly high number of mesothelioma cases in Prieska" and continued "people who live in the areas of Prieska, Koegas Kuruman and Penge are in danger of contracting asbestosi= s even though they have no industrial exposure to asbestos dust inhalation. Over two thousand sufferers of asbestosis and mesothelioma and relatives of those who have already died are demanding justice from Cape. Like victims in Scotland and the rest of the UK, they want to state their case and to receive compensation if Cape is found to be negligent. But while Cape has had to face up to its responsibilities in Britain, where thousands of asbestos disease cases have been settled, it is using a peculiarity of the English legal system to avoid its responsibilities to South African workers= . Most European courts accept that companies are accountable at home for thei= r overseas operations. But in England and Wales, if the injury occurs outside the EU, companies like Cape can stall the legla process by arguing that the case should be held where the injury took place rather than in the company's home country. Cape is using this peculiarity in English law to argue that this case shoul= d be heard in South Africa, despite the fact that it pulled out of South Africa twenty years ago.Campaigners are concerned that if the case is not heard here, Britain will become known as a place where multinational companies are not automatically held accountable for their actions overseas - a haven for those operating double standards and exploiting workers in poorer countries. The claimants point out that Cape is a British company and should be held accountable in Britain, where it holds its assets. Cape's head office is in Britain and it directly owned and controlled operations in South Africa. One former Cape employee has described how the London office was responsibl= e for all expenditure on health and safety and for any expenditure over =A330. The South African government and trade unions have made it clear that they support the case proceeding in Britain. Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA), along with the World Development Movement (WDM), is campaigning fo= r justice for all South Africans affected by Cape's operations. Cape has left a terrible legacy of disease and pollution, which the new South Africa now has to deal with. Last month, ACTSA hosted a visit by Audrey van Schalkwyk and Shadrack Malokoane, representing their communities in the fight to secure compensation from Cape. Audrey is a community nurse and is herself suffering from asbestosis. Shadrack is expecting his father to die at any moment. ACTSA wants Cape PLC to face the South African claimants in court, to compensate those who are found to have suffered through the company's negligence and to contribute to the clean up operation in the affected areas. You can support this campaign by writing to Cape PLC's major investors on this issue. The addresses are :- Anita Skipper, Corporate Governance Manager, Norwich Union, 34-36 Lime Street, London EC3M 7JE David Thomas, Investments Director, Equitable Life, City Place House, 5 Basinghall Street, London EC2V 5DR
Re: The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems Analysis
Anthony DCosta wrote: Wallerstein writes, irrespective of what others write. He doesn't listen--to paraphrase some of his students (who are my friends) and colleagues! I am not surprised. There's no one iota of an idea which one could extract out of that future demise thing. Beyond that, it is the empty arrogance of the whole thing, the pretentious, paternalistic, uppish way he writes about his followers; the effrontry and pomposity of assuming he has "devastated" every other alternative within the social sciences. Could you ever think of Chomsky doing something like that? The sickening thing is that he really believes he speaks for the whole "world system" - just open New York Review of Books and you will find a 100 books better than anything he has written.
RE: Re: M once again
John Roemer, John Roemer Oh yeah, I remember him. Berkeley, 1969. Undergraduate math major and head of local Progressive Labor Party chapter. "People's Park are a bunch of reactionary hippies stealing parking spaces from the working class." Also, get other people to front for you and get arrested or suspended from their academic careers, but you keep safe behind the scenes and build you academic career because the inner party intellectuals are too valuable to sacrifice to the struggle. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2000 6:01 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21586] Re: M once again Well, it's sort of ancient history about AM. I agree with you that there was that aspect to the AMs. They did call themselves (informally) the "no-Bullshit Marxism group. Course this was in the 70s, when there was a lot of bullshit Marxism about. Still, there was an unnecessary arrogance there. However, no need to dwell on it with the evaporation of the school. It is still useful to have a label to refer to people who were involved in a common project, referred to reach other's work, etc., just like with the Frankfurt School or the Althusserians. I mean, you were a lot more likely to find me referring to Roemer or Elster than to Adorno, or Habermas to Adorno than to Roemer, etc., so it at least tells you the frame of reference if not who's better than what. What planet are you from, the AMs eschew philosophical reflection? If anything, they engage in too much it. A tendency where the leading figures were a philosopher of history (Cohen), a political theorist (Elster), a methodologically hyper-conscious economist (Roemer) and political scientist (Przezworeski), and historian (Brenner), almost all of whom have written reams of philosophy of science, ethics, and political philosophy--this is what you mean by a movement that is not philosophically self-aware? You can't be serious. Maybe you think the stuff is all worthless, but it's not like it's not there. But I am not stuck on the label anyway, I just pitched in because various people were sneering at the tendency that I was part of if I was part of any tendency, and which in any case I thought did not deserve sneers. As far as analytical philosophy goes, your friend has a take on it that I would not wholly agree with. AP was something Russell and Moore invented around the 1890s when they were bored by British Hegelianism; it was empiricistically minded philosophy with a strong dose of logic--Russell was a very great mathematical logician; it was infused, in England and America, by the logical positivists, themselves strongly influenced by Kant and relativity theory, when the LPs fled Nazi-occupied Europe. For about 30 years, analytical philosophy was either LP or its critique. LP and its linguistic phil outliers came apart after 1950 and by 1975, Humpty Dumpty was all in pieces. This is when I started college. It was exciting; there was a sense we were going to get it right this time. The big tendency were (Marxist imspired) scientific realism and social constructivism in the Kuhnian mold, or so it seemed to me, but I was a philosopher of science. I will add that the anti-metaphysical animus of logical positivism was wholly gone by then; courses were offered on metaphysics, and "epistemology metaphysics" is one of the core specializations. Along with philosophy of mind and language, it is the hegemonic one. So your friend is quite wrong about that aspect. He is also wrong that APs have to reject the "synthetic a priori"; C.I. Lewis was defending a version of it in the 30s and 40s, and if he isn't an analytical philosopher, no one is. Quine too is happy to defend the synthetic a priori,a nd he is THE analytical philosopher. Your friend wrongly identifies AP with logical positivism, which was only true in part and long ago. However, 25 years later, things have rather come apart. There are no common doctrines or methods, the territory is pretty well mapped, and while there is a lot of sophistication, there is not much progress or sense of progress. Granted I have been out of professional philosophy for six years, but I keep my hand in, and others I respect agree with me. There are no figures of the stature of Russell or Wittgenstein, or even Quine or Sellars. The field is treading water. This is not just the case with analytical philosophy. "Contintental" philosophy isn't going anywhere either. I mean, postmodernism? Give me a break. It is true that analytical philosophy is dominant in research departments. That means a lot less than the dominance of NCE in economics departments, because you can be an analytical philosopher and do Hegel or Marx as long as you do it analytically, that is, rigorously. we will get static from the logicians and the episptemology and metaphysics snobs, but you can still do analytical philosophy and do just about whatever you like. This is a
Wallerstein
Ricardo Could you please criticize Wallerstein without the personal attacks. His arrogance is irrelevant. I have met him and had a reasonable and civil conversation with him. He did not react with hostility to criticism and disagreements that I put forward, and was quite willing to discuss his differences with Marx and explain the theoretical and political reasons for them. My main criticism was that he takes one aspect of capitalism and mistakes that for the whole. He admitted that, but put forward a third-worldist politics that requires a theoretical base which he is attempting to supply. For him the geographic contradictions of capitalism are primary, overriding all others. He proposed that the class conflict in the core countries is of no long term political significance. Hence his divergence from Marx. Rod -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Wallerstein
Rod Hay wrote: Ricardo Could you please criticize Wallerstein without the personal attacks. His arrogance is irrelevant. I have met him and had a reasonable and civil conversation with him. Didn't you read my comments on his Future Demise? You tell me where I go wrong in those comments, or better, what exactly is his point in that essay? What's the difference between "history" and "historicity", of "globalization" and "Globality" and so on? I also saw and he looks like a sweet guy with curly hair, but the issue is that essay, and what it really says about him.
Re: Red New York
"In Freeman's view the mortal blow to this city on a hill was not McCarthyism but the fiscal crisis of the seventies, which undermined New York's miniature welfare state." Being neither a historian of New York nor a New Yorker, I offer my opinion with some trepidation. But I would have thought the mortal blow to Red New York was the six-day war of 1967. My mother was a generation removed from New York -- where her mother grew up -- but I sensed something important had cracked when this die-hard Pete Seeger fan, supporter of the civil rights movement and opponent to the war in Vietnam started spouting racist invective against "Arabs". Temps Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant
Re: Re: Re: AM once again
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/13/00 05:10PM you miss my point. I wasn't saying that so-called "Leninists" are more bureaucratic than others. Rather, I was saying that the word "correct" is associated with one bureaucratic trend, which goes beyond "Leninism" to include the purveyors of political correctness. CB: Most terms of the historical materialist vocabulary can and have been misused by some adherents and some ecclectics . "Correct" is not unique in this regard. I don't see how we can give up our words and terminology to those we believe misuse it. Otherwise, the bourgeoisie could just put out a lot of people misusing our words , and we couldn't even talk historical materialism. In fact, I think the bourgeoisie have done that a lot, with the most concentrated form being faux Marxist schools in intellectual circles of various types. The solution is to be militant and ruthless in using our own words CORRECTLY.:) ___ (BTW, I am quite aware that official bourgeois and conservative "political correctness" is more prevalent and more dangerous than that of the left.) __ CB: Yes, didn't mean to question that. Sorry, if I did.
Markets and socialism
About three years ago I attended a panel at the Socialist Scholars Conference on markets in socialist economies. It was chaired by Al Campbell, an ex-Trotskyist who now teaches economics at the University of Utah, which is quite an anomaly. The economics department there is reputed to be one of the most Marxist-friendly in the country, while the state of Utah is also the home base of the notorious anticommunist and racist Mormon sect. Dave Kotz spoke first on markets in the former Soviet Union. Kotz is the co-author of "Revolution from Above," with journalist Fred Weir, which is about the capitalist transformation taking place there. Kotz's main point was that a market economy is not the same thing as a capitalist economy. When the first term is used, the whole question of PRODUCTION tends to get lost in the shuffle. When Soviet economists first began to become recruited to neo-classical economics in the 1960s, they lost track of this distinction and the results were catastrophic for the Russian people. He added, however, that this might not have made a difference to them because the top Soviet officials never saw capitalism as a way of lifting up the Russian people, but only as something that would benefit them exclusively. By all objective measurements, the Soviet economy was functioning quite well up until the mid-70s. What this upper crust of the officialdom was reacting to was not poor performance, but their own class interests. It is certainly correct that markets have "worked" in the former Soviet Union based on the proliferation of small banana stands in the early years of the Yeltsin regime. Small entrepreneurs made contact with foreign wholesalers and bananas flooded into the country. As the supply increased, the price went down. Unfortunately, the true measure of an economy is what is being PRODUCED and by this measure the fSU was about to collapse. The most dramatic proof of this is that fully one-half of all households are self-provisioning. They grow food in their own backyard in the same manner that peasants did in precapitalist Europe. The problem is that one can simply not supply one's daily nutritional needs through a tiny cabbage and potato patch in the backyard and millions of Russians go to bed hungry each night. Production in the fSU collapsed because Soviet enterprises were geared to central planning and when central planning disappeared, they lacked the survival mechanisms necessary to make the transition to capitalism. These firms were generally monopolistic. They also were the economic hubs of the towns and cities that they were built in. Social supports such as healthcare, childcare and education were intimately linked to the plant. When the plant died, nothing came along to replace them. Very few of these plants were profitable or meant to be. Financing was automatic, as was marketing. Each had a steady supply of both raw materials and purchasers. By the criterion established in 1917, they were successful. By capitalist criteria, they were failures and shut down. Foreign companies have filled the gap and mass unemployment has set in. Kotz remarked that the Chinese have observed the fSU's troubles and are reluctant to privatize right now, because of the social and political costs. Kotz argues that the Soviet economy was closing the gap with the west through the 70s until it went into a slump around 1975. That year the Soviet economy was rated at 50% of the west's from the standpoint of productivity. This slump WAS possible to overcome within the parameters of socialism, but the ruling bodies had already begun considering dumping the system for capitalism. The most interesting points were made around the question of innovation. Kotz makes a convincing case that competition such as the kind that exists in the Adam Smith model is HOSTILE to technical innovation. Capitalist firms would under-invest normally because their competitors can easily mimic the new improvements without undergoing the same expenditures. In reality, monopolistic firms are generally the ones that promote RD, especially those that receive tax subsidies or have ties to the military. Bell Labs was a major innovator for many decades, but as soon as the phone companies were broken up, Bell Labs switched to market research from pure science or engineering. The implication for socialists is clear. Socialism, rather than capitalism, is potentially a source of rapid modernization and progress rather than capitalism. Kotz mentioned that the most extensive development of these ideas is contained in Pat Devine's articles and books. Some professor named Frank Thompson, whose work I was not familiar with, spoke next on the completely opposite approach to markets taken in Cuba. He was really quite impressive. He described the context in which Cuba has introduced market elements, but not capitalism. When the USSR collapsed, 85% of Cuba's trade disappeared. The response of the Cuban government to this calamity was
Re: Hong Kong economic stability
Although there is an undercurrent of protests against the reime of the Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, the economic position of Hong Kong has stabilised. "The fall in property prices from the ludicrous levels of 1997 has hurt many owners." That sounds fine to me. It suggests that the overheating of the economy in the capitalist economic cycle went into property, and the destruction of capital invested in property was the main readjustment as a result of the crisis of 1998. By comparison the Hang Seng Index has broadly maintained its value. This may be related to Hong Kong's flexible land market, where all land is held by the state and the market is in leasehold use of land and there is a competitive auction for use of land. This means that during an incipient recession, the price of land falls, and makes it easier for industrial capital to continue working. Without that flexibility the level of unemployment would be much higher, and/or the destruction of capital would have to include a much greater share of industrial capital as well as landed capital. We should pay more attention to landed capital as a rate-limiting step in the capitalist business cycle. This adds to the argument for the socialisation of land. Chris Burford Hong Kong's recent economic 'recovery' is being driven by exports (re-export in HK given traditional role as warehousing hub for goods produced/shipped elsewhere, HK manufacturing sector of 1960s-80s is now in Guangdong in mainland south). Peg of HK dollar to US dollar may cause slowdown if increased interest rates dampen US demand although continued growing exports throughout Asia and to Europe would be likely cushion. As for land policy, it created oligopoly of developers who may have lost good bit of value when property bubble burst several years ago but who now are leading attempted transition to telecom/multi-media/internet/etc. Current HK buzz is diversification model is Li Ka-shing who parlayed property holdings into finance, export, media, high-tech areas. Li's rapid telecom ascent (exemplified by his 'start-up' internet company's purchase of HK's leading phone company) means that his empire accounts for over 25% of Hang Seng Index market capitalization he is positioning himself for future buyouts that could see figure rise to almost 40%. From colonial beginnings in 1840s, land auctions have distributed land on basis of ability-to-pay have fueled property speculation in locale of scarce land. HK gov't became addicted to high property costs since land (which gov't has historically influenced by limiting available amount) serve as largest source of its revenue. For their part, developers historically sit on land for number of years thereby contributing to housing shortage/increased housing costs while (no surprise) maximizing their profits, often by selling rights to the property. In go-go 'tiger' days, emerging HK PMC-types got into act. Viewing property as road to wealth, they too engaged in practice of jacking up value by buying selling property (housing) to one another/to those desirous of middle- strata calling it prosperity. Many of those folks now live in residences less valuable than their outstanding mortgages and their ability to 'diversify' is non-existent. Some who bought second third flat for investment purposes have put properties on rental market without success because rates remain beyond means of prospective renters despite 40%-50% real estate deflation. As for those mortgages, some 40% of bank loans in real estate carry serious implications. Public housing (which varies in quality and for which there is waiting list years long) where 50% of Hong Kongers live hasn't done much for 20% of population relegated to inadequate inhumane housing. Nor will current HK gov't push to increase home ownership privatize rentals, replacing public units with gov't insured loans and voucher subsidies for private ones, help low-income folks whose living conditions continue to deteriorate. Even as new housing completion increases, vacancies rise because prices are still unaffordable in post-bubble market. Meanwhile, home-owners (about equal in number to those without adequate housing) quite correctly complain about gov't culpability, they believe their property values will be better protected by free market less intervention. A big mess, HK has little (if anything) to offer re. socialization of land... Michael Hoover
Re: Markets and socialism
Excellent post, Louis. I would add only one minor point. My understanding was that the Soviet economy continued to grow during the 70s, but that the rate of growth declined quite a bit. The Star Wars hoax made the Soviets think that they would have to significantly increase military expenditures. How would the U.S. economy faired if it were surrounded by powerful enemies with enormous military might and if a major superpower were doing everything it could to sabatoge the economy and society? Finally, you cite Kotz, Louis Proyect wrote: The most interesting points were made around the question of innovation. Kotz makes a convincing case that competition such as the kind that exists in the Adam Smith model is HOSTILE to technical innovation. Capitalist firms would under-invest normally because their competitors can easily mimic the new improvements without undergoing the same expenditures. In reality, monopolistic firms are generally the ones that promote RD, especially those that receive tax subsidies or have ties to the military. Bell Labs was a major innovator for many decades, but as soon as the phone companies were broken up, Bell Labs switched to market research from pure science or engineering. This theme is central to several of my books. It is rarely discussed today, but in the late 19th C., it was commonplace. Oh, by the way, Frank Thompson was very active in the early days of pen-l. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: The Rise and Future Demise of
Louis Proyect wrote: One other key element of the demise of AM is the market socialism they often upheld. When the Gorbachev experiment failed, when the CCP went off the deep end welcoming in Nike, etc., when Yugoslavia imploded, it made it more difficult to talk about the benefits of including market mechanisms in a socialist society. If AM is finished, so is market socialism. And so is Soviet-style socialism. So what's left? Doug why, e-list chatt(er)ing, of course... Michael Hoover
Re: Wallerstein
Thank you, Rod. Rod Hay wrote: Ricardo Could you please criticize Wallerstein without the personal attacks. His arrogance is irrelevant. I have met him and had a reasonable and civil conversation with him. He did not react with hostility to criticism and disagreements that I put forward, and was quite willing to discuss his differences with Marx and explain the theoretical and political reasons for them. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wsa, again
So if in a decade Mexico, Brazil, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are in the position that SK and Taiwan are now, you will conclude... what? Brad DeLong Why wait a decade? Mexico and South Korea have roughly the same per capita GNP ($8300 for Mexico and $8500 for South Korea). But people from The Economist are fond of talking about how unevenly divided wealth is in Mexico (top 20% have about 55% of wealth). That's supposed to signify that that they are still a little backward there, that that they still has some catching up to do. And yet, this distribution of wealth is far less uneven than the US. Having countries lined up to join the core is not an accomplishment. As Joan Robinson once reputedly said (I've never found the reference), the only thing worse than being exploited by capital is not being exploited by capital. Even "social democracy" might not mean much, when the World Bank can unselfconsciously praise Suharto for putting it in practice. I don't know what I'd conclude from all that. I know I wouldn't conclude that the world system is somehow fair or reasonable. --Christian
Re: Re: To glib or not too glib?
Justin wrote: In a market system, most enterprises lack the power that, e.g., Chrysler could bring to bear to avoid the consequences of its decisions. Bankruptcy is far more common than bailouts--there are tens of millions of business bankruptcies a years, and a handful of bailouts. bankruptcy _is_ a form of bail-out. It's strange, but the textbook models of capitalism never seem to mention bankruptcy (except in special courses like Money Banking). In fact, I couldn't find bankruptcy in Debreu's THEORY OF VALUE (the classic bible of general equilibrium theory). He does assume "free disposal," which seems to mean that if there's an excess supply of any commodity (e.g., labor-power) it can be disposed of at zero cost. in a separate message, Tom wrote: If we ASSUME that the bankruptcies resulted from inefficiencies, then their occurance may be taken as evidence that the market creates incentives for efficiency. How do we know those bankruptcies aren't randomly distributed, irrespective of efficiency? a lot of bankruptcies occur not because of industrial or productive inefficiency but because of cash-flow problems. A business producing a perfectly good product produced at industry-standard (internal) costs can also go bankrupt because of poor marketing methods -- or dirty tricks or lawsuits by competitors (along with failure to influence congresscritters to help them with special bail-outs). And it is well known that a perfectly solid bank can go 'rupt because people lose confidence in the banking system as a whole (as in the early 1930s in the US, as in the US SL crisis, etc.) Competition involves much more than just selling and prices, things such as political influence, connections with the banks, advertising, sabotage. So does bankruptcy. BTW, there's a basic ground-rule that is usually ignored in discussions of planning vs. markets (one that Laura Tyson stated when she started the first class of "Comparative Systems" at UC-Berkeley): you shouldn't compare an ideal system with a real system of a different sort. Thus, while it's okay to compare an ideal market to the real market (or real capitalism), it's a fundamental mistake to compare an ideal market to a real planning system (like that of the defunct USSR). Similarly, though a comparison between Edward Bellamy's ideal planning system and the real world of capitalism makes the former look pretty good, it's an invalid comparison. I would also add that it's a mistake to arbitrarily separate the "economy" from the rest of society and the political system. These parts of society interpenetrate and affect each other profoundly. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Markets and socialism
At 10:11 AM 07/14/2000 -0400, you wrote: It was chaired by Al Campbell, an ex-Trotskyist who now teaches economics at the University of Utah, which is quite an anomaly. The economics department there is reputed to be one of the most Marxist-friendly in the country, while the state of Utah is also the home base of the notorious anticommunist and racist Mormon sect. the story they told me to explain this anomaly was that back in the 1950s, a bunch of leftist economists fled UC-Berkeley (and Stanford?) because of McCarthyism. They fled to the University of Utah because Utah didn't have a left and therefore didn't need McCarthyism. The old lefties help create an atmosphere friendly to E.K. Hunt _et al_. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Humpty Dumpty, deja vu
Schwartz wrote, LP and its linguistic phil outliers came apart after 1950 and by 1975, Humpty Dumpty was all in pieces. This is when I started college. It was exciting; there was a sense we were going to get it right this time. and then he wrote, However, 25 years later, things have rather come apart. There are no common doctrines or methods, the territory is pretty well mapped, and while there is a lot of sophistication, there is not much progress or sense of progress. and still later he wrote, It's called thinking, and it's no more natural to humans than athletic achievement. And like athletic achievement, it takes painful work, and it isn't for everyone. Wow! There's a fascinating storyline here. Things fall apart and it's exciting because we think we have a chance to get it right this time. Then things fall apart. It may be called thinking, but like athletic achievement, it is a kind of thinking that isolates and privileges certain *machine-like* attributes and activities. Where is the breast-feeding event in the Olympics? The sillyness of such a question highlights the arbitrariness of the physical qualities -- speed, strength, agility -- that athleticism privileges *exclusively*. This is not to say that speed, strength and agility are "bad things". Only that their glorification constructs a one-dimensional image of the human body. As for Humpty Dumpty, there are two of them. There's the one in the rhyme who falls off a wall and can't be put back together again by all the kings horses and all the kings men. And then there's the one who Alice meets, the Humpty Dumpty whose words mean whatever he wants them to mean (it depends on who is to be boss) and who doesn't realize he's holding the sum upside down. One can well imagine *that* Humpty saying something like, "It's called thinking ... it takes painful work, and it isn't for everyone." I'll gloss over the implicit moral commendation given to the "painfulness" of the work and go straight to the elitist conclusion. It isn't that the thinking that isn't for everyone is BETTER thinking; it is rather precisely because it "isn't for everyone" that it is afforded such inordinate privilege. It is, then, a way of encoding an arbitrary privilege as "merit" -- another one of those circular arguments that affirms the goodness (rigor) of those at the top and the badness (error) of those at the bottom. Of course, it is also painful for Alice to be called stupid simply because the way she looks at the world (right-side up) is not the one that has been officially sanctioned by Humpty Dumpty. In earlier days, I knew well how to take "scholastic aptitude tests". I simply suppressed my rage at the insulting class presumptions underlying what I knew were meant to be the "right" answers and marked those answers anyway. One can do this in a three hour exam period and come away with one's integrity unscathed. But to make a career of it one has to either be an elitist or a hypocrite. Of course, there ARE exceptions. But they are EXCEPTIONS. Temps Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant
Re: Re: Markets and socialism
The story I got was that Utah wanted to show that it was not just a bunch of Yahoos, so they gave a space to the econ. department. Now, they have been told, no more lefties. Hire conventionally. I do not think that there is a single major department that would intentionally hire a lefty today. Young Marxists pretty much have to go for the few jobs left in the liberal arts colleges. the story they told me to explain this anomaly was that back in the 1950s, a bunch of leftist economists fled UC-Berkeley (and Stanford?) because of McCarthyism. They fled to the University of Utah because Utah didn't have a left and therefore didn't need McCarthyism. The old lefties help create an atmosphere friendly to E.K. Hunt _et al_. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle
Timework Web wrote: That is unless one wants to go all the way back to 1946 and the very trenchant observation that the fashion for Hayek has nothing to do with objections to planning per se -- corporations do it all the time -- it is selectively an objection to DEMOCRATIC planning on behalf of the public. Not to be an apologist for Hayek or anything, but corporate planning occurs within competitive, decentralized (or polycentric) markets, forcing the planning to take account of price, demand, and taste changes. A Hayekian critique applies to the macroeconomy, where the wisdom of planners replaces market signals. You could say that planners could take account of demand and taste changes, and that volume could replace price as a signal, but that's a different argument. Doug
Question for Henwood
I have the superficial impression that second quarter earnings reports coming out are remarkably strong. Any idea what's going on here, Doug? Temps Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant
Harry Magdoff on market socialism
A letter from Harry Magdoff to Frank Roosevelt and David Belkin, the editors of "Why Market Socialism", appears in the May 1995 Monthly Review. In explaining why Monthly Review chose not to review the new book, the MR editors state in a preface to Magdoff's letter that the perspective on the issues raised in the book were so different from Monthly Review's that "a proper treatment of the subject would require the type of major essay we are not able to undertake at the present time." Some paragraphs from Magdoff's letter: "The underlying assumption of the essays in 'Why Market Socialism' is that central planning inevitably requires bureaucratic control over every detail of production and distribution. This, I believe, is an unwarranted assumption abstracted from the history of past socialist countries. Moshe Lewin speaks about the disappearance of planning within the plan from its earliest days in the Soviet Union. Detailed centralized control is not a necessary feature of central planning, but the result of politics, class interests, arbitrary command decision- making--all of which wreaked havoc with attempts at consistent planning. Furthermore, there is no necessary contradiction between central planning and the use of the market for the distribution of consumer goods and a variety of intermediate production goods. Nor does central planning necessarily exclude 'businesses' run by cooperatives, communities, family farms, or private small firms. What matters is whether the market is relied on as the guide for the allocation of resources, and/or is permitted to sabotage the socialist transition. "My impression of the essays in the book is that by and large, despite protestations to the contrary, the visions the authors have in mind is a nice, humane, regulated capitalism. Heilbroner sums it up nicely in his foreword: 'Socialisms therefore constitute a kind of ongoing experiment to discover what sorts of arrangements might repair the damage wrought by the existing social order.' The essays by and large are concerned with issues which are germane to a capitalist society: how to get improved growth, start new enterprises, improve efficiency, encourage innovation and competition. Do the people of the United States need faster growth, except for the fact that it is the only way to create jobs in a capitalist society? Are more profit-making enterprise needed? To do what--produce more cars, ferrous metals, plastics, paper; provide services of lawyers, bill collectors, real estate operators, and brokers? Why do we need improved efficiency? Efficiency for what, and by what standards? Why not less efficiency--shorter workdays, shorter work weeks, longer vacations, relaxation time during dull work routines? We are a rich country with enormous potential for improving the quality of life for all the people as long as the ideal standard of life is not taken as that of the upper middle class. The innovations needed are not more gadgets or information highways, but the enrichment of education, medical care, room for the creative urges to flourish--alas, not grist for viable ventures in the marketplace." Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, JULY 13, 2000 TODAY'S RELEASE: "U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes - June 2000" indicates that the U.S. Import Price Index increased 0.8 percent in June. The increase was attributable to a rise in petroleum prices; prices for nonpetroleum imports were unchanged in June. In contrast, export prices dipped 0.1 percent in June, after increasing 0.2 percent in May. Data compiled by the Bureau of National Affairs in the first 28 weeks of 2000 for all settlements show a weighted average first-year increase of 3.9 percent in newly negotiated contracts, compared with 2.8 percent in the first 28 weeks of 1999. Manufacturing contracts provided a weighted average increase of 3.4 percent, compared with 3.1 percent in 1999. Excluding construction contracts, the nonmanufacturing industry weighted average increase was 4.1 percent, compared with 2.5 percent in 1999, and the median increase was 3.5 percent, compared with 3 percent one year earlier (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). Small gas stations struggle, saying that the price the operator pays for gasoline has risen faster than the price he can charge customers and still stay competitive. For many independent operators, who own most of the country's service stations, and convenience stores, rising gas prices have brought little benefit, and in some regions they have actually made it tougher to do business. But elsewhere along the chain that takes oil from the ground to the filling station, higher prices have meant sharply higher profits -- for producers and refiners. Major oil companies are expected to post average earnings growth of 121 percent for the first 3 months ended in June, compared with the period last year, according to First Call/Thomson Financial. Exploration and production companies are expected to report average increases of 371 percent. Even refiners, who have suffered through 2 years of very thin profits, are seeing profits double or triple (The New York Times, page 1). application/ms-tnef
Re: Markets and socialism
michael perelman wrote, Now, they have been told, no more lefties. Hire conventionally. Presumably it was "the free market in ideas" that told them and not some bureaucratic command structure. Or am I feigning naivety? Temps Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant
Re: Re: Re: Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without apaddle
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Carrol, haven't you heard of efficient market theory? There are no inefficiencies in a capitalist market economy. Those two sentences use two different meanings of "efficient." The second uses it in the colloquial sense, of minimizing waste. The first uses it in the sense that financial economists do, which means "instantaneously (or almost instantaneously) reflect changes in available information." Market fundamentalists sometimes confuse the two, but I'm surprised to see someone on PEN-L do that. Doug
Re: wsa, again
At 11:02 AM 7/14/00 -0400, you wrote: As Joan Robinson once reputedly said (I've never found the reference), the only thing worse than being exploited by capital is not being exploited by capital. the Joan Robinson quote: "As we see nowadays in South-East Asia or the Caribbean, the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all." Economic Philosophy, ch. 2. Chicago: Aldine Publ. Co., p. 45. this is obviously a reference to not being exploited by capital but still living under the capitalist system (and even then can be moderated by a welfare state, i.e., unemployment insurance). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Markets and socialism
Bell Labs was a major innovator for many decades, but as soon as the phone companies were broken up, Bell Labs switched to market research from pure science or engineering. so Lucent (nee Bell Labs) has shifted dramatically away from fundamental research (as I've suspected)? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Harry Magdoff wrote: The underlying assumption of the essays in 'Why Market Socialism' is that central planning inevitably requires bureaucratic control over every detail of production and distribution. IMHO, the role of central planning should be greatest for the most abstract and general issues (e.g., the rate of real investment, which major sectors of the economy should be emphasized) while the more concrete and detailed decisions should be made by decentralized units (co-ops, etc.) within the framework set by the abstract and general decisions. Of course, the central planning agency must be subject to democratic control from below. Of course in the old USSR, Gosplan wasn't. This is one of the reasons why they emphasized "bureaucratic control over every detail of production and distribution." If you're trying to protect the CP's monopoly over state power, you don't want alternative power centers (independent co-ops, etc.) to arise. Of course, the image of Soviet-style "planning" is burned into the retinas of the advocates of "market socialism," impairing their ability to see. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
Re: Re: The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems A
At 11:49 AM 7/14/00 -0400, you wrote: The Hayek arguments assume only enough centralization to have a system count as planned. Democracy would, if anything, make the problems worse, because there woiuld be more information to coordinate and more pressure groups to accommodate. so we're against democracy now? what kind of democracy? the type encouraged by capitalism? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Question for Henwood
What I meant was: is there any way to distinguish between the economic cake and the strategic accounting icing in these earnings reports? I'm wondering if the icing -- if there's more of that than usual this qtr. -- might have to do with worries about future prospects for financing. Temps Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant
Re: Re: Re: Re: Markets and socialism
very much so, but not to market research, but to market-oriented research. Jim Devine wrote: Bell Labs was a major innovator for many decades, but as soon as the phone companies were broken up, Bell Labs switched to market research from pure science or engineering. so Lucent (nee Bell Labs) has shifted dramatically away from fundamental research (as I've suspected)? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Markets and socialism
We at the Econ Department at the University of Utah have been taking turns, sometimes hiring neoclassical economists or econometricians, and sometimes radicals. Whenever a mainstream position has to be filled, the hiring committee works very hard to get someone congenial with the heterodox tradition of the department. The last position was an applied micro, and we lucked out, we hired an excellent very broad minded game theoretician, Michael Suk-Young Chwe. Our problem *and* opportunity is that the salaries are so miserably low that you must love the Department and its culture to be here. We can also only fund 4 graduate students each year, but we get some quite radical ones. Unfortunately the Department is slowly being starved out. We have a bunch of old radicals from the Vietnam War area, and the big test will be what happens when they retire in 10 years or so. Hans Ehrbar. -- Hans G. Ehrbar http://www.econ.utah.edu/ehrbar [EMAIL PROTECTED] Economics Department, University of Utah (801) 581 7797 (my office) 1645 Campus Center Dr., Rm 308 (801) 581 7481 (econ office) Salt Lake CityUT 84112-9300 (801) 585 5649 (FAX)
Re: Re: M once again
At 06:00 PM 7/13/00 -0400, you wrote: There are no [analytical philosophy] figures of the stature of Russell or Wittgenstein, or even Quine or Sellars. The field is treading water. This is not just the case with analytical philosophy. "Contintental" philosophy isn't going anywhere either. I mean, postmodernism? Give me a break. It's clear that the only way one can define "analytical philosophy" [AP] is _relative to_ other schools. Obviously, one can't define AP simply as clear thinking (as Justin seems to do) since all other schools claim to be clear thinkers, too. So how does AP _differ_ from continental philosophy, e.g., someone like Habermas? (I think we can skip postmodernism.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle
Doug Henwood wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Carrol, haven't you heard of efficient market theory? There are no inefficiencies in a capitalist market economy. Those two sentences use two different meanings of "efficient." The second uses it in the colloquial sense, of minimizing waste. The first uses it in the sense that financial economists do, which means "instantaneously (or almost instantaneously) reflect changes in available information." Market fundamentalists sometimes confuse the two, but I'm surprised to see someone on PEN-L do that. Irony impaired? This was Pope's core method -- collapsing two different meanings of a word -- sometimes without even repeating the word. Here Thou, Great _Anna_! whom three Realms obey, Dost sometimes Counsel take -- and sometimes _Tea_. Carrol
Costa Rica
from a CHOICE review of Marc Edelman's book, _Peasants against Globalization_ (Stanford, 1999): "Edelman argues that the decision by the Costa Rican government to turn toward neoliberal and global market policies in the 1980s sparked a wave of peasant movements He shows that Costa Rican welfare state policies of the 1970s were supplanted in the 1980s because of the new economic thinking of NGOS and local politicians alike. Under the new order, access to loans and other economic benefits were curtailed, and this, in turn, led to a series of largely disjointed outbreaks by poor and middle peasant organizations from throughout the country. " - J. Hornibrook, SUNY College at Plattsburgh. to what extent did the US, the emerging global capitalist class, and their IMF and World Bank influence the Costa Rican elites in this direction? was this linked to the creation of a standing army in Costa Rica? inquiring minds want to know... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Markets and socialism
Frank is a Solidarity member, friend of mine, teaches at U-Mich. His usual work is extremely technical. I can follow most economist's math, but not Frank's. I am glad to hear that he is now doing some empirical work. Lou P writes: Some professor named Frank Thompson, whose work I was not familiar with, spoke next on the completely opposite approach to markets taken in Cuba. He was really quite impressive.
Re: Re: Markets and socialism
Actually, Matthew Evangelista has established that the Star Wars hoax did not induce the Soviets to increase military expenditures. Soviet growth rates are a vexed matter. Your statement of the matter represents the normal view as of, say, 1985, and it still may be right, but there were other figures that suggest that things were worse than was usually understood, particularly if oil revenues are left aside. as usual with planned economies, no good and accurate information was available. --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 10:52:50 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Excellent post, Louis. I would add only one minor point. My understanding was that the Soviet economy continued to grow during the 70s, but that the rate of growth declined quite a bit. The Star Wars hoax made the Soviets think that they would have to significantly increase military expenditures. How would the U.S. economy faired if it were surrounded by powerful enemies with enormous military might and if a major superpower were doing everything it could to sabatoge the economy and society?
Re: Re: Markets and socialism
At 02:18 PM 7/14/00 -0400, you wrote: Frank is a Solidarity member, friend of mine, teaches at U-Mich. His usual work is extremely technical. I can follow most economist's math, but not Frank's. I am glad to hear that he is now doing some empirical work. He's a friend of mine, too, and I'm also glad he's doing empirical work. Last time I heard him speak, he was applying the fallacious theory of the aggregate production function to do Solow-type growth theory. (Joan Robinson must be spinning in her grave.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: To glib or not too glib?
Jim D says: bankruptcy _is_ a form of bail-out. Quite right, from a legal point of view. It's supposed to give the debtor either a chance to reorganize or a fresh start, while giving the creditors a fair id meagre settlement. However, and this is the point, it shuts down or reorganizes inefficient enterprises that fail to produce stuff people want in a cheap and nonwasteful way. Nothing corresponds to it in a planned system, where inefficient enterprises keep on wasting resources making stuff no one wants because political pressures keep them afloat. --jks
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems Analysis
Brad De Long wrote: So if in a decade Mexico, Brazil, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are in the position that SK and Taiwan are now, you will conclude... what? That history has reversed itself? That 5 countries out of over 200 in the World Bank's World Development Indicators don't make a trend? That in 60% of cases, Communism makes a good foundation for capitalist development? Here are the figures for GDP per capita, PPP brand, as % of US (based on the WDI CD-ROM): Brazil Czech Rep HungaryMexicoPoland S Korea 1975 28.0% 39.0% 30.2% 18.2% 1980 30.9% 40.7% 33.5% 27.4% 21.4% 1990 23.7% 54.9% 40.0% 27.6% 24.6% 38.1% 1998 22.4% 41.8% 34.6% 26.0% 25.7% 45.5% 1975-98-5.6% -4.4% -4.2% +27.3% 1990-98-1.3%-13.1% -5.4% -1.6% +1.2% +7.4% EastEurope/ Lat Amer/ Mid East/ South Africa Asia Cent Asia CaribN AfricaAsia 19759.5% 4.4% 27.6% 22.7% 5.2% 19808.2% 5.0% 29.0% 21.0% 5.0% 19906.3% 7.8% 31.1% 22.5% 17.1% 5.9% 19985.1% 11.3% 19.0% 22.0% 15.7% 6.6% 1975-98-4.4% +6.9% -5.5% -7.0% +1.4% 1990-98-1.2% +3.6%-12.1% -0.5% -1.4% +0.7% Looking at these, I'd say that, outside Asia, the last 25 years have been pretty rough on most "developing" countries; that Africa is a disaster of stunning magnitude; that "transition" in the former socialist world has not worked very well; that it's hard to guess how these trends would be reversed; and that "convergence" is a crock. Doug
Re: Humpty Dumpty, deja vu
I don't need these gratutiouus insults. I will explain just once, then if Temps can't be any more civil or any smarter, I will ignore him. In 1975, analytical philosophy was exciting because it seemed that we were putting an impressive but wrongheaded project (logical positivism) behind us, and we hada chance to get right what the positivists did not. There were a lot of very smart people thinking new thoughts. John Rawls' Theory of Justice was just out. Hilary Putnam's work in philoophy of mind and science was fresh. saul Kripke had just published an important work in philosophy of language. On the "left," Paul Feyerabend had reinvorgatored social constructivism. OK, 25 years later, after a lot of hard thinking, no new consensus has emerged to replace the kind of intellectual hegemony that positivism had. Instead, everyone is dispersed, and there is not a lot of groundbreaking work going on,a lthough much of what is done is being done at a high level with great sophistication. So the hopes of a common project to replace the one we demolsihed have not materialized. Now, does this mean that we should give up on careful argument, with clearly defined terms, precisely stated and closely linked premises for exactly formulated and carefully qualified conclusions, set forth with great sensitiviy to potential and actual objections? If that isn't thinking, what is? But some find it oppressive. Temps is one of these. That is OK, thinking is not for everyone. But Temps should leave it to those who like it, and not sneer at them. I agree that the claim that thinking is not for everyone is elitist. I am an elitist. I do not think that better philosophical thinkers deserve more power, money, or goodies than others, but they do deserve positions in philosophy departments that should be denied to those who are unable or unwilling to put in the effort involved in philosophical thinking. Their superiority is not moral or all around, but it is real in its sphere, just as Michael Jordan's superiority in basketball or Charlie Parker's superiority on the tenor is real. I would not want to study philosophy with Jordan or Parker, or basketball or jazz with Alan Gibbard (my astoundingly brilliant, physically inept, tolerably tone-deaf dissertation adviser at Michigan). If you confuse the idea that some people are better at some things than others with the idea that some people have the right to rule others and keep all the good stuff for themselves, you are obviously not one of the people who has exerted himself to discover whether he has a talent for thinking about political philosophy. --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 11:28:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Timework Web [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Schwartz wrote, LP and its linguistic phil outliers came apart after 1950 and by 1975, Humpty Dumpty was all in pieces. This is when I started college. It was exciting; there was a sense we were going to get it right this time. and then he wrote, However, 25 years later, things have rather come apart. There are no common doctrines or methods, the territory is pretty well mapped, and while there is a lot of sophistication, there is not much progress or sense of progress. and still later he wrote, It's called thinking, and it's no more natural to humans than athletic achievement. And like athletic achievement, it takes painful work, and it isn't for everyone. Wow! There's a fascinating storyline here. Things fall apart and it's exciting because we think we have a chance to get it right this time. Then things fall apart. It may be called thinking, but like athletic achievement, it is a kind of thinking that isolates and privileges certain *machine-like* attributes and activities. Where is the breast-feeding event in the Olympics? The sillyness of such a question highlights the arbitrariness of the physical qualities -- speed, strength, agility -- that athleticism privileges *exclusively*. This is not to say that speed, strength and agility are "bad things". Only that their glorification constructs a one-dimensional image of the human body. As for Humpty Dumpty, there are two of them. There's the one in the rhyme who falls off a wall and can't be put back together again by all the kings horses and all the kings men. And then there's the one who Alice meets, the Humpty Dumpty whose words mean whatever he wants them to mean (it depends on who is to be boss) and who doesn't realize he's holding the sum upside down. One can well imagine *that* Humpty saying something like, "It's called thinking ... it takes painful work, and it isn't for everyone." I'll gloss over the implicit moral commendation given to the "painfulness" of the work and go straight to the elitist conclusion. It isn't that the thinking that isn't for everyone is BETTER thinking; it is rather precisely because it "isn't for everyone" that it is afforded such inordinate privilege. It is, then, a way of
Analaytical Philosophy
Well, AP is _now_ just clear thinking, but it is so in a certain tradition, the one I described in my posts that derives from Russell and Wittgenstein, the positivists, Quine, etc. AP is self-defined in part by reference to others who refer to these writers and each other. So, for example, I write a paper on Davidson, Fodor, Churchland, and Feyerabend on the reduction on the menatl to the physical. These writers respond to each others arguments,w ent to or teach at the sane schools, studied with the same people, develop a common way of talking. they don't often refer to Heidegger or Habermas, etc., who have the same sort of community with a tradition that derives from Hegel and Husserl. So it's sociological. A lot of continental philosophy does pretty much satisfy analytical standards of clarity and precision: Merleau Ponty, for example, is functionally an analytical philosopher. Much of it does not: Heidegger is often wilfully obscure (though very great), but much analytical philosophy, much good analytical philosophy, falls short. Sellars is a _terrible_ writer. No one can figure out what Davidson means. Quine's central thesis of the indeterminacy of translation is a mystery after these 40 years. I am not an AP snob, unlike many trained in the AP tradition. Probably my favorite philosopher (I don;t count Marx as a philosopher) is Hegel. I respect the greatness of Heidegger, etc. But unless I do what APs do as fara s explicating what I am trying to say as clearly as I can, I have no idea what I think, including about Hegel. I really have no idea what else could count as having an idea than doing with it what an AP would do with it. This is a limitation of mine, perhaps. I recognize that Heidegger had a rather different notion. (I am not sure, actually, that Hegel did.) But I cannot emulate what Heidegger did, although I can respect it. In any case I think that now the difference between AP and CP is sociological. Btw the best CP done in the US is done in AP departments. You want to study Nietzsche, read (or study with) Richard Schacht or Maudmarie Clarke; Hegel, read Robert Pippin or Terry Pinckard; Heidegger, read Hubery Dreyfus or Hans Sluga. The mainly self-identified CP departments like SUNY Stony Brook are nowhere near this level in their own advertised specialities. --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 1:35:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 06:00 PM 7/13/00 -0400, you wrote: There are no [analytical philosophy] figures of the stature of Russell or Wittgenstein, or even Quine or Sellars. The field is treading water. This is not just the case with analytical philosophy. "Contintental" philosophy isn't going anywhere either. I mean, postmodernism? Give me a break. It's clear that the only way one can define "analytical philosophy" [AP] is _relative to_ other schools. Obviously, one can't define AP simply as clear thinking (as Justin seems to do) since all other schools claim to be clear thinkers, too. So how does AP _differ_ from continental philosophy, e.g., someone like Habermas? (I think we can skip postmodernism.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
More n' More Cap's in CCP
Friday, July 14, 2000 SCMP Capitalists infiltrating party, article warns JASPER BECKER Too many private businessmen are joining the Communist Party, an article in the party's monthly ideological magazine, Zhongliu, has warned. In some coastal areas, half of the new members in small towns and rural districts were private business owners, it complained. By July 1998, Qinghui county outside Shanghai had 158 capitalists in the local party. Of the county's 52 party cells, 36 were run by private businessmen. In three cities in Jiangsu province, 40 per cent of private business owners, 858 people, had applied to join the local branch. "If we do not take stern measures there will be more and more capitalist bosses who are party branch secretaries," the article's author, Liu Changfa, warns. One of the first acts of now President Jiang Zemin when he was appointed party secretary in 1989 was to issue an edict purging capitalists from the party - the vanguard of the working class - and to stipulate that they could not be admitted in the future. The article argues the relationship between private business and the working class is the relationship between exploiters and the exploited so private businessmen are not entitled to be enrolled in the party. "They control the means of production and hire workers," it said. "They take profits from the output of the workers as their own." The goals of private business are the opposite of what the party is fighting for, the realisation of communism is the abolition of private property, it argued. "Private businessmen cannot accept the party's principles and policies. If they do, then they are rejecting themselves," it said. "They only want to join the party to influence the adoption and implementation of local policies. They hope to enrol more private businessmen into the party to strengthen their own role." The article does not explicitly say that party membership is now up for sale but complains that local branches which are strapped for cash are tempted to enlist private businessmen to raise funds and help stimulate the growth of the local economy. "Now there is trend to encourage them to join," the article said. "Business owners sometimes appear to resign and give control of their business to relatives but they still control their independent kingdom. They wear communist caps on their head but inside they have the brains of capitalists."
Chinese new left
Louis Proyect wrote: In spring the daily CP newspaper published letters from students at the University of Peking denouncing their professors, whom they considered to be too liberal. Anti-globalization nationalists, part of the new left, are very critical towards social inequalities, which they blame on twenty years of 'reforms'. The importance of this development is that the youths of China have finally rediscover the right path, unlike the misguided students in Tiananmen Square in 1989. In 1989, the students, who were already a privileged elite enjoying the unequally distributed fruits of China's new experiment with market economy, were agitating for a still better deal for themselves and for the right to indulge in bourgeois liberalism, and US style "democracy and individual "freedom", much of the poison fed to them blind by US journalists. The Tiananmen protestors, in their ignorance of the West, mistook US prosperity as proof of the correctness of the capitalist/democratic system, not realizing that that very prosperity had been achieved through oppression both internally and globally. The New Left are students who have lived in the West for a decade and have first-hand knowledge of the reality of capitalism. The New Left among Chinese youths is significant because it can play a timely role in the ideological and policy struggle within the CPC that is expected to come to a climax within the next two years. The CPC is committed to a jeunvenization program and is seeking a balance between the development of a modern economy without total surender to US globalization. The left has two favorable conditions at its disposal against overwhelming odds. The odds are that to fight globalized finance capitalism is easier said than done. The odds are made more high because many leftists reject serious studies of finance out of ideological distaste. Sunzi, the ancient Chinese militarist said: "To win a battle, one must first know one's enemy."The favorable conditions are: 1) communist parties as political institutions fundamentally understand that in building capitalist economies, they are also digging their own institutional graves, and 2) capitalist systems do not tolerate new late comers as equals; thus it is not the best game for Third World economies to play. These conditions will give socialism in the Third World an adventage. Socialist economic structure has to be made evident that it can deliver prosperity with equality. Though all leftists subscribe to that proposition, that is a challenge the difficulty of which should not be minimized. The road is long and hard, but the destination is within sight. Henry C.K. Liu Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: Re: Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle
Jim says: The problem with [the Hayek argument] is that it's not talking about a real-world situation but instead about ideal models inside economists' heads. I am presenting the argument abstractly, but I think it is amply confirmed the real world experience of planning. Market incentives . . . encourage the willful ignorance of external costs (pollution) and the unwillingness to provide external benefits. No shit. That's why we have governments and regulation. market incentives encourage the interpretation of legal contracts to benefit oneself, theft, and embezzlement. Well the first of those is certainly terrible, and no doubt could be avoided by planning. As for the rest, yes, markets encourage self interested behavior. But planning doesn't? The USSR was a kleptocracy. The process of competition is also not the passive supply-and-demand process described by orthodox economists, but is profoundly affected by the drive to accumulate capital. Really, you should (a) read some Hayek. Austrians and Marxsits agree in their contempt for neoclassical economists. Both of them, btw, write political economy with (generally) few equations. The Hayek arguments do not presuppose "orthodox" Walrasian models of markets. (b) In a capitalist economy, you are right, but in a market socialist economy, not. That is because workers cannot accumulate capital: they can use it and capture the income from it, but the capital assets and fianncial assets are the state's. As Polanyi made clear, the market requires a governmental and societal framework to keep it from self-destruction. Oh, gee, so market socialism can't be anarchism? That never occurred to me. This assumes that planning is of the sort that prevailed in the old USSR. No it doesn't. Or explain in precise dretail how it does. Trotsky, among others, argued that planning worked better when it was under democratic control, because this encouraged the flow of information from the "bottom" to the central planners, in addition to keeping the central planners honest. As I have explained, the more information, the worse the problem with managing it. Undemocratic planning was overwhelmed with the amount of inforamtion it hjad to deal with,a nd your solution is to add more information to the mix? Moreover,w hat makes you think that the information from below will be honest? You would expect the opposite. Consumers who want more will ask for more than they want. Producers who want to work less will say they can do less than they can do. Etc. I think it would be useful to talk about the ideas of Pat (no relation) Devine, Albert Hahnel, Laibman, Cockshott, etc. (Since I am far from an expert on such things, it will shut _me_ up. But I'd like to learn this OK, let a fan of participarory economics speak up. The Albert-Hahnel model, which I know best, does not, to my mind, address the Hayek concerns _at all_. I had a go aroundf with Hahnel a few years ago, which he as apparently, without asking me, published on his Z-notes website, giving himself the last word of course. Cockshott Cantrill at least recognize that the problem isa problem, but they think it can be solved with computers, they don't see that it is a dynamic problem involving incentives. An individual capitalist conception of efficiency ignores external costs and benefits (which violates NC strictures about allocative efficiency). As I say, Hayek and the Austrians are not NCE-ists, and dispsie the stuff. By "waste" I mean that resources, inclusimng human timem are either used making stuff that no one wants, or more of these resources are used in making stiff that someone wants than is necessary, or that resources are used that could be used to make stuff that people want less than they want more. The problem with planning is that it promotes waste in all these senses in part because we have no idea how much things cost in resources, lacking a measure of price. You use the word "politics" as if it were a dirty word. I think we should avoid the illusion that collective decisions that affect large numbers of people can be insulated from "politics." I would like the economy to be subject to political control. But not absolutely: theory and experience teach us that that leads to too much waste and inefficiency. However, I am not a fan of laissez-faire markets either. I said: Please note that none of this depends on any assumptions about the commensurability of labor--an assumption, by the way, that Mises shared with Marx, at least for market economies, but never mind that. Jim expalined: I don't know about Mises, but Marx's view was that capitalist accumulation makes labor so that it was commensurable, through an historical process of the reduction of concrete labors to abstract labor. That was my point. --jks
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems
I never denied Michael's point. I don't knwo enough about this. But in the Schweickart model I advocate, new investment is planned, so if there is a problem there with markets, we need to worry about it in market socialism of that variety. --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 12:27:44 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I had also mentioned before that the Hayek system fails to account for the allocation of long-lived capital investments.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems Analysis
As I dsaid, in the Schweickart model, investment is planned, so this wouldn't be a problem with socialist markets. In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 12:35:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 12:04 AM 07/14/2000 -0400, you wrote: What system provides incentives to respond to accurate information fast. In my way of seeing things, large corporations respond slowly and in an imperfect way to market signals. Those with more reserve resources can delay the respond for a longer period. One problem is that capitalists within the context of market institutions seem to respond _too fast_ to "market signals." This is where we get the complaints that businesses only care about the "bottom line" this quarter (or this _week_) rather than planning to maintain "long-term profitability." This encourages such phenomena as management fads, financial bubbles, corporate down-sizing, and the stampede of Thomas Friedman's electronic herd, encouraging employee cynicism and undermining consumer loyalty. (This "short-termism" arises from the domination of the bond-owners rather than that of the Harvard MBA, IMHO.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: To glib or not too glib?
Yoshie says: That the market rations resources "efficiently" through bankruptcies doesn't sound like an attractive argument for market socialism with which to appeal to working people, no? So you would keep in business enterprises that waste time and other resources and make stuff nobody wants at the expense of not making stuff that people do want? In my experience of arguing with ordinary working people over the decades, they are far more attracted to and persuaded by market socialism than planned socialism. --jks
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: M once again
Well, I would not want to be held accountable fdor some of the dumb shit that I pulled as a student radical long ago. Would you? --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 2:45:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Brown, Martin (NCI)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No, just his character. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 2:14 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21666] Re: RE: Re: M once again And this means what? That his arguments are defective? --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 9:09:43 AM Eastern Daylight Time, "Brown, Martin (NCI)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: John Roemer, John Roemer Oh yeah, I remember him. Berkeley, 1969. Undergraduate math major and head of local Progressive Labor Party chapter. "People's Park are a bunch of reactionary hippies stealing parking spaces from the working class." Also, get other people to front for you and get arrested or suspended from their academic careers, but you keep safe behind the scenes and build you academic career because the inner party intellectuals are too valuable to sacrifice to the struggle. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2000 6:01 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21586] Re: M once again Well, it's sort of ancient history about AM. I agree with you that there was that aspect to the AMs. They did call themselves (informally) the "no-Bullshit Marxism group. Course this was in the 70s, when there was a lot of bullshit Marxism about. Still, there was an unnecessary arrogance there. However, no need to dwell on it with the evaporation of the school. It is still useful to have a label to refer to people who were involved in a common project, referred to reach other's work, etc., just like with the Frankfurt School or the Althusserians. I mean, you were a lot more likely to find me referring to Roemer or Elster than to Adorno, or Habermas to Adorno than to Roemer, etc., so it at least tells you the frame of reference if not who's better than what. What planet are you from, the AMs eschew philosophical reflection? If anything, they engage in too much it. A tendency where the leading figures were a philosopher of history (Cohen), a political theorist (Elster), a methodologically hyper-conscious economist (Roemer) and political scientist (Przezworeski), and historian (Brenner), almost all of whom have written reams of philosophy of science, ethics, and political philosophy--this is what you mean by a movement that is not philosophically self-aware? You can't be serious. Maybe you think the stuff is all worthless, but it's not like it's not there. But I am not stuck on the label anyway, I just pitched in because various people were sneering at the tendency that I was part of if I was part of any tendency, and which in any case I thought did not deserve sneers. As far as analytical philosophy goes, your friend has a take on it that I would not wholly agree with. AP was something Russell and Moore invented around the 1890s when they were bored by British Hegelianism; it was empiricistically minded philosophy with a strong dose of logic--Russell was a very great mathematical logician; it was infused, in England and America, by the logical positivists, themselves strongly influenced by Kant and relativity theory, when the LPs fled Nazi-occupied Europe. For about 30 years, analytical philosophy was either LP or its critique. LP and its linguistic phil outliers came apart after 1950 and by 1975, Humpty Dumpty was all in pieces. This is when I started college. It was exciting; there was a sense we were going to get it right this time. The big tendency were (Marxist imspired) scientific realism and social constructivism in the Kuhnian mold, or so it seemed to me, but I was a philosopher of science. I will add that the anti-metaphysical animus of logical positivism was wholly gone by then; courses were offered on metaphysics, and "epistemology metaphysics" is one of the core specializations. Along with philosophy of mind and language, it is the hegemonic one. So your friend is quite wrong about that aspect. He is also wrong that APs have to reject the "synthetic a priori"; C.I. Lewis was defending a version of it in the 30s and 40s, and if he isn't an analytical philosopher, no one is. Quine too is happy to defend the synthetic a priori,a nd he is THE analytical philosopher. Your friend wrongly identifies AP with logical positivism, which was only true in part and long ago. However, 25 years later, things have rather come apart. There are no common doctrines or methods, the territory is pretty well mapped, and while there is a lot of sophistication, there is not much progress or sense of progress. Granted I have been out of professional philosophy for six years, but I keep my hand in, and others I respect agree with me. There are no figures of the stature of Russell or Wittgenstein, or
Re: Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Luo says that the "general desire for a better life" is enough of an incentive for everyone to tell the truth, even if that means making oneself work harder with fewer resources, or voting to disrupt your life by shutting down an inefficient enterprise or even a line of work (think of typesetters). i don't believe it. i think that common interests like that are too weak to overcome individual interests. Note that I am not positing some sort of a priori selfishness, but am talking about the historically located incentives created by planning itself. This is a wholly materialist approach. I disagree, too, that Hayek's approach is about the USSR. In fact, Hayek's key papers were written in the 30s, during the first five year plans, not during the NEP. Obviously the USSR was (and remains) a main testing ground for theories of planning. People like Harry Braverman used to point to it to show that Hayek was wrong. But the argument is general, and it is confirmed by all kinds of planning experiences, capitalist (think of the Pentagon!), monopologtsic, as well as state socialist. In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 3:11:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The "incentive" is a desire to make a better life for all of society, as hard as that is to believe. Most human beings would prefer it that way, despite libertarian propaganda. The Hayekian critique revolves around the former Soviet Union, despite Justin's claim that it is a "general" argument. The problem is that as Harry pointed out there was a general disappearance of planning in the USSR during the time that Hayek was developing his critique.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Oh, I agree with you entirely. It's arguing with people who have not heard about the
calculation problem that drives me to rhetorical excesses. It's a bit late in the day
to wake up to the idea that there may be a problem with planning. The problems with
markets we (at least) know. --jks
In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 3:13:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Doug Henwood
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Waving the words "decentralized" and "democratic" doesn't expalin
where we get incentives to find out correct information, reduce
waste, innovate new producrs, services and production methids.
I'll concede the Hayek critique is a problem for planning, but when
you talk like this you sound like there's no problem with capitalist
production - no botched plans ("new" Coke?), no waste (2.4% of GDP on
advertising?; landfills chock full of stupid packaging; air and water
full of externalized environmental costs), no spurious innovations of
doubtful social merit (Heinz green ketchup, due in October, born in
focus groups with kids; production techniques that the Labor Notes
people call "management by stress")... The flaws of capitalism are
charming quirks; the flaws of socialist planning, inevitably fatal. I
can understand Hayek arguing this, but shouldn't a market socialist
sound a little different?
Doug
Re: Re: Re: Markets and socialism
Larry Summers has discovered "the new natural monopolies" -- where monopoly profits are required to motivate investment. See his speech in early May -- "The New Wealth of Nations" Remarks by Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers Hambrecht Quist Technology Conference San Francisco, CA Brad De Long wrote: Louis Proyect wrote: The most interesting points were made around the question of innovation. Kotz makes a convincing case that competition such as the kind that exists in the Adam Smith model is HOSTILE to technical innovation. Capitalist firms would under-invest normally because their competitors can easily mimic the new improvements without undergoing the same expenditures. In reality, monopolistic firms are generally the ones that promote RD, especially those that receive tax subsidies or have ties to the military. Bell Labs was a major innovator for many decades, but as soon as the phone companies were broken up, Bell Labs switched to market research from pure science or engineering. Good point Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle
Doug Henwood wrote: Timework Web wrote: That is unless one wants to go all the way back to 1946 and the very trenchant observation that the fashion for Hayek has nothing to do with objections to planning per se -- corporations do it all the time -- it is selectively an objection to DEMOCRATIC planning on behalf of the public. Not to be an apologist for Hayek or anything, but corporate planning occurs within competitive, decentralized (or polycentric) markets, forcing the planning to take account of price, demand, and taste changes. A Hayekian critique applies to the macroeconomy, where the wisdom of planners replaces market signals. You could say that planners could take account of demand and taste changes, and that volume could replace price as a signal, but that's a different argument. Doug Just a simple example about corporate planning. Today a power plant builder cannot get a turbine delivered for a couple or more years, so great is the demand. General Electric has booming world-wide sales, and of course is doing the world a favor by sending a price signal about this state of affairs. Yes, prices are going up. News item: Wall St. Journal, March 4, 1998: "GE's Power Unit to Slash 1,200 jobs and Report a Charge of $437 million." The company cited industry over-capacity, among other reasons for closing plants and layoffs. Why didn't GE plan a little better? Put some stuff into inventory? And why didn't the power plant builders buy some turbines, only yesterday, when there was world-wide overcapacity and low prices? Both ends of this marvelous corporate decision-making totally missed the mark. Low prices led to no orders. Now high prices lead to voluminous orders. Odd. So much for the market and the taking into account of prices and demand. Gene Coyle
Re: Re: RE: Re: M once again
Yes, Justin. It is better to argue on merits of ideas. I can tell some very positive stories about Roemer as a person told to me by former students who went to Davis without accepting his ideas. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And this means what? That his arguments are defective? --jks -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Markets and socialism
Incidentally, Bill Casey got the Saudis to jigger the oil price in exchange for military weapons, further disrupting the Soviet economy. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Actually, Matthew Evangelista has established that the Star Wars hoax did not induce the Soviets to increase military expenditures. Soviet growth rates are a vexed matter. Your statement of the matter represents the normal view as of, say, 1985, and it still may be right, but there were other figures that suggest that things were worse than was usually understood, particularly if oil revenues are left aside. as usual with planned economies, no good and accurate information was available. --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 10:52:50 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Excellent post, Louis. I would add only one minor point. My understanding was that the Soviet economy continued to grow during the 70s, but that the rate of growth declined quite a bit. The Star Wars hoax made the Soviets think that they would have to significantly increase military expenditures. How would the U.S. economy faired if it were surrounded by powerful enemies with enormous military might and if a major superpower were doing everything it could to sabatoge the economy and society? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: To glib or not too glib?
Or to break union contracts. Doug Henwood wrote: It also is a way to handle firms that may be operationally ok, but which have been saddled with debt by financial parasites. Or a way - e.g. Manville - to avoid paying damage claims. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle
Eugene Coyle wrote: Both ends of this marvelous corporate decision-making totally missed the mark. Low prices led to no orders. Now high prices lead to voluminous orders. Odd. So much for the market and the taking into account of prices and demand. Gosh, I don't know how capitalism has survived all these centuries, eliminating all rival systems, if the capitalists can't do anything right. I think capitalism's critics and enemies will have to do a lot better than come up with single examples of bad decisions. This is the corollary of Hayek's critique of planning: having spotted a problem, you conclude the malady is fatal. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Justin wrote: But the argument is general, and it is confirmed by all kinds of planning experiences, capitalist (think of the Pentagon!), monopologtsic, as well as state socialist. actually, the Pentagon does a very good job at planning, to serve the military and the arms manufacturers. We may think of $500 toilet seats as "waste," but they aren't waste from the perspective of the folks who run the Pentagon. Rather, they are PR embarrassments, requiring better "spin." And the Pentagon is very efficient at waging war, isn't it? In the last war, if I remember correctly, no US citizens died. That's an infinite "kill ratio," Robert MacNamara's wet dream! (The kill ratio would be an obvious measure of efficiency from a military perspective.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: M once again
I don't know John Roemer well at all, but more than one person I've talked to has said that his personality didn't change at all going from being a high-powered PL leader to being a high-powered academic. At 03:49 PM 7/14/00 -0400, you wrote: Well, I would not want to be held accountable fdor some of the dumb shit that I pulled as a student radical long ago. Would you? --jks Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems Analysis
At 03:43 PM 7/14/00 -0400, you wrote: As I dsaid, in the Schweickart model, investment is planned, so this wouldn't be a problem with socialist markets. if investment is planned, then the Hayek critique applies and the Schweickart model falls apart, right? or maybe the Hayek critique isn't as general as you say? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: M once again
Yes, I am fully accountable. End of discussion. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 3:50 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21690] Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: M once again Well, I would not want to be held accountable fdor some of the dumb shit that I pulled as a student radical long ago. Would you? --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 2:45:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Brown, Martin (NCI)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No, just his character. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 2:14 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21666] Re: RE: Re: M once again And this means what? That his arguments are defective? --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 9:09:43 AM Eastern Daylight Time, "Brown, Martin (NCI)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: John Roemer, John Roemer Oh yeah, I remember him. Berkeley, 1969. Undergraduate math major and head of local Progressive Labor Party chapter. "People's Park are a bunch of reactionary hippies stealing parking spaces from the working class." Also, get other people to front for you and get arrested or suspended from their academic careers, but you keep safe behind the scenes and build you academic career because the inner party intellectuals are too valuable to sacrifice to the struggle. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2000 6:01 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21586] Re: M once again Well, it's sort of ancient history about AM. I agree with you that there was that aspect to the AMs. They did call themselves (informally) the "no-Bullshit Marxism group. Course this was in the 70s, when there was a lot of bullshit Marxism about. Still, there was an unnecessary arrogance there. However, no need to dwell on it with the evaporation of the school. It is still useful to have a label to refer to people who were involved in a common project, referred to reach other's work, etc., just like with the Frankfurt School or the Althusserians. I mean, you were a lot more likely to find me referring to Roemer or Elster than to Adorno, or Habermas to Adorno than to Roemer, etc., so it at least tells you the frame of reference if not who's better than what. What planet are you from, the AMs eschew philosophical reflection? If anything, they engage in too much it. A tendency where the leading figures were a philosopher of history (Cohen), a political theorist (Elster), a methodologically hyper-conscious economist (Roemer) and political scientist (Przezworeski), and historian (Brenner), almost all of whom have written reams of philosophy of science, ethics, and political philosophy--this is what you mean by a movement that is not philosophically self-aware? You can't be serious. Maybe you think the stuff is all worthless, but it's not like it's not there. But I am not stuck on the label anyway, I just pitched in because various people were sneering at the tendency that I was part of if I was part of any tendency, and which in any case I thought did not deserve sneers. As far as analytical philosophy goes, your friend has a take on it that I would not wholly agree with. AP was something Russell and Moore invented around the 1890s when they were bored by British Hegelianism; it was empiricistically minded philosophy with a strong dose of logic--Russell was a very great mathematical logician; it was infused, in England and America, by the logical positivists, themselves strongly influenced by Kant and relativity theory, when the LPs fled Nazi-occupied Europe. For about 30 years, analytical philosophy was either LP or its critique. LP and its linguistic phil outliers came apart after 1950 and by 1975, Humpty Dumpty was all in pieces. This is when I started college. It was exciting; there was a sense we were going to get it right this time. The big tendency were (Marxist imspired) scientific realism and social constructivism in the Kuhnian mold, or so it seemed to me, but I was a philosopher of science. I will add that the anti-metaphysical animus of logical positivism was wholly gone by then; courses were offered on metaphysics, and "epistemology metaphysics" is one of the core specializations. Along with philosophy of mind and language, it is the hegemonic one. So your friend is quite wrong about that aspect. He is also wrong that APs have to reject the "synthetic a priori"; C.I. Lewis was defending a version of it in the 30s and 40s, and if he isn't an analytical philosopher, no one is. Quine too is happy to defend the synthetic a priori,a nd he is THE analytical philosopher. Your friend wrongly identifies AP with logical positivism, which was only true in part and long ago. However, 25 years later, things have rather come apart. There are no common doctrines or methods, the territory is pretty well mapped, and while there is a lot of
RE: Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: M once again
Ah, someone got the point! -Original Message- From: Jim Devine [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 4:22 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21700] Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: M once again I don't know John Roemer well at all, but more than one person I've talked to has said that his personality didn't change at all going from being a high-powered PL leader to being a high-powered academic. At 03:49 PM 7/14/00 -0400, you wrote: Well, I would not want to be held accountable fdor some of the dumb shit that I pulled as a student radical long ago. Would you? --jks Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
My main complaint about the idea of market socialism is that it does nothing to go beyond the sort of incentives that contaminate life in a capitalist economy. I would prefer to take a chance that people can go beyond the limited incentives of selfishness that dominate market society. I may be wrong, but if so capitalism might even be superior to market socialism. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Markets and socialism
Wow! Summers has discovered Schumpeter! Eugene Coyle wrote: Larry Summers has discovered "the new natural monopolies" -- where monopoly profits are required to motivate investment. See his speech in early May -- "The New Wealth of Nations" Remarks by Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers Hambrecht Quist Technology Conference San Francisco, CA Brad De Long wrote: Louis Proyect wrote: The most interesting points were made around the question of innovation. Kotz makes a convincing case that competition such as the kind that exists in the Adam Smith model is HOSTILE to technical innovation. Capitalist firms would under-invest normally because their competitors can easily mimic the new improvements without undergoing the same expenditures. In reality, monopolistic firms are generally the ones that promote RD, especially those that receive tax subsidies or have ties to the military. Bell Labs was a major innovator for many decades, but as soon as the phone companies were broken up, Bell Labs switched to market research from pure science or engineering. Good point Brad DeLong -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle
Gosh, I don't know how capitalism has survived all these centuries, eliminating all rival systems, if the capitalists can't do anything right. I think capitalism's critics and enemies will have to do a lot better than come up with single examples of bad decisions. This is the corollary of Hayek's critique of planning: having spotted a problem, you conclude the malady is fatal. Doug You also wrote a while ago: Someone with an income of $25,000 is richer than 98% of the world's population; even the bottom decile of USers have incomes higher than 2/3 of the world's population. Sounds like a fatal defect, from the point of view that deplores relative deprivation resource use inequality. This problem has not proven fatal in the real world, but that's because the other side (= those who don't find this to be a problem) has won military and publicity campaigns. Yoshie
3/5 off a man: a step back with the
Under the new census rules, I understand that a black from the inner city sentenced to a rural prison will be counted as a resident of that community. As a result, the rural communities will get more funds relative to the inner city. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Michael Perelman wrote: My main complaint about the idea of market socialism is that it does nothing to go beyond the sort of incentives that contaminate life in a capitalist economy. I would prefer to take a chance that people can go beyond the limited incentives of selfishness that dominate market society. I may be wrong, but if so capitalism might even be superior to market socialism. How do you propose to get to a nonmarket socialism? Seems to me the only hope is to bend, push, modify, transform what exists now, which means, in Diane Elson's phrase, socializing markets. It seems abstract and adventurist to talk about any postmarket socialism as if you could just pull it down from the shelf. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems Analysis
I have long troubled over investment planning. It is a weak point in Schweickart's theory from an efficiency point of view. I think we may have to suffer those inefficiencies for equity reasons. Without denocratic control of new investment, it is hard to see how you have socialism at all. But there can be a seconadry financial market, reinvestment of profits, etc., to give some market efficiencies. --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 4:26:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 03:43 PM 7/14/00 -0400, you wrote: As I dsaid, in the Schweickart model, investment is planned, so this wouldn't be a problem with socialist markets. if investment is planned, then the Hayek critique applies and the Schweickart model falls apart, right? or maybe the Hayek critique isn't as general as you say? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems Analysis
Rod Hay wrote: Actually I think the Hayek-Mises critique of planning is quite easy to answer. The problem is not information. The problem is designing institutions which provide the incentives for technological improvements. The premise that technological improvements (in the abstract) are desirable is not self-evident. On what grounds should we accept it -- or even consider as a hypothesis to be argued? On the whole change is uncomfortable for most people most of the time. Once one eliminates that drive, peculiar to capitalism, to grow and grow and grow and grow, the assumed necessity for technological improvement in counter-intuitive. Carrol
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: M once again
Great for you. I'm not. I did some pretty stupid things when I was younger. Of course, now that I am older and wiser, I can be accountable. --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 4:31:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Brown, Martin (NCI)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Yes, I am fully accountable. End of discussion. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 3:50 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21690] Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: M once again Well, I would not want to be held accountable fdor some of the dumb shit that I pulled as a student radical long ago. Would you? --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 2:45:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Brown, Martin (NCI)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No, just his character. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 2:14 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21666] Re: RE: Re: M once again And this means what? That his arguments are defective? --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 9:09:43 AM Eastern Daylight Time, "Brown, Martin (NCI)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: John Roemer, John Roemer Oh yeah, I remember him. Berkeley, 1969. Undergraduate math major and head of local Progressive Labor Party chapter. "People's Park are a bunch of reactionary hippies stealing parking spaces from the working class." Also, get other people to front for you and get arrested or suspended from their academic careers, but you keep safe behind the scenes and build you academic career because the inner party intellectuals are too valuable to sacrifice to the struggle. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2000 6:01 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21586] Re: M once again Well, it's sort of ancient history about AM. I agree with you that there was that aspect to the AMs. They did call themselves (informally) the "no-Bullshit Marxism group. Course this was in the 70s, when there was a lot of bullshit Marxism about. Still, there was an unnecessary arrogance there. However, no need to dwell on it with the evaporation of the school. It is still useful to have a label to refer to people who were involved in a common project, referred to reach other's work, etc., just like with the Frankfurt School or the Althusserians. I mean, you were a lot more likely to find me referring to Roemer or Elster than to Adorno, or Habermas to Adorno than to Roemer, etc., so it at least tells you the frame of reference if not who's better than what. What planet are you from, the AMs eschew philosophical reflection? If anything, they engage in too much it. A tendency where the leading figures were a philosopher of history (Cohen), a political theorist (Elster), a methodologically hyper-conscious economist (Roemer) and political scientist (Przezworeski), and historian (Brenner), almost all of whom have written reams of philosophy of science, ethics, and political philosophy--this is what you mean by a movement that is not philosophically self-aware? You can't be serious. Maybe you think the stuff is all worthless, but it's not like it's not there. But I am not stuck on the label anyway, I just pitched in because various people were sneering at the tendency that I was part of if I was part of any tendency, and which in any case I thought did not deserve sneers. As far as analytical philosophy goes, your friend has a take on it that I would not wholly agree with. AP was something Russell and Moore invented around the 1890s when they were bored by British Hegelianism; it was empiricistically minded philosophy with a strong dose of logic--Russell was a very great mathematical logician; it was infused, in England and America, by the logical positivists, themselves strongly influenced by Kant and relativity theory, when the LPs fled Nazi-occupied Europe. For about 30 years, analytical philosophy was either LP or its critique. LP and its linguistic phil outliers came apart after 1950 and by 1975, Humpty Dumpty was all in pieces. This is when I started college. It was exciting; there was a sense we were going to get it right this time. The big tendency were (Marxist imspired) scientific realism and social constructivism in the Kuhnian mold, or so it seemed to me, but I was a philosopher of science. I will add that the anti-metaphysical animus of logical positivism was wholly gone by then; courses were offered on metaphysics, and "epistemology metaphysics" is one of the core specializations. Along with philosophy of mind and language, it is the hegemonic one. So your friend is quite wrong about that aspect. He is also wrong that APs have to reject the "synthetic a priori"; C.I. Lewis was defending a version of it in the 30s and 40s, and if he isn't an analytical philosopher, no one is. Quine too is happy to defend the synthetic a priori,a nd he is THE analytical philosopher. Your
market socialism, etc.
1. Justin writes: Please show me how the Hayekian argument I have been running depends on any particular features of planning that are peculiar to a Soviet-style planning process. It doesn't. The argument is abosolutely general. Waving the words "decentralized" and "democratic" doesn't expalin where we get incentives to find out correct information, reduce waste, innovate new producrs, services and production methids. "Decentralized democratic planning" is a shibboleth, meaningless. It answers NO questions. So you say. And I did NOT use the phrase "decentralized democratic planning" but instead _explained_ what I meant. Please read what I say. The point is (to repeat myself) that if the _centralized_ part of the planning process is only dealing with _abstract_ (or general) issues like the growth rate of the economy or the percentage of the total product that goes into investment or the balance between broad industrial sectors, there's no need for some Hayekian all-knowledgeable mind. If the Federal Reserve can make the decisions it makes in planning the US economy (along with its spillovers to the rest of the world), it's pretty easy for a democratically-controlled planning agency to deal with equally general issues. It might be more difficult, because there are more issues, but not impossible. I also think it's not planning: I mean, what makes it planned, if the decisions are made indeoendently of each other by production units and not coordinated? How's that different from markets operating "behind the backs of the producers," with all their disadvantages and none of theor advantages? But set that aside. Did you read the part where I noted that individual units made decisions within the framework set by the central planning agency? If so, you would have noted that decisions are not made "independently of each other." I used the word "independent" to mean as opposed to being under the thumb of the central bureaucracy. True independence of all of society is in any case impossible. The point is that we can learn from the Soviet experience of planning just as we can learb from the capitalist experience of markets. But the Hayek argument is general. It applies to all situations where there are no markets and production and distribution are authoritatively (or if you will, democratically) allocated. The objection is not based on the Soviet experience: in fact it antedates the Soviet experience. It does not presuppose an undemocratic one party state and a top down planning process. It presupposes only lack of competition and production being determined by some sort of targets arrived at politically. So let's avoid this red herring and actually argue the issues, shall we? One of the problems with the Hayekian argument is that it ignores the role of the undemocratic one-party state. In fact, Hayekians want such a state in order to prevent popular-democratic meddling with the beloved and sacred free market. (If he's like other "great thinker," Hayek was superior to his followers.) The ideal _laissez-faire_ system has a Pinochet in charge or a denatured democracy with many important powers spun off to "independent" agencies like the Fed which respond to the moneyed interests. Another problem is that there's an either/or here: plan _versus_ market. We don't have to go that way. For example, in Pat (no relation) Devine's model of planning, markets are used to make static decisions (subject to all sorts of government regulations to deal with externalities, unlike in the Hayekian vision) whereas the plan is used for more dynamic decisions. Note that in a different post, Justin gives a vague description of Schweickart's scheme that sounds similar to P. (NR) Devine's scheme. Maybe this can get us away from false market vs. plan dichotomies and allow some agreement. And what is competition? is it the mythical passive competition of lemonade stands for the consumer's business? is it the competition of small workshops hiring small numbers of workers who had similar resources to their "masters" that Smith saw? is it the grinding competition that drives small farmers out of business, into the hands of agribusiness, or under the thumbs of the agro-industrial complex? is it the aggressive competition of oligopolistic firms, trying by hook or crook or dirty trick to get advantage and market share? is it the competition of factions within the CPSU? We need clarity, not the wielding of neoclassical shibboleths. 2. in a different message, Justin wrote: No, we are not against democracy. But we have to recognize that not all its effects are wholly good in every context. In the context of planning, democarcy would make the calculation problem worse by amplifying the information distortions it involves. Democracy is not part of the solution to the calculation problem. What do _you_ mean by the "calculation problem"? To me, ultimately the democratic electorate
Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Well, if you want socialism to transform humans into a purer sort of creature, maybe that is a problem. What I hope for is that socialism would feed the hungry, cloth the naked, shelter the unhoused, and make work available to all and reasonably decent for many people for whom it is a torment or a deadening bore. If markets socialism would do that, but would not transcend sekfishness, would it be worse than capitalism? --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 4:35:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My main complaint about the idea of market socialism is that it does nothing to go beyond the sort of incentives that contaminate life in a capitalist economy. I would prefer to take a chance that people can go beyond the limited incentives of selfishness that dominate market society. I may be wrong, but if so capitalism might even be superior to market socialism. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
$145 billion fine for Tobacco Capital !
Glory and Honour to Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt, lawyers for the class action against tobacco capital in winning the judgement today from a Florida Court of exemplary punitive damages of $145 billion for 700,000 sufferers! No matter that the companies will haggle, if allowed, for the next 75 years. No matter that this is a victory entirely in the realms of bourgeois right. Except that the right to bring a class action allows ordinary working people occasionally to outface the workings of a legal system in which justice always tilts its hands towards money. No matter that Florida has enacted a ceiling on punitive damages lest it bankrupt a company. Contesting that will only reveal more clearly the class nature of the justice system. No matter that it is a victory won in a bourgeois court by non-violent peaceful means. No matter that this victory will be diluted in practice. It is a bench mark of public outrage against capitalist control of the means of production. Marx said the following in his address to the founding congress of the Workers International "After a thirty years' struggle, fought with most admirable perseverance, the English working classes, improving a momentaneous split between the landlords and the money-lords, succeeded in carrying the Ten Hours Bill. Through their most notorious organs of science, such as Dr Ure, Professor Senior, and other sages of that stamp, the middle class [bourgeoisie] had predicted, and to their heart's content proved, that any legal restriction of the hours of labour must sound the death knell of British industry, which, vampire like, could but live by sucking blood, and children's blood too... The struggle about the legal restriction of the hours of labour raged the more fiercely since, apart from frightening avarice, it told indeed upon the great contest between the blind rule of the supply and demand laws which form the political economy of the middle class, and social production controlled by social foresight, which forms the political economy of the working class. Hence the Ten Hours Bill was not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class." Chris Burford London
Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
How do you propose to get to a nonmarket socialism? Seems to me the only hope is to bend, push, modify, transform what exists now, which means, in Diane Elson's phrase, socializing markets. It seems abstract and adventurist to talk about any postmarket socialism as if you could just pull it down from the shelf. Doug What does it mean to "socialize markets"? This sounds like Chris Burford's idea. It can't work, needless to say. Reforms like the Tobin Tax, etc. are all well and good, but socialism has a completely different agenda. It involves dissolving the old state apparatus, nationalizing the means of production, a monopoly on foreign trade and extensive use of planning. Furthermore it is not pulled down from a shelf, but created through struggle. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Gosh, I don't know how capitalism has survived all these centuries, eliminating all rival systems, if the capitalists can't do anything right. I think capitalism's critics and enemies will have to do a lot better than come up with single examples of bad decisions. This is the corollary of Hayek's critique of planning: having spotted a problem, you conclude the malady is fatal. Doug You also wrote a while ago: Someone with an income of $25,000 is richer than 98% of the world's population; even the bottom decile of USers have incomes higher than 2/3 of the world's population. Sounds like a fatal defect, from the point of view that deplores relative deprivation resource use inequality. This problem has not proven fatal in the real world, but that's because the other side (= those who don't find this to be a problem) has won military and publicity campaigns. I'm a bit mystified by this. Capitalism creates poverty alongside wealth; polarization is one of its distinguishing characteristics. Every Marxist schoolchild knows this. That's a completely different issue from whether the system can reproduce and expand itself economically, which it has managed to do for centuries, despite all the good reasons why it shouldn't. A social/political/moral critique is a completely different ball of wax from an "economic"/technical one. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Markets and socialism
Actually, Matthew Evangelista has established that the Star Wars hoax did not induce the Soviets to increase military expenditures. Soviet growth rates are a vexed matter. Your statement of the matter represents the normal view as of, say, 1985, and it still may be right, but there were other figures that suggest that things were worse than was usually understood, particularly if oil revenues are left aside. as usual with planned economies, no good and accurate information was available. --jks "... as usual with planned economies, no good and accurate information was available." Oh, that's cruel! Oh, that's mean! I'm going to have to remember that. May I purchase intellectual property rights to use that sentence? Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Doug, Of course I have no specific proposals at this time. Changes would require a great deal of experimentation. So far no society has had the opportunity to really make such experiments, without tremendous outside pressures. Neither Cuban nor the Soviet Union had such a chance. Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: My main complaint about the idea of market socialism is that it does nothing to go beyond the sort of incentives that contaminate life in a capitalist economy. I would prefer to take a chance that people can go beyond the limited incentives of selfishness that dominate market society. I may be wrong, but if so capitalism might even be superior to market socialism. How do you propose to get to a nonmarket socialism? Seems to me the only hope is to bend, push, modify, transform what exists now, which means, in Diane Elson's phrase, socializing markets. It seems abstract and adventurist to talk about any postmarket socialism as if you could just pull it down from the shelf. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Markets and socialism
No. You can use it, but it's public domain. I'd appreciate acknowledgements if it's that good. --jks "... as usual with planned economies, no good and accurate information was available." Oh, that's cruel! Oh, that's mean! I'm going to have to remember that. May I purchase intellectual property rights to use that sentence? Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Louis Proyect wrote: What does it mean to "socialize markets"? This sounds like Chris Burford's idea. It can't work, needless to say. Reforms like the Tobin Tax, etc. are all well and good, but socialism has a completely different agenda. It involves dissolving the old state apparatus, nationalizing the means of production, a monopoly on foreign trade and extensive use of planning. Furthermore it is not pulled down from a shelf, but created through struggle. Oh right, struggle is what matters. The institutional arrangements will take care of themselves if a properly righteous attitude is applied to the problem. Doug
Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Michael Perelman wrote: My main complaint about the idea of market socialism is that it does nothing to go beyond the sort of incentives that contaminate life in a capitalist economy. I would prefer to take a chance that people can go beyond the limited incentives of selfishness that dominate market society. I may be wrong, but if so capitalism might even be superior to market socialism. That is exactly what the Soviet elite eventually concluded and the reason they opted for capitalism. The Soviet elite were not blind to the problems of the Soviet economy (for instance, "after 1975 Soviet growth slowed dramatically," according to David Kotz Fred Weir). The proposed solution was to try to introduce "incentives" of a competitive market mechanism. How is market competition supposed to motivate enterprises to act efficiently? Mainly by giving incentives to "improve" labor discipline: "Gorbachev also suggested that the way to improve labor discipline was to ensure that pay was based on productivity. He criticized 'the tendency of leveling [of wages]' which 'negatively influenced the quality and quantity of work.' Instead, 'the incomes of working people should be linked to their performance on the job.'" (Kotz Weir, _Revolution from Above: The Demise of the Soviet System_, p. 57). If labor discipline is the key to "market efficiency," it is no wonder that the Soviet elite eventually decided that capitalism was superior to market socialism. Yoshie
RE: $145 billion fine for Tobacco Capital !
A not too-well recognized hero in this whole struggle is Stanton Glantz at Stanford University. He has been instrumental in bringing secret corporate documents of the big tobacco companies into the light of day and also in promoting the perspective that anti-smoking means a critique of corporate power, not a moralistic crusade against individual bad habits. This information and perspective have created a sea-change in how cases such at the one in Florida are viewed by members of juries. Back in the 60's he was part of the Science for the People group that criticized Stanfords affiliation with the war-fare state, e.g., SRI, the Hoover Institute, etc. Golly, I guess one of those people who has felt accountable for his actions through-out his life-cycle (not to push a sore point). A tribute to his effectiveness is that a few years ago an Act of Congress was actually passed to ban the funding of one of his grants funded here at NCI. He wanted to investigate how big tobacco money is used to influence state legislation. There is a ban against any research funding of operations of the federal government, but this does not apply to state governments. The grant went through the standard peer review process and was highly ranked. So tobacco interested had to get their bought-off congressional lackeys to "defund" it. -Original Message- From: Chris Burford [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 4:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21714] $145 billion fine for Tobacco Capital ! Glory and Honour to Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt, lawyers for the class action against tobacco capital in winning the judgement today from a Florida Court of exemplary punitive damages of $145 billion for 700,000 sufferers! No matter that the companies will haggle, if allowed, for the next 75 years. No matter that this is a victory entirely in the realms of bourgeois right. Except that the right to bring a class action allows ordinary working people occasionally to outface the workings of a legal system in which justice always tilts its hands towards money. No matter that Florida has enacted a ceiling on punitive damages lest it bankrupt a company. Contesting that will only reveal more clearly the class nature of the justice system. No matter that it is a victory won in a bourgeois court by non-violent peaceful means. No matter that this victory will be diluted in practice. It is a bench mark of public outrage against capitalist control of the means of production. Marx said the following in his address to the founding congress of the Workers International "After a thirty years' struggle, fought with most admirable perseverance, the English working classes, improving a momentaneous split between the landlords and the money-lords, succeeded in carrying the Ten Hours Bill. Through their most notorious organs of science, such as Dr Ure, Professor Senior, and other sages of that stamp, the middle class [bourgeoisie] had predicted, and to their heart's content proved, that any legal restriction of the hours of labour must sound the death knell of British industry, which, vampire like, could but live by sucking blood, and children's blood too... The struggle about the legal restriction of the hours of labour raged the more fiercely since, apart from frightening avarice, it told indeed upon the great contest between the blind rule of the supply and demand laws which form the political economy of the middle class, and social production controlled by social foresight, which forms the political economy of the working class. Hence the Ten Hours Bill was not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class." Chris Burford London
Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: You also wrote a while ago: Someone with an income of $25,000 is richer than 98% of the world's population; even the bottom decile of USers have incomes higher than 2/3 of the world's population. Sounds like a fatal defect, from the point of view that deplores relative deprivation resource use inequality. This problem has not proven fatal in the real world, but that's because the other side (= those who don't find this to be a problem) has won military and publicity campaigns. I'm a bit mystified by this. Capitalism creates poverty alongside wealth; polarization is one of its distinguishing characteristics. Every Marxist schoolchild knows this. That's a completely different issue from whether the system can reproduce and expand itself economically, which it has managed to do for centuries, despite all the good reasons why it shouldn't. A social/political/moral critique is a completely different ball of wax from an "economic"/technical one. Doug Well, the first Marxist lesson is that what looks like "'economic'/technical" issues can't be divorced from what looks like "social/political/moral" ones. The system couldn't have reproduced and expanded itself economically without state repression of various kinds (from policing to union busting to war) as well as hegemony (of the kind that Gramsci, among others, discussed). Marx wasn't an analytical philosopher. Yoshie
Re: RE: $145 billion fine for Tobacco Capital !
Martin, I did not know that Glantz was part of your group. Yes, he showed enormous integrity. What is more surprising is that his case was perhaps the only time I know of where the administration of the University of California acted with integrity and courage. "Brown, Martin (NCI)" wrote: A not too-well recognized hero in this whole struggle is Stanton Glantz at Stanford University. He has been instrumental in bringing secret corporate documents of the big tobacco companies into the light of day and also in promoting the perspective that anti-smoking means a critique of corporate power, not a moralistic crusade against individual bad habits. This information and perspective have created a sea-change in how cases such at the one in Florida are viewed by members of juries. Back in the 60's he was part of the Science for the People group that criticized Stanfords affiliation with the war-fare state, e.g., SRI, the Hoover Institute, etc. Golly, I guess one of those people who has felt accountable for his actions through-out his life-cycle (not to push a sore point). A tribute to his effectiveness is that a few years ago an Act of Congress was actually passed to ban the funding of one of his grants funded here at NCI. He wanted to investigate how big tobacco money is used to influence state legislation. There is a ban against any research funding of operations of the federal government, but this does not apply to state governments. The grant went through the standard peer review process and was highly ranked. So tobacco interested had to get their bought-off congressional lackeys to "defund" it. -Original Message- From: Chris Burford [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 4:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21714] $145 billion fine for Tobacco Capital ! Glory and Honour to Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt, lawyers for the class action against tobacco capital in winning the judgement today from a Florida Court of exemplary punitive damages of $145 billion for 700,000 sufferers! No matter that the companies will haggle, if allowed, for the next 75 years. No matter that this is a victory entirely in the realms of bourgeois right. Except that the right to bring a class action allows ordinary working people occasionally to outface the workings of a legal system in which justice always tilts its hands towards money. No matter that Florida has enacted a ceiling on punitive damages lest it bankrupt a company. Contesting that will only reveal more clearly the class nature of the justice system. No matter that it is a victory won in a bourgeois court by non-violent peaceful means. No matter that this victory will be diluted in practice. It is a bench mark of public outrage against capitalist control of the means of production. Marx said the following in his address to the founding congress of the Workers International "After a thirty years' struggle, fought with most admirable perseverance, the English working classes, improving a momentaneous split between the landlords and the money-lords, succeeded in carrying the Ten Hours Bill. Through their most notorious organs of science, such as Dr Ure, Professor Senior, and other sages of that stamp, the middle class [bourgeoisie] had predicted, and to their heart's content proved, that any legal restriction of the hours of labour must sound the death knell of British industry, which, vampire like, could but live by sucking blood, and children's blood too... The struggle about the legal restriction of the hours of labour raged the more fiercely since, apart from frightening avarice, it told indeed upon the great contest between the blind rule of the supply and demand laws which form the political economy of the middle class, and social production controlled by social foresight, which forms the political economy of the working class. Hence the Ten Hours Bill was not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class." Chris Burford London -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Chinese new left
Henry wrote: The importance of this development is that the youths of China have finally rediscover the right path, unlike the misguided students in Tiananmen Square in 1989. This sounds like hyperbole to me. None of the Marxists I know in China in their correspondences with me are seeing a major trend of students rediscovering the right path. There *is* a segment of students who, especially since the bombing* of the Chinese embassy last year are questioning more and more the link that Chinese leaders make between liberalization and making China stronger. So the importance of the development might be that *some* students are less enamoured of US capitalism than was the case in the past. In 1989, the students, who were already a privileged elite enjoying the unequally distributed fruits of China's new experiment with market economy, were agitating for a still better deal for themselves and for the right to indulge in bourgeois liberalism, and US style "democracy and individual "freedom", much of the poison fed to them blind by US journalists. However, left students from China are also quite cynical about how the Party uses its monopoly on political power to keep activists on the left from engaging in organizing activities that come naturally to leftists, i.e. supporting laid off workers, helping workers understand the law in factories that have been subjected to blatant corruption...This kind of activity, is generally eschewed by left students/professors in China because of the obvious risks involved. The NYT recently published an article on a left cadre who was jailed for his involvement in organizing laid off workers in Shenyang. That article was also posted to the China Bulletin, which is the leading journal of the new left students in China and overseas. One can be critical of the effects of a politica party's monopoly of power without being bourgeois. The Tiananmen protestors, in their ignorance of the West, mistook US prosperity as proof of the correctness of the capitalist/democratic system, not realizing that that very prosperity had been achieved through oppression both internally and globally. The New Left are students who have lived in the West for a decade and have first-hand knowledge of the reality of capitalism. I would agree with that, although the reason why students in China often don't believe that capitalism can be oppressive is closely tied to their not believing much of what they read about socialist development in China. The New Left among Chinese youths is significant because it can play a timely role in the ideological and policy struggle within the CPC that is expected to come to a climax within the next two years. The CPC is committed to a jeunvenization program and is seeking a balance between the development of a modern economy without total surender to US globalization. The left has two favorable conditions at its disposal against overwhelming odds. The odds are that to fight globalized finance capitalism is easier said than done. The odds are made more high because many leftists reject serious studies of finance out of ideological distaste. Well, many delight in focusing on purely economic formulas or 'laws' at the expense of focusing on how power is organized. If the left in China wants to exert influence on the CCP, it's going to have to develop a base, which is going to require more than developing fine arguments or backroom horse trading skills. This idea btw is not coming from my brain alone, it is one that has been expressed to me by a number of Marxists I know in China and who work at chinabulletin.com . Steve
RE: Re: RE: $145 billion fine for Tobacco Capital !
A sister group at Stanford. Both groups published "expose" pamphlets about UC and Stanford respectively. You know, youthful indiscretions we should now be ashamed of. I think you are right that he is now at UC not Stanford. -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 5:41 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21724] Re: RE: $145 billion fine for Tobacco Capital ! Martin, I did not know that Glantz was part of your group. Yes, he showed enormous integrity. What is more surprising is that his case was perhaps the only time I know of where the administration of the University of California acted with integrity and courage. "Brown, Martin (NCI)" wrote: A not too-well recognized hero in this whole struggle is Stanton Glantz at Stanford University. He has been instrumental in bringing secret corporate documents of the big tobacco companies into the light of day and also in promoting the perspective that anti-smoking means a critique of corporate power, not a moralistic crusade against individual bad habits. This information and perspective have created a sea-change in how cases such at the one in Florida are viewed by members of juries. Back in the 60's he was part of the Science for the People group that criticized Stanfords affiliation with the war-fare state, e.g., SRI, the Hoover Institute, etc. Golly, I guess one of those people who has felt accountable for his actions through-out his life-cycle (not to push a sore point). A tribute to his effectiveness is that a few years ago an Act of Congress was actually passed to ban the funding of one of his grants funded here at NCI. He wanted to investigate how big tobacco money is used to influence state legislation. There is a ban against any research funding of operations of the federal government, but this does not apply to state governments. The grant went through the standard peer review process and was highly ranked. So tobacco interested had to get their bought-off congressional lackeys to "defund" it. -Original Message- From: Chris Burford [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 4:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21714] $145 billion fine for Tobacco Capital ! Glory and Honour to Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt, lawyers for the class action against tobacco capital in winning the judgement today from a Florida Court of exemplary punitive damages of $145 billion for 700,000 sufferers! No matter that the companies will haggle, if allowed, for the next 75 years. No matter that this is a victory entirely in the realms of bourgeois right. Except that the right to bring a class action allows ordinary working people occasionally to outface the workings of a legal system in which justice always tilts its hands towards money. No matter that Florida has enacted a ceiling on punitive damages lest it bankrupt a company. Contesting that will only reveal more clearly the class nature of the justice system. No matter that it is a victory won in a bourgeois court by non-violent peaceful means. No matter that this victory will be diluted in practice. It is a bench mark of public outrage against capitalist control of the means of production. Marx said the following in his address to the founding congress of the Workers International "After a thirty years' struggle, fought with most admirable perseverance, the English working classes, improving a momentaneous split between the landlords and the money-lords, succeeded in carrying the Ten Hours Bill. Through their most notorious organs of science, such as Dr Ure, Professor Senior, and other sages of that stamp, the middle class [bourgeoisie] had predicted, and to their heart's content proved, that any legal restriction of the hours of labour must sound the death knell of British industry, which, vampire like, could but live by sucking blood, and children's blood too... The struggle about the legal restriction of the hours of labour raged the more fiercely since, apart from frightening avarice, it told indeed upon the great contest between the blind rule of the supply and demand laws which form the political economy of the middle class, and social production controlled by social foresight, which forms the political economy of the working class. Hence the Ten Hours Bill was not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class." Chris Burford London -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
How do you propose to get to a nonmarket socialism? Seems to me the only hope is to bend, push, modify, transform what exists now, which means, in Diane Elson's phrase, socializing markets. It seems abstract and adventurist to talk about any postmarket socialism as if you could just pull it down from the shelf. Doug What does it mean to "socialize markets"? This sounds like Chris Burford's idea. It can't work, needless to say. Reforms like the Tobin Tax, etc. are all well and good, but socialism has a completely different agenda. It involves dissolving the old state apparatus, nationalizing the means of production, a monopoly on foreign trade and extensive use of planning. Furthermore it is not pulled down from a shelf, but created through struggle. Louis Proyect Actually, trying to "bend, push, modify, transform what exists now" has always been what socialists and other leftists tried to do in non-revolutionary times. Even "revolution" (despite its connotation of turning everything upside down) can only "transform what exists now." No one in the world has ever tried to pull a new world from the shelf, because it is not possible to do so (except in science fiction like Charlotte Perkins Gilman's _Herland_). The problem is that it is all well and good to say we should be "socializing markets," but the real world has been moving exactly in the opposite direction of privatizing the public domain (DNA, water, information, social programs, state-owned enterprises -- you name it, they have or are trying to privatize it). Yoshie
Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Justin, where you see socialism, I see the market. I do not trust any kinds of markets to "feed the hungry, cloth the naked, shelter the unhoused, and make work available to all and reasonably decent for many people for whom it is a torment or a deadening bore." [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, if you want socialism to transform humans into a purer sort of creature, maybe that is a problem. What I hope for is that socialism would feed the hungry, cloth the naked, shelter the unhoused, and make work available to all and reasonably decent for many people for whom it is a torment or a deadening bore. If markets socialism would do that, but would not transcend sekfishness, would it be worse than capitalism? --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 4:35:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My main complaint about the idea of market socialism is that it does nothing to go beyond the sort of incentives that contaminate life in a capitalist economy. I would prefer to take a chance that people can go beyond the limited incentives of selfishness that dominate market society. I may be wrong, but if so capitalism might even be superior to market socialism. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: market socialism, etc.
Jim: Attacking Hayek for being too neoclassical is like attacking Marx for being too neoclassical. Hayek, Mises, and the Austrians dislike NCE for many of the same reasons that Marxists do: it's a poor description of actual markets (this is more Hayek than Mises) and does not correctly model how they work. Austrians tend to go overboard about their good effects, as Marxists do about their bad ones, but they are of one mind that NCE is not very impressive. Please, go read Hayek's Individualisma nd the Economic Order (Chicagao 1940+/-); it's short, clear, accessible, and reading it will avoid many problems and misunderstandings in the discussion. Besides, it is a very good and important book. In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 4:51:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The point is (to repeat myself) that if the _centralized_ part of the planning process is only dealing with _abstract_ (or general) issues like the growth rate of the economy or the percentage of the total product that goes into investment or the balance between broad industrial sectors, there's no need for some Hayekian all-knowledgeable mind. OK, I agree with that sort of planning, as long as there are competitive markets operating below the Fed level. I asked: I also think it's not planning: I mean, what makes it planned, if the decisions are made indeoendently of each other by production units and not coordinated? Did you read the part where I noted that individual units made decisions within the framework set by the central planning agency? If so, you would have noted that decisions are not made "independently of each other." I used the word "independent" to mean as opposed to being under the thumb of the central bureaucracy. True independence of all of society is in any case impossible. OK, so we have competitive production units operating within Fed-like constraints? Or we have little monopolies meeting targets (set by whom?) as they see fit under the very broad and general supervision of government planning boards which exercise some kind of oversight, but not central planning? I am hazy here, help me out. One of the problems with the Hayekian argument is that it ignores the role of the undemocratic one-party state. This concedes taht nothing in the Hayekian argument depends on the existence of such a state. In fact, Hayekians want such a state in order to prevent popular-democratic meddling with the beloved and sacred free market. Well, in his political philosophy, Hayek was no fan of democracy. He blamed Hitler on democracy, foolish man. Hayek did not advocate a single-party state but rather a Schumpterian elite-compition democracy and a fairly minimal state. But I am no fan of Hayek's political philosophy. I do not have to be to see he is onto something with his calculation argument, any more than I have to subscribe to Marx's romantic ideal of planning to appreciate his critique of capitalism. (If he's like other "great thinker," Hayek was superior to his followers.) Meaning what, that he was smarter and more creative than them? Pretty much, yes, as Marx was smarter and more creative than we are. Another problem is that there's an either/or here: plan _versus_ market. We don't have to go that way. Sure, of course. I am a _market SOCIALIST_ after all. Plan what you can, I say, and market what you must. And what is competition? is it the mythical passive competition of lemonade stands for the consumer's business? is it the competition of small workshops hiring small numbers of workers who had similar resources to their "masters" that Smith saw? is it the grinding competition that drives small farmers out of business, into the hands of agribusiness, or under the thumbs of the agro-industrial complex? is it the aggressive competition of oligopolistic firms, trying by hook or crook or dirty trick to get advantage and market share? is it the competition of factions within the CPSU? We need clarity, not the wielding of neoclassical shibboleths. Ideally, it is fairly vigorous competition between worker-managed cooperatives who are actively trying to promote markets for products and services with new ways of makiing old ones and new products and services that no one has thought of, with at least enough coops in play so that there is actual consumer choice. For technical reasons (the Ward effect), coops will tend to be smallish, so more vigorous competition is likelier. i will explain this later. I said: Democracy is not part of the solution to the calculation problem. Jim asks, "What do you mean by the calculation problem?" Sigh. The calculation problem is the name given in the literature to the set of objections to planning that I have been pushing. It goes back to Mises' 1920 article on "Economic Calculationa nd the Socialist Commonwealth." To me, ultimately the democratic electorate must be sovereign, i.e.,
Re: Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Well, the first Marxist lesson is that what looks like "'economic'/technical" issues can't be divorced from what looks like "social/political/moral" ones. The system couldn't have reproduced and expanded itself economically without state repression of various kinds (from policing to union busting to war) as well as hegemony (of the kind that Gramsci, among others, discussed). Wow, I didn't know that. There's just no end to what I'm learning on PEN-L lately. Doug
Re: Re: market socialism, etc.
A paper at the History of Economics session connected Hayek with A. Carr-Saunders, an important eugenicist, who apparently inspired much of Hayek's thinking on spontaneous order. I also used C.-S., many years ago, because I was impressed with his analysis of pre-industrial women's ability to control their reproductive systems. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle
Doug, any reader of the Wall St. Journal could multiply examples like this by some large exponent. But it wasn't my point to argue from this that Capitalism is about to topple. My point is that markets aren't all that omniscient -- or anything like even perceptive. Gene Coyle Doug Henwood wrote: Eugene Coyle wrote: Both ends of this marvelous corporate decision-making totally missed the mark. Low prices led to no orders. Now high prices lead to voluminous orders. Odd. So much for the market and the taking into account of prices and demand. Gosh, I don't know how capitalism has survived all these centuries, eliminating all rival systems, if the capitalists can't do anything right. I think capitalism's critics and enemies will have to do a lot better than come up with single examples of bad decisions. This is the corollary of Hayek's critique of planning: having spotted a problem, you conclude the malady is fatal. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Oh right, struggle is what matters. The institutional arrangements will take care of themselves if a properly righteous attitude is applied to the problem. Doug What are institutional arrangements? I am afraid we are speaking different languages. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Louis Proyect wrote: Oh right, struggle is what matters. The institutional arrangements will take care of themselves if a properly righteous attitude is applied to the problem. Doug What are institutional arrangements? I am afraid we are speaking different languages. How do get food on people's tables. Social relations of production. It's not that obscure. Doug
