Re: Religing Marxism, was AM Historical Materialism3
Greetings Economists, I have mystified JKS. So my task is make myself understandable as possible. For example it is clear here that JKS is mystified, JKS, first quoting me, Doyle Rationalism is about separating subjectivity from rationality as the above example amply demonstrates. Huh? Doyle, However, JKS goes to some length to clarify what he means by religion appearing in Marxism, and says it this way, JKS, I don't know what this means either. Religion can be as objective as you like. Monothesistic religions generally claim to be objectively true. What _I_ mean by taking Marxism as a religion is rather the treatment of a set of favored propositions as true come what may, these propositions being drawn, typically, from cetain sacred texts like the works of Marx, which are thus treated as articles of faith rather than objects of inquiry. Moreover, there is the vocabulary of orthodoxy, apostasy, and the like, drawn directly from Christianity. That's the stuff that has to go. It has nothing to do with subjectivity. It's just flat-earthism. Doyle, I am saying after the theory of explanation advanced by the source I quoted that to relige is to explain events we don't understand by reference to ToM. And I am saying you rely upon Christian theory of how to organize cognition generally called morality, as a means to distinguish that from reason rather than give insight into what a Marxist is materially doing with cognition. So it isn't possible to materially understand what truth is as you state in regard to religing above. Your remarks while eschewing a religious truth about Marxism doesn't give us insight into what to do to keep people from religing Marxism other than removing articles of faith from Marxism. That seems to me as a typical rationalist would advise. I set a practical goal of what I raise concerning your remarks, I say that software agents, that is the range of search engines, avatars, taxonomies, ontologies (in the WWW consortiums impied sense of Ontology) that could be unified into a common feature of internet portals, benefit from a theory of explanation that religing gives us. That theory is not my theory but what I reference to in the book I cited concerning explanation both religious and otherwise. That your remarks do not give us material insight into how to structure Information Technology to serve something specific, which is the common human activity of religing. To go a little bit further with a sort of generic example, given web services, a citizen of a state going down the street would find produced for them certain kinds of brainwork by their wearable devices, their software agent tells them about the world around them is a specific comprehensible way rooted in ToM. And that has to follow the structure of explanation that issue from Theory of Mind and where the ToM explanation falls on something besides another human mind is religing. JKS No no. AMs are very concerned, as Marx was not, with moral theory. Marx hasa moral theory, despite himself, a rather deep and subtle one, but never expressly articulates it, and officially rejects the project. Roemer and Cohen, among other AMs, spend a lot of time on positive moral theory. Btw, I am not an AM or any kind of an M; I'm just influenced by Marx and AM, among other tendencies in philosophy and social theory. Doyle I accept this statement. My reaction was to your view of reason apart from religion, which seems to me rooted in the far older Enlightenment tradition. I'm not familiar with AM to the extent that I can quote them, I can only comment upon what I see in your own views. I am acutely aware that to moralize is a theory of cognition that arose is Christianity, and that like Marx I think morality does not generate adequate understanding, or as you say flat earthism. JKS I wasn't trying to. We are in fact in the dark about religing issues, because... Doyle, I think we are quite close to a material understanding of what religing is doing, and to use that not so much for religious purposes in a traditional sense, but to understand why in various countries like Russia, certain forms of producing ideology rely upon cults of personality. What sort of brainwork is called for to relige a social structure. Why images of leadership have potency and are necessary components of social structure because ToM requires of communication structure certain features of attention. And building Information Technology that meets the need of the people requires ToM where your theory of reason does not propose what the process is that might shape Information Technology. The need I assert is production of ToM. JKS Not necessarily. Marx has a scientific theory of religion, called the theory of ideology, expressed in a famous aphorism: It is the cry of the oppressed soul, the heart of a heartless world, the opium of the masses. He opposes science to ideology, subjectivity, hwoever, is neither here nor there. Doyle, I think
Re: RE: Export tax subsidies that aren't?
On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Max Sawicky wrote: The mainstream argument is that exchange rates adjust to wash away all tax advantages, whether legal or illegal. Not being a trade person, the best argument I can think of goes like this: If you want to buy US goods, you need dollars to pay for them. A cost reduction in said goods [due to tax rebates for exports] increases demand for dollars relative to other currencies, Wouldn't a decrease in the total cost of goods lead to a *decrease* in the demand for dollars? In which case, the rest of the mechanism: cost of dollar (and good, in importer's currency) go up, cost advantage disappears. would be thrown into reverse, and the currency swings would reinforce the effect of the original subsidy. Michael __ Michael PollakNew York [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Engels, Marx, Value and Communism
Engels misunderstood Marx's value theory, especially Marx's explanation of money-form of commodity as physically accountable entity, but Marx explains social, homogenous labor firstly as imaginary or ideal product. Below is borrowed from Capital I do not disagee that there existed a difference in conception of value, its various forms, between Marx and Engels. Engels repeatedly acknowledge Marx as the greater man in the theoretical arena. Their ideas intersected on the historical trajectory of value as a force mediating human affairs and its final destination in the life of society. Karl Marx was of course - Marx. What Engels intuitively understood based on his independent study Marx unfolded for the world. It is of course Marx name that signifies a specific body of theory as opposed to Engel-ism. It was Marx that reshaped dialectics. Melvin
Re: Re: Re: Re: value and price: a dissenting note
In a message dated 2/2/2002 11:19:00 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
on 2/3/02 10:39 AM, Michael Perelman at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Miyachi's solution is not so simple. You have a new computer. Some of
the value will be transferred to the product today. You have no idea how
long the computer will last; when it will become obsolete. Unless you
have foreknowledge of the future, you cannot know how much value transfers
to the product.
I wrote about this in more detail a few years ago in the Cambridge Journal
of Economics.
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sir Michael Perelman
I can't understand your account. My computer has price, and I consume it
some years. After some year, my computer's price down, because I consume by
using it. I can't transfer value to computer, on the contrary, by using it,
I destruct its exchange value. If I trade in my computer to shop, shopper
assess my computer's trading price usually due to using years.
It is well common knowledge even little kids knows. If I transfer value
while using computer, trading price is higher than when I bought it.
Ridiculous! Did you use trading shop? If you did not, try it. When you try,
you can understand common knowledge which California State University did
not teach.
MIYACHI TATSUO
PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT
KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL
KOMAKI CITY
AICHI Pre.
JAPAN
I tend to agree with this accounting. Value is the product or rather expression of human acitivity in the process of production. One cannot "transfer" value through consumption of the finished product as an article of utility, even if one resales the article at the same price - after having used ("partial consumption") the product.
Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: value and price: adissenting note
on 2/4/02 02:53 PM, Justin Schwartz at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree with you, except the algebraic theory presumes ex ante -- values today that depend on conditions in the future. On Sun, Feb 03, 2002 at 05:44:45AM -0800, Devine, James wrote: I've argued in the past (e.g., my 1990 article in RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY) that values make sense as an _ex post_ (and true-by-definition) accounting framework. Obviously, _ex ante_ matters matter, in helping to determine values. But, for example, in realization crises (in which profits which seem to have been produced _ex ante_ turn out not to be so _ex post_). My impression is that what Marx emphasizes is what actually occurs in practice, i.e., _ex post_ values. JDevine I still don't see the problem. Ex ante, my widgets, made by process X (labor intensive) have value N. I expect to amortize the cost of the investment in X over ten years by selling widgets at $5 each. Five years into my period, you invent process Y (capital intensive), and now your widgets and mine both have the value N-1,a nd I can obly get $4 each for my widgets. I'm in trouble, but where;s the theoretical problem? jks _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com Sir Justin Schwartz MIYACHI TATSUO PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL KOMAKI CITY AICHI Pre. JAPAN [EMAIL PROTECTED] You confuse commodity production with its consumption. In commodity production we add to matter some value which is counted by labor time. in other side, namely in consumption, we reproduce our labor ability. Below is from "Capital" Firstly, about labour-power. "We must now examine more closely this peculiar commodity, labour-power. Like all others it has a value. [5] How is that value determined? The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article. So far as it has value, it represents no more than a definite quantity of the average labour of society incorporated in it. Labour-power exists only as a capacity, or power of the living individual. Its production consequently pre-supposes his existence. Given the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer. Labour-power, however, becomes a reality only by its exercise; it sets itself in action only by working. But thereby a definite quantity of human muscle, nerve. brain, c., is wasted, and these require to be restored. This increased expenditure demands a larger income. [6] If the owner of labour-power works to-day, to-morrow he must again be able to repeat the same process in the same conditions as regards health and strength. His means of subsistence must therefore be sufficient to maintain him in his normal state as a labouring individual. His natural wants, such as food, clothing, fuel, and housing, vary according to the climatic and other physical conditions of his country. On the other hand, the number and extent of his so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves the product of historical development, and depend therefore to a great extent on the degree of civilisation of a country, more particularly on the conditions under which, and consequently on the habits and degree of comfort in which, the class of free labourers has been formed. [7] In contradistinction therefore to the case of other commodities, there enters into the determination of the value of labour-power a historical and moral element. Nevertheless, in a given country, at a given period, the average quantity of the means of subsistence necessary for the labourer is practically known." Secondly, about use of labour-power. "The owner of labour-power is mortal. If then his appearance in the market is to be continuous, and the continuous conversion of money into capital assumes this, the seller of labour-power must perpetuate himself, "in the way that every living individual perpetuates himself, by procreation." [8] The labour-power withdrawn from the market by wear and tear and death, must be continually replaced by, at the very least, an equal amount of fresh labour-power. Hence the sum of the means of subsistence necessary for the production of labour-power must include the means necessary for the labourer's substitutes, i.e., his children, in order that this race of peculiar commodity-owners may perpetuate its appearance in the market. [9]
Re: Free Trade Game
Sounds cool. How do I get one? Scott At 20:31 31/01/02 -0800, you wrote: I am able to announce, at long last, that I have finished the shipping version of Rice and Beans, a game I developed to demonstrate the critique of orthodox trade theory and its significance for the trade/environment debate. (The same critique is easily extended to the trade/labor debate.) The game is not especially fun to play -- it consists of six rounds, each illustrating a trade-and-regulation scenario -- and a lot of numbers get concocted and added up, but it does take players rather far into a stylized Post Keynesian universe (unemployment, imbalanced trade) in which a race to the bottom is a real possibility. It is suitable for groups of 10-50 or so, and it takes about two hours to play, including the final discussion. It has been classroom-tested. (Please, no criticism from People for the Ethical Treatment of Students.) The game is contained in three files, available as WordPerfect or pdf: a six-page handount distributed to all players, one-page forms for players playing key roles, and a three-page user guide. Ask (offline) and ye shall receive. Peter
The Pope of Arthur Andersen
NYTimes Quote of the day: The reason I got involved is that Andersen is in big trouble and they were looking for someone to sprinkle some holy water on them. -PAUL A. VOLCKER JR. The articulate, mocking genius of capitalism strikes again. Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213
Bad loans at Japanese banks swell to $277b
The Economic Times Saturday, February 02, 2002 Bad loans at Japanese banks swell to $277b AFP SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 02, 2002 TOKYO: Bad loans held at Japanese banks rose to 36.8 trillion yen ($277 billion) at the end of September 2001, up 9.5 per cent from six months earlier. The figure was the highest level of bad loans since the end of March 1999, the Financial Services Agency said late Friday. The FSA survey covered 136 banks, including 17 major ones. Bad loans held at the 17 banks totalled 22.5 trillion yen, up 2.5 trillion yen, and those at 119 regional banks rose by 600 billion yen to 14.2 trillion yen. Bad loans rose slightly as of the end of September last year due to worsening financial conditions of borrowers, the agency said in a statement. By category, bad loans with interest payments at least three months overdue rose about 2.6 trillion yen to 13.5 trillion yen. The amount of loans extended to borrowers at risk of going under and borrowers already bankrupt grew 600 billion yen to 23.3 trillion yen. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has pledged to reduce the level of banking bad loans to manageable levels within three years in a bid to restore the financial industry's standing. Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserve
World Economic Forum
today's L.A. TIMES op-ed column by Arianna Huffington (not available on-line yet) makes it sound like the WEF in NYC is just a talk-shop, co-opting some of the outsiders who had demonstrated against such meetings in the past. Forum organizers had disinvited Ken Lay but invited community activist Van Jones, who was teargassed in Seattle protesting the World Trade Organization and hit by a police car in Washintone [DC] protesting the International Monetary Fund. In fact, they honored Jones as a 'global leader for tomorrow.' Going along with such co-optation, I am sure, is a disappearance of any real power that may have existed for the WEF. If there were any substantive decisions being made in the past, I'd bet that they've shifted over to some much less public venue. Jim Devine
Re: RE: Re: Historical Materialism
Well, you know better than I. But they don't teach marxian value theory either, and the USSR's early attempt to use what it thought was that theory as a planning tool was a disaster. So, anyway, maybe if Daniel was right, we don't need a value theory at all. jks Oskar Lange used say that Marxian economics is the economics of capitalism and neoclassical economics is the economics of socialism. If you want to do monetary and fiscal policy, design an antitrust regime, figure out the impact of opening new oilfields on existing transportation options, make a plan for your own enterprise, you use subjectivist theory. They teach it in B school cause it works in short and medium term. I don't have to prove it: the proof is in the practice. I don't agree with this, and I've been to business school. The subjectivist value theory of neoclassical economics is the von Neumann/Morgenstern axioms, and they are completely orthogonal to the economics you learn at business school (you learn them quite thoroughly in an economics degree, but that's not the same thing). At business school, you learn in detail the parts of economics which are not dependent on a value theory and are more properly part of what one used to call operations research, plus you learn a bit of kiddies' (often surprisingly heterodox) macroeconomics under the title of International Financial System or some such. Think about it this way; almost the only module which is compulsory in every MBA at every business school is Marketing, and there is still, after about 150 years of trying, no decent classical or neoclassical theory of the advertising industry. Subjectivist value theory is honoured much more in the ignoring than the observance. dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___ _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.
Re: Re: Religing Marxism, was AM Historical Materialism 3
What I am trying to do is to sketch a particular claim I make about religing that is compatible with Marxism, which can lead to understanding about what brainwork is involved, and to in my view resolve the underlying problem that surely does arise when truth and orthodoxy appear. In particular allows one to understand a great deal about the development of Information Technology in so far as a kind of labor process is necessary to produce explanation. thanks for the conversation JKS, Doyle Saylor Thanks to you too. Your manner of presentation is a bit hard to follow, I mention this for what it's worth. I'd avoid neologisms like religing. I am a pretty old fashioned rationalist. There is a sense in which religious aspects of a theory are important for its noncognitive aspirations, although in the case of Marxism these are pretty much by the wat today. As far as the cognitive aspects go, reliion in the sense that I use it--imperviousness to criticism, treating theoriesa sa rticles of faith--is opposed to a scientific approach. jks _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.
Re: Re: RE: Re: Historical Materialism
Justin, you keep reminding us of Oskar Lange's economics of socialism quote. He thought that General Equilibrium was a proof of the efficacy of market socialism. I don't want to debate market socialism -- we have worked that one over more than enough -- but his proof seems kind of silly to me. Phil Mirowski does a great job in his new book of showing how this approach easily slid into planning for the Pentagon by his disciples. On Mon, Feb 04, 2002 at 03:10:37PM +, Justin Schwartz wrote: Well, you know better than I. But they don't teach marxian value theory either, and the USSR's early attempt to use what it thought was that theory as a planning tool was a disaster. So, anyway, maybe if Daniel was right, we don't need a value theory at all. jks Oskar Lange used say that Marxian economics is the economics of capitalism and neoclassical economics is the economics of socialism. If you want to do monetary and fiscal policy, design an antitrust regime, figure out the impact of opening new oilfields on existing transportation options, make a plan for your own enterprise, you use subjectivist theory. They teach it in B school cause it works in short and medium term. I don't have to prove it: the proof is in the practice. I don't agree with this, and I've been to business school. The subjectivist value theory of neoclassical economics is the von Neumann/Morgenstern axioms, and they are completely orthogonal to the economics you learn at business school (you learn them quite thoroughly in an economics degree, but that's not the same thing). At business school, you learn in detail the parts of economics which are not dependent on a value theory and are more properly part of what one used to call operations research, plus you learn a bit of kiddies' (often surprisingly heterodox) macroeconomics under the title of International Financial System or some such. Think about it this way; almost the only module which is compulsory in every MBA at every business school is Marketing, and there is still, after about 150 years of trying, no decent classical or neoclassical theory of the advertising industry. Subjectivist value theory is honoured much more in the ignoring than the observance. dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___ _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Re: RE: Re: Historical Materialism
Well this is in Ellman's book which you recommended earlier (Soviet Planning Today). It's the difference between economic cybernetics and political economy as set out by the Central Economic Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The first of these is what you learn in business school -- operations research, etc, etc and, as Kantorovich et al proved, can in general be derived without making any assumptions about values or preferences, as the outcome of a maximisation problem in control engineering. The second of these is what you have to learn to parrot in the approved manner, or you won't be allowed into business school. It's the question of what kind of thing goes into your model; whether you're going to assume that wage labour is a cost to be minimised, and whether you're going to measure your output by reference to monotonic, independent, transitive etc utility functions. The confusion between cybernetics and political economy (economics as engineering and economics as politics) is responsible for a lot of problems on both sides of (for example) the planning debate (Stalin was of the opinion that cybernetics was intrinsically bourgeois and beleived that plans should be made on the basis of purely political-economy considerations, with predictably disastrous consequences), and the issues dealt with in value theory economics are right on the cusp of the two approaches. But I disagree with you that Marx didn't think that the LTV was basically a statement about political economy (in the sense used above) and think that those people are correct who believe that to confine the importance of the LTV to technical discussions about the production and allocation of goods under capitalism is to reduce Marx to the status of a minor Ricardian. cheers dd -Original Message- From: Justin Schwartz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 04 February 2002 15:11 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:22310] Re: RE: Re: Historical Materialism Well, you know better than I. But they don't teach marxian value theory either, and the USSR's early attempt to use what it thought was that theory as a planning tool was a disaster. So, anyway, maybe if Daniel was right, we don't need a value theory at all. jks Oskar Lange used say that Marxian economics is the economics of capitalism and neoclassical economics is the economics of socialism. If you want to do monetary and fiscal policy, design an antitrust regime, figure out the impact of opening new oilfields on existing transportation options, make a plan for your own enterprise, you use subjectivist theory. They teach it in B school cause it works in short and medium term. I don't have to prove it: the proof is in the practice. I don't agree with this, and I've been to business school. The subjectivist value theory of neoclassical economics is the von Neumann/Morgenstern axioms, and they are completely orthogonal to the economics you learn at business school (you learn them quite thoroughly in an economics degree, but that's not the same thing). At business school, you learn in detail the parts of economics which are not dependent on a value theory and are more properly part of what one used to call operations research, plus you learn a bit of kiddies' (often surprisingly heterodox) macroeconomics under the title of International Financial System or some such. Think about it this way; almost the only module which is compulsory in every MBA at every business school is Marketing, and there is still, after about 150 years of trying, no decent classical or neoclassical theory of the advertising industry. Subjectivist value theory is honoured much more in the ignoring than the observance. dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___ _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any
RE: Re: Re: Religing Marxism, was AM Historical Materialism 3
As far as the cognitive aspects go, reliion in the sense that I use it--imperviousness to criticism, treating theoriesa sa rticles of faith--is opposed to a scientific approach. jks Of course, in this sense, an awful lot of people who hold down jobs as science professors (for example Richard Dawkins) would be classified as cognitively religious :-) cheers dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___
Re: Re: Engels, Marx, Value and Communism
It is not that Engels misunderstood Marx. Marx unfolded a new law system. Engels agreed to the best of his ability. To continue. MIYACHI TATSUO PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL KOMAKI CITY AICHI Pre. JAPAN [EMAIL PROTECTED] Below is from Capital The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political form. It is always the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers -- a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite stage in the development of the methods of labour and thereby its social productivity -- which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure and with it the political form of the relation of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the corresponding specific form of the state. This does not prevent the same economic basis Brenner's reductionism is clear. He only analyze market, finance, or credit. This tendency can ascend to Stalin's formula that economic process is natural and to proceed without people's will. Certainly capitalist system is reversed world in which Sachen (commodity, money and capital=== In any English translation of Capital there is no distinction between Sachen and Ding, but the two are different category, Sachen means occupying property, and Ding is mere physical matter, and identifying Sachen with Ding, we can not distinguish Versacherling and Verdinging, which is important to understand Marx's critique of fetishism) rule people, and people unconsciously and collectively produce Sachen which produce self-destructive power for people. And finally Marx described In capital -- profit, or still better capital -- interest, land -- rent, abour -- wages, in this economic trinity represented as the connection between the component parts of value and wealth in general and its sources, we have the complete mystification of the capitalist mode of production, the conversion of social relations into things, the direct coalescence of the material production relations with their historical and social determination. It is an enchanted, perverted, topsy-turvy world, in which Monsieur le Capital and Madame la Terre do their ghost-walking as social characters and at the same time directly as mere things. It is the great merit of classical economy to have destroyed this false appearance and illusion, this mutual independence and ossification of the various social elements of wealth, this personification of things and conversion of production relations into entities, this religion of everyday life. It did so by reducing interest to a portion of profit, and rent to the surplus above average profit, so that both of them converge in surplus-value; and by representing the process of circulation as a mere metamorphosis of forms, and finally reducing value and surplus-value of commodities to labour in the direct production process We works with will, although its result is self-alienated. It is clear. But Stalin neglect this fundamental fact. Crisis theory was produced from experience of Marx, and Lenin. Marx firstly expected economic panic as condition of revolution, but in Capital, As soon as this process of transformation has sufficiently decomposed the old society from top to bottom, as soon as the laborers are turned into proletarians, their means of labor into capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet, then the further socialization of labor and further transformation of the land and other means of production into socially exploited and, therefore, common means of production, as well as the further expropriation of private proprietors, takes a new form. That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer working for himself, but the capitalist exploiting many laborers. This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalistic production itself, by the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralization, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an ever-extending scale, the co-operative form of the labor-process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the Instruments of labor into instruments of labor only usable in common, the economizing of all means of production by their use as means of production of combined, socialized labor, the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world-market, and with this, the international character of the capitalistic regime. Along with the constantly diminishing number
RE: Re: RE: Re: Historical Materialism
JKS writes:Well, you know better than I. But they don't teach marxian value theory either, and the USSR's early attempt to use what it thought was that theory as a planning tool was a disaster. So, anyway, maybe if Daniel was right, we don't need a value theory at all. 1. The fact that they don't teach Marx's law of value in business school should be seen as evidence of its validity. After all, in Marx's theory, business people's ideology -- what BBAs and MBAs learn -- would be the most distorted by commodity fetishism (the illusions created by competition). 2. I've seen nothing in Marx that suggests that the law of value can or should be used as a planning method. (Where _does_ this idea come from?) In fact, it was extremely controversial when Stalin said that the so-called labor theory of value applied under what he called socialism, since some said (correctly) that value was a concept of commodity production, not of a system that was supposed to be producing for use, not exchange. (BTW, cybernetics in this context seems a perfect tool for techno-bureaucratic rule, as opposed to Stalin's rule by the party machine.) 3. Charlie Andrews' interesting FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY includes a version of law of value in his first stage of socialism: he has not-for-profit organizations competing in socially-controlled markets, so that (all else equal) prices tend toward values rather than toward prices of production (as under capitalism). Of course, he doesn't get bogged down in this first stage and allows for openings to move toward a higher stage of socialism. Jim Devine
RE: Re: RE: Export tax subsidies that aren't?
Depends on the price elasticity. If the price of jellybeans goes down, do you spend more or less on jellybeans? But I should beg off on this. I don't do trade. --mbs Wouldn't a decrease in the total cost of goods lead to a *decrease* in the demand for dollars? In which case, the rest of the mechanism: cost of dollar (and good, in importer's currency) go up, cost advantage disappears. would be thrown into reverse, and the currency swings would reinforce the effect of the original subsidy. Michael __ Michael PollakNew York [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RE: Re: Re: Religing Marxism, was AM Historical Mat erialism 3
As far as the cognitive aspects go, reliion in the sense that I use it--imperviousness to criticism, treating theoriesa sa rticles of faith--is opposed to a scientific approach. jks Of course, in this sense, an awful lot of people who hold down jobs as science professors (for example Richard Dawkins) would be classified as cognitively religious :-) cheers dd No doubt. But if I'm pig headed, that's just a fact about me. If I persuade a lot of others to go along, our pig-headedness may be a religion. Actually one reason I don't call myself a Marxist is that the shrinking number of adherents increasingly resemble a threatened cult; this is a minor point, but it is a question of whom one wants to to be associated with. 20 years ago there was more diversity and openmindedness. jks _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.
Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Historical Materialism
Justin, you keep reminding us of Oskar Lange's economics of socialism quote. He thought that General Equilibrium was a proof of the efficacy of market socialism. I don't want to debate market socialism -- we have worked that one over more than enough -- but his proof seems kind of silly to me. (a) He did not. This is a common myth. In The Economic Theory of Socialism defended central planning by shadow pricing. Later, after experiences as an actual planner, he became an advocate of market reform, but not via GET. (b) I don't endorse Lange's use of GET even in defense of planning by using his quip, which is just too good to let go. If I quote Tocqueville or Churchill or Machiavelli or Goering or even Perlman for an especially apt remark, I do not thereby buy into their total potical philosophies. I do not confine myself to quotinf only people I agree with, or I would never quote anyone. (c) Anyway, you know, or should by now, that ich bin ein echt Oesterreicher on these matters, not a Arrovian-Debreauvnik. I go with the Hayekian critique of GET. So you have to take the commebt in the spirit in which it was quoted, which is not for its literal truth. Chhez, you marxists are so humorless. Was looking at your Invention of Capitalism in the bookstore the other day, looks good, ; I will buy it, but right now I'm busy with other things. jks _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Historical Materialism
For a terrific study of the relation between economic sybernetics and modern economics, see Mirowski's new book, Machine Dreams. On Mon, Feb 04, 2002 at 03:25:17PM -, Davies, Daniel wrote: Well this is in Ellman's book which you recommended earlier (Soviet Planning Today). It's the difference between economic cybernetics and political economy as set out by the Central Economic Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The first of these is what you learn in business school -- operations research, etc, etc and, as Kantorovich et al proved, can in general be derived without making any assumptions about values or preferences, as the outcome of a maximisation problem in control engineering. The second of these is what you have to learn to parrot in the approved manner, or you won't be allowed into business school. It's the question of what kind of thing goes into your model; whether you're going to assume that wage labour is a cost to be minimised, and whether you're going to measure your output by reference to monotonic, independent, transitive etc utility functions. The confusion between cybernetics and political economy (economics as engineering and economics as politics) is responsible for a lot of problems on both sides of (for example) the planning debate (Stalin was of the opinion that cybernetics was intrinsically bourgeois and beleived that plans should be made on the basis of purely political-economy considerations, with predictably disastrous consequences), and the issues dealt with in value theory economics are right on the cusp of the two approaches. But I disagree with you that Marx didn't think that the LTV was basically a statement about political economy (in the sense used above) and think that those people are correct who believe that to confine the importance of the LTV to technical discussions about the production and allocation of goods under capitalism is to reduce Marx to the status of a minor Ricardian. cheers dd -Original Message- From: Justin Schwartz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 04 February 2002 15:11 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:22310] Re: RE: Re: Historical Materialism Well, you know better than I. But they don't teach marxian value theory either, and the USSR's early attempt to use what it thought was that theory as a planning tool was a disaster. So, anyway, maybe if Daniel was right, we don't need a value theory at all. jks Oskar Lange used say that Marxian economics is the economics of capitalism and neoclassical economics is the economics of socialism. If you want to do monetary and fiscal policy, design an antitrust regime, figure out the impact of opening new oilfields on existing transportation options, make a plan for your own enterprise, you use subjectivist theory. They teach it in B school cause it works in short and medium term. I don't have to prove it: the proof is in the practice. I don't agree with this, and I've been to business school. The subjectivist value theory of neoclassical economics is the von Neumann/Morgenstern axioms, and they are completely orthogonal to the economics you learn at business school (you learn them quite thoroughly in an economics degree, but that's not the same thing). At business school, you learn in detail the parts of economics which are not dependent on a value theory and are more properly part of what one used to call operations research, plus you learn a bit of kiddies' (often surprisingly heterodox) macroeconomics under the title of International Financial System or some such. Think about it this way; almost the only module which is compulsory in every MBA at every business school is Marketing, and there is still, after about 150 years of trying, no decent classical or neoclassical theory of the advertising industry. Subjectivist value theory is honoured much more in the ignoring than the observance. dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___ _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.
RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Religing Marxism, was AM Historical Mat erialism 3
Justin writes:Actually one reason I don't call myself a Marxist is that the shrinking number of adherents increasingly resemble a threatened cult; this is a minor point, but it is a question of whom one wants to to be associated with. 20 years ago there was more diversity and openmindedness. This is tiresome at best. I don't really care whether you call yourself a Marxist or not, since what really matters is what you do (practice). Of course there are some self-styled Marxists who are religious in their mind-set while there are those who are not, just as there are those outside the left who are religious or not. But I've noticed that Justin tends to assert that he's not religious in his mind-set whereas people who disagree with him are. That's hardly an analytical argument. In fact, it's more of a religious argument (either you're for me or against me). It's better to point out the logical, empirical, or methodological problems with what other people say instead of throwing names (cult) around. Is Marxism a cult? Even though it has adherents who embrace a religious mind-set, outside of a few actual cults (the Spartacists, for example), I don't think so. Cults involve cutting off communication with those outside the cult, including friends and family. In this framework, the Mormons aren't a cult, but Scientology still is (though it's becoming more respectable every day). The fact that Marxism is definitely a (shrinking) minority position is not a strike against it unless we embrace the democratic theory of truth, i.e., that what's popular is true. Jim Devine
RE: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Religing Marxism, was AM Histor ical Mat erialism 3
. But I've noticed that Justin tends to assert that he's not religious in his mind-set whereas people who disagree with him are. I must say I've never noticed this, despite having disagreed with JKS on almost every important issue ever. And if, as I point out, such paradigmatically rational people as Richard Dawkins display cult-like behaviour, what's the problem? Simply pointing out that Marxists are not typically amenable to taking things like Austrian economics seriously (which is true) and that they should (which is true for small values of seriously) isn't really all that much of a reason to get annoyed. And the cult thing is just good knockabout humour. dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___
ltv, lov, ltp or the dms?
Penner's I'm having big time troubles with my sound card so I've been unable to respond because of the devaluation of my software! Should be back soon; glad to see we're zooming around in fractals Ian
RE: RE: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Religing Marxism, was AM Histor ical Mat erialism 3
Two (related) things I have learned from (or that have been reinforced by) the hermeneutic Austrians (Lachmann school Austrians at GMU and NYU): 1. read others generously though critically 2. humility about one's own position the first was known by grad students at NYU during Lachmann's times as Lachmann's Law: especially when reading work of an alternative school of thought, one should try to make the most sense of what is being read.
RE: RE: RE: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Religing Marxism, was AM Histor ical Mat erialism 3
Two (related) things I have learned from (or that have been reinforced by) the hermeneutic Austrians (Lachmann school Austrians at GMU and NYU): 1. read others generously though critically 2. humility about one's own position the first was known by grad students at NYU during Lachmann's times as Lachmann's Law: especially when reading work of an alternative school of thought, one should try to make the most sense of what is being read. these make sense. They're good practice on pen-l, too. JD
(no subject)
It is not that Engels misunderstood Marx. Marx unfolded a new law system. Marx ame first. Engels agreed to the best of his ability. To continue. MIYACHI TATSUO PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL KOMAKI CITY AICHI Pre. JAPAN [EMAIL PROTECTED] Below is from Capital The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political form. It is always the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers -- a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite stage in the development of the methods of labour and thereby its social productivity -- which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure and with it the political form of the relation of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the corresponding specific form of the state. This does not prevent the same economic basis Brenner's reductionism is clear. He only analyze market, finance, or credit. This tendency can ascend to Stalin's formula that economic process is natural and to proceed without people's will. Certainly capitalist system is reversed world in which Sachen (commodity, money and capital=== In any English translation of Capital there is no distinction between Sachen and Ding, but the two are different category, Sachen means occupying property, and Ding is mere physical matter, and identifying Sachen with Ding, we can not distinguish Versacherling and Verdinging, which is important to understand Marx's critique of fetishism) rule people, and people unconsciously and collectively produce Sachen which produce self-destructive power for people. And finally Marx described In capital -- profit, or still better capital -- interest, land -- rent, abour -- wages, in this economic trinity represented as the connection between the component parts of value and wealth in general and its sources, we have the complete mystification of the capitalist mode of production, the conversion of social relations into things, the direct coalescence of the material production relations with their historical and social determination. It is an enchanted, perverted, topsy-turvy world, in which Monsieur le Capital and Madame la Terre do their ghost-walking as social characters and at the same time directly as mere things. It is the great merit of classical economy to have destroyed this false appearance and illusion, this mutual independence and ossification of the various social elements of wealth, this personification of things and conversion of production relations into entities, this religion of everyday life. It did so by reducing interest to a portion of profit, and rent to the surplus above average profit, so that both of them converge in surplus-value; and by representing the process of circulation as a mere metamorphosis of forms, and finally reducing value and surplus-value of commodities to labour in the direct production process We works with will, although its result is self-alienated. It is clear. But Stalin neglect this fundamental fact. Crisis theory was produced from experience of Marx, and Lenin. Marx firstly expected economic panic as condition of revolution, but in Capital, As soon as this process of transformation has sufficiently decomposed the old society from top to bottom, as soon as the laborers are turned into proletarians, their means of labor into capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet, then the further socialization of labor and further transformation of the land and other means of production into socially exploited and, therefore, common means of production, as well as the further expropriation of private proprietors, takes a new form. That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer working for himself, but the capitalist exploiting many laborers. This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalistic production itself, by the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralization, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an ever-extending scale, the co-operative form of the labor-process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the Instruments of labor into instruments of labor only usable in common, the economizing of all means of production by their use as means of production of combined, socialized labor, the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world-market, and with this, the international character of the capitalistic regime. Along with the constantly
Religing Marxism, was AM Histor ical Mat erialism 3
This is tiresome at best. I don't really care whether you call yourself a Marxist or not, since what really matters is what you do (practice). A very sensible view, one I agree with wholeheartedly. Of course there are some self-styled Marxists who are religious in their mind-set while there are those who are not, just as there are those outside the left who are religious or not. But I've noticed that Justin tends to assert that he's not religious in his mind-set whereas people who disagree with him are. Not at all. It's a certain sort of disagreement, the kind that rolls into a ball and bristles with quotations and offended orthodoxy whenever a sacred doctrine is questioned. You're not like that, matter of fact. That's hardly an analytical argument. In fact, it's more of a religious argument (either you're for me or against me). That's unfair. I welcome all scientific criticism. It's better to point out the logical, empirical, or methodological problems with what other people say instead of throwing names (cult) around. Aint I been doin' that? I do find it tiresome myself when people who ought to know better feel obliged to defend everything the Master says, and answer arguments with quotations. Is Marxism a cult? Even though it has adherents who embrace a religious mind-set, outside of a few actual cults (the Spartacists, for example), I don't think so. Cults involve cutting off communication with those outside the cult, including friends and family. Your word, not mine. I said that an increasing proportion of marxists show symptoms to treating their faith as a religion,w hich I explained as follow: the propositons, attributed to the sacred tects of thew holy writers, are defended as true come what may, even in the face of overwhelming contrary argument and experience. You say, well, at least it's not like the Moonies. great, that' wonderful. The Marxists don't aws your brain. That doesn't mean that a fundamentalist approach (defined as above) is useful, cosntructive, or something taht a sensible person would want to be associated with. I don't make accuastions about anyone specific here, although I did say that Proyects list is full of this crap, which is one raeson I am not on it. In The fact that Marxism is definitely a (shrinking) minority position is not a strike against it unless we embrace the democratic theory of truth, i.e., that what's popular is true. Have I said that I don't think that historical materialism is true? I think a lot of Marx's specific claims are false or lack usefulness, but I think a very substantial part of them are true. They would be true even if no one believed them. jks _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
Enron SPV's (Doug's theory)
Front page story in today's WSJ is pretty darn lucid. Doug, in Wall Street, you chart the shifting relations between rentiers and corporate insiders. Does this Enron case indicate that the relations have shifted again? An anomalous case? It seems that the rentiers have been juked for the sake of a narrow band of insiders? I need to re-read Wall Street. Rakesh
Re: Enron SPV's (Doug's theory)
Rakesh Bhandari wrote: Front page story in today's WSJ is pretty darn lucid. Doug, in Wall Street, you chart the shifting relations between rentiers and corporate insiders. Does this Enron case indicate that the relations have shifted again? An anomalous case? It seems that the rentiers have been juked for the sake of a narrow band of insiders? I need to re-read Wall Street. And I need to update it! Yeah, it looks like the rentiers were screwed - at least some of them, those that didn't get to play with the SPVs. But now they're pissed, and there's going to be a big fight to reassert their power. They're also going to have to rethink the use of stock options as a mechanism for aligning management board interests with those of stockholders. Who wants to be too sharp-eyed when the stock is rising 60% a year? There's a positive disincentive to be responsible. Doug
Re: Intervention In Iraq?
On Fri, 1 Feb 2002, Sabri Oncu quoted William Safire as saying: If Bush follows words with deeds, he will avert that disaster. Instead he will apply his Afghan template: Supply arms and money to 70,000 Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq and a lesser Shiite force in the south, covering both with Predator surveillance and tactical U.S. air support. In Phase II, I'll bet it was recently agreed in Washington that Turkish tank brigades and U.S. Special Ops troops will together thrust down to Baghdad. Saddam will join Osama and Mullah Omar in hiding. Iraqis, cheering their liberators, will lead the Arab world toward democracy. It's not a pipe dream. It's the action implicit in the Bush doctrine enunciated this week. The gun laid on the table by this political dramatist will go off in the next act. And then quoted the Turkish Defense Minister saying What'n hell? I think the key phrases in Safire's column are I'll bet (meaning I have no evidence whatsoever) and It's not a pipe dream (emphasis on the petulant not as in It's *not* a pipedream. It's *not*!) It sure looks like one. Below is the column where Safire first broached this idea about a week after the invasion of Afghanistan where it was explicitly presented as a fantasy. In the three months since he seems to have convinced himself of his dream's realiy. Now he's trying to convince others. I think the column you quote is part of an attempt to convince people the idea is not completely mad by hinting with no evidence that important players are taking it seriously. I don't know how well known Safire is in Turkey, but in the US he's famous as Sharon's best buddy, occupying the far right pew in Israel's amen corner. Consequently he never misses a chance to encourage an invasion of Iraq or a criminalization of Iran. One measure of how important the right wing Israeli agenda is to his politics is that even though he is a life-long republican -- he was Nixon's speechwriter, a duty he shared with Patrick Buchanan -- he voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 because he thought Bush Sr. had been too hard on Israel by making them go to Madrid. So I'm not saying it's impossible we might be contemplating such a plan. But I wouldn't take it seriously unless someone other than Safire starts saying it. Michael The New York Times November 5, 2001 The Turkey Card By WILLIAM SAFIRE Reached by cell phone in purgatory, where he is expiating his sin of imposing wage and price controls, Richard Nixon agreed to an interview with his former speechwriter. Q: How do you think the war in Afghanistan is going? Nixon: You call that a war? Light bombing of a bunch of crazies with beards, based on a policy of Afghanization before you even get started? That's strictly reactive and purely tactical. Q: Would you send in a couple of divisions of American ground troops? Nixon: No. The Bush people are employing the right tactics in their phase I - suppressing terrorist operations, helping the opposition make trouble, playing for breaks with payoffs and assassinations. What they fail to see is the global picture. They need to develop a grand strategy. Q: Which is - Nixon: Know your real enemy. It's not just bin Laden and his terrorist cells. It's the movement threatening to take over the Islamic world. Those beards and their even more dangerous state sponsors want the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil. That would give them the money to build or buy the nuclear and germ weapons to eliminate the reasonable Muslims and all the Christian and Jewish infidels. Q: How would you stop them? Nixon: Split 'em, the way we split the Communist monolith by playing the China card against the Soviets. Your generation's card is Turkey, the secular Muslim nation with the strongest army. Q: The Turks have already volunteered a hundred commandos - you mean we should ask for more? Nixon: Get out of that celebrity- terrorist Afghan mindset. With the world dazed and everything in flux, seize the moment. I'd make a deal with Ankara right now to move across Turkey's border and annex the northern third of Iraq. Most of it is in Kurdish hands already, in our no-flight zone - but the land to make part of Turkey is the oil field around Kirkuk that produces nearly half of Saddam Hussein's oil. Q: Doesn't that mean war? Nixon: Quick war, justified by Saddam's threat of germs and nukes and terrorist connections. We'd provide air cover and U.N. Security Council support in return for the Turks' setting up a friendly government in Baghdad. The freed Iraqis would start pumping their southern oil like mad and help us bust up OPEC for good. Q: What's in it for the Turks? Nixon: First, big money - northern Iraq could be good for nearly two million barrels a day, and the European Union would fall all over itself welcoming in the Turks. Next, Turkey would solve its internal Kurd problem by making its slice of Iraq an autonomous region called Kurdistan. Q: But that would mean new borders, and don't Arab states
Re: Re: Re: Engels, Marx, Value and Communism
on 2/5/02 00:42 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is not that Engels misunderstood Marx. Marx unfolded a new law system. Engels agreed to the best of his ability. To continue. MIYACHI TATSUO PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL KOMAKI CITY AICHI Pre. JAPAN [EMAIL PROTECTED] Below is from "Capital" "The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political form. It is always the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers -- a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite stage in the development of the methods of labour and thereby its social productivity -- which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure and with it the political form of the relation of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the corresponding specific form of the state. This does not prevent the same economic basis" Brenner's reductionism is clear. He only analyze market, finance, or credit. This tendency can ascend to Stalin's formula that economic process is natural and to proceed without people's will. Certainly capitalist system is reversed world in which Sachen (commodity, money and capital=== In any English translation of " Capital" there is no distinction between Sachen and Ding, but the two are different category, Sachen means occupying property, and Ding is mere physical matter, and identifying Sachen with Ding, we can not distinguish Versacherling and Verdinging, which is important to understand Marx's critique of fetishism) rule people, and people unconsciously and collectively produce Sachen which produce self-destructive power for people. And finally Marx described "In capital -- profit, or still better capital -- interest, land -- rent, abour -- wages, in this economic trinity represented as the connection between the component parts of value and wealth in general and its sources, we have the complete mystification of the capitalist mode of production, the conversion of social relations into things, the direct coalescence of the material production relations with their historical and social determination. It is an enchanted, perverted, topsy-turvy world, in which Monsieur le Capital and Madame la Terre do their ghost-walking as social characters and at the same time directly as mere things. It is the great merit of classical economy to have destroyed this false appearance and illusion, this mutual independence and ossification of the various social elements of wealth, this personification of things and conversion of production relations into entities, this religion of everyday life. It did so by reducing interest to a portion of profit, and rent to the surplus above average profit, so that both of them converge in surplus-value; and by representing the process of circulation as a mere metamorphosis of forms, and finally reducing value and surplus-value of commodities to labour in the direct production process" We works with will, although its result is self-alienated. It is clear. But Stalin neglect this fundamental fact. "Crisis theory" was produced from experience of Marx, and Lenin. Marx firstly expected economic panic as condition of revolution, but in Capital, "As soon as this process of transformation has sufficiently decomposed the old society from top to bottom, as soon as the laborers are turned into proletarians, their means of labor into capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet, then the further socialization of labor and further transformation of the land and other means of production into socially exploited and, therefore, common means of production, as well as the further expropriation of private proprietors, takes a new form. That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer working for himself, but the capitalist exploiting many laborers. This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalistic production itself, by the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralization, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an ever-extending scale, the co-operative form of the labor-process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the Instruments of labor into instruments of labor only usable in common, the economizing of all means of production by their use as means of production of combined, socialized labor, the entanglement of
RE: Religing Marxism, was AM Histor ical Mat erialism 3
JKS writes: Aint I been doin' that [i.e., logical/empirical/methodological argument]? Most of the time, yes, along with lots of references to the religious attitudes of those who don't want to flush the Marxian law of value down the toilet. Below, for example, you refer to some of your intellectual enemies as treating Marx's books as sacred text by holy writers, defending them as true come what may, even in the face of overwhelming contrary argument and experience. In other messages of yours that I've responded to, you've implied that those who don't accept your vision of analytical Marxism were religious in some way. That itself is a religious attitude, of course. BTW, I find religious attitudes all the time in economics. For example, there's the worship of the market (the U of Chicago) or the worship of mathematics for its own sake (UC-Berkeley). But I think it's best to attack these faiths on the basis of facts, logic, and methodology (the unholy trinity) instead of simply insulting them. I do find it tiresome myself when people who ought to know better feel obliged to defend everything the Master says, and answer arguments with quotations. there are few people like this on pen-l (the relevant venue). However, it does make sense to quote the so-called Master: Marx's theory forms a unified whole that differs from the standard academic orthodoxy and is often misinterpreted. In fact, a lot of people misrepresent Marx. I have poor memory for quotes, so I don't do it, especially since it's quite easy for someone to quote like crazy and still misinterpret Marx (as Jon Elster, among others, does so often). (As my old friend Steve Zeluck used to say, the devil can quote scipture. Elster is much better when he does micro-theory than when he writes about Marx.) Is Marxism a cult? Even though it has adherents who embrace a religious mind-set, outside of a few actual cults (the Spartacists, for example), I don't think so. Cults involve cutting off communication with those outside the cult, including friends and family. Your word, not mine. what?? you said the following in the message I responed to: the shrinking number of adherents increasingly resemble a threatened cult I see the word cult there. Or am I blind? I said that an increasing proportion of marxists show symptoms to treating their faith as a religion,w hich I explained as follow: the propositons, attributed to the sacred tects of thew holy writers, are defended as true come what may, even in the face of overwhelming contrary argument and experience. You say, well, at least it's not like the Moonies. some people are like this. What evidence do you have for this being a increasing proportion? Often, the folks who quote Marx all the time are not doing it for the religious motives that you attribute to them. The history of economic (and political-economic) thought is a well-known and respectable field. great, that' wonderful. The Marxists don't aws [??] your brain. That doesn't mean that a fundamentalist approach (defined as above) is useful, cosntructive, or something taht a sensible person would want to be associated with. I don't make accuastions about anyone specific here, although I did say that Proyects list is full of this crap, which is one raeson I am not on it. No-one on pen-l that I've read recently is a fundamentalist. We have to avoid this false dichomy of reasonable people vs. fundamentalists. BTW, as Lakatos and Kuhn and others have pointed out, it is quite reasonable for scientists to cling to core propositions even in the face of overwhelming contrary argument and experience. And economists do this: for example, orthodox economists continue to talk about rational utility-maximizing consumers even though these don't exist and don't make sense except in a very limited way (i.e., as tautologically true). This is a core proposition used to understand a more complicated world. Similarly, Marxian economics can use the true-by-definition law of value to understand the world. Jim Devine.
Enron and Economic Recovery
Enron and Economic Recovery by Michael Perelman 04 February 2002 00:34 UTC CB: Whatever happened to Dave our conservative bankruptcy attorney ? He could tell us a thing or two now. Humorous story from the Wall Street Journal Chaker, Anne Marie et al. 2002. Enron Debacle Means Extra Work for Companies and Professionals. Wall Street Journal (31 January): p. B 1. Estimated number of attorneys at Weil, Gotshal Manges working on behalf of Enron in its bankruptcy case: 50, each billing anywhere from $200 to $700 an hour. Estimated number of attorneys at Davis Polk Wardwell representing Arthur Andersen in Enron-related matters: more than 40. Additional office space leased in Pennzoil Place, Andersen's Houston headquarters, to accommodate Davis Polk lawyers: one entire floor. Groups of ex-Enron employees leasing space from Front Office Business Centers in Houston to start new companies: three. Technicians working to recover deleted Enron computer files at Electronic Evidence Discovery Inc. in Seattle: 40, at a cost of $150 an hour each.
Stalinist Proyect
Stalinist Proyect by Carrol Cox 03 February 2002 18:02 Carl Remick wrote: [Sadly, the larger concern is what a fat load of nothing Cuba has gotten for placating the US -- e.g., from today's NY Times:] So far there is not a U.S. division stationed in Havana, nor are any bombs falling. What you call placating the U.S. can also be seen as maintaining links with the rest of the world. Cuba's main protection has always been the world opposition to an outright U.S. invasion. Carrol ^ CB: My thought on this is that the Cubans are as or more scared than most anti-imperialists around the world at the uncertainty and openendedness of the proto and neo-fascist that the Bushites are in the process of developing. They are probably concerned not to give the U.S. any excuse at all for invading Cuba under the pretexts of the new , hypocritical anti- terrorist doctrines.
Historical Materialism
Historical Materialism by Justin Schwartz 03 February 2002 04:25 UTC CB: Before you get to that, isn't the burden on you to demonstrate that the theory alternative to Marx's explains what Marx's theory does ? Justin and the AM's haven't quite proven that to everybody yet. Well, Marx and Engels collected writings are 50 volumes. ^^^ CB: Yes, but more conscious of the need to unite theory and practice than most intelligentsia, they made a lot of effort to state their whole theory in much smaller statements' then their whole body of work. ^^ However, I think I've made a tolerable start by showing how Marx's theory of exploitation, the core of Capital I, can be resttaed without the LTV (this in my two papers on exploitation), and by sketching how the theory of commodity fetishim, the core of Marx's mature theory of ideology, can also be statedwithout it (this in The Paradox of ideology). The papers are available on line, and I think you have copies, Charles. ^^^ CB: Yes, I am reviewing them again now. And of course , we have discussed these issues before when they came around on the merrygo round of this group of related lists. ( Hope the merry go round does go past before I finish something worth saying this time). ^ So, since I put some years into doing that, the ball is now in your court to show how I have failed. ^ CB: Well, I'll take up the volley, although have commented repeatedly over the years of our exchange, for example on the equality/liberty issues. I got The Paradox of Ideology from you almost ten years ago now, in regular mail correspondence. Your arguments are thick, in the sense a lot packed tight, so it rather than trying to discuss every issue that comes to my mind, I have tried to make comments on specific statements, to initiate an exchange. One question I had on the paradox of ideology is that I don't think Marx and Engels fold all theory into ideology in the pejorative sense that they use it in _The German Ideology_ and elsewhere. So, that the theory of Marxism is not , paradoxically, unMarxist. ^ Btw, for crisuis theory and the rest of the main line of Capital, see Daniel Little, The Scientific Marx. Robert Brenner's book The Turbulent Economy does the same with crisis theory. I will say, too, that in many years of explaining Marx to students and others, I have never had to rely onthe LTV for any core point; I mean, I'd try to explain it and explain Marx's thinking, but then I'd restate it without the LTV. I still don't understandwhat I'm supposed to me missing. (Sorry, Jim; I've read your papers too, and remains opaque to me). CB: Yes, I was trying to focus in on LTV in reading In Defense of Exploitation since it is a specific issue that came up here. For starters , in the following. it seems to me that it is true that since embodied socially necessary labor time is equivalent to value, one could substitute that phrase whenever Marx uses value, it might work, but why not have a single word for this central concept ? It's like force = mass x acceleration, but the theory doesn't improve by just using mass x acceleration instead of force. ^^ 2 Marxian Exploitation and Marxist Exploitation: The Issue of Unfreedom Roemer defines Marxian exploitation as the unequal exchange of labour for goods (1986b, 260). A worker is exploited if and only if the amount of labour embodied in the goods she can purchase with her wage is less than the labour she expended to earn the wage. A capitalist is an exploiter if and only if the amount of labour embodied in the goods he can sell is greater than that (if any) he expended to acquire these goods. The notion of 'embodied labour' derives from the LTV. A commodity 'embodies' an amount of labour in that its value is determined by the socially necessary labour time required to produce it. Marxian exploitation is non-relational (ibid., 261). We can say only that C is an exploiter, W is exploited, not that C exploits W. Is this an adequate understanding of Marx? And is it plausible as a conception of exploitation? Roemer's is what might be called a pure surplus (value) transfer theory, where the surplus (value) is the amount of embodied labour remaining after workers have purchased their consumption bundles with their wages. Capitalists appropriate the rest. If all value is due to labour, workers transfer the entire net (value of the) surplus to capitalists, and so are Marxian-exploited. In my terms, Marx's general theory of exploitation should be expressed in terms of surplus transfer. Value applies only in market economies where exploiters want the surplus for its exchange value. The notion of surplus transfer need not be understood in terms of embodied labour. We may take the surplus to be the quantity of stuff or value, however measured and whatever its source, produced above what is expended in the process of production,
LOV or LTV
LOV or LTV by Romain Kroes 03 February 2002 14:48 Crudely, the difference between LTV and LOV is the difference between a simple equation, which may indeed be weak nourishment, and a dynamic system. IMHO Chris Burford I agree with the authenticity of LOV rather than LTV. Nevertheless, a simple equation may match a model of a dynamic system, as follows. In 1911, F. W. Taylor observed that the history of the development of each trade shows that each improvement, whether it be the invention of a new machine or the introduction of a better method, which results in increasing the productive capacity of the men in the trade and cheapening the costs, instead of throwing men out of work make in the end work for more men (The Principles of Scientific Management). CB: The problem I see with this is that increasing productive capacity of the men in the trade or increase productivity would seem to be defined by fewer human labor time per unit commodity. How can that result in more work for men (people) ?
Historical Materialism
by Justin Schwartz 04 February 2002 15:16 UTC Well, you know better than I. But they don't teach marxian value theory either, and the USSR's early attempt to use what it thought was that theory as a planning tool was a disaster. So, anyway, maybe if Daniel was right, we don't need a value theory at all. jks ^^ CB: The USSR's early attempt at planning was a roaring success. The USSR industrialized faster than all the capitalist countries had. This speaks well for whatever use of the law of value there was.
: value and price: a dissenting note
: value and price: a dissenting note by Michael Perelman 03 February 2002 05:46 UTC Michael P:I agree with you, except the algebraic theory presumes ex ante -- values today that depend on conditions in the future. On Sun, Feb 03, 2002 at 05:44:45AM -0800, Devine, James wrote: I've argued in the past (e.g., my 1990 article in RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY) that values make sense as an _ex post_ (and true-by-definition) accounting framework. Obviously, _ex ante_ matters matter, in helping to determine values. But, for example, in realization crises (in which profits which seem to have been produced _ex ante_ turn out not to be so _ex post_). My impression is that what Marx emphasizes is what actually occurs in practice, i.e., _ex post_ values. JDevine CB: I did read Michael Perelman's paper on this when it was on the Crash list or somewhere . Not answering the puzzle, but what occurs to me in thinking about it now (and maybe last time) is that the rate of obsolescence seems to address the use-value of the instrument of production involved. When it becomes obsolete, it is its use-value that is extinguished. Without use-value, it cannot carry any exchange value anymore, so all the exchange-value in it must be calculated based on the amount of time it was adding value to commodities. But this is still ex-post. What does being expost disturb in the calculation ?
Marxism and value
the thing about reductionism (of this sort, not GA Cohen's) is that it tries to derive macroproperties and entities from microproperties and entities without looking at the way that macroproperties and entities _feed back_ to determine the character of microproperties and entities. JD ^^^ CB: Sometimes said the whole is greater than the sum of the parts; and the nature of the parts is determined by their relationship to the whole .
Historical Materialism
Historical Materialism by Davies, Daniel 04 February 2002 15:30 UTC dd: (Stalin was of the opinion that cybernetics was intrinsically bourgeois and beleived that plans should be made on the basis of purely political-economy considerations, with predictably disastrous consequences), ^^ CB: I know that it is dogma on these lists that Stalin could do no right, but what exactly is your evidence that the economic history of the Soviet Union in Stalin's time was not an extraordinary historic achievement ? I believe Russia was about 1/13 the size of the U.S. economically before the 1917 Revolution. Post WWII , despite the extraordinary destruction of the Nazi invasion, the USSR reached ½ the U.S. GDP/GNP. That means it grew faster than the U.S. in the Stalin period.
LOV and LTV
Chris Burford:I suggest that approaching these debates with the mind set of LTV, sustains an assumption which is essentially about a simple equation: the value of something is its labour content (with various subtleties added about terminology and more or lessness) LOV however is essentially a whole systems dynamical approach to the circulation of the collective social product that is produced in the form of commodities. Justin:That's not a law, in any normal scientific sense. A law is a precisely formulable generalization (n.b., not a definitional assumption) stating relations between variables. I think the law of value is that the price of commodities tends towards their value in long runm, with certain determinate disturbances that imply that prices tend to converge on pricesof prodyction. CharlesB: The law of value is stated by Marx and Engels azs a relationship between variables. The law of value is that commodities are exchanged for each other based on the labor time embodied in them (not as Justin state it; Engels has an essay on this in the afterward or something of Vol. III ) Chris Burfod: Crudely, the difference between LTV and LOV is the difference between a simple equation, which may indeed be weak nourishment, and a dynamic system. Justin: It's possible, and a standard move of defenders of Marxian value theory, to make immune from testing and criticism by making it so fuzzy that it lacks determinate meaning. Who could object to asytstems-dynamical approach to the economy? CharlesB: Here's an example of what I am talking about on AM. It is Justin's understanding that seems fuzzy here . Chris Burford's seems to have quite adequate determinate meaning. The difference Chris describes is also that between moving from the whole to parts and moving from the parts to the whole. A holistic approach is not fuzzier than an approach by parts. ( See Jim D.'s discussion of this issue elsehere here)
Religing Marxism, was AM Historical Materialism 3
Religing Marxism, was AM Historical Materialism 3 by Davies, Daniel 04 February 2002 15:32 UTC As far as the cognitive aspects go, reliion in the sense that I use it--imperviousness to criticism, treating theoriesa sa rticles of faith--is opposed to a scientific approach. jks Of course, in this sense, an awful lot of people who hold down jobs as science professors (for example Richard Dawkins) would be classified as cognitively religious :-) cheers dd ^ CB: Since natural scientists have already borrowed the term law from jurisprudence as one of their most important concepts, perhaps biologists and physicists would like to borrow rebuttable presumption too. An ex posterieri rebuttable presumption: that's what a scientific law or axiom is.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Value talk
Justin, Let me leave aside problems with this alternative neo Ricardian method, e.g., it assumes no qualitative differences between output and inputs and no adverse natural shock to gross output (bad harvest) Why aren't these routine simplifications? so that the assumption of input prices=output prices can be safely made and the number of equations thereby reduced to the number of unknowns, though this puts the whole system in the straightjacket of inherently static linear equations as John Ernst, Alan Freeman, Paolo Giusanni have argued. However, instead better, more dynamic equations, some of the proponebts of Marxiana value theory here have been offering us a holsitic approach in which value plays some sory of central definition role. Thats' an improvement? But let's leave that aside, and let us say that we can work from the data of physical production and the real wage. Now we are told that it is possible to calculate an equilibrium profit rate and a equilibrium, uniform profit rate from that data alone without making mention, much less giving centrality, to labor value. And in carrying out these calculations we will find that (a)the concept of the productivity of capital is incoherent, thereby fatally undermining the justification of non labor income and (b)that the system cannot be solved and closed unless the class struggle over income distribution is determined exogeneously--that is, through political struggle. Yes, and? While the gains of Marxist theory are thereby preserved, the advantages of doing without labor value are presumably (i) anti metaphysical--no reference to labor value that cannot be seen underneath prices and physical production data (though the idea that social labor time is meta-physical would surely not occur to those who engage in it) (ii) parsimony--why needlessly multiply the number of entities used in a theory (iii) anti obscurantism--ability to move beyond presumably obscrurantist defenses of Marx's transformation procedure which is indeed hopelessly flawed except in the most bizarre cases--identical compositions for all all capitals, the economy is on the von Neumann ray, etc. In short, the theory of labor value is excess baggage which the working class can no longer afford to carry. Nicely put. Now let us say that we can calculate prices and profits from data of physical production alone. But again I think you are mixing up calculation with determination. Let me requote Shaikh since you may have missed this passage in the barrage of criticism that you have received: Notice how often the word 'determines' crops up: the physical production data *determine* values, and in conjunction with the real wage, also *determine* prices of production. but what determiens the physical production data. In Marx, the answer is clear : it is the labor process. It is human productive activity, the actual performance of labour, that transforms 'inputs' into 'outputs', and it is only when labor is sucessful at all that we have any 'physical production data' at all. Moreover, if the labour process is a process of producing commodities, then it one in which value is materialized in the form of use values. As far as I can tell, this is just a way of reminding us that any commodities out there are the product of labor, an important point, but npt necessarily one concerning value. Thus both 'inputs' and 'outputs' are the use forms of materialized value, and we can they say that in the *real* process it is values that determine the physical production data... That's very fast. Why are these determined by value, SNALT, merely because they are produced by labor over a period of time? Pearson after all thought that he could develop a purely descriptive/phenomenalist theory of heredity by making linking the character of an individual through regression equations to the average character of each ancestral generation. I don't knwo what Sraffa had in mine, but that isn't my interest. However the quanities I want to posit should exist and be useful. Similarly I am saying that the physical production data do not themselves determine the profit rate, though they can be used to calculate it. But you, and Shaikh, have shown that SNALT does determine it. Why do we need references to genes when we can quantitatively link generations with data of ancentral heredity? Why do we need labor value when we can calculate the profit rate with data of physical production alone? It is in the interests of realistically grasping the actual process that our theories should refer to genes and labor value. Justin, I would think then that your commitment to realism (at least at levels above the subatomic one) would have you argue in favor the theory of labor value? Well, I'll even be a quantum realist if someone shows us how. Maybe the many worlds interpretation is true. But my realism is a Arthur-Finean, case-by-case, pragmatic realism; I'll quantify over whatever our
BLS Daily Report
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2002: The nation's employers reduced payrolls by another 89,000 in January, but the cuts were smaller than the average over the prior 3 months, according to figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate declined to 5.6 percent for the month, but analysts say it is too soon to call the improvement a clear sign of a turnaround. Economists say they are encouraged by the pattern of smaller monthly payroll declines since the peak of last October when losses reached nearly half a million. Job losses were again concentrated in manufacturing in January. Since the recession began in March, total employment has declined 1.4 million. There were 7.9 million persons unemployed in January, up 2 million from a year ago (Daily Labor Report, page D-1. Text of Commissioner Lois Orr's statement on the January employment report as presented to the Joint Economic Committee, page E-1). The pace of layoffs clearly slowed last month, the government said yesterday, adding to growing evidence that the recession that began in March could be drawing to a close. But the economy still lost 89,000 jobs in January, in a sign that it remained weak and that any recovery was likely to be uneven, economists said. Manufacturers continued to reduce their payrolls, although at a slower rate than last year, and the sprawling service sector added workers for the first time since August (David Leonhardt and Daniel Altman, The New York Times, February 2, page B1). The economy is flashing clear signs that it is on the mend, but workers are unlikely to feel a recovery for months, says The Wall Street Journal (page A2). That point was underscored by a stack of economic data released Friday. Manufacturing, the hardest-hit sector during the downturn, appeared to be near expanding for the first time in 18 months, according to one report. Consumer confidence rose for the fourth straight month in January, though not as much as was initially reported in mid January. Construction spending surged up in December. Yet the Labor Department said its monthly survey of businesses showed payroll employment continued to fall in the U.S. during January, albeit at a more moderate rate than during the first few months after September 11 (The Wall Street Journal, page A2). The eighteen-month-long contraction in manufacturing activity neared its end in January as new orders, production, and supplier deliveries all expanded during the month, the Institute for Supply Management reported (Daily Labor Report, page A-12). Controlling health care costs is the top priority for employee benefit specialists, according to a survey by management consulting firm Deloitte Touche and the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists. Over 80 percent of survey respondents said controlling health and welfare costs were a top 2002 priority, compared with second place Internet implementation or expansion (51 percent). The 575 surveyed members of ISCEBS were allowed to choose more than one priority for 2002 in the November 2001 fax-conducted survey (Daily Labor Report, page A-4). application/ms-tnef
Re: RE: Religing Marxism, was AM Histor ical Mat eriali sm 3
This is not productive Jum. Maybe the thread has run its course. In other messages of yours that I've responded to, you've implied that those who don't accept your vision of analytical Marxism were religious in some way. I don't think this. BTW, I find religious attitudes all the time in economics. For example, there's the worship of the market (the U of Chicago) . . . Of course. However, it does make sense to quote the so-called Master: Marx's theory forms a unified whole that differs from the standard academic orthodoxy and is often misinterpreted. Surer, but one only argues from quotes to establish a scholarly, not a substantive point. I quote from marx for thsi purpose all the time, as I'm a MArx scholar. In fact, a lot of people misrepresent Marx. I have poor memory for quotes, so I don't do it, especially since it's quite easy for someone to quote like crazy and still misinterpret Marx (as Jon Elster, among others, does so often). (As my old friend Steve Zeluck used to say, the devil can quote scipture. Elster is much better when he does micro-theory than when he writes about Marx.) Is Marxism a cult . . . Your word, not mine. what?? you said the following in the message I responed to: the shrinking number of adherents increasingly resemble a threatened cult I see the word cult there. Or am I blind? No, but you miss the difference between a simile and a statement of fact. What evidence do you have for this being a increasing proportion? Subjective impressions. Often, the folks who quote Marx all the time are not doing it for the religious motives that you attribute to them. The history of economic (and political-economic) thought is a well-known and respectable field. And I will argue scholarship with Marx scholars happily till I am blue in the face. We have to avoid this false dichomy of reasonable people vs. fundamentalists. We also have to avoid fundamentalism. BTW, as Lakatos and Kuhn and others have pointed out, it is quite reasonable for scientists to cling to core propositions even in the face of overwhelming contrary argument and experience. Sometimes. Depends onw hether the reserach program is degenerating. I think the value theory RP is degeneating, and Marxism asa RP is in poor shape, albeit for understandable historical reasons. Similarly, Marxian economics can use the true-by-definition law of value to understand the world. I don;ts ee it for reasons I have explained. jks _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
RE: Re: RE: Religing Marxism, was AM Histor ical Mat eriali sm 3
This is not productive Jum. Maybe the thread has run its course. right. It's over. Jum
Re: Intervention In Iraq?
Michael Pollak wrote: So I'm not saying it's impossible we might be contemplating such a plan. But I wouldn't take it seriously unless someone other than Safire starts saying it. Whenever Safire says something of this sort, almost all Turkish newspapers make it a headline. Well, maybe I exaggerated it a bit but how would the Turkish man/woman on the street know who this Safire is? It is good for the Turkish media to quote him in their first pages though: a mighty American NYT columnist saying nice things about Turkey help them sell more papers. This Iraq intervention question has been around back there for quite sometime, however. We will see. I stopped making forecasts of any kind a while ago, or so I kid myself. Best, Sabri
Re: LOV or LTV
CB: The problem I see with this is that increasing productive capacity of the men in the trade or increase productivity would seem to be defined by fewer human labor time per unit commodity. How can that result in more work for men (people) ? And yet, it has been a historical fact for long. This paradox demands to be explained. The answer is growth. Capital runs after productivity to make profit. Now, the profit does not result from a fewer human labour per unit commodity, but from the multiplication of commodities per unit of time (not working time, but calendar's one). So that in a period of normal growth (inflation being neglected) due to an increasing productivity, the most productive sectors do not reduce their workforce. But according to Marx's assessment I recalled in my posting (differential distribution of productivity along the economic chain), the providers of the most productive sectors can not match with the increasing demand by an equal productivity rise. So that they must increase their workforce in order to compensate their productivity gap. And so on, up to the sectors that are the closest to natural cycles. This way, an increasing productivity leads to an increase in global labour force. And this is a historical fact. However, this mechanism does not work, when growth is repressed in order to fight against inflation, by repressing public expenditure and setting interest rates above price index. So that the equation I wrote in my answer to Chris is more accurately: Rate of productivity rise = Rate of change in Labour force + Price Index Such a model is detailed in my article World-System's Entropy on irép's website: http://www.edu-irep.org/Romain.htm RK
Re: Re: RE: Export tax subsidies that aren't?
In a world in which transaction demand on the current account was the sole basis for forex markets, with constant PPP and never a whiff of pricing to market, then this type of analysis would make sense. We're not in that world, however. Peter Michael Pollak wrote: On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Max Sawicky wrote: The mainstream argument is that exchange rates adjust to wash away all tax advantages, whether legal or illegal. Not being a trade person, the best argument I can think of goes like this: If you want to buy US goods, you need dollars to pay for them. A cost reduction in said goods [due to tax rebates for exports] increases demand for dollars relative to other currencies, Wouldn't a decrease in the total cost of goods lead to a *decrease* in the demand for dollars? In which case, the rest of the mechanism: cost of dollar (and good, in importer's currency) go up, cost advantage disappears. would be thrown into reverse, and the currency swings would reinforce the effect of the original subsidy. Michael __ Michael PollakNew York [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Historical Materialism
I said: However, I think I've made a tolerable start by showing how Marx's theory of exploitation, the core of Capital I, can be resttaed without the LTV (this in my two papers on exploitation), and by sketching how the theory of commodity fetishim, the core of Marx's mature theory of ideology, can also be statedwithout it (this in The Paradox of ideology). The papers are available on line, and I think you have copies, Charles. ^^^ So, since I put some years into doing that, the ball is now in your court to show how I have failed. ^ CB: Well, I'll take up the volley, although have commented repeatedly over the years of our exchange, for example on the equality/liberty issues. I got The Paradox of Ideology from you almost ten years ago now, Gaak, it is that, isn't it? One question I had on the paradox of ideology is that I don't think Marx and Engels fold all theory into ideology in the pejorative sense that they use it in _The German Ideology_ and elsewhere. So, that the theory of Marxism is not , paradoxically, unMarxist. So I argue in the paper. CB: Yes, I was trying to focus in on LTV in reading In Defense of Exploitation since it is a specific issue that came up here. For starters , in the following. it seems to me that it is true that since embodied socially necessary labor time is equivalent to value, one could substitute that phrase whenever Marx uses value, it might work, but why not have a single word for this central concept ? It's like force = mass x acceleration, but the theory doesn't improve by just using mass x acceleration instead of force. I do use the term,a fter defining it. see the last sentence: Roemer defines Marxian exploitation as the unequal exchange of labour for goods (1986b, 260). A worker is exploited if and only if the amount of labour embodied in the goods she can purchase with her wage is less than the labour she expended to earn the wage. A capitalist is an exploiter if and only if the amount of labour embodied in the goods he can sell is greater than that (if any) he expended to acquire these goods. The notion of 'embodied labour' derives from the LTV. A commodity 'embodies' an amount of labour in that its value is determined by the socially necessary labour time required to produce it. jks _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.
Re: RE: Re: RE: Export tax subsidies that aren't?
Max, this is governed by the, ahem, Marshall-Lerner conditions: the sum of import and export price elasticities must be greater than one. People who study such things say the conditions are always met, but the structuralist tradition holds that they are met only within limits. This is something I've always wanted to look at but never got around to. Peter Max Sawicky wrote: Depends on the price elasticity. If the price of jellybeans goes down, do you spend more or less on jellybeans? But I should beg off on this. I don't do trade. --mbs Wouldn't a decrease in the total cost of goods lead to a *decrease* in the demand for dollars? In which case, the rest of the mechanism: cost of dollar (and good, in importer's currency) go up, cost advantage disappears. would be thrown into reverse, and the currency swings would reinforce the effect of the original subsidy. Michael __ Michael PollakNew York [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: World Economic Forum
Right, and meanwhile the politicians from mainstream social democratic parties are hobnobbing with the World Social Forum in Brazil. What does it take to some real contestation these days? Peter Devine, James wrote: today's L.A. TIMES op-ed column by Arianna Huffington (not available on-line yet) makes it sound like the WEF in NYC is just a talk-shop, co-opting some of the outsiders who had demonstrated against such meetings in the past. Forum organizers had disinvited Ken Lay but invited community activist Van Jones, who was teargassed in Seattle protesting the World Trade Organization and hit by a police car in Washintone [DC] protesting the International Monetary Fund. In fact, they honored Jones as a 'global leader for tomorrow.' Going along with such co-optation, I am sure, is a disappearance of any real power that may have existed for the WEF. If there were any substantive decisions being made in the past, I'd bet that they've shifted over to some much less public venue. Jim Devine
Re: Re: Free Trade Game
You got it. Peter Robert Scott Gassler wrote: Sounds cool. How do I get one? Scott At 20:31 31/01/02 -0800, you wrote: I am able to announce, at long last, that I have finished the shipping version of Rice and Beans, a game I developed to demonstrate the critique of orthodox trade theory and its significance for the trade/environment debate. (The same critique is easily extended to the trade/labor debate.) The game is not especially fun to play -- it consists of six rounds, each illustrating a trade-and-regulation scenario -- and a lot of numbers get concocted and added up, but it does take players rather far into a stylized Post Keynesian universe (unemployment, imbalanced trade) in which a race to the bottom is a real possibility. It is suitable for groups of 10-50 or so, and it takes about two hours to play, including the final discussion. It has been classroom-tested. (Please, no criticism from People for the Ethical Treatment of Students.) The game is contained in three files, available as WordPerfect or pdf: a six-page handount distributed to all players, one-page forms for players playing key roles, and a three-page user guide. Ask (offline) and ye shall receive. Peter User Guide.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document Handout.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document Forms.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document
Re: Re: Re: Free Trade Game
Oops. I apologize to the assembled multitude -- didn't check to see whether the message was off-list. Peter Peter Dorman wrote: You got it. Peter Robert Scott Gassler wrote: Sounds cool. How do I get one? Scott
Re: Re: World Economic Forum
Well, this may be a little dire. I was at a conference of trade unionists at the WEF this afternoon. None were happy. Their remarks were pretty sharp, in fact, though the weakest came, not surprisingly, from John Sweeney. They felt ignored, bruised, sick with PR. My pal David Brooks of La Jornada asked a question we'd concocted together - what have you gained by being here, and do you risk being used to legitimate their agenda rather than having an influence on them? Sweeney gave a meandering, unparaphrasable answer, but afterwards, the others on the panel as well as a guy from the CLC surrounded us and began defending themselves - persuasively. One (non-USer) said, as unions, you have to talk to some scummy people - his union represented oil chemical workers, and they're scummy. But you've got to talk to them. So they come to the WEF - there were 40 there this year - and make themselves heard. They lobby Moore (WTO), Wolfie (WB), Somavia (ILO). They didn't sound co-opted. As for Jones, this just came in: At 10:37 AM -0800 2/4/02, Institute for Public Accuracy wrote: VAN JONES, (415) 305-8575, (415) 951-4844, (646) 336-6789, [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.ellabakercenter.org The World Economic Forum, meeting in New York City, has named Jones as one of the 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow. Jones, who founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996, said today: I think it is a grudging admission on their part that the growing movements against corporate-led globalization and the incarceration industry must be taken seriously. I will accept the award -- not for myself, but for the thousands of activists and concerned community members who will be locked out. The WEF meeting is essentially a gathering of 3,000 economic royalists, who dominate decision-making for 6 billion people around the world. They represent the opposite of true democracy. And so social democratic politicians come to PA? That could be a measure of the movement's strength - they need to pay homage to the assembly to gain votes and credibility. That doesn't mean they're shaping the agenda. I must be getting old, since I'm tempted to say, don't be such purists! Doug Peter Dorman wrote: Right, and meanwhile the politicians from mainstream social democratic parties are hobnobbing with the World Social Forum in Brazil. What does it take to some real contestation these days? Peter Devine, James wrote: today's L.A. TIMES op-ed column by Arianna Huffington (not available on-line yet) makes it sound like the WEF in NYC is just a talk-shop, co-opting some of the outsiders who had demonstrated against such meetings in the past. Forum organizers had disinvited Ken Lay but invited community activist Van Jones, who was teargassed in Seattle protesting the World Trade Organization and hit by a police car in Washintone [DC] protesting the International Monetary Fund. In fact, they honored Jones as a 'global leader for tomorrow.' Going along with such co-optation, I am sure, is a disappearance of any real power that may have existed for the WEF. If there were any substantive decisions being made in the past, I'd bet that they've shifted over to some much less public venue. Jim Devine
query
where can I get a time-series/historical graph showing the ratio of U.S. external debt to GDP during the last few decades? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: query
Devine, James wrote: where can I get a time-series/historical graph showing the ratio of U.S. external debt to GDP during the last few decades? Flow of funds, credit market debt or rest-of-world tables: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/data.htm. Doug
Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: re: re: Historical Materialism
- Original Message - From: Ken Hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 10:13 PM Subject: [PEN-L:22213] Re: Re: RE: Re: re: re: Historical Materialism I don't understand this stuff about the observational consequences of theories at the level of generality of the theory of value. What if the labor theory of value is part of the central core of Marxism ? If that is so then in itself it does not have any specific empirical implications period. Jim Devine seems to take a position of this sort in a piece on the web: Marx's goals for the LoV were to analyze the societal nature and laws of motion of the capitalism; another way of saying this is that the LoV summarizes the method of analysis that Marx applies in Capital. The LoV is part of what Imre Lakatos [1970] terms the hard core of tautologies and simplifying assumptions that is a necessary part of any research program.1 The quantitative aspect of value should be seen as a true-by-definition accounting framework to be used to break through the fetishism of commodities -- allowing the analysis of capitalism as a social system. Prices, the accounting framework most used by economists, both reflect existing social relations and distort their appearance. It is necessary to have an alternative to prices if one wants to understand what is going on behind the level of appearances: looking at what people do in production (i.e., labor, value) helps reveal the social relations between them. If this interpretation is correct then Quine-Duhem's stuff is irrelevant not that it makes much sense to me anyway. Seems like a neanderthal idea to speak of theories implying empirical consequences just like that without assumptions conditions etc. assumed: or of evidence straightforwardly supporting a theory. So the Quine-Duhem stuff is not relevant and even if it were why should it be given any particular weight? Is it any less dubious than the Marxian theory of value? Cheers, Ken Hanly Ok but then what's to stop such skepticism creep? What makes any theory non-dubious if not observational consequences? This puts of lot of theories on the same level as theology, no? Ian
RE: Re: query
I wrote: where can I get a time-series/historical graph showing the ratio of U.S. external debt to GDP during the last few decades? Doug replies: Flow of funds, credit market debt or rest-of-world tables: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/data.htm. I notice that the data are only available in bunches of a small number of years. Is there a unified times series somewhere? -- Jim
Re: RE: Re: query
Devine, James wrote: I wrote: where can I get a time-series/historical graph showing the ratio of U.S. external debt to GDP during the last few decades? Doug replies: Flow of funds, credit market debt or rest-of-world tables: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/data.htm. I notice that the data are only available in bunches of a small number of years. Is there a unified times series somewhere? -- Jim Huh? Quarterly since 1952, and annual since 1945, no? You want earlier? Doug
RE: Re: RE: Re: query
I didn't find the tables in the Fed's books, perhaps because I didn't look in the right place. But economy.com had what I wanted. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Doug Henwood [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 4:41 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:22360] Re: RE: Re: query Devine, James wrote: I wrote: where can I get a time-series/historical graph showing the ratio of U.S. external debt to GDP during the last few decades? Doug replies: Flow of funds, credit market debt or rest-of-world tables: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/data.htm. I notice that the data are only available in bunches of a small number of years. Is there a unified times series somewhere? -- Jim Huh? Quarterly since 1952, and annual since 1945, no? You want earlier? Doug
Re: Historical Materialism
- Original Message - From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2002 12:39 PM Subject: [PEN-L:22240] Historical Materialism Historical Materialism by Ian Murray 01 February 2002 22:33 UTC Ok, but given the Quine-Duhem underdetermination problem-link below-is not the burden of proof for the indispensability of Marx's value theory on those who wish to retain it? Steve Fleetwood has an essay on this in a recent issue of Capital Class. Ian CB: Before you get to that, isn't the burden on you to demonstrate that the theory alternative to Marx's explains what Marx's theory does ? Justin and the AM's haven't quite proven that to everybody yet. = If Marx's value theory is axiomatic and purely analytic how can it explain? If the quantitative aspects of the theory are not capable of generating consistent derivations -whether inductive, abductive or deductive- from the abstractions that are the 'hard core', what's being explained? I'm not convinced that explanation=proof in non-quantitative social theory and it seems that too many have argued that explanation must = proof for their opponents yet don't apply this to their own formulations, so round and round we go, like theists and atheists. What we see from AM's are investigation of hypotheses that are in KM's corpus and thinking through the consequences. If those hypotheses don't hold up let them go; if they do, retain them. It's a matter of discussion as to whether the hypotheses that are discarded even need to be replaced. There's still a big Mirowskian-Klamerian project of investigating all the metaphors, similes etc., in the 'hard core' [metaphor alert] of Marx's work, no? Ian
Re: LOV and LTV
At 04/02/02 15:37 -0500, you wrote: Chris Burford:I suggest that approaching these debates with the mind set of LTV, sustains an assumption which is essentially about a simple equation: the value of something is its labour content (with various subtleties added about terminology and more or lessness) LOV however is essentially a whole systems dynamical approach to the circulation of the collective social product that is produced in the form of commodities. Justin:That's not a law, in any normal scientific sense. A law is a precisely formulable generalization (n.b., not a definitional assumption) stating relations between variables. I think the law of value is that the price of commodities tends towards their value in long runm, with certain determinate disturbances that imply that prices tend to converge on pricesof prodyction. CharlesB: The law of value is stated by Marx and Engels azs a relationship between variables. The law of value is that commodities are exchanged for each other based on the labor time embodied in them (not as Justin state it; Engels has an essay on this in the afterward or something of Vol. III ) Obviously I am in general sympathy with Charles's defence of the LOV approach, but I think Justin helpfully pinpoints a line of demarcation. For Justin a law is a precisely formulable generalization. Many might agree the merits of such an approach, but I am fairly confident that Marx and Engels would not. People will have to make a value judgement about this. In Chapter XXV Section 4 of Vol 1 of Capital Marx states in connection with the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation like all other laws it is modified in its working by many circumstances, the analysis of which does not concern us here. Now it is true that Marx's formulation of the law could still conceivably be expressed in a clear relationship of variables despite this qualification, but the qualification suggests to me that Marx expected the workings of any serious law to be fuzzy in practice. The statement about the law of value of commodities in Ch XIV Section 4 goes on to say But this constant tendency to equlibirum ... is exercised only in the shape of a reaction against the constant upsetting of this equilbrium. This to my mind makes it sound much more like a strange attractor than a simple equation. There is the strange argument that the law of value only begins to develop itself freely on the basis of capitalist production (Ch XIX) which Engels appears to support by his argument in the appendix to Vol III of Capital on the Law of Value, which argues that the LOV has been in existence for at least 7,000 years. In stating this Engels, has a throw-away qualification as far as economic laws are valid at all In the essay he considers various definitions of the law of value and does not insist on only one. Furthermore he asks people to make sufficient allowance for the fact that we are dealing with a historical process and its explanatory reflection in thought, the logical pursuance of its inner connections. So this is a declaration of philosophical realism - that something has emerged in the course of economic history and that a law describing it is not a purely logical process but an explanatory reflection in thought of that real process. The phenomenon itself may be complex enough but the reflections in our brain could be fuzzier still. Nevertheless the complex phenomenon DOES exist. Chris Burfod: Crudely, the difference between LTV and LOV is the difference between a simple equation, which may indeed be weak nourishment, and a dynamic system. Justin: It's possible, and a standard move of defenders of Marxian value theory, to make immune from testing and criticism by making it so fuzzy that it lacks determinate meaning. Who could object to asytstems-dynamical approach to the economy? CharlesB: Here's an example of what I am talking about on AM. It is Justin's understanding that seems fuzzy here . Chris Burford's seems to have quite adequate determinate meaning. The difference Chris describes is also that between moving from the whole to parts and moving from the parts to the whole. A holistic approach is not fuzzier than an approach by parts. ( See Jim D.'s discussion of this issue elsehere here) Obviously like Charles I am a believer that there is some such thing as a capitalist economy and that it has a self perpetuating dynamic. As in chaos theory, it is possible to posit something that is determinate but is indeterminate in precise form: deterministically indeterminate is a serious mathematical concept. As is fuzzy logic. But I suspect that Justin's clearest line of demarcation is in the importance of any theory being vulnerable to testing and criticism. This is a standpoint of a philosophical approach that objects to theories like those of Freud or Marx on the grounds that they are not falsifiable. This is the
Re: : value and price: a dissenting note
Suppose that you are looking at the value circulating in the economy today. How would you value the constant capital values found in the commodities produced? That will depend on whether the constant capital will turnover in 1 year or 10 years. Charles Brown wrote: CB: I did read Michael Perelman's paper on this when it was on the Crash list or somewhere . Not answering the puzzle, but what occurs to me in thinking about it now (and maybe last time) is that the rate of obsolescence seems to address the use-value of the instrument of production involved. When it becomes obsolete, it is its use-value that is extinguished. Without use-value, it cannot carry any exchange value anymore, so all the exchange-value in it must be calculated based on the amount of time it was adding value to commodities. But this is still ex-post. What does being expost disturb in the calculation ? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Enron De-Shredding Technology
ROBERT X. CRINGELY(R): Notes from the Field InfoWorld.com Monday, February 4, 2002 BACKUP TAKES CENTER STAGE Posted February 1, 2002 01:01 PM Pacific Time IF THAT TRAFFIC doesn't get better you're going snowboarding by yourself, Amber warned after our long haul back from Lake Tahoe last week. Amber has taught this old dog some new tricks on the snowboard, and I'll hit the slopes on my own if that's what it takes. Speaking of transport, one of my spies has given me inside info on this whole Enron scandal. Andersen has been working with ADIC (Advanced Digital Information Corp.), Enron, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and lawyers to recover lost electronic documents. Andersen has a backup strategy that includes a byte-level differential backup of all employee laptops into a data vault whenever they touch the network. This corporate e-mail and memo police department is mysteriously called DREAD. So Andersen can be expected to fully disclose, even if Enron employees are handy with the delete key. Meanwhile, Andersen people still have a sense of humor. The company needed to ship one of the ADIC units off-site for data restoration and packing materials were short. The Andersen guy suggested there should be plenty of shredded paper around to do the job. The lawyers in the room didn't find that as funny as I do. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: value and price: a dissenting note
Michael wrote: Suppose that you are looking at the value circulating in the economy today. How would you value the constant capital values found in the commodities produced? That will depend on whether the constant capital will turnover in 1 year or 10 years. Michael, I don't think not knowing the future is the main problem here. The problem is with not knowing with respect to what probability distribution we would calculate expected values for the constant capital values found in the commodities produced. We all have different subjective probabilities associated with the future. The question is this: is there an objective probability distribution on which we all agree to calculate those expected values? Best, Sabri
Re: Re: Intervention In Iraq?
On Mon, 4 Feb 2002, Sabri Oncu wrote: Whenever Safire says something of this sort, almost all Turkish newspapers make it a headline. Remarkable. So his daydreams become Turkey's headlines. I can almost imagine a scenario where the next time Pentagon officials show up, Turkey's military ask all about it because they've seen in the papers and everyone's been talking about it, so our guys start to think your guys are are obsessed by it, and we start to look at it as if it were possible. But seriously, Sabri -- is there is a chance in hell that the Turkish military will ever enter a war on the same side as the Kurds of Northern Iraq? Everyone knows the Kurds have been obsessively single-minded about wanting an independent Kurdistan for at least a century. And I thought that was the last thing on earth the Turkish military wants to see happen. No? Michael __ Michael PollakNew York [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: value and price: a dissenting note
I would accept your modification of my words without reservation. On Mon, Feb 04, 2002 at 06:04:18PM -0800, Sabri Oncu wrote: Michael wrote: Suppose that you are looking at the value circulating in the economy today. How would you value the constant capital values found in the commodities produced? That will depend on whether the constant capital will turnover in 1 year or 10 years. Michael, I don't think not knowing the future is the main problem here. The problem is with not knowing with respect to what probability distribution we would calculate expected values for the constant capital values found in the commodities produced. We all have different subjective probabilities associated with the future. The question is this: is there an objective probability distribution on which we all agree to calculate those expected values? Best, Sabri -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Intervention In Iraq?
Michael Pollak: But seriously, Sabri -- is there is a chance in hell that the Turkish military will ever enter a war on the same side as the Kurds of Northern Iraq? Everyone knows the Kurds have been obsessively single-minded about wanting an independent Kurdistan for at least a century. And I thought that was the last thing on earth the Turkish military wants to see happen. No? You never know my friend. Didn't I tell in my previous post that all personal probability distributions regarding the future are subjective? We better ask this question to our game theoretician friends. Those who are in cut-throat competition today may find a strategy change towards cooperative competition attractive tomorrow. Is this not true? On the other hand, I agree with you. I don't care about what Safire says. What I care about is what the Turkish officials say. During WWI, it was the most irrational thing to do for the Ottoman Empire to enter the war on the side of Germany and they did. They could have chosen the other side or stayed neutral or what have you. Don't expect too much rationality from us easterners I would say. By the way, I have doubts about westerners' rationality as well. Best, Sabri
Re: LOV and LTV
Chris wrote: The statement about the law of value of commodities in Ch XIV Section 4 goes on to say But this constant tendency to equlibirum ... is exercised only in the shape of a reaction against the constant upsetting of this equilbrium. This to my mind makes it sound much more like a strange attractor than a simple equation. Dear Chris, I have not done any work in Dynamical Systems, so I don't know much about strange attractors. All I know is that an attractor is a set with certain properties, which is associated with a nonautonomous, nonlinear differential equation, and that a strange attractor is an attractor which is chaotic. A simple equation, which based on your statement I read as one that does not exhibit chaos, is not comparable to a set, i.e., they don't belong to the same equivalance class, so I get confused here. Also, as far as I know, not all departures from equilibria are chaotic, even when the equilibria are unstable. I don't even see anything related with stability in Marx's statement. No offense is meant Chris. I read many of your posts with great interest and respect. But this time, I got confused. Best, Sabri
Re: Re: LOV and LTV
Obviously I am in general sympathy with Charles's defence of the LOV approach, but I think Justin helpfully pinpoints a line of demarcation. For Justin a law is a precisely formulable generalization. Many might agree the merits of such an approach, but I am fairly confident that Marx and Engels would not. Why do you think not? People will have to make a value judgement about this. Why is this a value judgment? In Chapter XXV Section 4 of Vol 1 of Capital Marx states in connection with the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation like all other laws it is modified in its working by many circumstances, the analysis of which does not concern us here. This doesn't show that Marx rejects the usual formulation of law, rather, he accepts the obvious point that like many purported social laws, it states a tendency that is ceteris paribus and probabalistic. Now it is true that Marx's formulation of the law could still conceivably be expressed in a clear relationship of variables despite this qualification, but the qualification suggests to me that Marx expected the workings of any serious law to be fuzzy in practice. Sure. But this is just a fact about social generalizations. The statement about the law of value of commodities in Ch XIV Section 4 goes on to say But this constant tendency to equlibirum ... is exercised only in the shape of a reaction against the constant upsetting of this equilbrium. This to my mind makes it sound much more like a strange attractor than a simple equation. Even a precisely formed law can take a very complex form. A law doesn't have to have a simple form. In the essay [Engels] considers various definitions of the law of value and does not insist on only one. Is that supposed to be a recommendation? So this is a declaration of philosophical realism - that something has emerged in the course of economic history and that a law describing it is not a purely logical process but an explanatory reflection in thought of that real process. Social laws, if there are any, are empirical generalizations, not purely logical processes. Obviously like Charles I am a believer that there is some such thing as a capitalist economy Me too. and that it has a self perpetuating dynamic. I agree. But I suspect that Justin's clearest line of demarcation is in the importance of any theory being vulnerable to testing and criticism. This is a standpoint of a philosophical approach that objects to theories like those of Freud or Marx on the grounds that they are not falsifiable. I didn't say that and don't believe it. I think Freud's a fraud as a scientist, but Marx is the real think. I think the core of his theories is correct. jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Re: RE: Re: LOV and LTV
Marx uses the word law differently than Justin does. Marx's laws are dialectical, non-deterministic. But many interpret his ideas in Justin's terms, proving that Marx was a determinist. How do you get deterministic out of precisely formulated relatoon among variables? The laws of quantum mechanics are as precisely formulated as could be, and nondeterministic too. Fallback to dialectics, though, raises my antennae, because it is often an excuse to talk a lot of nonsense. I think Marx was genuinely dialectical in a specific Hegelian sense--he proceeds by immanent critique, for example--but this isn't a matter of giving an alternative to explanation by means of probabalistic laws or tendecies, but rather a style of explanation that offers a framework for offering lawlike explanations. BTW, the laws of supply demand are also non-determinist. SD cannot give specific answers to anything in the abstract. Rather, they have to be given empirical content. SD might best be seen as a (an?) heuristic, acting as a guide to thought. Of course, Marx's value theory -- or law of value -- is also a heuristic. I have said as much here. But it's a far more limited heuristic than you seem to think. It's basically useful for showing ina simple way that there's exploitation going on. However, you can do this without it. jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Bad Capitalist, No Martini
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=specials=featherstone2002020 4 A Recovered Movement by LIZA FEATHERSTONE On Saturday, February 2, approximately 12,000 demonstrators gathered in New York City to protest the meeting of the World Economic Forum. Since September 11, mainstream commentators and even a few activists had been singing dirges for the so-called antiglobalization movement. Dissent was deemed unpatriotic in wartime, and insensitive to our national tragedy. Protesters were likened to terrorists, not only by the FBI (whose list of domestic terrorists really does include a few nonviolent direct action groups) but also by the New York City media, including the Village Voice. Given this climate, many activists anticipated the New York events with some distress. In the days leading up to Saturday's march, they worried that the police would treat them brutally, or that activists confronting the Ground Zero heroes would be dismissed as dangerous thugs. They were also anxious about the troublemakers within their own ranks. Members of anarchist groups have been known to commit acts of symbolic vandalism, and to taunt and provoke the police, tactics historically tolerated by their fellow protesters but regarded far less indulgently since September 11. I don't want them to make our side look bad, said one member of Reclaim the Streets, a direct action group. On Saturday morning, the mood among demonstrators was nervous. A young man from Worcester Global Action who gave his name only as Andy, spoke for many when he said, I hope it will be a great day of peaceful protest--no violence from the police--or from us. But the crowd's anxieties quickly gave way to exuberance. An unofficial Reclaim the Streets march through Central Park included a samba band and tango dancers, in solidarity with the people of Argentina. Indeed, Enron and Argentina emerged, appropriately, as twin symbols of the injustices of capitalism. A giant George W. Bush puppet, its mouth stitched shut, bore the word Enron on its forehead. Billionaires for Bush and Bloomberg camped it up as usual, shouting WEF: Wasn't Enron Fun? Some marchers banged on pots and pans, traditional symbols of resistance in Latin America, while others carried pan-shaped signs that said: THEY ARE ALL ENRON. WE ARE ALL ARGENTINA. Such inventiveness--as sure a sign of the movement's endurance as Saturday's impressive numbers--was on display all day. The old sense of irony and fun was back, spawning slogans like Bad Capitalist, No Martini. Any store that had been a target of anticorporate vandalism in the past--Starbucks, the Gap--was heavily guarded by police, but no one had designs on them anyway. Still, a policeman at the scene estimated that about 100-150 protesters were arrested, although official activist and police numbers were much lower. There was some police violence, including pepper-sprayings, but activists said they had expected much worse. (At least sixty more demonstrators were arrested on Sunday while dancing, arms linked, through streets and sidewalks in the East Village in a nonviolent action called by the Anti-Capitalist Convergence. Some of those arrested were injured by police.) The Saturday demo emphasized the themes that have always preoccupied this global movement: worldwide economic inequality, the unchecked power of corporations and the dearth of political democracy. Steve Duncombe, a New York City Reclaim the Streets activist, observed a rhetorical shift away from an anti-everything politics that simply rejects existing arrangements. With the now-ubiquitous slogan, Another World Is Possible, activists are attempting to imagine--and to create--an alternative. The interesting question, of course, is what this other world might look like. At the rally, Columbia student Yvonne Liu of Students for Global Justice said, We are not an antiglobalization movement. We are against corporate-led globalization. We are a global justice movement. Her corrective was greeted with robust cheers from the crowd. Other speakers spoke hopefully of a world organized into small confederations, eating food grown locally, a vision that understandably inspired eye-rolling from some of their fellow protesters. The good news is that questions of vision can come to the fore again, now that the question of the movement's continuing life has been so joyously settled. The movement has recovered not only its ability to organize a major march but its optimistic spirit as well. As we passed La Dolce Vita hair salon on East 60th Street, a woman watched the march from the open window, her hair encased in plastic wrap. A protester shouted to her: Come on down! La dolce vita is out here! A fellow demonstrator smiled in surprise, realizing it was true. That's right, she said. The sweet life is here in the streets.
RE: Historical Materialism
but the period 1917 -- 1939 was not one during which the cybernetics/Stalin debate occurred. There was no genuine science of economic cybernetics in this period; much of the mathematical toolkit had not been developed. dd -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 04 February 2002 20:57 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:22341] Historical Materialism Historical Materialism by Davies, Daniel 04 February 2002 15:30 UTC dd: (Stalin was of the opinion that cybernetics was intrinsically bourgeois and beleived that plans should be made on the basis of purely political-economy considerations, with predictably disastrous consequences), ^^ CB: I know that it is dogma on these lists that Stalin could do no right, but what exactly is your evidence that the economic history of the Soviet Union in Stalin's time was not an extraordinary historic achievement ? I believe Russia was about 1/13 the size of the U.S. economically before the 1917 Revolution. Post WWII , despite the extraordinary destruction of the Nazi invasion, the USSR reached ½ the U.S. GDP/GNP. That means it grew faster than the U.S. in the Stalin period. ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___
RE: Re: RE: Re: LOV and LTV
I have said as much here. But it's a far more limited heuristic than you seem to think. It's basically useful for showing ina simple way that there's exploitation going on. However, you can do this without it. jks It's also useful for showing that the exploitation (defined in Roemer's sense) is a result of social factors rather than technical ones; I don't think you can do this without ending up committed to something which has most of the characteristics of the LTV. The clearest non-LTV demonstration that there is exploitation is Joan Robinson's observation that ownership is not an activity therefore it is not a productive activity, so any rewards to ownership must come out of someone else's production. But without something like the LTV, we miss a lot of what is important about specifically *marxist* exploitation. It's possible to believe that there is exploitation in this sense, but that this is because of a technical factor; that capital has a marginal productivity. In order to see that the reward to capital is a result of social relations rather than relations between things, you need to get off the fence and make more definite statements about value. dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___
Interview with Doug Noland
of Credit Bubble Bulletin and the Richebacher Letter.: http://www.netcastdaily.com/1experts/exp020202.ram Stephen F. Diamond School of Law Santa Clara University [EMAIL PROTECTED]
